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Out of everything Shen Qingqiu taught, there was a single subject that he had become particularly zealous about teaching, ever since his fever: the study of beasts.
Compared to the many other ways in which he had changed, Shizun suddenly teaching differently was hardly anything of note, but Luo Binghe noticed, just as he noticed everything else about his master. In teaching literature, Shizun had thrown out rote memorisation; in calligraphy, he now praised the unorthodox; and in weiqi, he nodded encouragingly at reckless plays, lauding novel moves even if they were unduly risky. By all reasonable measure, he had become far more lenient of an instructor, and so even if the disciples of Qing Jing Peak continued to obey him unquestioningly, they did so out of enthusiasm, not habitual fear. Just like that, the heavy atmosphere that used to permeate the Peak was dispersed by the light, refreshing winds of change.
So it was all the more obvious when unlike with every other subject, Shizun doubled down on the study of beasts with a renewed fervour.
The sudden shift to focus on the subject had come unexpectedly. While Qing Jing was known far and wide for both its cultured students and extensive bestiaries, recent generations of Peak Lords had, without exception, opted to emphasise the Four Arts over obscure monster knowledge. All Qing Jing cultivators could be expected to be familiar with the beasts in the human realm, and a large portion of those in the demon realm, but the study of those those beasts hidden away in mythical pocket worlds and other such places was usually reserved for the Peak Lord’s successor-to-be. But now, with Shizun not expected to declare a successor for decades yet, Shizun had bucked the trend and simply decided that everyone should now study his favoured subject to a frighteningly thorough extent, even though no one really expected to ever encounter, say, a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python in real life.
Now, for each week that passed, they covered twice as many beasts as they used to, and for each beast they covered, Shizun expected them to know thrice the amount of detail. The study of beasts was the only non-cultivation class on Qing Jing where disciples continued to study with beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads, and where they retained a genuine fear of falling behind. Not because Shizun would scold you for it—he reserved that for affairs like fighting between disciples, these days—but because he’d genuinely become a little deflated that you’d gotten it wrong, and no one wanted to disappoint their kind, indulgent shizun now, did they?
It was a shame, then, that for this particular subject, Luo Binghe was doomed to do so.
It was a hot, breezy afternoon, the kind where sunlight beckoned with promises of carefree respite, leaving one yearning to go out and take a nap under a large tree as time slipped away. But Qing Jing Peak, though relaxed compared to its previous days, was still an academic institution at heart, and so its disciples cursed the warm rays flooding in through the windows for taunting them with what they could not have, trapped in class as they were.
Only, one member of the class had greater troubles on the mind—
And what affected the mind also affected the body.
Luo Binghe shrank himself down at his desk as Shizun walked past, wishing that he could erase his presence from the classroom altogether.
“Do you all remember what we covered last lesson?” Shizun asked, coming up to the front of the room. He thumbed through the text in his hands casually, and landed on his desired page with an swipe of his long fingers. As always, Shizun was flawlessly elegant in his every action. “The adaptations of the Two-Breath Eel Dragon, for its habitat… Someone review it for the class, please.”
Several hands rose.
Shizun looked, for a brief instant, at Luo Binghe’s own unraised hand, and then called out a name. “Ming Fan?”
Luo Binghe’s least favourite shixiong stood up smugly.
“The Two-Breath Eel Dragon has a sensitive nose that can track prey aboveground through a fifty-mile range,” Ming Fan said smoothly. “In the environment of the Endless Abyss, so rich of qi, where just about every form of life is spiritially sensitive, the Eel Dragon instead uses an ingenious but mundane approach to target demonic beasts overly-specialised against predators using spiritual or demonic powers.”
Ming Fan had recited nearly word-for-word Shizun’s explanation from their last lesson on the topic. Damn brown-noser, what did he look so proud for? Even as distracted as he always was, Luo Binghe knew that much!
Overly magnaminous Shizun nodded in approval, and continued his lecture.
“Good. Well, that covers how the Eel-Dragon can track its prey through the skies, but it’s a beast that spends much time underwater hunting Night-Pearl Anglerfish, and it needs to breathe down there too. Which is why the Eel-Dragon has an entire second respiratory system, granting it the epithet, ‘Two-Breath’. An overly-simplistic epithet, but serviceable enough…” Shizun trailed off, briefly wearing a contemptuous expression, before quickly wiping that blink-and-you-miss-it grimace off with a gentle smile. “Ahem. Anyway. Today, I would like you all to behold its gills, in particular.”
Shizun brought out a large scroll to show everyone: an illustration of the anatomy of the Two-Breath Eel Dragon, no doubt created by none other than Shizun himself. Every inch of the beast was oh-so-helpfully annotated with impeccable calligraphy, from the tips of its horns to the ends of its tail, in such detail that even the slowest student couldn’t possibly fail to visualise such a creature writhing monstrously through both sky and sea.
“As you all should know by now, the Endless Abyss’s seas are hostile to life,” Shizun lectured. “And in the parts of it where the Eel Dragon is known to dwell, those waters are exceedingly corrosive. Right by its jaw, its gills serve to allow it to breathe. But instead of relying on any particular physical coating to protect itself, like some fully aquatic species in the same habitat do, the Eel Dragon instinctively circulates demonic qi through the meridians in that tender tissue, protecting it, and at the same time strengthening what would otherwise be a weak point against fangs and claws.”
Luo Binghe could imagine it far too well. The Two-Breath Eel Dragon, reigning through the miasmic skies in lived in, and just as easily thriving in hostile seas, biding its time within deep currents for the right opportunity to snatch a Night-Pearl Anglerfish into its jaws, every gulp of water into its gills as caustic as it was necessary…
To Luo Binghe’s horror, the skin under his jaw began prickling.
He’d imagined it too well, indeed!
Why on earth did Shizun have to be so insistent on teaching to this level of detail, and be so good at it, to boot? Who cared about how some beast survived in a godforsaken corner of the world, as long as one knew how to end its life swiftly?
As surreptiously as he could, Luo Binghe adjusted the collar of his robes up to cover the side of his neck, and let his hand rest over it for good measure. He leaned into his own touch, and let his elbow rest on the table as he feigned tiredness. Better to look like a bad student rather than risk anyone catching on to what was really happening with his body, which at this point, he himself didn’t understand—
“But while in the sea,” Shizun said, breaking through Luo Binghe’s thoughts, “the Two-Breath Eel Dragon faces additional challenges owing to its dual nature. Can anyone guess what they might be?”
Luo Binghe’s heartbeat pounded in his ear. He looked down at his own desk, as if averting his eyes from the world would make it avert its eyes from him.
No one volunteered an answer this time.
Stealing a glance at Shizun, Luo Binghe saw that his master was casually touching his own nose with his fan, in a generous hint. During any other class, Luo Binghe would have found it enchantingly endearing—but right now, distracted by his rebellious body, he couldn’t enjoy the sight.
The prickling on his neck continued. Worse—under his trembling fingers, Luo Binghe felt a seam open in his skin, and no doubt if he could see it for himself, he’d see a line in the exact shape of the Eel Dragon’s gills, exactly as Shizun had depicted. Part of his skin hardened into what felt like scales, and a strange churning in his flesh made him suspect that his organs might have been rearranging themselves under the surface, even as Luo Binghe sat there, wishing for it all to stop.
This was the curse of Luo Binghe’s traitorous flesh, which yearned, at every opportunity, to become something other than himself.
It was why Luo Binghe hardly dared to relax during any of Shizun’s lessons on beasts. He actively tried to tune out Shizun’s words, because Shizun was really far too good at tempting his body to abandon him, with the way he always explained everything so clearly. Luo Binghe stayed quiet in class even if it meant that Shizun thought he was falling behind—even if every time he answered Shizun that he didn’t know something, he could see Shizun’s face fall. He couldn’t do otherwise.
Eventually, someone picked up on what Shizun was hinting at. “Is the Eel Dragon’s nose, perhaps, vulnerable…?”
“Indeed,” Shizun said. “The nose of the Eel Dragon is a double-edged sword—the tissues within are also astoundingly vulnerable to the corrosive waters of the Abyss… How, then, does the Eel Dragon protect itself?”
Shizun raised his fan, and pointed to the head of the Eel Dragon illustration, where a cross-sectional diagram showed a chamber within the Eel Dragon’s head, lovingly drawn with cilia within and muscle groups surrounding each opening.
“It seals off that entire respiratory system,” Shizun said. “Physically.”
Something inside Luo Binghe seized in response to Shizun’s words, and suddenly—
He couldn’t breathe.
Shit!
Just like the Eel Dragon Shizun described, his nose and lungs seemed to have sealed themselves off entirely!
“And as for how it does this—do you all see the muscles over here…”
Shizun’s lecture continued, but Luo Binghe’s attention was entirely lost.
Alright, he couldn’t breathe—but his cultivation was better than it used to be, he didn’t need to breathe, at least not right this minute. How long could he hold his breath? At least he could hold on until his body restored itself to normal, any minute now, surely—!
In the middle of Luo Binghe’s panic, a new distraction emerged.
Ning Yingying nudged Luo Binghe in his side from where she was seated next to him. Not waiting for him to look over, she scribbled something quickly in her own notes, and shoved them over for him to read.
Are you alright?
Luo Binghe shook his head as best as he could—the last thing he needed right now was to accidentally draw Shizun’s attention. But that did nothing to convince Ning Yingying, stubborn as she always was. She scribbled further, and insistently sent her notes his way again.
You look sick!
Luo Binghe gritted his teeth.
Keeping one hand glued to his neck, he tried to wave her off, but—
Shizun’s gaze landed right on the both of them.
He looked at their closeness and smiled, but Luo Binghe knew Shizun couldn’t have been happy to see two of his disciples so blatantly distracted during class. Luo Binghe shuddered to think how ill-mannered they must have seemed.
“You two seem lively together,” Shizun said gently. “I’m glad to see you getting along, but bear with your old shizun a little longer, hm?”
A giggle swept through the class.
Luo Binghe nodded quickly, face paling in mortification, but Ning Yingying bristled at the mild admonishment. “Shizun, I wasn’t playing around or anything,” she protested. “A-Luo isn’t doing well.”
Shizun frowned, and started walking over. “Is that so?”
Luo Binghe shut his eyes desperately, but still his body refused to cooperate. The gill on his neck had only widened. He could feel the edges of it threatening to creep past his fingers and expose to all the world that he was just as much of a monster as the beasts they studied every day.
He had to find a way out. As long as Luo Binghe had his wits about him—the only real proof he had that he wasn’t merely a beast in the guise of a human—he had to try.
But if Luo Binghe could no longer imagine himself as human, what could he do?
“The rest of you are dismissed,” Shizun said, from somewhere in front of him. “Yes, Yingying, that means you too—go play outside with the others, it’s a nice day out. Here, Binghe, let me take a look—”
Shizun.
Luo Binghe opened his eyes.
The person he admired far beyond anyone else stood right before him. His master, his one guide—who better to show him how to become a proper human?
Luo Binghe drank in the sight of his master as if he was dying of thirst. Shizun’s perfectly proportioned face, unblemished neck, and the way his hair flowed beautifully down his lanky form… Luo Binghe reminded himself what humans ought to be, and wiped everything else out of his mind.
Blessed air filled his lungs once more, and the sharp feeling of the gill beneath his fingers faded back into smooth skin.
He was saved—for now.
It was almost too easy.
Hindsight would have Luo Binghe looking back differently on the implications of this in the future, but for now, even putting two thoughts together was beyond him. Dizzy, and overwhelmed with extreme relief, he nearly slumped out of his seat—but a warm, supportive embrace saved him from falling flat onto the floor.
Luo Binghe blinked. “Shizun?!”
“There, there, I’ve got you,” Shizun said gently. “Can you stand?”
Could he stand? If Luo Binghe didn’t stand up right now, he was going to spontaneously combust! “I’m fine, Shizun,” he said hastily. “Shijie was worrying over nothing.”
Shizun tsked, in a way that made perfectly clear what he thought of that statement. “I’m sure. Well, since I’ve given everyone the afternoon off anyway, what about we head back to the bamboo house to rest?”
So they did.
Shizun insisted that Luo Binghe cling on to his arms as they walked back, which left Luo Binghe dizzy for a very different reason. He peppered him with questions about his well-being, in that overprotective way of his, as if Luo Binghe had been a pampered child from birth, and not a former street child who had once fought with dogs for scraps. Luo Binghe cherished every bit of it, even as he nervously checked his neck over and over again to make sure that it remained normal, and wasn’t acting up again.
(It scared him to the bone how easy it was for him to slip from human form. What did that say about him, that his body yearned to change all the time? In fact, was his human form even his ‘real’ one? What if Luo Binghe had never been human to begin with, and everything down to his core was a deception?
Who—or what—was Luo Binghe, really?)
Blissfully unaware of his disciple’s horrifying true nature, Shizun had his mind on other things.
“Have I been pushing you too hard lately, Binghe?” Shizun asked. “Cultivation backlash, perhaps… Maybe that wouldn’t be surprising, with how hard you’ve been training lately. You did do sparring exercises late into the night yesterday.”
“It’s not Shizun’s curriculum that is at fault,” Luo Binghe said. “It is this disciple’s own inadequacy.”
“A fine Shizun I make, hm, driving my disciples to collapse?” Shizun said sardonically. “I’ve clearly pushed you too far. Go get some rest while I fetch you some water.”
“That should be this disciple’s duty…”
But Shizun had already left. He returned in quick order, with a cup of water in one hand and a large mass of… was that fluff…? in the other.
Luo Binghe squinted, but his eyes couldn’t quite focus.
“Drink up,” Shizun ordered. “And hold this.”
“S-Shizun?!”
The mass of fluff turned out to be the short-haired beast Liu-shishu had given them not so long ago.
“Fluffy little sheep make the most comforting companions,” Shizun said. “Don’t you think so, Binghe?”
The short-haired beast could hardly be described as a sheep of any kind. Given the right diet, and enough time, it was a creature that could grow to swallow humans whole; that was the reason why Liu-shishu had had interest in hunting it in the first place, no matter what nonsense he’d spouted about cooking it. But supposedly, if one fed it mostly bamboo in its juvenile stage, it would lose all appetite for meat. Or so Shizun’s hypothesis went. They had yet to see if it would hold up, but since Liu-shishu had promised to put it down if the beast started thirsting for blood…
But Luo Binghe hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Shizun would be sad.
Forgetting to drink, Luo Binghe nodded in blind agreement with whatever Shizun was saying. He stroked the short-haired beast more out of confusion than anything else, but Shizun smiled approvingly, so he kept doing it.
It really did feel comforting.
But then Shizun’s smile faded.
“I might have pushed you too far,” he said, as if to himself. “But we don’t have much time.”
“Shizun?” Binghe said cautiously.
Shizun did not seem to hear. He looked into the distance.
The sudden, irrational fear that he was losing his shizun gripped Luo Binghe’s heart. Instinctively, he grabbed Shizun’s hand—
“Ah? Binghe—”
—and placed it together with his own, where he was petting the short-haired beast.
It purred happily.
Luo Binghe had pulled Shizun close with the motion, and Shizun found himself naturally sitting down as well. They pet the short-haired beast together, and allowed a quiet moment to pass, that way.
Shizun huffed in light laughter. “I suppose I need to learn the meaning of my own words.”
Luo Binghe nodded. Quite wilfully, this time.
If only the beasts Shizun spoke of—the beasts Luo Binghe had to be careful about in his thoughts, lest he turned into one of them—were like this, Luo Binghe reflected. Then maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad if one day he woke up as one. If he lost his human form, and cried helplessly into the night unintelligibly, all language lost to him, surely Shizun would take him under his wing as he had done for this short-haired beast. Surely Shizun could stroke his fur, and trim his claws, and let him nip gently with his fangs. Surely Shizun would allow him the indulgence of play-biting. He wouldn’t nip very hard if he were a beast, Luo Binghe thought. He’d make sure not to break Shizun’s skin, not to draw blood… He’d be the best beast, for Shizun’s sake.
Would that be so bad?
Luo Binghe wouldn’t be a ‘disciple’ anymore, that way. He wouldn’t be able to study the Four Arts or cultivate, let alone make his adoptive mother proud, like he’d sought to when he entered the sect. He would lose all qualification he had to be recognised as a human being. He would no longer even retain the right to call Shizun, Shizun.
But in exchange, Luo Binghe would be able to shamelessly enjoy animalistic comforts, as the short-haired beast was doing right now. He’d burrow into Shizun’s bed without worry for propriety. He’d crawl into Shizun’s robes wantonly, sniff them deeply in a way a human would never be allowed to, and cling on until Shizun laughed off his actions as that of a dumb beast, and relented, letting him stay. He’d be Shizun’s dumb beast, then, and he’d be closer to Shizun than ‘Cang Qiong disciple Luo Binghe’ had any right to.
And once he had his filthy paws on Shizun’s skin—
What then?
Luo Binghe was scared of the direction of his own thoughts, but he was shamefully excited at the same time, and he knew it. He dared not think further. He looked at where his and Shizun’s hands interlaced, over the chirping short haired beast, and his heart stilled.
A beast might not be able to be by Shizun’s side, but it could accompany him all the same.
Could Luo Binghe truly be happy with that?
He thought, and thought, but was unable to come to any sort of conclusion.
“Something wrong, Binghe?” Shizun asked.
Luo Binghe looked up. He squeezed Shizun’s hand lightly—so lightly he could pretend it was an accident.
For today, that would have to be enough.
Luo Binghe put on a smile.
“Nothing at all, Shizun.”