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Published:
2025-10-18
Updated:
2025-12-06
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2/?
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Dianxia Kneels Before the Mountain God

Summary:

“He came from the shadows, in the middle of the night,” Tianlang-jun would tell his little son, when he crept into his parents’ bed and asked to hear the story of his birth for the fourth time in as many days. “I was out of my wits with rage, and I turned—and behind me, I saw a young xianjun with great doe’s eyes and a fretful mouth, and a sword so fierce that he could not draw it for fear that its radiance would set the woods ablaze.”

“Who was he?” Binghe would gasp in return, as if he had not heard the tale a hundred times before.

Or: twenty-three years after their parting, Luo Binghe reunites with Yue Qingyuan.

Notes:

Once again: I'm going to make Shen Yuan transmigrate into everyone. I can't be stopped.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Though Luo Binghe’s parents have been keen on a formal alliance with the mortal realm for as long as he can remember, the alliance is not set in stone until after his twenty-second birthday.

In truth, the alliance had been forged years earlier, on the very day that Luo Binghe was ushered into the world on the banks of the Luo River. His mother fled there to escape from her shizun, who had imprisoned and then poisoned her after she refused to do away with the unborn Luo Binghe; and if a human cultivator had not brought Luo Binghe’s father to her in time, both of them might have been lost before Luo Binghe took his first breath.

“He came from the shadows, in the middle of the night,” Tianlang-jun would tell his little son, when he crept into his parents’ bed and asked to hear the story of his birth for the fourth time in as many days. “I was out of my wits with rage, and I turned—and behind me, I saw a young xianjun with great doe’s eyes and a fretful mouth, and a sword so fierce that he could not draw it for fear that its radiance would set the woods ablaze.”

“Why?” the small Binghe would ask, as if he had not heard the tale a hundred times before. 

“I don’t know. This old father has never heard the full story; but it is said that the Xuan Su jian is a blade capable of dealing out such great devastation that no other weapon can withstand its wrath, even the Xin Mo of legend. And you know, Xiao Binghe, that your father is very strong; but if Yue Qingyuan had turned Xuan Su upon me, I would have been defeated.”

“No!”

“Yes! I would have died, or been sealed away beneath some mountain somewhere to fade from grief in the dark; but Yue Qingyuan had not come to kill me. He told me that your mother was ill and alone, that she was with child and close upon her time—and that if I did not help him find her, both she and you would be lost to me forever.”

Here, Tianlang-jun always stopped to catch his breath, and pull his wife and son into his arms: and no matter how loudly Luo Binghe protested, he would not speak again until he and Mother had held one another for half a ke or more.

“What then, Fuhuang?” the cross little Binghe would plead, after his parents broke apart. “What happened next?”

“Why, we found your mother on the banks of the Luochuan; and he cleansed her of the poison that old wretch from Huan Hua forced upon her, so that she could give birth to you safely. Then he took us to a little house by the river, and found a nurse to tend to your mother until she recovered—and when Xiyan was well enough to travel, he saw her off with Zhuzhi-lang and asked me to stay behind.”

“What for?” Binghe demanded. “Why didn’t he let you go with Mother?”

Luo Binghe asked this question with bated breath: for he knew full well what came next, but no amount of re-telling could lessen his wonder at the young Yue Qingyuan’s bravery.

“He asked me to wound him,” his father would reply, as Binghe gasped in mingled horror and amazement. “He could not come with us: for he was the head disciple of his sect, and sworn to become its master in time. What was more, he could use his position as sect master to stop the persecution of demons who did no harm in the mortal world; but since he had been sent to intercept me, he would only be allowed to keep that position if his elders received proof that he had tried to do so and failed.”

“So you attacked him,” Binghe whispered.

“Yes, I attacked him—but I did not want to do it, so I made him drink a draught of my blood and put him to sleep so that he would feel no pain.”

At this, Luo Binghe cried out in anguish and flung himself into his mother’s arms. “Mama!”

“What?” Su Xiyan would say, most unsympathetically. “If Bing’er isn’t strong enough to hear how his Yue-gege suffered for his sake, why ask such questions to begin with?”

“But—!”

“I don’t see why we need to linger on the suffering,” Tianlang-jun said bracingly. “He was very powerful, Binghe, so he must have gotten well in no time at all.”

“But how do you know, Fuhuang?”

“We would have heard if someone as important as Qiong Ding’s da-shixiong had died; and since he didn’t die, he must have recovered,” Father replied, far too light-heartedly for Luo Binghe’s liking. “But you’ve forgotten your favorite part of the story. Before we parted, Yue Qingyuan gave you two gifts, and those were—”

“My name!” Binghe squealed, standing straight up on Tianlang-jun’s pillow. “You and Mama didn’t know what to call me, but Yue-gege called me Binghe as soon as I was born.”

“En, Yue Qingyuan was the one who named you; and since your mother thought Luo Binghe was a good name, we decided that you might as well keep it. And when he bid farewell to Xiyan, he gave you—”

“A kiss!” 

“Yes, he kissed you. You see, your mother asked him if he wanted to hold you just once before we left; but Yue Qingyuan told her that his hands were far too rough and ungentle to touch a child as precious as you were. She could see that he wanted to hold you, though—we both could—and when she asked him again, Yue Qingyuan knelt and kissed your little feet instead.”

Luo Binghe smiled, nodding against his mother’s shoulder, and tried with all his might to remember the warmth of Yue-gege’s kiss. He always fell asleep before the memory could surface; but the tale itself was never far from his mind, even after he had earned his princely title and become a lord among demons in his own right.

And then—when Luo Binghe was nearly twenty-three, six years after he departed his father’s stronghold to carve out a domain of his own in the east—he heard that his parents would be receiving a delegation from the mortal realm.

“The Mobei-junhou writes that the master of Huan Hua Palace is dead, and that the palace itself is in the hands of his head disciple,” Su Xiyan noted, during one of Luo Binghe’s frequent visits home. “A delegation of cultivators will be arriving here within the month—and you will be needed to see to matters here, Binghe, so don’t even think about leaving—in the company of a trading envoy.”

She smiled at him over the letter, and then:

“Yue Qingyuan is leading the delegation, as the master of Cang Qiong,” she said. “Did you hear that, my son? You’ll finally have the chance to meet your Yue-gege again.”

Chapter 2

Summary:

In which Bingyuan reunite.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When Luo Binghe was a child, he often wondered what his life would have been like if Yue Qingyuan had not helped save his mother.

Perhaps he would not have lived at all. His mother once told him that she had planned to cast him adrift on the shallow waters of the Luochuan, where the fishermen would happen upon his basket before taking their catch to market; but what if none of them had been willing to raise him? Would he have died by inches in a village poorhouse somewhere, and rendered his mother’s sacrifice meaningless in doing so?

At the very least, he thought, his Imperial Mother would have been killed or died alone in childbirth, and his father left to rot in shackles under Mount Bailu; and this disturbed Luo Binghe far more than any imaginings of what he might have suffered in the mortal realm after losing them.

It followed, then, that Luo Binghe’s heart often lingered upon the savior who prevented those imaginings from coming to pass.

“Maybe Yue-zhangmen will be like mother,” his sister Bingmian suggests, on the day the delegation from Cang Qiong is due to reach Xuanguang Palace. “A righteous cultivator with a fair white sword and windblown hair, and the light of wisdom flaming in his eyes—”

On Luo Binghe’s other side, his second sister Bingzhou—born less than a ke after Bingmian, to the delight of the former and the latter’s enduring disappointment—rolls her eyes. “Not all cultivators are like Mother, you know. What if he’s like the Mobei-junhou, Consort Shang? He’s afraid of everything that moves.”

“What do you think, Bingtuan?” Luo Binghe asks, turning to the youngest of his sisters.

“Well, Father told me that Yue-zhangmen was handsome,”  Bingtuan sighs dreamily, clasping her hands. “Was he handsome, gege?”

“I was four days old when Muhou and Fuhuang last saw him,” Luo Binghe tells her, trying not to laugh. “I don’t remember anything about him.”

“But you have to know something!” Bingmian, this time. “Tell us!”

Luo Binghe ponders for a moment. 

“Muhou asked him if he wanted to hold me before he left us,” he says at last. “At first, he insisted that his hands were not fit to touch a child as delicate as I was; but when Mother pressed him, he bowed to her and kissed my feet before departing.”

Bingtuan squeals and seizes the hem of Luo Binghe’s sleeve. “Will he kiss me, Ge?”

“Yue-zhangmen won’t be kissing anybody,” Bingzhou argues, with a disapproving look at Bingtuan. “You’re the Third Princess of the demon realm, and he’s just a mortal cultivator. No one would let him kiss you, even if he wanted to.”

“But princesses are supposed to be kissed!” wails Bingtuan. “It’s in all my storybooks!”

“Yue-zhangmen can’t kiss you, Bingtuan,” Bingmian says bracingly, before Luo Binghe can interrupt. “The princes in our storybooks—they only kiss one person, remember? That’s the rule.”

“So?”

“Well, he’s already kissed gege. That means he’s not allowed to kiss anyone else.”

At this, the triplets turn around and stare down at Luo Binghe’s booted feet.

Bingtuan’s face falls. “But, Bingmian—”

 “And it was a—a life-saving kiss! A kiss he gave Gege after saving his life!” Bingmian exclaims, seizing Bingtuan by the shoulders and shaking her. “Life-saving kisses are special kisses, so how can he kiss you?”

“It’s true that Yue-zhangmen shouldn’t kiss Bingtuan, but I don’t think that kiss was special,” Bingzhou says dubiously. “Ge was only a baby then, and none of Baba’s books said anything about kissing just one baby.”

“Then he can kiss me too, because I’m not grown up yet,” Bingtuan persists. “If Gege’s kiss didn’t count, then mine won’t, either.”

Luo Binghe sighs. “Enough talk about kissing,” he scolds. “Bingmian, Bingtuan—what have you and Father been doing during your trips to the mortal realm? If he and Zhuzhi-ge have been taking you three out to watch yellow-book plays and telling Muhou that you were only going bird-watching, then—”

But then the breath stills in his throat: for at that moment, he hears a commotion in the entrance hall beneath the balcony where he and his sisters are standing, followed by a silvery fanfare from the sentries flanking the great double doors.

“They’re here!” whispers Bingzhou, clinging to Luo Binghe’s arm for dear life. “Come on, gege. It’s time to go.”

Luo Binghe nods and heads for the stairs without another word. The triplets scamper along at his heels, chattering at the tops of their little voices; and as Binghe reaches the top of the staircase, he holds out his arm to keep his sisters from tripping.

Glancing downwards, he realizes that the peak lords of Cang Qiong have already crossed into the entrance hall. His parents are standing at the back of the chamber to welcome them, hand in hand: and Zhuzhi-lang is half-hidden behind Tianlang-jun, dressed in a poison-green zhiju whose embroidery matches the latter’s black robes.

By rights, Luo Binghe should have reached the hall in time to position himself behind his mother. He hastens his steps, so that he can take his place before his absence is noticed—but when he reaches the middle of the staircase, he hears a ringing laugh from the entrance hall and stops in his tracks, stunned. 

The man at the head of the Cang Qiong delegation covers his mouth, his face turning rosy as Luo Binghe meets his eyes. He had seen Luo Binghe coming down the stairs, and the triplets quarrelling amongst themselves about which of them should go first as they followed him—and upon spotting Bingmian at the back of the party, stamping her feet in indignation as Bingzhou and Bingtuan rushed on ahead, the cultivator had laughed aloud in spite of himself. 

Luo Binghe takes another step downward, his gaze riveted upon the black-clad figure watching him from the front of the hall: and then Yue Qingyuan drops the hand pressed to his lips and smiles up at the giddy procession descending the stairs.

“Well-met, your Highnesses,” he calls, bowing low at the waist. “This humble Yue offers his greetings to the little princesses and taizi dianxia.”

It happens in an instant. Bingtuan goes still and seizes the baluster beside her, a soft sigh issuing from her lips at the sweetness of Yue Qingyuan’s voice, and Luo Binghe—similarly affected, though to a far more unfortunate extent—loses his footing on the stairs completely before falling the rest of the way down to the ground floor, taking Bingmian and Bingzhou with him.

Luo Binghe could have heard a pin drop amid the silence that follows.

“Ow,” Bingmian groans, hauling Bingzhou off Luo Binghe’s stomach. “What did you do that for, gege?”

But Luo Binghe does not reply. He is too embarrassed to speak—nay, humiliated as he has not been in all his life—for Luo Binghe has looked forward to this reunion for the better part of twenty years, only to disgrace himself in the eyes of his family’s rescuer before he had so much as greeted him.

A hand is held out to him: his father’s, or Zhuzhi-lang’s. Luo Binghe takes it, murmuring an apology as he rises to his feet; but when he looks up, he finds himself face to face with Yue Qingyuan.

“Are you all right?” Yue Qingyuan says gently.

Luo Binghe feels the wind leave his body.

“Yes,” he gasps. “Thank—thank you, Yue-zhangmen.”

He stares into Yue Qingyuan’s eyes, breathless—for what was it that Tianlang-jun used to call them, all those years ago? 

Doe’s eyes, he would say to Luo Binghe each night, as he and Su Xiyan narrated the tale of the day that had nearly killed all three of them. I was out of my wits with rage, and I turned—and behind me, I saw a young xianjun with great doe’s eyes, and a sword so fierce that its radiance could have set the very forest about him on fire. 

It is his eyes that could set a forest ablaze, not his sword, Luo Binghe thinks dizzily, as his mother makes his excuses to Yue Qingyuan and drags him over to stand with Zhuzhi-lang. He could quell a battlefield with those eyes, or drive a nation to disaster if he gave the wrong person so much as a gentle look, so how—

“Binghe,” Su Xiyan says sharply, tapping Luo Binghe on the shoulder. “Stop gawping and show Yue-xiong and the rest of our guests to their chambers. They’ve traveled a long way, and they ought to rest for an hour or two before the banquet this afternoon.”

“Yes, of course,” Luo Binghe says, dazed. “Forgive me, Yue-zhangmen. The guest palace is this way.”

He gestures towards the east-facing hallway at his right and leads the Cang Qiong delegation through it; and despite the din of thirty-odd pairs of boots marching along the corridor in his wake, Luo Binghe can hear the soft sound of Yue Qingyuan’s footsteps echoing above the frantic beat of his own thundering heart.

Notes:

Omake!

Su Xiyan: ....Um. I didn't see that coming.

Tianlang-jun: I did. 👀

--

Bonus note re: the triplets' names: their formal names will be revealed later, but they've gone by Bingmian (Bing-noodle), Bingzhou (Bing-porridge), and Bingtuan (Bing-dumpling) since they started eating solid food. :P

Up next: a banquet, and a battle.

As always, come say hi on Tumblr @stiltonbasket, and comment to feed your local Bingyuan stan today!

Notes:

As always, come say hi on tumblr @stiltonbasket, and comment to feed your local Bingyuan stan today! If you have any ideas re: who SY should transmigrate into next, let me know--and for those who suggested Liu Qingge in the past, he's already on the list. 👀

Up next: Binghe and his Yue-gege reunite, in less than ideal circumstances.