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Shen Qingqiu blinked in surprise as his eyes landed upon an unfamiliar face making the rounds in the Warm Red Pavilion.
A tall figure, probably the same height as the Peak Lord himself, clad in dark purple outer robes with dark blue and white robes beneath. His hair was free of any decorations but hung so low that Shen Qingqiu wondered if it touched the floor. There was a lack of face paint as far as he could tell, but the man's face was still sharp and noble and clearly well-maintained anyway.
"A new addition?" he found himself asking the matron, who glanced up from the gold she was counting and proceeded to brighten up. Enough to put the gold down so she could engage properly.
"I had been concerned about taking him in, but he's honestly the most valuable person here now. Obviously from nobility judging by his… everything, but lost his entire family and estate in a horrible tragedy and had nowhere to go. He came here, obviously begrudgingly, and offered up his services so long as no one pushes for sexual favors."
That was a bold demand to make in his position. Nothing left to his name but still refusing to use his body in that way when he clearly needed help.
"What makes him so special?" Shen Qingqiu asked, watching as the man settled in with a guqin of good quality and proceeded to wow the crowd with impressive fingering through songs that no one seemed to recognize.
"Well- that, for one thing," she said, gesturing to his obvious skill. "If his looks and his manner weren't so obvious, all of the skills he has are things that rich young masters are forced to learn. Pampered and with next to no physical work experience. Plays multiple instruments flawlessly and sings beautifully. Is great with numbers and is probably better than I am at doing taxes and seems to greatly enjoy it. Speaks multiple languages and is the prime entertainer for foreigners with different dialects or languages entirely. And finally…"
She sighed and shook her head like she couldn't believe what she was about to say. "He's very low maintenance, which should technically be impossible considering his obvious upbringing."
Yes. Considering the location and his current job, that was very hard to believe.
"However, he will not wear face paint or drink certain medicines because he insists that kohl and cinnabar are toxic to humans and are unsafe to touch or ingest. I decided to give his suggestions some consideration, and had the girls stop putting on kohl for a week and stopped offering any medicine using cinnabar, and there was a significant drop in headache complaints, people feeling ill at the end of the night, and people developing spontaneous colds."
His family probably had a personal doctor on hand that had enough money to do experiments to find out such information.
"Since then, any time someone has to use cinnabar for painting or writing, they are to carefully cover their hands first. We also have stopped purchasing the medicines using cinnabar and have saved a considerable amount of money. We are also looking into alternative face paint methods."
The matron had been stuck in her ways for a very long time. Seeing positive results was enough for her to change her mind about something that she had been doing for ages. That made this newcomer even more fascinating as a result.
"His one regular request is pearls. They don't have to be fancy ones, but he uses ground up pearls in a mixture that he creates to cleanse his face and hair. He 'exfoliates' every other morning and is obsessed with keeping his skin hydrated. He has also introduced the girls to something called a 'body scrub', and it is the most invasive cleansing ritual I have ever witnessed! He showed them how to do it with a tub of near-boiling ginger-infused rice water and strigils, and now they do it for each other at the end of every week to prepare for the next week. It's like shedding old skin and you can see a marked improvement in overall skin health and youthful glow."
A rich young master lost everything in his life and had to essentially join a brothel to get by… and he was somehow saving the brothel money and improving the quality of life for the other inhabitants in the process.
"How invasive is this body scrub of his?"
She leaned in so she could lower her voice and said, "He demonstrated on one of the older ladies with her permission. They are stripped all the way down, forced to lay in the water for the duration of an incense stick, and then two people, each bearing a strigil of their own, proceed to scrub every available space below the neck. In every crevice. In places you wouldn't think they'd dare to reach for. It is the least sexual thing I've ever witnessed, A-Qiu. He said he often had it done but usually once a month because he did far less work overall and had less dead skin and dirt to get rid of."
He knew of people who took cleaning themselves very seriously, but he'd never heard of such fastidious efforts before.
Every new piece of information he learned fascinated him.
"And what, pray tell, is this young master's name?"
And that was when the matron's brows furrowed, almost as if she was hesitant to share this piece of information despite her mouth resembling a waterfall mere moments prior.
"His name is Shen Yuan."
Shen Qingqiu's heartbeat tripped up for a moment before returning to normal.
"No courtesy name to speak of. And yes, it is the exact same character," she said before he could even think of the question. "He had two older brothers, though from what I understand, one of them was his biological brother and the other was his brother's longtime partner that his parents simply had to accept or risk losing their Heir. He also had a younger sister. He had no chance to become Heir because of a weak constitution that has plagued him his whole life, which is why he was not taught any martial arts. He only drinks ginger-infused hot water so he can ward off illness because he is easily susceptible to sicknesses and takes ages to recover, at least according to his own accounts. He has yet to fall ill, but he is very careful about what he eats and how warm he is at all times."
A sickly second son of an incredibly wealthy family bearing the same name as Shen Qingqiu… He hadn't heard of any such families in his network, which would mean the young man was from further afield than previously assumed. Which could also explain his supposed prowess with languages as he was potentially exposed to more western or southern peoples.
"What are his interests?"
"Weiqi, doing people's hair in strange but alluring updos, and," she paused in order to snort, "critiquing erotica. He can be as nasty as you when a book's writing makes him angry."
Upon seeing the look on Shen Qingqiu's face, she snickered. "He has a whole collection! Any money that the patrons may slip him on the sly is used to get himself books. I'm not even sure if he actually enjoys reading those books, or if he enjoys the act of criticizing others and then sending in reviews."
Shen Qingqiu hummed in understanding, an idea of who this man was taking shape in his mind.
A man just full of contradictions.
"I shall solicit his time," the Peak Lord decided. "What better way to come to understand someone than to see how they handle a strategy game like Weiqi?"
"I thought you'd say something to that effect. I'll send for him posthaste. Would you like some refreshments and sweets to lighten the mood?"
He hummed. "Add in A-Fei to help set the scene with music. Any qin will suffice. Soft and soothing music only though. Make sure she has water prepared for herself in case the game goes on longer than expected."
He was already heading toward the room he usually preferred to frequent, knowing that within a few moments, everything would be set up to his specifications.
The younger man entered, head bowed and hands clasped as he awaited instructions.
"Take a seat," Shen Qingqiu said, gesturing to the table. "Pour the tea and prepare yourself."
His manner was impeccable, so clearly, he'd learned how to perform properly at some point.
"You will take the black stones."
Shen Yuan's eyes narrowed, as they should. In such a game, black had the dubious honor of going first, but any real tactician would know that going first wasn't always the best option. Making him go first would give him less time to think about what he wanted to do, as well as limit the information he had to work with, and would in turn give Shen Qingqiu more time to plan ahead.
"Are you using standard rules or do you have your own particular rule set that you like using, Peak Lord Shen?" was Shen Yuan's first ever question to Shen Qingqiu. His voice was very smooth and confident.
Such an interesting question it was, too. "Do you have experience with adapting to other people's unique rule sets?"
"Of course, Peak Lord Shen. Not everyone likes the standard game as it is. Sometimes people wish to make things more interesting."
"A standard game is a good way to learn about someone's standard thought process. We can entertain thoughts of special rules later."
The man nodded and then, without even hesitating, placed this first black stone in the direct center of the board!
Shen Qingqiu blinked in shock, having not expected such a daring move. In fact, he had played hundreds of games with hundreds of people, and not one person had ever started a match by placing their stone in the direct center of the board. Typically, people were expected to try and claim a corner as quickly as possible.
His mind couldn't pull up one game as a reference where such a thing had ever been done. And when he tried to envision how the board would look within half a shichen, he couldn't even imagine it.
It was such an interesting way to start the game and he wasn't even sure what he was supposed to do about it. Surely this wouldn't work?
Frowning, Shen Qingqiu decided to place his first stone in the corner on his bottom right. Not right up against the corner, but a couple spaces out for wiggle room. The white stone made a 'clack' sound as it was placed on the board.
Seconds after he placed his stone down, Shen Yuan was already placing his next stone, diagonal to the one in the center, but not close enough to mean anything. Shen Qingqiu placed his next stone two spots away from his last, and nearly gaped when Shen Yuan placed another stone immediately, in another random place!
By a dozen moves in Shen Qingqiu realized that Shen Yuan had already memorized the exact sequence he wanted and was simply waiting for the Peak Lord to make his decisions so he could perform a process of elimination for his next move.
There was no talking. The simple melodies of the pipa filled the air between them, and Shen Yuan looked entirely unaffected as he reached for his tea and took a savoring sip. He even closed his eyes, unburdened by the though that Shen Qingqiu would move without him noticing because he was so sure of himself already.
Everything hinged upon Shen Qingqiu's decisions. Shen Yuan wasn't necessarily in a hurry, but he'd already made his mind up on whatever strategy he was using. It seemed that he wouldn't be the kind of person who would want to abandon his initial plans even if things went south.
Back and forth the stones clicked and clacked all over the board, until Shen Qingqiu had to blink twice just to be sure he was seeing things properly.
The nonsensical placements of Shen Yuan's stones were beginning to form a chrysanthemum shape on the board.
By the time they'd entered the endgame, Shen Yuan had managed to trap him in three minor triangles on the board and basically made it impossible for him to get a definitive victory. They could keep going for the sake of points, but it would be rather, forgive him, pointless.
Shen Qingqiu stared at the board and then at the affable look on Shen Yuan's face.
"I'm curious about a version with new rules," he said, already collecting the white stones. "Pick the rules you wish to set in place and I will learn as we play."
He did not imagine Shen Yuan's little smirk in response. Thankfully, it seemed he was not the type to gloat about his victories.
Unsurprisingly, with the new rules… Shen Qingqiu lost again.
And he lost a third time with different rules.
And with every loss he couldn't help but be impressed. Shen Yuan had much potential indeed.
The memory of the losses haunted him. Honestly, it shouldn't be considered that big of a deal, but for some reason for the first time in decades, he lost a game of Weiqi to someone. And that person acted as if it was nothing.
Like entertaining a patron with a board game wasn't even interesting enough for him to fully engage. It made Shen Qingqiu seethe as much as it begrudgingly impressed him.
Most members of the brothel had gotten to know him over many years and had long since done away with the ridiculous pandering for someone of his station. His own issues made it difficult to trust other men and made him uncomfortable near them. Especially men physically larger than him who often used their size to try and cow others into submission.
It seemed that Shen Yuan would not be having a moment like all the others where he worried over not offending Shen Qingqiu. He was as respectful as he was with any other client, but he didn't seem particularly pressed to pander to anyone. Not even the people paying for his time.
Shen Qingqiu had it on good authority that that was what drew people to him in the first place. He wasn't mean or rude, but he also wasn't burdened with the same need to uphold social niceties as everyone else.
The matron would usually frown upon such behavior, but it managed to bring in steady business on Shen Yuan's end, and loyal customers were hard to come by. If something wasn't broken, there was no point in attempting to fix it. It would just be a waste of energy.
Still, Shen Qingqiu found that he himself had been drawn in by the attitude of the younger man. Sometimes he seemed young and sometimes he seemed old. He still acted as if he was still a rich young master with access to everything he wanted to be happy in life. Not even his personal situation could seem to dampen his spirits.
It was… very attractive.
Up until now he had been steadily ignoring the fact that the young man looked very similar to him. At the same time, nearly everybody looked similar if all their hair was long and dark and they wore long robes befitting their place in society. Sometimes he confused sect disciples because he couldn't see their faces. It was easier to just refer to everyone as "you" rather than make a fool of himself because everyone in their white robes looked the same from behind regardless of gender.
Yes. That was it.
It wasn't strange for him to be attracted to Shen Yuan despite their similar appearances because they weren't even related and everyone looked alike to some degree.
Exactly.
Though was being beaten in a board game really enough to get him this invested in another person? It almost felt pathetic in a sense.
At least Shen Yuan was intelligent. He was reasonably skilled at many of the Six Arts already. Of course, such teachings differed between Cultivators and regular humans who focused on the more limited Four Arts, because Cultivation required different skills.
Martial Arts, Calligraphy, Flying, Qin, Qi, and Mathematics.
Shen Yuan was clearly learned in four of these already, much in line with what would be expected of him as a rich former young master. With that knowledge alone, he was already well on the way to becoming a Cultivator if given a proper chance.
Hm…
Would Shen Yuan want to become a Cultivator? What would be in it for him?
The first thing Shen Qingqiu thought of was having power. Enough that he would never have to struggle for anything ever again. That had been an appealing offer back when he began his own training.
Surely something like that would appeal to Shen Yuan as well? His current place in life didn't really offer anything worthwhile. But beyond the allure of power, what else could Cultivation really promise?
Shen Qingqiu smirked as Shen Yuan clearly struggled to not show any negative emotions. "You won't be punished for behaving normally. I've never been interested in lording over the workers of this establishment. We've had a longstanding arrangement, in fact, and I think bringing you into the business would benefit all of us rather well."
As expected, Shen Yuan couldn't hide his interest.
That was one thing he suffered from. He didn't have as good of a control on his emotions as he thought, and oftentimes had to hide behind a fan just so he didn't let the patrons know how annoying he found them. Most people took it as him being coy because they were too daft to understand nuance in expressions.
"Why would I want to be part of your underground spy network, Peak Lord Shen?"
"It comes with many benefits. You may have noticed that many of the other workers of this establishment seem to have access to certain perks and benefits that people in their line of work would typically not be able to have. It is because they assist me that they can have their favorite soaps, foods, or even money to save up. Keeping an ear to the ground as you entertain the masses is only a little extra work and for it, you will be paid based on what information you obtain."
"Sounds tempting, but the customers slip me gifts all the time to satisfy myself. I am able to sustain myself just fine without the matron having to reach into her coffers because of the few things I'm interested in. What could you have to offer that I don't already get through my own efforts?"
Unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything. If he was using the money being slipped to him to buy his pearls and his books, then there was nothing that Shen Qingqiu could provide outside of funds and even then, he didn't seem to be too invested in having money.
"I'm sure you'll think of something you'd like," he settled for. "Money can go a long way. Even if you have nothing that you want now, wouldn't saving up money in case you find something you do want later to be more appealing? Say... your contract?"
Of course, as a former wealthy young master, he probably wasn't used to saving money or needing to save money.
"Think about it, and give me your answer next time. For now, we will commence a new game of Weiqi, using standard rules, except, we cannot use any of the last three starting moves we used in the last three games we played. That wasn't too long ago for you to forget, hopefully?" he asked, knowing it would serve as a good way to motivate Shen Yuan into paying attention but also frustrating him and making it harder to focus.
Once getting to know him well enough, it was becoming a lot easier to predict how he would behave, even if he could not predict Shen Yuan during a game of Weiqi, outside of that sphere he was easy. And it was fun to rile him up.
"I got it just fine, Peak Lord Shen."
And, just to be contrary, he placed the black stone in the center of the board, mimicking their first ever game all that time ago.
Perhaps he was attempting to annoy Shen Qingqiu so he'd try and end their game early and then move on to other things his time could be used for, but that was a bit too easy to see through.
After all, he'd experienced this opening move before. What else could be done from such a disadvantaged point?
He lost again.
He had to wonder where Shen Yuan was from. Where did he acquire so many strange tactics for a game like this?
If they treated it with the same reverence as those stuffy old codgers in the sects did, his methods would seem inhumane. In this moment between them, it was just entertainment and a way to pass the time and get to know each other, but far older generations tended to treat it as war strategy. Each of the stones would be considered soldiers on a battlefield.
Shen Yuan wasn't in the habit of trying to protect his troops. If he was a senior member of a well known Cultivation sect, his peers would develop unflattering opinions of him based solely on how he played a game like Weiqi. He used what would be termed as 'dirty tricks' to obfuscate his intentions and his play style would offend anyone too stuck up to appreciate nuance and unique perspectives.
In a way, playing so many games and losing so many games, had just proved that Shen Qingqiu was getting too complacent. It seemed that he fell back on the same strategies over and over. Shen Yuan had a wealth of possibilities to choose from and up until now hadn't done the same thing twice. Maybe that was why he kept winning.
At the end of the day, there really aren't that many opening moves that can be made. There are four corners to every board and then the center. And yet, even if he started out in the same place, the result was never the same. And the board never looked the same at the end.
"Has Peak Lord Shen considered taking risks?" Shen Yuan asked, drawing him back to the present moment where he'd been staring intently at the board. "You're so used to a refined play style that you keep forgetting that not everyone plays like it's some prim and proper pastime."
Yes, he was beginning to see that for himself.
"Perhaps a different game would be better for Peak Lord Shen's skillset?"
He aimed an unimpressed glare at the younger man. "Finally being honest about your true disposition?"
Shen Yuan primly sipped his tea and shrugged a single, elegant shoulder. "I'm merely expressing concern for the status of your emotions. This is your seventeenth loss and you've yet to be victorious. Maybe a different game that you're more talented in would lift your spirits."
Being reminded of his many failures did grate on his nerves. At the same time, suggesting that he should, essentially, rely on games he'll definitely win also offended him. It was as if Shen Yuan thought he couldn't improve.
"We're playing again," he announced, retrieving every single white stone.
"Why don't you play with the Black stones this time?" Shen Yuan suggested. "Switch things up a little. It's not just strategy that you keep repeating, it's basic things like always going second when the game begins."
Unfortunately, that could be giving up an advantage… Then again, Shen Yuan didn't sit and ponder his moves all that much. He moved almost as soon as Shen Qingqiu did. He preferred the spontaneity of the exchange.
Perhaps that was the key to all of his success. Not overthinking things and planning ahead for each game.
Fine.
He'd give the switch a try for once. It wasn't as if there were rules saying that he had to always play with the white stones anyway.
"We need more tea," he announced, knowing someone was on standby in case he made any requests. "We will be here for a while longer."
"Are we playing again?" Shen Yuan asked once Shen Qingqiu settled in, not even a greeting after weeks of no contact.
"No. I've had quite enough of Weiqi for the foreseeable future," he said, refusing to admit that it could be considered a grumble. "Instead, I should like to hear your music. Specifically, music from your home, as it is so far away and clearly unlike life here."
There was a moment of consideration, before Shen Yuan nodded and stood to retrieve an instrument of his choosing. He ended up bringing a large guzheng to the table, the strings shining in the firelight of the many candles in the room.
"I have never played this song on this instrument before, but the stringed instrument that I learned it on is not here. The means to make it are also not present. It would be incredibly expensive, time-consuming, and unethical," he explained, though he gave no real information. "Therefore, I have decided to play by ear, but will need a moment to grasp things as this is foreign music and it is structured differently than what we're familiar with. Especially the scales."
He plucked the strings here and there, getting a feel for each and every note, nodding to himself as he mentally categorized everything.
It indeed sounded different. Very different.
Shen Qingqiu had heard many of Shen Yuan's public performances. While he often played foreign songs, they tended to be more slow and grandiose in nature. This one, however, seemed to have a repetitive rhythm that had to be consistently played with one hand so the other could play the main melody. It was certainly not how the guqin should be played.
Yet… it was nice. Or maybe seeing how he enjoyed playing it was what made it so nice.
"I can't really sing it for you because I've never heard it translated and I'm not sure I'd be able to narrate it like poetry off the cuff either," Shen Yuan explained. "Translations are never perfect and some words or idioms have no match in our language and finding the closest translation would take too long."
"What is the song about?"
"...It's centered around the concept of wanting to be the last thing someone else needs for a happily ever after. The name, in another language, is like shōuguān(收官) in Weiqi. It's drawing upon the imagery of a game that's close to finishing up, but with an added meaning of finality in a romantic context. The concept of life being likened to a big game and it's finally entering shōuguān because two people want to be together for the rest of their lives. 'This is the end goal. I want to be the one you end up with,' basically."
"And this was the first song you thought of?" Shen Qingqiu asked, baffled at such a description as well as choice.
Shen Yuan shrugged. "I was thinking about the writer recently and just wondering about if they made more art or not. It's been a while and any chance to catch up would be nigh impossible by this point. I will be honest; the song is a lot faster and has many percussive parts that I'm sorely lacking the access to."
But he played it anyway.
To be honest, it sounded more melancholic than anything. Then again, certain songs sounded best on a pipa rather than a xiao or dizi. Sometimes music was conveyed in a specific way for a reason.
Still, it was a bit difficult to imagine the song being played having any form of percussion.
The wonders of music.
At some point, the song changed to something clearly different. The time signature was very different, and it had a lot more notes.
"And this song?"
"Another love song by the same artist. This one is about wishing they can bring their lover peace despite having a very hectic life that involves a lot of harassment and scrutiny from the outside world. 'Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?' is how it is framed. 'Does what I have to offer make up for what I cannot?'"
The constant, repetitive part played by the left hand was actually unnerving in a sense. "Does it have that in the original as well?" he asked.
He nodded. "The music for this one was written by her collaborator. He'd created many songs that lacked any lyrics, and showed them to her, and she declared this one to be 'what peace sounds like' and then proceeded to envision what she wanted to say and wrote lyrics and a melody that could match the main music."
The problem was that it didn't sound peaceful at all. In fact, it sounded very anxious. The repetitive, fast plucking of the lone string unnerved him a little.
"Later, the artist released newer music based around separating from a longtime partner and made lists of her older songs and categorized them based on the stages of grief to better prepare people for what they would hear. For the Third Stage, Bargaining, she added this song to the list. As if saying this song, in the end, wasn't as hopeful as it seemed because it was haunted by a need to constantly negotiate for scraps of love and feeling shame for being so well-liked that people couldn't be normal about it."
And then Shen Yuan began to hum along, proving that the sound was a lot more melancholic than romantic.
Seeing him like this, when he wasn't concerned with following orders properly or observing niceties was… nice. Shen Qingqiu wasn't the one who would use such words on the regular, but even he had to admit that catering to the status quo was exhausting.
Letting this young man know that he could be himself and he could talk about the things he enjoyed and didn't have to worry that Shen Qingqiu would force himself on him, or make obscene demands, went a long way in helping him relax. He even went so far as to tease and prod in his own ways, clearly unable to help himself.
For a young noble, he wasn't as… arrogant as one would expect. Learning some harsh lessons in life by falling from the top couldn't possibly make him so easygoing.
Perhaps being ill gave him a unique perspective on life. Maybe it humbled him a little and made him a lot easier to handle in social settings.
"You don't mind how different it is?" Shen Yuan eventually asked. "Not everyone likes it when I pull out the foreign stuff, but sometimes they just accept it because they like looking at my face. It doesn't mean that they're good at hiding their true feelings, however."
"I do not mind precisely because it is something new. When you get to be my age and have the kinds of experiences that I have, something new can be a blessing as it disrupts the monotony of life. Not everything needs to be the same, and not everything that is different is of lesser value." A hard lesson to learn but a necessary one.
Shen Yuan's hands came to a soft halt, and the look in his light green eyes made Shen Qingqiu curious. What could he be thinking about that caused such an expression?
"You are… different than I expected you to be, Peak Lord Shen," he admitted softly, glancing away.
"To be honest, I can only be like this here because this is the only place I feel safe."
The sect was full of annoying people, most of which were 'manly men' that he couldn't stand. He found himself partial to the kinds of games women learned to use to get ahead. They felt more natural.
"You've been coming here for a long time, and yet you've never touched anyone… in that way before."
"Lack of an attraction to women aside, I don't want the one place that I feel comfortable in to be tainted by such base desires." Another thing that also annoyed him about men was their inability to control themselves when it came to sex.
Of all the men he knew, few of them couldn't be considered philanderers or perverts. Yue Qingyuan, no matter how annoying, would never behave in such a way. The same went for Liu Qingge, though Shen Qingqiu doubted he even understood sex or sexual attraction to begin with as he was too obsessed with fighting to think of anything else. Mu Qingfang wasn't a creep, but that was probably because of his life as a healer and the things he was exposed to. Shang Qinghua, but it was most likely because no one wanted to pursue him and everyone made it very obvious so he'd leave them alone.
But this wasn't a fact to brag about. This wasn't behavior that deserved a pat on the back. This was just how it should be, and men did not deserve praise for doing the bare minimum.
Shen Qingqiu rarely had an interest in others. Shen Yuan was the first in a very long time and he didn't want to spook the young man with his attention, so he kept calm and professional.
Still… he was having a lot of thoughts, and by the way Shen Yuan looked at him the more at ease he became, the more and more appealing those thoughts were.
He wasn't really the kind of person who would take chances, but he felt himself growing ever more interested in finding out what would happen if he decided to be a little spontaneous. If nothing else, Shen Yuan seemed to enjoy surprises and maybe he'd like what Shen Qingqiu had in mind.
[ELSEWHERE, AT A LATER TIME]
Cang Qiong Mountain Sect was in an uproar.
Shen Qingqiu, the Qing Jing Peak Lord, had purchased the contract of a prostitute and brought him to the sect!
And the prostitute in question was named Shen Yuan and looked almost exactly like the sect leader, if only a little younger and a bit thinner.
He was immediately brought into the sect, and the Sect Leader himself welcomed the young man with open arms and a wide-eyed look.
Shen Yuan was… very quiet. He liked to read and write, and he took to lessons with ease. He did not need teaching in music or the sciences. In fact, what he needed the most help in was Cultivation, because up until recently, he'd just been a normal person who only meditated for clarity of mind.
The Peak Lord had brought him into a new world and made certain he was equipped with everything he needed in order to attend lessons and pursue his own growth. He was given the spare room in Shen Qingqiu's bamboo house, and he, somehow, found himself a companion in Peak Lord Shang!
No one knew how they managed to meet, but they were seen together a lot. Arguing about writing. Or to be more specific, Shen Yuan was very heavily criticizing the Peak Lord's writing. And for some reason the Peak Lord accepted it! One might think that he was not a cultivator with far more power and social standing than the newest disciple to the sect!
Surprisingly, Peak Lord Shen wasn't angered or threatened by this odd friendship. In fact, he often showed up wherever they were to give his opinion on something, which would then send Shen Yuan into a rant about whatever the problem was, and than Shang Qinghua would sigh dramatically and pick up a brush to continue writing.
However, it was clear that something was going on because Shen Qingqiu did not like it whenever Liu Qingge came around. The War God had taken an interest in Shen Yuan and everyone wondered if he fancied the younger man. Why else would he go all the way to Qing Jing Peak and demand to have his attention for sparring when he clearly had no skill with a blade as of yet?
A talented fighter he may be, but he wasn't the best at socializing. Or teaching.
The disciples under Liu Qingge spoke often about their training regimen and how they hated it. Trying to impose such training on someone from the peak of the scholars, especially a man who was raised as a rich and spoiled noble before his family's decline that landed him in a whore house, was not the best choice.
Shen Yuan wasn't cruel when he rebuffed the Peak Lord, but he definitely seemed to appreciate Shen Qingqiu appearing to ward him off every single time. As if such attention made him nervous.
Or maybe it was simply because the attention was coming from the wrong person.
No answers were forthcoming, and neither man would probably ever admit to anything, so everyone was left wondering what was going on and what the state of their relationship actually was. The other Peak Lords didn't feel the need to intervene, and the Sect Leader hadn't raised any concerns.
Was it truly okay for a Peak Lord to… do that? With a male prostitute?
How had the sect not lost any face because of this?
Maybe it was because the Shen Yuan was clearly well-versed in many of the gentlemanly arts. His guqin made sounds that no one else could hope to manage, and his calligraphy was a cut above the rest. His approach to Weiqi was unparalleled and every week there was a new challenger ready to try their best, who would end up going home in defeat.
Shen Qingqiu came close to winning one time but eventually had to concede as continuing on would be pointless.
Shen Yuan devoured every book he was presented with and took all of his assignments seriously. He was kind to people who weren't rude, and he was popular among the ladies who felt relieved that he wasn't annoying and clearly had no problem with addressing things he thought were unfair in the sect's handling of the division between the sexes.
Where could he be from that such radical thinking was normalized? And why was Shen Qingqiu willing to let him prattle on about what he did and did not like about sect politics and then take his opinions into account?!
Since when was Shen Qingqiu this understanding?! Since when was he the kind of person that was willing to accept change?
And since when had he become someone who would very clearly pant after the attention of another soul?
If one was fortunate, they could pass by an empty pavilion and see Shen Yuan practically serenading the Peak Lord with a new song from his home. There was always a new song and there was always a new poem to accompany the song. And it seemed like despite all of his studying, training, and his backlog of work, he still had time for leisure and time for friendly banter with Shang Qinghua.
His delicate hands would pluck at the strings and Shen Qingqiu's eyes would close in peaceful serenity never before seen to his disciples. They looked like the picture of rest and made others envious of the close bond they seemed to share which had seemingly developed out of nowhere.
At the same time, they could be found deep in a game of Weiqi, with Shen Yuan clearly winning and not even trying all that much.
No one could really complain about such strange behavior though because things did somehow improve.
There hadn't ever been a thought that things needed to improve, but once things began changing, and those changes were clearly for the better, it became all the more obvious who was the reason for all the changes.
Shen Qingqiu had found someone worth changing things for, and everyone just… accepted that.
No one had the intestinal fortitude to inquire about it, but it was very obvious now.
Peak Lord Shen had found his special person and not even the Sect Leader had a problem with it.
Would it be wrong to say this was fate?
A/N: FINISHED!
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