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The sound of laughter so loud and uncontrolled that it seems to shake the walls around it isn’t a sound most people would associate with An Ding Peak. Especially not coming from the lodgings of its peak lord, Shang Qinghua, who is known more for bouts of desperate anxiety and loud shouting at anyone who decides the entire supply chain of Cang Qiong isn’t worth listening to just because they think of themselves as high and mighty.
It’s not a sound most people would associate with Shen Qingqiu, either. Not even the new, changed Shen Qingqiu, all of his sharp edges filed down until his angry silence comes across as a wise calm. That’s a man who tries to hide even the smallest of smiles behind a fan because he doesn’t like to show his hand too easily, although there are plenty of people who have seen a smile on his face.
All of that is assuming that the two people in Shang Qinghua’s hut are Shang Qinghua and Shen Qingqiu. And to any outside observers, that’s exactly who they would appear to be— dishevelled, their neat robes and hairstyles falling out of place, a flush in their cheeks and too many empty jugs of wine scattered around and making a mess of Shang Qinghua’s already disastrous living space.
To the two of them, though…
“Aaaahhhh… You’re really killing me, Cucumber-bro. I feel like such a disappointed father!”
“Oh, shut up already. If I managed to mangle your OCs so badly, that just means they weren’t that well-written to begin with.”
Shang Qinghua makes a pained noise and dramatically grasps at his chest like he’s having a heart attack. The way he falls over onto the floor with a thud is definitely real, though— but it has more to do with wine than with cardiac problems.
“So harsh…!” he gasps out dramatically, sticking his legs straight up in the air. He looks ridiculous, and if anyone else were to see him like this it would erase any progress he’s made in being taken seriously as a peak lord.
Shen Qingqiu has never taken him seriously to begin with, though. Not since the Immortal Alliance Conference, when the idiot had gone and revealed himself just by being unable to keep his big mouth shut.
“It’s already bad enough that you went and turned my precious protagonist gay… Did you have to go and form yourself an all-male harem, too? You’ve completely changed the target audience of the story!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, so stop running that mouth of yours,” Shen Qingqiu mutters, and it’s a good thing the drunk flush to his cheeks does a good job of hiding the way he blushes at the insinuation. “Besides, if you had done a good job of writing a stallion novel in the first place, there would have been no room for improvement. And you’re one to talk, getting all cozy with the popsicle lord!”
“If he heard you call him that, he would kill you, you know.”
“No he wouldn’t. He’s still Luo Binghe’s subordinate. Or have you forgotten about that, since I had to rewrite this terrible stallion plot of yours with my own blood and sweat?”
The conversation between them sounds serious, but that serious mood is broken by the fact that both of them are slurring their words like a couple of drunkards passed out in a gutter, not to mention the fact that anyone overhearing them wouldn’t understand a word they were saying.
That’s exactly why the two of them do this, meeting up together over booze either given as a bribe from Zui Xian Peak to make sure Shang Qinghua prioritizes their shipments getting in and out safely and in a timely manner, or a generous ‘gift’ from a supplier or buyer who wants to sway Shang Qinghua’s decisions in their favour.
The two of them have made comfortable little lives for themselves here, in spite of all of the hardships. Their intimate knowledge of the setting and plot, even if the latter has seriously gone off the rails, has given them an edge in escaping the worst of their fates— and now the two of them get to deal with living in the aftermath of the plot, the part of the novel that no one ever thinks about, except those dedicated fans who take to fanfiction sites to pour out their ideas and love for the characters.
But in the end, no matter how comfortable and at home in this world they've become, the two of them are still outsiders. A pair of outsiders, alone together.
Shang Qinghua pushes himself up to a kneel; he wobbles uncertainly, making it obvious he has no chance of getting to his feet, so he doesn't even try.
Instead, he starts crawling around the table to where Shen Qingqiu is sitting, legs akimbo, not looking anything like the prim and serene peak lord he's made himself out to be. His hair is down without any kind of decoration, and most of the outer layers of his robes are falling off or rumpled, if not discarded entirely; the combination of a warm summer night and a healthy dose of wine makes the room feel warm enough that stripping down sounds like a great idea.
There's proof enough that Shen Qingqiu is drunk in the fact that, when Shang Qinghua collapses with his head in his lap, the other man doesn't shove him away. Instead, he lets out a melancholy sigh as he pats Shang Qinghua pitifully on the head, like a dog taking a pout in its master’s lap.
“You know what I miss? Air conditioning,” he says unprompted, slumping back even further.
“If I had WPS I wouldn't have to spend three days straight tracking expense reports at the end of every month.”
“If we had high speed trains we wouldn't have to worry about carriages and horseback.”
This is what their meetings always turn into; the two outsiders lamenting what they miss from their former lives, knowing no one else could understand what the two of them are talking about.
In fact, they can't even tell anyone— not even the people of this world that they feel closest to— without looking like they've lost their minds. It's like the two of them share in the same delusion.
Idly, Shen Qingqiu removes Shang Qinghua’s ribbon and the last hair stick holding on for dear life to keep his bun in place. His hair, longer then the style he wears it in would suggest, falls over his shoulders as he mutters about how he never thought he would miss calculators as much as he does. Shen Qingqiu runs his fingers through it as he takes another sip of his wine.
Eventually, Shen Qingqiu feels the wine going to his head, making the room around him spin. He lets himself fall back against the floor, far from gracefully.
Shang Qinghua drags himself up from Shen Qingqiu’s lap, sprawling himself across his entire body instead. The difference in their heights actually makes Shen Qingqiu feel large for once, when normally he feels intimidatingly small.
He pets his hair with the kind of casual affection he wouldn't normally show if he weren't blitzed out of his mind. Their relationship is based around bickering and memes, not tenderness.
And yet, with wine-warmth washing over the two of them, Shen Qingqiu can't help but feel a little cuddly. Is that so wrong?
As the conversation dies, tapering out into a natural end as their words become mutters not even the most fluent speaker of wino-ese could hope to interpret, neither of them bother to get up from where they're lying on the floor on top of each other. They don't even bother to put themselves to rights, content in their drunken state to stay half-dressed and lying on the floor of Shang Qinghua’s room.
It's something the two of them will most certainly regret come morning, when the tag team of Luo Binghe and Mobei-Jun both show up on Cang Qiong at the same time and finds them looking for all intents and purposes like they had a wild tryst the night before.
They'll regret it even more when a fight breaks out between master and subordinate as both powerful demons insist the other’s Peak Lord must be the one responsible, and the fight nearly turns physical as both feel they have to defend the honour of their respective partner, with the two Peak Lords having to employ every tactic they know of to get them to calm down before they bring the ire of the rest of Cang Qiong down on them.
But with good wine in their stomachs and a warm body to cuddle up to, the two of them can't bring themselves to care about something like that, or even consider it in their muddled brains.
Instead, they choose to drift off into sweet, undisturbed dreams of a world filled with air conditioners, fast food, and trashy television.