Work Text:
The sun was still lazily floating above Cang Qiong Peak when Liu Qingge descended upon An Ding Peak’s training fields at an alarming speed. He wasn’t one to meddle in other peaks’ affairs — each sect master should mind their own disciples, as tradition dictated. But this time… this time he had heard rumors. He always heard them. But these ones were... far too impossible.
Rumors that Shang Qinghua, his shixiong, master of An Ding Peak — usually too busy writing reports, crafting formations, or rambling about things only he seemed to understand — was personally training disciples.
And Liu Qingge, ever the skeptic and a warrior, had to see it with his own eyes.
What he saw almost made him trip over his own feet.
There, in the center of the training field, was Shang Qinghua. But not the Shang Qinghua Liu had known since their disciple days — the timid one, all awkward smiles, mumbled excuses, and quick escapes from peak meetings.
This Shang Qinghua wore simple clothes that might as well have been made for a servant: thick, neutral-colored fabric tied at the waist with a practical knot. His hair, usually loose or haphazardly tied, was now pulled into a high ponytail — neat, utilitarian, almost martial. He walked among the disciples with a relaxed posture, but his eyes were keenly analyzing every movement.
"That's not how you break out of a hold!" Shang Qinghua exclaimed, with surprising firmness in his voice. "If the enemy's already grabbed your arm, you’re not just going to scream and wait for a senior to save you, are you?"
The disciples laughed nervously.
Liu Qingge frowned. This was exactly what Shang Qinghua used to do when they were young — scream for help and run so he wouldn’t have to fight.
Before Liu’s disbelieving eyes, Shang Qinghua grabbed one of the disciples from behind and demonstrated — with impressive fluidity and ease — how to use body weight and leverage to break free from a hold.
"See? Hip leverage! Use your brain, not your sword. Unless you want to die in style," he said calmly, extending a hand to help the disciple up. A smile lit up his round face.
Liu Qingge crossed his arms. The demonstration had been… technically accurate. Very accurate. And fast.
That didn’t look like an act. Usually, everything involving Shang Qinghua looked like an act.
When the disciple tried to mimic the move, Shang Qinghua corrected his stance patiently. No hurry, no sarcasm — just… competence. Which was very strange, considering Liu had always associated Shang Qinghua with long, exhausting texts, sleepless nights, and absurd theories about mystical plants.
Then Shang saw him. His head snapped so fast it must have cracked something. He waved at one of the senior disciples to continue the training and approached Liu Qingge with hesitation, his movements reverting to their usual tension.
“Liu-shidi?! What are you doing here?!”
Liu raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a public space.”
“ Public... Okay, not, it’s inside my peak,” Shang Qinghua said, leaning in slightly, confused. He stopped in front of Liu Qingge, blinking. “When did you return to the sect?”
“Half a shichen ago…”
“And you came here before going to Mu Qingfang?”
Liu Qingge didn’t respond right away. The silence between them was brief, but heavy. Seeing him so serious, Shang Qinghua barely held back the smile tugging at his lips, suppressing the laughter that threatened to spill. There was something amusing — even a little ironic — about the whole situation.
“Poor Mu-shidi,” he thought, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Having to put up with these martial brothers who can’t even take care of themselves.”
Liu Qingge had been away for weeks. It was expected that he’d check in before disappearing again, especially considering what kind of cultivator he was — the type who came and went quickly and didn’t concern himself much with injuries.
His presence was as sudden as his blunt question.
“ Why are you here?” Shang Qinghua asked again, voice firm, like he was about to interrogate a suspect.
Liu Qingge answered calmly:
“Observing.”
“Observing,” Shang Qinghua repeated in disbelief. He was repeating practically everything Liu Qingge said because, my lord, it didn’t make sense.
Observing what?
Liu Qingge narrowed his eyes and continued:
“You… fight?”
The question hung in the air a second longer than necessary.
No. Shang Qinghua never fought. He had always refused to raise a sword and face anyone.
Shang Qinghua cleared his throat, adjusting his ponytail, as if only now realizing how informal he looked, sleeves rolled up, exposing far too much of his wrists.
“Well…” he began, dragging out the word as he searched for the right way to explain. “This lord wouldn’t say I fight , not really, you know, shidi. But there are things you need to learn before leading a logistics peak. Not everything can be solved with a well-drawn protection formation or a quick escape. And we… well, we’re not warriors.”
He shrugged, not taking his eyes off his shidi.
“But sometimes,” he continued, more serious now, “a cultivator has to handle things with their own fists just to survive. And as useful as stealth is, it doesn’t always cut it.”
Liu Qingge crossed his arms, watching him with an unreadable expression.
He said nothing. His eyes studied every detail, Shang Qinghua’s stance, the almost defensive tone in his voice. It was hard to tell what was going on behind that impassive face. Wasn’t Shen Qingqiu supposed to be the hard one to read?
Shang Qinghua sighed, then muttered:
“It’s just a matter of self-defense.”
The words came out firmly, but his gaze wavered, unsettled. He knew exactly how it would sound to Liu Qingge, vague, maybe even suspicious. But the truth was simple, even if hard to admit. He wasn’t trying to become a warrior. He just wanted to make sure his disciples had a chance. That he had a chance.
He feared Liu Qingge might suspect some hidden agenda. The last person he wanted judging his actions was precisely the one he respected the most, and maybe feared a little. Because if Liu Qingge got a bad impression of you, he had no qualms about making that opinion known, especially in public. Just like with Shen Qingqiu.
“Self-defense?” Liu Qingge repeated, brows slightly raised, his tone heavy with doubt. The word left his lips like something barely believable — or entirely out of place.
His gaze swept over Shang Qinghua from head to toe, pausing for a moment on the cultivator’s simple, slightly wrinkled clothes.
Then, his eyes moved to Shang’s face, where a faint flush colored his cheeks.
Shang Qinghua didn’t exactly look tired. On the contrary, there wasn’t even a drop of sweat visible on his forehead. He looked the same as he did during important meetings — too calm, too composed. And maybe that was the most striking part.
There was something Liu Qingge couldn’t quite decipher. As if, suddenly, he noticed details that had always slipped past him, the tiny freckles on the tip of Shang’s nose, the bright eyes that, for a moment, seemed to light up when he looked at his disciples in the distance.
Why had he never noticed those things before?
“Well, it’s necessary,” Shang Qinghua insisted, looking away, uncomfortable under the warrior’s scrutiny. His eyes searched for the disciples now training a few meters away, guided by a more experienced cultivator. “We do a lot of deliveries… And they don’t always send us to the safest places.”
Liu Qingge didn’t answer right away.
He watched the young disciples struggling, their footing off, their wooden swords gripped far too tightly — as if their fear of messing up outweighed their desire to learn.
Still, there was determination in their movements. It was clear they were trying, even if clumsily.
Shang Qinghua took a deep breath. He remembered well the report he’d received from the head disciple just a few days prior. An ambush on a secondary road. No one was injured — by sheer luck — but it could have been much worse. Most of the disciples didn’t even know how to properly draw a sword, let alone defend themselves.
An Ding wasn’t combat-focused. It was pure logistics. They knew how to read, write, calculate; they acted as little spies and moved quickly from place to place. But when it came to fighting? They failed.
“They don’t have weapons,” he continued, his voice now heavier, almost grim. “But we still send them on missions alone because the other peaks won’t spare their disciples for basic trade assignments. This lord thought that… if they at least knew how to react, if they had the basics, it would already be something.”
Liu Qingge listened in silence, not interrupting. He watched intently, eyes focused, expression unreadable.
This side of Shang Qinghua, attentive, almost protective, was rare. Hidden beneath layers of strategic retreats, poorly timed jokes, and a well-known aversion to direct confrontation.
But here he was. Sleeves rolled up, voice firm, gaze focused on his disciples and the ways to protect them. It was strange to see that side of him exposed, unmasked. And no matter how hard he tried to deny it…
There was something sincerely admirable about it.
“Hmph,” Liu Qingge grunted at last, glancing away, as if the admission cost him something. “You’re not that bad.”
Shang Qinghua’s eyes widened, stunned. Then, as if unable to help himself, he broke into a wide, triumphant grin, the kind he usually wore only after escaping a particularly annoying mission.
“Ohh, that was a compliment coming from you , Liu-shidi!” he exclaimed, bright and almost childlike. “You heard that, right? He complimented me! With witnesses!”
Liu Qingge was already walking away with long strides, as if he regretted having said something and ended up on that peak.
His mind was spinning; Shang Qinghua would now need to be seen in a different light. He did not look back, but threw one last comment over his shoulder:
"Don't get used to it."
Despite his indifferent tone, there was an unusual lightness in his voice, a faint smile hidden within the usual harshness.
As he climbed the trail back to Bai Zhan Peak, his thoughts briefly returned to the place he had just left. Turning slightly, he quickly glanced over his shoulder.
Down below, Shang Qinghua was still in the same place, now completely focused on his disciples who were staring at him, eager to have him back now that his shishu had left them alone. Liu Qingge had never thought he would see Shang Qinghua taking his training as seriously as he seemed to be doing.
It wasn’t brute force.
It was adaptation.
Strategy.
Instinct to protect.
Liu Qingge watched in silence for a second longer, then continued on his way. The wind howled overhead, as if calling him back to his world of training and the unruliness of his own disciples whom he hardly ever trained with.
But for the first time in a long time, he found himself thinking that maybe… just maybe… he had underestimated Shang Qinghua.