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"Get up," the auntie said. "Hurry. The young master wants you." There was something between disgust and pity in her voice- the whole Qiu household, aside from Qiu Haitang, knew what Qiu Jianluo wanted Shen Jiu for.
At one point, months- years ago, Shen Jiu might have cringed to hear it. Now there was nothing inside him to feel any more shame; that had long since been filled. What was left was something colder, something that was nearly full to bursting- this was no more than one more grain of rice to add to the pile within it.
He stood, straightening his clothes- Qiu Jianluo didn't like to see him rumpled unless he'd caused it, and the pain it brought wasn't worth the meager, petty pleasure of spiting him- and followed.
But they didn't go towards Qiu Jianluo's study, and they didn't turn towards the path that led out to the back yard where the small woodshed still stood, and they didn't turn to the path towards Qiu Haitang's rooms. Instead, the old auntie led him straight towards the front of the house, towards one of the formal, opulent halls that were kept for the sort of important business that the house had seen little of in the last months.
Shen Jiu had never been inside them at all, even to fetch-and-carry things for Qiu Jianluo, who liked to force him to him crawl to command, or Qiu Haitang, who still didn't realize that was what she was doing. He didn't stop, but something tilted slightly in his understanding of the world, an uncertainty he couldn't afford.
Qiu Jianluo's greatest weakness was that he was predictable: no matter how many sufferings he invented, none of them were more than variations on one well-trod, boring theme- none of it was ever a surprise. Shen Jiu had long grown used to his particular brand of torture, which made it possible to withstand it without breaking, in the way that one could hold up better beneath a beating if one knew exactly where each stroke of the cane would fall.
But this was new. This made no sense; this was not a line that the young master would cross, not unless something hand changed- but Shen Jiu had not heard that anything had changed. Was the whole house conspiring against him so thoroughly? Why? None of them cared enough about a pathetic slave to do such a thing, and yet-
The door opened, and the world tilted a degree further.
"Well, Honored Immortal, this is Shen Jiu," Qiu Jianluo said, flicking a glance at him in the doorway, then following it with an exaggeratedly polite gesture. There was a mad light shining bare and open in his eyes that Shen Jiu normally saw only after Qiu Jianluo had begun to draw blood. And beside Qiu Jianluo, towering over him, was a great statue of a man- tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in fine robes, a pair of swords at his belt, the ends of his long, silk-smooth hair nearly brushing the hilts. Something about the sight of the swords trapped Shen Jiu's eyes and made his stomach twist with nausea and agony, as if he'd eaten three-day-old rice left out; it was hard to focus, hard to even breathe.
And yet he had to focus, had to think past the strange pain. All he had was his mind; he had to use it or die. What business did any cultivator have with him? There was only Yue Qi- but it had been too long. He had long forced himself to accept that Yue Qi was dead. No one would be coming to find him on the request of some dead boy.
"So it is," the man said. If it was possible to sound precisely the opposite of Qiu Jianluo, he did: a deep voice, smooth and neutral, with perfect control; he sounded curious at most.
And yet something deep in Shen Jiu belled a warning- something deep and dusty, the part of him that had always known when Yue Qi was going to do something unbelievably stupid and get them both into trouble. But Yue Qi was dead.
He tore his eyes from the swords and looked up and up, past the wide chest, the expensive silk robes, into a stranger's face that was impossibly familiar. If Yue Qi had ever had a father or a grandfather-
"He's disrespectful," Qiu Jianluo said viciously, and Shen Jiu realized with a horrible shock that he'd lost- he had no idea how much time. He'd lost control of himself unforgivably, had let them both see him staring, had let them see him care about something- had handed over his one remaining vulnerability, the open wound he'd hidden for so long, on a fine porcelain plate, ready for Qiu Jianluo to smash it. "Perhaps the honored immortal would be interested in another slave? There are several here, and many more in the city, that might suit his needs better than a used-up rag like this."
"Ah?" the cultivator said. The sense of trouble impending grew thicker, as if Shen Jiu breathed blood and honey instead of air. For the first time, the cultivator turned to look directly at him, and-
Shen Jiu knew those eyes. He had last seen them staring, wounded and stupid, through the slats of the woodshed in the back. But he did not know the face they were set in. Yue Qi was dead.
"No, I think it must be this one," the cultivator said, still as mild as ever. "My apologies to your... sister... was it? I believe ten spirit stones will cover the cost of the slave contract."
The price- for a slave, a nothing- shocked the madness from Qiu Jianluo's, stunning his face into blankness, but as it disappeared it felt only as if it drained into Shen Jiu instead.
Anything was better than this house, and yet-
"I'll make your farewells to Haitang," Qiu Jianluo said to him, as soon as he'd gathered himself and tucked the stones away into his pouch. "I suppose you always would have done better as a wife than a husband. You'd better make him happy, if you know what's good for you."
The power in the air swelled over and broke, carrying Shen Jiu down with it; he dropped to his knees, choking, scrabbling at his own throat- it was as if that great, jagged black sword the immortal wore had a grip on him, somehow, as if-
A hand, too-large, closed over his wrist; something flowed into him from outside, a fire so strong it overflowed his senses and swept him down into darkness before he could even begin to struggle.
Shen Jiu woke hours later, in twilight, surrounded by more trees than he'd ever seen in his life. Through his lashes, he could see the flickering light of a fire- he opened them more fully. The cultivator was there, kneeling at the fire, poking at something.
There was a faint scent of burning porridge.
"Yue Qi?" he said, and wished in the next breath that he could take the words back, that he could snatch the wish back out of the air.
"I'm sorry," the cultivator- the man- the-- "I was too late again, Shen Jiu. I made a mistake. I'm sorry, it's my fault. I'll-- I'll try again."
He reached for the sword laying on the ground beside him.
The alarm shrieked in his head again, and Shen Jiu surged to his feet and flung himself across the fire, heedless of the pot, of the burnt-yet-raw rice that scattered across them both, scalding him, ruining the fine silk. "Don't," he said, voice raw, ragged, not knowing what he was doing. "Don't you dare, Yue Qi!"
And, impossibly, Yue Qi's hand froze midair, inches away from the blade, as if at Shen Jiu's command. As it always had, at Shen Jiu's command.
Yue Qi was dead; he was alive; he was old enough to be his own father; he was an impossibility, and he was here, under Shen Jiu's fists, letting Shen Jiu slap him.
"I'm sorry," Yue Qi said again, but there was something almost like joy in the words, instead of too much control or that odd hesitation.
"You should be!" Shen Jiu snarled. Yue Qi's hand came up behind him, pressing against his filthy shoulder, and Shen Jiu punched him again. It was like hitting stone.
"I'm sorry."
"Stop saying that."
There was an awkward silence, as Yue Qi took a breath and said nothing at all.
"I hate you," Shen Jiu said into it at last, like a lance into the venom inside him, a truth that cut and healed. And, again: "I hate you." He let his head fall forward to rest against that broad, foreign shoulder.
"I know," Yue Qi said.
Yue Qi never had known anything, had he?
Then it was really him.