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Shang Qinghua had had years to get used to his new life and body.

Decades, actually.

Long enough that occasionally he got caught off guard by the realisation: he had now spent more years in this world than he ever had in the cramped Shanghai apartment where he had first written Proud Immortal Demon Way. It was a mildly horrifying thought, though perhaps cultivation tended to produce those way too often. Once a person had accepted flying swords, qi deviations, demonic invasions, and living longer than any reasonable mortal had business living, a little existential dread over the passage of time was practically nothing.

An Ding Peak might not have been the most illustrious peak in Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, but it got shit done. As much as Shang Qinghua wished he did not have to lose sleep over endless ledgers, contracts, requisition forms, and budget reports, managing them fell squarely within his duties as Peak Lord. Besides, he truly did not want to look Sect Leader Yue in his sad labrador eyes and face whatever consequences followed.

Not everyone could be the precious golden child like Shen Qingqiu and benefit from Yue Qingyuan’s boundless big-brother enabler energy.

Speaking of—

Shang Qinghua squinted suspiciously at the piece of paper that had arrived with Qing Jing Peak’s monthly requisition forms.

One of the few things he genuinely appreciated about both versions of Shen Qingqiu was the quality of paperwork. The original owner of the body had been meticulous—bless his poor, prickly soul—but Cucumber-bro somehow managed to be worse in nearly every other regard while preserving exactly the same terrifying standards.

To be honest, the paperwork had been one of the reasons Shang Qinghua had not immediately believed Shen Qingqiu was a fellow transmigrator. The calligraphy was impeccable, the reports were submitted on time, and the resting bitch face remained exactly the same. Frankly, the evidence for possession had been weak, especialy after the check done by Wei Qingwei.

Shen Qingqiu in any form was just too scary QwQ.

Good thing they were not really on speaking terms right now. At least, Shang Qinghua assumed they were not?

It was not as if he had actually asked and checked with his bro. The expression Shen Qingqiu had worn after Luo Binghe fell into the Endless Abyss still visited him at inconvenient hours: fury, devastation, betrayal, all sharpened into the sort of look that made a person instinctively take a few steps back and hope they were not the reason behind that. And what a surprise, Shang Qinghua as himself was kind of the reason behind the demon attack and Mobei-jun's appearance. Even more, considering his previous life as Xiang Fei, one could argue he was the reason why the System pushed for this to happen in the first place.

Anyway, while it was an undeniably tragic and terrifying experience, Shen Qingqiu looked… defeated.

Which was ridiculous, because both of them knew Luo Binghe was alive.

The protagonist always ended up fine.

Just fine.

Still, back to the matter at hand.

Cucumber-bro, as Shen Qingqiu, was meticulous with his paperwork. Always written in calligraphy so perfect Shang Qinghua could probably sell it to someone in the emperor’s court for a nice price if he ever wanted to make easy money. Which meant the current requisition form was suspicious.

Very suspicious.

He squinted at it from another angle, wishing again for better light in his humble study than the one provided in xianxia setting.

Either this was an ink blot, or Shen Qingqiu had somehow achieved enlightenment through abstract calligraphy. Honestly, Shang Qinghua would not have put it past him.

It was entirely possible Shen Qingqiu had decided to send him a message that needed deciphering, or maybe it was, after all, a weird type of a Rorschach test? Unfortunately, Shang Qinghua had already held the paper up to the light, turned it upside down, turned it sideways, added a little qi, applied lemon juice, and stared at it until his eyes hurt.

Nothing.

The ink blot stubbornly remained an ink blot.

No hidden message appeared. No secret instructions revealed themselves. No encrypted transmigrator communication emerged from the page, which was precisely the problem.

It looked like a mistake but that just coudln't be true—Shen Qingqiu did not make mistakes like this. Not with paperwork. Not ever.

Which meant either he was still angry and trying to communicate something cryptic, or something was actually wrong. Or more wrong than usual, considering the regular shitshow that was their lives.

Shang Qinghua looked at the form for another long moment, then out of the window, where sun was shining, birds were singing happily, and the world looked pretty inviting.

Alright.

Maybe this was a sign to actually go out and touch some grass. Purely for administrative reasons, of course. If that walk happened to take the long way around and lead him all the way to Qing Jing Peak to check on his bro, nobody needed to know.

The road to Qing Jing Peak was a relatively easy one, though Shang Qinghua would argue that was thanks to An Ding Peak and nobody else.

The Rainbow Bridges connecting the mountain peaks were a wonderful example of craftsmanship, relying both on the sheer strength of cultivated qi and layer upon layer of carefully constructed arrays—few people ever appreciated that side of An Ding Peak's work. Unless arrays exploded, shot lightning, or did something flashy in combat, many cultivators seemed to consider them beneath notice.

Which was a shame.

When Shang Qinghua had first written Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, back when he had still been Xiang Fei and not Peak Lord Shang, the mountain peaks had simply been convenient divisions of the sect. He added some backstory in a frantic midst of inspiration one night, just after he got a comment from his number one fan—hater?—fater, cursing him out for lack of proper backstories. And behold, there was one, historical reasons, filled with gaining strength, alliances, and each Peak being a separate cultivation road to immortality that consolidated into one aglomeration of a sect.

A few hundred words, maybe thirty minutes of his time with an energy drink and the click-clack of his old keyboard.

A few name dropped to bait Cucumber-bro into replying.

A bit of hints on the history of Heavenly Demons and the 'eternal' conflict between cultivators and demons.

In his licencia creatica wisdom, he had not fully considered though the practical implications of an entire sect spread across multiple mountains—namely, that travelling anywhere took forever.

Usually, he would take his sword to save some time, even if it was a rather flashy way of travelling. Today, however, he chose to walk. Years ago, he had discovered that wandering through the sect's scenery helped clear his head. Looking at the mountains, the forests and the rivers settled something restless inside him and made dealing with endless ledgers feel slightly less soul-crushing.

By the time he crossed into Qing Jing Peak's territory, however, that sense of peace had slowly started to fade.

The peak was quiet, which in itself would not be unusal.

Qing Jing Peak had always been quieter than the others as scholars preferred contemplation to shouting matches, and the study of the Four Arts rarely required enthusiastic screaming.

Still, something felt off.

The bamboo groves seemed slightly overgrown in places. Not enough for most visitors to notice, but Shang Qinghua used to spent unnecessary amount of time studying his suroundings, all of them, to make sure he knew how to weaken the arrays for the Rainbow bridges in time with Sha Hualing's attack. Qing Jing Peak usually ran on order: every path was swept, every plant trimmed, decorative stones sat precisely where they belonged—all according to the recommendations of the divination peak.

Nothing was visibly wrong.

Yet the entire peak felt like a guqin string that had slipped slightly out of tune—

Oh, that was a good one, he should note it down for future writing session. Shang Qinghua nodded, mentally giving himself a pat.

Disciples bowed as he passed, but there was none of the casual chatter he had grown accustomed to hearing over the recent years. No laughter drifted between the bamboo. No small groups lingered to gossip.

The closer he came to the Bamboo House, the heavier his chest felt.

In this world, Heart Demons were no laughing matter: they could derail possibility of ascesion, cause qi deviation, and in the worst cases even death, so as much as he wished he could just not notice and go his merry way, Shang Qinghua started doing what he hated—worrying.

When he finally spotted Ning Yingying emerging from the Bamboo House carrying a tray of untouched food, his stomach sank. The young woman moved quickly, head lowered, as though trying not to be seen—so not according to her character. She looked up as she clearly heard his approaching steps. Her eyes were red but she valiantly tried to not let her voice wobble. "Greetings, Shang-shishu."

Shang Qinghua nearly stopped walking.

Cucumber-bro, what in the world did you do to make the protagonist's first wife cry?

"Good afternoon, Ning-shizhi," he said carefully. "Is everything alright?"

She seemed to be ready to offer the usual platitudes but something of his sincerity must have shown on his face as her composure cracked, and in a place of young but put together woman stood a teenage girl, bawling her eyes out.

"It's just... Shishu! We can't go on like this anymore!"

The genuine distress in her voice wiped away most of Shang Qinghua's instinctive humour.

"What happened?"

"Shizun..." She tightened her grip on the tray. "Since the Alliance Conference, Shizun hasn't eaten properly. He refuses everything we bring him. He still attends classes, but usually leaves the Hall Masters to teach in his place."

"And?"

Ning Yingying looked away.

"Most of the time, he sits at the sword mound."

Shang Qinghua frowned. "What sword mound?"

"A-Luo's sword pyre."

Ah.

Right.

He heard rumours but he thought people might have been exaggerating.

"And now?"

"Shizun said he already ate." Ning Yinging mouth was set in a stubborn line, clearly not believing her teacher—no wonder, Shang Qinghua wouldn't believe that either. Still, he had to ask.

"...Has he?"

A very telling silence followed.

Ning Yingying lowered her gaze to the untouched tray. "We just can't make food like A-Luo."

The words landed far harder than Shang Qinghua expected.

He had anticipated grief, yet had not expected it to take this particular shape.

Not food.

Not a bowl left untouched because the wrong person had cooked it.

Looking around Qing Jing Peak, he suddenly realised that everyone here seemed to be grieving in their own way. Ning Yingying's eyes were swollen from crying, the disciples walked as though afraid to make noise, making the entire peak itself felt diminished.

Softening, Shang Qinghua reached out and patted his shizhi's head.

"Don't worry, this master will take care of it," he said in, what he hoped was, a soothing voice.

Her eyes widened. "Shang-shishu?"

Shang Qinghua sighed, already regretting involving himself in something that was definitely not his problem, yet he couldn't just walk away. He reached out with his hands, saying" "Give me the tray and show me where the kitchens are."

Though baffled, Ning Yinging obeyed. and started leading the way, looking at him consideringly from time to time, as if he wouldn't notice.

The kitchens stood empty by the time they arrived. The evening meal had long since passed, and the cooks had already cleaned and gone home.

"Thank you, Ning-shizhi. You may leave," he said, seeing her playing with her robes nervously, clearly now knowing what to do.

"But—"

"This master will take care of it," Shang Qinghua interrupted. "And don't tell your shizun anything, this one will do it himself."

Ning Yingying studied him for a moment before nodding and departing, head held slightly higher than before.

What a good kid.

Once alone, Shang Qinghua rolled up his sleeves and pulled out a small qiankun pouch.

The protagonist might have become famous for his cooking, but those recipes of his? Had originated somewhere.

Namely: Xiang Fei's mind.

Back when money had been tight and surviving on instant noodles alone had seemed like a poor life choice, he had started collecting simple recipes that relied on cheap ingredients and clever seasoning rather than expensive luxuries. As all writers did, he had eventually projected that hobby onto one of his characters and thus, Luo Binghe's famous way of seducing through stomach was born.

The recipes themselves were nothing extraordinary: a few common ingredients, a handful of spices. Several small tricks that transformed something simple into something comforting.

More importantly, cooking reminded Shang Qinghua of home.

Not fully; nothing in this world truly did. Still, when homesickness struck particularly hard, cooking helped.

Even if Cang Qiong's kitchens could produce incredible meals, nobody here knew how to make proper Shanghai dishes. The one time Shang Qinghua had tried explaining a recipe, the cooks had looked at him as though he were either a madman or a revolutionary genius.

He refused to identify as either.

An hour later, carrying a tray laden with congee and side dishes for two, Shang Qinghua made his way back towards the Bamboo House.

The closer he came, the more wrong the surrounding qi felt. His gaze drifted towards the sword mound almost despite himself. Qi gathered there strangely, drawn towards the memorial as though caught in a slow whirlpool, not violent enough to alarm anyone from a distance but uneven in a way that prickled at Shang Qinghua’s senses. Qing Jing Peak had never felt like this before. It was a scholar’s peak, refined and orderly, its arrays usually arranged with the sort of elegant precision that made An Ding Peak’s disciples sigh enviously and pretend they had not.

Now, however, the whole place felt off.

The privacy arrays around the Bamboo House were no better. Normally, they would have tested his spiritual energy the moment he entered their range, subtle but unmistakable, a polite scholarly equivalent of someone pressing a sword to his throat and asking for identification. Today, they barely reacted with a weak brush against his meridians, then nothing.

Shang Qinghua slowed.

This did not seem like ordinary neglect but the sort of thing that happened when the person responsible had stopped caring whether the door was closed, which was not encouraging at all.

By the time he reached the entrance, Shang Qinghua could no longer pretend he had come merely because of a suspicious ink blot. The form had been an excuse. A useful one, admittedly. Very official. Very administrative. Exactly the sort of thing a responsible Peak Lord could cite if anyone asked why he had crossed half the sect with a tray of food like an outer disciple on a message run.

But there was no one here to ask—only the bamboo shifting softly in the wind, the sword mound pulling the qi strangely around itself, and the closed door of Shen Qingqiu’s house standing before him like the entrance to something much worse than an awkward conversation.

Shang Qinghua adjusted his grip on the tray.

In this world, there was the System, which was completely useless, and there was Mobei-jun, who was terrifying, and there was every plot hole he had written coming back one by one to bite him with very sharp teeth. There were many excellent reasons to mind his own business.

Unfortunately, now he was uncomfortably aware that Cucumber-bro was also in this world.

Even more unfortunately, Shang Qinghua had apparently decided at some point that this mattered.

He knocked. No answer came.

Inside, the Bamboo House was too still, no signs of movement. Shang Qinghua hesitated only a moment before shifting the tray against one arm and sliding the door open.

The first thing that struck him was the smell: old tea, cold incense, paper, and the faint dampness of bamboo after rain. The room was neat in the way Shen Qingqiu was always neat, every screen in place, every scroll stacked with care, every piece of furniture arranged according to taste and cultivation principles alike.

And yet the feng shui was wrong.

Not dramatically, cursed-residence type of wrong, but the flow of the energy had thinned around the centre of the room and gathered too heavily near the western side, where the door to a side room stood shut.

Luo Binghe’s old room, Shang Qinghua realised, where the door was closed with the quiet finality of something no one had touched in weeks.

Shang Qinghua looked away first.

Near the window, Shen Qingqiu sat with his eyes closed, hands folded into his sleeves, posture straight enough to shame every etiquette manual ever written. If one ignored the stillness, he might have looked as though he were meditating.

He was definitely not meditating.

No one looked that much like a ghost while trying to cultivate.

"Ning Yingying," Shen Qingqiu said without opening his eyes, "this master told you to go."

His voice was calm in a way that did not sound calm at all. It had the thin, brittle quality of ice over deep water, smooth only because whatever moved beneath it had gone very still.

Shang Qinghua adjusted his grip on the tray. "Then it is fortunate I am not Ning Yingying."

Shen Qingqiu's eyes snapped open.

For a brief moment, neither of them spoke. Even half-dead, Cucumber-bro would probably correct his own posture before allowing anyone to witness him slouching. But the sharp brightness Shang Qinghua had grown used to was dulled: his complexion was pale, his cheeks a little hollow, and there was a strange fragility to the way his robes hung from his frame, as if the man inside them had become less substantial without quite noticing.

"What are you doing here?" Shen Qingqiu asked in a flat voice, like he was not sure himself whether he was interested in reply.

"Work, mostly," Shang Qinghua said, because that was both true and a convenient lie. He lifted the tray slightly. "I also brought food."

"I am not hun—"

The denial stopped before it could finish. Shang Qinghua had not even uncovered the bowls yet, but the scent had already slipped free: warm rice, ginger, sesame oil, the savoury depth of mushrooms and the faintest thread of spice. Simple things. Common things. Nothing worthy of a Peak Lord’s table, and yet Shen Qingqiu went still as if someone had placed a blade against his throat.

His gaze flickered to the tray, away from it, then back again. The movement was small enough that someone else might have missed it—Shang Qinghua did not. Something like hope crossed Shen Qingqiu’s face, so quick and naked that Shang Qinghua abruptly wished he had either come much sooner or not come at all.

He set the tray on the low table with more care than ceremony. Porcelain clicked softly against wood as he uncovered the dishes one by one: congee, pickled vegetables, a few small sides. Steam curled upward between them, Shen Qingqiu staring at it with an expression that made it very clear he was not seeing steam at all.

"Hack—" He stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "Airplane. What is this?"

Shang Qinghua sat down opposite him and reached for the spoons, mostly to give his hands something to do. "Food. You know, that thing people eat when they want to continue being alive."

Shen Qingqiu did not rise to the bait. His fingers had tightened around the edge of one sleeve, knuckles pale beneath the fabric. He looked at the bowl as though it might disappear if he breathed too hard.

"Binghe?" he said at last. It barely sounded like a question. More like a thought that had escaped before he could stop it.

The name settled heavily between them.

Then reality seemed to catch up with Shen Qingqiu all at once. The hope drained from his face, leaving confusion first, then recognition, then grief so sharp Shang Qinghua had to look down at the tray.

"No," Shen Qingqiu said quietly, answering himself. "No, he should still be in the Endless Abyss."

"Yeah," Shang Qinghua confirmed, not unkindly.

For a while, neither of them moved. The congee steamed between them, warm and fragrant and terribly inadequate. Outside, bamboo leaves brushed softly against one another, but inside the Bamboo House the silence was thick enough to feel like another presence at the table.

Then Shen Qingqiu inhaled despite himself, as if unable to resist the temptation.

His stomach growled.

The sound was small, but in the silence it might as well have been a thunderclap. Colour rose immediately to Shen Qingqiu’s cheeks, and his fan appeared in his hand with a speed that would have impressed any sword cultivator.

Shang Qinghua nobly pretended he had heard nothing. With great solemnity, he pushed one bowl forward. "Eat."

Shen Qingqiu looked at the bowl, then at him. "Where did you get this?"

There it was. The dangerous question.

Shang Qinghua picked up his own spoon first and took a bite, more for demonstration than hunger. The congee was warm, savoury, not quite perfect, but close enough to hurt. Only after swallowing did he say, lightly, "Bro, Luo Binghe is currently somewhere in the Endless Abyss fighting monsters, collecting trauma, and probably wearing three pieces of clothing at most. Where exactly would he get dried mushrooms?"

Shen Qingqiu glared at him.

Good. The glare looked healthier than anything else he had done since Shang Qinghua entered the room.

"You are speaking of the protagonist," Shen Qingqiu said. "Do not underestimate his ability to acquire unreasonable things in unreasonable places."

"True," Shang Qinghua admitted. "But even Luo Binghe would have difficulty opening a restaurant in the Abyss this early in the plot."

The fan lowered by a fraction. Shen Qingqiu’s gaze returned to the bowl, and this time Shang Qinghua watched understanding settle properly. Hope had come first, then confusion, then grief; now came the quieter, stranger realisation.

"You made this," Shen Qingqiu stated accusingly, maybe a little breathless even.

"It seemed easier than stealing food from literal hell," hummed Shang Qinghua.

Shen Qingqiu did not laugh, but the corner of his mouth twitched. It was not much, barely anything worth mentioning, yet in the cold quiet of the Bamboo House, it felt like warmth returning to a room that had forgotten what warmth was.

The other transmigrator picked up the spoon.

The first mouthful vanished behind the fan. The second did not. By the third, Shen Qingqiu’s shoulders had lowered almost imperceptibly, and Shang Qinghua finally allowed himself to breathe.

For a time, they only ate.

The bowls clicked softly. Steam drifted and thinned. Shen Qingqiu’s fingers remained too tight around the spoon, but he did not put it down. With every bite, a little more colour returned to his face. It was not healing. It was not forgiveness, it was still only congee.

But it was something.

After several spoonfuls, Shen Qingqiu paused. "Airplane."

"Mm?"

"This tastes exactly like Binghe’s."

Shang Qinghua looked into his own bowl. "Yeah. Well."

Shen Qingqiu looked down at the congee, his expression difficult to read. "This tastes like his food because Binghe learned it from you, or rather you wrote him to know your recipes."

The silence that followed was different from the earlier one. Softer, perhaps. No less heavy, but no longer empty.

For once, Shang Qinghua had no reply on hand.

Somehow, despite the first visit being an accident—one that was especially draining on Shang Qinghua's social battery—going to Qing Jing Peak became a habit.

At first, he had excuses. Those were preperaed for anyone who might ask him why was he once again outside of his regular territory, but also ones he created for himself: Qing Jing Peak’s requisition forms required clarification, the ink order was not descriptive enough and did not provide any details what kind of ink it was supposed to be, latest delivery of brushwood had gone missing, been duplicated, or produced some other mysterious administrative disaster that absolutely required the personal attention of An Ding Peak’s lord. If anyone asked, Shang Qinghua was being a diligent, responsible Peak Lord; a shining example of inter-peak cooperation. A man tragically burdened by competence, unrecognised by history.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on his mood, nobody had ever asked.

They looked, of course. Qing Jing disciples watched him pass with poorly hidden curiosity, his own An Ding ducklings exchanged glances whenever their Peak Lord left with another full qiankun pouch and announced urgent business elsewhere, despite being a well-known homebody. Even his own Hall Masters had begun to pause, just slightly, before handing him new reports.

But no one stopped him.

All those carefully prepared explanations, wasted.

What a shame.

The truth, however, if he decided to scratch the explanations and do some soulsearching was disgustingly simpler: he was worried.

Seeing Shen Qingqiu like that—immortal master, scholar, villain, fellow displaced soul—had unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. Shen Qingqiu’s grief was unreasonable in the most technical sense. Luo Binghe was alive. Shang Qinghua knew that better than anyone. The boy had been written to survive the Endless Abyss, its monsters, its hunger, and whatever new cruelties the plot required of him. He would come back stronger. He had to.

Yet, somehow knowing that did not make Shen Qingqiu look any less defeated. It did not make the first faint return of colour to his face any easier to forget.

That was the part Shang Qinghua did not know what to do with.

Worry was familiar. Anxiety lived under his skin so often that, on some days, it felt less like a visitor than a badly behaved tenant. He could endure that, he had endured worse.

What he could not quite handle was the warmth that settled in his chest whenever Shen Qingqiu lowered his fan and ate something Shang Qinghua had made with his own hands.

The way the stone-cold beauty he breathed into live on virtual pages back in Shanghai hummed in approval, eyes brightening, cheeks getting that tiny bit of flush from the spices. The small thaw in his expression, the brief closing of his eyes at the taste of ginger and sesame, the almost imperceptible loosening of his shoulders; none of it should have mattered as much as it did. Shang Qinghua for a moment could swear there was something wrong with him as time and time again his heart decided to learn how to do somersaults each time it happened.

Shang Qinghua was many things. A traitor, depending on the poinf of view, a coward, depending on the definition. A hack author, according to his most devoted anti-fan. A Peak Lord by effort, accident, shameless persistence, and more paperwork than any living person should have been asked to survive.

He was useful. He knew he was useful, whether or not anyone else cared to notice. He oversaw deliveries, inventories, emergency stores, bridge maintenance, barrier checks, array records, supply routes, and a dozen other systems that only became visible when they failed. He had built his place in the sect out of ledgers, favours, compromises, and the quiet terror of knowing what happened when logistics collapsed.

Being useful in this one small, domestic way should not have felt different, and yet—it did.

Worse, he wanted it again.

The lowered fan. The brief glance. The faint softening around Shen Qingqiu’s mouth before he remembered himself and hid it. Those tiny acknowledgements, too small to name and too private to share, stayed with Shang Qinghua longer than they should have.

So he kept coming, like a moth entranced by the light.

Every day, or near enough that pretending otherwise became embarrassing, Shang Qinghua carried food to Qing Jing Peak inside a qiankun pouch. The time shifted depending on meetings, deliveries, disciples, and whatever fresh disaster required his attention, but his body learned the rhythm all the same. By the same stretch of afternoon, his stomach would begin to tighten, not quite from hunger alone.

A lunch break, he told himself.

That was all.

Shen Qingqiu, naturally, pretended not to expect him.

This fooled no one, or at least it did not fool Shang Qinghua, which meant it was not a particularly strong performance. Shen Qingqiu was good at being Shen Qingqiu. He had to be. He wore that cold, polished face with a precision that still impressed Shang Qinghua, even now.

But the more afternoons they spent across from each other at the low table, the more Shang Qinghua learned the difference between real displeasure and performed disdain.

Real displeasure made Shen Qingqiu’s eyes go cold.

Performed disdain made him sit too still when Shang Qinghua entered, as though stillness itself could prove he had not been listening for footsteps. It made him avoid looking at the food box while clearly trying to identify its contents by scent. It made his fan lift just high enough to conceal his mouth, though never high enough to hide the slight, betraying movement of his nose.

On the fourth visit, Shen Qingqiu asked, "Passing by again?"

"Naturally." Shang Qinghua set the qiankun pouch on the table and began unfastening it. "An Ding Peak’s routes are complex. Profound, even."

"Profound is more of Qing Jing Peak’s domain."

"You don’t get to claim an entire concept. That’s unreasonable even by scholarly standards." He removed the first bowl, then the second, arranging them with more care than he wished to acknowledge. "Anyway, this humble one comes bearing nourishment."

Shen Qingqiu’s fan paused. "Nourishment?"

"Soup." Shang Qinghua lifted the lid, and steam rose between them, fragrant with chicken broth, ginger, and scallion. "For two. Administration eats away at the soul so someone has to repair the damage."

Shen Qingqiu looked at the bowl for one beat too long. "Is that your medical opinion?"

"No. If Mu-shidi asks, I know nothing."

"That sounds suspiciously like an excuse, considering you wrote about this world."

"Everything is an excuse if one is determined enough." Shang Qinghua ladled soup into the smaller bowl and pushed it across the table before Shen Qingqiu could refuse out of principle. "Eat first. Judge me after."

For a moment, Shen Qingqiu only looked at him, searching for something. Whatever it was, and whether he found it, Shang Qinghua could not tell, but it did make him lower his fand and accept the bowl with his usual cool experiession.

He kept throwing him glances, as if he wanted to ask something, and Shang Qinghua felt the force of that attention more sharply than he should have.

Finally, Shen Qingqiu took a spoonful and Shang Qinghua could exhale softly in relief.

The Qing Jing Peak Lord's face did not change much. It never did—not when he wanted to hide something—but his shoulders eased by the smallest degree, and when he swallowed, his eyes lowered to the bowl again instead of to his fan.

"Acceptable," he said.

Shang Qinghua should not have felt proud, it was not even a proper compliment.

He did anyway.

For a while, that was enough.

Shang Qinghua told himself it was enough, at least, which was almost the same thing.

Shen Qingqiu continued to eat the meals he prepared, and that was the important part, as he could see the colour returning to the man's face, the way his shoulders no longer sat quite so rigidly beneath his robes. Sometimes, after eating, he even complained or ranted at this or that, gesturing more and more animatedly with each day.

Shang Qinghua considered that a promising sign as only a man returning to life would have the energy to criticise the balance of ginger in a soup he had finished to the last spoonful.

Still, there were other things.

There was the closed door to Luo Binghe’s room, heavy and silent mausoleum in the Bamboo House, there was the sword mound outside, where the qi still gathered strangely whenever the wind shifted through the bamboo. There was the way Shen Qingqiu’s attention sometimes slid, without warning, toward that door while his hand remained around a bowl Shang Qinghua had placed in front of him.

At first, Shang Qinghua tried not to mind.

It was grief and the grieving process was different for everyone. Even knowing the protagonist lived did not change the shape of absence: Luo Binghe was gone from Qing Jing Peak, gone from the kitchen, gone from the small daily rituals no System message could restore. Shen Qingqiu had lost something, and Shang Qinghua had stumbled, purely by accident and lack of self-preservation, into a way of making the loss survivable.

Such a good, noble thing to do, if Shang Qinghua was a better person.

Unfortunately, he was just himself, and as much as he hated to admit that, some of Luo Binghe's traits were ones he projected onto the boy strongly, especially the strong, eternally hungry beast deep inside him, yearning for understanding, connection, and a person he could called his.

After several visits he had begun to wonder whether Shen Qingqiu wanted the food because Shang Qinghua had made it, or merely because it reminded him of his favourite protagonist. With time, the question had become harder to ignore and soon he caught himself seasoning congee and thinking not of Shen Qingqiu’s face, but of how Luo Binghe might have served it, how Luo Binghe might have smiled, how Luo Binghe’s absence sat between them like a third person with better narrative importance.

That was when Ning Yingying and Ming Fan made the situation worse.

They did not mean to, they were good children, loyal to their shizun in ways that would have been admirable if Shang Qinghua had not been the person suffering the consequences. As they came to Shang Qinghua and asked in a determined way for the recipe and pointers how to make food that their shizun would eat, Shang Qinghua had not had the heart to tell them to leave. And so, they followed his instructions with terrifying devotion: the mushrooms were fried and added, the rice softened into exactly the right texture. Ming Fan presented the final result with stiff shoulders, waiting for the verdict.

Shang Qinghua tasted it and found, to his surprise, that it was good.

Not merely edible. Good in the way it would remind everyone of the missing disciple.

Good enough that Shang Qinghua would become obsolete now.

And yet, Shen Qingqiu did not eat it.

When Ning Yingying told him, her eyes shining with frustrated tears, Shang Qinghua made all the appropriate soothing noises. He praised Ming Fan’s effort. and gave advice for next time.

Then he returned to An Ding Peak and stared at his own kitchen wall for a very long time, trying and failing to contain the twisted sense of satisfaction resting inside his chest.

The food was only half the offering.

The other half, apparently, was him.

The realisation settled somewhere beneath his ribs and began to ache. The meals had started from worry, from kinship, from the ordinary horror of seeing the only other person in this world who knew what a phone charger was sitting pale and silent beside a closed door. But somewhere along the way, Shang Qinghua had begun wanting more than improvement measured in finished bowls and less terrible complexion.

He wanted Shen Qingqiu to look up when he entered.

He wanted the fan to lower.

He wanted the small, private smile that appeared only when Shang Qinghua said something foolish enough to offend both scholarly dignity and common sense.

He wanted it for himself, and himself only.

Not as Luo Binghe’s ghostwriter or as a strange, second-hand substitute for the boy who would one day return from the Endless Abyss with beauty, power, and plot armour thick enough to offend the heavens.

Shang Qinghua did not want to erase Luo Binghe—he was not suicidal nor cruel enough for that, despite what certain comment sections had once suggested. Luo Binghe belonged in Shen Qingqiu’s grief . He belonged in the closed room, the untouched sword mound, the recipes that had become unbearable because the hands that made them were gone.

But Shang Qinghua wanted, shamefully and with increasing desperation, to know whether there was room for him too. The thought made him so homesick that for two nights he could not sleep.

On the third, he opened the small cabinet where he kept the plum wine. It had been a gift from one of his Hall Masters after a particularly successful supply negotiation. The wine was clear and fragrant, preserved in a narrow jar with a red seal, sweet enough to soften the edges of an evening without insulting the dignity of the drinker. Shang Qinghua had been saving it for some far away future moment of either celebration or emotional collapse.

Apparently, the future had arrived now.

He stood there in the dim kitchen light, staring at the jar, and then at the bundle of scallions on the counter.

It was possibly the worst idea he had had all month, though competition remained fierce. But the thought had already taken shape: scallion oil, soy darkened carefully over heat, a little sugar, noodles tossed until they shone. Not perfect as the ingredients here were not right; nothing here was ever quite right.

By the time he finished cooking Shang Qinghua had won and lost multiple internal battles over whether to bring the dish with him or not. In the end, he packed the noodles, the small side dishes, and the plum wine into his qiankun pouch before common sense could file an appeal.

The walk to Qing Jing Peak had never felt longer.

By the time he reached the Bamboo House, his palms were damp inside his sleeves. The closed door to Luo Binghe’s room caught his eye as soon as he entered, as it always did now. It sat there, quiet and heavy, and Shang Qinghua felt the weight of it more sharply than before.

He looked away.

Shen Qingqiu was already seated at the low table, fan open, gaze turned toward the bamboo outside with the deliberate indifference of a man absolutely not waiting.

"Aren’t you too free for a Peak Lord?" he asked with mock contempt.

Shang Qinghua paused in the doorway. "Aren’t you too obvious for someone pretending not to wait?"

"I was not waiting."

"The lady doth protest too much."

"I'm a man, you hack, even if you are more literate than I expected. You are simply earlier than usual."

"What kind of unreasonable timekeeping standard is this?"

"The kind used by people who arrive when expected."

Shang Qinghua stared at him, noticing the careful way Shen Qingqiu avoided his gaze, the fan hiding his expression as if Shang Qinghua did not know already he was smiling behind it.

Ridiculous man.

"Cucumber-bro," Shang Qinghua said, stepping inside, "are you finally admitting you missed me?"

"No."

"So cruel. This lowly one understands. Shen-shixiong was simply meditating in front of an empty table at the exact time I usually bring food. Very scholarly. Very detached from worldly desire."

The fan snapped shut.

"Airplane."

"Yes, yes, serving food now, milord."

That silenced him.

Usually, the scent entered the room before either of them had to admit anything; the warm simplicity of dishes Luo Binghe had learned and perfected with the desperate devotion of a child who wanted praise more than air. Those smells had become familiar between them, almost safe. They allowed Shen Qingqiu to grieve without saying he was grieving, and they allowed Shang Qinghua to help without admitting how badly he wanted to.

This time, the scent was different enough for Shen Qingqiu to look sharply at him.

There was no flash of wounded hope this time. No reflexive reach toward Luo Binghe’s name. Instead, his expression shifted into something slower and more dangerous: recognition, not of the dish exactly, but of the world it belonged to.

"We're having scallion oil noodles today?" Shen Qingqiu tested the words carefully.

Shang Qinghua’s fingers tightened around the smaller dish in his hand. "You had them before?"

"I lived in Shanghai," Shen Qingqiu said, giving him a look of faint pity. "Of course I did."

Shang Qinghua blinked.

Then his brain, which had survived several decades of transmigration through the noble art of selective avoidance, tripped over that statement and fell face-first into the floor.

"Wait. You lived in Shanghai?"

Shen Qingqiu lifted an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"As in Shanghai Shanghai?"

"Is there another one?"

"This world has several places with names that mean the same thing, don’t start with me."

"And whose fault is that excatly?"

The corner of Shen Qingqiu’s mouth moved.

Shang Qinghua lowered himself to the opposite seat, lost in thoughts. He had known Cucumber-bro was from their world, obviously, as that was the entire point of their transmigration shared history. But somehow he had never imagined him walking streets close to his own, eating the same cheap noodles, complaining about the same summer heat, living under the same city lights.

Same world had been strange enough, same city felt strangely indecent.

Shen Qingqiu’s gaze returned to the bowl. "Binghe never made this."

"No, he didn’t."

The silence changed.

Shang Qinghua felt it happen and immediately wished he could climb into the qiankun pouch and seal himself inside.

"This one," he said, trying for lightness and achieving something much thinner, "is mine."

Shen Qingqiu looked up.

The fan remained lowered between them. His face was still composed, still pale, still arranged into the elegant severity of Qing Jing Peak’s lord, but his eyes had gone very still.

"And you are sharing it with me?"

Shang Qinghua’s mouth felt dry.

"Apparently."

"That was not an answer."

"Then yes." He pushed the bowl a little closer before his courage could run away entirely. "This one is mine, and I am sharing it with you. Very tragic. Please be gentle with my fragile authorial heart."

Shen Qingqiu’s fingers tightened around his chopsticks.

For some reason, watching him reach for the noodles felt more exposing than all the previous meals combined. The congee had been safe because Luo Binghe had stood between them like a ghost. Every dish before this had carried the protagonist’s shadow but this one had no such protection.

This was Shang Qinghua’s homesickness placed on the table, exposing his own heart and feelings.

Shen Qingqiu took a bite and chewed slowly. At first, his expression revealed nothing, which was extremely unfair after all Shang Qinghua’s heroic suffering in front of the stove. Then his lashes lowered, and the tension at the corners of his mouth eased by a fraction.

He ate another bite.

"It’s good," he stated, for sure noticing Shang Qinghua's focused stare.

There was no fan between them when he said it, no sleeve raised to hide his mouth or distant Peak Lord tone turning simple words into something formal and untouchable. Just Cucumber-bro, sitting across from him, eating something Shang Qinghua had carried across two lives in the only way he still could.

Something in Shang Qinghua’s chest went warm at the praise, he could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks so he looked down quickly. "You don’t have to force yourself."

"I’m not."

"You’re allowed to say it’s bad. This father has survived worse criticism."

"I know. I wrote most of it."

"Exactly. Therefore your credibility is questionable."

Shen Qingqiu huffed—not quite a laugh, but close enough that Shang Qinghua’s stomach did something humiliating and unrelated to food.

The plum wine helped after that.

Not too much, because they were both cultivators and therefore tragically difficult to intoxicate by normal human standards. But enough that the heat of the wine reached Shang Qinghua’s face and made Shen Qingqiu’s ears turn a faint, elegant pink he would probably deny until the end of civilisation.

Somewhere between the second cup and the third, they started talking about home. Shanghai summers thick with humidity, convenience stores glowing at night. The smell of frying oil near subway exits, phone screens too bright in dark rooms, the particular horror of losing internet connection at the worst possible moment.

Shen Qingqiu complained about quality of novels and lack of discourse, to which Shang Qinghua defended himself with the dignity of someone who had absolutely deserved most of those comments and resented this fact deeply.

"You cannot blame readers for noticing plot holes," Shen Qingqiu said.

"I could have had a plan for them!"

"Sure, sure."

"Wound received," Shang Qinghua said, pressing one hand over his chest. "Possibly fatal."

"Good."

Despite the word, Shen Qingqiu's eyes were crinkled in amusement, fan laying down on the table, forgotten.

After that, things became strangely easy. The bowls emptied, the wine lowered in the jar, and the formal distance between them suffered several quiet defeats. At some point, Shen Qingqiu shifted where he sat and made a faint sound of irritation.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That was a very obvious nothing."

Shen Qingqiu gave him a look over the rim of his cup. "Proper posture is so tiring after a while."

Shang Qinghua stared at him.

Then, with great care, he set down his own cup. "Are you complaining that as Shen Qingqiu you sit too elegantly?"

"And what if I am?"

"So self-absorbed, lah~ You can always change position?"

Shen Qingqiu looked at him searchingly, as if weighing down his options, and shifted a bit again, their knees knocking against each other in result.

Then, apparently deciding to be insane, he said, "Move back."

Shang Qinghua obeyed so quickly that it should have been embarrassing.

It became far more embarrassing when Shen Qingqiu shifted, turned with stiff dignity, and lowered himself until his head came to rest in Shang Qinghua’s lap.

Shang Qinghua stopped breathing.

This was fine, perfectly normal.

…it was really not, and Shang Qinghua was unsure what to even do with himself.

Shen Qingqiu closed his eyes, conveniently avoiding his dumbfounded look, but the tips of his ears were delightfully pink..

"Do not make that face."

"You cannot see even see it."

"I can feel it being foolish."

"Bro," Shang Qinghua whispered, because his voice had somehow lost access to normal volume, "what are you doing?"

"Testing whether this position is less uncomfortable."

"And?"

"Be quiet. The experiment has only begun."

Shang Qinghua looked down at him, his hands hovered uselessly in the air.

Shen Qingqiu’s hair had loosened slightly from its arrangement, dark and smooth where it spilled over Shang Qinghua’s robes. A few strands had slipped against Shen Qingqiu’s cheek, softening the sharp line of his face in a way that made Shang Qinghua’s poor, abused heart attempt several doomed manoeuvres at once.

He did not touch.

He was a loyal servant of survival. He knew danger when it placed a peerless beauty’s head in his lap and told him to be quiet.

After a few moments, Shen Qingqiu opened one eye.

"You're being strange."

"Me?" Shang Qinghua nearly squeaked. "Me?"

"You keep holding your hands like a frightened crab."

"That is because this crab values his life."

Shen Qingqiu’s mouth curved.

Then he reached up and pulled the hairpin from his own hair, the loosened strands slid fully over Shang Qinghua’s lap.

"Headache-inducing," Shen Qingqiu muttered as an explanation that still did not make any sense to Shang Qinghua's poor heart.

Unable to help himself, he set one hand lightly against the fall of Shen Qingqiu’s hair.

It was as soft as it looked.

Of course it was. What irresponsible author had given the scum villain hair like silk and then allowed himself to be trapped beneath it?

Ah.

Still him.

His fingers moved slowly at first, barely combing through the ends, careful not to tug. Shen Qingqiu’s eyes remained closed, but the tension at his brow eased after a moment. Encouraged, Shang Qinghua drew his fingers through another section, enjoying the way the room grew quiet around them.

Outside, the bamboo shifted in the wind. Inside, the bowls sat empty, the wine cups half-filled, the fan abandoned on the table. Luo Binghe’s door remained closed, but for the first time all afternoon, Shang Qinghua was not looking at it.

Neither was Shen Qingqiu.

They spoke softly after that, of things too small to carry the weight of confession and therefore somehow able to hold it. Old cartoons, bad film adaptations, where Shen Qingqiu’s opinions on character arcs remained as violent as ever and Shang Qinghua’s defence of pacing collapsed under sustained attack.

At some point, without warning, Shen Qingqiu broke their strange impass: "What was your name?"

Shang Qinghua’s fingers stilled in his hair.

"What?"

"In our world." Shen Qingqiu’s voice was carefully casual, which meant it was not casual at all. "You had one."

"Obviously I had one. What did you think my parents did, call me Airplane from birth?"

"It would explain some things."

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes opened. From this angle, looking down at him felt much too intimate. His face was pale and tired, his cheeks still faintly coloured by wine, his hair loose across Shang Qinghua’s robes and his expression too open for safety.

"What was it?"

Shang Qinghua stared at him.

Names were only names, he knew that. He had been Shang Qinghua for longer than he had been anyone else. He answered to Peak Lord Shang, Shang-shixiong, Shang-shishu, traitor, coward, hack author,, and occasionally worse, depending on Mobei-jun’s mood and Cucumber-bro’s level of irritation.

But his old name had been buried with a body in another world, if there had even been enough body left to bury.

He had not heard it in decades.

"Xiang Fei," he said at last.

The syllables felt strange in his mouth.

Shen Qingqiu repeated it quietly, testing each syllable. "Xiang Fei."

Shang Qinghua wanted to crawl under the table and expire, which was inconvenient because Shen Qingqiu was still using his lap as disputed territory.

"Don’t say it like that."

"I am only saying your name."

"The tone was illegal. Banned." Shang Qinghua flailed with his hands, still careful enough not to hit the man in his laps by accident.

Shen Qingqiu did not know the word 'mercy', though.

"Are you blushing?"

"Cruel accusations from a man whose ears are currently betraying him," snapped Shang Qinghua back in a valiant attempt at redirection.

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes narrowed.

"Since we are apparently exchanging classified information," Shang Qinghua said quickly, because offence remained the only reasonable defence, "what was your name?"

Shen Qingqiu looked toward the window, before reaviling: "Shen Yuan."

Shang Qinghua opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Shen Yuan, Shen Qingqiu—what a tragic coincidence.

Shen Qingqiu—Shen Yuan—looked back at him, wary now, as if expecting some joke sharp enough to make him regret offering the name at all.

Shang Qinghua swallowed any ideas of making a lighthearted joke down.

"Okay," he said instead.

Shen Qingqiu's eyes flickered.

Shang Qinghua drew his fingers once more through the loosened hair in his lap, slow enough to give Shen Qingqiu room to object.

He did not.

Instead, he closed his eyes again, and the permission of it struck Shang Qinghua so sharply that he nearly forgot how to breathe.

He looked down at the man in his lap: Qing Jing Peak Lord, scum villain, Peerless Cucumber, Shen Yuan from Shanghai, too pale and too thin and still unbearably proud, but warmer now than he had been when Shang Qinghua first entered this room with congee and a stupid excuse.

Shang Qinghua was not naive enough to even think that the man was healed, finished grieving, or that all of their days will remain like this one. Still, they were here, alive, and the hair under his hand was smooth like silk.

"Too much scallion," Shen Qingqiu murmured after a while.

Shang Qinghua stopped moving, staring down at him in disbelief.

The man’s mouth curved without opening his eyes.

"But acceptable."

That expression should have been illegal.

Shang Qinghua fought valiantly to keep his racing heart under control, which meant he lost almost immediately.

"If you hate it so much," he said, with the brittle courage of a man already doomed, "I can stop bringing it."

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes opened, the smile vanished and for a moment Shang Qinghua thought he had ruined everything. Then Shen Qingqiu looked up at him from his lap, hair loose over Shang Qinghua’s knees, eyes cool in a way that was not cold at all.

"Don’t you dare."

Shang Qinghua blinked.

"Eh?"

"Do not deprive me of edible food after creating this disaster you call a world." Shen Yuan shifted slightly, settling more comfortably against him with the shamelessness of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and intended to deny it under interrogation. "Do you know what you have done to Qing Jing Peak’s kitchens?"

"…Created them?"

"The food is bland," Shen Yuan said, with feeling. "Everything is bland and tasteless."

"That is a serious accusation."

"It is a culinary tragedy and I will not stand by it."

Shang Qinghua watched him, entranced.

"…and that is why," Shen Qingqiu concluded, eyes closing again, "you owe me this food until the end of our lives."

"Yes, of course," Shang Qinghua said, still staring. "I will marry you."

Silence fell.

Shen Qingqiu opened his eyes.

Shang Qinghua’s soul left his body, looked back at him in disappointment, and departed for somewhere with better survival instincts.

"What."

"I said I will bring food tomorrow!" Shang Qinghua corrected at once, far too loudly. "Food! Tomorrow! No marriage involved! This Peak Lord remains tragically unmarried and extremely busy! Please erase the previous subtitle from your brain!"

Shen Qingqiu stared at him, the pink that receded long time ago came with full force, colouring his cheeks and ears, the man's hand twitched in search for a fan to hide behind.

"You're an idiot and I can't believe I want you around," he muttered grumpily. "You better be here tomorrow, I will make tea this time."

Shang Qinghua’s mouth snapped shut, he rested one hand lightly over the loose fall of his hair before his fingers could start trembling.

"Fine," he agreed. "But if you make it bad, I might throw the cup on you."

Half-hidden by the loose fall of his hair, Shen Qingqiu’s mouth curved again.

"Acceptable," he said.

And this time, Shang Qinghua had enough sense not to call that anything less than a victory.