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It is sudden and jarring.
Luo Binghe makes an animal yelp, pained and vulnerable at the sudden sharp pressure, eyes wide and bewildered as he gasps raggedly for air. The intensity of it all is a shock, his body reacting before his mind can even parse what has happened, letting out this aching wheeze of air that upticks into the whining of a kicked dog.
For a long moment he still couldn't grasp what has even happened, one moment he had been idly chatting, and then- his hands shake as he pushes at Shang Qinghua's, as if he could somehow undo this thing that has been done to him.
What has been done to him?
Luo Binghe's eyes flashed, surprise, anger, betrayal, hurt, rage... before settling on glassy eyed fear as the cold settles into his bones. As he realizes there's no rush of qi to begin healing him- no surge of his own blood.
"Shan– Shishu, Sh-Shishu wait!" His voice was incredulous and panicked, like he couldn't believe this was happening, his mind still catching up with the reality his body knew. Shang Qinghua wouldn't risk failure, it was already far too late.
He had been haunted for so long, he thought it was all he knew, that The Abyss had infected him so wholly with it, that it could not be undone. He knew fear, he knew fear, yet now he was struck by how sharp and new this felt.
This was the sudden gasping dread when he first fell and Hell rose up to meet him. After the growing bravado of the conference, with each victory under his belt convincing him he might be able to do anything, he had again felt so lost and small.
This was the existential grieving that had wracked him as he held his mother so cold in his arms and was made to understand death for the first time. He had been so young, so lost, floundering with what to even do when everything everything had changed and nothing would ever be the same again.
And now a third meeting with inevitability, with the facts he could not escape no matter how he fought against it. He felt like a child.
He is going to die.
"Wait, wait Shishu I can- I'll-" He floundered for words, shock was a hell of a drug and it was hard to gather his thoughts clearly, but even still it was clear he was gearing up to bargain for his fate. There was a thread of instinctive charm to it, as if he could somehow talk his way out of the inevitable, and Shang Qinghua winced with guilt.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Shang Qinghua's voice is just as panicked as Luo Binghe jolts and squirms helplessly in his arms, expression still hurt and bewildered and frightened as he looks up at him.
"I know, I know, shh it won't take long, I'm sorry– this isn't your fault, I'm so sorry, this isn't your fault.." Shang Qinghua rasps brokenly with his own grief for this, shushing Luo Binghe as gentle and soothing as he can. His own qi circulated through Luo Binghe as his blood slowly drained, the technique he and Mu Qingfang had practiced as students, to cut the mind off from the rest of the nervous system, to limit the pain of healing.
Or in this case: dying.
Looking at the man in his arms, the boy he had made and never given happiness, he sobs for him, wet and gasping. The two of them cry fat wet tears in unison as Luo Binghe struggles to draw in his next breath.
"You don't deserve this, there was no other way Binghe I'm so sorry.. I won't let this happen again, next time I won't fuck up." he promised as he felt the heavy weight of the universe crowding in. He'd never experienced the reset while still alive before, he wondered if he would remember it, or if he would just cut back to his bed in the student houses again, as he had so many times before.
Luo Binghe looked confused even as the light slowly drained from his eyes, instead reflecting the ominous blue glow that Shang Qinghua knew hovered over him. Waiting.
Then the protagonist died.
And Shang Qinghua was unmade.