Work Text:
When the truth comes, it does not knock. It bleeds through your teeth and burns behind your eyes.
Where he has read it, it has to have been in the Qing Jing Library. Rich pieces of literature ready to be sourced at a moments notice. When he had realized what was available to him, a banquet of knowledge simply waiting to be feasted upon, he had jumped onto the opportunity and read.
Shen Jiu, no longer the street rat or house slave Xiao Jiu, now the next in line immortal master of Qing Jing Peak, had educated himself on everything. Botany, fauna, the four arts—everything.
This quote read so long ago, had always been a comfort despite its grim simplicity.
It was law.
It was truth.
It was fact.
It had been a mistake.
That much was clear from the moment Shen Jiu staggered, dropping his cup of tea for it to splatter everywhere, eyes widening as the bitter tang of spiritual oppression sank deep into his bones.
“What did you give me?” he hissed, one hand clutching his sleeve as though he could keep the venom from spreading. His heart pounded as his throat itched. Shen Jiu felt caged yet free at the same time, like a canary chained with freedom right there.
Elder Shen scowled next to him, the old man, his ageless beauty strong in the passage of time tarnished by his wrinkled brow.
“A minor serum—truth-compelling. It will wear off in time. We need clarity. You’ve been dodging questions for years, Shen-shidi. This sect deserves transparency.”
Another immortal master, Elder Zhang of Bai Zhan Peak hummed. The burly man was the embodiment of his peak as he too decided to enter the fray in a rare bout of wisdom.
“To hand the torch to the next generation, is impossible when the next in line of Qing Jing remains as poisonous as a Rose Prickled Pear and vicious like a Six-Headed-Mountain-Lizard to its martial siblings.” His face, dead set in a look that make anyone weaker cower, horned in on Shen Jiu’s face of betrayal.
“You fail to grasp the situation at hand, Shen Jiu, and have for years despite this master’s pitiful hope.” Elder Shen sneered. Then his tone became light, as if he wasn’t committing a crime that would have any other cultivator up in arms.
“This master is simply helping his tight-lipped successor to make friends, hm?”
Hm.
Yue Qingyuan stood in silence, his brow furrowed—but he did not interfere.
Of course he didn’t.
Why would he?
The room was full—elders, disciples, inner sect members. A disciplinary hearing masked as a “clarification.” And now, Shen Jiu stood at the center of it, balance unsteady, words turning traitor on his tongue.
“So,” a random elder called, justice strong and ringing through the room to vibrate their cores.
“Why do you alienate yourself? Why do you combat every smile, every conversation, every attempt at basic socialization?”
“Why do you bully us?” Someone whispered, haughty vengeance and misplaced wrong heavy. This ignited a cacophony of voices, some angry and some simply curious if not confused.
“Why are you so mean?”
“Why do you act so high and mighty?”
“Why did you always run away?”
“You never slept in the dorms? Why?!”
“Do you think yourself special?? Please—“
He tried to press his lips shut.
But the serum burned, and his voice betrayed him:
“This one was never meant to be here.”
A hush fell.
His fists clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms. He tried to bite it back, but the truth surged again.
“This one came from a brothel alley. Filthy. Hungry. Drenched in piss and snow. Picked up like a stray dog and handed a blade.”
A gasp. Somewhere in the crowd, a disciple murmured, “What?”
His breath came shallow. He stared straight ahead, past the shocked faces, toward nothing.
“I ate rats. I stole incense offerings from temples to stay warm. I would’ve sold my fingers for a copper coin. That was life. Before cultivation. Before all this righteous nonsense.”
Someone tried to speak—maybe Liu Qingge—but Shen Jiu’s voice cut through, sharp, ragged, shaking:
“You want to know why I don’t coddle the disciples? Why I scold instead of praise?”
“Because the world does not give second chances to those who learn too late. Because no one—no one—ever softened a blade for me.”
“And I survived.”
His chest heaved. His head felt heavy. He had survivedc hadn’t he? So why, when he simply extended the courtesy to others, tried to make them strong like himself, he was met with spoilt attitudes left and right? But he answered his own question, they were all simply that—spoiled.
But the truth wasn’t done.
“You think me cruel. Cold. Ungrateful.” He sneered.
“I think you are blind.”
Eyes wide. Silence deafening.
Then—softly, brokenly:
“This one… never asked to be saved.”
Measured, but there was a thread of unease beneath it.
“Shen-shidi… if your origins were so humble, how did you come to the sect at all? Who sponsored your entry?”
Shen Jiu laughed.
A raw, awful sound—not quite humor, not quite grief.
“Who, indeed? This one was picked up like spoiled meat from the gutter. Delivered to Cang Qiong like a parcel with no return address. A servant child, first. A demonic cultivator, second. A brothel whore, next. Then, a mistake of a disciple.”
Another elder frowned, sputtering at the rancid language. “Surely you had some guidance. A protector. A sponsor—”
“Protector?” he spat, glaring now. “No. This one had chains, not guardians. Enslavers, not sponsors. You sit there asking about guidance while I was scrubbing chamber pots, forced in uncouth hands, and dodging kicks in the servant quarters.”
Yue Qingyuan took a step forward, hands raised, voice gentle—too gentle.
“Shen Jiu. That is enough.”
His tone was low, firm, but almost pleading.
It sickened him.
Shen Jiu turned to him, pupils narrow with barely bridled rage.
“Is it? Is it enough, Qi-ge?”
The honorific twisted in his mouth like poison.
Yue Qingyuan’s eyes widened faintly. The others said nothing as the fanged jade serpent turned on its ally.
“Why didn’t you come back?” Shen Jiu's voice cracked like brittle porcelain. “Why didn’t you look for me? I waited. For days. Then years. You left.”
“You were supposed to come back for your Xiao Jiu.”
Gasps rippled through the onlookers. Disciples looked from one another in confusion. Liu Qingge’s brow knit sharply. Xiao Jiu? Qi-ge?
“You promised.”
Yue Qingyuan stepped closer, eyes full of something that might have been grief—or guilt.
“I… I thought..you were..,” he said softly. “After the fire—I was told you were dead, and—”
“Liar,” Shen Jiu hissed.
The truth serum gleamed behind his eyes now—his barriers crumbling, his body trembling with too much truth, too much pain. His voice dropped, low and vicious:
“You were the only warmth I had. The only hand that fed me when I starved. And you vanished. Not a letter. Not a whisper. I was sold to the Zhong family like livestock.”
Yue Qingyuan’s mouth opened—but no words came.
And Shen Jiu pressed on, venom softening into something worse: heartbreak.
“You could have saved me. But you were too busy enjoying the spoils of a righteous cultivator .”
“While this stray enjoyed what it deserved.”
The room was silent. Not even the wind dared stir.
And in that stillness, Shen Jiu stood with his shoulders drawn tight—not in pride, but in defense.
Waiting for someone to cut him down now that his soul had been laid bare.
No one moved.
No one dared.
The air was thick with it—guilt unspoken, pity unwelcome, and the quiet horror of realizing a man they thought they knew had been bleeding for years right in front of them.
Even the wind seemed to stop.
Shen Jiu stood alone in the center of the hall, robes rustling faintly with the residue of suppressed qi. His jaw was clenched, breath sharp and uneven, like each inhale was scraping against his ribs.
And still—no one came forward.
No apology.
No comfort.
Not even Yue Qingyuan.
Especially not Yue Qingyuan.
He stood frozen, lips parted as if still trying to form the right words. But there were no right words. Not anymore. He had waited too long, buried too much in the name of peace. In the name of “letting the past stay buried.”
Shen Jiu’s voice cracked the silence once more.
His voice was a quiet whisper yet it weighed like a thousand stones on every cultivator present, “Do you see now?”
They flinched.
“You sit on your thrones of virtue, doling out punishments for every flaw, every mistake—never once wondering where they come from. Never once asking what made the man.”
He turned his gaze on the elders then—sharp, cutting, full of something colder than hatred.
“This one did not ask to be saved.”
“I came because I had nothing else. And you took that nothing and dressed it in silk and rules and called it righteousness.”
“You wanted a sword, not a person. And when I cut too deep—you were shocked.”
Still, no one interrupted.
A disciple near the back whispered, barely audible: “He... was just a child…”
Shen Jiu flinched.
And that, somehow, hurt worse than all the silence.
Because now they saw him.
But only when it was too late.
A hand moved.
Soft, hesitant—barely a whisper of motion in the sea of stillness.
It was one of the younger disciples, stepping forward from the crowd. A girl—barely sixteen, robes still too clean, eyes wide with tears she didn’t understand.
“Shizun,” she said gently, voice cracking. “I… I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was like that for you.”
She looked up at him, hand extended—not grasping, not pushing. Just offering.
And it made Shen Jiu’s lip curl.
“Of course you didn’t.”
His voice wasn’t sharp this time. Just tired. Worn thin, like silk left too long in the sun.
The girl still flinched. His heart twisted despite his exhaustion. Her hand trembled, but she didn’t lower it.
Behind her, more disciples shifted. A few hall masters lowered their heads. A couple of the elders exchanged glances, suddenly unable to meet Shen Jiu’s eyes.
Even Liu Qingge stepped forward, face taut with something unreadable—regret, perhaps. Unspoken apology.
Yue Qingyuan finally opened his mouth to speak.
“Xiao Jiu…”
Shen Jiu’s eyes snapped to his.
And that—that was the final straw.
He laughed. Bitter and soft, a sound like glass breaking under cloth.
“Don’t call me that. Not now. Not when the blood’s already spilled.”
He looked at the girl’s hand again. At all of them.
Then said, quieter:
“Keep your pity.”
He stepped back. Away from the reaching hands, away from the guilt-drenched eyes.
“This one survived alone.”
“And this one will remain so.”
With a rustle of robes and a flash of spiritual energy, he turned and walked out—his spine straight, his pace steady, his silhouette shrinking against the wide-open doors.
No one followed.
Not even Yue Qingyuan.
And the hall, filled with those who claimed to care, was left silent in his absence—drowning in everything they never asked, and everything they never said.
~*~
Shen Jiu did not storm away.
He did not slam doors or scatter spiritual energy in a dramatic fit of pride.
He walked. One foot in front of the other. Controlled. Composed.
Dignity intact.
At least on the outside.
His quarters were quiet—too quiet. The kind of quiet that dug into the bones and wrapped around the heart like frost. He didn’t light the incense. Didn’t reach for the wine. He simply stood there, in the middle of the room, staring at the wall as if it might open and swallow him.
His hands were shaking.
He cursed them for it.
Fool. Weakling.
He gritted his teeth, forcing his fingers still. But the sting lingered. That wretched serum had opened him like a wound in front of the entire sect—his past, his pain, his worst shames laid bare for every smug elder and weeping disciple to gapeat.
And worse—Yue Qingyuan.
He clenched his jaw so tightly it ached.
Xiao Jiu, he said. As if he still had the right. As if the name hadn’t been buried with the child he abandoned.
A bitter laugh caught in his throat. Not the elegant kind he let slip in court. No. This one was ugly. Harsh. Crooked with resentment.
He kicked the incense table over.
It crashed with a satisfying clatter, shards skittering across the floor like broken thoughts.
“Do you all feel better now?” he whispered into the silence, voice trembling.
“Now that you’ve had your spectacle? Your tragic little villain to weep over?”
He sat down hard beside the fallen table, robes pooling around him, fingers tangled in his own sleeves. His breath shook.
They saw him.
For the first time in years—truly saw him.
And it felt wretched.
Because now they looked at him with pity. Not respect. Not fear. And certainly not understanding. They mourned the child, perhaps. But they would still despise the man.
They’d blame him for his ways, the ont thing he’d known. And perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps in his age, his growing wisdoms, he deserved to be punished so, when his truth was finally revealed to be met with nothing but scorn and contempt, pity for the child long gone and venom towards the man left behind.
Come tomorrow he’d be not just a letcher, but one who chose to follow in his abusers steps.
He would not just be Shen Jiu, Cang Qiong’s resident scum but Shen Jiu, Cang Qiong’s shameful secret.
“Nothing’s changed,” he muttered. “Nothing ever changes.”
At least not for the better.
He pulled his knees to his chest, like he hadn’t done since he was that street-skinny boy huddled beneath rotten temple eaves. Back when he still hoped someone might come for him.
Someone like—
He shut his eyes hard.
No. Not again.
That door was shut. Bolted. Boarded up from the inside.
Let them speak. Let them whisper his story like a tragic opera. Let them wring their hands and cast guilty glances.
It didn’t matter.
It couldn’t matter.
Because Shen Jiu had survived alone.
And he would not beg now.
Not even for understanding.
The world had shown him time and time again that he was undeserving of such. He’d be a fool to expect anything different.
The room stayed dark.
He hadn’t lit the lanterns. Let the moonlight do its work—cold, distant, honest in a way people rarely were. It bled in through the slats, cutting across his face in strips of silver and shadow.
Time passed.
How much, he didn’t care to count.
He sat unmoving, back against the wall, knees drawn close. There was no dignity in the posture, but there was no one left to impress. No mask left to wear.
He watched dust drift in the light.
Let his thoughts gnaw at him like rats.
The serum’s effects had long since faded, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done. Every word he had held in for years—forced from his throat like an exorcism, laid bare in front of people who had no right to his story.
He should have felt lighter.
He didn’t.
Instead, it felt like something inside him had cracked.
And not cleanly.
“This one… was never meant to be seen.”
The words were barely audible, spoken to no one.
He has been mauled.
Violated.
He didn’t cry. Shen Jiu didn’t do that. Not even in private. His pain curdled inward, twisted into something dense and bitter and sharp. Crying was a weakness for children. And he had outlived the child long ago.
Or so he told himself.
Then—
A knock.
Soft. Hesitant. A single, careful tap against the wooden door.
He froze.
The silence that followed was heavier than before. The kind that waits to see if you’ll break it. A traitor to his mind and soul, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest.
He didn’t move.
Another pause.
Then—
“…Shen Jiu.”
The voice was low. Male. Familiar.
Measured, but not stiff. Not pitying. Just quiet.
Not Yue Qingyuan.
Not a disciple.
Not Elder Shen.
But, Liu Qingge.
He didn’t knock again. He simply stood there, just beyond the door, as though knowing another knock would shatter something fragile inside the room.
“I’m not here to ask anything,” Liu Qingge said, almost like an afterthought. “I just… didn’t want you to be alone. Unless you wanted to be.”
No pressure.
No pity.
Just space.
A beat passed. Two.
Shen Jiu didn’t answer.
Didn’t move.
But his fingers loosened slightly where they gripped his sleeves.
And for the first time since the hearing, he felt something that wasn't shame, or rage, or bone-deep bitterness.
It wasn’t comfort.
Not yet.
But maybe—
Maybe it could become something close.
The silence after Liu Qingge’s words stretched long and thin.
From the other side of the door, Shen Jiu could sense his presence. Solid. Still. Not pushing, not prying.
Just… there.
It was almost worse than if he’d come barreling in with questions or apologies. At least that would have given Shen Jiu a reason to lash out. To cut him down with sharp words and force distance back into place.
But Liu Qingge did nothing.
Just stood there.
Waiting.
As if he knew—somehow—that Shen Jiu wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t open the door. But also… wouldn’t turn him away.
Inside, Shen Jiu remained seated on the floor, surrounded by the wreckage of his own anger. His body was aching. Not from any wound, but from the weight of being seen.
He hated it.
He hated that someone came.
He hated more that part of him was relieved.
His throat was tight. His breath shallow.
But he didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t open the door.
Not because he didn’t want to—but because he didn’t know how.
And Liu Qingge—stubborn, infuriating, stupid Liu Qingge—seemed to understand that.
He didn’t knock again. He didn’t speak again.
He just stayed.
Time passed like smoke curling through a silent room.
And Shen Jiu sat there, listening to the quiet presence beyond the wood. The man who hadn’t tried to fix him. Who hadn’t called him pitiful. Who hadn’t offered the kind of sympathy that felt like a knife wrapped in silk.
No.
He just was.
And that, somehow, hurt less than anything else he’d faced.
Shen Jiu closed his eyes. Let his head rest back against the wall. Just for a moment.
He didn’t say thank you.
He wouldn’t.
But he didn’t tell him to leave either.
And for a man like Shen Jiu…
That was something close to an invitation.