Chapter Text
There are many ways Shang Qinghua expected his life to take a sharp left and veer off the nearest cliff; however, this was not how he expected it to happen.
Over the three or four decades (and some change; honestly time starts to mean less when you don’t age anymore) that the author Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky– the person whose hand set this entire world into rolling, into being – had been here, he’d had war flashbacks of every imagined atrocity, every cheap plot trick, every god-awful flower or plot device suddenly being thrown into his face and ruining his life. The man(ice demon) who was going to kill him– literally if you looked at the original plot– had lorded over half those waking nightmares entirely on his own! The protagonist in question subsisted a high percentage of Shang Qinghua’s daily anxiety as well, considering Shang Qinghua himself, by hand, had both written and knew exactly what would eventually be going through that boy’s mind, but it was never like this.
Luo Binghe was a character. He was composed of words on a page; he was a male power fantasy. He was the most basic of character arcs– hurt, harmed, beaten, and bruised, Luo Binghe grew to get revenge on those who wronged him, to twist their arms and drive his truly OP sword Xin Mo through their hearts.
Satisfying for the readers, you know.
Luo Binghe bedded every woman he wanted, Luo Binghe was a king who could claim anything he liked, Luo Binghe was an orphan who climbed the ladder and righted all his wrongs, Luo Binghe burnt the world to rebuild it better, in his own image.
Staring at his protagonist, barely sixteen years old, covered in the blood and viscera of the Endless Abyss’ many constantly warring Abyssal Beasts, holding a piece of a massive shattered rib bone that nearly dwarfed him in a desperate attempt to defend himself… Shang Qinghua felt… bad.
Not that he’d never felt bad about his trash-ass writing before; he felt bad WHILE writing it, fuck, living it, knowing plain well whatever story he’d wanted to tell had been swallowed up by bouncing beauties, pillars that touched the heavens, and glistening bosoms.
But here, next to his favorite character and staring at his protagonist-son, his insides were twisted painfully with a whole new type of bad.
It had been a sudden plot trinket, something so minor and inconspicuous, that he couldn’t really blame Mobei-jun for reaching for it without a second thought. It was this stupid little horsetail brush, so simple but Shang Qinghua had recognized it immediately by the intricate Abyssal Beast carved into the side. It was obviously for a wife of Luo Binghe’s, so she could help him out of a dire situation, only to need protection from beasts who were hungry for bosoms with a proclivity towards shredding clothes, but, well, it had apparently ended up in the treasure coffers of the Northern Palace at some point.
He’d only had the time to grab one of his king’s sleeves in an attempt to keep that hand from touching it, only to be whisked into the Endless Abyss right beside his boss.
And right into the path of the protagonist in his mission of “get traumatized for seven years, come back a million times stronger with a sword that can rip time from space.”
Mobei-jun seemed to pause in whatever slap he’d intended on landing against the back of Shang Qinghua’s head while the both of them stared down at the teen, who stared right back with wide red eyes. Despite the howling Abyssal soundtrack that could burst the eardrums of a non-cultivator, the constant movements of indecipherably horrible creatures larger than ocean liners in the background, and the viscera staining up to his knees from whatever remains they were standing in, time freezes .
Binghe looks… awful, honestly. His demon mark is freshly branded against his forehead, pulsing wildly with whatever emotions must be bouncing around in that skull. His hair is matted, slick curls struggling to hold shape through the heavy disgust he’s probably been wallowing in for days, or weeks now– how long ago was the immortal conference again??
His robes are long since trashed from the stains, tinted various colors of purples so dark they’re black, actual black, and fresh brilliant reds. Come on, Luo Binghe got his new color scheme from some where after all!
Well.
It had been cool, in the story.
Now it was just. Wrong.
The character Luo Binghe and the child Luo Binghe before him. The disconnect between them is almost staggering, like bamboo cut with a particularly sharp sword, and in the process of sliding apart, the two images scrape together in his mind jarringly. He never went into depth with the Endless Abyss, except for the couple of hot babes Luo Binghe had needed to lay to get through various challenges, and then of course the experience of finding Xin Mo.
It was satisfying to see him learn with each scene; each pop-in had been a new skill, a new woman, the sword, a new quest. But books don’t talk about every day in between those moments.
To see him mid trauma-arc… It kind of fucking sucks, actually.
He looks just like every disciple on Shang Qinghua’s peak, even the head disciple he loves so dearly– young, terrified, fighting for his life. Like the white lotus he’d been before Cucumber-bro had to toss his ass down to actual Hell; the soft sweet white lotus, now spattered with blood and stepped on.
Luo Binghe, the teen in front of them and not the character, is the first to make a move, his bone weapon lowering minutely. Mobei-jun’s eyes track the movement like a hawk, while Shang Qinghua can’t look away from the newly red eyes that bore into his.
First they seem confused, horrified, unseeing, as though the kid had entirely shuttered into survival mode down here– and then they flick into recognition, upset, and the worst possible one to see– relief.
The System hasn’t said anything yet, Shang Qinghua doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to take Luo Binghe out of the Endless Abyss. His whole fucking growth arc into the blackened protagonist happens here!
Panicking, Shang Qinghua tries to summon the glowing screen reminiscent of his old laptop screen, but the System makes a sound that gives him flashbacks to accidentally hitting “sticky keys” on his computer.
“Shang-shishu?” Luo Binghe asks with a croak, his voice sounding like he’s been crying for days on end. Somehow it’s still audible over the howling of the monsters blotting out the dark red horizon like shadow figures behind him. A hard breath causes those shoulders to twitch and then shake with a vicious sob, huge fat tears rolling from his eyes down his cheeks. It wrenches at Shang Qinghua’s gut to see how quickly the protagonist melts, like the kid had been barely holding on and staying strong in hopes he’d be rescued soon, and now after struggling to survive for days or weeks, help had seemingly arrived.
“Sh-Shang-shishu, my Shizun -” He hiccups, his eyebrows pulling together pathetically, then twisting with rage again once he seems to register who’s standing less than three feet to the left of his shishu.
“Y… YOU. ” Oh, shit . “You’re– the one who caused this! Who caused– you caused EVERYTHING!” The teen cries through his wrecked throat, the tears blurring his eyes enough that when he points his rib-blade, it’s several inches off-center.
Mobei-jun hardly acknowledges him, only the twitch and accompanying jingle of earrings from one of his powder-blue pointed ears betray the fact he heard it at all. The silence seems to spur Binghe on even more though, causing the previous sweat gathering in Shang Qinghua’s palms to only increase.
“Have you ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE ?? YOU RUINED MY LIFE. YOU RUINED HUNDREDS OF LIVES!” Luo Binghe screeches, rubbing a filthy sleeve across his face, and only succeeding in smearing what had already dried to tackiness in both areas.
“Shishu, is he holding you captive?! Quickly, come over to my side, we can hold him off long enough to escape!!”
Ah, to be what few soft petals remain of the white lotus! He doesn’t even know Shang Qinghua played a pretty solid part in the conference– honestly, a majority of it actually! The last time he’d seen Shang Qinghua, he’d been thrown into a tree and was playing dead on the ground... The sect would eventually kick his Shang-shishu's ass to the streets for being a shitlord and ever so gently causing the death of several hundreds of the newest most promising disciples from nearly every major sect.
He tries not to think about it! They were probably nameless cannon fodder, he has to keep reminding himself!
But regardless, Luo Binghe wasn't meant to find out Shang Qinghua had been a truly egregious traitor until he met Mobei-jun the normal way, in the process of his underworld takeover...
Awkwardly, especially once one of Mobei-jun’s beautiful eyebrows arches with a side eye in his direction, Shang Qinghua laughs. Then realizes that was fucking stupid, because both the demons(one’s only a half demon but he counts) in his presence seem to pause.
Clearing his throat hurriedly, Shang Qinghua desperately tries to come up with an excuse– hey system-dada, you’re being pretty fucking quiet over this! Isn’t this fucking the plot sideways?! Don’t you have opinions about this!?? That’s his protagonist-son, who’s about ready to face off with Mobei-jun approximately six years and one missing OP gold-finger sword too early!
“Ah– this master was–” Shit, think up an excuse, anything! “–captured during the attack, by my King!” NO, FUCK, THAT’S WRONG. “B-But!! Hey it’s okay! It’s thanks to my King that we ended up here, in the right place at the right time!” Oh god, it’s even worse, how can he call himself a writer by any stretch of the imagination, his improv is SHIT!
Mobei-jun’s expression seems to darken considerably, automatically causing Shang Qinghua to shrink away from where his hands still studiously grip that very expensive princely sleeve– and no, he’s not letting go, lest the ground open up and eat him whole!
“Right, ah, this servant is sorry my King, please hold tight.” He whispers aggressively under his breath, despite the fact Binghe looks like he might pop from barely withheld bloodlust clashing with what could only be a desperation to get the fuck out of dodge. It’s not like he can explain that saving his son now will save them a lot of trouble in the future, that perhaps Mobei-jun can even get a headstart in the goodwill of the protagonist, and perhaps Shang Qinghua can hope that if his king ever DOES try to murder him, perhaps having the protagonist in his corner wouldn’t be that horrible???
He’s ruining the plot with every word, like a bull who’s been built into a glass box, giant stupid hooves hitting every corner, every panel, every intricate detail, but fuck if he doesn’t need to get out of that box!
“It’s a good thing we ran into you. The Endless Abyss is no place for a disciple, I’m taking you back with us.” Shang Qinghua settles on, squaring his shoulders and hoping the imperial stubbornness he’s trying to give off is enough to clue his king into his plan, as well as hopefully hold what little power he has over Luo Binghe’s head—
“I’m not going with him.” The protagonist spits, his voice all venom and fury, despite the fact he looks more like a wet angry kitten, defeated and battered. Fuck, when he was writing the treacherous Endless Abyss and Binghe’s horrible transformation, he never expected an actual teenager to go through it all.
He doesn’t look stronger, he just looks… traumatized.
Terrified. Moments from probably shattering into a thousand pieces.
“He won’t hurt you, my King is–” Ah, well, as far as Binghe knows, he’s a murderer like a thousand times over, and now a kidnapper to boot. “He won’t hurt you, not while I’m around. I’m not leaving you here, so! Pick yourself up, let’s go!”
Binghe continues to give him dubious looks from across the small amount of distance; a little plague-rat-looking creature scampers by on the floats of viscera, causing disgust to curdle his expression almost subconsciously.
“Can you take me home? To the sect??”
The amount of hope in those eyes is enough to kill. Shang Qinghua is going to die. Luo Binghe can’t go back, not right now— Cucumber-bro is wrecked over having thrown his favorite disciple into the maw of the hell beasts, and every sect on the up-n-up thinks one Luo Binghe has been entirely murdered by the one standing to his left! Or Shen Qingqiu haha!
He can’t just ignore all that shit and drop Binghe in the middle of Cang Qiong!
“I can’t. It’s uh– I’m not allowed back, at the moment, not now that I’ve been taken by my King here.” He sucks on his teeth, an anxious hand coming up to scratch at his jawline.
“The human realm isn’t very kind to demons, even those found ah… in the presence of them, sometimes.” Definitely because of that, and not because Shang Qinghua is a Qualified Traitor. “Even if I could, there’s no guarantee you wouldn’t be run down with pitchforks and torches.” Internally, Shang Qinghua can’t help but sigh heavily.
Cucumber-bro does not deserve this out, not with his awful chosen method of just throwing the kid into the Abyss, no excuses, no reasoning, just good old fashioned get the fuck out of here, but whatever, Shang Qinghua can throw him a bone.
“Your Shizun was probably trying to protect you from that when he pushed you in.” The words seem to strike physical blows to the protagonist, the sentence in its entirety like a weight that’s been settled on his shoulders, each syllable a punch rewarded with a flinch.
“Shang Qinghua.” His king finally speaks, seemingly done with the theatrics. “We’re leaving. Take him or don’t.” He says in his cool ice-king glory, snapping the cursed plot-brush between a finger and a thumb, then tearing a portal in space.
Panic bubbles violent and sudden in Shang Qinghua’s center– he can’t just leave the fucking kid, and the system has been quiet about the plot; that’s not his fault, is it?!
It can’t be his fault that the System isn’t answering his questions, it would probably be worse to let the protagonist die, right?!
“Binghe, let’s go.”
“No.”
“Binghe, I’m not leaving you here, let’s go!”
“I’m NOT going with him!”
Much like an aggrieved parent– and perhaps he was, considering this was his fucking protagonist son , unfilial and demanding and awful and hurt and SAD and TRAUMATISED– Shang Qinghua stomps his ass across the small gap, slaps a hand onto one of Binghe’s arms, and yanks, using all his collective cultivated strength to nearly throw his son through the portal while Mobei-jun watches impassively.
Almost like a congratulations for managing to get it done, Shang Qinghua is rewarded with a thump upside the back of his head, causing a wounded squeak to stutter out of him as he trips through the swirling portal of shadows just the same.
The system has been stone cold silent on the whole “protagonist is off-story” thing. In fact, it’s been silent everytime Shang Qinghua prods it, the screen itself struggling to appear in his vision– he tries to pull it up several times when no demon princes are standing over his shoulder, and no PTSD-ridden protagonists moping in the corner.
He has zero direction, and still hasn’t had any proper conversation with Binghe about the whole Endless Abyss/sect situation as of yet— frankly, he’s not even sure what the fuck he’s gonna say!
But, the first things were first.
Binghe needed a bath and some new robes. Actual food, clean water, and a bed to sleep on. Shang Qinghua is desperate to get it all for the kid, clambering out of the portal, nervously excusing himself from his king’s presence, and then leading the child down the halls woven from ice.
“Where is this?” Luo Binghe asked, a shiver clear in his tone. Reluctance to follow or be here at all is clear in his voice and expression, but there’s also a minute amount of relief palpable around him. The pure survival mode he’d been in before, with his eyes dark and nearly empty of life has thankfully faded somewhat, but not all the way, darkness still edging at his features.
Shang Qinghua tsks, glad Luo Binghe has at least a scrap of respect left for him as a Peak Lord– the tall teen could easily yank his arm out of Shang Qinghua’s grip, and probably take off without breaking a sweat, considering he’s nearly a full head taller than his senior, and easily much stronger.
He leaves the question hanging in the air for several minutes, padding them down a couple hidden staircases, and finally to the hot springs lying beneath the castle.
Originally they’d been here for Luo Binghe to bed a couple of beauties, the water smelling of lotus and glowing a faint teal from unspecified magic (very much unlike a real hot spring, but fuck, it was a good chapter and it made a lot of money, SUE him), but now, they’ll work perfectly handy as a place to burn off all that Abyssal mess.
It’s done wonders for him since he moved in, after all!
“This is the Northern Ice Palace.” He said, stressing as he pulled a couple of stashed towels from a natural cove in the black stone walls; he’d kinda sorta maybe stolen away this place as a respite, and as such had a couple of things hidden in various places. He’s not the only demon to visit this place in these hallowed halls, but most ice-oriented demons tend to avoid anything with the word “hot” in it.
“It’s the home of the current acting Mobei-jun, one of the four oldest demon families. This one happens to rule the northern desert. There’s also one in the east, west, and south. Plus, a whole spattering of other smaller clans, that are impossible to deal with–” Shang Qinghua continued to mumble while Luo Binghe watched passively from the side, shuffling around the soaps and oils from his stash, then a set of the white-on-white robes he’d wear while scampering all sneaky-like back up to his quarters.
“Put this on after, I’ll find you something fresh, and toss those–”
“Don’t throw them out.” Defiantly, Luo Binghe’s fists twisted into his robes as though Shang Qinghua had the power to make them fly right off his body– his Qing Jing teal robes, nearly impossible to identify based on color alone– it’s only the style with a recognizable neckline that prods Shang Qinghua’s memory. For the slightest moment, Luo Binghe looked like a child with his comfort blanket being threatened– the thought was almost laughable until Shang Qinghua remembered he is a fucking child.
Airplane just had to just take that L, nodding and motioning towards a basket in the corner of the springs area.
“Just toss them there, then. You’ve come to the right place for removing blood from robes.”
After that, Luo Binghe had only given him a couple of clipped words around the delivery of some food and tea, otherwise shutting down for the foreseeable future to take his soak.
Shang Qinghua was so busy wondering what the fuck to do about system-dada, and Luo Binghe, that the strong and mostly bare chest he faceplanted into would have been a nice distraction if he hadn’t slammed his nose up against the only patch of hard breastbone in the entirety of Mobei-jun’s plush chest.
“OOF– My King–” He complains, holding his nose in the off chance it decides to spout blood. From more than one thing, considering he’s still only inches away from that RACK.
“Sorry, I didn’t see–”
“The child. The one from the conference?” Mobei-jun asks articulately, almost curiously, tilting his head down towards Qinghua with all the regality of a king.
Of course he’s not an official all-the-way king just yet– his father is still alive, and would continue to be, just sickly and out of the way. For all intents and purposes, being the only Mobei heir to survive and, the only one adept enough at running the kingdom, Mobei-jun has earned his title, just not officially. Hell, his ascension ceremony won’t happen for another, fuck, ten years? Longer?
But to demons and cultivators, that truly isn’t that long. It might as well be tomorrow! The minute his father is dead, Mobei-jun will take the throne, regardless of what complaints Linguang-jun might have—!!!
“Shang Qinghua. The child. ” Mobei-jun repeated, impatient now.
“OH!” He laughs awkwardly, stepping back from his king and waving a hand as though to disperse his own stupidity from the air. “Oh, yeah, um. He’s the half demon that you unsealed. B-But of course you knew that, my King! I just–” His tittering comes to a stop quickly, his eyes dropping to the floor.
“I couldn’t leave him. No one should have to make it through the Endless Abyss on their own. This servant… couldn’t look at him without seeing his own disciples. They’re all just babies, my King. Humans aren’t made for that sort of thing, even half humans. Regardless, I take full responsibility for him, and my actions in taking him with us without prior warning or permission.”
Tense, Shang Qinghua drops into a low bow, even adding in a salute in an attempt to earn some favor here. He’s not destined to get absolutely destroyed just yet, hopefully taking in a random child isn’t enough to put Mobei-jun over the line!
Mobei-jun is quiet above him for a long moment, several beats passing where his King MUST be deep in thought, before he chuffs a breath through his nose, waving him off with a hand.
“Mn... I will not protect that which is not mine from my Uncle, or the court, Shang Qinghua.” He answers, his voice tall and lofty– it sounds a little like a threat, but knowing his King, Shang Qinghua is sure it’s as literal as it gets, maybe even a warning or a heads up at the same time.
He just genuinely will not protect something that doesn’t have his name on it!
“Yes, my King, thank you. I shall keep him in my quarters, I’ll be sure he doesn’t get in the wa–” Shang Qinghua is quickly interrupted by sharp black talons gripping his cheeks, yanking his face up from his bow in order to make eye contact– it’s relatively gentle for Mobei-jun, considering no blood was drawn.
Those electric blue eyes are blazing, a deep frown set into his face.
“He will use his own room. Find him an empty one in the servant’s quarters.”
“O-Oh– yes my King!” Shang Qinghua chirps, his existential dread, mental breakdown that’s been oncoming for the last twenty years, the worry of Luo Binghe and the entire storyline of his book all colliding violently with the vague turn-on that is his King’s talons so close to his face.
Good god, he needs some rest.
But first thing’s first. He’s got a poor little guy to take care of, and it’s not even himself. Truly, this author is growing so selfless in his old age.