Chapter Text
The dreams all ended the same.
It didn’t matter how they started, by the end, Shang Huan was alone again. Abandoned. Always, without a single exception.
Sometimes it began with his brother. A boy with hair as messy as his own running towards him with a grin that bordered on manic, usually chased by some angry shop vendor or one of the patriarch’s first wife’s servants, shouting for A-Huan.
Shang Huan was grabbed by the hand, in those dreams, and dragged along by his brother like he always used to be. They ran from the pursuer. They went home. They hid in the blankets and Ge told him a story. And then a man in fancy robes came along and Shang Huan had to go far, far away. Alone.
Sometimes it were his sect siblings, either from An Ding or the other head disciples.
His martial ‘siblings’ on An Ding pushed him towards a monster. Go, Shang-Shidi, what are you waiting for, they said. You could save us all.
The head disciples never looked at him when he dreamed of them. They were indifferent, ignorant, some of them incapable, even. In the end, he turned his back on them, like they did on him. They shouldn’t be surprised, really.
The monster he’d been pushed towards was the worst.
Those dreams always hurt.
Shang Huan remembered every broken bone, every uncaring sneer, every unreasonable demand. And he hated for it. It was the only thing he was good at, these days. Hating.
He he’d almost feel relieved every time he woke up, if it wasn’t for his current position in life.
When Shang Huan woke from his nightmares, drenched in sweat and more affected than he’d ever admit, Shang Qinghua had to resume his miserable existence. Get up, get pushed around, smile. Go back to bed because he refused to pull an all-nighter doing other people’s job. Then do it all over again.
That’s how it went. That’s how it kept going for years.
Until the thoughts started creeping in.
You see. Shang Qinghua knew a guy who knew a guy who had a tiny, efficient little solution in his sleeve that he’d give away for a very reasonable, affordable even, price.
It’d take three drops, maybe four just to be safe, but no more than five lest the solution’s taste may become noticeable. Four drops of an easily acquired substance, and the one problem he wanted solved most would be gone. Just like that.
He knew where the kitchens were. It’d be so easy. So simple.
He could dispose of most annoyances in his daily life, if he really put his heart and mind into it.
It wouldn’t be too weird if a cultivator never returned from a night hunt. It’d be very concerning, yes, maybe even unexpected for it to happen to Liu Qingge.
But it wouldn’t be strange enough to warrant an extensive investigation if there wasn’t any obvious fuckery going on. Shang Qinghua was quite confident that he could be subtle if it was required of him. And Liu-Shidi’s head disciple was quite diligent with his paperwork.
There were more than enough miracle herbs and incurable poisons out there. If he really went looking, he could for sure find something that could cure his most respected Qi-shimei of her loose mouth and gossip-loving ears. Whether it was a healing herb or a toxic one.
The list of possible solutions was a long one, mainly because no matter how many times Shang Qinghua banished it from his mind, it always crept back up on him.
Maybe it was something he’d heard somewhere, maybe it was a sneer he just couldn’t tolerate anymore, maybe it was one of the Qing Jing lord’s elegant but bone-cutting rants, maybe it was just one bruise too much his abuser had left on him, but the what ifs kept piling up.
What if. What if he walked up to Shen-shixiong’s bamboo house and just yelled at him to stop being a bitch.
What if he helped Sect leader Yue grow a spine. He could just force him, it was clear he didn’t want anyone to know about the portraits in his room after all, and this poor little Shidi was far from too nice for blackmail.
What if he arranged one or two joint therapy sessions for Mu Qingfang and their shimei from the Agriculture peak so he wouldn’t have to deal with their healer being an emotionally unavailable, wet blanket of a mediator. And that entire hopelessly in love and therefore unable to do their job for some damn reason.
What if he had someone put one tiny wrong berry into Wei Qingwei’s lunch just once and then what if his good-natured shidi and his good-natured and of course wholly unintentionally if at all hurtful jokes were out of commission for a week. And then another. And another and another.
What if he could just fucking fix it and get rid of all his problems while he was at it.
Shang Qinghua now knew a guy with a little vial in his sleeve. He was very fond of the guy, actually. Good sense of humour. Very easy-going but not lazy. Competent. Decent to look at. Genuinely just trying to run his shady little business. In peace, preferably. He liked the guy.
He even paid the man a tip.
Wasn’t he so nice. So generous. Cang Qiong could be glad to have someone like Shang Qinghua around.
He went to the kitchens on his next trip to the northern desert, while the bruises still throbbed under his skin. Before he could change his mind.
He wore the kind of street clothing he often wore when scouting out locations in towns or villages. Brown, plain, with no embellishments and talismans to obscure his face and presence sewn into the sleeves. No one even glanced at him, not even in the kitchen.
All he had to do was show the sign of him being allowed to be there to one person. Three more saw it, but he remembered their faces and knew one of them by name.
The last one was part of his network. He’d get a warning not to snitch. The rest… well. Life was cruel, and Shang Qinghua wasn’t about to change that. He’d have someone dig two holes.
It really was easy.
Two week later, the prince of the Northern wastes - the only one, at that, since they’d killed all the others - was dead. He’d struggled quite a lot. The solution had been supposed to take a week at most, but he guessed some people were just special like that.
There was an investigation, but it was the prince’s uncle leading it, so, well, it wasn’t quite a thorough one. Two holes had been dug, although it ended up being three because one had told another. A pity. Most believed it must have been Lingguang-jun. Really, what a weak heir they’d had, to be assassinated by a previous generation’s failed prince, and not even in person. Tsk.
Shang Qinghua - the human spy - officially cut all ties with the northern kingdom. The fact that the prince’s subordinates viewed him as the future Mobei’s lover for some incomprehensible reason had actually helped for once, who would have thought. One good thing that rumour had ever done for him.
So easy.
He’d repeated that sentence way too much by now. It was all he could think about since he’d crossed the border.
He’d flown to Jinlan City without a single break. He didn’t need one, per se, he was still a peak lord after all, but he usually took them to avoid exhaustion. Not this time, though.
He commanded his spiritual sword, Zha Shi, to lower itself slowly, sinking down through the air right before the city walls. Shang Qinghua jumped off two meters up and caught the sword before Zha Shi hit the ground.
The guards took one look at the now sheathed sword and promptly decided that they were not paid enough to stop a cultivator. Smart. Still, he let out an inner whistle. ‘And that’s why you pay people properly and treat them well’, he explained to an imaginary Yue-zhangmen. ‘Makes them more likely to take risks for you.’
It still felt unreal that that spineless clump of apathy towards anything that wasn’t dressed in green was the only lacking employer he had left.
And again. It had been so fucking easy.
Did he regret it?
Shang Qinghua pondered as he strolled through the streets. Not really, he decided staring at the somewhat lively crowds and shouting vendors. It was late, probably well past midnight and the city only now down. He watched as shopkeepers packed up their things, likely to return home.
Good for them. How nice.
He was more concerned with getting a drink to fill the hollow space in and around him than with the fact that the Northern prince was dead.
Then again. He hadn’t even known that man’s real name, had he?