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The door to Shang Qinghua’s office in the Northern Realm burst open with unexpected force, the frame creaking under the impact. Before Shang Qinghua could even lift his head, Luo Binghe’s figure appeared in front of him, his eyes dark and stormy, filled with something Shang Qinghua couldn’t immediately identify.
The Demon Emperor Omega looked visibly disturbed.
Without warning, Luo Binghe strode toward him, his strong hands gripping Shang Qinghua’s shoulders and yanking him from his seat with a strength that left no room for resistance.
Shang Qinghua was dragged unceremoniously, his chair crashing to the floor with a loud bang. Fear surged through him for a moment, but something inside made him stay still, though hesitantly.
Luo Binghe, face tense and silent, said nothing. He led Shang Qinghua to the center of the room where a small tea table was set, the cups arranged in perfect alignment.
Then, as if unbothered by the whole situation, he firmly pushed Shang Qinghua to sit on one of the cushions around the table.
The emperor knelt down in silence, watching Shang Qinghua with dark eyes, as if expecting something from him.
“Junshang?” Shang Qinghua asked softly, his voice trembling. “Mobei-jun would be sad if I died, right? He wouldn’t let you kill me, would he?”
Shang Qinghua’s words were laced with nervousness. He didn’t know what was going on.
Luo Binghe never came directly to Shang Qinghua.
Not without Mobei-Jun present, who didn’t even like them being alone together. So seeing him there, completely alone and reaching for him, was already unnerving. The guards at the entrance hadn’t announced Junshang’s arrival, and they didn’t come running when the sudden noise echoed through the hallway.
Everything about the situation was strange.
Uncomfortable, even.
A weak alpha like Shang Qinghua didn’t stand a chance against a demon emperor. And Mobei-Jun would be upset if Shang Qinghhua came back terribly injured.
His king was a concerned man.
A demon of ice.
Luo Binghe’s behavior felt irrational, out of place.
The emperor, so powerful, stood before him with an aura of frustration, perhaps even despair, and that left Shang deeply confused. He knew Luo Binghe was unpredictable, but he had never seen him like this before.
“Shut up,” Luo Binghe muttered, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. He sat down beside Shang Qinghua without leaving room for objection, and then, abruptly, lay across Shang Qinghua's lap, flinging his arm over his eyes as if trying to block out the world around him.
The Demon Emperor’s posture was so different, so vulnerable, that Shang froze for a moment.
Shang Qinghua gasped, his eyes widening in shock. He was used to being the dominant one, the alpha who made decisions, but here, with Luo Binghe sprawled across his lap, he felt completely out of place. Omegas didn’t allow such intimacy with alphas, especially not an omega like Luo Binghe, who had always been so imposing. How was he supposed to react?
Luo Binghe showed no intention of moving. His face turned upward, eyes hidden beneath his arm, he lay still, as if Shang Qinghua’s mere presence was the only comfort he had left.
The silence between them was heavy, full of unspoken emotions. Shang Qinghua looked down at the Demon Emperor, feeling the tension knot tighter within him. It wasn’t just Luo Binghe’s behavior that unsettled him, but the feeling that, somehow, he was the only person who could quiet the emperor’s inner storms—or at least hold them at bay for a little while.
Shang Qinghua didn’t dare touch Luo Binghe, but his body was tense, frozen with latent fear. What had caused this change in the Demon Emperor? What did he want from Shang Qinghua now?
But no matter how much Shang tried to understand, no words came. He simply watched, waiting for Luo Binghe to say more, waiting to understand what lay behind those strange, disturbing actions.
The silence in Shang Qinghua’s office was broken by a low, almost imperceptible sigh from Luo Binghe. The Demon Emperor was still lying across Shang’s lap, his eyes hidden beneath his arm, but something in the air had shifted, as if the tension had built to the point of breaking.
For a moment, Shang Qinghua thought he might finally have a chance to understand what was going on in Luo Binghe’s head—but then came the question that froze every thought in his mind.
“Why doesn’t Shizun want me back?” Luo Binghe murmured, voice so low it was almost a lament.
Shang Qinghua froze.
The impact of the words hit him like a blow. He stayed motionless, unable to react right away.
What was happening? What the hell…? How could Luo Binghe ask that? He knew, didn’t he? He couldn’t be that unaware. Shen Qingqiu… Cucumber would die to have Luo Binghe back. He had walked away with so much pain, forced to obey the system, pushing him into the abyss with a broken heart.
Shang Qinghua felt a wave of empathy—deep and painful—sweep through his chest. Shen Qingqiu had suffered so much, two whole years not knowing where his disciple was, unable to even catch the scent of his precious omega. Shang knew. Shen Qingqiu’s alpha instincts were alive, and he missed Luo Binghe like a constant ache.
“Is it because I’m a demon?” Luo Binghe asked next, his voice weighed with deep melancholy. He looked so vulnerable there, so exposed, that Shang could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“Of course not, Junshang,” Shang Qinghua replied without hesitation. His voice was steady, but there was a heaviness in it—a deep understanding of everything behind that question.
“Shizun hates demons,” Luo Binghe muttered in response, sadness seeping into every syllable.
“He doesn’t hate you,” Shang Qinghua said, gentler now, feeling the weight of those words.
Luo Binghe shifted slightly, as if Shang’s words did nothing to ease the pain.
“Great, so he just hates me,” he muttered, his voice still weak, like he’d lost all hope of ever being accepted.
Shang Qinghua couldn’t resist.
He reached up to touch Luo Binghe’s curly hair—the same curls that spilled over his lap and across the floor. He brushed his fingers through the strands gently, like he was trying to soothe the pain so obvious in the emperor’s eyes. The gesture was slow, careful, and the feeling of his fingers in Luo Binghe’s hair made the omega freeze.
For a moment, Shang Qinghua thought Luo would swat his hand away. He could easily reject the touch. But something in the emperor’s expression stopped him. Luo Binghe did nothing—he just let out a deep sigh, like surrendering to a sadness so profound Shang Qinghua didn’t know how to hold it.
Then Luo Binghe’s scent—the warm, sweet, strangely compelling scent—began to fill the room. He released more of his pheromones, perhaps intentionally, perhaps not. The smell was… delicious. Alluring. Strong. Delicate. All those feelings tangled into a single fragrance that made Shang Qinghua’s body react in unexpected ways.
He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, taking it all in. And somehow, he began to understand how Luo Binghe—despite being an omega—had built a harem. His scent... was irresistible. It was more than just a pheromone—it was a promise. A desire. Something that pulled you in, something that overwhelmed.
Shang Qinghua swallowed hard.
Luo Binghe’s scent was shifting, intensifying, gaining layers. This wasn’t just sadness. It wasn’t just frustration. It was hurt. Repressed desire. The kind of thing buried under an emperor’s calm smiles and released only in moments like this—lying in another alpha’s lap, in a quiet office, in the heart of another omega’s domain.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Luo Binghe whispered, his voice low, now filled with something Shang couldn’t tell was anger or desperation. “If you did… you wouldn’t speak so confidently.”
Shang Qinghua hesitated, but he didn’t pull back. His fingers remained in the curls, more from instinct than choice.
“Binghe…” he said softly, amazed his voice didn’t tremble at all. “He cried for you. In the two years you were gone, Shen Qingqiu cried in silence more than anyone will ever know.”
Luo Binghe didn’t reply, but his breath caught for a second. Whether he believed it or not, Shang couldn’t tell. He was revealing too much about his cucumber bro. Why wasn’t the system stopping him? Would this influence the plot? Would it not?
“He stopped sleeping, stopped eating properly. Spent nights wandering Qing Jing Peak, staring at the sky like he could find you among the stars. Like he could reach into the abyss and pull you back with his own hands.”
Luo Binghe’s scent shifted again, and Shang knew he was battling his own emotions. His skin prickled, and he felt a shiver crawl up the back of his neck.
“He pushed me away,” Luo finally said. “He chose the mortal world. Chose virtue. Chose to stay clean at my expense.”
“He chose to save you,” Shang replied firmly now. “Even if it broke his own heart.”
“Save me from what?” he asked angrily.
“What do you think they would’ve done to a half-demon omega if they’d found out at that conference, Binghe?”
Luo Binghe went still as stone. The impact of the question silenced the room.
Shang Qinghua didn’t back down from the thick silence that followed. He looked at the emperor’s face in his lap, and beneath the coldness and irritation, he saw what had always been there—wounds that had never healed. Luo Binghe’s eyes were full of hurt, but also fear. A raw, ancient fear—the kind born from being rejected by the world, and worse, by the one person who should have offered shelter.
Sometimes, Shang wondered if he hadn’t been too cruel in writing Luo Binghe’s past in Proud Immortal Demon Way . And now, seeing the living, trembling result in front of him, he was sure he had.
Luo Binghe was an emperor, a legendary warrior, a living nightmare to many—but here, lying with half-closed eyes and clenched fists, he looked small. Far too young for all the pain he carried. Far too fragile for the weight of his own destiny.
“You know what would’ve happened, don’t you?” Shang continued, voice soft but still steady. “Those cultivators… they already saw you as dangerous when you were just a promising disciple. A half-demon omega? They would’ve destroyed you before you even opened your mouth.”
He took a deep breath, his mind finishing the sentence even if he didn’t say it aloud. None of my drafts for that conference had a happy ending for you, Binghe. Not one. If I’d written PIDW as an A/B/O from the start… it would’ve been even worse. You as an omega? They would’ve hunted you like a wild animal and forced you down. And as an alpha? They would’ve tried to break you.
Luo Binghe clenched his fists tighter. His scent turned sharp—like unripe fruit plucked too early, exuding bitterness before it ripened into sorrow.
“They called me a monster when he wasn’t around,” Luo Binghe murmured, his voice cracking at the end. “Almost all the disciples hated me. Freak, orphan, half-breed… they said it all without even knowing who my parents were. And he… he never defended me.”
Shang Qinghua’s heart tightened. Binghe’s gaze was lost somewhere between memory and grief, reliving every word, every sideways look, every moment of exclusion.
“He was your master,” Shang replied gently, trying to keep his voice steady but not cold. “But in the end… he was just a man.”
It was hard to explain—hard even for him, who knew the story from the inside, from all angles. OG Shen Qingqiu had been a monster, Shang knew that. But the Shen Qingqiu who remained—the one who survived possession, who bore the weight of his own mistakes—he had tried. Cucumber Bro had tried to do right by Luo Binghe, even if he didn’t know how.
“You wanted him to shout to the world that he loved you? That he chose you—his youngest disciple, a half-demon omega—over the whole sect? That he would give up his reputation, his prestige, his name, for you?”
“Yes!” Luo Binghe exploded, sitting up abruptly, bracing himself on his arms. His eyes gleamed—not with menace, but with raw, unfiltered pain. He looked on the verge of collapse, but there was no aggression. Only a grief that hurt to witness.
“Of course you did,” Shang Qinghua replied softly, almost a whisper. “But… could you have carried that burden with him?”
The question dropped between them like a stone into still water, and the silence that followed was so dense it was nearly deafening.
Luo Binghe hesitated. His body trembled slightly, as if something inside him had crumbled. For the first time in a long time, he seemed small. Not the Demon Emperor, not the supreme ruler, but a boy. A wounded son. An omega shattered by the absence of affection.
“He thought sending you away was the only way to protect you,” Shang continued, more gently. “Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he broke you in the process. But… deep down, he thought it was the only way to make sure you’d survive.”
Luo Binghe lowered his eyes, his long lashes trembling as he clenched his fists on his knees. His breathing was uneven. Shang Qinghua kept stroking his hair slowly, his fingers lost in the dark curls. It was all he could offer in that moment—presence, listening, touch.
After a while, it was Shang who spoke again, softly:
“You can still go back to him, Binghe. But not the way you tried last time. Not with pain. Not with force. You’ll have to let him see you. The real you. Not as an emperor. Not as a cultivator. Just as the omega who still cries for him.”
He paused, gazing gently at Luo Binghe’s devastated profile.
“With that face… crying for him? Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Luo Binghe let out a low, hoarse laugh—painful, almost as if he couldn’t tell if he was laughing at hope or at his own sorrow.
“It feels impossible…”
Shang Qinghua raised a tired eyebrow, attempting a smile.
“You’re the Junshang. You’ve survived much worse. Are you really gonna let one old teacher beat you at this game?”
Luo Binghe closed his eyes, sighing deeply. The bitterness in his scent began to soften, like a storm finally starting to fade.
And then, in a voice almost imperceptible, like a whisper that slipped from the depths of his soul, he murmured:
"I just wanted... a home."
Shang Qinghua smiled gently, the thick scent of the omega’s pheromones — dense, sweet, inescapable — lingering in the air.
"If... if things get bad and you don’t want to be alone at Huan Hua Palace," he began, choosing his words carefully, "you’ll always have a place here in the North. At the Ice Palace."
Luo Binghe looked up at him, confused for a moment.
"Mobei may not say it, but he’d love to have you around. He misses someone who understands him," Shang continued, a small laugh in his voice, as if trying to ease the tension and unease he felt.
"And he wouldn’t ask questions. Not the kind that hurt. He’d just tell you that you can stay. And then bring you way too many blankets."
The air went still.
Luo Binghe watched him, dark eyes narrowing, but not in anger.
Those words — simple as they were — seemed to break something inside him. A barrier. A line.
And then, abruptly, he moved.
He slid off Shang Qinghua’s lap with a predator’s grace, almost silent, but what came next caught Shang completely off guard — Luo Binghe crouched in front of him, grabbed his shoulders tightly, and pulled him close. Very close.
Shang swallowed hard.
Luo Binghe’s hands were warm. Strong. His nails pressed into the fabric of Shang Qinghua’s robes like he was trying to anchor himself there. His eyes were wide, pupils blown.
His scent… Luo Binghe’s pheromone wrapped around Shang like a thick, warm fog. It was addictive. Almost suffocating. It felt like being claimed.
Shang Qinghua trembled slightly — not out of fear, but something else. Something electric, crawling under his skin.
Oh.
"Are you serious?" Luo Binghe asked, his voice low and urgent, fingers tightening. "I could... stay? Here? Even if shizun doesn’t take me back?"
"Yes," Shang answered, steady despite his pounding heart. Luo Binghe looked a little like a child just then, and Shang had to remind himself that the young omega was anything but a child now.
"Even if he doesn’t accept you now, even if it takes time... yes. You won’t be alone."
The omega took a deep breath, eyes still fixed on him.
There was something raw there, something too intense to name.
Gratitude.
Hope.
Desperation.
Maybe all of it at once. The pheromone surrounded them like an unspoken promise, an invisible mark clinging to skin, to air, to the space between them.
For a moment, Shang Qinghua thought he might do something — lean in even closer, kiss him, cry, scream — but Luo Binghe only tilted forward slowly, his face near Shang’s neck, like he was searching for something.
"You smell... safe," he murmured.
Shang Qinghua froze. His heart was beating like a war drum. But he didn’t pull back. Didn’t push Luo Binghe away.
He let him stay there — suspended between collapse and comfort — with his fingers clenched in Shang’s robes and his face hidden in the crook of his shoulder.
The boy’s lips brushed the fabric, but it didn’t feel intentional, and Shang Qinghua felt a rush of relief at that — he’d be in so much trouble if Binghe misunderstood anything.
The weight of that trembling body pressed against his felt more real than any threat.
Shang Qinghua was used to dealing with disasters, narrative traps, political landmines… but not this. Not the raw ache of a boy who never had a place to return to.
So Shang Qinghua slowly slid a hand along the emperor’s back. A quiet touch. A presence.
Not love, nor promise, nor redemption.
Just what he could offer in that moment:
Shelter.