Work Text:
Shang Qinghua was surprised that Shen Qingqiu had lasted two whole weeks since the Immortal Alliance Conference before attempting to corner him.
He had not spent that time idly; since that fateful day, he had started gathering a dozen, a hundred different explanations and obfuscations, so many excuses that surely even the inimitably clever Qing Jing Peak Lord would not be able to disprove him all.
And yet, despite all his efforts, he is laid flat by the first thing the man says. “Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.”
His cover was blown, and yet a thousand times safer than before all this. Shang Qinghua forced his face into a grin, and let himself fall into the familiar rhythm of appeasing his readers. “You know my ID? Meeting a fan is always great!” He leaned forward. “Would you like an autograph?”
Shen Qingqiu blinked, his mouth falling open slightly. “What…?” the man said slowly. “No, no I really wouldn’t,” he continued, getting louder and louder. “The foreshadowing was all over the place, there were more plot holes than any human being could count; for fuck’s sake, at one point you stated that Heavenly Demons are exceptionally fertile, which yes, explains why Binghe could have so many children despite only lingering on his wives for a few weeks max, but that blatantly contradicts the introduction to his species, which said that they all died out after generations of little to no offspring! You then --”
“Wow,” Shang Qinghua said. “You sure know a lot about the world here!” He did; Shang Qinghua honestly thought all people there for the plot had stopped reading sometime around the twelfth wife. He didn’t blame them. That one had been particularly bad.
His new audience had been filled with people there for the smut alone. Shang Qinghua couldn’t hold a grudge against them. It was all he wrote, after all. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had commented on his worldbuilding for any reason other than to beg him to just stop focusing on it and get to the good stuff.
“What -- Yes, I’d fucking hope so,” Shen Qingqiu spluttered. “I don’t have a reputation for nothing, I worked for that!”
Shang Qinghua tilted his head, and squinted like that would help him. “You do? Who were you, then?”
“You don’t remember me?” Shen Qingqiu looked a little hurt. He swiftly unfurled his fan, hiding the lower half of his face behind it. “I know you had a lot of… fans,” he said the last word like it was poison, “but not that many anti-fans, and with the level of notoriety I had…”
None. Shang Qinghua had not a single anti-fan, each reader either firmly in favour of the story he was writing, or having quit keeping up very early on.
“Ah…” Shang Qinghua said weakly. “Of course I remember my most infamous anti-fan…” His voice trailed off.
Shen Qingqiu refused to meet his eyes. “Peerless Cucumber.”
“Peerless Cucumber!” Shang Qinghua had never heard this name before. It couldn’t be that he had simply never left that many comments; Shang Qinghua kept up with those obsessively. But oh well, it had been decades since he had access to the comment section. He very well could have forgotten a few names.
“How great it is to meet you in the flesh,” Shang Qinghua shamelessly flattered anyway. It wouldn’t do to isolate himself from a potential ally by confessing his forgetfulness. "I always enjoyed seeing your…" He cast around for a generic enough description. "…passion."
Shen Qingqiu grunted, looking appeased.
Nailed it.
And so they became friends, he and Shen Qingqiu.
His Cucumber-bro -- that's a friendly nickname! He has someone to give a nickname to, out loud! -- turned out to be a very passionate person indeed. Shang Qinghua had no idea how he could have ever forgotten his comments if they were only half as colourful as his rants are.
It was not exactly the way he had always imagined having a friend would be, but he was too elated to be bothered.
Much.
For one, there was a great deal more death and scheming involved than he anticipated. In general, not between him and his bro -- unless you count the three long days they fought over who could have this month's leftover allotment of brushes for their peaks. Even months later, his disciples still looked a little spooked.
But overall, it’s good . Every few weeks, like clockwork, his friend comes to rant at him about whatever plot device he and his husband have happened to run across, and Shang Qinghua will nod and pretend at being intimidated, and Shen Qingqiu will grumble for a bit before settling down. Then they sit and talk, and sometimes, if they don’t have any free time, they do their paperwork next to each other. But if they do have some free hours, well…
“Do you have any threes?”
“Go fish,” Shang Qinghua answered automatically.
Wait a minute. He frowned. “I thought we were playing poker?”
Shen Qingqiu sniffed and slammed his drink back -- a fruity alcoholic thing that Shen Qingqiu had fondly called ‘an abomination’ when he presented it to Shang Qinghua a few hours ago. “That was five minutes ago,” he said as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I got bored. Keep up.”
Shang Qinghua shrugged. “Alright,” he said, a little too drunk to care. “Any fives?”
“Fuck you.” Shen Qingqiu handed him two cards.
“You wish,” Shang Qinghua snarked.
His bro shuddered and wrinkled his nose. “Not even if you fell into a World Inverting Golden Bathtub.”
Shang Qinghua took a sip from his own -- almost empty -- cup. Fuck, that was sweet. Cucumber-bro had awful taste. “That’s a thing?”
“Any nines? And yes, it’s from that one chapter where I hit the maximum word count in my comment. Twice.”
That didn’t really help.
Once again, Cucumber-bro was confronting Shang Qinghua with how much he had forgotten after all his decades here. Shen Qingqiu would mention small moments from the past -- their past -- and look at him with expectant eyes, and well, what was he supposed to do!
He wasn't going to mess this up by confessing that he must not have cared that much about his bro in their former life, that not a single impression had been left behind over the course of -- what were apparently -- years of dedicated commenting.
Honestly, Shang Qinghua would suspect Cucumber-bro was making shit up, if he didn’t know so well his friend had not a single deceiving bone in his body. That he had remained undiscovered as a transmigrator for so long was nothing but a miracle.
Even now he had apparently slipped the secret to his husband within two months of marriage! Pff, loser. Shang Qinghua had kept his own secrets for decades, and nobody even suspected.
Probably.
“Ohh, that one,” Shang Qinghua still said, because he had been pretending his memory was actually halfway decent for years, and he wasn't going to stop now.
Shen Qingqiu narrowed his eyes. “You can’t fool me,” he said, slurring remarkably little for the amount of alcohol that was in his system. “You are very, very bad at pretending you actually know shit.”
Shang Qinghua sobered up at once. His cards stuck to his clammy skin when he set them down, folding his hands into each other in an attempt at comfort. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, don’t --” Shen Qingqiu stumbled over his tongue, waving his empty hand around and almost knocking over the decanter in the process. “Don’t be like that. I’ve always known you don’t remember me. I mean, really? Saying that yes, you do recall my rant on the Celestial Toilet of Mysterious Effect? Not even you would have written something as stupid as that.”
Shang Qinghua resolved to never let Cucumber-bro know that he had made a draft almost exactly like that.
“Your faith in me is astounding,” Shang Qinghua couldn’t help but say as he picked his cards up again. His chest felt impossibly light. “Any fours?”
Shen Qingqiu handed two fours over with a groan, and the subject was never mentioned again.
“Post for Shang-shishu.”
Shang Qinghua cursed loudly as he dropped his brush. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Not that long.” Luo Binghe smiled beatifically at him. “Isn’t Shishu going to read it?”
“Uhh, just put it down…” Shang Qinghua cast his eyes around his overstuffed office. “Right there?” He pointed at a corner he hadn’t touched in a while. He should be able to find it there. Probably.
Luo Binghe’s smile widened. A drop of sweat rolled down Shang Qinghua’s back. “Wouldn’t Shishu prefer to read it right now, so this disciple might take your response back at once?”
“Of course, of course,” Shang Qinghua said quickly. “If I might?”
Luo Binghe handed the package over. Shang Qinghua quickly weighed it in his hand; it wasn’t that heavy. He unfolded the accompanying letter first.
To Shang Qinghua, the message read.
This should have been delivered by Ming Fan. It probably wasn’t. In fact, I am ninety-five percent sure that Binghe bullied him into handing over the parcel again. I haven't been able to get any of my disciples to snitch though, so now it's your job to tell me who delivered this.
That's all.
I included some of The Good Ink I managed to acquire last time Binghe and I were at our other home. Don't waste it.
Shen Qingqiu
Xiu Ya Sword
Qing Jing Peak
A frowning little cucumber was doodled on the bottom of the page. In the corner, a fluffy little pup with a red huadian looked sadly at the vegetable.
What a fascinating look into Cucumber-bro's mind. Was that really how he saw Luo Binghe?
… Why was he pretending to be surprised? He already knew this.
"I'll have a response ready for you in a minute or so," Shang Qinghua called absently. Where had his brush rolled off to again?
Dear Cucumber-bro, he began mentally composing his reply.
Once again, your love life remains an enthralling thing to us all. Your husband is indeed loitering around my office, ready to murder me if I do not at once get started with…
He looked up at the sound of footsteps as said husband made his way through Shang Qinghua’s office, paying no mind to where he was and wasn’t allowed to go. Eh, Shang Qinghua didn’t mind. There wasn’t anything sensitive here that he wouldn’t be able to access through Cucumber-bro -- except for that pile in the corner in the room, which Luo Binghe naturally zoned in on straight away.
Protagonist powers. You could always rely on them to make things interesting.
“No no no,” Shang Qinghua rushed to say as he jumped up. “Those aren’t interesting at all, Junshang, please lay them down --”
He was too late though. Luo Binghe freed a piece of paper from the bottom of Shang Qinghua’s pile of Wallowing Wednesday’s Whining, which didn’t actually take place on Wednesdays as much as whenever he was getting close to sabotaging his martial siblings out of spite. So sue him. They were singularly annoying even with Cucumber-bro now here to cushion him from the worst of it.
“What on earth…?” Luo Binghe muttered.
He raised his eyebrows and brought the paper up close to his face. “They should be rich and handsome in a pretty way,” he read out loud. “And they should read my stories and actually like them but not the smut and also -- there’s an ink spot here -- listen when I whine but not in that way where they actually listen -listen and take it too seriously --”
Shang Qinghua snatched the paper out of his hands, crumpling it up into a little ball with sweaty hands.
“Shang-shishu, what the fuck,” Luo Binghe said flatly.
“I know,” Shang Qinghua whined. “I was drunk and there was an --”
“How did you learn Shizun’s secrets before me?”
… What?
Luo Binghe rolled his eyes and marched over, stealing the paper back and smoothing it out. It didn’t tear, even though it reasonably should, because Luo Binghe just had everything going for him. Shang Qinghua bet he never accidentally spilled ink on his almost finished papers too, that bastard.
“Here you wrote ‘Has a few siblings but isn’t too close with them. Maybe a few older brothers and a little sister,’” Luo Binghe pointed out. “And over there, ‘Must know things about writing. Maybe tried it once themself?’. Shizun only told me that a few weeks back.” He looked jealous. Shang Qinghua promptly became more nervous than he’d ever been. A jealous Binghe was good for no one.
“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Shang Qinghua babbled. “I barely even know what I’ve written down there; I write so much during those evenings and you know what they say about typewriters and monkeys! This --”
“I do, in fact, not know about these typewriters you speak off,” Luo Binghe said sharply. “Nor do I care if it’s anything other than an explanation.” His demon mark had begun to shine a bright red, energy sparking around his form. Shang Qinghua fought the urge to run far, far away.
“Alright, alright!” Shang Qinghua yelped. “Can I see the papers? Please?”
At the sight of Luo Binghe’s clear reluctance, he explained, “I really do write a lot, Junshang. I need to know what else I’ve written to remember when and why I did so.”
Luo Binghe held the paper out, far beyond Shang Qinghua’s reach in case of… What, did he think Shang Qinghua was gonna lurch at it?
Shang Qinghua’s heart sank when he recognised it. “Oh, that one,” he said with an indifference he didn’t feel. “Well, it’s like this…”
Shang Qinghua was the Peak Lord of An Ding. This was a lonely position.
He had no peers other than the other Peak Lords, who only ever visited when they needed something from him. His students came to him for questions about the quarterly imports of rice and nothing else, Mobei-jun would beat him black and blue for no reason Shang Qinghua had been able to determine, and all he wanted was a fucking friend.
So one night he took a pen to paper, imagining a world where he had a companion. Someone who understood him -- so they must be a transmigrator, or otherwise at least a seer. They should put up with his whining, and know things about his hobby of writing, and you know, this was wish fulfilment in the first place, so why not make them thoroughly Shang Qinghua's type, cold and dignified.
A little embarrassed, Shang Qinghua imagined a person that could never exist in real life. Someone who would have cared about his writing. Back in his first universe, the only people who read his story were the people who were there for the smut alone. Nobody else.
Maybe, he thought shamefully, they would have even left detailed criticism. A shiver ran down his back, cheeks flushing red. Wouldn’t that have been something.
So he put down the last words of his dumb little story and promptly passed out from exhaustion.
The next morning he woke up to the news that Shen Qingqiu had a Qi Deviation.
Luo Binghe looked at him like something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “You wrote Shizun to be ‘your type,’” he said accusingly.
“Only as much as I did anyone,” Shang Qinghua rushed to assure him. “There are plenty of background characters that I wrote specifically because I thought one thing or the other was hot. He’s not special in that.”
Luo Binghe looked offended at the very thought of Shen Qingqiu not being special.
“That does not change --”
“Anyways! I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could convince you to keep this a secret?”
Luo Binghe just stared at him.
Shang Qinghua sagged. “Yeah, didn't think so either.”
“-- and that is why you are technically not real,” Shang Qinghua finished. He swallowed. “Sorry.”
Shen Qingqiu smiled serenely.
When it didn’t seem like Shen Qingqiu was going to say anything, Shang Qinghua asked, “Uhm, bro? Are you alright?”
“I am fine," Shen Qingqiu said, a little too calm. “This is fine. I am not bothered by this.”
He didn’t look fine. Shang Qinghua threw a look silently begging for help at Luo Binghe, who was standing behind his husband. He didn’t seem at all like he noticed this, all his attention on Shen Qingqiu.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe half-said, half-asked. He reached out and laid a hand on his Shizun’s arm, sliding it down until he could grab his husband’s hand. He gently pulled it up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it.
Shen Qingqiu looked up, suddenly looking a little lost. “I really am fine,” he insisted weakly. “I mean -- I’d be a hypocrite if I weren’t, right? I didn’t lie to you when I said you were real in all the ways that matter, so… I must be too.”
"Except you're technically even less real than this world, because at least they actually formed their memories throughout their life instead of springing into existence fully formed," Shang Qinghua couldn’t stop his traitorous mouth from pointing out.
Shen Qingqiu stiffened. The guard of his fan squeaked sadly. "Don't make this worse for yourself.”
Luo Binghe finally tore his eyes away from Shen Qingqiu, only to throw a dirty look at Shang Qinghua. Watch it, he mouthed at him.
Shang Qinghua nodded frantically. Message clear and understood.
“Shizun is the best thing Shishu has ever created,” Luo Binghe then said in a tone as sweet as sugar.
Was that a compliment? Was Luo Binghe complimenting him? What had the world come to.
Shen Qingqiu turned around fully, standing up and placing his hand on his husband’s shoulder. He pressed himself to his chest, accidentally mimicking the covers of thousands of dime-a-dozen romance novels. “No, Binghe is,” he said admonishingly, thoroughly distracted from his existential angst. “Binghe is amazing.”
Luo Binghe pouted -- actually pouted! “Shizun is a thousand times better than anything else in this world. The decades of extra experience Shang-shishu acquired shine through in him.”
This? This is what brought Luo Binghe to finally respect Shang Qinghua? Disregarding all those years of faithful service to his second, or Shang Qinghua’s friendship with his husband, no, it was this that did it. Shang Qinghua felt the urge to throttle him. Impossible, of course, but it was a nice fantasy.
“Oh Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu said. “There is no amount of experience that could rival the insane beginner’s luck he must have had when creating you.”
Rude?!
“Shizun,” Binghe said breathily.
“Binghe.”
Shang Qinghua made a quick escape while the two were, ahem, distracted. He knew how this would devolve, and he didn’t want to be there for any of it, no thanks.
He had to wonder if Shen Qingqiu was dealing well. He had merely been distracted, after all, and despite Luo Binghe’s persistent attempts at diverting his attention, Shang Qinghua was sure that at some point even his efforts would falter.
And then what would happen? Shen Qingqiu did not have that great a record dealing with heavy revelations such as this one. A negative reaction would mean plot, and Shang Qinghua was not eager to abandon the cushy epilogue they now all lived in.
But oh well. What would happen, would happen. Until everything went up in fire, should he examine his own feelings about this?
Shang Qinghua pondered it for a few moments, then decided he didn't really want to know.
He had been happy, these past few years. That was enough. Did it really matter how his friend got here? That no person alive was good enough for him, that he was such a picky person, so hard to get along with --
Nope, don’t think about that. Cucumber-bro could afford an existential crisis, but Shang Qinghua couldn’t. It was a very bad idea to break yourself into little pieces without someone there to piece you back together, and Shang Qinghua had no handy husband at his side to take care of him like that.
On an unrelated note, Mobei-jun probably needed him for something. There was always work to be done, if not here then in the Northern Desert.
Shang Qinghua let his mind go blissfully silent as he covered himself in mission reports and budget requests.
A letter came two days later, once again delivered by the almighty Emperor. Dear Airplane, it read.
I wasn't too sure if I had made it clear during our last talk, so I wanted to reiterate this point; You are still my friend, regardless of your status as my supposed creator-god.
Shang Qinghua breathed a silent sigh of relief. The first and largest pitfall had been avoided; Shen Qingqiu’s great skill at denial.
Tension having fallen away, he read the first sentence again. Aww, Cucumber-bro! Such a sweet personality hiding beneath all those spikes. Maybe Shang Qinghua should frame this letter to point at every time Shen Qingqiu started to rant at him.
Don't get too excited now. Binghe has strict instructions to burn this when you are done reading.
Shang Qinghua slowly looked up. Luo Binghe stared him right in the eyes and waved mockingly.
Well. It seemed he had not gained that much respect for him after all.
The rest of the page was left blank. Confused, Shang Qinghua checked the rest of the pages.
But he won't burn these, which gives you the perfect opportunity to ruminate long and hard on these thoughts I have for you.
First, do you have proof that before you came into this world, people were already organically creating memories? No. You don't. They very well could have sprung into existence the moment you were born, which would create an effect very much like…
This continued on for half a page. At that point, it shifted to page after page of criticism of Cucumber-bro's backstory, which he apparently felt was contrived. He seemed elated to be able to dissect his own past according to genre tropes.
Such a weirdo.
Shang Qinghua wouldn't have wished for any other friend.
(BONUS:
"-- my proud Protagonist son," Shang Qinghua said in-between stuffing his face with snacks.
Shen Qingqiu froze in the midst of reaching out for his teacup.
"Your son," he said quietly, without any of the offence that usually accompanied it. "Binghe’s your son. I am --"
He looked up with haunted eyes. "Airplane, is this incest? Did I marry my brother?"
Shang Qinghua chewed a little slower. Minutes later, when everything was mush and he couldn’t put off answering any longer, he swallowed and said, "Only if you have a kink for that. Otherwise, I think you're safe."
It was totally worth getting tea thrown in his face for that comment.)
(BONUS II:
“... want to introduce you to Mobei-jun.”
Shang Qinghua and Mobei-jun exchanged an uncomfortable look. “This one is familiar with him, Junshang…?"
“He has a great amount of dignity, and nobody who knows him will deny his coldness,” Luo Binghe continued on like he didn’t hear him. “He has a great deal of patience too, enough to put up with as much whining as you could ever wish for.”
“And,” Luo Binghe leaned forward, looking very proud of himself, “he is currently taking a writing seminar by the illustrious Qing Jing Peak Lord, sponsored by the Sect Leader of Huan Hua Palace himself.”
So Luo Binghe. That was Luo Binghe.
Said Sect Leader grasped their shoulders. His grip was very tight. “I’m sure you two will get along great. Don’t worry about bride prices or dowries, everything will be taken care of.”
He smiled, eyes squinting shut. “I’ll leave you two alone now.”)