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Shen Jiu stood there before the desk, shivering. He could hear his master pacing back and forth behind him, the slow steady footfalls sending chills down his spine. In his time at Qiu Manor, Shen Jiu had learned how the footsteps of Qiu Jianluo corresponded to his moods. The light flutter of Qiu Jianluo walking down the hall in a good mood. The heavy and rapid clomping of Qiu Jianluo descending the stairs in a frothing rage.
The calm thumps of Qiu Jianluo's footsteps when he was bored were the most terrifying of all. Shen Jiu stared down at the paper before him and willed his racing heart to calm. Startling like a rabbit was a humiliation that Qiu Jianluo would enjoy, and Shen Jiu was determined not to give him the satisfaction.
But when Qiu Jianluo's cold hand clamped down on the back of Shen Jiu's neck, Shen Jiu jumped all the same. Qiu Jianluo chuckled low and dark, and shoved Shen Jiu facedown onto the desk.
The wood was solid beneath Shen Jiu and had no give. Sharp pain lanced through his hips, across his ribs, his thin arms splayed out as Shen Jiu tried instinctively to press himself up, to relieve the pressure. But Qiu Jianluo bore down on him mercilessly, leaning his entire body down on Shen Jiu. Through his thin slave's robes, Shen Jiu could feel the fine brocade Qiu Jianluo preferred. Could hear the rasp of silk embroidery against cheap hemp.
Qiu Jianluo breathed out into the shell of Shen Jiu's ear. "A-Jiu, scream for me now." A lancing pain in Shen Jiu's hand, a knife pinning it to the paper, hot blood beginning to pool under his palm, and Shen Jiu's mouth opened and he—
Shen Jiu blinked. The world fell away. Shen Jiu was kneeling before a young woman who wore many veils of bright yellow and red and black. Wen Xia, princess of the assassin clan to which Shen Jiu belonged. She hadn't noticed Shen Jiu's lapse in attention, as Shen Jiu's entire face was hidden behind his designated wooden mask. The lowest members of the clan wore them in the presence of anyone other than family, pale and round and inhuman as the moon. And Shen Jiu's only family was the clan he served.
Shen Jiu had never met a Qiu Jianluo and never been a slave, although his life in the assassin clan was as unpleasant as the one in his mysterious recurring visions.
But that was about to change.
"Duan-laoshi spoke highly of you," Wen Xia lifted a hand to the table beside her, and she rifled through a few of the papers there. Letters from home. "He named you as a prodigious talent, the likes of which he'd never seen before."
Shen Jiu had to bite his tongue to keep silent. Contradicting the princess would earn him a lashing.
But Shen Jiu knew full well that Duan Yaoting regarded Shen Jiu as less than shit on his boot. The master of poisons had sent Shen Jiu on this suicide mission with one expectation only: that Shen Jiu would die.
Fuck him, though, Shen Jiu was going to live and show Duan Yaoting, Qin Niu, Jin Jianjun, and all the other teachers who had abused him exactly what Shen Jiu was capable of. The assassin clan was rotted from the inside out with complacent sneering old men who no longer dealt death; they hid from it like cowards. Shen Jiu would succeed n his mission and restore Wen Xia to her former glory, and then extract the wretches root and stem. And return every cut they'd dealt, every broken bone, every drop of poison, a hundredfold.
Wen Xia looked nothing like the assassin princess she'd once been. Shen Jiu had heard all the stories. Their indomitable princess had her heart captured by a powerful emperor, a perfectly glorious match. Everyone expected her to rise through the ranks of the harem and become empress of the three realms.
That had been long before Shen Jiu was born.
"You know who I want you to kill," Wen Xia's qi quivered with her rage. "I want him dead. I want him to die slowly with the pain of a thousand knives carving into him, or a poison that burns him from the inside out. Or perhaps he can go piece by piece like he did to that Shen Qingqiu," here her anger made way slightly for a little wryness, "wouldn't that be appropriate."
"I understand, your highness," Shen Jiu replied simply. His priority was going to be ending the emperor's life in whatever way he could; he had no grudge against Luo Binghe and wasn't going to be fool enough to drag things out unnecessarily. Fast enough for Shen Jiu to get out alive, that was how Luo Binghe was going to die.
"How dare he ignore me," Wen Xia muttered under her breath. "How dare he. And then this new obsession of his—madness. The emperor has gone mad." Wen Xia's eyes flashed. "And it's time to put a mad dog down."
"Yes, your highness," Shen Jiu said simply. He mentally rifled through his own post-Luo Binghe takeover plans and dropped the ones that relied on Wen Xia being sane and cooperative. Shen Jiu was beginning to have doubts on that front.
But Shen Jiu shouldn't have been surprised. He'd heard the stories about Luo Binghe, too. Suddenly claiming to have visited another world, a world with another version of himself, and then searching high and low for the teacher he'd killed the year Shen Jiu was born. The person Luo Binghe now wanted most was dry and dusty bones in his own dungeon, and his harem of hundreds of wives went ignored as Luo Binghe searched for a way to bring the man back.
"I will make him regret this," Wen Xia seethed. "I am Wen Xia, the knife without a handle, princess of the Wen clan. We who bring the gift of death. He disrespects and dishonors me. He disrespects and dishonors the clan. And you!"
Shen Jiu sat up straighter as Wen Xia turned her full focus on him, instinctively bracing for the lash of a whip. Wen Xia was no Duan Yaoting, but the sharpness of her words made Shen Jiu tense all the same.
But Wen Xia just reached out a hand. A small wooden box was nestled in her palm, with the sigil of a heavenly demon pressed into the top in battered and worn gold leaf.
"We bring the gift of death," Wen Xia repeated. "Something to aid you, Shen Jiu. The water of Heaven's Sanctified Blessing Anointment." Her outstretched fingers made bone-pale claws in the dim light.
Beneath his mask, Shen Jiu's lips twitched into a smile. Well.
That would certainly make things easier.
There was no one here.
Luo Binghe looked out over the ruins of Qing Jing Peak. The last time he'd been here he'd burned it all to ash. The bamboo forests had regrown in the decades since, running thick and wild where classrooms and dorms had once stood. The leaves rustled in the wind, bamboo swaying gently. All else was still and dead.
There was no sign of the rumored ghost in green anywhere. But perhaps it only came out at night. Luo Binghe was prepared to wait. Anything, to see Shizun again.
There wasn't much of a path remaining; just spaces that the bamboo hadn't yet overtaken. Luo Binghe drew Xin Mo and hack at some of the bamboo to make a little more room for himself, and to take out some of his frustration on the readiest target available. Canes of bamboo crashed against one another, falling before Luo Binghe like the bodies of the disciples who he'd slain here so long ago. Yellow sap leaked from the cut ends, filling the air with the crisp sweet scent so far from the stench of blood and viscera. It was pleasant. Clean. Look how wonderful Qing Jing had become! Look how different it was, after all these years!
In Luo Binghe's vision, the shadows in overgrown path hid so many bodies. So many ghosts. But not the one he was looking for.
Shizun wasn't here. He wasn't here! He was ignoring Luo Binghe, that's what this was. But Luo Binghe wouldn't let him. Shizun couldn't hide forever.
It made sense that Shizun had been here all along. Luo Binghe had tried over and over to call Shizun's soul to him. He still had Shizun's bones, still had all the trophies he'd collected from Qing Jing Peak before it had burned, or mementoes of Shizun that Ning Yingying had so graciously yielded to him. None of it had been successful in bringing Shizun out of the land of the dead and back to him. Sages had tried to tell him that Shizun's soul had gone beyond even Luo Binghe's reach. Luo Binghe known they'd been wrong. He had executed them until they stopped lying to him. Of course Shizun hadn't moved on, he would never.
But Shizun's ghost had been bound to Qing Jing Peak itself. It made sense. Shizun was far too stubborn to leave this place for Luo Binghe, no matter how much power Luo Binghe had put into the summonings.
"Shizun," Luo Binghe called into the quiet of Qing Jing. Birdsong stilled. "Shizun, I'm here. I—I'm," Luo Binghe choked on the word. He couldn't say it. He wasn't sorry, he couldn't say sorry, because Shizun had been so cruel. Shizun had hurt him first. But that trip to the other world had awakened in Luo Binghe the realization that hurting Shizun back hadn't made him happy. What he'd wanted—what he'd always wanted—was for Shizun to care for him.
Shizun might be dead. But what Luo Binghe wanted, he would strive endlessly to achieve. Suffering was an old friend. Luo Binghe had never balked in the face of hardship. Every setback, every rejection, only fueled Luo Binghe more. He would have Shizun, and he would treat Shizun better this time, and Shizun would be everything Luo Binghe had ever wanted him to be. And then—
The knife flew down at Luo Binghe's head like a hawk diving for the kill. Luo Binghe twisted aside, feeling a sting in his cheek just below his eye. Heat painted a path downwards from the cut as blood escaped and warmed his skin.
There was a masked figure clinging to the top of one of the bamboo canes, silhouetted against the sky. He wore pale green that blended with the bamboo's leaves, but it wasn't Shizun's sweeping robes. The cut of his clothes was simple, the fabric dappled for camoflage. The ends of his sleeves and pants were bound tight to his body with bandages, to keep them out of the way in a fight. The featureless white mask over his face tilted as the stranger stared down at Luo Binghe. Assessing him with a cool remoteness that reminded Luo Binghe a little of Shizun after all.
But this wasn't Shizun. It wasn't even Shizun's ghost.
Luo Binghe swept Xin Mo in a wide arc, sending out a massive sword glare that cut down the whole thicket of bamboo. The figure fell amidst the bamboo like so much chaff.
"Assassin," Luo Binghe called out in a twisted sing-song voice. "Did you plant rumors of Shizun's ghost to lure me here?" Shizun had to be here. Luo Binghe felt it in his bones, Shizun was here. It couldn't be a lie.
The masked assassin rose, the white mask gleaming. Golden bamboo sap had lashed across it, painting a stripe on his cheek to match Luo Binghe's bloody one.
Luo Binghe raised Xin Mo high, letting its demonic energy pervade the air. It drove out the clean feeling of sunlight and bamboo, radiating something beyond darkness. The desolation from the depths of Luo Binghe's soul. The assassin staggered back under the onslaught. He seemed to recover quickly, and raised the knives in his hands—sisters to the one that had cut Luo Binghe. Their edges glowed with an unearthly light. Some sort of sacred artifact, perhaps. Luo Binghe might keep them after killing their master; such things were often more useful to him than the original owners, after all. For now, they gleamed in unworthy hands.
Luo Binghe barked a mocking laugh. "You wished to trap me? You wanted me to come? Here I am!"
The masked assassin didn't reply. He just stood there, the featureless white mask tilted to one side like he was judging Luo Binghe and finding him lacking. It was infuriatingly familiar. For a moment, Luo Binghe felt a child again standing inside the pit he'd dug in the entrance exams. He looked up at Shen Qingqiu, and that lofty immortal stared down at him in mixed judgement and disdain. Like Luo Binghe might be someone worthy of that man's regard, if only he tried hard enough, if only he was good enough. That blaze of hope and yearning and drive that had never truly guttered out even after all these years, even after he held Shen Qingqiu's dry and crumbling bones in his hands.
Luo Binghe sent another sword glare at the assassin, even more powerful than the first. It ripped through the air, roaring as it moved. The assassin dodged once more, and went right back to giving Luo Binghe that look.
"Impressive," the assassin commented dryly. "Can you do more than fling around power like a spoiled child? I expected more."
Fury surged up in Luo Binghe like a roaring flame. Luo Binghe swiped at his still-bleeding cheek and flung droplets of blood at the ground before the assassin. It soaked into the earth and then… Pale golden roots of bamboo emerged from dark soil and twisted up towards the assassin, snaring his ankles in thick coils. The assassin was forced to abandon his composure in favor of hacking at the roots with his knives.
"Is this enough? Are you impressed?" Luo Binghe said coolly as he leapt across the fallen bamboo.
The assassin cut his way free just as Luo Binghe landed and pushed the assassin down. The assassin lunged at Luo Binghe, swiping at his chest with a knife. Luo Binghe caught the assassin's wrist and squeezed, savoring the crackle of delicate bone. The assassin grunted in pain and through the mask Luo Binghe saw dark eyes glaring.
And Luo Binghe was in the dungeons with Shizun, gripping warm flesh in his claws and pulling, feeling resistance give way. Shizun had been fighting him for so long, trying to hide his pained grunts and keep silent, but when Luo Binghe had pulled his arm off, oh, how Shizun had screamed!
Luo Binghe released the assassin's grip and jumped back as the assassin lunged again, trying to cut Luo Binghe's exposed throat this time. Luo Binghe felt a slight sting as the edge of the blade nicked his throat; hardly anything. But the assassin shouldn't have managed it.
Being here at Qing Jing was messing with Luo Binghe's head. Luo Binghe felt as though he was seeing Shen Qingqiu everywhere, like his ghost really was here.
Weariness suddenly struck Luo Binghe. Wasn't this all really just futile? The rumors of Shen Qingqiu's ghost had been lies to draw Luo Binghe here for this pathetic assault. It would go nowhere. This assassin was nothing, this peak was just wreckage. There was nothing here for Luo Binghe, just as there was nothing anywhere for Luo Binghe.
Kill the assassin. Go home. And then what?
The assassin tried to attack again. Luo Binghe almost absently caught him by the throat and slammed his head into the ground, over and over. His leaden arms still had enough strength to raise the assassin back up again, face to face. The battered mask now had a crack running all the way through it, from chin to temple. Porcelain chips fell, white shards cascading like flower petals onto Luo Binghe's wrist and catching in his black robes. The assassin reached up with trembling hands and tried feebly to push Luo Binghe away.
The mask crumbled and gave way, broken halves falling to reveal—
"Beast" came a voice Luo Binghe knew. The word was shaped by familiar lips. Luo Binghe looked into hateful black eyes. Shizun's eyes.
Shen Jiu gasped a breath as Luo Binghe's grip on his throat slackened. He stopped trying to push Luo Binghe away—that had been a stupid move. Shen Jiu's head ached, and Luo Binghe kept being overlaid with a younger face, bright and eager to please and contemptibly foolish. Shen Jiu wanted to kill them both.
Shen Jiu pulled another knife from his belt and went to stab Luo Binghe in the heart. Luo Binghe twisted, a little, but not enough. The knife plunged deep into his chest. Luo Binghe let out a choked sound, and his fingers finally loosened enough for Shen Jiu to pull away.
"Shizun," Luo Binghe whispered, falling to his hands and knees. The cuts on his face and neck still bled freely, and the zuiyin on his forehead was fading. Luo Binghe's oppressive aura had all but vanished, and Shen Jiu took a breath of sweet clean air free of the taint of the emperor's demonic energy.
The water of Heaven's Sanctified Blessing Anointment had taken too fucking long to start working, but it seemed it had finally taken effect.
"Shizun, I found you," mumbled the delirious emperor, a broad smile spreading across his face. He stared at Shen Jiu as though he could see into Shen Jiu's patchwork, blackened soul.
"You're dead," Shen Jiu coldly informed Luo Binghe. "The poison circulating through your system is suppressing your demonic and spiritual qi, and you're bleeding into your lungs. I'll make it quick. Any last words?"
Shen Jiu wanted to be done with this insane mission. His clan had sent him to assassinate the emperor with the expectation that he would die trying. Well, he hadn't. He'd won. Shen Jiu looked down at the mad dog of an emperor before him, and readied a blade to put him down once and for all.
Luo Binghe laughed, blood leaking from his lips to run down his chin. It was a bright and boyish laugh, and it lit up Luo Binghe's face with pure unbridled joy. For a moment, Shen Jiu could see the handsome man that Wen Xia had married, could understand how this man had made hundreds of women fall devotedly in love with him. In his madness, in the grips of approaching death, Luo Binghe looked at Shen Jiu as though he was the most cherished of treasures in the three realms.
Shen Jiu took a step back, unnerved by that steady gaze.
Luo Binghe—rose.
"It's you, it's really you," Luo Binghe burbled, more blood painting his lips and chin. He didn't seem to notice or care.
Luo Binghe reached out as if to take Shen Jiu into his arms. Shen Jiu took the hilt of the knife still in Luo Binghe's chest and twisted it until the blade grated against bone, then pulled it free. Luo Binghe's blood splashed, powerless and inert, across the fallen bamboo.
Luo Binghe embraced Shen Jiu, pinning Shen Jiu's arms to his sides. Even with his powers neutralized by the poison, even bleeding out, Luo Binghe was stronger than Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu felt warm blood soak all down his front.
"What is wrong with you?" Shen Jiu hissed.
"I wonder," Luo Binghe mused, a smile quirking his lips. His eyes creased with amusement. "Seven-fanged Vipersac Venom? Bone dust from the Twelfth Celestial? No, I think this is…" Luo Binghe rested his chin on Shen Jiu's shoulder. "Heaven's Sanctified Blessing Anointment," Luo Binghe whispered into Shen Jiu's ear. "That feels right."
Shen Jiu jolted. "Knowing won't save you," he twisted, trying to free himself.
Luo Binghe coughed again, and Shen Jiu felt more hot and tacky blood spatter on his cheek. Luo Binghe was pressed in so close that Shen Jiu felt Luo Binghe's jaw clench. There was a loud wet crackle and Shen Jiu jerked back in disgust.
Luo Binghe laughed at him, mouth wide open. Bright blood painted the inside of it, and white shards of his teeth—that he had just crushed—
Luo Binghe spat and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, uncaring of the blood he was smearing on the fine silk. Shen Jiu used the opportunity to escape Luo Binghe's grasping clutches and get some space. He couldn't stop himself shivering in horror, a pit opening up deep in his stomach. He didn't know what Luo Binghe was doing, he didn't know what Luo Binghe was thinking, but this wasn't going the way Shen Jiu expected at all. And that did not bode well.
"Deep within the Endless Abyss, there lives a creature," Luo Binghe crooned. "Jade-hard shell upon shell surrounds its inner core, and poisons and caustic acids fill the gaps between them. But if one can get to its heart… there lies a pearl. Pure condensed abyssal corruption."
Shen Jiu took another step back. Luo Binghe stepped forward.
Luo Binghe's hands were at his sides, relaxed, but each finger was tipped with a razor-sharp claw. Shen Jiu could feel Luo Binghe's aura beginning to re-emerge, like the heat of flames licking at his skin. The blood Luo Binghe had left spattered on Shen Jiu's face tingled.
Luo Binghe's smile was still broad and red. "It counteracts the effects of Heaven's Sanctified Blessing Anointment," he told Shen Jiu. Delighted and merciless. "And it's so small that it can even fit inside a small tooth. Very convenient."
Shen Jiu turned to run.
One arm snatched him up at the waist, another wrapped across his chest. Clawed hands clutched at Shen Jiu's robes, and he could feel the fabric begin to shred and stinging pinpricks mapped like bright constellations across his skin.
"I never told Wen Xia about it, but of course I sought out an antidote as soon as she became my wife. Just as a precaution. I wondered if she would ever be so foolish as to use such a distinctive poison," Luo Binghe mused.
Shen Jiu could feel Luo Binghe's every inhale and exhale, their bodies were pressed together so tight. Luo Binghe pressed a gentle kiss to the shell of Shen Jiu's ear, soft and delicate as the flutter of a robin's wing.
"Ah, I can feel your heartbeat," Luo Binghe nuzzled at Shen Jiu's neck. "So fast, so lively. I should give Wen Xia something to show my appreciation, for sending you to me. 'We who bring the gift of death' wasn't it? What a charming motto."
Shen Jiu closed his eyes. And in the darkness there he saw a dungeon wall, and bloody chains, and the broken shards of a spiritual sword gleaming dully in the flickering torchlight.
He reached for the last knife at his belt. Better to cut his own throat than live out the rest of his life in Luo Binghe's not-so-tender care. Shen Jiu managed to bring the knife to his throat, and then Luo Binghe grabbed the blade with his bare hand.
"Don't leave me again, Shizun," Luo Binghe begged, sounding more distressed than when Shen Jiu had stuck a poisoned knife in his chest. "I'm sorry about last time. It was a mistake I regret and I swear on my life that I'll rectify. Shizun, let me make it all up to you."
This man was insane.
"If you want to make it up to me," Shen Jiu hissed. "Then let me go." He elbowed Luo Binghe in the gut, and it did absolutely nothing. There was no yielding in Luo Binghe at all.
"Oh, Shizun," Luo Binghe murmured, sweet as the blade of a knife. "That, I will never do."
Shen Qingqiu's skin warmed under dappled sunlight. Bamboo leaves whispered in the wind, then stilled, and a quiet hush filled the air. Shen Qingqiu began the brush strokes to illustrate the high mountains, letting the lines thin and fade where stone met mist. Then he looked up at the students arrayed in the grass before him, each attentively watching him with their own board and paper and brush.
"Make each stroke with thought and consideration," Shen Qingqiu spoke out loud. "And once you begin, you must commit. Any hesitation leads to ruin."
Shen Qingqiu set aside his work and rose to his feet, brushing away loose blades of grass. "Begin," he told his students. Their paltry attempts would at best make good tinder, but perhaps the practice would do something. Someday maybe some of his teachings might sink in, for some of them.
He surveyed the students as they bent their heads and made their own feeble attempts. A few were not entirely without artistry, but most of their attempts were pathetic. His eyes fell on one disciple's touseled hair, undignified for a member of Qing Jing peak. He felt his lip curl in disgust.
The boy looked up at him and dark eyes shone with red, like a cloud passing over the sun. The other students faded from Shen Qingqiu's view, unimportant. It was only himself and the boy now.
Shen Qingqiu's fingers twitched. He reached out meaning to yank at that unruly disciple's head, cast him down in front of his peers. This child had earned a biting lecture—showing up before Shen Qingqiu with such a lack of care for his appearance was deep disrespect for Qing Jing and Shen Qingqiu himself. It could not be borne.
The boy frowned at Shen Qingqiu, eyes turning sad and doe-like, as though he thought that act might save him. But that innocent look was a transparent lie, a mockery.
Shen Qingqiu burned with rage to see it. How dare Luo Binghe—
Shen Qingqiu sat up, tangled silk sheets trying in vain to pull him back down. He looked up at the damask hangings over his bed, dappled patterns of bamboo not unlike the swaying stalks of the forest in his dream.
It had been a dream, hadn't it? And yet, it felt more like a memory.
Shen Qingqiu raised shaking hands—no, that wasn't his name. He was Shen Jiu. He was Shen Jiu! Shen Qingqiu was dead!
There was a knock at the door. Luo Binghe didn't wait for an answer before coming in, a tray full of food in his hands.
"Beast, get out," Shen Jiu hissed as he pulled the sheets up around him. As he did every morning.
"I brought you breakfast, Shizun!" Luo Binghe chirped, a manic smile lighting his eyes. As he also did every morning.
At least the food was good. Snowy white congee strewn with pale strips of chicken and green rings of scallions. Shen Jiu dipped a spoon in and swirled the mixture, watching golden strands of ginger emerge and drown once more.
Of course, Luo Binghe was not content to leave. He slunk into Shen Jiu's bed, perching on the edge so close that Shen Jiu could feel the heat of Luo Binghe's body through the thin sleeping robes. He watched Shen Jiu eat like this was the highest entertainment.
Shen Jiu ignored Luo Binghe. Giving him any heed would be rewarding his attention-seeking behavior. So instead Shen Jiu ate the congee down to the last scrapings and never once looked in Luo Binghe's direction, even as he could feel Luo Binghe vibrating with excitement through the mattress.
Finally, Shen Jiu set down the spoon. "What," he snapped, not bothering to tone down his irritation.
"This disciple has a present for you," Luo Binghe was still moving. Shen Jiu felt nauseous just watching him.
This was also part of their morning routine. Shen Jiu put on a disaffected look and held out his hand, expecting yet another piece of trinkety jewelry. At least it was conveniently portable and conventionally valuable. When Shen Jiu escaped he'd be able to sell it for a fortune, or barter it for passage far far from here.
But this time, Luo Binghe jumped up. "Wait here," he said, and then rushed from the room.
Shen Jiu scowled at the door. Their routine was comfortable; this change was suspicious. What did Luo Binghe have in store for him now?
Shen Jiu reached into his side table and drew out yesterday's gift, a hair pin. It would do basically nothing to Luo Binghe but maybe Shen Jiu could take out his eyes and get a little distance before Luo Binghe recovered.
Luo Binghe came back with a fabric-wrapped bundle in his arms. The print on the fabric was bright red cloth, darkening to a deep crimson near the base. And the whole package was big enough that Luo Binghe's chin rested on the knot at the top.
Luo Binghe set the whole thing on the floor with a thump, and then looked at Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu could practically see Luo Binghe's metaphorical tail wagging. Whatever this was, Luo Binghe expected Shen Jiu to like it. Which didn't mean much; Luo Binghe was a lunatic.
Shen Jiu rose and slowly put on his slippers. He padded over to the package, examining it without touching as Luo Binghe shifted from proud to nervous. As he should. Shen Jiu threw out a sneer for good measure, so that Luo Binghe would understand that Shen Jiu was condescending to humor him just this once.
Luo Binghe smiled at Shen Jiu with the brightness of an sumptuous manor set ablaze, so much heat and warmth and light it seared Shen Jiu down to his soul.
Shen Jiu flinched, and covered it by looking down at the package. He pulled the knot free.
The wrappings fell. Four severed heads tumbled free to the floor at Shen Jiu's feet. Duan Yaoting, Qin Niu, and Jin Jianjun—the teachers that had abused him all his life. And Wen Xia, who had wanted Shen Jiu dead after he'd not only failed to kill Luo Binghe but had somehow ensnared him instead.
Shen Jiu looked down at the four pairs of horrified, glazed, unblinking eyes.
Luo Binghe was clearly a madman. He had slain Shen Jiu's enemies and gifted him their heads over breakfast.
Shen Jiu might be going insane himself. But wasn't this… just a bit endearing?
Not that he could let Luo Binghe see that. Luo Binghe didn't need any encouragement, or he'd become truly insufferable.
Shen Jiu shrugged carelessly. He opened his mouth to say something cutting, but for once nothing came to mind. He closed his mouth and looked away, feeling humiliating heat rise in his cheeks even as he tried to keep his face still as stone.
Luo Binghe kicked aside the heads to kneel before Shen Jiu, uncaring of the blood that had leaked through to the floor. He boldly slid his hands up and down Shen Jiu's sides, his long fingers toying with the creases in the silk of Shen Jiu's sleeping robes. His broad palms flattening against Shen Jiu's thighs.
Shen Jiu could tell him to go. He had many times before, and when Shen Jiu commanded Luo Binghe to leave, Luo Binghe left.
Luo Binghe was a beast. But to train a beast, sometimes you had to reward good behavior.
Shen Jiu pulled Luo Binghe up, and into a kiss.