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Chapter Text

He should have known that one day it just might happen to him.

That he created a world that is quite cruel, dark, and ridiculous to the point of absurdity. Of course, that absurdity stands out more vividly for him alone than for anyone else, but... going on a mission to be caught by the natives (humans! not even demons — humans!) who worshiped the deity (the System must be mocking him) 'Airplane', so that he could be sacrificed to that deity by dropping him into Death Valley.

Ah, and that's his life.

(When did it turn into a circus? Where exactly did he take a wrong turn? How did he literally live to see this?!)

Like everything in his world, all the names are pretty damn telling, and if the fall didn't kill him, anything at the bottom will.

Death Valley was everything he had buried in his mind, in his unpublished drafts, for monsters that were too strong even for his Luo Binghe. It's unlikely that that free self-psycho-help webinar meant something like this, telling them to get their demons out of their hearts, but, there they were, right. Reanimated beings with and without flesh.

It looks more like a canyon than a valley, and it's so dusty or foggy you can't see the sun. Maybe he's hit harder than he'd like to admit, because he feels the black earth greet him when he touches it with his bloody and broken hands. The earth is warm, like volcanic sand, and at the same time, it's like walking through an old graveyard when he sees the many bones decorating everything around him.

He can feel them: monsters that are so scary, so old that he didn't even send them to the Endless Abyss; his forgotten children.

Shang Qinghua, though, is sure he might have had a concussion, because he doesn't feel his usual fear, though he seemed to have buried his worst manifestations of depression in this place, most ugly and clawed, with black fangs and irregularly sharp shapes. He should feel fear, but... he doesn't.

His forgotten children stare at him, their eyes black and their smiles black as they surround him, more and more, looking like slime, like insects, like disfigured humanoids straight out of someone's nightmares, the smell of rot permeating them as they press closer and closer — Shang Qinghua smiles back at them.

Monsters that know no satiety, know no pity, know no weakness, surround him, clinging to him like pets craving affection, like children who haven't seen their parents in a long time, clawing at him so that his clothes might burst until he claws at one of them and receives only an aggrieved squeak.

Shang Qinghua strokes their fur, their energy, their scales, anything he can touch without seeing the venom that should have appeared on his skin in response.

His head spins as he rests his head against one of the children who probably looks like a decomposing dragon, his sweet children moving around him in a way that he knows they are worried. He smiles at them again, though very tired; it would be nice to fall asleep here, forever, among those who recognized him as easily as he recognized them.

He wakes up on the edge of Death Valley, better known as a place of no return, healed and barely remembering how he got here; however, he has a job with Cang Qiong and his king to get back to.

Chapter Text

An Qingqing, being the head of the eleventh peak, knows that she doesn't have much power in the sect hierarchy, but if she had to choose what she would like to spend all the influence she might have on, it would be to forbid Shang-shixiong from appearing on her peak.

Shu Fa is the peak of seals, talismans and artifacts.

Artifacts day-old and abandoned, newly found, discovered and excavated, from which she lovingly wipes the dust off and sets them so that they shine. They aren't necessarily fragile, on the contrary, there are things here that could eat their entire sect, but they are all priceless and incredible. An Qingqing is too fond of history to not appreciate such items, even if they want to kill her nine out of ten times, but their capriciousness is a charm if anyone asks her.

Therefore, her head can't help but ache at the thought of Shang Qinghua at her peak.

There was a case, an ordinary day, somewhere in the very beginning, when they took the seats of the Lords of the Peaks, and there was some sort of paperwork mix-up that Shang-shixiong wanted to resolve with her. They had just walked through the main hall, where the calmest, oldest artifacts were, and the world tilted.

They're ancient artifacts, she's not even quite sure what two of the four were meant for in ancient times, so inactive were they, and the hieroglyphics have been erased, but the artifacts were asleep. And it's extremely rare for sleeping artifacts to feel compelled to wake up. They simply exist either through eternity or until time takes them, she hopes, to their masters (this is an interesting point too, so many ancient artifacts say they miss their creators; sometimes she thinks it was the same person).

But if one wakes up, it's like little kids here: everyone wakes up.

And these ancient artifacts just stole them along with the whole peak into subspace.

(As Ning-shidi, Lord of the Twelfth Peak, had said, their summit simply glowed and dissolved; the arrogant asshole had laughed at that and asked her where they were, with that mystery-hungry stare, barging into her personal space as if that didn't exist.)

Even though the artifacts were raging, raging, they weren't actually hurting anyone, as if... they were rejoicing?

She had to leave, dealing with her hall masters and apprentices to cancel out the panic, forgetting about Shang Qinghua, who had disappeared from her sight.

They returned to Cang Qiong to a blue sky instead of yellow, just as suddenly as they had disappeared, only fifteen minutes later, when her head disciple said she heard some song, soothing and extremely inept, and the artifacts calmed down, for some inexplicable reason (because artifacts don't do that) putting them back where they belonged.

Shang-shixiong appears behind her back like he's always been there, startling her with a remark:

"Pretty noisy kids", and she looks on as her disciples put some of the artifacts back in place.

"At times", she agrees, "and not neat at all..." An Qingqing continues, walking off to take the fragile valuables from the children's hands.

Somehow, she felt like Shang Qinghua wasn't talking about disciples.

And then it happened again

And then again...

And again...

Again.

Until she collapsed in tears in zhangmen-shixiong's office, begging him not to let Shang Qinghua into her peak because he was interfering with all the work.

Without Shang-shixiong by her side, the artifacts had once again become calm and a little, if her qi didn't deceive her, melancholy.

Chapter Text

“Perhaps”, Shang Qinghua began, surveying the beautiful clear-blue horizon, “a little... mishap happened”, yes, a good, fine word profanity-free, surrounded by his little bee pupils.

“Is that what you think, shizun?” nevertheless asks one of his chief disciples, standing beside him and sighing the salty sea breeze.

This shizun hears your judgment, Li-er, don't be so hard on this old man!

“Well”, his second chief disciple continues and tosses the scrolls onto the white sand at their booted feet, which are almost touched by the waves of the ocean, “let's call it a sudden vacation”.

Behind can be heard murmurs and cackles, thousands of others waiting for his last word.

Shang Qinghua looks at the innocent compass in his hands, his harmful willful child, and suppresses a hysterical laugh, nodding as if everything happening is normal.

“Okay, yeah. We're on vacation”.

The entire An Ding Peak is on vacation, huh.

Shouts of joy erupted behind him, and his head disciple beside him jumped out of her boots to shamelessly run to dip her tired feet in the water while several of his disciples blushed and Shang Qinghua lazily surveyed the edges of the not-so-large uninhabited island, reminding him something of the Maldives.

Indeed, what could go wrong if the entire An Ding Peak with the houses and rocks, including everyone on it, disappeared overnight?

Fang Shi's compass, or Compass of the Way, is his cheeky copying of a compass from Pirates of the Seas, whose name he can't remember, but of course with a few changes.

For starters, it's a vile and dark artifact whose job is to send its wielders to hell's torment and the worst places he and his depression with a hint of sadistic co-authorship could think of. The compass is not meant to be kind, it has ruined so many travelers, eating not only their powers and lives, but their souls as well. An artifact that came out of nowhere and that could not be destroyed.

Shang Qinghua had stumbled upon it by chance in the treasury of one of his king's detractors, whose innards he had already painted on the gaudy gray walls with another trick of his equally evil creation. He didn't even touch the compass, only stood over it, trying to figure out where he could see it; understand this author, he's a father of many children with troubled children (eh, and who are they into?) who may not always be happy with their prodigal parent. He wouldn't be happy if his second father suddenly showed up here now (gods, no; that would be a nightmare), let alone the first.

However, there were children who... how should I put it... favored him? Were happy to see him? Wanted to see him for some reason?

Shang Qinghua did not understand some of his children, like many fathers, but accepted their sudden and inexplicable attraction to him when he happened to find them on his desk or bed, when he certainly had not taken any from their rightful place, waiting for their story time in Luo Binghe's arms. Basically, Shang Qinghua could think of nothing better than building a closet with seals and talismans of protection, concealment, and suppression carved out by himself to store his mischievous children in, asking them to live peacefully (often, they even obeyed him). Sometimes he had to sing to them to calm them down, but generally they lived peacefully without causing trouble.

That is, until the compass appeared.

He is older than everyone in his closet, and much darker. Shang Qinghua was afraid that he might offend his younger siblings;he felt that this kid would be stubborn in chasing after him if he didn't carry him in a pocket on his chest, closer to his heart.

What a lonely and what a greedy little fellow.

Shang Qinghua felt guilty enough to carry it around with him often enough, especially when it started suddenly appearing where it shouldn't when he left it among the papers. It had happened once in front of other lords, and the speed at which Shang Qinghua moved to get the prankster out of sight was abrupt enough that he nearly dislocated his shoulder. Luckily for him, the compass decided not to spew its crushing energy on everyone (basically, the little guy shouldn't do that unless he decided to eat his host).

Shang Qinghua actually had an idea that Fang shi just wanted to eat him like thousands of people before him, but it was worse... the compass was gathering information about him.

And it seemed to have arbitrarily decided that he, and his entire peak, apparently needed a vacation.

This compass was once a powerful moving artifact, until the air of the Endless Abyss corrupted it; Fang Shi never stopped being what it was created to be (since the Planeswalker didn't think of any other creators for it, is he its original creator?), and in the middle of the night silently stole them away.

Along with the land and a piece of the mountain. So smoothly and so silently that no one even noticed. Shang Qinghua himself, of course, was working like an eternal slave to his duties, and he didn't notice until three hours later when he suddenly heard the background noise of waves.

Where would the waves in the mountains come from?

Miraculously reaching the window through stacks of papers five feet away, he looked out. Then pinched himself. Again. And again, just to be sure. The ocean and the other stars were not about to leave his sight, and neither was the slowly rising dawn sun. 'Beautiful', he thought for a second or two of quiet beauty before his mind was overtaken by panic paired with its Siamese twin in the form of a migraine.

Fang Shi vibrated in his inner pocket, pleased with himself and proud, waiting for praise, but the only thing Shang Qinghua could do was to hold on to the window frame so that he wouldn't fall, suddenly feeling powerless.

That was the morning.

And that evening, as his disciples entertained themselves, splashing or making a fire, and the hall masters pulled out chaise lounges from somewhere ('shixiong, you invented them', one of his shidi told him, inviting him to rest and handing him a cup of wine in his powerless hands) and indulged fully in bliss, Shang Qinghua tried not to feel anxious that he couldn't even call out to his king. No matter how many times he called out, Mobei Jun did not come. Shang Qinghua looked at the stars again, which were not like the ones in their region or the ones in the Demon Realm.

“Where have you thrown us, Fang Shi...” he muttered to the sky, and the compass in his hand (he swears he did) chuckled playfully.

The Cang Qiong Sect had a problem.

Problems that couldn't be overlooked. Because there was one less peak, and one of the biggest ones at that. Of course, the first ones to notice were An Ding's two disciples who were finishing their business at night, and as they claimed, the peak simply disappeared in front of them in an instant.

First there was panic, then there was a search, both for an explanation and for the peak itself or the people. No one claimed responsibility for it, and no demonic activity was seen nearby. Inquiries to the other great sects, because they couldn't hide it with all their will, yielded nothing either. Theories were constructed, one scarier and worse than the other; Shen Qingqiu was particularly eloquent and ate at the fact that An Ding was dead and they were all doomed. Of course, some of the other lords thought this was extreme and poisonous to their shixiong, they could live without An Ding for a few days if they were fine, if not... well, better to talk about retribution than anything else.

Shen Qingqiu only called them all fools.

The notable difficulties started on the third day, when they had food, there were hungry mouths, but there were no ones to deliver all the ingredients from the tenth peak through the rest.

On the fourth day, many realized that they rarely communicated directly without an intermediary.

On the sixth day, Liu Qingge returned, reporting that the search had yielded nothing.

On the ninth day, everyone was tense as they dared to acknowledge the most likely inevitable, and admit that everyone on An Ding was dead, and the remaining disciples could choose another peak for themselves (oddly enough, only two of the eighty-three, agreed to this).

On the thirteenth day, Ning Qingqing suggested that there was no attack, and Shen Qingqiu agreed.

On the twentieth day, the sect hadn't completely stopped working smoothly, but it had definitely lost most of its mobility.

On the twenty-eighth day, half of the lords quarreled amongst themselves.

On the thirtieth day, suddenly, just like before, An Ding Peak smoothly returned to its place as if it had never disappeared.

“Shang-shixiong!” and at least three pairs of his shidis and shimeis's hands clawed at him, causing him to nearly jump up; he can only hope there isn't a blush showing on his now tanned face. “We were wrong, forgive us for everything!”

“Thank the gods you're all alive back there, shidi!” said somewhere behind his back Wei Qingwei, also snuggling up to him. And zhangmen-shixiong smiled at him as if he was really happy to see him. Pardon me?

Is it just him, or did even his villain exhale in relief?

What the hell is going on?!