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Liu Qingge rarely attends any peak lord meeting unless absolutely necessary and apparently this was one that he could not miss according to the sect leader. And while he does not like to sit stiffly in a room and listen to the other peak lords’ argument, he wasn’t one to disobey the sect leader. Especially when his lover had asked him in such an exasperated tone after meeting up with Shang-shixiong.
So here he is sitting for a meeting that was supposed to start an hour ago. Almost every peak lord has arrived and made themselves comfortable by now but nonetheless the absence of one is delaying the meeting.
“I bet he’s back in that brothel again!” Qi Qingqi hissed as Yue Qingyuan asked for everyone to be patient again.
The sect leader looked even more apologetic when the accusation was utter, “Qi-shimei, this shixiong asked that you not talk about your martial brother that way…”. Liu QIngge snorted at his soulmate's attempt to coax Qi Qingqi, long used to Yue Qingyuan's soft attitude to their martial siblings. Especially when it comes to the Qing Jing peak’s lord.
Thus, Liu Qingge himself had decided to lend a helping hand in keeping his soulmate’s brother in line. ‘And this is the perfect opportunity to prove it’, he thought as he mounted Cheng Luan and flew out of the meeting room potentially breaking the door on his way out.
Yue Qingyuan had given him a pleading look as he blasted off into the corridor and Liu Qingge could distantly hear the sounds of his lover asking for patience and lenience on the second peak’s lord.
Unfortunately, Liu Qingge has neither.
-
It only took 10 minutes for Liu Qingge to arrive at the Warm Red Pavilion after scouring the entire Qing Jing peak in good faith of his martial brother. But atlas, he still needed to descend the mountain in search of the man.
And it took barely a minute for Liu Qingge to find the man there.
Liu Qingge could feel his face flushed in anger and shame at seeing Shen Qingqiu in the building. The heavy scent of perfume reminded him of where they were currently added.
“SHAMELESS!!” he screamed in his ‘shixiong’ direction yet the man didn’t even acknowledge him, which only added to Liu Qingge’s anger. He stomped his way over to the perverted scholar and grabbed his shoulder with one hand.
Shen Qingqiu looked over his shoulder from the conversation he was having with the courtesans, green eyes locking with sharp black ones, confusion clearly in them which infuriated the war god even more.
“Shen Qingqiu! Not only are you visiting thes-these places!!” Liu Qingge continued, his face aflame, yelling at his lecherous shixiong who only gives him even more weird looks.
“But you even dare to skip an important meeting just to go and ruin your cultivation further!!” some clarity seems to spark in the green eyes of his shixiong and the anger in Liu Qingge fizzles a little hoping that maybe the other had come to their senses.
“Aren’t you that brat that broke our door years ago?!!” one of the courtesans asked him, anger painted on her pretty face.
“Yeah!! You also took A-Jiu away from us that time!” another chimed in. “Hey! Didn’t he also just break the door when he came in just now?” the girl asked, her arms crossed and locking eyes with the war god.
“Cang Qiong must not have taught any of their disciples correctly if this is how one of their peak lords behave” the first courtesan spoke up again, her mocking tone fueling the simmering rage in Liu Qingge.
As if anticipating a fight, Shen Qingqiu took the initiative to calm the ladies, “Min-er, Li-jie, calm down. It seems like this young master is lost, I think he might be looking for-”
Well it didn’t work, at least not on Liu Qingge as the man slumped the slender scholar over his shoulder and took off straight to the sect meeting hall, ignoring the stream of girls screaming after him making it the second time he ran from people yelling at him in one day.
Still, if Shen Qingqiu thinks he could escape a meeting by pretending to know him,he would be dead wrong. Plus… Liu Qingge didn’t like how friendly the courtesans and Shen Qingqiu were acting towards one another. It just felt like something forbidden had occurred.
After all his shixiong was a mean man and would never outwardly smile.
So maybe he should have dropped the man off on Qian Cao after the meeting. As Liu Qingge ponder in thought, he didn’t realize a faint red string appearing on his shixiong’s finger that was getting redder the closer they get to Qiong Ding.
-
A red string connects everyone in the world to their soulmate. Every kid dreams of seeing their strings and following it to their forever love. However, there are multiple caveats for the string to appear.
The first is for both individuals to be of age and for the two to be of a certain distance from one another. Many have sought out to uncover the certain amount of distance for it to appear but it seems to vary between soulmates to soulmates. One thing for certain though is that the string will disappear once the two souls were ‘truly’ untied.
Another arbitrary rule that seems to vary from couple to couple. For example, it only took the war god and sect leader 2 years before their string to disappear.
And yet, A-Yuan and him have been together for far longer than that but their strings have yet to. The only way Shen Jiu has found for the string to temporarily disappear is for him and Shen Yuan to share a kiss for it to disappear a short time and an intimate moment for it to disappear a longer time.
Both of which were very vital for Shen Jiu to hide their relationship. Some deep parts of him argue that the fact of him hiding it might have contributed to the strong stubborn existence but the scene in front of him contradicts that.
After all, what’s a better way to announce to the whole sect that you have found your soulmate other than said soulmate been delivered -face planted on the ground- to you in the middle of a peaks lords meeting by the Bai Zhan war god with disciple peering in from the open hall door.
And yet the string is still there if not brighter than it ever was before, capturing every peak lord's attention. It didn’t take a genius to connect the two dots but unfortunately Liu Qingge was never even leaning towards the smart side.
“Zhangmen-shixiong! I found this lecherous pervert in the brothel just like before!” his stupid shidi shout as if he hasn’t already made a spectacle of himself, Shen Jiu covers his face with his fan as he snorts.
And as if he still hasn’t noticed Shen Jiu, he continued “And he even had the audacity to act like he didn’t know me! Just so he could stay at the brothel and sully his weak cultivation further!”. At this, Shen Jiu scrunched his eyebrows in offence.
By now everyone could very well see that the person still face planted on the ground -seriously A-Yuan- was not him but no one knows how to interject the war god’s ranting. Fortunately, Shen Jiu learned such a thing being from the scholar peak.
“Not only has shidi thrown my soulmate on the ground, it seems he has also decided to demean his shixiong’s cultivation. It seems that Bai Zhan needs to go through serious reconstructing lest the next peak lord decided to overthrow Qiong Ding”
Shen Jiu stands up and saunters his way to his soulmate, Liu Qingge’s bulging eyes staring at him the entire time. The war god looks back and forth between him and Shen Yuan before it seems to realize the red string, staring in disbelief before spluttering “YOU-!?”.
But Shen Jiu has long grown tired of the man’s yelling, picking up his beloved on the floor and wiping his A-Yuan’s face, Shen Jiu cuts the Bai Zhan peak lord. “Who you have brought here is Shen Yuan. I have long known of him and we’re planning our marriage in a month so this would be your only informal invite”
Shen Jiu finishes off his sentence by kissing his soulmate once Shen Yuan stabilizes his standing, almost knocking the latter back onto the ground. But it did the job as the string connecting their fingers dissolved.
“A-Jiu…” Shen Yuan whines when they separate, his face red tempting Shen Jiu to do it again if not for their current audience.
However, Shen Jiu was feeling a little mean today. Therefore, he impulsively lifts his soulmate into his arms in a bridal carry before making his way back to his seat and setting Shen Yuan on his lap.
Coughing into his fan, his eyes gaze scrutinizingly towards his disrespectful shidi, “Well? Now that everyone is here, get back to your seat and begin this important meeting”
A victorious feeling swells in his chest as every peak lords watch as Liu Qingge dumbfoundedly sat in his seat.
-
The sun had long set but the two Shens were wide awake. It was well past the time to sleep but Shen Jiu could care less as he settles in himself behind his A-Yuan, arms around his soulmate’s waist holding them close. Even if sleepiness in his eyes threaten to stop him from savoring this moment, Shen Jiu would only stubbornly tighten his hold to stubbornly fight back.
It did somewhat help that Shen Yuan was currently having the time of his life. “A-Jiu! You promised me to bring any bestiary you find but why do I keep finding ones that I haven’t read here?!” he spoiledly asked his sleepy soulmate.
Shen Yuan seems to be adjusting well to the bamboo house, Shen Jiu had just hoped that the next place his other half would discover would be the bedroom because it seems like his office would be the place they sleep in for the next couple of days if not.
“How could I’ve known which and what bestiary you could’ve read? It seems to me that you have a new one every 2 days or so” Shen Jiu sighs into his soulmate’s neck, burrowing himself into the warmth, which earned him a squeak from the other male.
“E-even so! You could have still brought some of this to me!” Shen Yuan fought back as Shen Jiu took the book away from him.
“Well, now you have all the time in the world to read them” he concluded, ending all potential arguments by kissing his soulmate shut and blowing the candles out with a wisps of Qi.
“A-Jiu…” Shen Yuan protested as his significant other maneuvered the two into a more comfortable position, the floor of the office littered with blankets and pillows making it into a makeshift bed for the two.
“Shushhhhh” Shen Jiu coax, “So long as I am the peak lord of Qing Jing, you’ll be able to read them later A-Yuan”
Shen Yuan concede as the two lets sleep take them in each other’s embrace.