Work Text:
“Fuck this novel, fuck my life, I should set all this shit on fire.”
[Activation code: “Fuck this novel, fuck my life, I should set all this shit on fire.” System automatically triggered.]
[Initiating Sandbox mode of the world: PROUD IMMORTAL DEMON’S WAY.]
[Welcome to the System! We sincerely hope you will enjoy your stay.]
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky would never outright insult cheap plot devices. After all, they brought money! It wasn’t his fault if people had shit taste and loved predictable plot twists and bland, trite literary tropes.
Some liked xiaolongbao as a comfort food, others liked ramen, and others liked ‘meeting a hot bimbo in a dungeon and she swears she hates me but I’m sure I can melt her frigid heart with the heat of my love and my Heavenly Pillar’ as something to nibble on before sleep.
Therefore, when after getting up from being – apparently – electrocuted to death and looking at his reflection in a puddle on the ground of the cave he was – apparently – stuck in, he noticed two things. A) He was now as tall as a mouse, and B) He was quite literally on fire. His shape was barely even human-like, and yet? He didn’t bat an eye.
He shrugged it off, like he would have done with any other issue in his life that ranged from a mild inconvenience to something existence-shattering.
So, he had basically isekaied into his own web novel?
Cool, it could have been worse.
Oh, he had become a living fire-spirit? After his last words were about burning down his whole web novel?
Nice, bring it on, he could use his own body to cook food, if he even needed to eat in that shape.
Relax, relax, don’t sweat it. Don’t get nervous. Nerves are what got you into this situation in the first place.
At least his situation didn’t look like those boring ‘I’ve transmigrated into the villain and the ML is in love with me’ sort of isekai.
Shang Qinghua would have been fine being a no-one NPC, actually. Hopefully, he hadn’t transmigrated into his homonym: while he had enough self love to secretly ship the cultivator with that hunk that was Mobei Jun, he had also harbored enough self hatred to have him ultimately killed off by the ice demon. Which, then again? Call him a masochist, but that was hot. One of the sexiest pieces he'd written to date, thank you very much.
Anyway.
He would have been alright with being someone unimportant. He’d have just… cultivated cabbages or something. Maybe became a fisherman, but he would have made sure to steer clear of a certain river.
But of course, life – even his second one – could never be so easy.
The mechanical voice – the System? – that had announced to him that he had transmigrated into his own web-novel, spoke again. It rattled his brain with a buzz and made him go cross eyed, interrupting his stream of consciousness.
[The System was successfully activated! Bound Role: the Flame God who forsakes the world of his own creation, “Shang Qinghua”. No weapon required. No B-Points required for Sandbox mode.]
Shang Qinghua blinked, reading the words on the screen that flashed right in front of him.
[User 01 is eligible for ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGE.]
Wohoo!
[However, User 01 will not be able to alter the Sandbox to their liking.]
Oow…
[Since User 01’s is an administrator, his life-force is tied to the sandbox’s fate. Therefore, were User 01 to die, this world shall be erased with him.]
Oooww…
The System went on and on for a couple of more minutes, sometimes interrupted by a kaomoji that felt as out of place as a 60 year old auntie trying to use a meme.
Five minutes into the whole ordeal, Shang Qinghua – at least he kept his name – gained three very important pieces of information:
First, if he was extinguished, the world of PIDW would go with him.
Secondly, he was not bound to any already existing characters, thankfully, so he had no OOC warning to avoid.
And lastly, he had no pre-existent powers to speak of, and a very limited cultivation base. Which was something he would need if he were to cultivate a proper human body that could protect him from the outside world.
“So, System, will you aid me when it comes to cultivation? Or, like… tell me how to avoid any danger? Actually, scratch that, just tell me at what point of the plot we are and–”
[User 01 is the author, so they must be already familiar with the novel’s setting and will not require this System’s further help. There is no mission to be taken, just have fun in the sandbox!]
“Wait, System?! How can I enjoy anything if basically everything could kill me? At this rate I’m going to die before I can step out of the cave!”
[User 01 is able to cultivate an outer shell - read: human body - that will protect him from the dangers of the Sandbox. We hope you enjoy. Good luck! ദ്ദി •⩊• )]
And with that, the floating screen closed in mid-air. No matter how much he willed it to reappear, to give him some answers, or at least some company, it just wouldn’t do so.
Qinghua clicked this tongue, crossing his arms. Which, at that moment, were nothing but two short limbs of fire.
He could make it. After all, how difficult could cultivation be? He just needed to cultivate himself a body and be… super extra mindful of any danger along the way.
Like a gentle breeze.
Or the rain.
Or ill-intentioned children.
A quick look around confirmed his suspicions that he was, in fact, alone in a damp cave.
Well, that was good, because no ill-intentioned children were nearby; but also, that was atrocious, because very wind, much rain (or rather, drops from the stalagmites. Stalactites? He could never tell them apart, he kept forgetting which was which.)
With a sigh, Qinghua got whatever part of his body he considered his legs into a lotus pose and started meditating his boredom away.
When Shang Qinghua had thought himself free of any snot-nosed, grabby-handed children, he hadn’t considered that fate was, in fact, a huge bitch.
It shouldn’t have surprised him: he had written Proud Immortal Demon’s Way so that, in that universe, for every attempt of someone to live a somehow decent, normal life, fate would fuck them up tenfold.
It happened to the fresh faced white lotus protagonist, and to his blackened Shizun before him. Ah, scratch that, Shen Qingqiu had always been a bit of a bastard.
Sure, Airplane might have written him as a bastard with a reason, but Shen Jiu did go around gouging eyes and kneeing people in the groin at age ten, when his life had been relatively alright still.
But Hua-gege, he was a slave and just had to get by!
So had Yue Qi! But look at how he had turned out! A perfectly compassionate and kind gentleman.
And a boring one.
Gods, Airplane had hated writing him, which was probably why he’d gotten axed after not that many pages of screen time, just like Liu Qingge. As an author, he had always been awful at putting himself in the shoes of those kind of honor driven characters, probably because he would have sold his dignity and even his nation’s secrets for a thousand yuan.
“Ow!”
Shang Qinghua jolted, driven out of his meditative state by a muffled yelp from around the corner.
Who was that!? Oh, Qinghua hadn’t met another soul in so long, he might have started talking to moss covered rocks soon!
No, no, don’t pout, Rock-didi, of course gege isn’t talking about you.
After mentally comforting his companion favorite rock the spirit that surely lived within the rock at his left side, he craned his neck (that is to say, the upper part of his flame) to look at whoever had come into his cave to screech.
From his position he could barely see a boy crouched on the ground, currently cursing at a rock that had skewered his bare foot; the kid appeared no older than fifteen, although with how malnourished he looked it was quite difficult to pinpoint his exact age.
Rags as clothes, blood matting his hair and his robes, dark eyebags and gaunt cheeks…
Shang Qinghua wondered if he had cultivated a pair of lungs already, or some vocal chords, or anything useful that could calm down the child that looked to be on the brink of a qi deviation.
“Who…is there?” The kid called out, sounding suspiciously not as scared as a boy his age should be while alone with a stranger in a damp cave. He was more akin to ‘distrustful, but ready to plunge whatever sharp object he undoubtedly carried around deep into Shang Qinghua’s flame body’.
Horrible decision, really! He didn’t want to die, nor put an end to this world!
“Huh… This one’s name is Shang Qinghua.” Because he could introduce himself as Airplane, but, honestly? Jokes on him for not writing them into his novel.
But, ah, a few more chapters and he totally would have done it.
Some people had that kink, didn’t they? To fuck in an airplane bathroom. Damn, he should have thought about it earlier, it would have earned him some good money–
“Are you armed?”
What kind of question is that, didi! That’s like asking ‘Who is there?’ into a dark room in a horror movie!
Scoffing at the boy’s lack of self preservation and of horror tropes knowledge, Qinghua shook his head with a sigh.
Then, realizing the kid couldn’t possibly see him from his position, and had probably only seen the glow around his flame body (actually, did he even have a neck at that point?), he hastily added:
“I’m not,” and then, for good measure “are you?”
“As if I’d fucking tell you.”
Didi!!! So rude to the one who is basically your father!! What an unfilial character!
As the boy came around the corner, he crouched down and looked right at Shang Qinghua. Then, his jade eyes scoured all over the damp cave, as if trying to figure out where the person was, why he had left his lamp unattended in a place like that, and if it was a trap.
Shang Qinghua cleared his throat.
“Huh… down here?”
The boy jumped back, landing on his butt with a small squeak.
Ehe. Cute reaction, didi! This gege will give it a 7.5 out of 10, but the blood on your face and robes is impacting your cuteness factor.
“You are… what? A demon?”
“Hahah… Not exactly? This one is… just your friendly neighborhood flame.”
“Excuse me?”
“Right, right. I’m this world’s God.”
At that, the boy’s eyes darkened and he pushed himself on his knees, crawling with dirty, broken fingernails to get to him and examine him better, his face a few centimeters from Shang Qinghua’s.
“If you truly are, I have a few choice words for you. That’s in case you are responsible for such a thing as fate.”
The transmigrator audibly gulped.
“N-no, that’s… Wudu-gege.”
“... Who?”
“Du, yes.” Shang Qinghua mentally lit a candle for the Water God. Then, figuring that he was quite literally made of fire at the moment, he decided that his left toe would be burning in Shi Wudu’s honor. He sure hoped he hadn’t accidentally mentioned him inside his novel in case he might take offense to that and try to take revenge.
His Esteemed Jiejie never sent him a cease and desist for copyright infringement, so hopefully he only existed in the realm of PIDW when it came to the raunchy Shi Wudu x Mobei Jun scenarios he thought up for his own sick pleasure.
Listen, he had a type.
“Then, what sort of god are you?” The boy frowned and sat back, his small finger poking at him. Realizing he wouldn’t get burnt, he scooped Shang Qinghua up so he could have him closer to his face.
Shang Qinghua hummed, tilting his head. Ah, he wasn't mistaken before, this didi’s eyes really looked like jade.
“I’m the God of this world’s equilibrium.”
He blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.
“Meaning, if my flame is extinguished, everything in this world will die with me.”
“... Everything?”
“And everyone.”
The boy - probably a slave, given the angry red mark that peeked out from his collar - seemed to carefully consider the information. His small, thin fingers trembled a bit, as if he wanted nothing more than to close his hand in a fist and condemn himself and everyone in the world to complete annihilation.
Shang Qinghua gulped.
Perhaps, to put the world's fate in the goodness of heart of a (ex?) slave boy with seemingly nothing to lose was a bit hazardous.
But Qinghua had faith in his abilities to talk him out of it! It was not his first rodeo after all, he was a pro in the art of convincing people to not kill themselves!
… Which was the kind of conclusion that should have had him consider seeking out therapy and cutting one or two toxic friendships back when he was thirteen, but, honestly? Too late for that now.
It was hardly his son's fault if he had come out like that; if anything, serves Airplane right for projecting his shitty issues onto the characters in his story.
“What’s your name, young one?”
Shang Qinghua could make him see reason, and the first step was to learn the boy’s name. It was easier to hug someone's thighs when you knew whose name to invoke.
“... This one’s name is Shen Jiu.”
Aaah fuck.
In hindsight, Qinghua should have expected for things to go haywire the moment he had realized he had transmigrated into his own novel; as a writer, he knew no story was fun without conflict, and what better conflict than having him stuck with the mini version of his loathsome villain?
Ah, who was he kidding! He’d been so, so fond of his precious Xiao Jiu as he wrote him. He had carefully painted all the facets of his personality, jabbing every thorn, every trauma in his little heart with his very own hand.
And, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had smelled the fandom wars coming a li away when he even dared to hint there had been more to Shen Qingqiu’s character than being a bastard, Airplane would have loved nothing more than to give him a better ending. Not necessarily a good one, for sometimes characters escaped an author’s hand and wrote themselves into a dead end, but at least something better than becoming a punching bag for both the protagonist and his readers!
He wasn’t sure how, exactly, but he’d pulled worse plot twists and inaccuracies than redeeming the irredeemable scum villain, if Cucumber’s usual spiels were anything to trust.
"N-nice to meet you, Xiao-”
“Don’t call me that.”
“-Jiu-er! Nice to meet you! So, what brings you to my humble abode? I would offer you some tea, but leaves are hard to acquire in a cave, who knew! And if I get too close to water I might kind of, huh, die. Ah, I could warm it up for you if you found some, though–”
“Shut up, useless god.”
Shang Qinghua’s mouth clicked shut even when it had no teeth to click.
Argh, so unfilial! But Qinghua was used to being shut up, so he made the universal gesture for zipping his mouth shut.
Then, realizing zippers weren’t a thing in xianxia China, he swapped it with a ‘locking his mouth shut and throwing away the key’ gesture.
Then, realizing he didn’t have a hand, let alone a discernible mouth, Airplane sighed and gave a short nod, bobbing his head-shaped flame up and down.
“I’m collecting… ingredients. For my Shizun. I’ve been under his care for just a few hours, but he’d already promised to teach me many things.”
As Shen Jiu said so, his empty eyes shone; it wasn't childish innocence and eagerness that lit them up, but more a dark, raw hunger that pushed him ahead.
Gee, Jiu-er! Calm down with that Hoshi-no-ko eye thing!
“Hah , and is your Shizun, perhaps, a certain Wu Yanzi?”
The boy startled, and shot him a cautious, distrustful glare.
“I’m a God. I know everything.”
Good save, Airplane! The waters you are treading in are dangerous, but you are safe in your boat of bullshit.
Shen Jiu, leaning back on his scraped palms, regarded him with a lazy hum, tilting his head to the side like a cat looking at a mouse, if the cat was a scrappy kitten and the mouse was the equivalent of a nitrogen bomb that could doom the whole Three Realms if set off.
“Everything?”
“... Within reason, of course.”
“Do you know the… whereabouts of everyone in the whole world, then? Every single person?”
Ah, damn it, you are really going to ask about him, aren’t you? Please, let it rest, Jiu-er! Nothing good will come out if you try to reconnect with that guy, you’d just qi deviate due to shock, rage and betrayal!
Shang Qinghua would know, he wrote their relationship to be tragic, after all!
“I mean, not exactly, no, I wouldn't be able to pinpoint their specific-”
“Can you tell if someone is still alive, though?”
The boy moved closer to him, crouching down and once again picking him up in his palms. Close, so close that Shang Qinghua was sure Shen Jiu could see his panicked expression between the flames that were his face.
What could he answer to that? What was the proper thing to say that wouldn't have the former slave kill him on the spot? Airplane wasn’t honestly certain Yue Qi was alive. Of course, if they were in PIDW he would be. Probably still locked in the Ling Xi Caves, granted, and screaming bloody murder, but still alive.
But if he had been transmigrated into some sort of AU or What-ifs of his original novel, then he wouldn't know; after all, he had never written about fire spirits, not even in his drafts, so who was to say that he was in the canon universe?
A quick glance into Shen Jiu’s phoenix eyes told him that the boy had but one wish right now, the whole meaning of his existence interweaved with the red string of fate around the pinky of the older boy in Cang Qiong:
If Qi-ge is dead, he seemed to say, then I might do something rather impulsive.
“Who is this person?” He hissed through clenched teeth.
“A god needs a mere mortal’s name?” The boy taunted, giving him a mocking grin.
He really likes to have the upper hand, huh?! That's why you are going to become a pickle! Just learn to keep your head low when needed, damn it! What use is your pride without anything else?
(But he'd have nothing left but pride. No tongue to mock, no eyes to glare, no limbs to punish. Only his pride, so doesn't it make sense that he'd do his best to protect it? Even now at this point of his life? Especially now? )
“His name was… is Yue Qi. He's my brother. And he is, well, the whole reason why I'm still fighting. Of course, I've considered he could be dead, starved to death or beaten up by slavers, but if he had actually managed to survive, I…” Shen Jiu cleared his throat, swallowing what appeared to be a lump, if the way his eyes turned glassy was of any indication.
“If I had the confirmation that he is dead, I would not forgive this world. I'd take revenge on it, in every way I could.”
Ah, damn you! Damn you and curse you a thousand times over, Shen Qingqiu! You and your hateful, vengeful nature!
Shang Qinghua exhaled, worrying his lips raw by gnawing on them, tasting the metallic scent of blood in his mouth. Probably a psychological response to stress, since he had neither a mouth, let alone blood to spill.
“Well, it's a good thing that I can tell, then! Your Qi-ge is definitely alive.”
At that moment, Shen Jiu's small face bloomed with joy, his tense boney shoulders looking minutely less tense under the tattered robes. Shang Qinghua realized with a start that he would have loved nothing more than to keep that emotion there.
Partly, because he didn't want to die, thank you very much.
And partly because Airplane owed it to him, after all he'd written him through.
(And partly because who knew the future scum villain could look so adorable when smiling?)
After a beat, the light dimmed in his eyes, the small crescent relaxing into a familiar scowl.
“Then why didn’t he–”
“You could ask him any question in person. I could lead you to him.” Shang Qinghua hurried out.
Let's go, Airplane! What's left to do when you’ve reached the bottom, other than to start digging for your grave?
Shen Jiu’s frown deepened, before he pulled him closer to his dirt-stained face, as if he was examining him; Qinghua didn't know if the boy had been circulating qi in his palms so that he wouldn't burn, or if his flames weren't dangerous to humans in the first place, but he was glad that his touch wasn't enough to put out his fire. It would have been a pretty anticlimactic way to go, after all.
“But, my Shizun–” he started, only to be interrupted by a loud scoff from the god.
“Screw your Shizun! Ditch him, I can teach you far better cultivation than that hack, anyway.”
“You know cultivation?”
What's with the doubtful tone?! Unfilial brat!
“Of course! Boy, do you know how many manuals I’ve written in my life?!”
After all, PIDW’s special merchandise Qing Jing manual and the limited edition Luo Binghe’s fake demonic manual were things he had written for some spare cash! And he remembered all the research he had done for it!
That was what Airplane missed the most about his first years of writing: The nights spent poring himself over Wikipedia’s articles, reddit posts, and obscure websites that gave his adblocker a run for its money. He had enjoyed ending up in rabbit hole after rabbit hole about the sort of plants that were present back in ancient China — Specifically, in the northern part of the country and during the coldest months of winter—.
Unfortunately, as the need to gain more money arose after he moved out from his parents’ house, he traded his passion for a chance to reach the end of the month while eating something that wasn’t cup noodles. He lost the time, or the will, to do so much research, his novel getting more and more imprecise and random with the historical facts, as Peerless Cucumber liked to remind him constantly in his scathing comments.
Well, good for him if he was some spoiled rich brat that had the time to laze around all day and binge-read about ancient numerology! His number one hater could have made for a nice teacher, if he could have managed to unclog the stick out of his ass long enough to take a seat at the desk.
Shaking his head to keep his thoughts from derailing, Shang Qinghua noticed that Shen Jiu had started muttering something under his breath, weighing his options.
“So?”
“...I’m in. That Shizun of mine doesn’t hold my loyalty. I’ve… ran out of it in this lifetime.”
Qinghua grinned, reaching out with a tiny flame limb so he could touch the boy’s finger. His nails were chipped, dried blood and dirt clogged underneath.
“Alright. This Qinghua will make you into the best cultivator there is. And, in exchange, you’ll protect and guard my body from any harm until I'm able to cultivate an outer shell that won’t let me die at the first morning dewdrop.”
Shen Jiu huffed, failing to suppress a small, conspiratorial grin, and poked his flame back.
Sure, he was by all means lying to this boy. But if Shang Qinghua knew his little Villain, and he did, he was probably using him in the very same way to reach his own goals.
Airplane hardly felt guilty about giving Shen Jiu hope.
After all, what was he but words on a page?
“Remind me again why this is the best solution you came up with?”
Shang Qinghua hummed, as if carefully wording his answer, while he was actually carefully wording the way he was going to lie through his teeth.
As if he hadn't done that enough during the past month traveling with the brat.
“Because it’s the only way we have to travel at a reasonable pace without risking me getting blown off whenever the wind is a bit too strong.”
He was probably being overdramatic. But then again, it wasn’t as if there had been any strong gusts in his cave that would have tested his durability, so, until further proof, he was susceptible to even just some little wind.
Hence, their current arrangement.
Shen Jiu huffed, clutching the glass necklace that was housing Qinghua closer to his chest, hidden away under his robes.
“What if you… leak out and burn me to death?”
“I wouldn’t do that, Jiu-er.”
“You wouldn’t need to do it. It’d just happen. Fire is… you can’t control it, one moment you think it will be the answer, and the next it will eat away the questions.”
Airplane let out a small sound at that, filing away Shen Jiu’s distaste of fire in the back of his mind; considering what he'd been through, it was a miracle he was letting a talking flame so close to him, actually.
“Very poetic metaphor, Jiu-er. Ever thought of being a scholar?”
“Oh, fuck you. As if I have the skills or the will to put my nose in a book for the whole day.”
Ayah, Jiu-er, at least try to take the bait to a lighter conversation!
Shang Qinghua let out a long sigh, his flame flickering a bit. Another good reason why he was spending his journey huddled up right against Shen Jiu’s dantian was that it was far easier and quicker to exchange spiritual energy like that, rather than hidden away in his pocket. It was already a pain in the ass to try to heal his scrambled meridians, and thank fuck Qinghua got to the boy before Wu Yanzi could put his paws on such a precious cabbage to…
… Well, to do whatever he would have done to him; Airplane admitted that in his draft he’d cut their time together with a timeskip, but it wouldn't have been pleasing regardless.
“Your qi control is getting better.” He praised him, making Shen Jiu flush, his heartbeat nestled against Qinghua’s cheek spiking up like a hummingbird, for once not with fear but with excitement.
Shang Qinghua could almost feel his pout without seeing it, and recognized it as Shen Jiu’s personal way of preening. Who knew, his little villain was a sucker for praises. Perhaps, at this point of the story, he still knew how to genuinely take them and not twist them into some form of backhanded compliment.
“Hmph. Thanks, Qinghua.”
“A little bit of filial respect here would be appreciated, Jiu-er! Why don’t you call me Shiz-”
“Absolutely not. That title is forever ruined for me.”
Ah .
“In fact, if I ever become a teacher myself, I’ll have anyone who calls me that whipped.”
Ah-ha…
“So, you prefer Shifu?”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t let the brats know. Let them find out on their own.”
Hahah Bingbing my son, I’m so sorry for being such a terrible father, perhaps if I had come to your parent-teacher meetings things wouldn’t have turned out this way–
Pause, no, Binghe wasn’t even a concept at this point of the plot.
By exploring the towns on their way to… well, as far away as possible from Cang Qiong (Shang Qinghua needed time, okay! To cultivate a body!! The brat was way too trigger happy with the fate of the world for his comfort, always threatening to blow on him until he died!), he had gathered that they were at least three or four years before Shen Jiu would join the sect as a disciple, and at least ten or so before Su Xiyan’s death.
Fuck him for never being precise with the dates, really.
But papapa doesn't need time consistency.
Shen Jiu let out a small huff, curling his small body around Qinghua, basically using the necklace that was housing him as a personal heater. They had taken refuge for the night inside an abandoned woodshed at the edge of town; unfortunately, they had no money for an inn, and Shen Jiu was starting to be a little too old to simply beg the women at the local brothel to allow him to spend the night without paying.
So, woodshed it was! Dramatic irony seemed to be the plague of Airplane’s second life!
Shen Jiu took one deep breath, the kind that always signaled the start of a tedious discussion. Shang Qinghua braced himself.
“Are you sure Qi-ge is alive?”
“Of course I am,” lies, “what sort of God would I be if I weren’t?”, falsities and slanders.
The boy hummed, nuzzling his cheek against the glass of the impromptu god-holding device. After a month of cultivation practice, thanks to being oh so adept at it — being basically a body made out of qi and all —, Qinghua at least resembled a human. An orange one, with not really discernable facial features, but a human nonetheless.
At the moment, though, stuffed as he was inside a palm sized ball made of glass, he had opted to look more like a Calcifer-esque ball of fire, complete with eyes and all. Pretty adorable, if you'd ask him, and a good way to fill the whole ball and act as a torch or a heater if need arose, such as at that very moment.
“And you also know why he never came to get me? Or… would he have come, if I had waited more time? If I had… endured more?”
Shang Qinghua frowned when the boy started sniffling, but didn’t address it in any way, knowing fully well Shen Jiu would just deflect and blame the coldness of the shed, rather than any emotional vulnerability on his part.
He hated hearing the kid cry. He’d seen him do it on command to catch a couple of spare coins by begging on the streets, or to get out of trouble with someone, but this was nothing like those over exaggerated, bawling tears.
Shen Jiu cried like a cornered animal, his chest barely shaking, his breath a bit more ragged and fast as he tried to not let himself be seen or heard, ready to pounce on anyone.
Jokes on you didi! This Qinghua has a front row of your meridians, he knows what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, and it's absolutely not fun!
“That’s… I can’t tell. I don’t know about a future that didn't happen.”
Which was… not exactly true, but it wasn't a lie, either. What could have Airplane said? You two were destined to pass each other by in every universe, because fans eat up angst and enjoy couples doomed by the narrative?
I'm sorry your story was full of hurt, and never reached the comfort part?
Clearing his throat, Shang Qinghua let a stream of soothing qi pass through the boy's frazzled meridians. They've been looking so much better already in just a couple of weeks, too.
“What I can tell you, though, is that you should ask him in person why he didn’t come.”
“And you think he will answer? Qi-ge is so slippery, he might just apologize without actually-”
“Of course he will answer!”
Shang Qinghua you fucking liar.
No, no, he was not a liar. He was just… making a hope based speculation. Manifesting the best outcome and all of that.
Positive thinking.
He made a mental note to pester Yue Qi – now in the process of becoming Yue Qingyuan – until he told Shen Jiu everything, or at the very least gave a convincing excuse.
Airplane would have been more frustrated with the other former slave, if he hadn’t also been a mirror of some of his insecurities back then, how he felt like explaining his reasoning was useless in the face of the suffering you've caused by acting in a certain way. He'd been told countless times throughout his childhood that explaining himself, defending his choices, was nothing but a way to shift blame. Better to just apologize and go on.
… Perhaps, that was part of the reasons why he'd killed Yue Qi off; sure, he was hell to write consistently, but also, when you put a part of yourself that you loathe inside a character, it is somehow cathartic to kill them off.
Or make them go through The Horrors™.
If he had known PIDW would have become his reality, though, Airplane would have just invested some money in online therapy.
“... Thanks, Qinghua.”
“Don’t mention it!”
No, really, don’t mention it.
Sometimes, Airplane felt guilty about what he was doing to Shen Jiu. He knew that there was no way the boy fully trusted him, not after only a month together, and not after everything he had endured to come to that point. But he also knew that in the off chance that Yue Qi wasn’t alive, and that his presence in the PIDW’s world had somehow changed the timeline, Shen Jiu would never, ever forgive him for tricking him like that, no matter how much a part of him was always on the lookout for potential backstabbing.
After all, he was the one who had written him to hold grudges like no others.
That, too, had been a borrowed trait from someone, except that it hadn't come from himself, but from his paternal grandmother’s. Airplane had loved her so much when he was a kid, but the older she got, the more… bitter she became, going as far as banning Qinghua’s friend from their house after they had forgotten to greet her once during middle school.
Not that he still met with said friend after middle school, anyway. The woes of changing schools and towns every few years during an age when the internet hadn't been that much of a thing.
Which, honestly? It was for the better. His mental health had been shit at 13 even without people on Twitter telling him to kys after a fanfiction or a particularly bad take.
So, he did what he had always done in his previous life: postponed his problems to a later date, swiping them under the metaphorical rug and making them shit for Future Qinghua to deal with.
“Qinghua!”
Shang Qinghua flinched, breaking his concentration. The flames on the top of his head wavered a bit, and he turned to face Shen Jiu with a scowl. The boy had grown up a lot in the year and a half they've been together, and now actually looked like a sixteen-something years old, with longer legs and delicate facial features. The wonders of being able to afford two-and-sometimes-more meals a day, since by now they were able to take on some minor missions from the villages they passed by to earn some money.
“Yes, Jiu-er?”
The boy hummed, crouching down on his heels, elbows resting on his boney knees as he squinted at him, a smug smile flashing in his jade green eyes that told Qinghua all he needed to know.
“Wait, don’t tell me. Who did you get into a fight with, and please tell me it’s not the son of a noble.”
Not again. Really, the kid was becoming too cocky for his own good now that he had a decent cultivation base.
“Qinghua knows everything, so he should also know about this.”
This brat...!
“If Jiu-er would be so kind to remind this master, then you’d do him a great service.”
“Hmm.” Shen Jiu pursed his lips as if deep in thought, and then grinned, boyishly and smug, like a cat who got the cream, and then gaslit gatekept catbossed his owner into using it to bake him a treat.
Qinghua was pretty sure he had never written his scum villain to be this cute! Sure, descriptions weren’t his forte, so he had always left Shen Jiu’s looks pretty vague, but what was next?! Was Meng Mo going to be a hot gilf in his area?
… Oh Gods, was he? Airplane distinctly remembered a draft in his folders called Old Man Yaoi that featured Meng Mo and Tianlang Jun, Luo Binghe’s father that never made an actual appearance in the final draft– and he never would in this world either; he was still ending up locked down under a mountain, thank you very much. Every writer knew how annoying parents were when dealing with the 'poor abused child' trope, that was why they were always killed off in anime!
“It was a noble boy. But!” Shen Jiu was quick to add, crouching closer, his face scrunching up at all the scowls and glares that Qinghua was sending his way.
“But he wasn’t from here, I made sure of that. He is just here for a short while, like us.”
“And what did he do that warranted such a fight?”
“Oh, he picked it. He said he needed a training buddy and I had good spiritual veins.”
The boy did that thing again, where he puffed out his chest and preened, and if Shang Qinghua had been a bit upset at first, then every negative emotion melted away.
Good, at least his little scum villain was getting some form of self confidence back, although he was using it for the worse.
“And then, when I won, he called me a cheat.”
“Horrible child.”
“So, naturally, I hit him with a qi infused brick.”
“Horrible child. ”
Shen Jiu stuck out his tongue at him, and Qinghua mentally lit his right toe (left one was still for Wudu-gege, real or not he didn't want to risk it) for the poor boy, and rejoiced that he hadn’t written the concept of lawsuits into his highly historically inaccurate novel.
“It’s fine, he was strong anyway, it didn’t hurt him a lot. That brat is a brute, and an idiot: he fought so… by the rules! I swear, he is a pampered young master, probably never had to be in a real fight in his life ever. So what if I threw dust in his eyes? Does he think demons would play fair? Tch.”
The boy had started walking back and forth in front of him, pacing to outrun his nerves; Qinghua smiled, sighing in mock disappointment. Then, three thoughts popped into his head.
Wow, I must really have a type for tsunderes, huh?
Which was quickly followed by Aw, Jiu-di made a friend! Maybe we can spend some more weeks here.
And finally crashed in:
Wait… an honorable brute?
“Jiu-er…” Shang Qinghua started, catching his student's attention. Shen Jiu stopped his pacing, turning to look at his teacher with an attentive expression, back straight as a ruler.
“Was the boy, perchance… Did he have a mole under his left eye?”
“No.”
Thank the Gods above-
“It was under the right one.”
Fuck the Gods above and especially his inability to tell right from left in his previous life, making his already spare descriptions inconsistent as hell.
“Did you happen to catch his name?”
“Liu… something.”
Shang Qinghua let out a long, suffering groan, making Shen Jiu kneel again in front of him, his eyes darting around for the cause of his distress, his hands hovering over the god’s small, shining form in a panicked flutter.
Of course, with how calm the past months had been, he had almost forgotten the first rule of a good story: no matter how much the main character tried to run from the plot, the plot would always find them again, because what fun was a story without some conflict?
Contrary to any popular belief (and by popular he meant: his, his own, the author’s), Shen Jiu and Liu Qingge didn’t try to kill each other ten minutes into their newfound relationship. Shang Qinghua liked to think that the year and a half he’d spent raising his precious cabbage – See! He did end up as a cabbage farmer, somehow – helped contribute to Shen Jiu not being that hostile, but then again, the boy did return to their little shack in the woods at the end of the day often covered in bruises and cuts, his qi reserves almost sucked dry.
Sometimes, Airplane thought that he should stop Shen Jiu from getting closer to the other boy, if only to prevent his novel from further derailing. But then he went back on the idea.
How could he deprive the boy from that healthy flush on his now slightly plumper cheeks?
How could he mess with his happiness, when Shen Jiu held his flame body so tenderly on his scratch-covered hands, raising him at eye-level and exclaiming with the broadest grin ‘You should meet him, Qinghua!’?
He couldn't do it.
And, honestly? He also couldn't fault Liu Qingge – whose name he’d learnt being Liu Mingyu at this point of the story, who would have thought! Thanks System for wasting the hours he had spent browsing baby names websites! – because he, too, would have loved nothing more than to be beaten up by someone that sneered at him while calling him pathetic.
Then again, that might have called for an extensive talk with a therapist about his masochistic tendencies and lack of self worth, but jokes on you, Airplane hadn’t written them in this world! Who needed therapy when everything got fixed via papapa anyway?
“So, Jiu-er got a little crush?” Shang Qinghua finally asked one day, at the same time as Shen Jiu huffed and muttered: ‘Mingyu said he’s leaving at the end of the week’.
Ignoring his student’s sputtering and little squawk, Qinghua shook his head.
Ah, young love! So easy to bloom, and so easy to wither!
“Well, you could still write letters to each other. Where is he going, anyway?”
“Back to Cang Qiong sect.”
Shang Qinghua gulped, his eyes widening. Of course he would go there, wouldn’t he?!
“He also said that he could give us a lift if we wanted. So I–”
“There is no way you could make it.”
Shang Qinghua felt bad a moment before he saw the betrayed look in Shen Jiu's eyes, and grimaced as soon as the words left his mouth. He knew what he sounded like, who he sounded like.
You don't even count as human, and you want to be an immortal?
“Yet! There is no way you could make it yet. W-What I’m saying is that you need to train some more before the next disciple selection, so–”
“Don’t worry. He… Mingyu actually said the same thing to me back when we met. Join me? With your abilities? Tch. I should have broken his perfect teeth right then, rather than his nose,” he trailed off, mumbling something under his breath.
Ouch, right, he remembered writing that taunting line, and feeling very clever about it, too!
Sorry, Jiu-er! But it was just too fun to see all the way you’d end up deconstructing a conversation and pick every single sentence apart to twist them into a personal insult.
That being said, Liu Qingge had the tact of a golden retriever and half of its good intentions, so he could see what brought Shen Jiu to resort to brute force that time.
It wasn’t Airplane’s fault that the future War God, out of all his traits, had gotten ‘autism’ written right across his perfect forehead. Okay, perhaps it was his fault, but he could have had it way worse, between Luo Binghe’s obsessive attachment issues and whatever the hell was going on between Mobei Jun and his uncle.
Shen Jiu was still muttering to himself, sulking a bit after all, his head hidden between his knees. With a sigh, Shang Qinghua climbed out of his glass house, walking closer to his student while mindful of any puddle on the ground. His cultivation had reached a point that would have him survive some rain water, but he’d rather not risk it when he felt himself so close to a breakthrough.
He couldn’t wait to finally develop his own golden core and an outer shell strong enough to protect himself, and then…
And then… then what?
According to his original plan, he would have just spilled the beans to Shen Jiu, waited for the inevitable backlash, and then ditched him because no way Airplane would be willingly walking to the lion’s den by going to Cang Qiong. Nuh uh!
But every day, every month he spent with the boy showed him that the person in front of him was... that.
A full fledged person.
Finicky, often behaving ‘OOC’, with sides and shades that he didn’t remember thinking, let alone writing.
(“Tanghulu? Oh, yes, I like them. But my favourite food… I think it’s lotus root soup, out of all the things we tried from the market .”)
Shen Jiu’s arc had been, at the start, just an excuse to vent his frustration: after all, the character he had so thoroughly and painstakingly plotted had been doomed to become a mono-dimensional villain to appease his audience.
(“Studying…? No, it sounds boring. I’d rather hit things– I know I’m smart, thank you for noticing, if only Qi-ge also…. ah, yeah. I know, but that doesn’t mean that I want to study for all of my life.” )
Airplane could almost taste the overly salted, artificial flavour of the shrimp instant ramen he’d been forced to consume for a whole month (if it had fish inside it couldn’t be that unhealthy, right?) when he had been drafting Shen Qingqiu’s backstory. Just like he could almost taste the bile at the back of his throat when the scathing comments under his novel had started calling him boring for focussing so much on the scum villain, demanding for more sex, more blood, more mindless entertainment.
(“My biggest fear? So many pointless questions, why would I need to answer this– huh? Master-disciple bond? It helps with qi deviations? Ugh, fuck, I think– water? I almost drowned once, so… Ah? Yeah, of course I don’t like men, they should stay as far away from me as possible, but that’s not fear, it’s disgust, that's different!” )
And what was a writer, if not a slave to their reader’s whims? Or rather, to their wallets?
How tragic, how fucking funny that his dream had turned into such a nightmare. He could almost laugh. And yet… here he was. Alive and well and in the company of his currently shy of seventeen former villain, also alive and well and now turned into a lovely cabbage, not even spoiled, oh so fresh and green.
Shang Qinghua sighed, his tiny hand reaching out to touch Shen Jiu’s cheek gingerly, rubbing some dirt off of it. He wasn’t sure what had made the boy act so morose, if it wasn’t because of his inability to join Cang Qiong yet.
“So… did you two have a fight?” He hazarded, blinking.
Shen Jiu gave him a puzzled stare, his jade eyes peeking at him from under his long bangs, and Shang Qinghua wondered how come a teenager could look already so done with other people’s business.
Ayah, disrespectful brat! This gege is at the very least thirty years your senior, if you count both lives!
“Not more than usual.”
“Really? No stupid, mindless remarks? No insults at your methods or origins?”
The boy flushed, scoffing as he looked to the side, his cheeks a bit puffed out.
Cute.
“That’s just how Mingyu is, though. He doesn’t mean half the shit he says, so I stopped wasting energy on getting offended over it… most of the time. He is a bit of an idiot, but I guess he is way too strict and noble to allude to anything he isn’t outright saying. He is just… blunt. I like that, it’s refreshing.”
Shang Qinghua nodded, trying to not let it show how bewildered he was that Shen Jiu!! His darling baby boy!! Had actually figured out Liu Qingge!!
And considering he was much the same in the department of saying very rude shit for no reasons – yes, yes, his penchant for tsunderes had already been acknowledged! – it probably meant that the other way around was also true!
Did those two… actually understand each other? Care for each other?
What in the 13k hurt comfort fix-it au fanfiction was this?!
“And anyway,” Shen Jiu added, casually rubbing his eyes with a sniff, lifting his chin up to peer at Qinghua, “we are headed there so I can join during the next disciple selection, aren’t we? So I can meet Qi-ge again and punch him in the lower dantian for not keeping his promise. And then I’ll listen to his explanation. So… I’ll just train until then.”
Shang Qinghua smiled, pinching the boy’s cheek, using his whole hand to do so; his skin was warm where he touched it, mindful of the tear streaks that hadn’t yet dried off.
Jiu-er can be such a cry baby! How adorable!
“Of course you will. You are Shizun’s precious disciple, after all.”
“Shut up, Qinghua.”
But wait, if he hadn’t been upset because of Qingge’s comments, or because of mine, then, could it be…
“... Wait, are you actually upset about Mingyu leaving? Jiu-er, so you do have a crush on him?!”
“Shut up, Qinghua!! Who is your disciple, hah?! Go drown in a puddle of dog piss and die for all I care!”
“Gaah! So unfilial!”
Shen Jiu was staring at him. That was in itself a pretty common occurrence, and every time he stared Shang Qinghua felt like he was in that one video of the man going ‘Ma!! The weird cat is at it again!’. The boy surely looked the part of a distrustful, aloof white cat, sometimes, and the only thing that had stopped Airplane from giving his villain a pair of white cat ears back in the day had been his fear of copyright infringement.
Pretty ironic that his parents were both accomplished lawyers, but he had no money to pay for his own if need arose; and it’s not like he could have gone to them like ‘ah, yes, I accidentally wrote the evil Shizun from my xianxia porn with this very specific feature that made him a bit too similar to another popular Shizun, also from a xianxia porn’.
If he wouldn't have gotten disowned had he come out as gay, he probably would have if he had come out as a deranged nerd.
“...What?” Shang Qinghua asked, opening an eye, his legs stretching out of the lotus pose as he took the chance to catch a break. He could feel it, the breakthrough in his cultivation being at the tip of his fingers. Soon, soon he would have had his own god-damn body.
And then… he would have to part from his spoiled disciple (it wasn’t in any way an insult, Qinghua was proud he’d got the chance to spoil the boy, and that he’d let himself get spoiled in turn).
It was not like Shen Jiu needed him, either! He was a pretty decent cultivator, after more than a year of studying under him: the boy had natural talent on top of it, so he had only needed a little nudge in the right direction. The student had almost surpassed the master!
So, really, Airplane was probably only dragging him down at this point. He could just… point Shen Jiu to Cang Qiong’s general direction, give him a pat on the back, and send him to his merry way after praying that the boy’s rotten luck wouldn’t act up and have him eaten by some weird beast along the road.
Shen Jiu narrowed his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Do you have anything you need to tell me?”
Shang Qinghua paled (as much as fire could pale. He… turned light blue?).
“... Ah?”
“I know your secret.” Shen Jiu looked almost disappointed, shaking his head with a rueful sigh.
“You… do?”
“Well, you haven’t been very subtle.”
Airplane gulped, panic coiling around his limbs, dread pooling in his belly like molten lava; he felt like throwing up, never having been that thankful that he actually lacked a stomach.
Nervously, he eyed Shen Jiu’s flask, and wondered if he could make a break for it before the boy could infuse its water with deadly qi and extinguish him in a fit of rage.
When had he fucked up? When did he let his guard down? His disciple was observant, he had surely noticed something off in his behaviour, his eagerness to reach a breakthrough, his reticence in getting closer to Cang Qiong as the seasons passed by inexorably.
“I… you knew? Since when?”
“Since… the beginning, I guess?” Shen Jiu tilted his head, looking adorably confused. At least he didn’t seem downright murderous.
Did his supposed villain turn into a white lotus while Airplane was too busy to notice?
“And you aren’t… mad? At me?”
“Why would I be? You are allowed your secrets.”
The boy mumbled something between his teeth that sounded suspiciously close to ‘We all have ours...’, and Shang Qinghua felt like he could breathe again.
Rolling his shoulders with a weak grin, he let out a small, sheepish laugh.
“I planned to tell you, you know. Eventually.”
“Really?”
“Yes! But I’m glad we see it the same way.” Airplane leaned back on his palms, sighing, feeling like a weight was off his shoulders. Ah, what would he give to nibble on some melon seeds!
Turns out, he had really misjudged Shen Jiu; after all, it was just as he thought: they had both been using each other to reach a certain goal, and now he didn’t need Qinghua anymore.
He tried to ignore the way it made his heart stutter. He brought it upon himself, after all.
Then, something extremely funny broke the quietness of the clearing where they’d been meditating.
The kind of something that could only be found in those trope-filled novels, made by no brainer authors.
‘Hack author! Cliché machine!’ Peerless Cucumber’s voice rang in Shang Qinghua's head the moment he opened his big, stupid mouth to say a big, stupid, thing .
“Hopefully, after all, Yue Qi is alive!’
“A demon lover, out of all things? Gods.”
The two stared at each other, for a second that stretched into hours like a well worn sweater.
It surely itched like one.
“What do you mean hopefully?!”
“What do you mean lover?!” Shang Qinghua squeaked, leaping up from his spot on the ground, the grass around him charring as he let out his flames in agitation.
Wait, was Shen Jiu talking about his secret meetings with Mobei Jun? Because they hadn’t been more than, what, three in the last three months, way less than Shen Jiu and his pony tailed beauty! So, really, the brat was in no position to call him out. And also, lover?! He had saved the ice demon’s sorry ass, because while he was trying to run from the plot, how could he go and ignore a poor, almost-killed-by-his-uncle, Mobei Jun?
He was just a baby! A… frozen cabbage. A profiterole? Cold, but soft inside?
“Shang Qinghua.” Airplane’s internal monologue halted as soon as Shen Jiu regarded him with a frosty glare that he hadn’t seen since the first weeks of their relationship.
“You… to this point, you hadn’t been sure that Yue Qi was alive?”
“I… made an educated guess? Wishful thinking? Wait, Jiu-er, I can explain–”
“I don’t want your explanation!”
Shang Qinghua gaped, making to follow the boy through the trees where he had scurried off, disappearing in the dark woods, but stopped mid step.
This… actually, it worked well for him. In fact, why did he even feel the need to explain himself to him?
That kid was, after all, but words on a screen. Fuck this, Airplane hadn’t spent almost two years of his life teaching the ungrateful brat for him to not extend the courtesy of letting him finish speaking.
He was done being a pushover, his previous life had been more than enough. And where had it taken him, his obsessive need to please everyone?
Well into a world he didn't love, of his own making, without anyone he could call friend; his dead body probably rotting in front of a black computer screen. Hopefully, by the time someone found his corpse, it would have stunk up the whole place and lowered the rent. How kind of him, to help the future tenants in his passing.
Thank me later, suckers!
It’s not like getting transmigrated into his novel had changed stuff for him. He died alone then, and was alone now; such was the fate of a God.
He wouldn’t reach out, not this time.
Shen Jiu was responsible for his own misery. People had free will, didn’t they?
In the many months spent together, he had seen the boy be both kind, and absolutely terrible, to him and to others. So, yes, Shen Jiu could choose to be gentle, but he hardly did so. Airplane had merely… given him a nudge in the right direction by making his life a bit worse than necessary. But, honestly! That boy that hit his fellow slave children with bricks! The literature world was full of the pitiful street orphan archetype who ended up growing into a respectable, well loved person (who might or might not fear dogs and might or might not have a strenuous relationship with his adopted brother, but that was a digression).
Airplane was not at fault. Not at all.
It wasn’t that different from giving birth to a perfectly healthy child, only to watch them go down a horrible path, even when you had given them all the right opportunities! Sure, you could have been kinder, but–
The author paused, frowning.
Was this how my parents felt towards me? Like I’ve wasted all of their opportunities, and I wasn’t worth helping anymore?
The thought alone caused a lump to form in his stomach, heavy and slimy and pushing to come out from his poor throat in a muted scream.
“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.
Sure, Shen Jiu chose to be an asshole most of the time, but he wasn’t… bad.
Most of the things that had made him an irremediable bastard in his web novel hadn’t happened yet.
Well, except the arson and mass murder, but those people kind of deserved it.
“Oh, Gods, right, we will need to figure out the whole Qiu Haitang situation before she…”
Shang Qinghua bit on his lips, brows furrowing, chipmunk cheeks puffing out.
What we?! There is no we anymore, as much as it sounds like an angsty teen novel bullshit quote.
Perhaps, as obvious as it was, Shen Jiu wasn’t a bad person, but a person who sometimes did bad things.
Was there such a thing as a bad person? He knew his parents thought so, having spent his childhood years talking about how that person deserved their misery and this person deserved to rot in jail. He had been terrified of somehow falling into one of those categories himself, of being deserving of his own misfortune.
Airplane had always cowered, never talked back, because he never knew how his parents would react; barely managing to make it to next month between his work as a writer and their allowance, what if they stopped giving it to him? They had never even suggested they would, but what if they did?
His parents weren’t cruel, he was sure there was much, much worse in the world. They hadn’t been downright unsupportive of his work either, they had let him do his own thing as long as he didn’t cause any unnecessary drama.
He had average grades.
He went to an average university.
He was, in all ways possible, an average son.
Well, except for not being straight, but he’d sworn to take that to his grave, and he’d done just so.
Lamely, he wondered if crying in this shape would end up hurting him, or causing a minor earthquake.
Heart clenching, he realized he couldn’t do that, only wobble his lip pathetically.
Mom, are you still proud like when I won that prize for my story in third grade? I’m so sorry I’m gone, will you still send me those horrible good morning messages on wechat with the poorly compressed gifs of dancing cats?
He stopped pacing, frowning. He’d always been fretting, always feeling like a small flame was burning in him, inside and out, like the electricity that had sparked his death was still coursing through his body.
Airplane groaned, slapping his cheeks a couple of times, and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars.
With one last suffocated grunt, Shang Qinghua lowered his hands, his expression unwavering for once in this life and the other.
He was done angsting. And he was surely not like his parents, and would not become like them.
Jiu-er was not beyond saving. He was not to be ignored. They might fight and lash out at each other and scream, but if he would accept his apologies, Shang Qinghua would hold on to him like a limpet.
And if he wouldn’t, well, he would have to drag him screaming bloody murder to the Ling Xi cave or however the hell that idiot of Yue Qi had ended up in that universe.
He could grant him the happy ending he didn’t have the balls to write back in his world.
It’s alright, Airplane bro. I’m taking this from here on.
Shang Qinghua took a deep breath he didn’t quite need, straightened the lapels of his robe, and set into the forest to find his stupid, stubborn, adorable disciple.
Take that, System!
He did end up as a cabbage cultivating NPC, somehow!
Shang Qinghua has been walking for half an hour.
How fast is that kid?! Malnutrition stunting one’s growth my ass, he is in perfect shape!
And, well, around a meter taller than him; at least he could still float in the air, and had grown tall enough to not get accidentally squished by a hedgehog or an orange-tusked rat.
Panting for the effort of out-running a spider rabbit – which had been such a fucking stupid idea to write, though they did make for a lovely merchandise – he froze when he heard the sound of a fight coming from a few meters in front of him.
Holding his breath, he watched the scene in front of him unfold while hiding behind a tall gingko tree.
There was his little disciple!
But who was the man pulling on his arm?!
Who dares– agh, right, of course!
Wu Yanzi!
Qinghua blinked, wondering how he would recognize the demonic cultivator when he had never seen him before. And yet, it was as if he instinctively knew him at first glance; because, in a way, the man fit perfectly with the image he had in mind when he had written about him in his drafts.
Not when it came to his appearance, like his black robes, or his unruly dark hair, or the nervous twitch in his left eye.
No, he hadn't been that precise when picturing him, because Airplane was positive he hadn't thought about the way his sneer seemed to twist the right part of his face.
It was something else, something that tickled his insides, that made his skin crawl with goosebumps of memories long gone of monsters and bogeymen. The sheer vibes of the guy reminded Qinghua of the creepy ice cream guy he had been terrified of as a kid, the one everyone said was a convicted fellow.
“Wu Yanzi, take your paws away from me or I’ll cut them off myself!”
… The fact that Shen Jiu had been cursing out his name also really helped with the recognition, but Shang Qinghua liked to think he would have reached that conclusion anyway.
“You went and had the guts to betray me, huh, little brat? Even after I’ve helped you get out of that hell hole! Do you seriously think any respectable sect will take you in? At your age? With your ruined foundation, your heart demons?”, the man snarled, his hand curled around Shen Jiu’s pale wrist, pulling him towards him. His demonic sword was glinting at his side.
Shen Jiu hissed back, like a feral startled cat, baring his teeth at his previous master.
“You are wrong! He–”
“He who ? You are just like the day I found you two years ago, utterly and pathetically alone.”
Shen Jiu’s mouth clicked shut, so strongly that Qinghua feared for his poor teeth.
Ouch, Jiu-er! Be careful! I didn’t write any dentists into this world! What if you chip one? Tanghulu are hard to eat with a cracked tooth!
The two cultivators stared each other down with a practiced, calculating glare. Clearly, the boy had no hope to ever win against the demonic cultivator.
For heaven's sake, he had to take him by surprise in the original story too, and that had been a more ruthless, more resourceful Shen Jiu!
Sure, Qinghua had taught him how to properly circulate qi and had given him a proper foundation, but during their two years together they had spent most of the time dealing with the damages his rocky start had caused, healing his heart demons and strengthening his body! The boy was far from the level of a master, no matter how scummy said master was.
Shang Qinghua’s heart was drumming in his ribcage, his blood, or whatever he had instead of it, deafening him as it boiled in anger and fear for the boy's safety.
Thump thump .
“He… he will come. Shifu will come.”
Thump thump.
“Oh, where did I hear this before? Ah, right, when you kept me hanging for days before accepting my generous help back at the manor, claiming that your friend would have come. But did he? No, you had to save yourself. You will always have to, about time you learn this lesson.”
Thump thump.
“I… that’s different! Qi-ge hadn’t… but he, Qinghua– Shizun will- ”
Thump thump thump.
“Let’s do it this way. I’ll be a good Shizun and take you back under my wing. Sure, it won’t come free of charge, but I can see that your pathways have cleared now, so they can be used . Come on, little bird. Show me your fangs. Show me your determination, your hunger! The same one that let you massacre a whole estate without a second thought. Come with me, boy.”
Thump thump thump thump!
“... No.”
He slapped his hand away, staring right into the demonic cultivator’s eyes with muted fury in his.
Shen Jiu’s voice didn’t sound like someone waiting to be saved. He sounded like someone who had given it up, but hardly cared about the consequences.
He sounded like a kid who had hoped, and hoped, and hoped, and what for?
To end up forgotten. To be left behind, even if not on purpose.
If Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had admired one thing about Shen Qingqiu, it had been his ability to always spit at life in the face, even when it was his own bloodied hand holding the brush that wrote his downfall. It’s not that he didn’t take responsibility, he simply didn’t care enough to excuse his actions in any way. Selfishly, greedily clawing his way from the mud, sticking his claws and teeth into anything that would take him out of it and towards a light he refused to bask into. That was the villain he'd written.
To see him stripped of that… hurt .
Thump thump.
He wanted to watch that passion burn in him again, consume him whole until Shen Jiu could stand proudly under the light and let it warm up his poor bones.
And if he couldn’t reignite it by himself, Shang Qinghua would have to give it a little push himself, like the flame of a candle rekindling her twin.
Qinghua closed his eyes and, without sparing any more time, took a few hurried steps out of his hiding spot and towards the two people.
He noticed two things.
The first, was that he was taller now, as he had reached the two in but a few moments.
The second, he saw it reflected in Shen Jiu’s jade eyes, big and suspiciously wet: fire.
The clearing was on fire?!
Wait, no, he was on fire?! What sort of anime bullshit was that, what–
“You– a demon?!”
Shang Qinghua turned to face Wu Yanzi with a deadpan expression. Surely, the cultivator could feel that his qi was anything but demonic, although… The bloodlust that was polluting the air, coming out of him in waves, gave the man every right to be scared and call him a demon.
“Close. I’m a God.”
Shang Qinghua replied, somewhat haughtily, taking a step between the two, tucking Shen Jiu behind him. His flames licked at his disciple’s arm, not burning, but rather pouring warm qi into his meridians, soothing the marks Wu Yanzi had left.
In the back of his mind, he hoped Shen Jiu wasn’t scared, as he clearly remembered the boy’s uneasiness towards fire, how the smell of charred meat set his stomach into knots. A quick look behind him, though, seemed to tell that his disciple looked more in awe than anything else.
Ayah, my poor Jiu-er! Fear not, Shizun is here!
“Shizun! You came for me?” Shen Jiu whispered, and he was all that mattered to Shang Qinghua.
A part of him, the part that could somehow control his tendrils of fire, was acutely aware that Wu Yanzi had taken off, trying to make himself scarce and running away to the other end of the forest. The same part of him also made sure to catch the man in an inferno of flames, reducing him to a black, dry husk.
Serves him right, to die off screen like a cannon fodder.
Good. All the blood he could take away from Shen Jiu’s little hands, he'd gladly spill.
“I’m your Shif– your Shizun, of course I did.” He grinned, sounding way too smug.
“You are an idiot, that’s what you are!”
Shang Qinghua whined, accepting the swat the boy delivered to his head after getting on his tiptoes. It was a great novelty to be taller than Shen Jiu, but he had the feeling it wouldn’t last long with proper nutrition and care helping the boy grow.
“Ow, ow, Jiu-er is so mean to this one!”
“Of course I am! Earlier I spoke to you without any respect- you can’t let other people walk all over you like that! What sort of Shizun, what sort of God does that?!”
“... Yours?”
That earned him another wack, but he didn’t miss Shen Jiu’s eyes getting glossy again, his face flushed with a pleased grin that he tried to hide between his sleeve – he really should buy him a fan.
Shang Qinghua sighed, flashing the boy a small, bashful smile.
“I’m sorry for lying to you. For what it's worth, I do think your friend is alive, although I don’t have any proof. And we are still definitely going to Cang Qiong. If Yue Qi truly isn't there… we will figure it out from there.”
Shen Jiu sighed, sitting on a nearby log with a thud, as if his legs had given up on him after so many emotions. Qinghua sat near him, close enough that the little flames that still engulfed his body brushed against him, as if trying to warm him up from the chill of the night. When did the sun set? Probably at some point during his cool, anime-like moment. Really, the only thing missing had been the wind blowing scenographically through his hair.
“It’s… alright. I’ve also been… well, using you for my own ends, I guess. And I've never really wanted to try and extinguish you. You know, I don’t want to die.”
And I don’t want you to die either was left unsaid, but the transmigrator could read it in the furrow of his brows, the little pout that pulled his lips downwards.
He. Was. So. Cute! His little disciple! Admitting to being wrong and forgiving others!! This was growth!
Shang Qinghua clicked his tongue, ruffling the boy’s black hair with a grin, delighted by the mortified sound he let out.
“That’s good. Jiu-er should stay alive, if only to spite destiny.”
“Hmhm.”
“And he should be kind.”
“Hmmhm.”
“And if he ever found himself as a teacher, he should make sure to not abuse any adorable white lotus disciple with fluffy hair and the vibes of a pomeranian dog.”
“Shizun, that’s… terribly specific. And what do you mean adorable white lotus? ”
The God laughed, pulling the grumbling boy into a bone crushing hug, ignoring the cries he let out into his robe. He’d been wanting to do that for a long time, after all.
As he smothered Shen Jiu and ruffled his long hair, Shang Qinghua couldn’t help but mentally rejoyce that he could warm up his disciple properly, since he was now human-sized.
Although, sooner or later, I should figure out how to look like a human-sized human, rather than a human-sized lantern thingy.
“Aiyah, calm down, Jiu-di! You are still this Shizun’s cutest disciple ever, of course!”
“I’m not!”
“Are too~.”
“Shizun! Stop! I’ll pour water on you! I don’t care if the word explodes after that, you— eep! Let go of me!”
Ah, really!
The future scum villain’s cheeks were delightfully soft!
Holding the squirming child in his arms, Shang Qinghua took one long breath, closing his eyes.
He’d make things right, this time around.
Starting from one little cabbage.
.Extra - Liu Mingyu
Liu Mingyu was in love.
Or rather, well, that was the conclusion his little sister had drawn when he’d presented her with the situation at hand, desperate to figure out how or when his new rival had poisoned him with an Heart Drumming flower; those didn’t even grow in their area, but Shen Jiu was nothing short of resourceful and cunning and such a snake that he certainly had ways to find it and feed it to Mingyu before he could notice.
When he explained to Mingyan that he couldn’t stand the presence of the older boy for longer than twenty minutes without his breath accelerating and his palms getting clammy, his adorable younger sister had declared that it was love.
So, good! No poisonous flowers involved!
But bad! Feelings were involved!
One couldn't heal from those with some yucky cultivation pills or by puking his guts out, no matter what ruckus the butterflies in Mingyu’s stomach were making.
First, he had promptly confiscated Mingyan’s books (what was she reading ! She was too young!! Romance books weren’t for her age!), then he had been forced to give those back by his grandmother (it involved a severe beating and a dreadfully long talk about being too close minded for a clan heir), and lastly, he had mulled over it in the only way he knew.
By challenging Shen Jiu to yet another spar.
They had been doing that for the majority of the summer, as Liu Mingyu had been recovering from a minor qi deviation back in his family estate instead of at Cang Qiong. So what if he was prone to them? It wasn’t the sort of thing that would ever come to bite him later, as long as he was careful.
(Somewhere across the woods, Shang Qinghua sneezed.)
He had met the older kid when he was bored out of his mind, and with no one to train with that wasn’t either way out of his league (he might not be the brightest sword in the cave, but he surely knew he couldn’t go against his grandmother, yet), or… Mingyan. Which, adorable little kid, sure to grow into a fearsome cultivator, but she was also like… ten. Shen Jiu had been a cold breeze in the scorching summer days, with his arrogant personality and the skills to put behind his taunts; it was clear that he had started cultivating a bit later, but he compensated with plenty of drive and resourcefulness.
And natural talent, but whenever Mingyu pointed that out, the other would snarl at him with fire in his eyes, hotter than the sun above their heads; Mingyu could understand it for he, too, hated it whenever his accomplishments were reduced to a dispassionate 'He’s very talented for his age', as if he didn't also train his butt off.
It was also pretty clear that the two of them were incredibly good at setting each other off. Mingyu could still remember their first meeting, where he'd taunted Shen Jiu about the fact that he would have never made it to Cang Qiong at his level (it wasn't even taunting, more like careful assessment), and in response he'd gotten his nose smashed in by a brick.
Infused with qi, because Shen Jiu never did things by halves.
Nowadays, Liu Mingyu often ended up either pinned under the other, with a bony knee digging into his soft inner thigh, or vice versa, with his training sword bruising Shen Jiu’s ribs.
Mingyu didn’t have any sort of realization like the ones in Mingyan's books.
… So what if he read one! He wanted to figure out why she would jump to the conclusion that they were into each other, and besides it was the right thing to do as a big brother! Get interested in his sister’s hobbies!
Anyway, no fireworks exploded behind his eyes as they landed on Shen Jiu’s face for the first time.
It had been a series of small things, a wave of nausea whenever he would look at the clouds with him, forehead sweaty as they laid next to each other on the grass after training, zoning out whenever the older boy would go on and on about this and that plant he was studying with his Shifu, too focused on the sound of Shen Jiu’s voice rather than what he was saying.
Perhaps, the closest thing to a lightning bolt in his heart had been when he had introduced Shen Jiu to Mingyan, after she had been demanding to meet the mysterious boy Liu Mingyu had been telling her about for the whole summer.
The usual aloof, feral cat of a teenager looked almost… docile in front of her. Cheeks flushed, appearance as put together as possible, and then he… smiled.
He smiled.
Liu Mingyu was a lovely older brother and not at all resentful, as he was above such petty feelings, but if that night he had accidentally poured tea on Mingyan’s rabbit plushie, well, that was between him and the Gods. It totally wasn’t because she’s got one of Shen Jiu’s smiles before he did, not at all.
What he did swear on the gods (while consoling a crying Mingyan and trying his best to dry off the damn plushie with his qi, because he was a lovely older brother) was that at some point, he would have been responsible for that smile.
He’s had to say goodbye to his (rival? friend? future prospect of a husband? he would need to ask him for his auspicious dates) sparring partner somewhere at the end of the month. It could have been more romantic, under a flaming sunshine, with cicadas screaming in the background and the heat of the day leaving place to the chill of the night.
Instead, it had been unexpected, on a late afternoon with the sun still high in the sky, after their latest sparring session. Liu Mingyu knew it wouldn’t last forever, that as summer ended he would have had to go back to Cang Qiong. But Shen Jiu had told him that he was heading there too, to meet an old friend, so…
“You will pass the next disciple selection. And if they don’t take you in, just climb all the way to Bai Zhan; you can make it.”
“With my abilities?” Shen Jiu said, a lopsided grin pulling at his mud stained cheeks.
Liu Mingyu frowned, not adept at sarcasm, but recognizing the words he had carelessly thrown at the other at the beginning of their relationship.
“Yes. Definitely.”
Shen Jiu’s grin dimmed into something somewhat kinder, a flush on his cheeks that he would surely blame on the heat, or the exertion from their training. Liu Mingyu would go to war for that smile. Would even fight hand to hand every day for five years with a heavenly demon for it.
(Somewhere, Qinghua wondered if he was coming down with something, with how much he had been sneezing).
“Then, let’s meet up again there, brute.”
“It’s a promise.”
“I hate those, don’t even–”
Mingyu held out his hand, stopping the other’s no doubt long tirade.
“Then, it’s a vow.”
“... I accept your vow, then, Liu Mingyu.”
The two gave each other a small bow, and with that, Shen Jiu was back into the woods, meeting up with that weird Shifu of his (which, honestly, he would love to meet such a talented man! It was no easy feat to earn Shen Jiu’s praises, after all).
Back into his house, sipping some cold tea, Liu Mingyu stared at his sister.
“We are courting.”
Liu Mingyan blinked slowly, looking like a seasoned master rather than a ten year old.
“Does he know?”
“We swore to each other. I’m going to inform grandmother.”
“You swore- Ge, ge, ge stop, does he know you two are courting?!”
Once back in Cang Qiong, Liu Mingyu acted way more relaxed, almost a skip in his steps; he still tore mercilessly through any disciple who had the horrible idea of challenging him, and still took the beatings he did receive with surprising aplomb, but sometimes his martial siblings would catch him staring at the bamboo forest with a fargone look, and a private smile on his face that earned him at least three visits to Qian Cao.
“So, shixiong, that’s what I did on my break. What about you? How did your mission go?”
Yue Qi gave his shidi a tiny smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but surely lifted the eyebags underneath those.
“Unfortunately, this shixiong once again failed to find… this shixiong failed. But, I’m glad shidi had fun and met someone he liked.”
Liu Mingyu nodded, brisk, and gave the older boy a court bow. Well, sucks to be him, he knew how much Yue Qi had been looking forward to finding whatever he needed to find in that mission. After all, everyone knew about the tragic tale of Yue Qi’s time in the Ling Xi caves – the details were vague, but they had been told the head disciple of Qiong Ding had rushed in his cultivation and had paid the price for it. Mingyu had told Shen Jiu about this story as a warning to take his time in his training, of course omitting Yue Qi’s name for privacy reasons (he couldn’t go and give his shixiong a bad reputation! He could become sect leader in the future!). Back then, even his future spouse had agreed that it’d been an idiotic move to rush in his cultivation, no matter the reason.
“I’m sure Yue-Shixiong will get over it. I’ll introduce you to my spouse when he will come for the disciple selection in spring, perhaps you two will get along.”
“Thanking shidi for his kindness.”
Liu Mingyu grinned, and turned on his heels to go train some more. Ah, he couldn’t wait to marry Shen Jiu and do all the things married couples do!
Like… sparring. And training. And sparring some more.
He halted in his steps, a flush high on his cheekbones.
They’d been doing all that already so… could it be that they were closer to marriage than he could have hoped?!