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“So... the 'electricity' goes into the 'television' there you can watch plays and performances from all over the world?” Binghe asked raptly, starry eyes shining. “But how do they know when to perform so you won't miss anything?”
Shen Qingqiu swallowed a yawn as he considered the question and how to translate it into a form that Binghe would understand, and that he could explain. He knew that talking about the differences in their world and transmigration and everything would be complicated, but Binghe's questions kept leading them in directions he had never considered before in his life.
Just how did lightning and metal and plastic come together to create a computer? How did mystical waves in the air transmit whole books longer than any in Qing Jing Peak's libraries for Shen Qingqiu to devour by the dozen. While admittedly it had not been what he'd expected Binghe to be fixated on when he'd discovered his life before he was Shen Qingqiu, it had been... unexpectedly pleasant to have his husband clinging to him and asking every question he could think of, sometimes going so far as to rudely interrupt him in the middle of explanations with more questions and exclamations of wide-eyed wonder.
“So you remember how I told you that people can program things to come out at certain times regardless of if they're there or not?” he asked patiently, absentmindedly running his fingers through Binghe's unexpectedly curly hair and feeling it spring back between his fingers. “They record it – the perform the story several times and then cut it up and put the pieces together so it looks like one piece, with no mistakes or unexpected problems.”
Binghe smiled widely. “So if someone says a line wrong, they just cut that part out and use another performance where they said it right,” he said with the sound of someone who felt they understood the whole concept now, even though Shen Qingqiu had barely begun to scratch the depths of what they could do on television now. “And Shizun liked to watch these with his family?”
“Err, yes,” he said awkwardly. They had done that often when he still lived with his family, but as he and his siblings had gotten older, all of their tastes had diverged in different directions enough that finding something they could all agree upon to watch was often more difficult than was worth the effort. “We did do that sometimes, yes,” he settled on. It was too late in the evening to go into more details there, but hopefully it would keep Binghe content for the moment.
No doubt he'd have to put up with more questions in the future, especially about electronics. All it had taken was a brief mention of a refrigerator and that had piqued Binghe's curiosity enough that it was all he wanted to hear about. Which was better than what he'd worried about when he'd decided to finally tell him, but not what he had expected at all.
He supposed it was his mistake for not considering it, of course his sticky disciple would be interested in tools that could allow him to cook and store food so that there would always be something that Shen Qingqiu liked to eat around. In hindsight, as were so many other things, it was painfully obvious.
Binghe let out a happy sigh and propped his chin on Shen Qingqiu's chest to look at him better. “It sounds like such a wonderful world, with so many good things in it. And then it brought you here.”
The corner of his mouth lifted as he tugged on a loose strand of hair, looping it around his finger. “It was all right,” he said softly. “There were a lot of things I liked there. But here is to be preferred.”
Binghe's smile somehow grew wider, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Good,” he said with a hint of mischief. “Because if you were still there, I'd just have to go and find you again and bring you back. I don't want to be in a world that doesn't have my Shizun.”
Shen Qingqiu frowned and tugged the lock of hair trapped in his fingers more firmly. Binghe's eyes grew slightly shinier, but nothing could diminish his spirit. What an obstreperous child on his hands.
He opened his mouth to scold him more firmly and was interrupted by another yawn that threatened to crack his jaw and betray his dignity. When had it gotten so late? He'd meant to call this conversation off a while ago, but Binghe had somehow seduced him into continuing to talk even after that. No doubt dawn was not that far away now.
Fortunately Binghe seemed to catch on that any protests of being too tired to continue would be genuine, not that they hadn't been before, but Shen Qingqiu would really put his foot down now if Binghe continued to ask him about the modern world and everything in it. He wasn't a genius, not when it came to technology and what made it all work and trying to figure it out after so long here in this new world was giving him headaches. And while Binghe was worth a few headaches, there were limits to what Shen Qingqiu was willing to do at this impossible hour.
He was trying to come up with the right excuse to turn Binghe down from any further conversations when his husband waved a hand and snuffed out the single candle with a touch of demonic energy, leaving Shen Qingqiu blinking in the sudden darkness as he reached down to pull up the blankets that had been kicked down to the bottom of the bed over the course of the conversation. “This disciple has learned so much tonight, I don't think I could keep my eyes open any longer,” Binghe said cheekily, wrapping an arm around Shen Qingqiu's waist and pulling him closer so they were lying flush again. “If Shizun would spare this disciple some face, could we return to the lesson in the morning?”
Shen Qingqiu had to swallow a chuckle, his fingers itching for his fan to tap Binghe on the nose in response. “Perhaps, yes,” he said, already mentally preparing himself for the return to this question. Maybe if the conversation went in a slightly different direction, he could mention some of the food he missed from his old world. If anyone could figure out how to make food that required air fryers, it would be Luo Binghe. “We can discuss this again in the future, when you are better rested.”
He couldn't see Binghe's smug grin, but he could hear it clearly in his voice. “Oh good,” Binghe said, his voice coy and tinged with mischief. “It would be quite shameful for this disciple to fall asleep during an important lesson. You would have to punish me very severely if I did that, I'm sure I'd have to run many laps if I fell asleep in your lap.”
Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes and, lacking his fan that was somewhere across the room and too far away to grab, tapped Binghe on the forehead quite firmly. “What is this nonsense?” he retorted tartly. “Keep speaking nonsense and you'll be running laps regardless.”
It was an empty threat and they both knew it, but Shen Qingqiu had to save some face when Binghe decided to be a little wolf under his lamblike looks. Otherwise he'd never manage to look anyone in the eye ever again.
Binghe laughed fondly, not at all deterred by the reprimand. “Good night, Shizun,” he said, squirming around under the blankets until he was comfortably tucked around Shen Qingqiu like a great snake, too tangled up around him for Shen Qingqiu to dream of escaping for any reason ever. “Please tell me more things in the morning. I want to hear everything about Shizun's first life, tell me all of it, as much as you can think of.”
Shen Qingqiu huffed slightly. “We'll see about that,” he said dubiously, thinking back to Proud Immortal Demon Way and everything else that had come from that. There were some things that Binghe had no need to know of, Shen Qingqiu's face was thin enough as it was and he could not fathom the mortifying depths he would have to plumb to talk about the merchandise alone. “Go to sleep.”
Binghe chuckled again, squeezing Shen Qingqiu a little tighter before doing as he was told and going to sleep, no doubt still thinking about refrigerators and stoves and washing machines and television.
Shen Qingqiu lay awake in the dark, waiting for Binghe's breath to even out into the deep sleep of pleasant dreams, far enough down that he wouldn't notice and wake up if he did anything like press his lips to the red mark on Binghe's forehead and whisper something too sentimental for anyone to hear before closing his eyes and going to sleep himself.
His dreams were strange that night, full of electric kettles and hot pot and Luo Binghe wandering around his kitchen marveling at everything and giving Shen Qingqiu disappointed looks about the amount of instant noodles in his cupboards, but somehow, Shen Qingqiu didn't mind a bit.