Chapter Text
PEERLESS CUCUMBER: but if you look at what Airplane suggests in volume 23, chapter 76, paragraphs 5, 23, and 69, it is CLEAR to anybody with a working brain that Luo Binghe is once again faced with a macguffin in the form of a nubile young maiden, instead of any interesting or challenging puzzle.
ITS MELON TIME: i keep meaning to ask this but how did you manage to read so much of a book that you hate so much
I'LL CHANGE MY NAME WHEN THEY FIX AST: sunk cost fallacy
PEERLESS CUCUMBER: Airplane is going to disappoint us again but i keep hoping that this time Luo Binghe will be able to use one of the many many overpowered abilities Airheadplane shoveled on him-- like what if he actually does the temple puzzles? Instead of the temple maiden? For instance
ITS MELON TIME: okay someone tell me when Cucumber Bro is done, I'm doing dailies if anybody wants to do roulettes with me?
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I'LL CHANGE MY NAME WHEN THEY FIX AST: yeah wait i gotta change jobs im on whm
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ITS MELON TIME: …hey speaking of lost cause fallacy
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I'LL CHANGE MY NAME WHEN THEY FIX AST: sunk cost
ITS MELON TIME: i said what i said
I'LL CHANGE MY NAME WHEN THEY FIX AST: fuck u
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Luo Binghe has spent several years trying to figure out what relationship Shizun and Shang-shishu have -- as far as he could remember, they spent most of their time being distantly polite to each other, and then suddenly after he found out that Shang-shishu was actually under Mobei-jun's control they also, equally as suddenly, started to fight like two cats on the same pillow. You couldn't say that they were fond of each other, but it was clear that they knew each other very, very well.
Luo Binghe doesn't like it.
He's spent half his life making it so that Shizun has no choice but to love him the best, to spend the most time around him, to know him the best. Even if he isn't known by Shizun the best, the thought of someone else knowing Shizun better than him is simply not to be tolerated.
Fortunately he has several advantages over Shang-shishu, one of which is his demon-grade hearing, so he pretends to be folding (fondling) Shizun's laundry while Shinzun and Shang-shishu drink tea.
"You ruined my son," says Shang-shishu.
Son? What son? Luo Binghe makes a mental note to find out who this son of Shang-shishu can be. For one thing, he's positive that Mobei-jun also has no idea who this son is, or that Shang-shishu has one, and he will be very interested in this information. Also, frankly, Luo Binghe really wants to know who on earth would let Shang-shishu's cold ratty hands near them long enough to conceive one.
Shizun drops in the weird dialect that he mysteriously shares with Shang-shishu, despite Luo Binghe's careful investigations proving that the two of them had scarcely talked until after he himself had arrived at the peak and Shizun had suffered his mysterious illness. It's not quite like the language Luo Binghe is used to hearing people speak. It's close, certainly, but it's just enough different that even now he has to use context to guess what some words are. "Like hell I did. You ruined him yourself the first time you wrote a scene with --"
"I needed money, bro! Some of us weren't trust fund babies! Anyway it was fine until you got your hands on him!"
"Oh it was, was it," says Shizun, in a particularly nasty way that he reserved for Shang-shishu. It was a bit like two quarreling children and a bit more like a wife about to list the reasons why she regretted marrying in. "Let me tell you --"
Luo Binghe listens so intently that he somehow manages to scrape the laundry basket on the floor. He freezes, hoping against hope that Shizun hadn't noticed, but Shizun can be very observant when Luo Binghe is particularly trying to get away with something.
Both Shizun and Shang-shishu fall silent. Then, in the next moment Shizun calls out, "Binghe ah, why are you still inside? Go outside and get some fresh air."
Luo Binghe despises fresh air. If he could, he would make a little room full of all of the things that smelled like Shizun -- the fresh crisp scent of bamboo, the spice-sweet perfume of his waist bag, his underclothing that smelled a tiny bit like human sweat and skin -- and nest in it.
Still, if Shizun says he has to go outside, Luo Binghe will go outside. But he knows whose fault this is. "Of course, Shizun," he says, keeping his voice as sweet and gentle as he can. "I know you have important things to discuss with Shang-shishu. Secret things. That your disciple shouldn't pry into. I'll just go and sweep out the shed."
Both Shizun and Shang-shishu stare at him, and then Shang-shishu turns and stares at Shizun. "You made him into a green tea!"
"I did not!" shouts Shizun. "Volume 56, chapter 98!"
"What about it!"
"You wrote it!" Shizun stops for a second, looks over at Luo Binghe again, a little guilty, and says, "Binghe ah, can you do Shizun a favor and bring your Ning-shijie the scroll about perfumes I promised her?"
Luo Binghe goes, but he keeps one ear open, and is rewarded by Shizun yelling at Shang-shishu: "He was a green tea bitch in the text and you know it!"
"Maybe he was, but you still liked him!" hollers Shang-shishu. "Don't think I don't know who Amazing Zucchini was! I know who sent those submarines every time my son was a bitch to someone you didn't like!!"
"Prove it!!" Shizun yells back. "Prove it, you ratty little hack!!!"
ITS MELON TIME: well that run sure did happen.
I'LL CHANGE MY NAME WHEN THEY FIX AST: xbox tanks are the woooorst
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IT'S MELON TIME: uh is cucbro still ….?
CATGIRL TO CRACKED EGG PIPELINE: wait how long has he been typing?
I'LL CHANGE MY NAME WHEN THEY FIX AST: well the run took us like forty minutes so
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CATGIRL TO CRACKED EGG PIPELINE: i logged in about twenty minutes ago and he was typing then
I'LL CHANGE MY NAME WHEN THEY FIX AST: god help us