Chapter Text
There is a certain expectation to the transmigration experience. A disembodied voice to cheer you on, a gentle awakening in a room where one can put the pieces together, an opportunity for a chance to catch one's breath.
Shen Yuan, his chest spasming, jolts awake to find that he can't breathe. He snaps his eyes open, only to find his eyes stinging and blurry. His hands scramble, but they're so heavy, he can't breathe, can't—
"Stupid—IDIOT!" a voice screams, shrill and cracking with ferocity. Vicious hands slam down against Shen Yuan's chest, and he chokes and splutters on an outraged objection. That hurts! What the hell? What the HELL? He can't make out more of the person than a blur of pale skin and dark hair.
It begins to occur to him, slowly, that this whole experience should not be happening. He'd been half-in half-out of the shower last he remembered, very, very alone. He'd still been breathing. He'd been cursing that damn book aloud.
"BREATHE you fool! BREATHE!" that furious voice is demanding, the cruel hands scrambling and clawing at his clothes, as if that will help somehow. Shen Yuan slaps weakly at those arms, and the person makes a vicious, offended sound before—
SMACK!
Shen Yuan's head jolts to the side, slapped hard, and in his surprise he chokes up a mouthful of blood.
"You BRUTE!" that person is screaming, hands back on his chest, "I don't care if you'd rather lay there and die that accept my help, you pathetic wretch, I will drag you back to the land of the living if it kills me!"
And then those vicious fingers manage to dig under his clothes, against his chest, and then they're up against the edges of what feels like a burning hole in his sternum and—Oh, OW! Ow, ow, ow, what is he doing that HURTS!
Shen Yuan's hands twitch, the burning pain racing all the way through him, arcing outwards through his limbs from the core of him. Something about it is electric enough that his body spasms, and that, at last, jolts his lazy lungs into action once more.
One cough, then two, then—He spits up a great gob of blood, and the person above him recoils with his burning hands and a sound of outraged disgust.
That's my chance! Shen Yuan thinks, straining to throw his weary arms up and shove the stranger away.
It… Well. It works?
With the slight addendum that it works a little better than intended. There's the expected strain of biceps doing their best under extenuating circumstances, the expected dazed contact of palms to another body, and then WHOOM.
Light and force leap up with his will and pours free of him, wild and untamed, and explode in the space between their bodies. Shen Yuan is shoved back against the stone floor—which, ow—and the man above him vanishes in a heartbeat with a sharp sound and then the tumbling noise of a body falling.
Then, finally, it's quiet.
Okay, Shen Yuan thinks in that silence, laying flat on his back and blinking up at the world that's suddenly gone dark and still. Okay.
So.
That shouldn't have been possible.
And neither should the cave ceiling slowly coming into focus above him, with softly glowing ribbon formations and stalactites.
Haha, part of him says. What a realistic set.
Oh, another part says. I transmigrated.
Shit, says a third part. Shit, shit, shit, what the hell kind of transmigration lands in a scene like this? What the hell happened to me?
His breath—ragged and desperate, has been steadily slowing. The core of agony at the heart of him has settled, smoothing out into a dull throb more like the old carpel tunnel symptoms he's so used to than a mortal wound. The cave is still really really quiet.
"...System?" tries Shen Yuan.
There's a cheerful little dripping sound echoing through the cavern. There's his own still-ragged breathing. There's a wheezing whine that it takes him a moment to realize wasn't him.
Shit, that guy who'd been yelling. How hard had Shen Yuan hit him with whatever qi attack that was? Sure, he'd slapped Shen Yuan in the fucking face for no good reason, but he had probably been trying to help! And starting off a transmigration by making an enemy doesn't sound like a great opener!
With great effort, Shen Yuan pushes himself upright. Below his palms, the cave floor feels smooth and cold. He blinks against the dim light, his eyes clearing as he prioritizes his next moves.
First things first, he has to figure out who and where he is. If he hasn't accidentally blasted an NPC's head off with his cool new protagonist powers, he'll need to get some sort of idea who that person is, or at least who HE'S supposed to be in relation to them! He needs information here!
The cave is… Really cave-like, so that's not much of a clue. Not like he expected a neon sign or anything, but what sort of setting has just 'cave' without any real description to set the cavern apart from any other cavern? The lightly glowy cave formations are not helping.
There is, however, a sword flung halfway across the roomy hollow he's awakened to. That seems like as close as a transmigrator could get to a big neon 'you are here' sign!
Shen Yuan expects it to be some effort to rise to his new feet, given his new body's recent brush with death. He's not sure what to do when upon his first attempt to rise, his body springs upright so quickly he almost falls again.
The front of his clothes—robes? Whatever—are completely coated in blood, wet and still warm, which… Gross. He pulls at them with his fingertips, trying to tilt his head down to see what's wrong with him. There are fingerprint bruises on his bared chest, surrounding an angry red scar.
Extremely cool scar, but wow, Mr. Slap—who appears to be lying in a tangle of green robes completely across the cavern—sure has some hands on him.
Shen Yuan rubs a hand over his smarting cheek as he walks over to the abandoned sword.
He freezes in place looking down at it, wet with blood as well, but immediately recognizable.
He knows this sword. He'd owned a limited run model of this sword! Liu Qingge's famous weapon, Cheng Luan, interred with his body until chapter 457 when Liu Mingyan had to remove it from his tomb in order to aid Luo Binghe in conquering the Winsome Marigolds of the Eastern hidden realms! There's no mistaking it, and when he bends to check—yes, the name is engraved along its side. Not just a knockoff, but the real deal, Liu Qingge's weapon!
Which… Which means…?
Shen Yuan's hands fly up to grasp at his chest once more, but his initial view didn't lead him astray—he indeed has no breasts, so he hasn't ended up as Liu Mingyan during that climactic series of battles. It's possible that Cheng Luan isn't his at all, though, it's covered in blood and so is he so maybe—
He looks over at the fallen man again with a sudden spike of worry. Didn't Liu Qingge die in a cave like this?! Murdered by…Murdered by the scum villain Shen Qingqiu… Who Shen Yuan might have transmigrated into only to fulfill that prophecy!?
He's across the cave before he can think on it further, gripping the fallen man by the shoulder and turning his limp body to reveal his face.
Blood streaks over pale skin, twin streams down from closed eyes, dripping from his parted lips, staining the skin beneath his nose, but none of it can detract from the gentle beauty of the stranger's face. There's no WAY this is Liu Qingge—If the scholar's mark didn't give it away the green silks and elegant bone structure would have. No, this can only be Shen Qingqiu himself—The scum villain of legend! Who somehow now looks like a bullied and wronged maiden, as delicate and lovely as a fallen spring blossom! What the fuck?!
Shen Yuan looks down at his own hands—broad and strong while still maintaining an elegant look. When he clenches his fists his knuckles bleed white with the strength of it. The motion feels familiar and comfortable in a way Shen Yuan never would have expected. He doesn't even feel his nails poking into his palms! There are callouses across his hand, and he has a bet about what they're from.
Hesitantly, he stretches his hand out and thinks really hard about the potential for stabbing. The sword on the floor rattles, then flies to him as if it were on wires, only saved from looking ludicrously cheesy by the speed of the motion. Cheng Luan fits into his palm like he was born to hold it.
He lifts the sword, and almost feels the echo down his arm—how it would have felt to plunge it into his own chest. Shen Qingqiu's fingerprints are bruised into Shen Yuan's chest.
The story snaps into focus around him.
Liu Qingge lying on the floor of the Lingxi caves, dying, stabbed through by his own sword. Cruel hands descending on him, barking orders and struggling to see the wound and then, with a brute force application of qi, attempting to close it.
Shen Qingqiu, the scum villain, has just tried to save Liu Qingge's life in the Lingxi caves.
And Shen Yuan has blown him up about it.
With unsteady hands, he shoves away the high collars of the scum villain's robes and feels around on his neck. There's a pulse point around there somewhere, right? He digs in, and heaves a breath when he feels Shen Qingqiu choke against his questing hand. Dead people don't choke, right?
So he's not dead, and that's… Something. And Liu Qingge isn't dead either, if Shen Yuan is Liu Qingge now! There's a pretty alarming person-shaped dent in the cave wall where Shen Qingqiu hit, but… Well, he's a cultivator, it's probably fine. Shen Yuan winces at the sight of the blood smear trailing down from it, though.
Shoving to his feet he starts pacing.
"System?" he tries again, and when there's silence he tries: "Open Menu!" and then: "Open settings!" before switching to: "uh, god? Maybe? Some sort of… Great… Spirit?"
Nothing. Silence. In fact, WAY more silence than he's used to. No air conditioners or electricity humming! No distant traffic or airplanes! Wow, the Xianxia retreat package really has some unexpected luxuries…
He is alone here.
No system could be good news! If one looked at it from a certain way, it was like being thrown into a sandbox world with no moderator!
If one looked at it from another direction though, it was like being thrown in without a how-to guide.
Shen Yuan grimaced, looking down at Shen Qingqiu's still body. The scum of the earth really looked quite pathetic, fallen on the dirt. All the clues he'd managed to collect certainly pointed to Proud Immortal Demon Way, but Shen Yuan knew the hateful and ridiculous content of that disaster novel by heart, and he was absolutely certain that Shen Qingqiu had never done anything worth doing in his short, ugly life.
The fingertip bruises on his chest are so OOC he wants to cry. What sort of Alternate Universe has he ended up in?
He's pacing again before he even realizes it, the motion coming naturally to the spectacularly fit body he's found himself in. He takes a couple little practice swings with his sword while he's at it, then grimaces and starts working on wiping the blood off its blade onto his robes.
Shen Qingqiu still isn't moving.
No need to think about that just now! Timeline, timeline, if Liu Qingge was supposed to die in the Lingxi caves at this point in the story, then Luo Binghe must… He be on the mountain somewhere, he realizes, and comes to a complete stop, his breath halting in his lungs.
He is on Cang Qiong mountain. He's transmigrated into a peak lord! True, one that should be dead, but… Definitely a guy who lives on the mountain, so long as he's alive. And it seems like he's avoided the one death flag he would have been really worried about as Liu Qingge!
But Luo Binghe is on the mountain. If this is when he thinks it is—when Shen Qingqiu was supposed to kill him—then Binghe has been here for YEARS already, his sweet little lamb heart slowly roasting under the scorching hatred and jealousy of his vile shizun!
…Who, again, just tried to save Liu Qingge's life.
Briefly, Shen Yuan entertains the idea that the slap and grabbing were actually murder attempts, and heaves a sigh when he can't make that much more convenient theory hold water.
With a scowl, he drops back down to sit beside Shen Qingqiu's limp form, glaring at him. Shitty shitty scumbag. Who's bright idea was it to throw him into a world where the character he'd advocated for castrating would end up saving his life, huh!? Ridiculous!
And yet, thinking of it…
Airplane had, through many many chapters made repeated winks at the idea that there was more to Shen Qingqiu than anyone knew. Sure, it was heavily implied that those were all bad things, and Shen Yuan hadn't doubted that, but wouldn't it be just like that little bastard to have had big plans for his precious scumbag villain only to abandon them?
…Nah, that was probably giving Airplane AND Shen Qingqiu too much credit. Maybe he'd transmigrated into a world that had already shifted its course!
Shen Qingqiu still isn't moving.
Slowly, Shen Yuan reaches out. He extends one long, elegant, powerful finger and, with every scrap of bravery he possesses, pokes the scum villain lightly on his cheek.
Teeth close where his finger had been a heartbeat before, Shen Yuan wasn't even aware of the instincts that made him yank back, and Shen Qingqiu is scrambling away in a flurry of green silk and black hair. Shen Yuan gapes after him, then stares down at his miraculously intact finger. Thank goodness for the war god's impeccable reflexes! He almost lost a finger to the scum villain's dirty tactics!
"Hey!" barks Shen Yuan in a tone of voice he's never used before. Liu Qingge's offense makes him loud and fierce as he rises to his new feet, still gripping Cheng Luan tightly.
"You dare!" Shen Qingqiu hisses, drawing himself up like a snake rearing to strike. "I should cut off your hand, you ungrateful wretch!"
Wow, Shen Yuan thinks. So he's the kind of person who wakes up all at once. Not even a groggy 'what's happening' moment, it's straight to the insults with this asshole!
"You're the one who was knocked out by a little explosion!" he yells back, gesturing at the wall. "I was practically dead!"
"And yet here you stand! How foul my luck must be, to deliver your survival." sneers Shen Qingqiu, sharply moving his arms in a way that makes his sleeves snap neatly to his sides.
Shen Yuan stares at him. What the fuck with this guy!?
"Touch me again and you will lose more than one appendage," snarls the scum villain of Proud Immortal Demon Way, straight and stiff, silhouetted by the light from outside the cave's entry.
There's a shallow pool of blood where he'd fallen, glinting just in the corner of Shen Yuan's vision. His cheek is still stinging, and his chest is still aching. He scowls, and the expression feels intensely natural on his face.
Shit, he's supposed to be playing Liu Qingge's role in this! What would the War God say? Hadn't Mingyan always described him as stoic and upstanding?
Setting aside his personal grudges, and the chant of 'castrate him!' that's been boiling under his skin since laying eyes on the scumbag, he clears his throat and bends into a short, shallow bow.
"Shixiong was hurt on my account," he chokes out. "Allow this shidi to assist."
Silence follows his words. And then is some more silence. When he risks a glance it's to see the scum villain gaping at him like he'd just ripped off his skin to reveal a xenomorph wearing Liu Qingge's pelt. More than just bamboozled, Shen Qingqiu looks outright disgusted. What the hell!?
"Whatever you think you're doing, stop ," commands the scum, fishing in one of his sleeves swiftly. He pulls out a broken fan and tries to open it before staring down at the shattered spine with an offended sneer. His fingers fumble in the motions, even as he turns and flings the broken fan against the cave wall, shattering it beyond repair.
"You're probably concussed," Shen Yuan points out, frowning. "I'm just offering—"
"Don't you look down on me!" snaps Shen Qingqiu, thrusting his shaking hand forward to point a wicked finger in Liu Qingge's direction. "Don't you dare! I'm not the one who nearly killed myself in this fucking cave today! No, you're not touching me with that uselessly unstable base of yours. Hah! Which of us is the failure now, shidi?"
Shen Yuan wonders if the urge to punch this guy came free with the body, or if that's just his old reader impulses being faced with another ridiculous and poorly timed villain monologue. The blood staining Shen Qingqiu's green robes and soaking the palms of his porcelain-pale hands isn't any less real just because the man's being a dick about everything.
A part of Shen Yuan would be delighted to see the back of this unpleasant character. See you never, Shen Qingqiu, thanks for nothing and enjoy the water prison!
Unfortunately, it seemed like Shen Yuan's fate is now also tied to Cang Qiong mountain. Sure, with Liu Qingge's power, sword, and a little practice he could probably book it before Binghe returns from the abyss, but wouldn't that be a bit of a waste? He's free from System interference, set loose in the novel that most needs fixing of any story he's ever read, and he's in a position of power to change it!
He just has to deal with Mr. Slap standing in the cave entrance and watching him like a vulture.
Well, in addition to 'good' and 'upright', Liu Qingge had once been described as 'straightforward,' right?
"You saved my life," Shen Yuan accuses. "Am I not supposed to be grateful?"
He expects another snap and snarl—he doesn't expect the peak lord of Qing Jing to recoil and flush, straight up his pale cheeks and to his ears. Shen Qingqiu stammers briefly, then whirls away, his robes swirling. The motion is so abrupt that the man's head injury seems to act up again, leaving him swaying. Yeah, he's definitely concussed.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Shen Qingqiu snaps, his head tilted to bark the words over his shoulder. He doesn't sound like he's wobbling on his feet. "If you qi deviate and interrupt me again I will kill you, Liu Qingge!"
Shen Yuan lifts a hand to rub at the bridge of Liu Qingge's nose, chasing away the headache Shen Qingqiu is steadily causing.
"Is it so ridiculous to try to better our relationship?" He mutters.
"Don't show me your face again!" snaps Shen Qingqiu as he storms away. The unevenness of his steps lingers in the caves far longer than his presence does.
Shen Yuan watches his retreating form in disbelief, then slowly leans back and places his hands on his hips. Not what he expected at all! What sort of story has he ended up in, huh?! What's with this slappable princess wearing the scum villain's robes?!
No, nevermind that, as OOC as Shen Qingqiu is, he has a bigger problem:
Eventually, Shen Yuan is going to have to leave the caves, and when he does…How the fuck is he supposed to act like a character who's never been in the story!?
In the shadowed depths of the Lingxi caves, a wisp of a soul watches as a stranger wearing his body drops his head into his hands and groans like he's been struck with a deathblow.