Work Text:
Back when he had a day job as a writer, hunched over his computer writing manuscripts, Shang Qinghua had a resting bpm of 80. He could barely lift over a hundred pounds of weight, his wrists were weak from years of bad posture. His cardio was so bad that he couldn’t run for a hundred paces without passing out. He subsisted on a meager diet of ramen noodles and online flame wars and definitely did not drink enough water every day. Needless to say, Shang Qinghua was not an athletic man. Nor did he ever expect to be.
That is, until he fucked up by spilling ramen on his computer, tripping over the wire, and electrocuting himself to death. And then he fucked up even further by waking up in the body of an insignificant, cannon-fodder character in the very story he was writing!
But hey! At least he was perfectly healthy now! Look at that!
Shang Qinghua stretched out his arms and wriggled his toes and felt the rush of power that came with having two unblocked nostrils. And he was a cultivator! He had POWERS!
At first, Shang Qinghua entertained grand delusions of emerging out of obscurity, taking over Luo Binghe’s position as the protagonist, and announcing his place in this world in a blaze of glory. After all, he knows everything there is to know. He is, in some sense, the god of this world. What kind of story was ‘Proud Immortal Demon Way’ anyway? How about ‘Help! I Tripped And Died And Woke Up Inside My Own Stallion Novel As An Insignificant Side Character! But No Worries Because Now I Will Take Over The World And Steal All The Main Character’s Women And Glory’?
Just as quickly as the thought came, however, Shang Qinghua backed down. No, he couldn’t do that to his son. He wasn’t interested in fighting. Nor, even with his much-improved constitution, did he think he was up for it. After all, he wasn’t interested in papapa-ing his way through countless sisters that he’d designed either. Hadn’t they suffered enough from the demands of his avid readers? And besides, some of them were pretty strong and would probably snap him in two like a twig if he approached them. Shang Qinghua thought of a few choice examples and shuddered.
After some deliberation, Shang Qinghua decided that the actual best course of action was to sit quietly in his own little corner of An Ding Peak and try to survive the events of the main plot. Trying anything else would probably end with him suffering through any one of PIDW’s countless horrifying and traumatic ways to die. He knew what kind of person he was.
A story centering around him as a protagonist would be a mindless, boring read. There was no need to mess with the plot - the haters could say what they like, but Shang Qinghua quite liked this world, thank you very much! He would not interfere with Luo Binghe’s future meteoric rise to glory. Shang Qinghua was best suited to a quiet life. Watching from offstage.
After all, Shang Qinghua was far more interested in architecting someone else’s story rather than his own.
Cut to one indentured servitude (voluntary), several near-death experiences (involuntary), and one bowl of noodles later, Shang Qinghua cautiously begins to think that he’s made it.
Smash cut to the Northern Palace and its endless tundra. In the mornings, the light reflects off of the ice and turns into a white, blinding sea. At night, the temperature drops so low that any creature daring to poke its face out into the cold would have its whiskers frozen off.
Cue: an endless stream of freezing days. An endless stream of sub-freezing nights. An endless list of tasks to complete.
But still! His life here in the Northern Desert is objectively better than his old life as a writer. Reason number one being: the King of the Northern Desert, Mobei Jun himself. Readily available eye candy. Instant portable serotonin boost. 100% ideal man. Cool power set, even cooler personality, no pun intended, ha ha. 10/10 creation, no notes.
Reason two being: his booming career as a prolific writer of novels maybe possibly probably based on high-profile figures in the cultivation world, and the controversy/vitriol/high-spirited discussion around it. He gets portaled to An Ding Peak regularly to receive fan mail, hate mail, death threats, and all sorts of exciting correspondences.
Reason number three being: his new body, despite being cannon fodder, is still far more healthy than his old one! His joints no longer creak in the morning. His throat no longer feels scratchy and his nose no longer becomes congested with the changing of every season. This is, Shang Qinghua decides, a marked improvement.
Overall, Shang Qinghua thinks, everybody has reached their intended happy ending. His son, however odd this version of him may be, seems happy and content in his married life and fully secure in his position at the top of the world. And Mobei Jun, safely past the betrayals and lies of his past, now rules the Northern Desert.
And he…seems happy? Or at least, when Shang Qinghua sees him, there is a softer side to him that pops up unexpectedly. It’s not something Shang Qinghua ever imagined he’d ever see, but that’s just it, isn’t it? This world has moved on past him. His imagination is no longer the limiting factor. He’s not the author anymore.
There’s nothing else worth writing, in this long and exhausting story of his. Everything is perfect.
Except, all of a sudden, it’s not.
It takes a while for Mobei Jun to notice that Shang Qinghua is sick, mostly because Shang Qinghua himself doesn’t know he’s sick until it’s far too late.
It happens during one of his meetings with Mobei Jun, which is, objectively, the worst time for it to happen. Shang Qinghua is in the middle of one of his story brainstorming sessions where he talks and Mobei Jun listens when a familiar spell of dizziness assaults him. He tries to ignore it. Only this time, it actually takes him down to the floor in a dead spin.
He wakes up, rather nonplussed, in his chambers in An Ding Peak, with braziers roaring with fire, and Shen Qingqiu sitting next to him. Shen Qingqiu is wearing a complicated expression, somewhere between genuine concern and “what the actual fuck, you idiot?”
Shang Qinghua takes one look at him and groans.
“Mobei Jun thinks that you were poisoned,” Shen Qingqiu says.
“I haven’t been poisoned,” Shang Qinghua complains. Really! This was all just one big misunderstanding!! Did it really warrant kicking him over to An Ding Peak and into Shen Qingqiu’s hands? Even if Shen Qingqiu is The Guy To Ask when it comes to poison, think about who his husband is!!! Do you really want to piss off The Guy The Whole Plot Revolves Around?!? Aaaaaagghhhhh!
“Please tell me that Luo Binghe isn’t here,” Shang Qinghua says.
Shen Qingqiu opens his fan with a flick of his wrist, “No.”
Shang Qinghua huffs. Shen Qingqiu is not the person he wants at his bedside when he wakes up from a dead faint, and he suspects that Luo Binghe feels the same, albeit for different reasons.
“I haven’t been poisoned,” Shang Qinghua says petulantly. “Your services aren’t needed.”
“Well,” Shen Qingqiu keeps his face neutral. “Do you want me to be the one to tell Mobei Jun about your terrible state, or do you want to do it yourself?”
“What terrible state?” Shang Qinghua demands. He knows this is not one of PIDW’s thousand poisons, aphrodisiacs, or tonics. If he is stumped, and he knows about every possible plant in this world, what would this anti know that he doesn’t?!?
“You’re pregnant,” Shen Qingqiu says.
…….
??????
???????!?
“Just kidding,” Shen Qingqiu says, and then cracks up into undignified, cackling laughter at the look on Shang Qinghua’s face.
Shang Qinghua frees one leg from the bedsheets to kick at him. “Fuck!!! Off!! Why the fuck would you scare me like that?!? You scared YEARS off of my life!!”
“But you thought about it!” Shen Qingqiu doubles over, still laughing so hard that his words come out in wheezes. “You thought! You! Didn’t know! If Mpreg was a thing! You wrote! Hahahahahahaha!”
“Fuck off! There’s no way!” PIDW was a stallion novel! Not a kinky BL! Although, Shang Qinghua thinks with a shudder. With Shen Qingqiu running around like headless chicken changing this and that, maybe -
He cuts that train of thought off right there. He does not need to lose his mind right now.
“Am I pregnant?” he asks, without thinking.
“No!” Shen Qingqiu smacks him over the head with his fan. “It’s because you haven’t been eating or sleeping enough! You workaholic! The story you wrote is already over! Why the fuck are you still writing?!?!?!?”
Shang Qinghua slumps back into bed, a little stunned. “Oh.”
“Oh? What do you mean, oh?!?” Shen Qingqiu looks like he wants to hit him again. “How in the world did you end up being so lazy that you forgot about eating?”
“I just didn’t think about it,” Shang Qinghua says honestly. “I thought cultivators didn’t need to eat -”
Or drink. Or poop, for that matter. Shang Qinghua had been very deliberate about this point when writing the world of PIDW. It would not do, of course, to have protagonists and villains in the middle of a month-long battle while also having to dig out and plan where the latrines would go. It simply wasn’t sexy. Also, it would mean that Shang Qinghua would be on the hook for figuring all those things out too. So he just didn’t.
Shen Qingqiu smacks him again with his fan.
“Just because you didn’t write about characters eating doesn’t mean that the people in this world don’t eat!”
Shang Qinghua slinks back down underneath his blankets. Shen Qingqiu is right, of course.
Shen Qingqiu seems to take his silence as implicit agreement. He sighs.
“You had Mobei Jun worried sick,” he says. “And now, how am I supposed to tell him that you’re like this because you’re dumb?”
“It won’t be anything new,” Shang Qinghua says. “He’s used to me doing stupid things.”
“You tell him then,” Shen Qingqiu leans down and rests his forehead against his closed-up fan. “Three meals a day. Eight hours of sleep. You can do this, Airplane.”
Shang Qinghua gives him a weak thumbs up.
As soon as Shen Qingqiu exits the stage, Mobei Jun enters. From the gloomy look on his face, he had heard everything. Shang Qinghua wouldn’t put it past him. After all, his proud King was sort of designed with espionage in mind after all. What kind of character with Mobei Jun’s power set wouldn’t eavesdrop?
Still…
“It’s nothing,” Shang Qinghua tries to lie his way out of this. “Really, it’s not serious! You didn’t have to bring me here, my King! Why don’t we go home?”
His hopeful suggestion is dashed by the don’t even think about it cold glare in his king’s eyes.
If Shang Qinghua didn’t know any better, he would have thought that the tightness between his king’s brows, and the fractionally deeper frown on his face, made his king look more upset than usual. But ah, his king usually has a perfectly icy demeanor and an unaffected gaze. It’s probably just a trick of the light.
Then Mobei Jun reaches over and puts his hand on Shang Qinghua’s forehead.
Shang Qinghua stills.
“It’s not a fever,” he says eventually, although, don’t get him wrong! He is very touched! It’s just that it has never been more clear that when it comes to human illnesses and frailties, Mobei Jun has no idea what he’s dealing with. Shang Qinghua feels his lips twitch upwards into a smile.
Mobei Jun scowls and starts to pull his hand away, but Shang Qinghua grabs it. “Nonono,” he says hurriedly. “It is a fever, and this helps.”
And it does help, magically. It soothes the pounding headache sitting at the back of his eyes and makes all his muscle pains lessen somewhat.
Mobei Jun doesn’t look like he believes him. But, even more magically, he keeps his hand where Shang Qinghua puts it and doesn’t move.
Shang Qinghua closes his eyes and lets out a contented sigh. Another item to add to the countless list of things to praise about his Mobei Jun. Not only is he cool in terms of power and personality, he is also cool in terms of body temperature! A wonderful trait to have, in Shang Qinghua’s opinion, when you are prone to headaches.
Suddenly, all he wants is for Mobei Jun to hold his palm to his head, and nothing more.
“You should eat,” Mobei Jun says eventually.
“Nah, no I don’t,” Shang Qinghua nuzzles a little into Mobei Jun’s hand. “What I need is for you to stay with me for a little bit longer. Who needs food? You’re just as good. No, you’re better.”
Mobei Jun scowls at him. “Stop saying nonsense.”
“I’m not saying nonsense,” Shang Qinghua mumbles. “I can’t help it. It makes me happy to look at you.”
And it’s true. Even when Mobei Jun was just a character with three lines to his character description and a vague half-baked backstory, Shang Qinghua loved thinking about him. His guilty pleasure. His King of the Northern Desert, safely tucked behind Luo Binghe’s golden protagonist halo, living comfortably in the shadows.
Mobei Jun is silent for a while.
“Be right back,” he says, and then portals out.
Mobei Jun comes back with a steaming bowl of food. Shang Qinghua sits up very straight.
“Where did you - where did you find this? Did you make this?”
Mobei Jun nods wordlessly.
A halo of light (imaginary) explodes above Shang Qinghua’s head and a blaze of glory (metaphorical) envelops him. He has ascended!! He is no longer the servant, now, HE is the one being served!!! Visions of being waited on by a doting Mobei Jun fill his head, and Shang Qinghua floats for a moment in disbelieving bliss.
Mobei Jun gestures, proffering the bowl again. “Are you taking this or not?”
Shang Qinghua nods eagerly and puts his greedy little claws out. Mobei Jun hands it to him. Shang Qinghua inspects the bowl. It looks a little watery, with dark green pieces of fleshy fruit at the bottom. Maybe they’re pears? It smells - vegetable-y - full of dark greens, softened down from the broth. A little bit dazed, he says: “You’re too good to me, my king.”
Mobei Jun huffs, but Shang Qinghua can’t tell if it’s in agreement or disagreement. He’s too happy! He spoons several bites of the stew into his mouth, and -
It’s BITTER!!!!!
His mouth explodes with flavor, but not the kind of flavor that Shang Qinghua had been expecting. It’s worse than medicine! So bitter!!! What kind of demented plant tastes like this?!?!? At least medicine has a hint of herbs or something sweet to make it go down easier!!! Shang Qinghua’s eyes fill with tears.
Still, with Mobei Jun’s eyes on him, he can’t do anything but swallow. The back of his tongue feels like a bomb has been set off on it. A new wave of tears assaults him. Mobei Jun frowns.
“Why are you crying?”
Shang Qinghua gives him a wobbly smile. “It’s wonderful, my king! I’m so touched, I think I’m going to cry!”
Mobei Jun reaches out and wipes the corner of his eyes, looking displeased. “You are crying.”
“Only because my king has been too kind to me!!!”
Mobei Jun scoffs and stands up, but there’s a hint of a satisfied smile on his face. “Three meals a day, right?” he asks.
Shang Qinghua wavers, feeling like he is standing at the rocky edge of a cliff, but in the end he can’t take his eyes away from Mobei Jun’s small smile and says impulsively: “Yes, my king!”
“Good,” Mobei Jun says.
And just like that, Shang Qinghua seals his fate, caps his pen with a flourish, and writes his very own happy (?) ending.