Chapter Text
“Welcome back, shidi,” Yue Qingyuan said warmly.
“Stand still.”
Yue Qingyuan cocked his head, still smiling, and listened without questioning him.
In one quick motion, Shen Qingqiu reached out and plucked an arrow out of his cheek. The wound left behind sealed up without even a single drop of blood.
Yue Qingyuan looked like a hedgehog, Shen Qingqiu thought. But the boring, harmless kind, that didn't even breathe fire or spit venom.
His shixiong continually sprouted arrows whenever either of them looked away. They were long used to it; they'd given up on the futile task of plucking each of them out, and now only removed those from his face and hands.
His task done, Shen Qingqiu deigned to nod. “It’s good to be back,” he said reluctantly.
Yue Qingyuan lit up at the declaration. Knowing Shen Qingqiu well, however, he instead only asked, “Did anything interesting happen?”
Shen Qingqiu sniffed derisively. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Idiots, monsters, and a young lady to be made into his wife.”
Yue Qingyuan followed his eyes to an intimidated-looking young girl — too young, looking the same age as Luo Binghe without a measure of the immortality he had gained many decades years ago — and looked at her with pure pity. “Poor girl,” he murmured.
Shen Qingqiu could dredge up none of the compassion that Yue Qingyuan felt so easily. With Luo Binghe’s reputation, she must have known what she was getting into. Endless riches, and more free time than a girl knew what to do with, given how many other wives she had to share his attention with. And in return she, what, had to fuck him a few times?
Oh, Shen Qingqiu understood the reluctance some women expressed behind closed doors — he too would rather slit his own throat than lay with Luo Binghe.
But it was a little hard to feel sorry for them when they said so while draped with jewellery, taking minute bites of food from trays filled with delicacies that would get thrown out the moment they decided they were done eating.
Shen Qingqiu felt a pressure behind his sternum, and jerked his head in the direction Luo Binghe disappeared to. He did not need to say anything else, and they both started walking.
“So, did anything happen in the palace while I was gone?” Shen Qingqiu asked conversationally as they trailed behind Luo Binghe, the red-black cloth of his robes only just visible as he disappeared around the corner.
“I saw Shang-shidi again.”
“Ah, the traitor.”
The corners of Yue Qingyuan’s mouth pulled down. “Our shidi,” he corrected.
“The traitor who released valuable information that led to the beast breaching our defences, slaughtering hundreds upon hundreds,” Shen Qingqiu dryly responded. “How many of your shidi and shimei died as a result of his actions? Even I only killed one. Or two, depending on if you want to count yourself as well.”
“You killed none,” Yue Qingyuan said fiercely. He had been annoyingly insistent about that, ever since Shen Qingqiu had told him of that day in the caves during one of the many nights spent just outside Luo Binghe’s bedroom, pretending they couldn’t hear the moaning and groaning.
“I know he for certain told his precious ice king about how to shut down the barriers to Fu Qingzhuang’s personal rooms,” Shen Qingqiu nonetheless needled. “That’s one. Ji Qingji killed herself in captivity, that’s two. Zu Qinghan blew himself up to destroy his alchemic secrets, that’s three —”
“Stop,” Yue Qingyuan said sharply. “I am aware of this. You know I am aware of this.”
He softened, laying a hand on Shen Qingqiu’s back. “Be at peace. We likely have weeks yet before we are separated again. There is no need for your defences right now.”
Shen Qingqiu bared his teeth, but forcibly calmed himself. Yue Qingyuan was right. It would likely be a while yet before Luo Binghe once again ventured out of his palace, unwittingly drawing Shen Qingqiu along with him through the thick chain of leftover rage connecting him to the man.
Until then, he did not need to taint the little time he had with Yue Qingyuan.
“He remains in good health?” he forced himself to ask, polite as he could be.
“As far as I could see, yes.” Yue Qingyuan turned grateful eyes to him, pathetically happy with just this little interest. Shen Qingqiu looked away.
He abruptly stopped and turned around, the feeling tugging at his breastbone having changed course. “Was he with his Master?” he asked, not once breaking stride as he pulled Yue Qingyuan along with him. Luo Binghe must have decided to sleep in his… seventh wife’s bedroom, going by the way he was moving?
“As he ever is,” Yue Qingyuan said as they stepped through a wall to catch up with the beast. Shen Qingqiu repressed the urge to wrinkle his nose at the cold rush it gave him. “I didn’t see him for very long. They were looking for Luo Binghe, and left the moment they were notified he was absent. Nonetheless, he looked more nervous than usual. I can’t help but worry.”
“You shouldn’t,” Shen Qingqiu reflexively said. Then he sighed. “I’ll keep an eye out for him, alright?”
“Thanking Qingqiu-shidi,” Yue Qingqiu replied warmly.
Luckily, they did not have to wait long for Shang Qinghua to appear again.
Mobei-jun came back on the second day after Luo Binghe had returned to his palace, his ever present shadow trailing behind him.
Shen Qingqiu looked at him critically. Shang Qinghua looked wan and bleary-eyed, bruises peeking over the edge of his robes. Those must be new — there was no way the eagle-eyed Yue Qingyuan would have missed those.
The former Peak Lord was left behind as Mobei-jun and Luo Binghe convened in the office — he was practically thrown at the chairs outside of it and told to ‘stay’ like a good dog. Shen Qingqiu felt a sick satisfaction at the sight.
With no Luo Binghe there to observe any strange happenings, Yue Qingyuan continued with his decade-long task of trying to communicate with the last of his martial siblings.
Sheets of paper were scattered around the sitting area, most of them used.
Shen Qingqiu read some of it. Mostly reports from some of the minor clans, it seemed, and a letter from one of Luo Binghe’s wives asking for his company. She made a pretty good case, from what Shen Qingqiu could see — which was not much, given the last half of the message being on the back of the paper and his continued lack of skill at manipulating the physical world.
Shen Qingqiu looked up, and was met with the sight of Yue Qingyuan trying to get some of the left-behind wet ink to stick to his fingers long enough to put it to paper. He managed startlingly well, for a ghost; there were new splatters all over the table, scattered between the paper and the ink dish.
Yue Qingyuan had always had a far easier time piercing the veil between the living and the dead. Shen Qingqiu theorised it was the result of his spirit being connected to a physical object, rather than an emotion or an ideal.
True, it came with some downsides. Yue Qingyuan hadn’t been able to leave the palace since he’d died. But that part wasn’t so bad. There was always something going on, some palace drama or renovation for Yue Qingyuan to entertain himself with.
The true issue was that he sleepwalked. He never had as a kid, but he did now, and if left to walk unstopped would find himself in front of the shards of Xuan Su, the drip-drip of water echoing through the empty dungeon, accompanied only by a long-rotted corpse.
With Shen Qingqiu gone, forcibly pulled along as Luo Binghe went off to wage war or gather riches, there was nobody left to pull him away from his grief. He could remain there for weeks, months, even.
In those moments, Shen Qingqiu really hated the world.
Yue Qingyuan let out a victorious cry as he managed to place some of the ink on the paper.
Shen Qingqiu tilted his head. “Congratulations,” he said dryly. “You’ve managed to write out a message for Shang Qinghua that asks… I truly couldn’t guess. Even my worst disciple’s calligraphy was more legible than this.”
It looked a little like a flower if you were generous, and like an ink splatter if you weren’t.
Shen Qingqiu had never been generous a day in his life.
Yue Qingyuan was not discouraged, and continued his task. Now that he had managed once, it only got easier for him.
“There,” he said, satisfied. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Qingqiu-shidi, come look.”
“And on the off-chance that Shang Qinghua knows to take a look at this random piece of paper, what is he supposed to see?” Shen Qingqiu truly couldn’t guess.
“See? Those seven dots are meant to represent me. He is old enough to remember my personal name,” Yue Qingyuan explained patiently. “And that line, down there, is supposed to be my sword.”
Shen Qingqiu squinted. “The curve?”
Yue Qingyuan smiled wryly. “I ran out of energy, and wanted to get as much down as possible before I faded out again.”
“Hm. Good luck trying to get him to notice this message.”
“In just a moment,” Yue Qingyuan said, sweat beading on his too-pale skin. He released a shaky breath. “This took a bit more out of me than I thought it would.”
“Idiot,” Shen Qingqiu hissed, even as he rushed over to settle him down on one of the empty chairs. “Don’t you know it’s worthless? Don’t kill yourself again over him, of all people. He doesn’t deserve you.”
Yue Qingyuan allowed himself to be manhandled, collapsing into the chair with a great sigh of relief. “Shidi is too kind,” he said, “to value my life so highly.”
“Shixiong is too short-sighted,” Shen Qingqiu mimicked, “to throw it away so easily. Don’t you know I still need you? Don’t make this another Shiwu.”
He was pleased to see Yue Qingyuan abruptly lost his cheer at that.
“I won’t,” Yue Qingyuan said, gripping his hand and holding it tightly. “I’ll never lose sight of you, not even when to do so means I could help a thousand other lives.”
“Oh, forget it,” Shen Qingqiu said, ripping his hand away. “Go, close your eyes. Rest. I’ll wake you when you start walking.”
Yue Qingyuan listened to him, thankfully. His eyes fell shut, and his breathing evened out.
Shen Qingqiu watched him. Only when he saw the colour slowly returning to his cheeks, did he turn around and stalk off to where Shang Qinghua was still sitting.
It had long ceased being awkward for him to have this kind of conversation with someone else, practically a stranger, in the room. He ignored their presence as easily as if they were the invisible one, rather than him.
He paused in front of Shang Qinghua. The traitor stared through him, anxiously wringing his hands as his eyes skittered around the room.
Just because Shen Qingqiu let Yue Qingyuan make a fool out of himself trying to help a traitor, didn’t mean he was in any way willing to aid him in this.
… It would however be a waste to let the message Yue Qingyuan spent so much of his energy on go forgotten.
Shang Qinghua shot up with a loud yelp as Shen Qingqiu phased his hand through the back of his neck, a feeling he has long surmised to be singularly unpleasant.
He danced around his shidi, herding him around the room using a system of quick touches and pushes. With every cold hand, Shang Qinghua moved closer to the drying message, until —
He tripped and fell over the table, the paper sticking to his clothes.
Shen Qingqiu drew back, satisfied. His legs trembled beneath him, but he paid no attention to them. This was as much as he was willing to do.
Touching humans and demons was the only thing he could do with any sense of reliability. Even so, it still cost him much more than he was willing to admit.
To do more, would be to chance falling asleep himself, leaving Yue Qingyuan to sleepwalk himself down to the dungeons without anyone there to stop him.
Shang Qinghua wasn’t worth the risk.
He released a tremulous breath and staggered over to Yue Qingyuan’s chair, kneeling on the side of it. He let his head fall back, resting against his shixiong’s legs.
Yue Qingyuan shifted in his sleep, his hand falling off his leg and ‘coincidentally’ coming to rest on Shen Qingqiu’s head.
Shen Qingqiu closed his eyes and pretended he didn’t feel it.
One morning — or what went for morning, when their sleeping schedule was not dictated by time but need, and the natural light could not penetrate the empty bedroom-adjacent rooms they had taken for themselves — Shen Qingqiu woke up to find his legs were gone.
He scowled at the empty space. How annoying of them.
There was no stronger emotion he felt than this mild frustration. This, too, was something they were long used to.
“You’re going to have to carry me today,” he said.
Yue Qingyuan was long ahead of him, picking him up. One arm below his bottom, the other around his lower back. Shen Qingqiu threw his arms around Yue Qingyuan. At least he still had both of those.
“Luo Binghe looks like he will leave shortly,” Yue Qingyuan said, resettling him in his arms to be more comfortable. “He has chosen those robes with that silver edging, you know the one.”
“Seeing those is more of a punishment than death could ever be.”
True. They were ugly as could be. For all the bad tendencies he had passed on to Luo Binghe — and there were a lot of them — nobody could say he inherited his sense of style.
At least those robes usually meant he had to do something within the palace. For him to leave, with Shen Qingqiu like this, unable to follow him on his own legs…
Shen Qingqiu was of the opinion that very little compared to the feeling of indignity you got when you were dragged through the dirt by an invisible chain, choking on your own robes, the cloth twisted around your neck and unable to be straightened out thanks to your lack of available limbs.
And there Luo Binghe was, exiting his bedroom to prowl through the halls of his own palace.
Shen Qingqiu pressed closer to Yue Qingyuan’s chest — not even despite himself, simply because he wanted to and the only person there to stop him, never would.
With a soft sigh, Yue Qingyuan turned on his heel to follow. He trailed behind Luo Binghe, exactly as far removed from the beast as they could be. They had both long memorised the length of the freedom that was afforded Shen Qingqiu.
… Shen Qingqiu hadn’t told Yue Qingyuan yet that, once again, he had carved out more space since the last time he had been carried. The chain was growing thinner, weaker.
Oh, the process was slow — his time spent dead was counted in years instead of months, and would soon turn to be counted in decades instead — but it was steady.
Instead, a growing awareness of Yue Qingyuan’s location rested in the back of Shen Qingqiu’s mind. Whenever he was forcibly pulled away from Yue Qingyuan’s resting place, he could infallibly point out in what direction it laid, no matter if they arrived at their location through carriages or the northern king’s portals.
He rubbed his cheek against Yue Qingyuan’s shoulder, taking pleasure in the pull of the luxurious cloth and the thin sliver of skin it revealed, tantalisingly close to his mouth. The top of his head hit a thin stalk of wood. He’d have to pull out that arrow when he was sat down; it would surely inhibit Yue Qingyuan’s range of motion.
Yue Qingyuan’s pace was steady, not rocking Shen Qingqiu in the slightest. The rhythmic motions were almost enough to lull Shen Qingqiu back to sleep.
He wouldn’t say anything yet. Who knew if he was simply deluding himself, having lost his mind from years upon years of being subjected to Luo Binghe’s presence?
… He hoped he wasn’t mad.
That he was right.
That it could be over, if not soon, then eventually.
That one day, someone kinder could hold his leash.
Oh, let it be true.
“I grow tired of your little spy,” Luo Binghe drawled, fishing another piece of dried fruit out of a large dish. “Be honest, Mobei, has he been able to give you any useful information lately?”
Mobei-jun grunted.
“Exactly. It has been decades since he had been able to spy on anyone. I’d understand if you kept him because he’s pretty, but he’s not even that.”
Shen Qingqiu tapped his fingers on his upper arm, arms crossed as he hung back in a shady corner. Interesting. It was about time that someone saw the truth — Shang Qinghua hadn’t been useful since Cang Qiong fell. He’d really shot himself in the foot with that one.
“Qinghua is clever.”
“And greedy,” Luo Binghe pointed out. “Never content with what he has, always hungry for more…” He sighed dramatically. “And you can’t give it to him. How much longer until he moves on to the next big bad?”
Mobei-jun’s eyes sharpened. The temperature plummeted, Luo Binghe’s breath coming out as a puff of steam. “You know something.”
“I don’t.” Luo Binghe shrugged. “But I know his type.”
Knew it intimately, Shen Qingqiu scoffed. What was the difference between them, truly, other than that one was strong enough to stand on his own, and the other wasn’t? If Luo Binghe had never found that power within himself, would his future have looked so different from Shang Qinghua?
Neither of the two knew what loyalty meant. Perhaps there was a world out there where they could have learned its meaning — Shen Qingqiu saw the seeds for obsession, unwatered as they went — but that was not this one.
Mobei-jun looked away.
The conversation moved on to less interesting topics after that.
At the end of the meeting, when Luo Binghe retreated to his guest room, Shen Qingqiu strained his shackles as far as he could, following Mobei-jun through the ice-cold halls.
Anticipation bubbled up in him as Mobei-jun threw the doors open to Shang Qinghua’s room — a dingy little thing, covered in stacks of paper, the air smelling thick and unwashed. He had clearly not been in favour for a while.
“My King?”
Mobei-jun said nothing, looming in the doorway.
“My King!” Shang Qinghua repeated. He took an uncertain step backwards, then another two in quick succession. His back hit the wall, and he sucked in a startled breath. “Can this one help you with anything? Do you need me?”
“I don’t.”
Shang Qinghua’s eyes widened. “Oh, I think you don’t mean that,” he laughed nervously. He clearly knew what Mobei-jun was here for, Shen Qingqiu was interested to notice. “I’m plenty useful. If my King needs me for anything, he only needs to say the word.”
Mobei-jun watched him dispassionately. “I don’t,” he said again. “Shang Qinghua hasn’t contributed anything in years.”
“I have though!” Shang Qinghua’s hand came out to rest on the wall beside him. “I know everything in this castle. Does my King need to know anything? Which of his servants are in bed together, which drink on the job? Which ones are traitorous?”
“Shang Qinghua does know a lot,” Mobei-jun said. “All the better to sell away.”
Shen Qingqiu stepped around him, inspecting his face. He was drawing this confrontation out a lot longer than Shen Qingqiu had thought he would. Could it be that he had grown fond of his little spy?
“I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t! My King, please believe me, I would never do that. Do you want me to forget it all? I could! I’d never look at anyone else ever again!”
Mobei-jun took a step forward.
“Then how about you just — You keep me here? Forever? Can’t betray you if there is nobody to betray you to!”
Another step.
“Do you — do you want more of my old secrets?” Shang Qinghua asked desperately. “I never told anyone these, but all my knowledge is free for my King, of course.”
Mobei-jun halted.
“What does my King want to know?” Shang Qinghua’s throat bobbed. “The details of Luo Binghe’s mistreatment as a child? He didn’t come quite right out the other end of that, and has kept those weak spots through the centuries!”
The ice cracked beneath their feet, cold stalagmites growing out of the floor.
Shen Qingqiu smiled sharply. What, the best way to beat allegations of treachery was not to show how much ammunition you had on your betters? What a surprise.
“Or, or how about Yue Qingyuan! Luo Binghe still carries a grudge against him, I bet he’d appreciate his reputation being smeared, even this many years later! He’s told me things he’s never told anyone else!”
Shen Qingqiu’s smile dropped, a snarl on his face.
How dare he.
“Yes, yes, that’s good, right?” Shang Qinghua held his hands like he was faced with a wild animal. “A gift for Junshang, all nice, all good…”
If this were allowed to continue, when Yue Qingyuan got wind that all his dirty secrets were being aired to the world…
Oh, he likely wouldn’t care that much about the secrets in case. Shen Qingqiu already knew every last one, and he could say with a thick pleasure in his chest that Yue Qingyuan didn’t care that much about anyone but him, not anymore.
But to know that Shang Qinghua would give them up like they were nothing?
He’d be heartbroken.
Yue Qingyuan had always been like that. Between the two of them, he was arguably the more fragile one.
The only thing hardship would do to Shen Qingqiu was that it would sharpen his edges; words that became knives and hands that stained themselves with the blood of anyone who came near enough to be touched, innocent and deserving both. Splinters worming their way underneath your skin, hurting for years after Shen Qingqiu parted ways from you.
Yue Qingyuan, on the other hand, just broke.
Oh, he wouldn't be kept down, heavens no. He would pick himself back up, patch himself together until he could function again. As long as his Xiao Jiu needed him, there was no way he would let himself stay in shards for long. But the truth was that the fault lines stayed, growing weaker every time they were glued together.
(If Yue Qingyuan died, Shen Qingqiu would rage, and take it out on everyone he could reach, but he would live. He'd arguably hate every moment of it, but he would live.)
(If Shen Jiu died, Yue Qingyuan would lay down and give up. And this was no exaggeration — Shen Qingqiu could now see how back when they had reunited, he had looked thin and exhausted, as if he were waiting to die. And again, later, when he threw himself against Huan Hua Palace in a quite frankly suicidal manoeuvre.)
Ever so fragile. A brittle, sugar-spun thing.
“… so he once told me after a long meeting — meetings are good for secrets, he’d always be exhausted after being rejected by Shen Qingqiu for hours at a time — about some of the lengths he’d gone to to acquire some of those presents…”
Shen Qingqiu, he… He hadn't been a very good person back when he had been alive, and death hadn't washed that away.
Sometimes, he felt the urge to kick Yue Qingyuan, just to see what pretty shapes he would shatter into.
He never did, though, and never would. Because he knew, with how often he tried to fit broken pieces together, that sometimes bits get lost. Left behind. Forgotten about.
They were dead now. If Yue Qingyuan lost a bit of himself, who knew if he could still heal around it? If he forgot how to be kind, could he still be reminded?
Better not to risk it.
“… do you know where he’d get the money? Nobody noticed, except I was carding through the expense reports one late night, and that paint definitely wasn’t within his budget. I questioned him about it, and he said…”
But if Shen Qingqiu wouldn't break him, then nobody would. That privilege was his and his alone, and simply because he chose not to take advantage of it, didn’t mean you could. Shen Qingqiu would tear apart anything and anyone that tried.
With a rising hatred Shen Qingqiu hadn’t felt since the last time he’d been alive, the shards of Xuan Su freshly thrown at him, he wrapped his hands around Shang Qinghua’s throat. He phased through the skin, curling around the vocal cords with poisonous abandon.
Shang Qinghua choked, hands coming up to tear away hands that weren’t there. “He said — he —”
Shen Qingqiu flattened his hand, cutting off his oxygen.
Shang Qinghua’s lips turned blue. With such low cultivation, he couldn’t disregard Shen Qingqiu’s touch in the way that, say, Luo Binghe could. Even so, he continued trying to speak, knowing it would be his death if he didn’t.
Nothing came out but garbled nonsense.
Mobei-jun sighed, closing in.
Shen Qingqiu only let go once his hands were replaced by larger, clawed ones.
Weak gasps echoed through the room. Shang Qinghua’s eyes bugged out, and it mattered not that his hands now had a solid force to fight against, when not even his greatest force was enough to budge them.
Mobei-jun drew his death out, waiting until the lack of oxygen killed him instead of simply crushing his spine.
Why, was that reluctance? Shen Qingqiu thought with glee. Aww, the poor king got attached to his precious servant. How sad.
Despite himself, he felt something stir in his chest as Shang Qinghua’s motions slowed.
… He really was suffering for quite a long time.
Shen Qingqiu scraped together all the fragments of kindness that survived his copious attempts to stamp them out — sparse and fossilised though they might be — and stuck a hand through Mobei-jun’s chest.
He flinched, his hand convulsing and finishing Shang Qinghua off in one quick move.
There. It was over.
Shen Qingqiu reoriented himself on the chains pulling at his chest — a pleasant warmth, thousands of miles away, and bitter venom, one floor below him and slightly to the right — and left the room without another look.