Work Text:
Liu Mingyan sees ghosts.
Maybe it’s the merging of the realms. Maybe it’s the unraveling of her own mind.
She was raised to be righteous, yet she knows the world has become anything but. And she—wronged, bitter, and full of hate—played a willing hand in its blackening.
It starts with Shen Qingqiu.
Everything starts with Shen Qingqiu. Her brother’s death, her husband’s abuse, and her own descent into madness.
She knows when Shen Qingqiu dies.
She is one of Luo Binghe’s closest wives, one who had suffered beneath Cang Qiong’s blind indifference just as he had. He seeks her out when he learns that his favorite punching bag—the one he holds responsible for years of torment and the worst suffering of his life—has managed to escape him through death.
He seethes with rage, ranting about how he will drag Shen Qingqiu’s soul back into his body, how death is no escape, and how the man will learn to regret ever thinking he could slip from Luo Binghe’s grasp.
Liu Mingyan lets him rage, lets him exhaust himself with fury. Then, when the storm has spent itself, she tells him, “If there were a way to bring someone back from the dead, I would have found it by now.”
He stares at her blankly for a moment before understanding dawns on his expression.
“I apologize,” he says smoothly, the words polished and practiced, a routine he has long since perfected. “I was inconsiderate of your loss. Of course, if there were a way to bring someone back… I would bring your brother back first.”
She accepts the apology for what it is—a meaningless platitude. She will never think of his abuser before her brother, and he will never think of her brother before his abuser.
So of course, when she catches the transparent outline of a figure in the corner of her vision, her first thought is brother?
It’s not her brother.
It was too much to hope for, that after all these years, she’d finally get the closure she still so desperately craves—even after avenging him, even after tearing down the sect that let his killer walk free.
It’s Shen Qingqiu—ghostly, yet as pristine as Liu Mingyan had ever seen him.
She keeps her gaze averted, ostensibly still reading the scroll spread open on the table. But the apparition isn’t fooled.
“Little girl,” he drawls. “I know you can see me.”
She considers, then, the possibility that she has gone insane. Wouldn’t only a figment of her imagination be able to read her thoughts?
Shen Qingqiu doesn’t speak, but Liu Mingyan can feel his ghostly eyes on her, dragging down her body like the lecherous beast he is. Was?
She thinks of Ning Yingying and scowls.
During Shen Qingqiu’s trial, Ning Yingying had testified—voice trembling and eyes filled with unshed tears—that her shizun often asked her to sleep on the floor of his quarters, though she never understood why.
Liu Mingyan had hated Shen Qingqiu long before that, but perhaps it had never burned as brightly as it did when Ning Yingying spoke those words.
Shen Qingqiu huffs, and it sounds amused. “I can feel your hatred for me, you know.”
Liu Mingyan continues to ignore the figment of her imagination. If she is to descend into madness, she will do so gracefully—not ranting and cursing at things no one else can see.
Shen Qingqiu sighs. “It’s rather boring to talk to someone who won’t look at you, but I suppose I have nothing better to do.”
Liu Mingyan stiffens as she sees the ghost approach from out of the corner of her eye. He doesn’t make a single sound as he moves—no footsteps, no rustling of clothing, nothing to mark his presence but the cold weight of his gaze.
“I wonder,” Shen Qingqiu’s voice says, impossibly close to her ear but with no breath brushing her skin to accompany his words. “Do you ever think you made a mistake?”
Liu Mingyan scoffs, an involuntary sound. No. Of course she doesn’t.
“So certain,” Shen Qingqiu says, his voice smooth, silky, and still far too close.
She grits her teeth and forces her eyes back down to the characters on the scroll. She won’t acknowledge him again.
The ghost laughs, and the sound moves away from her ear, as though he’s leaning back. “We’ll see,” he says.
—
Liu Mingyan tries to ignore him.
She really, really does.
She spent years swallowing down her grief, her hatred, her anger while she was still a part of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, while she was a disciple under a woman complicit in her brother’s murder.
She kept her head bowed, let her rage fester beneath the surface, forced herself to smile at those who did not deserve her kindness. She wore the mask of a righteous cultivator so well that, for a time, she even convinced herself that it was real.
But when she no longer had to hide, when she finally let the fire consume her, the doubts came creeping in.
They slithered beneath her skin, whispering in the quiet spaces between her victories.
Was it enough?
Was it worth it?
Was it right?
She tells herself it doesn’t matter.
She has already done what needed to be done. Cang Qiong Mountain Sect is gone. Her brother is avenged. Those who turned a blind eye, who let his murderer walk free as though her brother’s life meant nothing—they are all dust now.
So why does she still wake in the middle of the night, heart pounding, throat tight, the echoes of a voice she refuses to acknowledge ringing in her ears?
Why does she still see ghosts?
—
She doesn’t always see him, but she feels him.
Like a weight pressing at the edges of her mind, a coldness curling around her vision.
He is there when she speaks before the court, his laughter threading through her words, soft enough that only she can hear.
“As righteous as your brother, aren’t you?”
Liu Mingyan does not react.
She does not clench her fingers around her sleeves. She does not let her words falter. She does not let her expression waver.
She simply continues.
The officials listen. Luo Binghe watches. The world moves as it always has, blind to the ghost lounging beside her, smirking, head tilted in lazy amusement.
“Tell me little girl—did you hesitate when you killed for him?”
Her voice remains steady.
“Did you ever wonder if he would have wanted this?”
Her breath does not hitch. Her eyes do not blink. Her voice doesn’t shake.
Shen Qingqiu exhales, something like disappointment in his voice. “Ah. I suppose it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
Her grip tightens against her sleeve.
No one notices.
But his laughter lingers, curling at the edges of her mind like smoke.
—
He is there when she walks the halls of Luo Binghe’s palace, trailing in her shadow.
She feels him in the hush of the air, in the unnatural stillness that follows her like a second skin. In the way her breath catches without meaning to, how her pulse stutters at the sound of footsteps that never quite match her own.
She tells herself it is nothing.
A trick of the mind.
A ghost of guilt that should not exist.
But the feeling does not fade.
When she rounds a corner, the air tightens, pressing against her like an unseen weight just over her shoulder. She does not turn, does not waver, but her hands clench slightly—just for a moment, just long enough to betray the tension she refuses to acknowledge.
A whisper slips through the silence.
“When did you become afraid of the dark?”
She keeps walking, her steps steady, her breath even.
The torches lining the hall flicker, their flames bending unnaturally, stretching shadows where there should be none.
“Was it when you realized you weren’t one of the righteous ones anymore?” His voice is casual, idle, wrapping around her ears like a whisper of silk. “How you spent all those years pretending—only to end up in a place like this.”
She does not answer.
Does not look.
Shoulders squared, head high, she moves forward as if she does not hear him.
The pressure behind her does not relent.
“Tell me, little girl—” his voice dips lower, almost thoughtful, “do you ever think of her?”
Her breath does not falter.
But her fingers twitch.
She knows who he means.
She does not react.
Does not let the name form in her mind, though it lingers unspoken in the cold, candle-lit air.
Does not acknowledge the scent of plum blossoms seeping into her senses, sweet and stifling.
His laughter is soft, almost amused, as if he already knows the answer she refuses to give.
And then, just as effortlessly as always, he is gone.
But the silence he leaves behind does not feel like relief.
—
Shen Qingqiu means nothing to Liu Mingyan.
He is nothing more than her brother’s murderer—one upon whom she has already exacted revenge. A debt settled, a vengeance fulfilled.
But her.
She is something.
A weight that does not lift. A presence that does not fade. A shadow that clings to the edges of her thoughts in ways Shen Qingqiu never could.
The scent of plum blossoms lingers.
Soft. Faint. Clinging to the cold air like a memory that should have long since faded.
But it doesn’t.
It follows her.
Seeps into the halls of Luo Binghe’s palace, curling around the edges of her chambers, weaving itself into the fabric of her robes.
Then come the dreams.
At first, they are fleeting—mere glimpses of a familiar figure, a woman draped in flowing pink robes, her expression unreadable. But each night, she lingers a little longer.
Until one evening, as Liu Mingyan brushes out her hair, she catches movement in the mirror.
She stills.
This time, it is not Shen Qingqiu.
Qi Qingqi stands behind her.
Her reflection is flawless, untouched by death. Dark eyes calm, face composed—but something about her presence is wrong. Her robes do not rustle. Her feet make no sound against the wooden floor.
Liu Mingyan’s grip tightens around the comb in her hand.
For a moment, neither of them speak.
Then—
“Do you regret it?”
The voice is soft. Even. Not an accusation, not laced with anger, only a question—light as air, heavy as stone.
Liu Mingyan does not turn.
She meets Qi Qingqi’s gaze in the mirror, her own reflection still, composed, unreadable. But beneath the surface, tension coils in her shoulders, her fingers pressing too tightly into the smooth wood of the comb.
Qi Qingqi does not waver.
The scent of plum blossoms deepens, thick and cloying, sinking into her skin like a stain—something she fears she will never be able to wash away.
She inhales, slow and steady. Exhales, careful and measured.
“Why are you here?”
Qi Qingqi does not smile. “Why do you think?”
The candlelight flickers. Shadows stretch long and uneven across the mirror.
Liu Mingyan does not answer.
Because she already knows.
This is not justice. Not vengeance. Not the will of the heavens reaching down to punish her.
This is doubt.
Doubt, shaped in the form of the woman she once called shizun.
Qi Qingqi does not press. Does not move. Does not try to force words from her lips.
She only stands there, silent, unshakable.
Liu Mingyan hates her for that.
Hates the quiet. Hates the patience. Hates the way she is a mirror turned inward, reflecting truths Liu Mingyan refuses to name.
Her grip tightens further.
Then, without a word, she sets the comb down and blows out the candle.
Darkness swallows the mirror.
But the scent of plum blossoms remains.
—
Liu Mingyan could have loved her shizun.
Perhaps she did.
Perhaps, in another life, in another world—one where justice was not a lie, where vengeance was not necessary, where grief had not carved her hollow—she would have.
Perhaps she already had, in ways she never allowed herself to name.
But love didn’t matter.
Not when her brother lay dead.
Not when her shizun stood silent in the sect that let it happen.
—
She sleeps, but there is no rest.
The dreams continue—soft at first, like a memory long buried. Faint traces of warmth, the sound of laughter, the weight of a hand on her shoulder. A voice that once brought comfort, a presence that once meant safety.
Then the warmth turns cold.
The laughter fades.
The dream shifts, and Liu Mingyan is no longer a disciple beneath the golden sun but a woman standing amidst the ruins of everything she once knew. The sky is gray with smoke, the ground slick with blood, and Cheng Luan drips red at her side.
She turns.
Qi Qingqi stands before her.
Not as a ghost, but as she had been in the end—face pale, robes torn, lips parted as though she is about to speak.
But in the dream, Liu Mingyan does not strike her down before the words can leave her lips.
In the dream, she isn’t afraid that if she hears her shizun’s words, she won’t be able to finish what she started.
In the dream, Liu Mingyan waits.
And Qi Qingqi asks.
“Do you regret it?”
The same words as before. The same calm, even voice.
But this time, in the dream, there is no candle to blow out. No darkness to swallow the ghost of Qi Qingqi whole.
Only the two of them, standing amidst the ruins of everything they once were.
“Do you?” Liu Mingyan asks.
Qi Qingqi tilts her head, dark eyes unreadable. The silence between them stretches long, endless, as though the answer might be found in the weight of everything left unspoken.
Then—
“No.”
Soft. Certain.
Not spoken in triumph.
Not spoken in anger.
Just truth.
—
When Liu Mingyan wakes, Qi Qingqi is sitting at her bedside.
As if she had never left.
As if she had always been there.
She does not flinch.
She does not move.
But her breath is not steady.
“You were never cruel before,” Qi Qingqi says softly.
Liu Mingyan does not answer.
“You could have been anything else.”
Her fingers curl into the sheets. “Leave.”
Qi Qingqi tilts her head, watching her, as if waiting for something Liu Mingyan refuses to give.
“I failed you,” she says, quiet, certain.
Liu Mingyan exhales sharply, eyes narrowing. “Yes.”
For the first time, something shifts in Qi Qingqi’s expression.
Not surprise.
Not sorrow.
Acceptance.
“But,” Qi Qingqi murmurs, “you didn’t have to become this.”
The words are not cruel, not sharp.
That makes them worse.
Liu Mingyan forces herself to breathe. To remain still. To not react.
“Tell me,” Qi Qingqi continues, “did it make you happy?”
The scent of plum blossoms is suffocating now, pressing into her lungs, thick and inescapable, drowning the room in something cloying, something too much.
Liu Mingyan does not answer.
She doesn’t have to.
Qi Qingqi already knows.
—
Luo Binghe’s harem is vast. More wives join by the day—devoted, willing, eager to please. He never lacks for company.
Liu Mingyan doesn’t either.
She has always known where her interests lie, always known that her desires pull toward women rather than men.
Liu Mingyan knows her own beauty.
She inherited it from her mother, a woman so lovely she concealed her face behind a veil.
When her mother died, Liu Mingyan donned the same veil.
But it did not deter Luo Binghe from pursuing her.
And it does not deter the interested wives in his harem from seeking her out—knowing exactly where her proclivities lie.
One of Liu Mingyan’s favorites is Qiu Haitang.
Qiu Haitang, one of Luo Binghe’s earliest wives, as instrumental as Liu Mingyan herself in orchestrating Shen Qingqiu’s downfall.
Qiu Haitang is not a cultivator.
She has aged as mortals do, the years leaving traces on her skin, while Liu Mingyan remains untouched by time—her youthful visage unchanged from early adulthood.
Liu Mingyan doesn’t mind.
If anything, she finds the maturity in Qiu Haitang’s face and frame refreshing.
Fascinating.
There is something compelling about the way age has settled into her—graceful, deliberate, a contrast to Liu Mingyan’s own unchanging reflection. A reminder that time moves forward, even when grief remains frozen in place.
—
Liu Mingyan finds solace in resting her head in Qiu Haitang’s lap, the older woman’s fingers combing gently through her hair.
She savors the sensation—the steady, practiced touch, the deliberate slowness of it.
A quiet indulgence.
Something neither of them will ever acknowledge.
And yet, time and again, Liu Mingyan finds herself here—her head cradled in Qiu Haitang’s lap, her body surrendering to the rhythmic brush of fingertips ghosting over her scalp. There is something grounding about it, something that stills the restless energy that coils tight in her chest.
She listens to the sound of Qiu Haitang’s breath, slow and unhurried. Listens to the rustling of silk, the faint creak of the wooden floor beneath them.
There is peace in this.
A peace that perhaps Liu Mingyan does not deserve.
—
Qiu Haitang’s brother was murdered by Shen Qingqiu, too.
Liu Mingyan remembers the way Qiu Haitang stood before the cultivation world, testifying against him.
The way her voice did not waver, did not break—only burned.
Bright and unyielding, a fire that refused to be smothered.
She remembers the way Qiu Haitang spoke, her words sharp as a blade, slicing through the court’s silence with the precision of someone who had waited years to be heard.
She remembers the way Shen Qingqiu did not flinch.
Did not defend himself.
Did not look at Qiu Haitang at all.
But Liu Mingyan looked.
She watched Qiu Haitang’s fury, raw and righteous, pour into the chamber like wildfire, consuming everyone who listened.
She watched the way her hands curled into fists, the way her chest rose and fell with each deliberate breath, the way grief and fury tangled in her voice—as controlled as it was devastating.
Liu Mingyan had felt something then.
Something visceral.
Something deep in her bones.
—
She would not truly come to know Qiu Haitang until years later.
Until Luo Binghe’s palace. Until whispered words and veiled smiles. Until fingers brushing over bare skin in the dead of night.
But Liu Mingyan remembers the first time she saw her.
The first time Liu Mingyan heard her voice turn grief into a weapon.
The first time Liu Mingyan thought, in a quiet, unbidden moment—
She is beautiful.
—
Years later, Qiu Haitang spoke of it again.
Her voice was steady, but distant.
Detached—as if telling someone else’s story.
Her fingers stilled in Liu Mingyan’s hair, frozen in place, as though the memory reached out and gripped her, refusing to let go.
She did not weep.
She did not rage.
Instead, she exhaled, slow and quiet, and said:
“I always thought revenge would make the grief easier to bear.”
Liu Mingyan did not respond.
Because there was nothing to say.
Because didn’t she once think the same?
Didn’t she believe, once, that vengeance would cleanse the grief from her bones, that justice would quiet the hollow ache in her chest?
Didn’t she stand in the ruins of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, surrounded by the scent of blood and smoke, and feel—
Nothing?
The silence between them stretched, long and unbroken.
Then, without thinking, Liu Mingyan reached for Qiu Haitang’s hand.
Her fingers brushed against the delicate skin of her wrist.
Not in comfort.
Not in sympathy.
But in understanding.
A quiet acknowledgment of something neither of them had the words to voice.
—
When Liu Mingyan sees him, a face too similar to Qiu Haitang’s to be coincidence, she doesn’t know what to think.
Qiu Jianluo is dead.
Burned to the ground with his family. Murdered by Shen Qingqiu, his name long since reduced to a tragedy spoken only in quiet remembrance.
And yet—
He stands before her now.
Not whole. Not breathing. Not alive.
A ghost.
The ghosts have always been her doubts.
They are her hesitation, her buried regrets, the lingering weight of every decision she refused to question at the time.
But there is nothing to regret when it comes to Qiu Jianluo.
Nothing uncertain, nothing unclear.
His death was not a mistake.
It was a crime.
An injustice that demanded retribution, a wound carved into the world that she helped to set right.
So why is he haunting her?
“I’m not,” Qiu Jianluo says smoothly.
His voice is steady, effortless—without the weight of accusation, without the echo of the other ghosts who linger only to remind her of what cannot be undone.
“Then why are you here?” Liu Mingyan asks.
Qiu Jianluo tilts his head, his resemblance to Qiu Haitang sharper in the dim light.
“You know the answer to that.”
Liu Mingyan doesn’t respond.
She only watches him, waiting for the unease to settle in her bones, for the familiar weight of guilt that comes with the ghosts she has long since learned to ignore.
But Qiu Jianluo does not look at her with blame.
He does not echo Qi Qingqi’s disappointment or Shen Qingqiu’s taunts. He does not try to unravel her, to make her question the path she has chosen.
Liu Mingyan exhales, slow and controlled, but something inside her twists.
“Do I?” she asks.
Qiu Jianluo smiles—not the kind that mocks or condescends, but something measured. Something knowing.
“Of course you do,” he says. “I am not here to haunt you.”
“I am here because you are right.”
The words settle over her, warm and steady, cutting through the cold press of doubt that the other ghosts have left behind.
Right.
Not monstrous. Not cruel.
Right.
Qiu Jianluo’s gaze does not waver.
“You were never wrong, meimei.”
Liu Mingyan’s breath stills.
It has been years since anyone has called her that.
Years since she has been anyone’s meimei—since that title was stolen from her the day her brother’s body was left to rot while his killer walked free.
Yet here another brother stands, claiming her as though nothing has changed.
As though time has not hollowed her out, has not remade her into something unrecognizable.
She does not move.
She does not speak.
But something in her tightens—a flicker of something nameless, something dangerous.
Qiu Jianluo watches her, his expression unreadable, his presence too solid for a ghost.
“You were never wrong,” he says again, unshaken, unrelenting.
Liu Mingyan’s fingers press into the fabric of her sleeve.
She wants to say that it doesn’t matter. That she has long since abandoned the need for reassurance, for validation.
That she does not need him to tell her what she already knows.
And yet—
She cannot make herself speak.
Because if she was never wrong, then why do the ghosts still linger?
If she was never wrong, then why does she still listen to them?
If she was never wrong, then why does the one ghost she so desperately wants to see never come to tell her that?
Why does her own brother—the one who should have been here, the one whose absence has carved her hollow—stay silent?
Why does he never appear, never whisper reassurance into the spaces where doubt has taken root?
Why does he leave that task to Qiu Jianluo instead?
Liu Mingyan’s breath is steady, but her pulse betrays her, a quiet stutter beneath her skin.
“You were never wrong, meimei,” Qiu Jianluo says again, watching her.
But if that were true—
If she was truly right—
Why can’t she see her brother?
Qiu Jianluo sighs.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That I’m not him.”
Liu Mingyan’s breath catches.
It is a simple statement. Not apologetic, not pleading—just an acknowledgment of the truth neither of them can change.
She does not flinch.
She does not let herself.
But something in her twists painfully, something raw and unspoken stabbing between her ribs.
Because he is not her brother.
Because her brother does not come.
Because for all the ghosts that haunt her, for all the voices that whisper doubts and questions, for all the lingering shades of the past that refuse to let go—
Liu Qingge never appears.
And perhaps, that silence is the answer she fears the most.