Chapter Text
Waking up after a qi deviation was one of the most unpleasant experiences one could suffer, and that meant something coming from Shen Jiu. With all that he had suffered at the hands of Qiu Jianluo and Wu Yanzi, he still considered qi deviations worse.
It didn’t help that there was someone yelling nearby, an insistent voice buzzing around his head like a particularly annoying mosquito.
“-zun!” The voice raised in volume when Shen Jiu hauled himself into a sitting position. “Are you alright, shizun?”
Ah. Alright. So Shen Jiu was missing some time. It happened sometimes — he’d wake up not knowing what day it was, having forgotten the immediate past — but not quite at this scale. At least he guessed that it was a matter of more than just a few days if he had managed to obtain a disciple of his own.
“Fucking hell, brat, do you ever shut up?” Shen Jiu glared in the boy’s direction. “It’s just a qi deviation, happens all the time.”
In particular, whenever Shen Jiu overexerted himself. There was a mass of vines nearby which had remnants of demonic energy clinging to its tattered self, and the boy’s clothes supported the idea that he had been held hostage by it. Shen Jiu must have cared about this useless disciple of his quite a lot if he had done this much to protect him.
He needed to think. His memories would likely return, sooner or later, but he couldn’t just sit back and wait. Usually, it took a few hours; With how much he estimated to have lost during this episode, it might take even longer. He was a sitting duck until then.
At least he had a disciple.
“Help me up,” he ordered, waving his arm at the boy, who scrambled to obey. There was a hint of fear there, but that was fine. Good, even. Shen Jiu was afraid of Wu Yanzi at times, too. “Do you remember the way back?”
The boy shook his head. Useless! Shen Jiu closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. He could sense qi at a much larger range than he was used to, which was their only salvation. There were the marks of a settlement showing up at the very edge of his range. They could head there, for now, and if that’s not the place they came from, backtracking would be an option once Shen Jiu’s memories returned.
He set off in the direction of the village, bracing himself against the boy’s arm. It was difficult to decide how long he’s had that disciple; The boy seemed obedient and deferential, but at the same time he seemed completely unused to the aftermath of a qi deviation.
Leaving that mystery be for now, Shen Jiu tried to see whether there was anything he could glean from himself. The robes he was wearing were quite high quality, with long, trailing sleeves packed with qiankun pouches. His hair was put up in a hair crown, with some strands pulled into an elaborate pattern, as impractical as it was pretty. He did not seem like a demonic cultivator at all.
Must have been impersonating someone rich for profit, then.
There were no clues as to how many years have passed, or at least none Shen Jiu could find without making it abundantly obvious that he was looting himself for a hint.
He could have asked the disciple about the mission they were on — the boy had likely gleaned enough from Shen Jiu’s previous qi deviations to know that his memory of the past few days would be muddy, and if not then Shen Jiu could simply pretend to be testing him — but, quite frankly, he had no energy for that.
They could discuss that disaster of a mission once Shen Jiu has had a nice bath and a proper meal.
It didn’t take much longer than a shichen to reach the settlement he had sensed earlier. A village built near a merchant passage, small but not so small that it didn’t have an inn. Shen Jiu approached confidently, striking a conversation with the innkeeper. As it turned out, the vine beast he had defeated was well known by the inhabitants, and the news of its dispatching had earned them a free room for the night from the grateful proprietor.
Clearly it hadn’t been this village who contracted them for the job — if anyone had in the first place — but Shen Jiu was not above utilizing his work for all it was worth.
He sent his disciple out to bring water for the bath while he talked his way into obtaining some dinner. The room they got was modest but perfectly serviceable. Leaving one bowl of noodles on the table, Shen Jiu explicitly told the boy to eat — if it had been him with Wu Yanzi, he would have been hesitant to touch the food — and went behind the privacy screen with the other bowl.
Disrobing quickly, he briefly checked himself for any injuries and got into the bath. He luxuriated in the hot water for as long as it took to eat the noodles — the smallest concession he had been willing to grant himself — before washing up as quickly as possible.
Shen Jiu inspected the robes he had been wearing, selecting two of the more sensible layers to serve as his clothes for now, along with the trousers. He picked another one of the inner layers to lend his disciple until they could retrieve their supplies, and left the rest laying over the privacy screen for now.
The boy was done with his food by the time Shen Jiu emerged, playing idly with the chopsticks. He looked up the moment he spotted Shen Jiu, expression startled.
“Go wash up,” Shen Jiu said. “Don’t put a shirt on afterwards, I want to see your wounds.”
“Yes, shizun.” The boy almost whispered and scrambled behind the privacy screen. How ungrateful of him, to sound so scared when Shen Jiu had fed him, left him warm water and promised medical attention! Wu Yanzi had never done half as much!
That was the metric Shen Jiu was using for now: Any situation he walked into, he judged through the lenses of “what would have I wanted to happen when I was Wu Yanzi’s disciple?” and then simply did just that.
He glanced through the qiankun pouches, making a note of their contents. He’s found some money, some various knick-knacks which made it seem as if they were just coming from looting a rich man’s house, more spare clothes, some fans and, crucially, a pouch with medical supplies.
There wasn’t much more time for exploration, judging by the sounds coming from behind the screen. The boy was out in record time, his hair barely even wet as he walked out onto the room.
“No.” Shen Jiu left the supplies on the table, pulling his outer robe off. “Get back in the bath.”
He was not going to have a stinky disciple!
The boy was clearly apprehensive of getting back in the water, but he did it anyway. Shen Jiu could see why he took him on, because it clearly hadn’t been for the boy’s usefulness or fastidiousness.
Once he was acceptably clean, Shen Jiu allowed him to get out and dress, waiting for him back at the table. Then, it was finally time to consider his wounds.
And while Shen Jiu was busy with that- “Run through what happened, and what you could have done better.”
It took a moment for the disciple to find his words. Shen Jiu pretended to be fully focused on covering the multitude of lacerations with a healing salve to make it a bit easier on him. “We were just passing through. I was tasked with bringing in some firewood when I got attacked by the vines. They nearly suffocated me, but then Shizun came! He defeated the vines, but then he collapsed…”
Great, so Shen Jiu learned shit all.
“And the future improvements, brat?” He said, finishing up and putting away his supplies.
“This lowly one-”
Shen Jiu slapped him upside the head. The disciple startled, his hands closing into fists while he hung his head.
“None of that lowly bullshit,” Shen Jiu said sternly. “You are my disciple and, as such, you are better than anyone else, save for me. Only I get to insult you. Get that through your thick skull. Try again.”
“...this disciple will pay more care to his surroundings.” The boy offered. “And he will put more effort into training!”
Shen Jiu nodded, satisfied with that. He pushed the boy to stand up, giving him the spare robe to wear and depositing him on the bed before getting in himself. It was one of the gripes he had often had with Wu Yanzi, that he forced him to sleep on the floor when there wasn’t a spare bed, so he probably allowed his disciple to sleep on the bed. He drew the line at sharing a blanket, though, having the disciple use the fancy outer robe instead.
Hopefully, by the time he woke up, his memories would be back. Otherwise, he might be in for a few difficult days.