Chapter Text
For as long as Shen Yuan can remember he’s had a sense of just being off. His family running around him joyfully telling him to keep up or pinching his cheeks saying he’d get better soon. That one day he’d be back to normal and be able to keep up with the world. Staring at the window of the overdeveloped streets and gray skies coated in city smog wondering why the world looked wrong to him.
He felt wrong.
Maybe it was his body being sickly and frail. Maybe it was the fact that he struggled to make friends with others and often just ended up by himself reading. Maybe it was how he constantly struggled to adjust glasses that felt like they shouldn’t be there. Maybe it had all to do with the incident that happened when he was little. He’s not entirely sure on the details, but he was told that when he was about ten, he simply disappeared one day after school.
No one could find him. No one could say what had become of the youngest son of the house at the end of the block and it was a rumor mill of whispers and gossip. Questioning his mother and father as parents. Blaming family friends who knew nothing. His siblings thinking one of them was really at fault when it couldn’t have been. A myriad of nonsensical finger pointing over and over at whomever they could get their hands on till one day he was found four years later bleeding from the head on the street next to his house.
His mother had screamed when she saw him and called him in disbelief as he was gripped tightly. It had been raining his entire body was cold and shivering when he was brought inside to an overjoyed family. A family that couldn’t believe it was him.
Everything about this incident he knows second hand.
Everything about those four years is told to him in little snippets and details from his family when they can bare to tell him. All of it outside and removed from himself.
And that’s for one simple reason, “I don’t remember anything.”
Well, that’s a lie. He remembers his name. Remembers his family and his home. He remembers his toys and what he was going to be doing in school the next day. Remembers walking home for just a moment before it all slips away from him. He remembers everything before those four years and yet he cannot tell anyone a thing about when he went missing.
“There were signs of blunt force trauma and given everything it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s also self-inflicted amnesia as a response to what he went through. There’s a strong possibility he will just never recover those memories.”
That made sense. It made sense that if it was so awful and terrible he’d have no memory of it. He’s not sure why but he’s certain that’s still not it. But he didn’t want to worry anyone so when dinner came around he’d smile and thank people for the food and take a bite of the well cooked beef on the plate- and then spit it back up in revolution and start convulsing.
And then it happened again. And again.
Each time he got a little weaker. A little more pale.
He couldn’t stand walking through a kitchen smelling the scent of roasting pork let alone eating it. Once again the doctor declared it was probably an eating disorder brought about by some sort of trauma. There was physically nothing wrong with him. The air burned his lungs, and that’s just what pollution does, so he often stayed inside but there was still nothing wrong with him.
There was technically nothing wrong with him.
He’d smile and do his best to be strong and a good child for his family that had been so tormented by his absence. He made good grades and was on his best behavior. Never the delinquent only the honor student.
Time passed and before long he graduated high school and then got accepted into university and all the while his body still felt wrong. Weak. Dying. He wasn’t sure how to explain it but he kept staring out at the city streets feeling like he needed to be somewhere.
Somewhere.
His mind lost on an image of emerald greens and bright jade hues that he couldn’t form into anything substantial.
“Yo, earth to Shen Yuan are you listening?” he could hear one of his classmates badgering at him and he laughed it off. “You got the notes you promised to lend me?”
“Yeah, here they are,” he said reaching into his bag and pulling out the stack of notes he’d been asked to take while his classmate was out for a few days with family matters they couldn’t put off.
“Awesome. Hey, we’re all going out drinking some time this week. Wanna come?” his fingers itched on the wooden grain to say yes and do something normal. To just get out but then he thought of the last time he’d done that. The embarrassment he’d caused when he started coughing and falling ill at the bar and had to be driven home immediately. The look on everyone’s faces when his mother and father rushed to get him home once he called.
He doesn’t think he can handle the stress or can stand the idea of ruining another night of fun by people who will actually enjoy themselves.
“No thanks I'm good.” Something about it all just made him stand out more as he was dismissed and could hear people muttering about him. How he was such a loner and a weirdo.
Shen Yuan wasn’t going out. No. Not that night nor probably any night with how it all worked out. Instead, he’d be sitting at home reading on his phone or computer. Whichever he decided was comfier that night and reading Wuxia and XianXia novels of varying shitty degrees. He’s not sure why but they make him feel like that part of him that’s missing something is almost there. Almost touchable.
It’s on one of these nights he stumbles on it. A shitty story that’s made it to the top of the charts that is so overwritten. So stupid. So cliché! Proud Immortal Demon Way is the name of this stupid novel and it’s hackney tired slop.
And yet... His eyes read over some of the monsters and world building and he’s enraptured. He’s completely taken in by the world and it feels... familiar. A world of twelve kingdoms with monsters and beasts that roam the land creating havoc. Where all is kept in balance by man and heavenly creatures.
Like he saw it in a dream.
Like he knows that pure blue sky and endless sea that surrounds the various lands. Like he knows these rules and principles. Like... like... like he shouldn’t be here.
Wrong.
Once again, he feels wrong.
His head hurts after reading for hours on end and he can’t help leaving a number of scolding comments on the actual writing quality and story. How everything is over bloated and way too long. That the protagonist Luo Binghe has yet to receive any emotional comfort from his many wives he’s been collecting and the nature of his kingdom.
He almost types something out that doesn’t make sense, “Where is his Qilin? Without a Qilin no one of the twelve kingdoms would ever see him as a true king.”
He stares at the typed out words for so long before finally deleting them only to type out something similar later.
This completely forgets how blessings for the land are supposed to go. Everyone knows the blessings for the land and harvest come from the king on the seventh day.
His eyes are watering and his head is pounding, what did that even mean? What is he saying? He shuts his eyes seeing flashes of light and brilliant hues of green. A smell of air so fresh and clean it felt unreal and someone- someone- And then there is the character of Yue Qingyuan who- who- he's not sure why but his fingers type the comment out without his input and he finds himself saying, “The Youma in his kingdom were never so vile and rampant especially given his contract with Xuan Su. You don’t know anything.”
Yes because- because- his head is burning and his lungs are struggling to breathe. He’s- he’s not- it's all-his body convulsing in pain as he tried to grasp onto that train of thought that was trying to slip away from him. That little detail about something he’s forgotten.
He’s forgotten...
He woke up almost three days later after collapsing in a fever. Shen Yuan staring at the ceiling unable to stop crying as his entire body shook with a sadness he couldn’t explain. He was missing someone. He was- he was lost. He was removed from where he needed to be.
Qi-ge was- he- who was he even talking about?
And then he saw it. A reply on his comment from the writer themselves in a private message.
How could you know about Xuan Su? I haven’t even gotten to that
He stared at the message unsure himself. He just... knew. Just knew because... because... it’s like a dream. A story. Something he was told a long time ago.
From that day on he started messaging Airplane Shooting Through The Sky about the world in his novel. About the characters and story.
AirplaneShootingThroughTheSky: So how did you know? I never hinted that or even published my initial drafts anywhere. So how?
PeerlessCucumber: I just sorta did.
AirplaneShootingThroughTheSky: Bruh. Quit bustin my balls and tell me .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.
PeerlessCucumber: I’m not lying. I just kinda knew it. Like how I know you mixed up the Riboku and Yaboku and just refused to correct it and it’s been driving me up the fucking wall. Not to mention your characterization of Shen Qingqiu! He’s just so one dimensional and flat.
It was never... never...
AirplaneShootingThroughTheSky: Hey, are you supposed to be on this side?
On this... on this... he’d been walking home from school and someone had grabbed his hand calling for him.
“I finally found you. Xiao-Jiu.”
Yes... that person reached out for him calling his name and- and-
AirplaneShootingThroughTheSky: Actually, never mind. Forget I said that. Wanna meet up? I think we’d have a lot to talk about.
He’s not sure why he said yes. Maybe it was because this was the first time it felt like someone was talking about a thing that haunted him at the edge of his mind. A place that felt right but existed only in stories. Only in fiction.
Only in dreams.
He remembers being told something important... Something that mattered...He stood at the station platform waiting to meet this mysterious writer till a man in his early thirties with mousy brown hair and a demeanor that screamed pathetic waved his hand, “Yo, cucumber bro. Nice to meet ya finally.”
Somehow Shang Qinghua is exactly who expected and yet not in the least. He’s a pathetic man. With a pathetic face and pathetic vibe. He’s small and pitiful with bags under his eyes and clothes that have seen better days as they sit down with bubble tea at a café. His legs jittery and nervous as he looks around. He can’t help asking, “What’s your deal?” Everything about this man screams stress. Exhaustion. Pressure. He’s kinda unnerving actually.
Shang Qinghua laughs awkwardly as the jacket on his shoulders seems to swallow him even more, “Ha, ha. Nothing. I’m just your normal starving artist. Ya get me?”
“No,” Shen Yuan says bluntly. The awkwardness between them increases till finally Shang Qinghua takes a breath and pulls out a worn and tired looking hand strung paperback notebook. “What’s this?”
“That’s where my ideas came from,” they say and Shen Yuan opens it up and notes it to be some sort of journal dated from the 30s before seeming to lose any sense of time or tracking. “It belonged to my great grandfather supposedly.”
There are notes on details of the world that had made their way into Proud Immortal Demon Way sprinkled throughout. Little bobs and trinkets of lore but it’s all treated as if it’s an explorer’s log in a foreign land than fiction. All meticulous and straightforward.
All fact.
A name pops up midway through about a man, a very familiar one, ‘Luo Binghe began his initial conquest upon the land. The countryside is in an uproar...’
“What... is...” his voice trails in confusion.
“My great grandfather supposedly disappeared for almost a decade during his adolescence. He went out one day and just never came back and then one day he showed up again in the middle of town in weird old clothing and his speech broken like he hadn’t spoken Chinese in years. He had tons of these that he kept in the back of a shed and when he died, I got my hands on them and well, they’re too interesting to pass up.”
“I’m not sure if the man just went crazy or he actually went to another world but then you started saying that stuff and I thought maybe the guy was just copying some weird pulp novel or something. But then you started mentioning other things. Things I had made up and it got me thinking...” Their voice trailed before taking a long sip shaking their head. “Ah forget it. It’s just... Idk I just got a weird hunch.”
Shen Yuan had stopped listening though and instead was engrossed looking over the words on the page as his mind was abuzz with an overwhelming sensation ‘this is it.’ This is it.
This is... this... is...
His head burned and his mind screamed and the shadow under his feet drifted and turned over and over as a hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder, “Shizun. I finally found you.”
Looking down at him is a set of bright red eyes and long dark curling hair and a man so handsome he should be on billboards. The sight of him- the look of him- his eyes are watering and he feels like screaming. He is screaming.
He feels himself being shoved away as Shang Qinghua pulled him away, “Let go of him! Cucumber bro, are you okay?”
The man kept staring down at him with a big smile that set his hair on edge as his mind felt clouded in a haze. He remembered standing in front of someone- trying to protect someone- and then- he'd been struck upon the head.
He’d been struck and- and-
“Do you remember me, Shizun?”
Remember? How could he- how could he ever forget?
I don’t know you.
The man snapped his fingers and from the shadows around him the ground shifted and stirred as a giant beast sprang from the shadows. He could hear Shang Qinghua screaming as the giant eagle like creature started flying and his eyes stared at the man in front of him.
That’s right. That’s right...
He remembers. He remembers this man. The child who journeyed all those years ago to him in hopes of becoming king. The reason the novel felt wrong. The reason the story was missing something so vital and crucial that he could never let go of.
It’s a blur and faded but it’s slowly coming back to him as they get higher and higher. As the wind blows in his face and he’s stared at so expectantly. He remembers chasing after him and yelling at him to not leave as he bowed his head. He remembers...
It’s all broken fragments piecing together as he stares at him. “Binghe?” he whispers and the sinister aura seems to fade in an instant to a soft melting.
“I’m so glad Shizun remembers this disciple.”
The relief and calm that fills his chest is overwhelming and he’s about to steadily reach out and grab for this man only for a lunge of fire to leap at them from the sea below. A great serpent screaming at them and shaking the entire creature as it screamed in agony.
A sudden heaviness overcoming Shen Yuan’s chest at the poor things pain and his head throbbing as he was knocked back into Shang Qinghua who’d been clutching desperately to the bird for dear life. “What the actual fuck is happening?” they screamed as the bird was tossed and shaken about.
Luo Binghe leaping to the serpent with a large sword. The fangs biting into the bird and shaking and tossing them as Luo Binghe hacked and slashed at the thing’s eyes blinding it.
Shen Yuan desperately gripped to the creatures feathers as the bird struggled to stead itself before something else knocked in on the other side. “Hey, what the actual fuck is happening?” Shang Qinghua screamed and before anything he could say anything the serpent’s great tail struck flinging them into the air.
“Shizun!”
As they both fell and struck hard against the cold water Shen Yuan cold only stare up at the sky as blurrily the images all faded back to him.
Yes.
That's right.
He’s not supposed to be on this side. He was never supposed to- never meant to return.