Chapter Text
The courtyard was too quiet.
Shen Qingqiu’s hand paused mid-turn of a page, brush suspended over ink. The rustling of bamboo leaves should have been punctuated by the high, breathy giggle of a child running too fast for his own feet, shrieking when he was inevitably caught in his father's arms and scolded with all the gentleness a man like him could never show to anyone else.
But now—it was just wind.
It had been like this for days. No, longer.
At first, he’d thought it was the lingering sickness. Shen Yuan had always been a delicate child, easily caught by fever, wind, and chill. It made sense that after the last bout, he might still be weary, less spirited.
But this… was not just exhaustion.
It was in the way the boy held himself: too still, too quiet. In the way he answered with strange little words that did not belong to a six-year-old.
Once, Shen Qingqiu had asked if he wanted sweets from town, and instead of the usual eager nodding, Shen Yuan had paused—paused, as if calculating something—and said, “...That's not necessary, Father.”
Not 'yes, yes, please!' Not the gleeful bouncing, not the sticky hands pulling at his sleeve.
And there was the way he looked at him sometimes, with an assessing gaze too sharp, too aware, like a scholar reading a text he was trying to memorize. Not like a son looking at his father.
And then—there were the words.
Words like “plot progression.”
Words like “capture targets.”
Once, he had caught the child muttering about "favorability points."
At first, Shen Qingqiu thought it was a fever dream. A slip of imagination, a child's nonsense.
But it weighed on him. It grew in him, like a thorn working deeper into flesh.
Today, it was too much.
He set the brush down.
“Yuan-er?” he called, not too loudly.
There was no answer. He stood, robes whispering as he moved, stepping through the veranda and down the stairs with practiced grace. His heart beat a little harder with each step.
He found the boy sitting by the pond, the little fishnet untouched in his lap, legs tucked beneath his thin robes, head tilted in that odd, thoughtful way that had started only recently.
He wasn’t speaking to the koi, or throwing crumbs, or even watching the clouds.
He was…muttering.
Carefully, Shen Qingqiu stayed just beyond the hedgerow, close enough to hear, but hidden from view.
“...What do you want me to do, bite him in the ankle? He's my father,” Shen Yuan hissed under his breath, voice low and furious. “You said I just had to stay in character—what kind of character kills their own dad? You're crazy.”
A pause, as if something invisible answered him.
“No, I’m not gonna 'speedrun a bad end' just because you’re getting bored! Screw that. You’re the reason I’m stuck here anyway—”
Another pause.
“...‘Accept the role’? What role? I’m a six-year-old kid! I can’t even punch properly right now without crying! This isn't a damn game, it's my life—!”
Shen Qingqiu stiffened, nails biting into the wood of the pillar.
Stuck here.
Not supposed to be here.
And worst of all: talking about killing his father like it was a strategy to weigh.
The child’s voice dropped lower, fierce and shaky. “You don't understand. He's… he’s different. He's not like what you said. He’s better than you said he'd be. I’m not going to ruin this—”
Then softer, almost a whisper.
“...He doesn't deserve that.”
The railing under Shen Qingqiu’s palm cracked slightly.
The boy still didn’t notice him.
"System, just—just give me more time, okay? Let me figure it out. I can stay. I want to stay."
System.
The word burned itself into Shen Qingqiu’s mind. A thing, not a person. Something pulling strings.
He stepped forward, wood creaking underfoot.
The boy froze. He turned slowly, face smoothing into something small and sweet and far too practiced.
“Father,” he said, voice high and bright like a bell.
Father.
Not “Daddy,” not “Dada,” not “Da.” Not the stumbling childish terms Shen Yuan had once used with arms outstretched and nose dripping and face sticky from fruit.
This was a stranger.
Shen Qingqiu stared at him, mouth dry, tongue heavy.
“What were you just saying?” he asked.
The boy blinked innocently. “Nothing. Just… playing.”
“Playing with whom?”
A pause. Barely a heartbeat, but Shen Qingqiu caught it.
“Myself?” he offered, smiling too carefully.
Liar.
The boy fidgeted, glancing aside. “Father, you startled me. Did you need something?”
Shen Qingqiu’s hand dropped to his side, curling slowly into a fist. “Come inside,” he said quietly. “It’s getting cold.”
The child obeyed without protest. Not a single pout, no dragging his feet, no sly attempts to sneak one more minute by the pond.
Too good.
Too obedient.
Not his Yuan-er.
——
That night, when the boy should have been asleep, Shen Qingqiu stood outside his door, listening.
The faint crackle of the brazier. The soft sigh of the child shifting under his blankets.
And then—
The muttering again.
“I’m trying, System, okay? I’m trying to act like him. But it’s hard—he keeps looking at me like he knows. If he finds out, I’m dead.”
Pause.
“...No, you shut up. This isn’t just some second chance side quest—this is his life! I’m not gonna mess it up just because you want some drama.”
Another silence.
“...Yeah, yeah. I know what happens if the scenario collapses. I know.”
Shen Qingqiu’s vision blurred at the edges.
He opened the door.
The boy spun around on the bed, eyes wide.
“Who are you talking to?” Shen Qingqiu asked. His voice was flat.
“Father, I—”
“Who are you.”
The child’s mouth worked soundlessly.
And then, slowly, too slowly, he said, “...Shen Yuan.”
Shen Qingqiu crossed the room and struck him.
The slap was loud and vicious, and the boy was thrown off the bed, landing hard with a whimper.
The silence after was roaring.
“Don’t lie to me,” Shen Qingqiu said softly, his voice lower than a growl. “Don’t you dare use my son’s name.”
He grabbed the boy—this thing, this imposter—by the front of his robes and shoved him hard to the ground, hand flying to his throat before the boy could speak again.
The little body under him was all wrong. Too thin. Too fragile. But it squirmed with desperate strength, nails scratching at his wrist, legs kicking weakly.
“You took him,” Shen Qingqiu hissed, shaking. “You took him—what did you do with my son—”
“I am—!” the boy rasped, eyes wide with terror. “I’m Shen Yuan—!”
“You are NOT MY SON!”
The scream ripped from his throat with all the force of grief gone feral.
And he choked him.
And didn’t stop.
The body went limp beneath him.
The small, flailing hands dropped away from his wrist with a soft, almost polite thud.
Shen Qingqiu stayed crouched there, breathing hard, hand still locked tight around the boy’s throat.
The chest under his palm no longer rose.
No thin ribcage shuddered for breath.
No tiny heart fluttered against his fingers.
Only stillness.
Only silence.
Only—
Only the corpse of his son staring up at him with glassy green eyes, mouth frozen mid-plea, bruises blooming like crushed violets along the pale column of his neck.
A horrible, yawning coldness opened in Shen Qingqiu’s gut.
Slowly, he let go.
The body flopped back like a discarded doll.
"No," Shen Qingqiu whispered.
He stumbled back, falling onto the floor with a graceless thud, staring at his hands like they were alien things. His fingers twitched.
The boy didn’t move.
“Yuan-er?” he croaked.
No answer.
“...Yuan-er?”
He crawled back, gathering the limp form against his chest with shaking arms, feeling the awful wrongness of it—
The head lolling unnaturally.
The little fists unclenched.
The skin already losing its warmth.
“No,” he rasped. His voice cracked, breaking open on the second syllable. “No, no, no, no—”
He crushed the tiny body to him, rocking back and forth, his robes soaking with the chill of death. His breath tore out of him in broken sobs, clawing at his throat.
Even if it was something else inside—
Even if it was a stranger wearing his son’s face—
Even if he had been right—
It was still his son’s body.
It was still Yuan-er’s body.
And now—
Now even the faintest chance of getting him back, the barest hope—
Gone.
Because of him.
Because he’d been too furious.
Too broken.
Too weak.
The boy's final words replayed in his mind over and over, a cruel chant he could not silence.
I am Shen Yuan.
I’m trying.
He doesn’t deserve that.
Shen Qingqiu let out a howl—raw, animal, wrenched straight from the marrow of his bones. It tore through the still night, a sound no human should ever make.
His hands shook violently as he smoothed the boy’s hair, as if he could coax life back into him, as if he could undo what he had done with enough gentle touches, enough whispered apologies.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. His tears fell onto the cold, slack face, rolling off like rain on stone. “I’m sorry, Yuan-er—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—”
He pressed their foreheads together, breath hitching painfully.
“I was supposed to protect you,” he whispered, voice breaking down into wet gasps. “I promised—I swore—I—”
But there was no warmth to answer him.
Only the cold, the terrible, final cold, sinking into his skin.
He wept until his throat was raw, until his hands could no longer feel the boy’s skin through the trembling.
Wept until he had nothing left but silence.
Until he was nothing more than a broken man cradling a corpse.
And outside the thin walls of the room, the world went on — indifferent, unknowing —
As Shen Qingqiu cradled the ruin of one of the only things he has ever loved.