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If he were being honest out loud, Shen Qingqiu wasn’t expecting to see Luo Binghe again until the trial. The sight of the blackened protagonist caused him to misplace his hands, a discordant chord strumming from his guzheng as he struggled to make sense of the sight.
“Shizun still doesn’t wish to see this lowly disciple.” the protagonist greeted with a dark look on his face.
The water had stopped flowing, but the path had yet to be raised. Shen Qingqui was still trapped, but somehow the gap between them made it almost easier to meet his eyes.
He didn’t stand.
He stayed seated behind his instrument, fingers idly resting in the starting position for a piece he had played once as a dare.
It had most certainly not impressed his instructor, but the other boys in his class had been in awe of his balls.
Without meaning to, he began to pluck the opening notes.
“Will Shizun play for me as well?” Binghe sounded… Almost hopeful.
Over the intro, Shen Qingqiu could barely speak, but… he owed this to Binghe. More than anyone, his little white lotus under all that black deserved this. It was the most honest he could be.
“This lowly one knows…” he turned his attention to the guzheng so he didn’t have to look his lotus in the eye, “He knows that nothing can ever erase the suffering of his disciple. For that he expects nothing more than punishment. His worthless life was forefit the day he raised a hand to his disciple in fear. He even… Even knows his punishment.”
Binghe seemed caught in the melancholic sounds, even as Shen Qingqiu began to sing.
“I can't remember anything” he sang, thinking of his family from before , “Can't tell if this is true or a dream, deep down inside I feel to scream, this terrible silence stops me.”
Binghe gasps, sinking to his knees as if unable to keep standing. Did he understand? Did he figure out from the lyrics that something was keeping Shen Qingqiu from speaking on his greatest sin?
“Now that this life is through with me, I'm waking up, I cannot see.” In fact, he did feel as if he were truly blind in those bitter days before Binghe gave him this last gift. “That there's not much left of me, nothing is real but pain now”
Binghe reached out as if to comfort, stopped by the distance. But Shen Qingqiu knew what was coming in the lyrics. These were words he knew he had no right to speak, but needed to say before he lost the chance.
“Hold my breath as I wish for death”
“ No! ”
“Oh please, God, wake me” Shen Qingqiu’s voice nearly broke with the emotion he felt, glad for a little musical interlude before he had to continue.
And he had to. It was too important for Binghe to understand exactly what he meant.
“Now the world is gone, I'm just one,” he explains, “Oh God, help me!”
He can’t look up, even as the System dings off with more and more heartbreak points.
“Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please, God, help me”
The music turns harsh. Grating. Binghe gasps and Shen Qingqiu can hear the steps raising through the water once again. Too slow.
“Darkness imprisoning me - All that I see, absolute horror!”
Footsteps race across the water.
“I cannot live, I cannot die, trapped in myself, body my holding cell”
Binghe’s hands slam over his own, halting the music.
“ Shizun! ” he cries, harsh bitter hot tears coating his face.
Shen Qingqiu looks up finally.
“Shizun can’t … He just can’t !”
“Binghe…” Shen Qingqiu sighs, “I know how this story ends. It matters not whether I remember doing these things. The only thing that matters is justice for all.”
Internally, he gives a wry, bitter smile. How the hell had he managed to work in the album title?
“Shizun must know they’re fake! How could he have…”
“Did Binghe forget?” he gives a shake of his head, tangled unbound hair scattered around himself like the god-forsaken waterfall that was slowly driving him mad. “This master has abused his disciple.”
He wrests one hand back to gently put it on the protagonist’s cheek, turning the man to face him.
“ No! ” Binghe denied, “No! Shizun must have a reason! A good one! Shizun is a good master!”
“Even…” Shen Qingqiu’s voice cracked again, distress riding high in his system, “Even if this lowly one had an excuse, he can never share it.”
Or…
His eyes widen.
“Shizun?”
“There is one way.” his lips tilt in a bitter, disgusted facsimile of a smile. “I will tell you at the trial. Everything.”
“Why not now?” Binghe pleads beautifully, as is his right.
“Bing-er.” Shen Qingqiu sighs. “Until the trial, I want you to think hard about the first lines of this song. Think until you understand. Consider it one last lesson from a man who never had any right to call you his student but did anyway.”
Binghe opened his mouth, probably to call him once again, so Shen Qingqiu placed one long, slender finger over those soft lips.
“Until the trial.”
Guilty.
Shen Qingqiu had known the verdict going in. The Old Palace Master wouldn’t have allowed any evidence to the contrary.
Still. He had an escape route that left him with all his limbs intact. He worried at the knots that he had loosened in preparation for this moment.
Binghe rushed him, a stricken look on his face.
Did he honestly think Shen Qingqiu would back out now? Not a chance in hell! This was his only way to avoid becoming a human stick.
“You promised to tell me!” Luo Binghe cried.
There was nothing for it.
Shen Qingqiu brought his hands up to his one-time disciple’s head, guiding it to his shoulder so the protagonist’s uncommonly good ear was right next to his mouth.
[Warning! This course of action will result in immediate…]
Shen Qingqiu muted the notification with a thought. He knew what the punishment was.
“I am not Shen Qingqiu. I was a dead man brought to play his part.”
The System flashed red, still muted but trying to get his attention anyway. Shen Qingqiu tugged at the knots, wanting to die freed from his chains. He was already dead, after all. The System wouldn't allow him to live after this.
“I had to choose between sending Luo Binghe to the Abyss where I knew he would survive, or dying. And since I’m to be sentenced to death anyway, I might as well die telling you the truth. My name was Shen Yuan, and I always …”
The System stopped flashing, and there was a tugging sensation in the back of his head. Like someone had grabbed him by the base of his brain and was pulling his whole nervous system out through his neck!
“I always loved you best.”
The System was separating him from this body! But Binghe’s qi was going wild! He was qi deviating right before him.
“Let this lost soul do one last good thing before I leave.”
He pulled the Immortal Binding Cables off with numb fingers as quickly as he could, forcing the dregs of his own qi into Binghe’s own spirit veins…
He died hearing those he loved crying out for him. A better death than his first one, that's for sure.
He had no regrets.