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Chapter Text

Zhuzhi-lang is a patient creature.

Tianlang-jun often called him simple. Stupid, empty-headed.

“Look at my dear nephew,” he would say, and grip Zhuzhi-lang’s chin in one soft-palmed hand, just the barest suggestion of claws grazing Zhuzhi-lang’s rough skin. “What’s going on in there, hm? I swear sometimes the only thing he’s thinking is Junshang, Junshang, Junshang. ”

He was not wrong.

Recently, Tianlang-jun is often silent.

He lays limply in his bonds, the weight of the mountain bearing down on his twisted form, and silently stares at the walls of the small, cave-like alcove that surrounds his head and shoulders. Zhuzhi-lang stays with him, always, curling as much of himself as will fit into the small space without crowding Junshang in too tightly.

He wishes that he could read to him. He is no poet, but he would memorize every famous work of poetry from both realms if it meant he could recite them for his lord. He would become the greatest writer if it meant being able to tell a story that would take Junshang’s mind off of this torment. He would burn down the human world if it meant someone would set his uncle free.

Zhuzhi-lang cannot speak in this form, and he cannot change his form without Junshang’s power, and Junshang has no power left to him here. His arms are too uncoordinated to hold a book up, even if he could obtain one. When they must communicate, Zhuzhi-lang clumsily taps against the walls of the cave, but the method is slow and Junshang has little patience for listening to or coming up with the code.

As often as Junshang is listless, laying still and letting the time fly by, he also rages. Against Su Xiyan, for her betrayal. Against humanity for their prejudices, against cultivators for sealing him here. Against Zhuzhi-lang, for failing him. For refusing to leave. Sometimes, he begs and begs and begs for Zhuzhi-lang to leave him.

Zhuzhi-lang hates to disobey his lord. He has no practice at it. Sometimes, he goes.

It is on one of these ventures, letting himself drift, half-asleep, along the silty bottom of the Luo River, that Zhuzhi-lang finds a new purpose in his life.

He finds it when it crashes into him. A little body drops like a stone into the water, a tiny dark mass that Zhuzhi-lang thinks at first to be a large fish, or a stray dog. Then the little body starts to flail in the water, dark hair fanning out and short limbs waving. A child.

Zhuzhi-lang is not a creature often moved to kindness. He saves his empathy sparingly, for the person who most deserves it in the world. But he is heartsick and monstrous in the river, and this creature is so small. He cannot free Junshang from his bindings, but he can save the life of this little thing.

He catches them around the chest, secures a grip with slick-scaled arms, and tosses them from the water onto the shore. They roll and curl up into a tiny dark lump, coughing up river water.

There are more human children on the bank. Scruffy and scrawny but bigger than the one Zhuzhi-lang has fished out of the river. They are holding sticks, and there are thin lash marks on the pale arms of the child.

Seeing the child pushed up to the river bank, now pushing themselves onto hands and knees, one of the others with a stick scowls and approaches. “Hey, the dog’s been washed up. Push him again and maybe—”

And then Zhuzhi-lang pulls himself up onto the riverbank behind the child. He uses his arms to heave up his tail, a sheet of dark hair turned lank curtain by the water. The child he fished from the river is too busy coughing and sputtering on the ground to look around for its savior.

The children in front of him, though, get the full view of this form. One of them whimpers. Zhuzhi-lang catches the sudden scent of urine on the wind.

He hisses, baring sharp fangs, and the children flee with shrill screams.

The half-drowned child finishes expelling water from his lungs and rolls over. Zhuzhi-lang lowers himself back down to lay flat on the ground when the other children run away, but he knows how he looks. Without Junshang’s blood keeping him stabilized and humanoid, he is a monstrosity. He expects this child, too, to scream demon and run when he realises what, exactly, has saved him from the icy Luo river.

Large, dark eyes blink up at him. Painfully familiar eyes, in a painfully familiar small face.

The child freezes. Zhuzhi-lang freezes right back, as much from the shock of that face in miniature as for the child’s comfort. They both lay there, on the banks of the river, for a long minute, watching each other.

The child with Junshang’s eyes and Young Mistress Su’s face gingerly pulls himself off of the ground. He kneels in the dirt in front of him.

“A river monster…?” The child asks.

Zhuzhi-lang carefully offers some approximation of a shrug.

The child’s eyes light up. The look is so, so familiar. “You can understand me?”

Zhuzhi-lang nods. The child wobbles to standing and offers a clumsy little bow. “Thank you for saving me, Master River Monster!

The child is shivering violently, a little blue around the edges. Zhuzhi-lang wants to steal him. He wants to wrap him up somewhere no one else will ever find him. He wants to chase after those older children and see how they like drowning. Instead, he looks around the backs of the nearest buildings and roughly slithers over to a large scrap of cloth that might have been a sack or a sheet once. It’s dirty and ripped, but Zhuzhi-lang no longer has any robes of his own to offer. He uses his mouth to pick it up, slithers back and, very carefully, coordinates his uncooperative arms to drape the fabric over the child without touching him.

The child stays very still. Tiny, pale hands come up to clutch at the rough edges of the cloth. “Thank you,” he whispers again.

That won’t do. Zhuzhi-lang plants his hands on the ground and lowers his forehead until they touch. He cannot bow properly in this form, but he can try his best to show reverence.

Then he drags himself away and back into the river and leaves the boy behind.

He has to tell Junshang.

Chapter Text

The child’s name is Luo Binghe.

Zhuzhi-lang learns this on his second trip to visit his cousin.

“What does it matter?” Junshang says after Zhuzhi-lang has arduously made himself understood. Long hair obscures his rotting face, head hanging low, body slack in his many bindings. “Ah, so maybe he is Xiyan’s. Maybe he is mine. What can I do for him, my darling nephew? Bring him to live in this cursed cave with two monsters? Xiyan would spit on me in the next life. No, let him live on in the human world. It’s better this way.”

Junshang raises his eyes to look into Zhuzhi-lang’s. Red with demonic light, but just the same shape as the child’s.

“Nephew, don’t go back to that town.”

——

“Ah, you’re back!” Luo Binghe says, sliding down the riverbank on clumsy little feet.

Half-obscured in the water, Zhuzhi-lang wriggles his tail to push himself up against the silty bank. Luo Binghe shouldn’t get too close to the rushing water; it’s too easy for small feet to slip, and for small humans to drown.

Luo Binghe comes to a stop a few paces from him and beams.

Zhuzhi-lang expects, each time he sees the boy, although this is only the third, that he will see fear bloom on his face. That disgust will colour his familiar, precious features when he looks at the monster that Zhuzhi-lang is without his uncle’s grace. But since being fished from the river, the boy has only ever been exceedingly polite.

“I told mama that I was saved by a river spirit, and she gave me this to give to you,” Luo Binghe says. He reaches into a ragged little bag tied to his hip and produces a single, bruised peach.

Not Su Xiyan, then. If Su Xiyan knew he was here, she would surely come to kill him herself. Or maybe, maybe if there was some sort of mistake, she would—

“She says it is always important to give thanks,” Luo Binghe says. He sets the peach between them and then backs up a few steps, giving Zhuzhi-lang room. “I am very thankful.”

Zhuzhi-lang doesn’t want Luo Binghe to waste food on him. The boy is too skinny, and Zhuzhi-lang hunts for his own food. He tries to make one of his arms move, to pass the fruit back, but it only flops uselessly against the dirt.

When he sees Zhuzhi-lang’s aborted movements, Luo Binghe’s dark eyes widen. “Master River Monster, I’m so sorry! Here…”

He scampers forward, getting closer than he has been since the first day on the riverbank. He picks up the fruit, grips it, and clumsily pulls it into two halves. He crushes them a bit, and peach juice runs down his small wrists. He pulls the pit from the fruit, then moves in even closer and offers up one peach half up, clasped in tiny, soft fingers.

“Here,” he says again.

He is so close to a monster. A demon. Any human parent would scream and grab him back if they saw him. Grown men scream when they catch so much as a glimpse of him.

The peach smells sweet.

Carefully, Zhuzhi-lang lowers his head and takes the piece of fruit in his malformed mouth. He is sure not to even graze the boy with his long, venomous fangs. Luo Binghe doesn’t flinch away.

The peach is sweet. How long has it been since Zhuzhi-lang ate anything but fresh kills, bitten and strangled in the woods around Bailu Mountain? Instantly, he is standing on the streets of any of a dozen small towns. Junshang’s laughter and Su Xiyan’s exasperated scolding ringing in the air. Small, sweet candies pressed into his human-soft hands.

“Eat up, nephew! Try this Zhuzhi, it’s sweet!” Tianlang-jun, smile flashing, hands fluttering, never-still.

“Get him some real food to eat,” Su Xiyan, passing him a hot bun full of mushrooms and meat and spicy, green vegetables in steady hands. “We can’t all live off of sugar and dreams.”

“Why not?”

“Oh no, I’m sorry…” Luo Binghe says.

A sticky hand touches his face. Zhuzhi-lang blinks and cloudiness leaves one eye.  New wetness joins the riverwater, dripping off his chin.

Luo Binghe clumsily wipes tear tracks from his scaly cheek. “Do you not like the peach?” he asks.

Laboriously, Zhuzhi-lang shakes his head.

I like it, he tries to say. His deformed jaw and snake’s tongue only manage a half-moan.

Luo Binghe’s face scrunches up. “You didn’t? Or you did?”

Zhuzhi-lang shakes his head, then nods. His tail lashes in the water.

Luo Binghe bites his lip. “Maybe… nod if you liked it?”

Zhuzhi-lang nods. Luo Binghe beams. He shoves the other half of the peach forward with both hands. “Here! Have more!”

Zhuzhi-lang ducks his head and uses his cheek to nudge the peach half closer to Luo Binghe.

You have it, he tries to say. It comes out as a quiet hiss.

“You don’t want it?”

Another nudge, more insistent.

“Oh, for me?” Luo Binghe asks. Zhuzhi-lang nods and is rewarded with another smile.

Luo Binghe shoves the fruit into his mouth. It scrunches up his cheeks and covers his face in even more juice. “Sh’ank ‘ou,” he says around a full mouth of fruit. It’s a little gross.

Zhuzhi-lang would kill for him.

——

“Master River Monster!” Luo Binghe cries the next time Zhuzhi-lang visits him. “Welcome back!”

——

Zhuzhi-lang’s snakes become his most powerful weapon in his attempts to keep an eye on his cousin. He sends sleek, venomous serpents to guard Luo Binghe’s home. He sends small, unobtrusive brown snakes to follow the boy around the human town.

He cannot always stay near his cousin. He must still tend to Junshang, whenever he is allowed to, however he is able to. But whenever he is not searching for something to free Junshang from his prison, or staying close so that Junshang has someone to speak to, or slithering through the borderlands at night for news that he’ll be able to relay to Junshang once he is able to speak again, he goes to look after Luo Binghe instead.

“Are they your friends, River Monster-gege?” Luo Binghe asks. A half dozen snakes slither around his feet as he tromps around the forest. They are as docile as kittens under the child’s attention and Zhuzhi-lang’s command.

Zhuzhi-lang hisses. He uses his tail to keep Luo Binghe from falling off of a log as he clambers over it. The child has grown as tall as a plum blossom deer and just as ungainly.

“They’re nice!” Luo Binghe says. If Zhuzhi-lang’s face could smile, it might.

Zhuzhi-lang’s cousin lives a difficult life. He does not have enough to eat. Other children often try to bully or beat him, before Zhuzhi-lang’s snakes drive them away. 

His human ‘mother’ seems to care for him as best she can. If she did not, if Zhuzhi-lang could offer him any kind of a home with his blood family, he would take him away from this human town in a second. But Su Xiyan hasn’t been seen since she laid the trap for Tianlang-jun, and Junshang cannot care for Luo Binghe any more than Zhuzhi-lang could at the moment. 

In another world, Luo Binghe would have been a prince. He could have had all the riches of the demon realm at his feet. 

Zhuzhi-lang cannot bring him all the riches of the demon realm, but he does his best. He brings Luo Binghe any trinkets he finds during his slow travels. Luo Binghe accepts the gifts with childish thankfulness and wonder. He exclaims over even worthless little scraps. Occasionally, when Zhuzhi-lang has managed to find something actually valuable, his eyes go wide and he runs home to bring it to his mother.

He comes back after each time with a peach or bun or bit of a pastry and feeds them to Zhuzhi-lang by hand.

“Mama says she is very grateful to my river monster,” he says, eyes sparkling, as he passes slices of a pear between Zhuzhi-lang’s deadly fangs. “She says you must be bringing us so much good luck.”

——

“Monster-gege!” Luo Binghe says. He runs to Zhuzhi-lang and throws his arms around him. Zhuzhi-lang cannot hug him back. The child is warm and soft against his deformed torso.

——

Zhuzhi-lang is very careful not to show himself in the human town.

They meet in the woods, close to the river. Zhuzhi-lang watches him for a while, and Luo Binghe chatters to him about this-and-that. A few hours every few weeks.

He aches to watch over Luo Binghe more personally, but he cannot. Luo Binghe is young enough now that any mention of Zhuzhi-lang is written off by the adults around him as childish imagination, but he won’t be for long.

“Cultivators came through town today,” Luo Binghe tells him upon one of their meetings. He has a long stick in his hand and he waves it around in what Zhuzhi-lang realises must be an imitation of a spiritual sword. “They looked so strong! Their robes were so shiny…” 

Zhuzhi-lang shudders.

——

Luo Binghe has a long, dark bruise that slides down along his jawbone all the way from ear to chin. His hands smell like stale human blood.

Zhuzhi-lang cannot ask who hurt him. He tries and only manages to groan. Luo Binghe smiles and tells him about the way he’s learning to wash clothes with his mother and how he can move fast enough to catch a frog with his hands. Zhuzhi-lang anxiously paces, the way he can pace now, slithering clumsily back and forth just beyond the tree line of the forest.

“Gege,” Luo Binghe says, tugging at one of Zhuzhi-lang’s useless arms. “Do you want to see? I’ll show you. I can catch three frogs.”

Zhuzhi-lang wants to burn the small town down around them until it is nothing but ash.

——

Luo Binghe grows older and he grows thinner. Humans in the town begin to whisper about the presence of Zhuzhi-lang’s snakes. He has not been subtle enough.

Fearful of a human making the connection between the snakes and the child in their midst, Zhuzhi-lang summons all but one of them back from their hiding places. He leaves the last in place at his home—just in case—but Luo Binghe’s best protection is no one realising he is anything less than fully human. 

——

Unable to watch over Luo Binghe when he is away, Zhuzhi-lang becomes anxious. He stays nearby more often, prepared for trouble. Luo Binghe begins to visit him every few weeks and then every few days instead of every few months, always looking excited to see his ‘Monster-gege’ even when his face is bruised and growing ever sharper from hunger. They spend more time together than Zhuzhi-lang should probably allow, but he can’t make himself stay away; not with Junshang ever more despondent, and Zhuzhi-lang’s attempts to help him ever more useless. Luo Binghe is bright and alive and wonderful. He tells the silent, slithering creature in the woods of his home about all his childish triumphs and follies. 

It’s springtime. The landscape along the river is lush and green. Zhuzhi-lang isn’t good at tracking time as humans do, but he marks it by how tall Luo Binghe grows. From a fawn into a deer, and a deer into a small donkey, always gangly and fluffy-haired. 

Zhuzhi-lang first hears his voice coming up what is now a familiar path to their meeting place. 

“—old you I’m not lying! There really is a spirit here, and he’s—he’s my friend!” 

Luo Binghe bursts from the underbrush, flushed and frowning in childish offence. After him come tumbling three other children, two smaller and one larger than him. 

Zhuzhi-lang does not expect them. Luo Binghe has never brought anyone else to see him, and he has always had his snakes to alert him of any incoming humans before. He is so surprised that he freezes instead of immediately fleeing. 

It gives the children time to see him. 

“See!” Luo Binghe says, throwing out an arm. “I am not lying!” 

One of the smaller children screams and takes off immediately the way it came. 

“Monster!” the other one cries, stumbling back. A noise builds in Zhuzhi-lang’s throat, distorted. 

“He’s not a monster,” Luo Binghe says, stomping his foot. “I told you, he’s a spirit, and he saved me. He’s not really scary—” 

“You’re such a fucking idiot, Binghe,” the larger child spits. It grabs the other small child and begins to back away. “That isn’t a spirit or a monster. It’s a demon! ” 

All three of the children flee, the screams of the first one echoing in the trees. 

“Wait!” Luo Binghe says. He looks, unsure, between Zhuzhi-lang and the fleeing children. “He’s not—” 

Zhuzhi-lang hisses and drops his head to the ground. He offers Luo Binghe another bow, the best he can manage. 

That child was old enough to know what he is. To be able to tell a human adult, who would tell a human cultivator, who would put Luo Binghe in danger. 

Luo Binghe is getting older already. It’s time for Zhuzhi-lang to let him grow up as a human. 

“Wait!” Luo Binghe says again. “Wait! Please don’t go! I’m, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean too—” 

Zhuzhi-lang slithers away, back through the forest and into the rushing river. The water drowns out his cousin’s cries. 

——

Luo Binghe comes back to their meeting spot every day for months. Humans swarm the forest for a few weeks, mostly villagers, although Zhuzhi-lang’s snakes report that one cultivator was called in, but found nothing but a distraught child with an imaginary friend. 

Luo Binghe keeps coming back to their meeting spot and calling for him. Zhuzhi-lang lingers out of sight and wishes he could go to him. He can’t. Somehow, whatever he does, he can never be there with the people that he loves. 

——

Zhuzhi-lang does not stop visiting Luo Binghe, but he does it out of sight now. He lingers downriver and sends one snake at a time to check on Luo Binghe and report back to him.

At first, it’s alright. Luo Binghe’s life progresses as it has for the last several years; difficult but livable. Safe enough. He is loved and cared for and surviving, until the day Zhuzhi-lang sends out a small garden snake that returns to tell him that Luo Binghe’s human ‘mother’ is sick. 

Suddenly, Luo Binghe is working twice as hard for half as much food. He takes over the laundry, the chores, the haggling at the market. He’s supporting them both, and trying to get her medicine, and Zhuzhi-lang can tell as well as his snakes can that the woman is dying. Luo Binghe will be left alone. 

Zhuzhi-lang cannot let that happen. He will not abandon Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe is alive, he’s right here , he isn’t trapped under a mountain or lost or dead or any of the other things that have taken Zhuzhi-lang’s family, one by one, until he is only a monster lying at the bottom of a river and uselessly watching a child be left alone in the world. 

Zhuzhi-lang cannot help Junshang. He cannot bring back Su Xiyan. And in this state, unable to speak or walk or move his hands or stand in sunlight without being burned, he cannot take care of Luo Binghe like his cousin needs. 

But he will find a way. 

Reluctantly, Zhuzhi-lang moves from his place in the river by Luo Binghe’s home. He will need to make a much farther trip than the distance between Bailu Mountain and this small river town. It will take time. He is slow and vulnerable in this form. 

Zhuzhi-lang leaves Luo Binghe with a single snake to watch over him and departs, for the first time since Junshang was sealed, for the demon realm.

Chapter Text

Zhuzhi-lang almost returns to Bailu Mountain.

He should report back to Junshang what has transpired. Communicating in this form is difficult, but he could at least try to use their code to sketch out the vague outlines of the situation, with enough effort. He is not afraid of the work it would take.

He is, however, afraid of what Junshang would say if he told him. He is only capable of so much disobedience.

The journey from the town where his cousin lives to any of the rifts between the demon and human realms is not a short one. Zhuzhi-lang departs at once without stopping to hunt or make a more coherent plan, spurred on by a frantic anxiety that settles into his flexible skeleton and sends him slithering like the beast he is.

Humans are fragile. Who knows how soon Luo Binghe may be without a human caretaker? And if his human ‘mother’ dies, and his only other free and living family member is a monster like Zhuzhi-lang, he will be truly, fully alone in the world.

Be it a way to free Junshang or a way to cure Luo Binghe’s human ‘mother,’ Zhuzhi-lang must take more drastic action if he wants to keep his cousin safe. The former would be preferable, but he has spent the ten years since Junshang’s imprisonment looking for options to free him and has yet to find success. He will never stop looking, but Luo Binghe’s safety is of immediate concern.

He travels night and day, despite the way the sun in the human realm burns his skin. By the time he arrives at the borderlands, his scales are lined with blisters that pop and rub against each other when he moves, and patches of his soft human-like flesh peel in a way he is only used to his scales doing during a shed. He is forced to find a damp, cool cave to sleep in for several days before he can continue on, lest his weakness be immediately exploited when he returns to his home.

Once, as Tianlang-jun’s general, demons everywhere shuddered at the sound of his approach. Now, he will be lucky if he is only attacked and not laughed out of the courts he once stalked in his uncle’s shadow.

The first place he goes is the Underground Palace. Some of the loyal servants sealed the palace after news of their emperor’s death, and this is not the first time Zhuzhi-lang has returned in the years that followed. At the very edge of the sprawling golden palace, now hidden at the ends of sealed tunnels, a woman dressed in black with a simple red huadian painted on her forehead meets him.

“General,” she calls him, bowing low, and passes him a brush to attempt to speak with.

He does his best to write what he means to ask using only his mouth, but although he can use his jaws better than his hands, his neck is still clumsy and his dexterity is poor. The characters come out large and sloppy, and when he’s done there is ink smeared down his chin and along his deformed cheeks.

“Medicine for a human?” she asks tentatively.

Zhuzhi-lang nods, relieved.

“The vaults hold many treasures,” she says, “But I do not know what would help a human and what would poison one. I doubt anyone left in the palace would, save for Junshang himself. I can send for the potions and artefacts we have that might be used?”

Zhuzhi-lang contemplates this. He doesn't know what has sickened Luo Binghe’s mother. He does not know what might cure her. And like this, he cannot go himself to bring her to a healer who might. A human would flee in fear, and a cultivator would kill him, if he was even able to approach the woman. And if she died anyway, he would no longer be able to help Luo Binghe.

His next request takes longer to formulate. When he is finished he drops the brush unhappily to the tunnel floor and wishes he could cough to remove ink from his mouth.

“… this one is truly sorry, General,” the woman says after reading over his nigh-eligible calligraphy with great care. “I don’t believe there is anything here that would do such a thing. Perhaps elsewhere you might find such a treasure or potion.”

In the end, he leaves with a rare panacea tucked into a small bag she ties around his neck, just in case.

——

His search takes him far and wide across the demon realms. Days and months blur and drag together as he heaves himself across the harsh landscapes of the South, unable and unwilling to venture into the freezing North. Because he cannot ask for what he is looking for from anyone without great effort, and most are not willing to work too hard to understand a pitiful demon who bares little resemblance to the once-feared Heavenly Demon General, his only tactic is to sit and listen until he hears something that might be relevant. Lead after lead turns up nothing.

He is in the southwest, travelling across a particularly inhospitable stretch of mountains in pouring rain, when the rocks under his feet suddenly turn liquid and crumble. He tumbles, thrown downhill, and lands at long last on a jutting plateau in a heap of mud and boulders.

When he finally pulls himself from the stones, he sees that the avalanche has partially covered a small wooden shrine. It is unusual to see such a sight in the demon realm—most demons despise the heavens as much as, if not more than, humans. But the rain is falling hard and fast and the mountains will remain treacherous until it stops. He slithers inside and curls up in the relatively dry interior.

There is a wooden statue at the shrine’s centre. A faceless figure brandishes a blade in one hand and a small flower in the other. Although it is dusty inside and there are no other signs of anyone’s recent presence, a stick of incense is lit and smoke drifts gently to the ceiling as though it was only just lit. Zhuzhi-lang curls his massive body in a coil around the statue and its pedestal and rests his head, watching the wafting smoke and the way the incense stick never seems to burn down.

On a whim, he lowers his head and sends a silent prayer to the god of this small, nameless temple. Perhaps his words can reach the heavens when he cannot speak them aloud. 

When night falls, a scraping noise from outside the shrine wakes him. The roof of the shrine caved in while he slept, but through it he can see the sky is now clear and dark, dotted with shining silver stars. The incense has gone out, and the world is still and quiet. 

The scraping noise comes again, and Zhuzhi-lang pokes his head out from his coils to look through the new gaps in the wooden structure. 

A young man stands outside, dressed in threadbare red robes. His skin is smooth and pale, no demonic huadian on his forehead or any other demonic features. He looks young, although that means very little here. Zhuzhi-lang himself looks barely past adolescence when he is not a deformed snake creature. 

“Hey,” the boy says, glancing up at him. 

Zhuzhi-lang stares back. 

“Do you mind clearing this?” the boy asks. He suddenly has a broom in one hand and a rag in the other, and he waves the broom at the pile of stones and broken planks of wood. 

Zhuzhi-lang thinks, then uncoils and begins to clear away the rubble with his body. A drop of kindness must be repaid with a flood. The shrine sheltered him for the day, so it’s only right that he helps clean it up in return. This person must be the shrine’s keeper and perhaps it's only attendee. Zhuzhi-lang doesn’t think many people must come to worship in such a distant place. Then again, he is here. 

They work in silence. The boy barely acknowledges him, dusting away and wiping moisture from the wood. When the rubble has been cleared, the floor swept, and the roof repaired, the boy lights a new stick of incense with a flick of his fingers and stands before the wooden idol with his head bent in prayer. Zhuzhi-lang lies still, oddly arrested by being allowed to see this silent moment. 

The young man straightens and places the incense in the holder. 

“This thing is a bit pathetic,” he says on a sigh. He turns and heads for the shrine’s open door.  “Snake,” he calls over his shoulder, not bothering to turn and look at Zhuzhi-lang. He’s fiddling with something small between his fingers. “This one suggests you go east from here. I hear the poison gardens are a sight to behold.” 

——

In the east, Zhuzhi-lang finds a valley full from cliff to river with blossoms of every colour. 

There are no animals to be seen, not even demonic ones. The flower’s toxins are so potent that most creatures would suffocate on their own blood the moment they set foot on the soft soil. The dead make excellent fertiliser for the beautiful blooms. Zhuzhi-lang spots more than a few skeletons wrapped in roots as he slithers through the tall grass. 

For a creature immune to every poison or toxin he has come across, it is a beautiful, silent place. Soft petals brush against his scales as he moves, and the air smells perfumed. 

Signs of life return as he nears the river. Young women pad through clusters of blossoms, collecting bright sprays of flowers in woven baskets. Succubi, born and raised in the deadly garden, capable of withstanding the myriad poisons of the valley and collecting the flowers to craft potions and spells. 

At the very centre of their settlement, a woman sits on a raised wooden platform, surrounded by pink and white blossoms. She waves a hand fan lazily, and motes of golden pollen drift through the air around her, making her skin shimmer as though lit from within. 

“Your Highness,” she says as he heaves himself up and onto the platform. Lanterns are lit around them, swaying softly. He settles himself before her and she clicks her tongue. “Oh, don’t give me that look. You’re a prince too, aren’t you?” 

Zhuzhi-lang cannot make facial expressions in this form. 

Madame Meiyin waves a hand and a succubi attendant steps forward carrying a tray. “Wine?” she asks. When he shakes his head, she shrugs and says, “Tea then.” 

The attendant places a fine teapot on the table between them, white jade so thin it is nearly transparent. She sets a cup of the same material before Madame Meiyin, and sets a wide, shallow bowl before Zhuzhi-lang. Madame Meiyin reaches across the table to pour steaming tea into the bowl for him, the liquid softly pink. 

“Drink,” she orders, and looks away politely when he lowers his face to drink from it like a dog from a water dish. 

“To what do I owe this visit from our former emperor’s best general?” she asks when they have both finished their tea. He stares at her and she nods as though he responded with words. 

“I see. Allow me.” 

She lifts the teapot and turns it upside down over his bowl, letting the leaves and blossoms fall in clumps across the pale surface. She studies the leaves, and whatever she sees there makes her hum. 

When she studies them for long moments, he grows impatient and hisses, bobbing his head. 

“Oh,” she says, although she had been lost in thought, “I have what you’re looking for. Tonghao?” 

A young succubus approaches with a velvet-lined tray. At its centre sits a simple jade pendant on a thin red chord. The pendant is black with a single vein of white stretching through its centre, carved into the shape of a butterfly being strangled, or perhaps embraced, by a caterpillar. 

Madame Meiyin meets his eyes for the first time since he approached her fragrant dias. “The general has been seeking a way to care for someone precious to him. This one is afraid to say she does not see that woman living in your future. Her time has come, as all mortals must. Instead, this Madame offers his Highness a transformation artefact, the only one of its kind. It is said a god once used it to return to humanity and live out a mortal lifespan alongside his lover.”

She reaches over and lifts it, hooked on one clawed finger, from the tray. “This Madame suggests his Highness take fate into his own hands,” she says. 

Zhuzhi-lang’s heart pounds harshly. What she’s suggesting… is it possible? He barely feels like a person much of the time without Junshang in front of him. But if Luo Binghe is left alone… could he take care of him? Raise him, as a human, if he had a body that could do so?

“Of course,” she continues, “I will gift this rare treasure to his Highness. But such a once in a lifetime artefact of the heavens is quite valuable, no?” 

Ah, the catch. He ponders if he might be able to kill her and take the necklace without the other succubi overpowering him. She tuts and waves her free hand, sending her bracelets chiming. 

“Don’t be so concerned. This one only asks for a small thing in return.” 

Zhuzhi-lang narrows his eyes, feeling the second eyelid in the left eye flick. 

“In the future,” Madame Meiyin says, dangling the pendant between them so it catches flickers of orange lantern light, “This one only asks that his Highness remember my people’s kind gesture and repay us with his favour over others.” 

Zhuzhi-lang’s other eye blinks and he tilts his head, but she doesn’t ask for anything more. He would hesitate, fearful of a trap, but… truly, is there anything at all he would deny her for this chance? Short of Junshang or his cousin’s lives, he has nothing left to lose. 

He bows his head to her and she smiles. “Be careful, your Highness,” she says as she sweeps to her feet in a flutter of pink robes and stray petals, stepping in close to him. “This pendant will not only change your shape, but also seal away your demonic abilities as long as you wear it. You will be undetectable to cultivators and demons alike, but your power will be barely a fraction of what it once was.” 

He leans forward towards her and Madame Meiyin drapes the red chord around his neck with no small amount of ceremony.

“This one wishes you all the best on your quest, your Highness,” Madame Meiyin says, the brush of her fingers petal-soft. 

The moment the transformation takes, the poison of the valley knocks him deeply unconscious. 

——

Zhuzhi-lang wakes on a grassy hill to clear, sweet air. He groans, his head pounding from crown to spine. When he opens his eyes, sunlight momentarily blinds him. 

He rolls over and presses his face to the earth. He holds himself up on soft palms and thin wrists. Long hair, black and silky, sticks in his mouth. He flexes his jaw and feels blunt human teeth grind together. He pushes himself up and finds himself able to stand on two feet for the first time in a decade. Someone has dressed him in a rough-spun grey robe and sturdy boots. His limbs move when and where he commands them, fluid and painless. His mouth tastes like honey. He squints against the blinding sun—blinding but not painful—and determines he is back in the south, near the sealed Underground Palace. And, most importantly, not too far from one of the human realm’s borders. 

Zhuzhi-lang turns to face the rolling hills behind him and kneels down into a deep bow. “This one will be sure to repay Madame’s kindness,” he says. His voice is rough with disuse, but his tongue forms the words easily. 

——

The demon realm is much more dangerous as something like a human, but as a boon he can now walk more quickly on two feet and travel during the day without pain. He stays out of sight of others as much as possible as he travels to the border, and the few who approach him aren’t strong enough to overpower him even in this softer, weaker form. It is not exactly like when he travelled with Junshang in a healthy heavenly demon’s form maintained by his uncle, but it is not so different either. 

Things are a bit different once he crosses over through a rift and returns to the human realm. He needs food that he is no longer able to hunt as easily, and humans expect him to speak and act as one of them, a skill which he has grown clumsy at. Sometimes, humans ask where his parents are. More often they avoid looking at him, which is most familiar. 

He finds the Luo River and follows along its path until he reaches the familiar town. It was fall when he left, and it is spring now. It is hard to say how much time has passed, only that, as he strides through streets he has only seen through the eyes of his snakes before, some things seem different than he remembers them. 

Things like Luo Binghe’s home, which stands grey and empty along the river’s bank. 

Zhuzhi-lang pushes aside the curtain that served as a door and looks inside the small structure. A bowl lays upturned on the floor, some past remnant of a meal now turned to a dry film over the grey wood. An empty bed, two empty rooms. A layer of dust, undisturbed for some time. The roof has completely caved in in what was once the kitchen, which is likely why the house remains unoccupied. Or perhaps it is haunted by old ghosts. 

Too late.  

Zhuzhi-lang leaves the house in a daze. Surely—surely Luo Binghe is still here. Is somewhere else in town, sheltering somewhere warmer and safer. It is spring, which means it was just winter, which means he must have found something, or else— 

A soft hiss breaks him from the distant haze of panic. He looks down and finds a small brown snake winding around his feet. 

The last remaining servant he left to look after his cousin. 

He snatches the snake up, his own lips curling in a hiss he doesn’t have the throat-structure to vocalise anymore. 

He is pleased to discover he can still understand it, despite his sealed power. Something of what he is remains under the spell of the pendant, which rests cool and heavy against his heart. 

Gone , it tells him. Seasons passed . The woman passed. He left.

Zhuzhi-lang kills it for allowing him to leave without following. He runs back into town and grabs the first person he passes by the sleeve and demands, “Where is Luo Binghe? Where did he go?” 

It takes several attempts before someone can tell him. 

“That boy?” the butcher says, looking at Zhuzhi-lang with raised brows as he passes a parcel of pork out to a customer. “Why are you looking for someone like that?” 

“He’s my cousin,” Zhuzhi-lang says, his lips feeling numb.

“Ah,” the butcher says, and his expression morphs into a frown. “I’m sorry about your aunt, then. It was… three years ago or so, right? Saw the boy before he went. He was talking about finding a cultivation sect to take him in, doing some work to make enough for travel provisions. Probably went northwest, to Cang Qiong—that’s closest. Don’t imagine he made it there though.”

“Cang Qiong Mountain Sect,” Zhuzhi-lang says. 

The butcher shrugs. “That’s what I’d say.” 

“I see. Thank you for the information.” Zhuzhi-lang offers him a shallow bow and turns to leave at once. 

“Hey,” the butcher calls after him, “If you’re looking for your cousin, I wouldn’t go there! Cultivators are all strange, and there’s no way some scrap from our town made it to the mountain alive, let alone up it. If you want to find him, you’re better off checking out the way there, assuming he made it that far.” 

Zhuzhi-lang does not dignify that with a response. Luo Binghe is a heavenly demon, the prince of an entire realm. If he went to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, that will be where he is now.

The problem will be reaching him.

Chapter Text

The towns on the road from the Luo River to Cang Qiong Mountain are sparse and quiet. Although Zhuzhi-lang has no doubt that his young cousin has made it all the way to the mountain, he dutifully stops in each and every one to make sure he isn’t there. Muddy little boys infest the streets like rabbits, but none of them are the one he’s looking for.

It takes him many more days of walking to reach one of the towns at the foot of Cang Qiong Mountain. It looks large beyond the foothills, grey cliffs and small, twisting trees. The day he arrives the sky is grey and the clouds hang low enough that they cover the high peaks, making it appear like the mountain sect indeed disappears into the heavens.

Well, he is half heavenly-demon. Perhaps it is apt that this is the sect where he and his young cousin find themselves.

In Shuang Hu City he has no further luck finding any word of Luo Binghe among the locals.

“Hundreds of kids come through here each year hoping to make it up the mountain,” a human woman tells him. “And hundreds of them leave disappointed, if they even make it to the entrance tests without starving, getting run off, or giving up while they wait.” She pets his hair consolingly at whatever expression he makes at that.

He’s had to find an actual building to stay in after coming here; the streets have many other people living on them, and after the second time he was run off when trying to sleep under a closed stall’s awning (sleep being something he’s discovered he needs a lot more of now, if he doesn’t want to begin to see things that aren’t there) he decided to try his luck at the first familiar building he found.

The brothel is well appointed, two stories high and covered in colourful curtains and bobbing red lanterns. The women inside are well dressed and sweet smelling, serving alcohol and little snacks to the human men who frequent it. When he traveled the human world with Junshang they often stayed in such places, when they weren’t camping together under the open sky. Junshang liked to flirt with the women, and Zhuzhi-lang liked to be warm and listen to the music.

He doesn’t have any gold anymore, but after enduring a lot of fluttering and cooing and bartering some of his own skills with the eldest woman who worked there, he’s been staying on a mat in the kitchen. The kitchen is warm, and he quietly takes care of any mice who try to intrude as well, even if it isn’t a job anyone has given him.

“Does this look like someone here to make trouble?” One of the women had asked on the day he arrived, taking him by the chin and shaking his face in the direction of the woman who ran the establishment. “What a baby face.”

“We don’t give out free samples, you know,” another said scoldingly, shaking a finger at him. “Not even for cute kitchen boys.”

He’d stared at her, unblinking and uncomprehending. “Samples of what?”

There was a lot of giggling after that.

So they’d let him stay, to wash dishes and scrub floors and, in the evenings, to recite poetry. It’s strange. Even when Junshang’s power kept him humanoid enough not to be run out of cities (often), he hadn’t interacted much with humans. He couldn’t let them get close enough to see the beastly features that his uncle hadn’t been able to fully hide. Now, even when humans aren’t kind to him, they let him close easily. And some… can be kinder than he thought.

Now he frowns down at the soap on his hands and the wooden bowl he’s scrubbing with a rag. It’s doing interesting things to his fingers; making them wrinkle in ways they never have before. “He is definitely on the mountain.”

“Don’t worry,” another woman says, coming into the kitchen in a flutter of silky fabric. “I bet you could ask on the mountain, if you wanted. It might take a while, but sometimes Peak Lord Mu Qingfang even descends to treat commoners in the towns and cities along the foothills. You could wait until he comes here, or see if you can find a disciple willing to take a message up.”

“Or you could go there yourself,” another woman says. She gives him an assessing look. “Try your hand at the entrance exams.”

“Jie, don’t encourage him!”

“Why not? If his brother’s not there, it’s not like he can’t leave. They throw kids off the mountain all the time, too.”

“Cousin,” Zhuzhi-lang says softly, and is ignored.

“You’re gonna get the poor kid’s hopes up. His brother probably isn’t even in the Sect.”

“Luo Binghe is on Cang Qiong Mountain,” Zhuzhi-lang says decisively.

One of the ladies frowns, tapping her chin. “Luo Binghe, Luo Binghe… hey, jie, isn’t that one of the little children who came here when the Skinner demon was attacking girls?”

Another gasps, hand going to her mouth. “Was he really? Didi, what does your brother look like?”

“Cousin,” Zhuzhi-lang says. “He is… small. His hair is curly. His eyes turn down, like mine, but larger and rounder.”

“There was a little boy with curly hair here!” another says, snapping her fingers.  “I noticed because he was so darling, with the doe eyes and curls, like a little sheep. One of the Qing Jing Peak disciples.”

Zhuzhi-lang puts down his washing. His heart races, spine tingling.

“You saw him?”

“I did, I did!” she confirms. “Wow, I can’t believe it. What are the chances, huh?”

“When is the entrance test?” Zhuzhi-lang asks.

The women exchange glances he can’t read, brows furrowed and leaning into one another.

“It happens every year,” one says, biting hesitantly at her nails.

“Three weeks,” another finally says.

Zhuzhi-lang turns to her, bows low and deep, and turns back to his pile of dishes. “Thank you.”

A soft, human hand ruffles his hair. He flinches at the sudden touch, but it’s light. The way Junshang sometimes used to put a broad palm on his head and shake him.

“That’s ‘thank you, jiejie ,’ to you, brat,” the woman says. She has a beauty mark under her eye. It’s the only way Zhuzhi-lang can tell her apart from the others. Humans all look very… earth toned, and round. Round teeth, round ears, round fingers.

——

He stays at the Pavilion for three weeks, cleaning and fetching and carrying. A few days before the exam a man patronizing the brothel puts a hand on Zhuzhi-lang’s thigh through his worn robes, and he snaps his wrist. After that, the eldest brothel lady politely asks him to leave, so he spends the last few days of his wait sleeping in the woods just outside of town. He dedicates himself mostly to sleeping and finding food, because he needs so much of both now, and he wants to be strong to face whatever lies ahead. He hunts small game, re-learning how to catch and kill prey with round human fingers. When he successfully kills a deer this way, he washes the blood off in a small stream and leaves it for the ladies at the brothel, in thanks for sheltering him.

The city has gotten more and more crowded as the days go by. The brothel lady was right; there are many children coming to take the same test that he will be attempting. Some of them come in fine carriages, with processions of servants. Others come like him, like Luo Binghe must have, alone and dressed in rags. Most of them are smaller than him, which he supposes is an advantage.

On the last day he joins hundreds of children in climbing the steps up into the clouds.

They lose some of the applicants on the stairs. The air thins, and the steps show no signs of ending. Zhuzhi-lang’s legs ache, his lungs burn, his eyes feel very dry. The weakness that comes with humanity is quite different from the weakness he feels in his original form, and he’s not sure which he prefers. Certainly both would have problems climbing this many stairs.

After an hour’s climb, the crowd of prospective disciples thinned. Perhaps a hundred and fifty make it all the way to the top. Before them stretches a wide open piece of land, stripped clear of all but the scraggliest of plant life.

A group of cultivators stand at the front, dressed in gold. For a moment his heart races and the fangs he no longer has seem to press against his tongue. But no, these cultivators have blue underrobes, and the gold isn’t as fine. They look more tired than aggressive, swords sheathed at their wastes, brushes and bamboo scrolls in their hands. Above them, on a slightly higher cliff overlooking this plateau, is a long, thin pagoda where more cultivators in differently coloured robes, young and old, mill around.

“Form lines,” one of them shouts as the plateau fills with tired applicants. “Single-file, no shoving! If I see a single kid go over the side of this cliff, whoever pushed them is getting tossed down after them.”

The cultivators spread out and direct the applicants into three lines, one to each of them. Zhuzhi-lang obediently shuffles into one of the lines, allowing the push and pull of the crowd to move him. There is whispering, arguing, and shoving all around him, and he blocks it out in favor of looking up, up, up. Higher up the mountain, where Luo Binghe will be.

He doesn’t realize he’s reached the front until the cultivator clears their throat. His gaze retrains on them, and they raise an eyebrow.

“Any Sect affiliations?”

“… No,” he says.

“Great. Family?”

“…I have an uncle.”

“Right,” the cultivator says, making a mark. “Alright, go pick a spot and start digging.” They flick their brush at the stretch of solid earth around them. He can see a number of children already choosing spots and beginning to dig into the earth. Some of them have shovels, although none are offered by the cultivators making their lists. There doesn’t seem to be a trick to it; or if there is, no one else is showing it. He chooses his own spot in the sun to get started.

It’s as he crouches on the ground that he realizes he is at least a head taller than every other child in his vicinity. He also appears to be the only one without baby-fat on his face… Much baby fat. What seemed a tactical advantage during the walk up suddenly makes him feel distinctly out of place.

There is nothing to be done, though. He looks at the barren ground, around at the children and cultivators one last time, then digs his round human fingers into the soil and starts to dig.

——

The sun crawls through the sky. Occasionally, Zhuzhi-lang looks up to see fewer children around him. He doesn’t offer them much thought.

His mindless focus is interrupted by a pair of black boots, approaching him between the other small bodies huddled close to the ground. They’re very fine, tall and sturdy, with silver filigree tapped into the leather.

The black-booted feet come to a stop in front of him. Zhuzhi-lang looks up from his hole but doesn’t stop digging. The person standing over him is tall. From this angle, his broad shoulders block out the sun, his face back-lit and indistinct as golden hour falls over the remaining digging hopeful participants.

“Hello,” the man says. Then, “You may stop digging.”

Zhuzhi-lang reluctantly slows his pace but does not stop. He blinks up at the man, and slowly his vision resolves. He can make out a strong jaw, black and silver robes, arms folded neatly behind his back. At his hip, the silver glint of a blade’s hilt.

It is the blade that catches on his memory and sticks. Zhuzhi-lang stares at it as the man kneels and catches his hands. Dirt smears across both of their palms, and the sight breaks Zhuzhi-lang from the rushing in his ears in time to hear the man’s next words. Yue Qingyuan’s words. With the revelation in mind, Zhuzhi-lang recognizes him. He was younger when they last met, just as tall but thinner, his face still retaining traces of softness.

“May this master ask your name?” he says.

Zhuzhi-lang stares at him, unable to find words.

Should he kill him? The cause of all of Junshang’s suffering these last long years, standing here in front of him. Zhuzhi-lang could sink his fangs into his throat before the man could draw his sword. Not even an immortal cultivator could survive his most deadly venom delivered straight into his bloodstream. His heart would liquify, and Zhuzhi-lang could eat him, or bring his body back to Junshang as a prize.

His jaw clenches, flexing phantom fangs. That’s right, his teeth are blunt now. He is human. If he wants power, he will have to remove his disguise. And he will have to give up on finding Luo Binghe. Trapped on these mountains with the man who was almost his father’s murdered; Luo Binghe must be suffering. If Zhuzhi-lang kills the Sect Leader, he will not be able to stay and protect him.

“Zhangmen-shixiong can’t be serious.”

Another voice cuts in and Zhuzhi-lang realises that Yue Qingyuan is not alone. A second cultivator stands behind him like his shadow, nearly hidden by the other man; he’s pale enough to look sallow, dressed in flowing green robes and holding a painted folding fan.

Where Yue Qingyuan’s face is soft and open with false kindness, this man’s is twisted into a sneer. “If you wanted another assistant, there are dozens of useless children here with a hundred times the potential. Why seek out the filthiest?”

Yue Qingyuan’s eyes crinkle in a smile. “Shidi’s wisdom is appreciated, but this master would like to speak to this applicant, if the young man doesn’t mind.” His gaze remains fixed on Zhuzhi-lang, dark eyes uncomfortably piercing.

Regardless of his personal feelings, he must act the part of a hopeful disciple if he wants to find his cousin. Zhuzhi-lang ducks his head in a shallow bow. It’s not proper, but in this form he can plead ignorance if he fails to bow fully to the man he last saw wielding the blinding blade that sealed away his lord and master.

“This one… this one is called Su Zhuzhi, honoured cultivator.”

The pale cultivator scoffs. “Honored cultivator? This child doesn’t even know who he’s addressing. And ‘child’ is generous.”

Zhuzhi-lang keeps his eyes on the ground until a gentle touch on his shoulder startles him. He looks up and finds Yue Qingyuan smiling at him with a hand lightly on his arm. He guides him to standing, and Zhuzhi-lang becomes aware he is indeed filthy; dirt and mud coating robes that have already seen several months of nearly uninterrupted travel.

“No need to be so formal. How old are you, Su-gongzi?”

Zhuzhi-lang blinks at him and misses the familiar flicker of his second set of eyelids. Think of a normal human age.

“Fourteen?” He offers.

The pale man scoffs again. “If this wretch is a day under sixteen, I’m the lord of Huan Hua palace.”

Zhuzhi-lang frowns at the mention of those people. Yue Qingyuan shows no upset at the other man’s correction. “Sixteen isn’t too late to learn, if Su-gongzi is willing to put in the work. Tell me, why do you want to learn to cultivate on Cang Qiong Mountain?”

So that next time you try to seal someone precious to me under a mountain, I can eat you, Zhuzhi-lang does not say. Instead he looks down at feet and furrows his brow.

“This one… has someone precious he would like to protect. This person has been kept far from this one for a long time, and this one has not been strong enough to reach him and to keep him safe. At Cang Qiong, I could learn… to be the sort of person who can protect those close to my heart from anything.”

There is silence from the two men. When his statement gets no response he glances up anxiously. Maybe that kind of loyalty is too foreign for cultivators to understand? He should have thought of that.

The pale cultivator certainly looks angry. He’s glaring, at Zhuzhi-lang but also at Yue Qingyuan, an expression so icy it beats out both Su Xiyan the Old Palace Master for coldest glares Zhuzhi-lang has seen. Yue Qingyuan, though, is making a face that Zhuzhi-lang doesn’t know enough about humans to interpret. He looks up at the man, and Yue Qingyuan holds his gaze. Zhuzhi-lang reminds himself to blink and to keep his tongue in his mouth.

Then, Yue Qingyuan smiles, wide enough that his eyes squint closed. “This Sect Leader would like to extend an offer to join Cang Qiong Mountain Sect as a disciple of Qiong Ding.”

“No!” Zhuzhi-lang blurts, and then slaps a hand over his own mouth. The pale man’s eyebrows go up.

Of all the Peaks of Cang Qiong, Qiong Ding is where Zhuzhi-lang least wants to be! If he has to see this man every day, how can he be expected not to eat him to avenge Tianlang-jun? And anyways, that is not the peak Luo Binghe is on.

“No?” The pale cultivator echoes. He flicks open his folding fan just to wave it at the Sect Leader. “Too old to be a good cultivator, too ragged to represent the sect well, and he’s refusing an offer from the lord of Cang Qiong? You really know how to pick them, Zhangmen-shixiong.” He turns his sharp gaze back onto Zhuzhi-lang. “Do you think some other peak will take a worthless excuse for a disciple like you, hm?”

Zhuzhi-lang swallows. His hands bunch, against his will, in the fabric of his borrowed robe.

“No. This one meant no disrespect. This one would be honored to serve Qiong Ding Peak. It is only… I…” He feels like coiling up under that glare. “I was told to come to Cang Qiong to try to impress the lord of Qing Jing Peak.”

Qing Jing is where Binghe is. That’s where Zhuzhi-lang will be able to protect him.

The man’s nose wrinkles, and he barks an unexpected laugh. “Do you know who the lord of Qing Jing is, you little creature?”

Zhuzhi-lang bites his tongue with his blunt, human teeth. “No, esteemed master.”

“Do you play the qin?”

Zhuzhi-lang shakes his head.

“Erhu? Pipa? Xiao?”

“No, esteemed master.”

“Can you draw calligraphy?”

“No, esteemed master.”

“Do you know the classics of poetry or historical epics? Can you play weiqi, paint a landscape, do mathematics?”

Zhuzhi-lang’s face is hot. He shakes his head. The man scoffs.

“Can you read? Have you seen an instrument?”

“I can read.” He’s read lots of books aloud to Tianlang-jun. “And I have seen them played in brothels.”

For some reason, this makes Yue Qingyuan’s cheeks go pink and the other man laughs again.

Yue Qingyuan frowns at his companion. “Qingqiu…”

The cultivator, Qingqiu?, fans himself lightly. “Then how,” he asks, “Do you intend to impress the lord of the scholar’s peak?”

“... this one can name many kinds of demons, and many maps of the world. And I can quote from memory literary classics from many lands, like Ruyijun Zhuan and Jin Ping Mei. ”

Yue Qingyuan makes a choking noise. “ The Lord of P— ”

Qingqiu’s fan slaps against the center of the Sect Leader’s chest. Something like a hard-edged smile flits over his face. “I take it all back. Zhangmen-shixiong, you should certainly take in this disciple.”

He draws the fan back and steps away from both of them, his expression hardening over. “After all, this Lord of Qing Jing Peak will certainly not have him.”

The man, the Lord of Qing Jing, turns in a swirl of green silks and walks away.

Yue Qingyuan regards him, then reaches out a hand and pats him gently on the shoulder. “Don’t take it to heart. The peak of scholars may not be a good fit, but if you would still like to find a place on Cang Qiong, Qiong Ding will take you. There is nothing you need to know that cannot be taught on our peak.”

Zhuzhi-lang struggles not to curl away from the hand of the Sect Leader. His eyes lock onto Xuan Su at his side. The sword that took away the happiness of the most important person in the world.

But, Zhuzhi-lang has another important person to protect. He cannot do anything for the Demon Emperor sealed under a mountain. But he can keep his baby cousin from meeting the same fate.

Zhuzhi-lang bows, almost as low as he would to his own master. “If Sect Leader Yue would have me, this lowly one accepts.”