Work Text:
Okay, so maybe drinking on the job hadn't been the best idea.
Shen Qingqiu was blaming Shang Qinghua. After having been dragged on this mission as Shen Qingqiu's emotional support animal, the other peak lord had decided to make the best of it and retrieved a jar of dubious substances and insisted that Shen Qingqiu needed to take a load off, and this was the perfect time to do it, away from all the mother hens on the mountain.
Shen Qingqiu hadn't agreed, but Mu Qingfang (traitor) had sniffed the bottle and told him it might be good for him, and Liu Qingge (other traitor) looked from the bottle to Shen Qingqiu to Shang Qinghua and back, then shrugged and looked the other way.
So here he was, three sheets to the wind, staggering after the old woman who had tagged his wrist and sprinted off with very unladylike speed, Shang Qinghua at his elbow wincing at him in combined worry and amusement.
He did feel lighter! And words came easier. And he had laughed twice, which was more than the last three years combined. Maybe he should become an alcoholic in the next two years. Really live it up in the time he had left before Luo Binghe came back to claim limbs and life.
Ha. Ha ha ha.
He staggered against Shang Qinghua, forcing the man to catch him. "Bro... I wanna die."
Shang Qinghua sighed, carefully setting him back on his feet. "Yeah. I know, bro. Not yet though, m'kay?"
"Mmgh," said Shen Qingqiu intelligently. Then, "Oh, it's not-Binghe."
Not-Binghe, otherwise known as Gongyi Xiao, interacted with Shang Qinghua briefly—Shen Qingqiu didn't catch much of the words spoken, but he saw the embarrassed wince on Shang Qinghua's face and the soft-yet-noble look on not-Binghe's that looked so much like Binghe that Shen Qingqiu sort of wanted to cry—and then joined them in chasing down the Sower.
"Don't go into any abysses, okay?" he said to Gongyi Xiao plaintively, allowing Shang Qinghua to sling his (Shen Qingqiu's) arm over his (Shang Qinghua's) shoulders. "You're too cute... too small..." Wetness cooled on Shen Qingqiu's cheeks, raining from a clear sky. "You're so small. Binghe was so small too... Just a little sprout... So good... So bright... So sweet... Such a good boy... And I..."
Shang Qinghua cleared his throat awkwardly, then thumped Shen Qingqiu's back. "C'mon, man, up, up. What would your disciples back home think if they could see you like this! Remember Ning-shizhi? Ming-shizhi? If they come around they'll worry..."
Thusly reminded of his position, Shen Qingqiu dried his face with his sleeve—damn rain—and sniffled. He then made some attempts to walk on his own, though Shang Qinghua chased him with arms outstretched, as though he expected him to fall down at any time (rude!), and Shen Qingqiu ended up needing his help with the stairs of the... brothel? Brothel.
"It's no trouble," said a clear, soft, smooth voice ahead of them, aching and thrilling in its familiarity, terrifying but—oh, god, Shen Qingqiu had missed it so much.
Shang Qinghua froze on the step, blanching white, and not-Binghe stumbled up behind them.
"Senior Shang? Senior Shen?"
And like that, Binghe, Binghe, Binghe turned towards them, expression politely guarded, eyes burning in his face, and... and...
And if Shen Qingqiu had had any sense, he would be turning tail and fleeing into the night, but his sense was buried under enough wine to tranquilize an elephant, so what he actually did was take in the fully grown protagonist, beautiful Luo Binghe in all his glory, so tall and strong and elegantly refined and...
And said, "Wow..."
And then, as that wasn't enough to express his feelings on the matter, he added to Shang Qinghua, "Binghe grew up hot, didn't he."
"Bro?!"
Binghe stopped walking, a strange look on his face that Shen Qingqiu couldn't remember him having worn in the original.
Shen Qingqiu left Shang Qinghua making strangled noises behind him and glided up to Binghe in his best impression of a less drunk version of himself, and inspected him from head to toe, poking him with his fan to move his arm and directing his chin to face forward, so he could admire than fine jawline.
After a moment, he drew back with a firm nod. "Airplane was right... I do want to fuck you so bad it makes me look stupid."
"BRO??!!"
The light pink cast that had been starting to darken Luo Binghe's alabaster cheeks took a turn for hibiscus red. "Sh-Shizun?" he squeaked.
"You still call me that...?" said Shen Qingqiu, blinking, then thumped his erstwhile ex-disciple on the head with his fan. "No. Bad. Binghe deserves better than a master who threw him away. Binghe should know his worth." Then a thought occurred to him. "Does Binghe know his worth? Are they treating you well in Huan Hua? You're eating enough? Binghe is out of the Abyss so early... oh!" He leaned in and poked his disciple in that delectable little strip of skin at his collar. "How did you do it? Two whole years! Did the training help? I hope it helped. I did my best, you know. If I had to send my precious disciple off to the races..." The System blinked red at him, but he ignored it. "I wanted him to be prepared. I can hardly believe it worked!"
"It... worked?" Luo Binghe said carefully, looking at him with an expression akin to hope, for some weird reason.
"The night hunts, the extra studies, making sure you knew more than just Qing Jing's sword style," Shen Qingqiu listed off, then patted the young man's head, unable to resist those floofy curls. "Two whole years... I would have liked for Binghe to skip the whole thing, but... there were circumstances."
'Circumstances' that were now flashing eye-searing red notices at him, but he was still a little too drunk to care.
"Shizun... knew this disciple would return?" said the protagonist, looking perilously close to the big fat ghibli tears his white lotus self had weaponized so easily.
"Of course!" Shen Qingqiu huffed, fluttering his fan, then retrieving his hand and bopping his disciple(??) on the nose with the fan guard. "Nothing could keep my Binghe down for long. Not even his evil scummy teacher. My Binghe is, of course, the coolest. And the strongest, and the smartest, and the most badass, and the prettiest and the most handsome, and, of course, there isn't a single problem he can't solve, not a single monster he can't slay, not a single swooning maiden that he can't..." His brain caught up with his mouth, and he coughed, feeling his warm face warm further. "Never mind."
There was a very undignified sort of expression on Luo Binghe's face now, half screwed up in disbelief, half flustered, half happy and half teary—which added up to another Binghe or two, which explained the two floating versions of him swimming in Shen Qingqiu's vision. "Shizun seems to... think well of this disciple."
Shen Qingqiu scoffed, and got as far as, "Obviously. Who wouldn't think well of Binghe?" before they were interrupted.
"You!" cried a young female cultivator with a blush high on her pretty cheeks. Pretty enough to be a wife? ...Probably not. "How dare you speak to Luo-shixiong so familiarly!"
With the absolute destruction of Shen Qingqiu's filter, his next thought slipped through completely unchallenged. "What a bitch."
"Senior Shen?!"
"Bro!!!"
"Shizun?!"
"Oops," Shen Qingqiu said over the triple threat protests. "I wasn't supposed to say that." He inspected her briefly, then turned to Luo Binghe. "I'm so sorry, Binghe. Is she your wife?" Luo Binghe looked utterly baffled. "No? Well, that's good. She is a bitch. And she's not even canon."
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Shang Qinghua press both hands over his face and mumble something like, "...didn't think it would be an inter-sect incident..." which Shen Qingqiu ignored.
"Binghe, you have been more circumspect about choosing your wives, haven't you?" he said, fluttering his fan. "I know Xin Mo asks so much of you, but you must remember to think of the harem balance before marrying a woman. Even if you ruined her reputation, it's too far to take responsibility for every single one! You deserve only the best wives, and, anyway, think of Ning Yingying! Think of Liu Mingyan! They're the ones who have to keep it running! Little Palace Mistress is more trouble than she's worth, and the girls in Huan Hua... you can do better."
Binghe mouthed a word or three to himself, then looked up at his old master with a strange expression. "Did Shizun become a woman while I was away?"
Shen Qingqiu blinked. What an odd question! "No. This master has not."
"Then this disciple doesn't have a need for any wife," said Luo Binghe, stressing the word oddly. Then he took a deep breath. "Does... does Shizun regret it? What happened... back then?"
"Every single fucking day," Shang Qinghua groaned quietly into his palms, inaudible if you weren't a golden core cultivator or half-demon. "Luo-shizhi, come back—it's been years and your master is still moping like a widow."
"I'm not a widow," Shen Qingqiu declared to the room at large, feeling his face flush further. Bad enough when Ning Yingying said it!! At least she was a well-known hopeless romantic!! "We were never married. And we never will be. Because we're both men."
There were probably some other reasons too, some gaps in his reasoning, but those were the only ones that really mattered... right?
A suspicion began to worm through his head. "Oi. Airplane. What the hell did you put in my drink?"
Airplane, the coward, laughed nervously. "Maaaaybe something we should discuss in private. Hey, isn't that the Sower—"
"Airplane."
Things were shuffled along at high speed after that, and Shen Qingqiu somehow(???) ended up clinging to Binghe's arm to stay upright instead of Shang Qinghua's.
He couldn't seem to stop talking about how nice the arm was, either, and now that he knew his drink had been spiked with something, it was starting to get a little embarrassing!!
Binghe seemed to agree, seeing how red his face was. Poor boy.
"Shizun," he said, a little faint, "why do you think two men can't get married?"
"Hm?" What an odd question. "It's illegal, isn't it?"
"Only in our hometown, bro," Airplane said quietly, looking distinctly embarrassed. "It's legal everywhere else in this world."
"Oh, shit," said Shen Qingqiu wonderingly, then he frowned. "Then why can't I marry Binghe?"
Silence.
He remembered. "Oh! It's because I'm not a woman. I said it, didn't I? Binghe deserves only the best wives. I can't be that if I'm a man." Depressing, but true.
More silence, which Shang Qinghua broke with, "Bro... I have no idea how your brain works sometimes."
Shen Qingqiu was about to come up with a witty retort of... some sort... when Binghe broke in with, "So... Shizun's only objection to marrying this... this one is that he is a man?"
Shen Qingqiu scoffed. "Obviously. What other objection could possibly exist?"
"...Bro..." Shang Qinghua groaned before Binghe could speak. Rude.
"What."
"You really do wanna fuck him so bad it makes you look stupid."
Shen Qingqiu had processed enough of the alcohol that hearing that so brazenly said right in front of Binghe made him splutter, even as the young man in question tripped on a loose stone. "Wha— I— Bro—!!"
"You said it yourself!!"
"I said it because you said it!!"
"But you said it!!"
"Yeah? And?"
"Oh my god."
"So," Binghe broke into their squabble, "if all Shizun requires to marry this Binghe is to become a woman, then there are a number of ways to accomplish this. If my master would be amenable."
There was a note of Protagonist Steel™ in his voice that brooked no argument, so Shen Qingqiu found himself nodding along, almost in a daze. A wife... him? Really? He would get a main lead's wages after all?? Complimentary meals of... Binghe's kisses, maybe???
Oh...
That...
That might be...
After a beat, Shang Qinghua said, "Well. Look at the bright side. The protagonist would never harm a woman, even after she, ah, did all that stuff—"
"What?" Binghe demanded, alarmed.
"—so, like, your limbs are probably safe, bro. Sis."
"My master's—what? Limbs? Protagonist?"
"Aaaahahaha... It's a long story."
Binghe's grip on Shen Qingqiu tightened to the point of pain as he growled, "Speak. Who has threatened Shizun in this way."
"Aaaah... fuck."
When Shen Qingqiu awoke the next morning, it was to an absolutely awful headache, a very strange weight on his chest, and Airplane-bro tied up with immortal binding cables next to his bed.
"Bro?" he croaked through a very dry throat, clutching his splitting headache and trying to sit up without losing the (minimal) contents of his stomach while he was at it. He hadn't had a hangover this bad since university. "What... happened?"
"Weeeeell... I've got good news and bad news," Shang Qinghua said nervously. "How much do you remember?"
He remembered... a number of things he would like to forget!! Shoo!! Shoo!! Away!!!
I wanna fuck you so bad it makes me look stupid—he wanted to die. Die. Every moment poor young Binghe spared him before taking his limbs and life was a moment of undeserved mercy and unmitigated torture.
Something was brushing against his arms weirdly, like his chest was... jutting out...?
He made the executive decision to proceed as though the past 24 hours hadn't happened at all. Mysteriously he was in the weapons shop!! That he didn't even know was a weapons shop!! Because he had never been here and the last thing he remembered was Shang Qinghua shoving the wine jug under his nose!!!
"I got nothing," he lied through his teeth. His chest still felt weird and... sensitive?? Specifically his pecs, which were... hm.
Boobs now. Like, not just moobs or whatever, but double Ds with cleavage and everything.
"...Is this the porn world equivalent of waking up with a tramp stamp?" he asked of no one.
"You discovered the bad news," Shang Qinghua said with a tragic nod. "Goodbye, little Cucumber-bro. I'm sure you'll be missed."
"Right," Shen Qingqiu said on a sigh, rubbing his head. Her head? How far did that transformation go anyway? "And the good news?"
"Luo Binghe escaped the abyss early and killed the System," Shang Qinghua said casually. "And he proposed to you. And you accepted, but you insisted on being a woman first. You do know he's, like, bi, right?"
"Binghe what?"
"Escaped the Endless Abyss. Killed the System. Proposed to you. Is bisexual." At Shen Qingqiu's continued gaping stare, Shang Qinghua shrugged. "I dunno what to tell you, meimei. He swings both ways? Eats both meat and fish? Like, if you're going to be taking the heavenly pillar regularly, a pussy will probably make your life easier, but it's not a set thing. You can get your little Cucumber-bro back if you want and it won't change anything for hi—"
"Stop talking," Shen Qingqiu hissed, her skin a violent shade of red. "What do you mean—System? System?"
Nothing.
"Turns out he doesn't actually want to rip off your limbs," Shang Qinghua said into the silence. "When he learned why you threw him in the abyss, he went nuts on the dream realm and when I came to, our Systems were both gone. That was his revenge. Also, he wants to—"
"Shizuuun," Binghe singsonged, the way he sometimes would when he went to wake Shen Qingqiu up in the mornings. He stepped into the room with a tray that smelled so divine Shen Qingqiu thought her stomach might turn inside out with hunger, and a smile that looked exactly like her little white lotus. "Will my master take breakfast?"
It's poisoned, was Shen Qingqiu's first thought, then her second was, It smells so good that I don't think I care.
Binghe set Shang Qinghua loose in order to kick him out, then did absolutely nothing but watch her with rapt, hawk-like intensity as she scarfed down the food—very unladylike for her first meal as a lady, but it was what it was.
When she was done, she did feel considerably better, so she suspected a hangover cure had been involved.
Binghe took the opportunity to get on his knees in front of her and clasp her hands. "Is this new body to Shizun's liking?" he asked pleasantly with a not-quite-edge to his tone, and she quailed.
"...It is," she said. Especially now that she was less hungover.
He nodded, firm. "Then, Shizun has no further objections to marrying this one?"
Hang on.
Hang on, hang on, hang on!!!
Shang Qinghua meant it?!
"I—this master—that is—" she stammered, feeling her face start to flush. Marry?? Marry Binghe?!! Drunk!Shen Qingqiu, what on earth—??!!!!
"Does my master have further objections?" her... disciple(??) asked dangerously.
A shiver (of fear! of fear!) shot down her spine, and she instinctively crossed her legs.
Something between them pulsed, the undeniable sensation of arousal both familiar and foreign, and she uncrossed them in a hurry. (What was she supposed to do with that, exactly?! She had no meat to beat!!) "I, uh..." She glanced into the endless void of black fire and starlit pools that had always... er, had enchanted her from the moment she became a girl—and squeaked out a weak, "N-no...?"
He smiled. It was a concerning sort of smile, brilliantly sweet and adoring(?!?!?!) and distinctly, er, possessive.
(Her insides quivered in a way she told herself she didn't recognize.)
"Ah, the sword—you should—be rid of it. To please this, ah, master." Before it drives you insane because I can't keep up with its fucking sex drive.
He smiled wider, for all appearances just his puppyish seventeen year old self except taller and broader and just a little bit unhinged, and said, "Of course, Shizun!"
She instinctively reached out to pat his head, and he bumped into it happily.
But, no, seriously. What the hell had been in that fucking wine?!