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Shen Qingqiu knows that he is a terrible kunze. He finds the largest measure of comfort in his life by covering his own scent with that of a qianyuan's and pretending that he is unaffected by everything that might touch a kunze. In other words, he pretends that he is not one.
There are no kunzes amongst the other Cang Qiong peak lords; most of them are zhongyongs. Yue Qingyuan was once a qianyuan, but many things changed between their parting at the Qiu and their reunion at the immortal alliance conference.
Many, many things.
Shen Qingqiu wonders whether Yue Qi would love him still, were he a better kunze.
When Liu Qingge is stupid and ignorant enough to shove his abandoned baby sister into Shen Qingqiu's arms, it triggers a sickening wave of instinct.
Shen Qingqiu detests children. He does not want a useless baby that is not even his.
His instincts, which he has spent so long denying, rise up and drown him beneath thousands of pounds of force.
This baby has no one else, because nobody else here can do what he can. He must scent her, he must give her a nest, he must feed her and clean her and ensure that she is healthy and uninjured.
For once, his mangled spiritual system is not what drags him down. His body is ruined in other regards. The last time he tried to nurse a child, he couldn’t, and his master took it away. He's healthier now, more powerful, and yet also far more broken.
He is a kunze. His body should know how to produce milk. Yet, there is none.
He can prevent himself from making noise—from whining, from making that cracked, broken call that everyone hated so much. He can't prevent his scent from changing, though, and he can sense the discontent of the qianyuans hanging at a distance.
They want to come close. His body says, yes, let them in, and he knows he cannot. He allows only one, the sweetest-smelling of them, the calmest, the softest. She might still push him down. He does not let her scent them.
He struggles with the instincts. He tries to push beyond them; he remembers how to speak. He had to do this, years ago—push above them, pretend that he was sensible, in control.
The zhongyongs bring more nesting material—better material. It smells sterile, with only the faint scents of their hands decorating it. The other pillows were worse, though, so it will do. It is not as good as a nest of his own, smothered in his own scent.
He cannot prevent himself from thinking, Qi-ge would fix this. He wants pine on those pillows, he wants Qi-ge's strong arms around them. Maybe if Yue Qi had stayed, if Shen Qingqiu had been a good kunze, they would have a child of their own and Shen Qingqiu would be able to produce milk for this one.
He cannot help it, when he realizes that the ghost of Yue Qi has approached. He is so stressed that even this half-presence will do. He drags it into the nest; he makes it rub a wrist against the baby; he buries his head in its neck. It smells of very little—just the soap that it must have used when washing in the morning. It isn't bad, though he makes sure to tell it otherwise, but he has to reach deep, deep down to find the pine that once suffused it.
This is his, he thinks. Nobody else can smell it, because nobody else slept for years in Yue Qi's arms. His ghost is not theirs.
The hint of scent steadies him. He wishes that he could feed it too, growing it until it fills the body holding it edge-to-edge.
The soap cannot compare. The soap is wrong. He rubs his cheek against that of the ghost's. He drags his wrist across its neck, its jaw, its arms. He shoves his scent into its armpits, across its robes. He covers it in himself, trying to make it smell right. The baby needs citrus and evergreen, not ink and soap.
The ghost tries to get him to feed the baby milk that isn't his, milk from a sterile little pouch.
Shen Qingqiu hurts. He is useless. Why is he bothering? What is the point of trying if he can never succeed?
Please, just this time, the ghost whispers. I know that Xiao-Jiu is trying, but she's hungry. You remember hunger.
Shen Qingqiu takes the pouch. In the end, it helps. The baby's hunger-scent eases. One weight on his back has been replaced by another.
He rests for a while, trying to focus on breathing in soap and finding the traces of pine. He tries again and again to bring the baby to his chest, to feed her with something more than nothing.
There isn’t any. His chest hurts.
The pillows smell like him and the baby and hints of zhongyongs and one qianyuan-turned zhongyong. Maybe he should allow the other qianyuans back; maybe his body would understand that he has a duty. Maybe if it recalled that he was meant to lie under them and let them do as they liked, it would also remember that he'd had a pup already, that he should know how to take care of one.
He didn't want that, though. He wanted one qianyuan in his nest and one qianyuan only. He wanted to put Yue Qi in the center and build the pillows up around him until he could never leave, him and the baby. It would be citrus and pine and milkscent, because his milk would come in and together they would survive.
He rearranged himself, crawling up the pillows until he was at a good angle to lean forward and set his teeth to the ghost's jaw, to drag them down across his neck and worry at the scent glands that used to be there, to find the hint of green needles and pull until it could surround them.
The ghost allowed it without protest, but it didn't work. The only thing he earned was its heavy breathing and an obvious hardness in his pants, which Shen Qingqiu ignored. He had a different duty right now, and the ghost was only here in service of that.
Displeased, and noticing that the pup's hunger-scent was growing, he tried to feed her again. She went, sucking at him gummily, and his heart sank as nothing came.
The ghost brushed a hand across his cheek and forehead. For a moment, it distracted him, and he looked up at it, lost and uneasy and trying his best, hating everything that had led them to this point.
Then he felt something in his chest and looked back down. It hurt. It was like a release. He smelled milk, true milk, so much better than the plant liquid from before.
He couldn't help but make a noise. Pleasure, relief, sorrow. He could not express it any other way. The ghost next to him leaned in and rubbed cheeks, and despite the soap-scent, he relaxed.
Finally, he thought. He could be a good kunze. Yue Qi could learn to like him again. The pack he had hovered on the outskirts of for so many years would finally accept him. His master was wrong, and he was not worthless.
But thinking of his once-master led him to recall why he had not wanted anyone to know he was what he was. Memories of being belittled, of being forced to do many things that he did not want to do, of being told that he didn't know what was best for himself.
For so long, he had been told that this was where he belonged, caring for a child and in the grasp of a qianyuan. He hadn't wanted it. Still, he did not want it, not when it was a child that had been forced inside of him and a qianyuan he despised.
This ghost was not what he wanted, either, and yet it was close enough to comfort that he was too tired to fight it. He could snap and snarl when he felt safe to do it, when the child had been acknowledged as his and that brute of a zhongyong outside the nest had stopped lurking about. He could force them away, those qianyuans hovering at the other side of the room, and ensure that they knew they would not be allowed to get further children on him.
He might let them scent him, but that didn't mean he was theirs.
He was Shen Qingqiu, and the only person he wanted was already gone.