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“Baba,” a tiny voice says, close to Shen Qingqiu’s ear. “Baba, wake up.”
Shen Qingqiu groans and opens his eyes. He slept poorly during the night, his dreams troubled by the news he received the previous afternoon: and though Mu Qingfang gave him a calming tea to drink before bed, Shen Qingqiu’s temples ache as if someone had taken a hammer to them.
“What is it?” he mumbles, pushing himself upright. “Are you all right, Xinhui?”
Luo Xinhui nods and lays her cheek on Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder.
“Baba needs to go to the kitchen,” she announces, with great solemn eyes. “Diedie is cooking.”
“Oh, is that all?” Shen Qingqiu asks, bundling his daughter into his arms. “That’s all right, Xinxin. Binghe will have breakfast ready in no time, and then we’ll send for Xiabao and sit down to eat.”
Xinhui shakes her head. “Baba, you don’t understand,” she persists. “Diedie’s cooking everything.”
* * *
In truth, Shen Qingqiu should have known that Binghe would be out of sorts that day.
How could it be otherwise, when they found the letter explaining their son’s departure less than twenty-four hours ago? There was nothing unusual about Yu’en’s manner in the days before he left, save for the fact that he had been a little absent-minded: so neither of them could have predicted his going, but—
Perhaps Binghe blames himself, Shen Yuan thinks disconsolately. He is not worried about Yu’en, not truly: for as a quarter-blooded heavenly demon, Yu’en is stronger than any demon or cultivator still living save for his father and grandfather.
But strength aside, the fact remains that Yu’en did not share the reason for his flight with his parents.
I must go, the letter had said. I don’t fully understand it—but I must. For the sake of my spirit and heart I must do it. I am in no danger, and I have suffered no hurt; but if I do not go, I shall never be whole again. Forgive me.
“And here we thought Yu’en was the easy one,” Shen Qingqiu mutters, as he peers through the kitchen door to find Binghe hacking away at a carp with no fewer than ten covered dishes steaming on the table behind him. “I should have known better.”
But how? a distraught voice demands, somewhere in the back of his mind—and with good reason, for Yu’en has always been the most reserved of Shen Qingqiu’s four children, preferring peace to escapades with his shidimei, and solitude to the rush and bustle of the bamboo house. Nor does he share Hengxia’s passion for deadly beasts, or Yihuan’s fondness for feats of daring with the Bai Zhan disciples; and heretofore, Shen Qingqiu’s sole fear for his son was that he might not come into his own as easily as his sisters have done.
To be sure, the arts of war came easily to him—as one might expect, given the fact that Yu’en’s talent had earned him a direct discipleship with Liu-shidi. But his parents have long suspected that his prowess at Bai Zhan brought him no joy whatsoever; and privately, Shen Qingqiu had resolved to send him to Tianlang-jun's stronghold in the demon realm as soon as both Yu’er and Binghe were willing, in case Yu’en’s lack of interest in the mortal world was due to his mixed heritage.
And then Yu'en had run away, taking nothing with him but his sword and a set of night-hunting supplies.
“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu calls now, knocking softly at the kitchen door. “What are you doing, beloved?”
Luo Binghe’s shoulders droop.
“I thought I might as well make a good breakfast,” he mumbles. “We still haven’t heard anything from Yu’er, and I—you—”
“Come away from there,” Shen Qingqiu coaxes, his heart aching. “Put the fish in the cold box and leave it; it will keep until tomorrow. How long have you been up?”
Binghe stares at him with reddened eyes. “I haven’t slept.”
Shen Qingqiu hurries to his side and takes the fish from him. “You will go to sleep after breakfast,” he says sternly. “There’s three days’ worth of food here, sweetheart. If you don’t rest, you’ll fall ill.”
The desolate look on Luo Binghe’s face suggests that illness cannot possibly make his life any worse now that Yu’en has left them, so Shen Qingqiu disposes of the carp and makes his husband a pot of strong tea.
“He’s all right,” he says quietly, stroking Binghe’s hair. “Your blood gu would have warned you if he were injured.”
Luo Binghe inclines his head almost imperceptibly. “I know.”
“He’s been eating all his meals, and going to his lessons. And he came to supper and played xiangqi with Huanhuan for two shichen the day before yesterday, so I don’t think he’s been upset of late.”
“I would have known if Yu’er was upset,” Binghe tells him, in mournful tones. “My blood mites hurt when the children are upset. I can’t explain it, but they do.”
Shen Qingqiu’s stomach clenches. “And if they’re afraid? What then?”
“The gu are more aware, I suppose. The ones I gave Xiabao stand at attention whenever she thinks she’s gone too far with one of the beasts on Mo Shou.”
“And Yu’en hasn’t…?”
“No.”
Shen Qingqiu closes his eyes.
“Very well, then,” he sighs. “There’s nothing more we can do just now. We’ll have breakfast with Xiabao and the little ones; and if no word comes by tomorrow, we’ll go looking for him.”
He kisses his husband on the brow, dabbing away the tears that had gathered at the corners of his eyes; and then he steers Binghe to the table and calls his daughters in for breakfast.
* * *
In spite of Yu’en’s absence, the meal is not nearly as gloomy as Shen Qingqiu feared it might be. Yihuan and Xinhui are more than content to devote themselves to their porridge after Binghe assures them that Yu’en is safe; and Hengxia (the nearest to Yu’en in age) believes that Yu’en’s departure signals a late-blooming urge to carve out a territory of his own, inherited from the demonic side of the family.
“It won’t last long,” she says to Shen Qingqiu, over the clattering of her sisters’ chopsticks. “I went through something very like it when I was eighteen—but I felt no need to go find a territory of my own, because I was exhausting my strength with the beasts on Mo Shou. Father might not have realized when it happened to him, because he was in the Abyss when he was Yu’er’s age; but Yu-di’s duties on Bai Zhan wouldn’t have been enough to quell the impulse for him, so…”
Binghe nods, looking so morose that Shen Qingqiu nearly bursts into tears on the spot.
“You were right, Shizun,” Binghe says, turning to face him. “You wanted to send Yu’er to Fuqin, and I…”
“We both chose not to send him to your father,” Shen Qingqiu reminds him, squeezing Luo Binghe’s hand. “Xinhui was just a baby when we first thought of it; and if he’d decided to stay in the demon realm, he and Xinxin might not have gotten to know each other properly for years. It’s better as it is.”
There is little more to say on the subject after that. When breakfast is over, Hengxia takes her sisters out into the yard for a game of cuju, and Binghe (under strict orders from Shen Qingqiu) goes to bed.
As for Shen Qingqiu himself, he spends the rest of the morning milling about the receiving room, clutching Yu’en’s note to his chest: and if Shang Qinghua had not broken his concentration by rapping on one of the windows from the outside, Shen Qingqiu might have paced the floor without speaking until nightfall.
“What are you doing here?” Shen Qingqiu says dismally, shivering in the frigid wind that accompanied Shang-shidi through the door. “I thought you weren’t due back at An Ding until next month.”
“Tianlang-jun sent word to Mobei as soon as he heard that Yu’en was missing,” Shang Qinghua tells him. “He wanted to know if Yu’er had come to us.”
“Did he say anything about Yu’en wanting to establish his own territory?”
“En, something along those lines. You know my king never gave up that piece of land in the east from his great-grandmother’s dowry—the valley where the snow mingles with ash from the volcanoes off the coast, remember? Junshang asked if we’d made any arrangements for Yu’er to fight my king for it.”
“Did you?”
“No. But I do have news,” Shang Qinghua says cautiously. “When I got back from Mobei’s palace this morning, I found a letter from one of my disciples waiting on my desk. Apparently, she saw Yu’en in Youzhou last night.”
Shen Qingqiu freezes.
“Youzhou?” he exclaims, before glancing back towards the closed door of the bedroom. “What—what is he doing in the capital, of all places!?”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Shang Qinghua frowns, rubbing at his chin. “We were just there, so why did Yu’er go back?”
The two sink onto the luohan bed by the window, deep in thought. Earlier that summer, Cang Qiong organized an official visit to the capital as a courtesy to the mortal emperor: for a wandering daozhang had claimed that one of the younger princes was a rare cultivation talent, and the emperor wanted to meet with the heads of some great cultivation sect to discuss the merits of placing the boy under their care when he was older.
Yue-shixiong would not hear of the prince going to Huan Hua, so Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua attended the meeting on behalf of Cang Qiong Mountain. Binghe and the three younger children came with them—for Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu were of the opinion that Yu’en spent too much of his time behind closed doors, and could do with an excursion to the mortal realm—and while Shen Qingqiu was occupied with the emperor, and Binghe with the care of Yihuan and Xinhui, Yu’en went out to tour the capital with the older princes and princesses.
But their party did not remain in Youzhou for long. Shen Qingqiu’s negotiations with the emperor proved to be pleasingly straightforward: and much to Yu’en’s disappointment, their family departed for Cang Qiong less than a fortnight after they arrived.
“Perhaps he made friends with His Majesty’s older children while we were there, and went back to visit them,” Shen Qingqiu says cautiously. “But if that was all, what in the world did he mean by that ridiculous letter?”
Shang Qinghua blinks. “What letter?”
Shen Qingqiu withdraws the note from his sleeve and hands it to him: but before Shang Qinghua can open it, he stumbles over one of Xinxin’s dolls and crashes to the floor at the sound of an anguished howl from the kitchen.
“Shizun!” Luo Binghe shouts. “Shizun, come here!”
Shen Qingqiu hauls Shang Qinghua to his feet. “Wait here,” he orders, before scrambling into the kitchen to find Binghe back in his customary place before the stove.
“Fujun,” he says pleadingly, touching Luo Binghe’s shoulder. “What are you doing up? You were hardly asleep for a shichen.”
But Binghe only shakes his head and points to the wok on the scrubbed wooden table. “How many spatulas do you see, Shizun?”
Shen Qingqiu stares. The wok on the table is one of the spares Binghe keeps in storage; and in turn, the wok itself stores as a storage place for a handful of cherished utensils. Two are ladles from a set that Ning Yingying gifted to them for their wedding, and two more are spatulas that Binghe bought in the village down the mountain after he returned from the Abyss; and the last is the lucky spatula with which he prepared the first meal of congee he served to Shen Qingqiu.
“Your lucky spatula,” Shen Qingqiu realizes, dismayed: for there are only two spatulas in the wok instead of three. “It’s missing?”
“It’s not missing,” Luo Binghe says grimly. “Yu’en took it with him.”
“...Why?”
Binghe does not answer for a long while; and then he puts the utensils away and returns the wok to its cabinet.
“When I first started teaching Yu’er to cook,” he sighs, “I showed him the spatula I used the first time I cooked for you. Yu’er was only three—he was fussing, and I was trying to distract him so he would settle; and I told him how I used to think of the spatula as a good-luck charm to help my cooking turn out well, so that you would like it.”
“And then?”
“And then I told him that if he were to fall in love someday, I would gift that spatula to him so that he could use it to prepare his beloved’s meals.”
Shen Qingqiu’s breath catches. “You mean…”
Luo Binghe nods.
“He’s eloped, niang zi. Now that I think about it, Yu’en being in love would explain a great deal about the feelings I managed to glean from his blood gu.”
“But with whom? He spent all his time with the imperial princes while we were in Youzhou.”
“One of the princesses went with them on the last day, didn’t she? I saw a retinue of maidservants accompanying Yu’en’s party on their way back from town, so there must have been a woman in the group.”
“There’s an unmarried Sixth Highness, but she’s only twelve. She’s far too young for Yu’er.”
Binghe grimaces. “I suppose so.”
They sit together in silence for a little while longer, clutching each other’s hands; and at length, Shen Qingqiu extracts himself from Binghe’s arms and opens the barrel of flour by the window.
“Shizun?” Binghe asks, half-rising from his chair. “What are you doing, xingan? Are you hungry?”
“You stay right there. I’m going to make something for you and the little ones,” Shen Qingqiu says determinedly. “Something sweet. It’ll settle us both, and dessert after supper will cheer the children up.”
(At that, a soft, fond look steals into Binghe’s eyes: but wisely, he does not mention that the children are in no need of cheering-up.)
“All right,” Binghe smiles, pressing his lips to Shen Qingqiu’s forehead. “May this husband stay to watch, beloved?”
Shen Qingqiu’s heart melts.
“Of course,” he says. “You can help, if you’d like.”
* * *
Much to Shen Qingqiu’s surprise, the motions of baking his mother’s favorite cake do cheer him up a little. Western foods have been something of a treat in the bamboo house since he and Binghe were first married; and since Western-style cakes were all that Shen Yuan’s mother taught him to make, most of the food he cooks for his own family takes the form of some sort of baked good. His mother’s favorite (and Binghe’s too, by now) was a tres leches that she baked for his father on every wedding anniversary; and as a piece of Shen Qingqiu’s mysterious past—which his husband and children can never hear enough about—a tres leches cake is as good a way to brighten their spirits as any.
The baking goes swiftly, since the bamboo house’s kitchen is as close in functionality to a modern one as he and Binghe could make it. The cold box in the corner has enough room for eggs and fresh milk as well as the meat and fish Binghe buys at market; and the pots have been emblazoned with talismans to prevent sticking, so that the milk could be left to reduce on the stove with only minimal supervision.
By the time the cake has been shut into the oven, Shen Qingqiu feels a great deal calmer. Even Binghe is as near to relaxed as he can be, given the circumstances; and as they sit side-by-side at the table with the girls’ shouts drifting through the open window, Binghe heaves a tremendous sigh and puts his head on Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder.
“There you are,” Shen Qingqiu whispers tenderly. “Do you feel better now, dear heart?”
Luo Binghe nods. “Much better,” he confesses. “I’m not frightened any longer. I wish Yu’en had told us he was going, and I wish he could have waited to leave us until he was older—but he’s mine as well as yours, Shizun, and this sounds like exactly the kind of thing I would have done when I was seventeen.”
And then, as Shen Qingqiu fixes him with a doubtful stare: “I mean it, my love. It’s just that this disciple didn’t have to elope to be with you, because you had already given me a place by your side.”
“It’s not the same. We were within our rights to marry as we pleased,” Shen Qingqiu sighs. “And if Yu’en really has chosen one of the Imperial Highnesses, how is the match to go forth without the emperor giving his assent? He was accepting enough when he heard that this master is a cut-sleeve, but he will never agree to wed a nanqi to one of his own sons.”
Binghe’s eyes grow soft. “You’re afraid that Yu’er will have his heart broken, aren’t you?”
“Hush!” Shen Qingqiu chides. “Don’t mention it, Binghe. It’s bad luck to say such things.”
But he kisses Luo Binghe’s shoulder as he speaks, and leans up so that Binghe can kiss his lips in return; and within a ke, the two of them are so wholly lost in each other’s arms that the cake, left unattended, nearly goes up in flames.
* * *
“I just got a letter from Yu-di,” Hengxia says to them the next morning, through an enormous mouthful of cake and sliced melon. “He told me he was safe, and asked me to tell you and Baba not to worry; but he says we shouldn’t write to him for the time being.”
Luo Binghe lays down his spoon. “Why not?” he asks, exchanging a wary look with Shen Qingqiu. “Did he say?”
“He’s hiding out in the Grand Princess Jinxing’s estate. I think he wants to marry her,” Hengxia frowns. “But she’s a widow, and her in-laws don’t let her leave their manor unsupervised. She’s not even allowed to keep male servants; so Yu-er disguised himself as a woman, brought Her Highness a plate of his egg tarts, and asked her head momo to take him on as a pastry cook.”
At Binghe’s side, Shen Qingqiu puts his head down on the table.
What was it his father had said to him, once?
Easy boys make difficult young men, he had warned, half-jesting. If your children give you trouble when they're small, Yuan’er, there’s no need to worry—but if they’re too good to be true, watch out!
“Heaven help us. He doesn’t take after me in the slightest,” Shen Qingqiu groans, as Binghe’s hand slips into his. “You were right, Binghe. He’s just like you!”