Work Text:
By the time the cultivation world knew him as Xiang Qingfei, Lord of Xuan Ji Peak and foremost diviner of Cang Qiong Mountain, Xiang Fei had accumulated twenty-seven years of experience in the sacred art of interpreting Heaven's will and remained privately convinced that most of it was bullshit.
It was an unfortunate opinion for the master of a peak whose disciples spent their mornings charting stars and their afternoons arguing over whether a crack in a tortoiseshell curved sufficiently eastward to signify marital discord. Xiang Fei had tried, particularly in his youth, to approach the discipline with greater reverence. He had read the manuals, memorised the correspondences, calculated lunar movements and learned which woods were burned for which questions and which varieties of jade allegedly reacted to fluctuations in nearby spiritual energy.
The trouble was that the more he learned, the less certain he became that anybody else knew what they were doing either.
His shizun had begun praising his extraordinary intuition when Xiang Fei was eleven. At twelve, he correctly predicted rain after noticing the pressure headache building behind his eyes and the peculiar metallic smell that always gathered over Cang Qiong Mountain before a storm. His shizun stared at him as though the Jade Emperor himself had descended to whisper the weather into Xiang Fei's ear.
At fourteen, Xiang Fei examined a cracked tortoiseshell, noticed that the petitioner beside him was twisting both sleeves hard enough to strain the seams, and announced that whatever troubled her concerned someone in her family. The woman promptly burst into tears.
His shizun nearly joined her.
It was terribly embarrassing for everyone involved, although only Xiang Fei seemed aware of this.
At seventeen, after three days spent memorising correspondences between the twenty-eight lunar mansions and the eight trigrams, Xiang Fei forgot which mansion governed journeys and chose one purely on vibes.
The merchant whose caravan he advised returned six months later carrying silk, oranges and a letter declaring Xiang Fei the saviour of his household.
His shizun called him a once-in-a-generation talent.
Xiang Fei lay awake until dawn.
Over the years, he developed what he considered a reasonably sophisticated professional methodology. He performed the appropriate ritual first, because there was no point in scandalising his disciples. Then he looked for anything in the resulting configuration that resembled something he remembered from the hundreds of manuals his shizun had forced upon him. After that came whatever information the petitioner had already provided, followed by a careful examination of the petitioner themselves. People revealed a surprising amount through clothing, posture, voice and expression when they believed one was occupied with Heaven instead.
Once all available evidence had been collected, Xiang Fei said something that sounded sufficiently profound.
His disciples had begun taking notes.
Unfortunately, this did little to discourage anyone.
The first person to make Xiang Fei seriously regret his reputation had been Shang Qinghua.
That incident occurred less than two years after Xiang Fei inherited Xuan Ji Peak, at a time when the name Qingfei still felt like something borrowed from a more competent man. His shizun had incorporated the Fei of his birth name into the Qing-generation name with great satisfaction, explaining that mist concealed the shape of Heaven until a discerning eye learned to see through it.
Xiang Fei had thought that sounded beautiful.
He had also suspected his shizun had made it up on the spot.
The meeting itself should have been unremarkable. An Ding Peak had brought revised patrol routes and winter supply projections to Qiong Ding, Yue Qingyuan was patiently leading them through matters nobody except Shang Qinghua appeared interested in, and Xiang Fei had entertained himself by turning one of the bamboo tally slips between his fingers.
Then Shang Qinghua leaned across the table to retrieve a ledger.
Something shifted at the back of Xiang Fei's mind.
The sensation was familiar and never pleasant. A name detached itself from memory, followed by images belonging to no life Xiang Fei could reliably call his own: black stone, ice, a man with pale eyes, a northern palace, demons moving through roads that ought to have belonged to Cang Qiong.
Shang Qinghua.
Traitor.
Mobei-jun.
His memories of another world—or another life, or some particularly elaborate delusion Heaven had saddled him with—were rarely coherent enough to be useful. He remembered broad catastrophes with confidence and their order almost never. People died, except when perhaps they did not. Someone fell into an abyss. Someone else was dismembered. Entire stretches of what should have been history survived only as impressions, tropes and names.
Still, Shang Qinghua was clear.
Shang Qinghua betrayed the sect.
Xiang Fei looked down at the tally in his hand. One edge had split along the grain, leaving a thin crack that pointed north across the table.
That would do.
"Shang-shixiong," he said, while Yue Qingyuan was still speaking, "you may want to reconsider whatever you're doing with the northern routes."
The room quieted.
Shang Qinghua's hand stopped halfway to the ledger.
Yue Qingyuan looked between them. "Xiang-shidi?"
Xiang Fei realised, somewhat late, that everybody had heard him.
He raised the tally.
"The alignment is poor."
Qi Qingqi leaned sideways to inspect it. "That is a broken piece of bamboo."
"Yes."
"And?"
Xiang Fei searched for anything resembling professional dignity. "The break intersects the northern axis."
Across from him, Shang Qinghua had gone pale.
Interesting.
Shen Qingqiu noticed too.
That was more frightening than interesting.
"What exactly does Xiang-shidi believe it signifies?" Shen Qingqiu asked. His tone was mild, which was generally when people should worry.
Xiang Fei considered the question. A sensible man would have retreated into ambiguity. His shizun had taught him several excellent phrases for these situations: hidden influences, obstruction in the path, danger through misplaced trust. Each was broad enough to survive almost any result.
Instead, the half-memory of black ice pressed unpleasantly against the inside of his skull.
"That someone responsible for moving supplies through the north has misplaced his loyalties."
The silence changed.
Shang Qinghua made a small sound.
Xiang Fei turned towards him automatically and immediately regretted it.
Shang Qinghua laughed too quickly. "Xiang-shidi's readings are becoming very dramatic."
"Probably."
"Perhaps the tally simply broke."
"Also possible."
Nobody relaxed.
Shen Qingqiu's attention shifted from Shang Qinghua to Xiang Fei and remained there.
Three days later, Shang Qinghua disappeared.
Two days after that, Shen Qingqiu brought him back to the sect under guard.
The investigation uncovered copied patrol maps, altered supply records and a pattern of meetings near the northern boundary that Shang Qinghua proved spectacularly incapable of explaining once Shen Qingqiu placed the evidence in front of him. The identity of the demon involved remained uncertain for some time. Shang Qinghua, despite every other failure, became remarkably stubborn on that point.
Xiang Fei did his best to remain uninvolved.
Shen Qingqiu did not permit it.
The scum villain arrived on Xuan Ji Peak after sunset on the fourth day of the investigation.
He dismissed the disciple who brought him in before the boy had even finished setting down the second cup. Xiang Fei watched the door slide closed behind him, then looked at the untouched tea opposite his own.
Shen Qingqiu sat without invitation.
The fan remained folded in his hand. He laid it across the table, precisely parallel with the edge, and only then raised his eyes.
"How did you know?"
There was little point pretending not to understand.
Xiang Fei lifted his cup, buying enough time to consider several answers and discard all except the one available to him.
"I divined it."
Shen Qingqiu's gaze moved towards the shelves behind Xiang Fei, where tortoiseshells, star charts and enough ceremonial paraphernalia to incriminate three generations of charlatans competed for space.
"From a cracked tally."
"Among other signs."
"What other signs?"
Xiang Fei drank.
The fact that Shang Qinghua had looked as though someone had read out his execution order at the conference seemed an impolite addition to the official methodology.
"Shen-shixiong knows how divination works."
"No." Shen Qingqiu reached for the tea at last, though he did not drink. He rotated the cup once between his fingers, watching the steam rise from its surface. "This lord does not."
That made Xiang Fei pause.
"I have spent years watching cultivators blame fate for their own poor decisions and praise Heaven whenever coincidence favours them." Shen Qingqiu finally looked at him again. "I have very little interest in doing either."
For one dangerous instant, Xiang Fei felt an overwhelming sense of kinship.
He buried it in another mouthful of tea.
"Then why ask?"
The cup clicked quietly against the table when Shen Qingqiu set it down.
"Because Xiang-shidi knew something he should not have known."
There it was.
Xiang Fei smiled with as much innocence as twenty-seven years of professional fraud could produce and spread one hand towards the various implements crowding his desk.
"And yet Shang Qinghua was a traitor."
"Yes."
"So perhaps the divination was simply good."
Shen Qingqiu's thumb moved once along the folded edge of his fan.
"Perhaps."
His expression made it clear that the word meant nothing of the sort.
From that day onwards, Shen Qingqiu watched him.
He did so without ever admitting to it. At Peak Lord meetings, his attention lingered whenever Xiang Fei offered an opinion. During rare joint missions, he occasionally asked questions whose connection to the matter at hand seemed questionable at best. More than once he appeared on Xuan Ji Peak under a perfectly reasonable pretext and left having learned considerably more about Xiang Fei's habits than the pretext required.
Strangely, Xiang Fei did not mind.
For all Shen Qingqiu's suspicion, he was also one of the few Peak Lords who never asked Xiang Fei whether the stars favoured an upcoming mission, whether a disciple's engagement would succeed, whether a new sword should be named on an auspicious day or whether an unusually shaped cloud above Bai Zhan meant anything.
He also began sending Xiang Fei tea every year around the anniversary of Shang Qinghua's exposure.
Neither of them mentioned why.
The tea was excellent and, surprisingly, never poisoned—this contributed considerably to Xiang Fei becoming fond of his scum villain.
The name had come from those same broken memories that warned him about Shang Qinghua. Shen Qingqiu was the scum villain. Xiang Fei knew that much. He knew there were brothels, rumours, a dead martial sibling who might or might not actually be killed by Shen Qingqiu, and an increasingly horrifying chain of future events involving Luo Binghe. Eventually Cang Qiong Mountain itself would fall apart around them, and Shen Qingqiu would end in a dungeon without his limbs.
The details shifted whenever Xiang Fei attempted to grasp them.
His opinion of the living man had become considerably less flexible.
Shen Qingqiu was prickly, traumatised, vindictive, terrifying when properly provoked and burdened with the sort of reputation that made new disciples visibly reconsider their life choices when he entered a room. He was also, in Xiang Fei's experience, perfectly capable of courtesy when nobody stomped squarely on his metaphorical foot, unexpectedly patient with clever disciples, and possessed of a sense of humour so dry that Xiang Fei sometimes needed several breaths to decide whether he had been insulted.
He also had the best tea on Cang Qiong Mountain.
Most importantly, Shen Qingqiu did not believe Xiang Fei's bullshit.
He had watched him for years, certainly. He had tested him, questioned him and occasionally regarded him as though Xiang Fei were a puzzle that had personally caused offence. Yet never once had he climbed Xuan Ji Peak to ask Heaven what his future held.
Which was why, on an otherwise pleasant morning in late spring, Xiang Fei found himself sitting opposite the Lord of Qing Jing Peak with three pieces of jade between them and a growing conviction that he was about to make a terrible mistake.
Shen Qingqiu had come to deliver documents. Yue Qingyuan had decided that the following month's inter-peak conference should include an assessment of the wards surrounding the eastern foothills, and somehow this required Xiang Fei's presence despite ward maintenance falling squarely within the interests of several other peaks. Shen Qingqiu claimed Yue Qingyuan had become 'temporarily incapable of delegating his own pointless errands.'
Xiang Fei accepted the scrolls, poured tea and prepared himself for the quarter-ke of complaining that usually followed any task imposed by Qiong Ding.
Then one of the jade pieces on his desk rolled beneath Shen Qingqiu's sleeve.
When Xiang Fei retrieved it, three dark inclusions marked the pale green surface.
He turned the stone over once, then again, while something unpleasant stirred at the back of his mind.
Shen Qingqiu.
Luo Binghe.
Qi deviation.
A room gone still around a cooling body, followed by the disorienting impression of someone else opening those same eyes.
Xiang Fei frowned.
That last part had always been particularly strange.
Somewhere among those memories was a person called Peerless Cucumber. Xiang Fei could no longer remember whether that had been a name, an insult or the kind of ridiculous username people in his other life had used on the internet. Sometimes he wondered whether another person from that world might appear one day and explain everything. It would be nice, at minimum, to meet somebody who understood why the phrase protagonist halo made him want to lie down and sob loudly.
For now, however, the only person in front of him was Shen Qingqiu: alive, irritable and still in possession of all four limbs.
Xiang Fei would prefer to keep him that way.
He turned the jade once more.
Three marks.
"If Xiang-shidi intends to stare at that stone until dinner, this lord can leave."
"Wait."
Shen Qingqiu stopped.
The word emerged with considerably more urgency than Xiang Fei intended. He looked down again, hoping Heaven might take pity on him and provide clarification.
It did not.
The jade remained jade. The stars were invisible in broad daylight. His spiritual intuition, supposing such a thing existed, offered only a vague sense of dread and a collection of images in which Shen Qingqiu's future became progressively worse.
Three days, Xiang Fei decided.
Why three days? Because there were three marks, duh.
Excellent.
"Shixiong," he said at last, setting the jade between them, "does this look unusual to you?"
Shen Qingqiu did not answer immediately. He reached across the table and drew the stone towards himself with one finger, turning it until morning light caught along its polished edge.
"It has three marks."
"Exactly."
Shen Qingqiu looked up.
"No doubt Xiang-shidi will now explain their tremendous cosmic significance."
Xiang Fei considered telling him there was none. Unfortunately, the pressure beneath his ribs had worsened while Shen Qingqiu handled the stone, and the image of a body that was Shen Qingqiu and somehow was not flickered again at the edge of his memory.
He drew the jade back.
"For the next three days, shixiong should avoid cultivating alone."
The fan in Shen Qingqiu's other hand had been opening.
It stopped.
His eyes lifted very slowly from the jade to Xiang Fei.
Xiang Fei waited.
"Excuse me?"
"Shixiong should not cultivate alone."
Shen Qingqiu's expression underwent a small but fascinating transformation. His mouth flattened. His fingers tightened around the fan. A faint flush appeared high along the edge of one cheekbone.
Xiang Fei stared at him.
Why was he blushing?
Then Shen Qingqiu said, with terrifying precision, "And whom, exactly, does Xiang-shidi propose this lord cultivates with?"
Xiang Fei's mind stopped.
He replayed his own sentence.
Avoid cultivating alone.
Ah.
Ah.
"No," he flailed.
Shen Qingqiu's eyes narrowed.
"I mean—no. That isn't—" Xiang Fei put the jade down before he dropped it. "Not dual cultivation."
The flush deepened.
Interesting.
"How reassuring."
"I meant someone should be nearby."
"Nearby."
"In case something happens."
"While this lord cultivates."
"Preferably outside the room."
Shen Qingqiu's fan snapped fully open.
Xiang Fei, against his better judgement, added, "Unless shixiong personally prefers otherwise, which falls outside the scope of the reading."
"Xiang-shidi."
"Yes?"
"Continue."
Right.
The prophecy.
Xiang Fei rubbed his thumb across the nearest dark inclusion as though greater physical contact might force the stone to explain itself.
"Spiritual pressure. Meridian instability, perhaps. The signs suggest internal backlash if shixiong's qi becomes sufficiently agitated."
Shen Qingqiu's attention returned reluctantly to the jade.
He leaned closer and inspected it from another angle.
"Three black specks told Xiang-shidi all this?"
"They are inclusions."
"They are specks."
"Shixiong has come to a divination peak and is now criticising my terminology."
"I came to deliver documents."
Shen Qingqiu slid the forgotten scrolls an inch across the table with two fingers.
Xiang Fei glanced at them, then back at the jade, knowing well enough that had Shen Qingqiu wished, he would have sent a disciple instead.
"Heaven took advantage of the opportunity."
The open fan moved once, slowly.
Xiang Fei had known Shen Qingqiu for years, long enough to recognise the peculiar stillness that settled over his face when annoyance approached genuine danger.
He smiled anyway.
His shizun had once taught him that confidence was essential when delivering an unfavourable reading. Xiang Fei had eventually concluded this was because frightened clients were less likely to complain when the diviner looked prepared to fight them.
"Anything else?" Shen Qingqiu asked.
"Try not to become angry."
The fan stopped moving.
A vein appeared near Shen Qingqiu's temple.
Xiang Fei tilted the jade towards him. "That, for example, is forbidden for the next three days."
"Xiang-shidi."
"Three days."
Shen Qingqiu rose.
"If nothing happens, I will return to discuss your jade."
Xiang Fei tipped his face up towards him. "This humble one looks forward to it."
The fan pointed directly at him.
"And if this was an elaborate attempt to suggest I require a cultivation partner—"
"It truly wasn't."
"—you will regret it."
Xiang Fei smiled pleasantly.
Shen Qingqiu left with the particular dignity of a man refusing to acknowledge that he had just been propositioned by a mineral.
Xiang Fei waited until the footsteps disappeared down the mountain path before lowering his forehead to the table.
His head disciple, who had spent the conversation pretending to organise scrolls on the far side of the room, approached almost immediately.
"Shizun?"
"What?"
"Was that the Triple Shadow Calamity?"
Xiang Fei lifted his head.
His disciple's eyes were bright with reverence.
"The what?"
"The three dark points upon pale jade. Shizun once taught us that irregularities in naturally aligned spiritual materials may reflect disruptions in nearby qi."
Xiang Fei had, in fact, taught them that. He had copied it directly from one of his shizun's manuals.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "Naturally."
His disciple bowed. "This disciple understands."
Good.
At least one person did.
Nothing happened on the first day, which Xiang Fei found encouraging. By the end of the second, his confidence had improved enough that he began privately revising the entire incident into an unfortunate attack of nerves brought on by half-remembered future catastrophes and too much tea.
The third afternoon found him halfway to Qing Jing Peak.
He stopped on the stone path and stared down at his own feet.
Around him, bamboo rustled in the warm breeze. Several junior disciples carrying baskets of medicinal plants bowed as they passed, and far below, clouds drifted between the lower ridges in slow white banks.
He had work waiting for him. Several petitions still required examination, his youngest disciple had somehow reversed the directional flow of a minor star-gathering array, and the peak accounts were overdue because Xiang Fei had hidden them beneath a stack of charts in the hope that neglected paperwork might eventually cease to exist.
There was no sensible reason to continue walking.
It was, however, the third day.
Xiang Fei resumed climbing.
He would check. Follow-up observation was surely a fundamental component of serious divinatory practice, and if Shen Qingqiu laughed at him—or worse, brought up dual cultivation again—Xiang Fei could cite professional responsibility and retreat.
The disciples on Qing Jing informed him that their shizun was in the bamboo house.
Alone.
The irritation came quickly enough to almost hide his fear.
"Did he dismiss all of you?"
The nearest disciple hesitated. "Shizun said he wished to cultivate undisturbed."
Of course he had.
Xiang Fei covered the remaining distance fast enough that dignity became irrelevant.
He felt Shen Qingqiu's qi before reaching the door. The energy inside the bamboo house pressed against the walls in uneven waves, dense enough to lift the fine hairs along Xiang Fei's arms. One moment it contracted sharply towards the centre of the room; the next it burst outward with enough force to rattle the shutters.
He shoved the door open.
Shen Qingqiu sat on the floor beside the bed, one hand braced against the boards. His face had gone colourless. Damp hair clung to his temple and neck, and the hand pressed over his dantian trembled hard enough for Xiang Fei to see it from the doorway.
His eyes lifted.
"Get out."
Xiang Fei stepped inside.
"Wonderful to see you too."
"Xiang—"
Shen Qingqiu's breath caught. His spiritual energy lurched with it.
Xiang Fei crossed the room and dropped beside him. Even without the half-dead memory that had brought him there, he knew enough cultivation theory to recognise danger when it was trying to tear a man's meridians apart. Shen Qingqiu's qi was folding inward along several pathways before being forced violently outward each time he attempted to regain control.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"Shixiong's definition of nothing is becoming concerning."
"Get Mu Qingfang."
Xiang Fei was already reaching for a communication talisman when Shen Qingqiu caught his wrist.
The grip was weaker than it should have been.
"Quietly."
Even half-collapsed on the floor, the man was worrying about who might discover weakness.
Xiang Fei looked from Shen Qingqiu's pale face to the white knuckles around his wrist and suppressed several uncharitable comments.
"Fine."
He sent the message directly.
While they waited, he persuaded Shen Qingqiu to regulate his breathing and stopped him twice from trying to circulate qi. The first intervention required an argument. The second required Xiang Fei to catch both of Shen Qingqiu's hands and hold them down against his knees until common sense returned.
"You are making it worse."
"I know."
"Then stop."
"If it were that simple—"
"Shixiong." Xiang Fei tightened his grip when Shen Qingqiu tried again. "For once in your life, allow somebody else to be right."
Even through the pain, Shen Qingqiu found enough energy to glare.
Good.
Glaring was better than dying.
By the time Mu Qingfang arrived, Shen Qingqiu was coherent enough to insult both of them.
Xiang Fei took this as an excellent prognostic sign.
He remained until Mu Qingfang announced that the immediate danger had passed. Shen Qingqiu would need several days of rest and, more importantly, had to refrain from forcing his cultivation through whatever obstruction had triggered the attack.
"You were fortunate," Mu Qingfang said as he gathered his needles. "Another shichen alone could have made the damage considerably worse if not fatal."
Shen Qingqiu's gaze moved towards Xiang Fei.
Xiang Fei developed an urgent interest in a medicinal bottle.
Mu Qingfang followed the look.
His expression changed.
Xiang Fei had seen that expression several times since inheriting Xuan Ji Peak and disliked it every time.
"Xiang-shixiong," Mu Qingfang said carefully, "how did you know?"
"I was nearby."
Shen Qingqiu gave a soft, humourless laugh.
"With a warning three days ago."
Mu Qingfang became very still.
Xiang Fei briefly considered the window.
"The indications were broad. Anyone could have—"
"Three days," Shen Qingqiu said. "Internal spiritual pressure. Meridian instability. Avoid solitary cultivation."
Mu Qingfang's eyes flickered between them.
A horrible thought crossed Xiang Fei's mind.
"Not like that," he said immediately.
Mu Qingfang blinked.
Shen Qingqiu turned his head.
Even pale and exhausted, the expression he gave Xiang Fei could have stripped bark from trees.
Xiang Fei shut his mouth.
Mu Qingfang looked at him with something dangerously close to awe.
Shen Qingqiu smiled.
It occurred to Xiang Fei, perhaps for the first time, that the man was enjoying himself.
News travelled across Cang Qiong Mountain with the efficiency of plague.
For the next two weeks, Xiang Fei insisted whenever cornered that Shen Qingqiu's qi deviation had been predictable to anyone sufficiently familiar with the relevant cultivation patterns. Nobody asked how Xiang Fei had become familiar with Shen Qingqiu's cultivation patterns. His disciples began leaving fresh jade on his desk, and Peak Lords who had once greeted him at conferences with polite indifference now wanted his opinion on journeys, negotiations and clouds they considered unusually shaped.
Yue Qingyuan sent a personal note expressing gratitude, along with approval for increased funding to Xuan Ji Peak.
Xiang Fei kept the funding and burned the note.
Shen Qingqiu returned several days after Mu Qingfang finally permitted him to leave Qing Jing.
He arrived shortly before dusk with a box of expensive sweets under one arm.
Xiang Fei looked at the box, then at Shen Qingqiu, and back again.
"If this is payment, shixiong should know that accepting gifts in exchange for favourable prophecy undermines the dignity of my office."
"It is just a few pastries."
"That does not address my concern."
"It is the exact one Xiang-shidi complained An Ding had stopped buying."
Xiang Fei accepted the box and turned it over in his hands, recognising the seal.
"You remembered."
Shen Qingqiu was already drawing out the chair opposite him. "Unfortunately."
Xiang Fei set the box aside.
"It will match well with the tea."
"Is shixiong suggesting something?"
"I'm already sitting and waiting, aren't I? Be a good shidi, now."
A faint movement touched the corner of Shen Qingqiu's mouth.
They drank the first cup in silence.
Xiang Fei assumed that would conclude matters. Shen Qingqiu had recovered, brought a gift to discharge whatever obligation he felt existed between them, and could now return to his own peak, where he would hopefully remain alive without requiring further supervision.
Instead, Shen Qingqiu rested his fan across his knees.
"What does Qingfei-shidi see for tomorrow's conference?"
Xiang Fei's cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
The name caught him first.
Qingfei-shidi?
Xiang Fei drank, taken off guard.
"The conference?"
"Yes."
"Shixiong wants a divination?"
"Is that not what this peak does?"
"It is among our services."
"Then divine."
This was new in more ways than one.
Xiang Fei reached for three coins.
Shen Qingqiu watched while he shook them in his palm and cast them across the table. Two landed marked-side upwards. The third rolled neatly into the tea tray and stopped against the pot.
Xiang Fei studied them.
"Zhangmen-shixiong will speak for too long."
Shen Qingqiu's face remained impassive. "That requires no contact with Heaven."
"Sometimes Heaven speaks through common sense."
"What else?"
Xiang Fei regarded the coin against the teapot.
"Someone will raise the matter of the western training grounds."
"Why?"
"Bai Zhan damaged them again."
Shen Qingqiu reached over and nudged the coin away from the pot with one fingertip. "Why does the reading indicate this?"
"Oh." Xiang Fei touched the coin solemnly. "Obstruction beside water."
Shen Qingqiu looked at the teapot.
"The water."
"An ancient symbol."
"You, Xiang Qingfei, are a fraud."
Xiang Fei took another sip of tea.
He found he did not mind the full name either.
"Then shixiong has nothing to fear from tomorrow."
At the conference, Liu Qingge announced that Bai Zhan required additional funds to repair the western training grounds.
Shen Qingqiu's head turned slowly towards Xiang Fei.
Xiang Fei lowered his gaze to his notes and stayed there.
After that, Shen Qingqiu developed a habit.
He never acknowledged it. He simply kept appearing.
Sometimes he brought a question about a mission. Sometimes he wanted to know whether accepting a particular disciple would result in trouble. Once, he crossed half the sect to ask whether Yue Qingyuan was likely to approve a proposed change to Qing Jing's library funding, which Xiang Fei suspected could have been resolved considerably faster by asking Yue Qingyuan himself.
Xiang Fei told him so.
Shen Qingqiu seated himself at Xiang Fei's worktable, picked up one of the casting sticks and turned it between his fingers.
"Divine."
"You could ask him."
"I could."
"You won't."
"No."
Xiang Fei sighed and held out his hand.
Shen Qingqiu placed the stick into it.
Their fingers brushed.
Neither remarked upon it.
Xiang Fei gathered the rest and cast them.
"He will approve."
"Why?"
"Zhangmen-shixiong approves almost everything Shen-shixiong asks for."
The change in Shen Qingqiu's face was small enough that another person might have missed it. Xiang Fei had been watched by this man for years; he had learned, in self-defence, to observe back.
He lowered his attention to the sticks.
One lay across two others.
Old debt. Interruption. A road blocked and later resumed.
Or perhaps that interpretation belonged to another arrangement?
He rearranged one of the sticks with his nail.
"Although the question being asked may not be the one troubling shixiong."
Shen Qingqiu had been turning his fan over in his lap.
The movement stopped.
"And what question," he asked, voice gaining a nearly hissing quality, "might be troubling me?"
Xiang Fei immediately regretted opening his mouth.
"How would I know? It's shixiong's question."
"Qingfei-shidi's reputation becomes less impressive by the moment."
"There are limits to divination."
"Convenient."
"Very."
Shen Qingqiu should have left.
Instead he remained while evening settled beyond the open doors. Lessons had finished on the lower terraces, and the main hall grew steadily quieter until only the occasional chime of bells travelled in from outside.
Xiang Fei collected the sticks into a neat row.
Shen Qingqiu watched him do it.
At last he said, "Suppose a relationship has been damaged beyond repair."
Xiang Fei's hands slowed.
That could only mean Yue Qingyuan.
For once he understood the situation before Shen Qingqiu had finished making it impossible.
"Then it has been damaged beyond repair."
Shen Qingqiu's eyes narrowed.
"So easy to judge."
"Shixiong asked."
"And nothing more?"
Xiang Fei exhaled through his nose and set the final stick down.
"If Shen-shixiong means whether it can become exactly what it was before, I doubt it."
Shen Qingqiu's fingers tightened once around his fan.
Xiang Fei chose his next words more carefully.
"People change. Circumstances change. Learning what happened can change how everything before it is understood." He brushed one thumb over a shallow scratch in the tabletop, thinking. "Trying to force a relationship back into an earlier shape seems exhausting."
"Then Heaven advises abandonment."
"I didn't say that."
"What else remains?"
"Something different."
Shen Qingqiu looked at him.
"If both people still want something from each other, they can decide what that something should be now. It doesn't have to resemble what they lost."
Silence stretched between them.
Xiang Fei became conscious that he had ceased doing anything remotely connected to divination and reached automatically for the casting sticks.
Shen Qingqiu caught his wrist.
The movement startled him more than it should have.
The last time Shen Qingqiu had held him there, his fingers had been cold and shaking with a qi deviation. Now the grip was warm, steady and completely unnecessary.
"Leave them."
Xiang Fei glanced down at the hand around his wrist.
Then back up.
Shen Qingqiu did not release him.
"All right."
A servant came quietly to light the lamps and left again. Neither man moved much until the door slid shut.
Only then did Shen Qingqiu speak.
"He knew me before I was Shen Qingqiu."
Xiang Fei looked up.
Shen Qingqiu's attention rested on the nearest lamp flame.
"Before the sect," he added. "Before any of this."
There were several questions Xiang Fei could have asked.
He asked none.
"Back then," Shen Qingqiu said, "I was Shen Jiu."
The name settled quietly between them.
Xiang Fei knew it already.
Hearing it from Shen Qingqiu himself felt entirely different.
The fingers around his wrist loosened slightly, though they did not withdraw.
"Then perhaps," Xiang Fei said, "whatever you and Zhangmen-shixiong become now doesn't have to decide what happened to Shen Jiu."
Shen Qingqiu's eyes shifted towards him.
For several breaths Xiang Fei wondered whether he had gone too far.
Then Shen Qingqiu's thumb moved once against the inside of his wrist.
"Perhaps."
He stayed until the lamps burned low.
A month later, Xiang Fei discovered that Shen Qingqiu had spoken privately with Yue Qingyuan.
This required no prophecy.
Both men became almost painfully uncomfortable around one another for approximately two weeks, after which their interactions settled into something Xiang Fei could only describe as less catastrophic. He had not realised their relationship possessed enough remaining room to worsen before improving, yet apparently Heaven contained miracles after all.
He took this as proof that his advice had been excellent.
His divination had contributed nothing whatsoever.
Shen Qingqiu, unfortunately, seemed unwilling to recognise the distinction.
His visits grew more frequent.
Tea appeared first, beyond the annual gift Xiang Fei had already come to expect. Then came star-map paper from a merchant in the south, finer than anything Xiang Fei could source locally, followed by a small bronze astrolabe recovered during a mission.
"You keep giving me expensive objects," Xiang Fei observed.
He was seated on the floor beside a low table with the astrolabe balanced in both hands. Shen Qingqiu knelt opposite him, one sleeve gathered away from the tea tray.
"The astrolabe is damaged."
"It is three hundred years old."
"Then perhaps Qingfei-shidi can divine how to repair it."
"Perhaps Qing Jing Peak should learn how gifts work."
Shen Qingqiu opened his fan.
Xiang Fei turned the astrolabe over. One of its rings caught awkwardly.
"At least admit you thought I'd like it."
The fan shifted high enough to obscure the lower half of Shen Qingqiu's face.
"I thought Xuan Ji Peak might find it useful."
"Mm."
"Do not make that sound."
"What sound?"
"That one."
Xiang Fei smiled and returned to the astrolabe.
Several weeks later, Shen Qingqiu appeared without a question at all.
Xiang Fei waited.
Shen Qingqiu drank tea.
Xiang Fei sorted three petitions and waited longer.
Eventually Shen Qingqiu began complaining about Liu Qingge.
There was apparently a dispute concerning a night-hunting assignment, three damaged bamboo groves, and whether directing a spiritual blast through another man's outer robe could reasonably be called an accident when it happened twice.
Halfway through the story, Xiang Fei realised no divination was forthcoming.
The discovery was strange enough that he looked up from the petition in his hand.
Shen Qingqiu stopped.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Then why are you staring?"
Xiang Fei lowered the petition.
"You haven't asked me anything."
"I have been speaking for half a ke."
"You haven't asked for a reading."
Shen Qingqiu looked at him as though Xiang Fei had just revealed a worrying limitation in basic intelligence.
"No."
"Oh."
Xiang Fei picked the petition back up.
Shen Qingqiu waited.
After several breaths, Xiang Fei realised he was expected to say something.
"So Liu Qingge destroyed the bamboo."
"Three groves."
"Terrible."
"He insists the third was already damaged."
"Do you believe him?"
"Of course not."
The conversation continued.
By the time Shen Qingqiu left, Xiang Fei knew considerably more about Bai Zhan's training practices than any sane man required and still possessed no understanding of why Shen Qingqiu had travelled across three peaks to tell him about them.
"Shizun," his head disciple said after Shen Qingqiu disappeared down the path, "Shen-shibo visits often."
Xiang Fei looked at him.
His disciple was carefully straightening a stack of charts that did not require straightening.
"And?"
The boy's fingers paused.
"Nothing."
Xiang Fei narrowed his eyes.
His disciple bowed and retreated with suspicious speed.
The question of Shen Qingqiu's romantic prospects arose in autumn.
In Xiang Fei's defence, Shen Qingqiu approached the matter like someone negotiating a border treaty while refusing to acknowledge the existence of borders.
They had been discussing a proposed marriage involving one of Qing Jing's senior disciples. Shen Qingqiu had brought the relevant birth records because, despite his professed contempt for fate, he apparently did not object to ensuring that his disciple's wedding date avoided several traditional taboos.
Xiang Fei was halfway through a sesame pastry when Shen Qingqiu asked, seemingly without relation to anything said before, "Does Qingfei-shidi believe certain relationships are predetermined?"
Xiang Fei nearly inhaled the filling.
He coughed into his sleeve.
Shen Qingqiu, entirely unsympathetic, pushed the tea closer.
"Predetermined?"
"By fate."
Xiang Fei drank and wiped his mouth.
"You're asking whether destined partners exist."
The faint disdain on Shen Qingqiu's face suggested Xiang Fei had selected the least elegant wording available.
"Some sects recognise such bonds."
"Some sects believe living on dew improves cultivation."
"Qingfei-shidi leads a divination peak."
"Exactly. I have met diviners."
Shen Qingqiu gave him a cold look and reached for his own tea.
Xiang Fei took another bite of pastry.
Then the implication caught up with him.
He slowly lowered his hand.
"Wait."
Shen Qingqiu's cup paused near his mouth.
"Is shixiong asking about his own romantic fate?"
"No."
Xiang Fei stared.
A faint colour had appeared at the tops of Shen Qingqiu's ears.
This was extraordinary.
"Shixiong."
"Forget it."
"Absolutely not."
Xiang Fei was already reaching beneath the table for a lacquered box.
Shen Qingqiu's attention followed the movement.
"What are you doing?"
"You have interrupted my meals, insulted my methods, threatened my jade and demanded readings about conference agendas. There is no possibility that I will allow you to leave after finally asking something interesting."
"I asked a theoretical question."
"And this will be a theoretical divination."
"I did not agree to—"
Xiang Fei set the box between them and lifted the lid.
"Choose three."
Inside lay paired peachwood tablets carved with symbols traditionally used for questions of alliances, marriage contracts and interpersonal compatibility.
Xiang Fei had never trusted them.
This made them ideal.
Shen Qingqiu regarded the tablets with deep suspicion. He reached into the box only after Xiang Fei nudged it closer, drew one piece, hesitated, then selected two more.
He laid them down in a row.
The first showed a mountain beneath seven stars. Two lines crossed on the second. The third depicted a branch bearing a single flower.
Xiang Fei leaned closer.
The mountain was easy enough.
Cang Qiong.
The crossed lines could indicate conflict or convergence depending on their orientation, the surrounding cast and which of seven contradictory manuals one preferred. The flower meant partnership, fulfilment or spring.
Probably.
"The person is here," Xiang Fei said.
Shen Qingqiu's fingers stopped beside the final tablet.
"On Cang Qiong."
"Mn."
Xiang Fei picked up the second piece and turned it towards the light.
"Someone shixiong has conflicted with."
Shen Qingqiu's fan shifted against his knee.
"Frequently."
Interesting.
Yue Qingyuan came to mind first, but Xiang Fei dismissed him. Their recent conversation might have improved matters, yet romantic destiny seemed ambitious given the amount of emotional wreckage still lying between them.
Conflict.
Same sect.
Powerful cultivator.
Someone Shen Qingqiu already knew.
Understanding dawned.
Xiang Fei sat back and smiled.
Liu Qingge.
Of course.
It was almost embarrassingly obvious once he saw it: the fighting, the arguments, the repeated fixation disguised as mutual annoyance. His memories from his previous life contained several expressions for this sort of thing, most of them attached to fictional romances and internet arguments.
Enemies becoming lovers.
Classic.
"What?" Shen Qingqiu asked.
"Nothing."
"You are smiling."
"I've reached a preliminary conclusion."
"And?"
Xiang Fei rolled the flowering tablet between his fingers.
"Someone close. Someone whose path crosses yours repeatedly. Conflict has already shaped the relationship, though it doesn't appear to be where the path ends."
Shen Qingqiu watched his face with unusual concentration.
Xiang Fei, encouraged, continued.
"Strong-minded. Difficult. Probably irritating."
One of Shen Qingqiu's eyebrows rose.
"That describes half the Peak Lords."
"Yes, but only one regularly tries to stab you."
Silence.
Shen Qingqiu stared.
Xiang Fei waited for revelation to dawn.
It did.
Apparently it was the wrong revelation.
"You think it's Liu Qingge."
Xiang Fei spread his hands.
"The signs are persuasive."
For several breaths Shen Qingqiu said nothing.
Then he closed his eyes.
"Xiang Qingfei."
"Yes?"
"If you ever tell the brute this, I will throw you from the mountain."
"Shixiong asked for Heaven's guidance."
"Heaven has terrible judgement."
Xiang Fei looked down at the tablets.
On that point, they agreed.
He did not tell Liu Qingge.
He did, however, attempt to help.
The distinction seemed important.
Three weeks later, a joint mission took Qing Jing and Bai Zhan into a region containing several unstable spiritual formations left behind by an abandoned sect. Xuan Ji had been asked to accompany them because somebody needed to examine the formations.
Once Xiang Fei recognised the opportunity presented to him, he accepted enthusiastically.
The mission itself proved uneventful.
The problem began at dinner.
They had taken rooms in an inn at the edge of a small cultivation town. Xiang Fei arranged the seating with what he considered admirable subtlety, placing Shen Qingqiu beside Liu Qingge while choosing a seat for himself near the exit.
Shen Qingqiu entered last.
He looked first at the empty seat beside Liu Qingge.
Then across the table at Xiang Fei.
His eyes narrowed.
Xiang Fei smiled encouragingly and pointed towards the chair.
Liu Qingge sat without noticing anything.
The meal deteriorated almost immediately.
Within minutes, Liu Qingge criticised the efficiency of Qing Jing's sword formation. Shen Qingqiu asked whether Bai Zhan disciples had recently developed an allergy to strategy. Liu Qingge accused him of cowardice. Shen Qingqiu suggested that only a man compensating for serious deficiencies elsewhere would devote quite so much attention to the size of his sword.
One junior disciple choked.
Two others discovered urgent responsibilities elsewhere.
Xiang Fei quietly finished his noodles.
Clearly, the path of destiny contained obstacles.
He tried once more the following morning.
"Liu-shidi," he said while the group assembled outside the inn, "Shen-shixiong mentioned wanting to inspect the northern ridge."
Shen Qingqiu, who had mentioned nothing of the sort, turned his head.
Liu Qingge adjusted his sword.
"I'll go."
"Excellent."
"You are coming too," Shen Qingqiu said.
Xiang Fei smiled. "Unfortunately, I need to examine the formation by the river."
"I thought An Ding was examining it."
"They require supervision."
"An Ding does not require your supervision."
"One can never be too careful."
Shen Qingqiu stared at him.
Xiang Fei held the stare with the serenity of a man acting in accordance with Heaven's will.
Beside them, Liu Qingge shifted impatiently.
"Are we going or not?"
Shen Qingqiu snapped his fan shut.
"Apparently."
They left.
Xiang Fei congratulated himself.
That evening Shen Qingqiu entered Xiang Fei's room without knocking.
Xiang Fei was seated beside the window with a star chart spread over his knees. He looked up.
"How was the ridge?"
Shen Qingqiu slid the door shut behind him.
Xiang Fei examined his expression.
"Scenic?"
"Explain."
"The ridge?"
Shen Qingqiu crossed the room, stopped beside the low table and put two fingers on the edge of Xiang Fei's chart.
"Explain why Liu Qingge has appeared beside me at every available opportunity for the past two days."
Ah.
Xiang Fei tightened his hold on the chart before Shen Qingqiu could confiscate it.
"We discussed this."
"You babbled over three pieces of wood."
"Inscribed peachwood."
"I will burn them."
"Then I will charge Qing Jing Peak."
Shen Qingqiu pulled.
Xiang Fei refused to let go.
For several breaths they conducted a silent struggle over the star chart.
Eventually Shen Qingqiu released it.
"Do you genuinely believe Liu Qingge is my destined partner?"
Xiang Fei smoothed the wrinkled paper over his knee.
"You seem resistant to the possibility."
"I have considered feeding him to a demon."
"Many successful romances begin with misunderstandings."
"That is not a misunderstanding."
Xiang Fei rubbed his chin.
Perhaps Yue Qingyuan remained possible after all.
The tablets had indicated conflict, pride and repeated intersections—
His thoughts broke when Shen Qingqiu stepped closer.
Xiang Fei had to tilt his head back slightly to meet his gaze.
"Perhaps," he said carefully, "I interpreted one symbol incorrectly."
"One."
"Possibly two."
Shen Qingqiu laughed without humour.
"This is the celebrated insight of Cang Qiong's great diviner?"
"Shixiong has always known my methods were questionable."
"And yet they saved my life."
The room quieted.
Xiang Fei's amusement faded.
Shen Qingqiu looked away first, something he did rarely enough that Xiang Fei noticed every time.
"They did," Xiang Fei admitted.
He still did not know how.
Sometimes he remembered that afternoon on Qing Jing and wondered what would have happened if he had remained on his own peak.
The answer arrived in fragments whenever he pushed too hard: a body cooling; another consciousness waking; a young man from somewhere impossibly distant opening Shen Qingqiu's eyes.
Perhaps it was memory. Perhaps prophecy. Perhaps Xiang Fei had spent so much of his life studying divination that his mind had begun manufacturing supernatural nonsense in self-defence.
He knew only that the Shen Qingqiu standing before him was alive because Xiang Fei had gone to check.
The thought frightened him in ways he preferred not to inspect.
"You were right," Shen Qingqiu said eventually.
"That occasionally happens."
"About more than the qi deviation."
Xiang Fei lowered the chart onto the table.
"The matter with Yue Qingyuan."
"Oh."
He resisted the urge to ask what had been said. Shen Qingqiu had shared more with him over the past months than Xiang Fei would once have thought possible, yet there were subjects one did not pry into if one valued one's continued possession of fingers.
"He explained some things," Shen Qingqiu said. "I explained others."
"That sounds healthy."
"It was intolerable."
"Also believable."
A brief curve touched Shen Qingqiu's mouth before disappearing.
He moved away from the table and sat opposite Xiang Fei, though closer than he usually would.
"It cannot return to what it was."
Xiang Fei remembered the sticks scattered across his worktable months earlier.
"No."
"It may become something else."
"If you both want it to."
Shen Qingqiu rested one hand on his knee.
"And if only one person recognises what a relationship might become?"
Xiang Fei frowned.
That sounded less like Yue Qingyuan.
"Then presumably the other person must be informed."
"And if he is an idiot?"
"Inform him more clearly."
Something changed in Shen Qingqiu's expression.
"And if he prides himself on reading fate while failing to recognise anything directly before his face?"
Ah.
Apparently this was still about Liu Qingge.
Xiang Fei nodded solemnly.
"Then shixiong should probably abandon subtlety."
Shen Qingqiu stared at him for so long that Xiang Fei began wondering whether the advice had somehow offended him.
At last Shen Qingqiu covered his face with one hand.
"Shixiong?"
"Do not speak."
Xiang Fei remained quiet for perhaps twenty breaths.
"Are you having another qi deviation?"
The hand dropped.
"Qingfei."
It was the first time Shen Qingqiu had omitted the honorific.
Xiang Fei registered this primarily because the tone suggested imminent violence.
"Just checking."
"Go to sleep."
"This is my room."
Shen Qingqiu stood, gathered his sleeves and left.
Xiang Fei watched the door close.
He concluded, reluctantly, that his romantic consultation skills required improvement.
Winter settled over Cang Qiong.
Shen Qingqiu continued visiting, while the subject of Liu Qingge's supposed romantic destiny disappeared so completely that Xiang Fei took it as proof Heaven's recommendation had been rejected.
He did not interfere again.
The gifts continued. So did the tea.
Shen Qingqiu also began arriving at times that made no sense for divination. Once, he crossed the mountain during heavy snow because Xiang Fei had mentioned three days earlier that the view from Xuan Ji's western pavilion was best after fresh snowfall.
They sat there together beneath the roof, wrapped in heavy outer robes, while the mountain disappeared gradually behind white.
After nearly an hour, Xiang Fei flexed his toes inside his boots.
"My feet are freezing."
Shen Qingqiu did not look away from the snow.
"So delicate."
"You brought a heated stone."
"I did."
"Give it to me."
"No."
Xiang Fei turned.
Shen Qingqiu had one hand tucked inside his sleeve.
"You're hoarding warmth."
"I planned ahead."
"This is my pavilion."
"An unfortunate administrative oversight."
Xiang Fei reached for the sleeve.
Shen Qingqiu shifted away.
They spent several moments in a deeply undignified struggle that ended with Xiang Fei's hand caught between both of Shen Qingqiu's and the heated stone still firmly in Qing Jing's possession.
Shen Qingqiu looked down at their hands.
So did Xiang Fei.
Then Shen Qingqiu released one of his hands and pushed the heated stone into Xiang Fei's palm.
"There."
Xiang Fei curled his fingers around it.
"See? Compassion. I knew you had it in you."
"Return it before leaving."
"You came to my peak."
"Then return it before I leave."
Another evening, Xiang Fei fell asleep over a set of charts and woke beneath a familiar green cloak.
His disciples became impossible.
They exchanged glances whenever Shen Qingqiu appeared. Twice Xiang Fei caught his head disciple smiling at nothing, and on the third occasion he cornered the boy after morning lessons.
"What's wrong with all of you?"
His disciple blinked.
"Nothing, Shizun."
"You're doing it now."
"Doing what?"
"That face."
The disciple carefully arranged his features into an expression of profound innocence.
"This one does not understand."
Xiang Fei pointed towards the courtyard where Shen Qingqiu had disappeared several moments earlier.
"Every time Shen-shibo visits, all of you behave as though you know something."
The boy developed the hunted expression of someone navigating a formation filled with hidden blades.
"We would never presume to understand what Shizun does not."
Xiang Fei went still.
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing."
"You learned this from Shen Qingqiu."
"This disciple must inspect the southern observatory."
"It was inspected yesterday."
"Then it will be very clean."
He escaped.
Xiang Fei watched him cross the courtyard at speed.
Everyone knew something he did not.
At least that part of his life remained reassuringly familiar.
The subject of a diviner's personal fate arose near the end of winter.
Shen Qingqiu arrived late carrying a jar of wine neither of them seemed inclined to drink much of. Snow lay thick along the roof, and the brazier filled Xiang Fei's study with the dry warmth of glowing charcoal.
They finished discussing a mission, then the latest conflict between Liu Qingge and Wei Qingwei, and eventually nothing at all.
Shen Qingqiu remained.
Xiang Fei no longer found this unusual.
He refilled the tea.
"Have you ever read your own fate?" Shen Qingqiu asked.
Xiang Fei snorted.
"No."
"Why?"
"Professional standards."
Shen Qingqiu glanced towards the shelves containing approximately four hundred texts produced by generations of diviners who disagreed violently with one another on almost every major principle.
"I was unaware you possessed those."
"Deeply offensive."
"Answer."
Xiang Fei settled more comfortably against his chair.
"There is a belief that those who work too closely with fate cannot perceive their own."
"Do you believe it?"
"I believe diviners needed an excuse for failing to predict their own disastrous marriages."
Shen Qingqiu laughed.
It was quiet and genuine.
Xiang Fei smiled before thinking better of it.
"Then you believe you could read your own future."
"Probably."
"Do it."
"No."
Shen Qingqiu turned his cup once between his fingers.
"Why?"
Xiang Fei looked towards the dark window, where snow slid from the roof in soft, slow falls.
"I don't want to."
The answer surprised both of them.
Shen Qingqiu did not mock him.
Xiang Fei rubbed his thumb along the rim of his cup, trying to find language for the discomfort. His entire life had been littered with fragments of a future belonging to another version of the world. He knew names before meeting the people who carried them. He remembered deaths that had never happened and catastrophes that perhaps still would.
Some days he wondered whether those memories were the reason his divinations worked.
On others, he was equally convinced that he had simply become very good at guessing.
Whichever explanation was true, he had little desire to turn that uncertain attention towards himself.
"Then don't," Shen Qingqiu said.
Xiang Fei looked at him.
The firelight caught the line of Shen Qingqiu's cheek as he turned towards the brazier. For a moment, Xiang Fei felt that familiar pressure at the edge of awareness, the sense that something obvious waited immediately beyond the reach of memory.
Nothing surfaced.
He let it go.
A little later, when the wine had been opened after all and Shen Qingqiu had drunk perhaps half a cup, he reached across the table for Xiang Fei's brush.
Xiang Fei let him take it, mostly because stopping Shen Qingqiu once he had decided an object belonged in his hand had never been worth the effort.
Shen Qingqiu drew a clean strip of paper towards himself and smoothed it flat.
"What day were you born?"
The brush hovered above the page.
Xiang Fei looked from it to Shen Qingqiu.
"Why?"
Shen Qingqiu dipped the brush into Xiang Fei's inkstone.
"Must Qingfei interrogate every method he does not understand?"
"Especially those."
"Answer."
Xiang Fei gave him the date.
Shen Qingqiu wrote it down in careful characters, then asked for the year.
After that came the shichen.
By then, Xiang Fei had shifted forward in his seat and was watching the paper upside down.
"What are you calculating?"
"You ask many questions for a man who expects others to accept three spots on jade as prophecy."
"That was different."
"Naturally."
The brush moved again.
Then Shen Qingqiu paused.
"Which Fei?"
Xiang Fei blinked.
"Your birth name, which character it is?"
Befuddled, Xiang Fei replied and watched Shen Qingqiu writing the character carefully.
His brush lingered beside it.
"Your birth name was Xiang Fei."
"Mn."
Shen Qingqiu looked at the ink.
Then at him.
"Xiang Fei."
Something about hearing it in Shen Qingqiu's voice made Xiang Fei straighten, his stomach twisting.
"Are you planning to curse me?"
"If I were, I would hardly require this much information."
"That's not reassuring."
Xiang Fei's suspicion returned.
"What kind of calculation is this?"
Shen Qingqiu lowered his eyes to the paper again and, after the ink had dried, folded it carefully into thirds and tucked it into his sleeve.
"One whose result I have not yet decided to share."
"That sounds fake."
"You would know."
Xiang Fei stared at him.
Shen Qingqiu drank his tea.
Eventually Xiang Fei decided that whatever his fellow Peak Lord was doing could probably be safely ignored.
He would not think about the exchange again for several months.
Spring returned.
On the anniversary of Shen Qingqiu's almost-qi-deviation, Xiang Fei found a piece of pale jade waiting on his desk.
Three dark inclusions marked its centre.
He turned it over in his hand and laughed.
His head disciple looked up from the doorway.
"Shizun?"
"Nothing."
"Is the jade significant?"
"Apparently it means Shen Qingqiu will become unbearable."
His disciple's face did something.
Xiang Fei pointed at him.
"That."
"Shizun?"
"That expression."
Before interrogation could begin, another disciple appeared at the door.
"Shizun, Shen-shibo has arrived."
Naturally.
Xiang Fei placed the jade on the desk.
"Send him in."
Shen Qingqiu entered carrying no tea, no scrolls, no broken artefacts and no visible excuse for being there.
He stopped opposite Xiang Fei's desk.
His gaze fell immediately to the jade.
Something almost gentle crossed his face.
"You kept it."
"This isn't the same stone."
"No?"
"The inclusions are differently shaped."
Shen Qingqiu's expression suggested the distinction held no importance whatsoever.
Xiang Fei turned the jade between his fingers.
"Three marks again."
"Should I prepare for death?"
"Eventually."
"Your skill has declined."
"I've been distracted."
"By what?"
Xiang Fei gestured towards the paperwork covering his desk.
Shen Qingqiu ignored it and drew out the chair opposite.
By now, he no longer waited to be invited.
For a while neither of them spoke.
Xiang Fei finished annotating the line before him, set down the brush and leaned back.
"Do you actually want a reading?"
"Yes."
"About?"
Shen Qingqiu's eyes stayed on his face.
"The same matter as before."
Xiang Fei searched his memory.
"Your curriculum?"
"No."
"Yue Qingyuan?"
"No."
"The western training grounds?"
Shen Qingqiu's eyelid twitched.
Understanding arrived.
"Oh. Romance."
For a moment Shen Qingqiu looked as though he regretted every choice that had brought him up the mountain.
Xiang Fei smiled.
"Still no success?"
"Divine."
"Have you tried speaking to the person?"
"Repeatedly."
"And?"
"He is exceptionally dense."
"Perhaps he isn't interested."
Shen Qingqiu's stare became thunderous.
Xiang Fei reconsidered.
"Or shy."
"Divine."
"All right."
He retrieved the lacquered box.
Shen Qingqiu watched while he mixed the peachwood tablets.
"Three?" he asked.
"Three."
Shen Qingqiu selected them and placed them face-up.
The mountain beneath seven stars.
The crossing lines.
The flowering branch.
Again.
Xiang Fei stared.
"Well?"
"That's strange."
Shen Qingqiu rested one elbow on the table.
"Is it?"
"The same pattern twice is uncommon."
Xiang Fei picked up the first tablet.
Cang Qiong.
The second signified conflict, convergence and repeated intersection. The third, as Xiang Fei had confirmed after the previous disaster, represented affection, fulfilment and a bond whose roots had already taken hold.
His earlier reading had been remarkably sound.
Liu Qingge simply had not been the answer.
"Someone on Cang Qiong," Xiang Fei said.
"Yes."
"Someone you know well."
"Yes."
"Someone you've had conflict with."
Shen Qingqiu's mouth curved.
"Frequently."
Xiang Fei's thoughts drifted reluctantly towards Yue Qingyuan.
No.
The reading carried none of the old-grievance indicators he now associated with that relationship.
Another Peak Lord, perhaps.
Wei Qingwei seemed impossible. Mu Qingfang was equally unlikely; Shen Qingqiu respected him, which largely disqualified him from the conflict symbol. Qi Qingqi remained technically possible, though Xiang Fei remembered Shen Qingqiu once describing her as "the only Peak Lord sensible enough to remain tolerable at a distance."
He picked up the flowering branch.
The blossom faced inward.
Someone already close.
Someone woven into Shen Qingqiu's ordinary life.
Someone he sought out.
Xiang Fei became aware that Shen Qingqiu was watching him with extraordinary concentration.
"Someone you visit often," he tried.
"Mn."
"Someone you've given gifts to."
"Yes."
His thoughts slowed.
Tea.
Pastries.
Star-map paper.
The astrolabe.
A green cloak laid over his shoulders while he slept.
Snowfall in the western pavilion.
The heated stone.
Late evenings during which Shen Qingqiu had stopped inventing questions altogether.
The folded paper containing Xiang Fei's birth date.
His disciples' faces.
Xiang Fei looked up.
Shen Qingqiu met his eyes.
For several breaths, Xiang Fei's mind refused to move in any useful direction.
No.
That was ridiculous.
He returned his attention to the tablets.
"Someone who irritates you."
"Constantly."
Xiang Fei swallowed.
"Someone you consider an idiot."
"Frequently."
"Shixiong's standards for romance seem poor."
"So I have discovered."
The room had become unexpectedly warm.
Xiang Fei gathered the tablets and began to mix them again.
"Perhaps another casting would clarify—"
Shen Qingqiu placed his hand over Xiang Fei's.
The movement stopped.
Their fingers rested together amongst the scattered peachwood.
For several breaths Xiang Fei stared at the hand covering his.
Shen Qingqiu had spent years touching Xiang Fei's things: his tea, his brushes, his charts, his jade, his divination sticks. Somewhere along the way, apparently, he had begun touching Xiang Fei himself.
"This lord has endured enough of your castings."
Xiang Fei looked up.
"Then why ask for one?"
"I wanted to see whether you could finally manage one thing correctly."
Shen Qingqiu's face had gone very calm.
Too calm.
The dangerous kind.
Xiang Fei's stomach dropped.
Of course.
He knew.
Somehow, after all these years, Shen Qingqiu had worked it out. The jade, the guesses, the ridiculous interpretations, perhaps even Shang Qinghua. He had discovered that Xiang Fei had spent decades occupying the highest seat on a divination peak while privately suspecting the entire discipline operated through probability, psychology, tradition and the willingness to speak with sufficient confidence.
Perhaps Shen Qingqiu had been testing him all along.
That would explain the visits.
The questions.
The attention.
The gifts—
No.
The gifts remained confusing.
"So," Shen Qingqiu said softly, "what they say about divination is true."
Xiang Fei's mouth went dry.
"What is?"
Shen Qingqiu glanced down towards their joined hands.
"Those who divine the fate of others are blind to their own."
There it was.
Xiang Fei closed his eyes.
He had no clear idea what he expected. A fan against his throat, perhaps, or a blade; possibly a very controlled explanation of precisely how long Shen Qingqiu had known before arranging his public humiliation.
Instead, Shen Qingqiu kissed him.
For the first instant Xiang Fei understood only warmth. Then the details arrived one by one: the slight dryness of Shen Qingqiu's lips, the faint scent of tea still lingering on his breath, the careful pressure that lasted hardly long enough to become certain of itself.
There was nothing careless about it.
Shen Qingqiu had crossed the table slowly enough that Xiang Fei could have moved away. Even now, the hand covering his remained almost unnaturally still, as though its owner had committed himself to one reckless decision and refused to risk another until he knew the result.
Xiang Fei's eyes flew open.
Shen Qingqiu had already drawn back, though only by the breadth of a few fingers.
For once, the Lord of Qing Jing looked uncertain.
The expression would have escaped anyone who did not know him. His face remained composed, his shoulders straight, his chin held at the same proud angle as ever; only the tension beside his eyes and the slight tightening of his fingers over Xiang Fei's betrayed him.
Xiang Fei had spent years being watched by this man.
He had learned how to watch back.
Neither of them spoke.
The warmth of the kiss remained on his mouth.
Then several months of evidence attempted to rearrange themselves all at once.
The tea. The pastries. The astrolabe. The cloak across his shoulders. Snow falling beyond the western pavilion while Shen Qingqiu refused to surrender a heated stone. The absurdly frequent visits that had stopped requiring even the pretence of divination. The folded paper containing Xiang Fei's birth date.
And Liu Qingge.
Oh, Heaven.
Liu Qingge.
"You—I—"
Shen Qingqiu's expression immediately soured.
"Your powers of deduction inspire awe."
"The readings were about me."
"Apparently Cang Qiong's greatest diviner has finally consulted his eyes."
Xiang Fei looked down at the tablets, then back at Shen Qingqiu.
"How long?"
Shen Qingqiu laughed once, incredulous.
"You advised me to abandon subtlety last autumn."
Xiang Fei remembered the conversation in the inn.
His entire face heated.
"You were talking about me?"
"Who did you think I meant?"
"Liu Qingge."
For one extraordinary moment, Shen Qingqiu appeared completely defeated.
Then he laughed.
Xiang Fei had heard the sound before, though never quite like this. It broke through the careful composure Shen Qingqiu wore around nearly everyone else, bending him forward slightly, his hand finally slipping away from Xiang Fei's.
Xiang Fei watched with growing offence.
"I had evidence."
"You attempted to send me on romantic walks with Liu Qingge."
"The ridge was scenic."
"He threatened to throw me off it."
"That could have been flirting."
Shen Qingqiu laughed harder.
Xiang Fei decided that, considering the circumstances, this was preferable to being murdered.
His gaze dropped to the three tablets. The symbols lay where they had fallen, infuriatingly smug in their accuracy. Beside them rested the pale jade with its three dark inclusions, echoing another stone from a year before.
A warning that had saved Shen Qingqiu's life.
Xiang Fei thought of rain, frightened petitioners, merchants returning with impossible success, Shang Qinghua going white at a conference table. He remembered his shizun telling him with shining eyes that Heaven spoke through intuition long before Xiang Fei had understood what intuition was supposed to feel like.
Perhaps everything was bullshit.
Perhaps considerably less of it was bullshit than he wanted to admit.
Shen Qingqiu finally straightened, amusement still lingering around his mouth.
"Well?"
Xiang Fei blinked.
"Well what?"
The last of Shen Qingqiu's smile faded.
"You truly are hopeless."
He began to withdraw his hand.
Xiang Fei caught it.
Shen Qingqiu stilled.
That decision, at least, required no divination.
Xiang Fei looked at their joined hands. Shen Qingqiu's fingers were warm beneath his, familiar now in a way they had not been a year ago: first cold and trembling around his wrist on the floor of the bamboo house, then steady over casting sticks, around a heated stone, resting against his hand amongst scattered peachwood.
After a lifetime spent interpreting signs, Xiang Fei could probably survive one answer given directly.
He leaned across the table.
This time Shen Qingqiu knew what was coming.
Xiang Fei saw it in the slight widening of his eyes and the way his breath caught before their mouths met, but Shen Qingqiu did not retreat. His free hand came down against the edge of the table instead, bracing himself as Xiang Fei kissed him properly.
The first kiss had been a question.
This one had no such uncertainty.
Xiang Fei pressed closer, turning his head enough to fit their mouths together more comfortably. Shen Qingqiu's lips parted beneath his with a small intake of breath, and the sound sent a sudden, ridiculous rush of warmth through Xiang Fei that had nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual energy. He tasted tea and the faint sweetness of the pastries they had shared earlier. When Xiang Fei's thumb shifted over his knuckles, Shen Qingqiu tightened his grip in response.
That surprised him more than the kiss itself.
Shen Qingqiu rarely held on to anyone.
Yet when Xiang Fei began to draw back, fingers caught in the front of his robe and kept him there.
Their mouths met again, less carefully this time.
Xiang Fei had enough presence of mind to think that perhaps a diviner ought to notice the moment his own life changed direction. He had spent years waiting for omens to arrive as strange dreams, cracked jade and inconvenient fragments of another future.
Apparently this one came with Shen Qingqiu breathing unsteadily against his mouth.
When they finally separated, neither moved far.
Xiang Fei remained leaning across the table, close enough that their sleeves had tangled together amongst the scattered tablets. Shen Qingqiu's fingers still held a fold of his robe. His face had flushed properly now, colour spreading from beneath his eyes towards his ears, and although his expression was attempting to recover its usual severity, the effect was rather undermined by the fact that his lips were slightly reddened.
Xiang Fei stared at them.
Shen Qingqiu noticed.
"Do not."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking."
"That is often the beginning of the problem."
Xiang Fei laughed softly.
For a moment Shen Qingqiu simply looked at him.
Then his grip on Xiang Fei's robe loosened. His fingers slid down instead, catching briefly against Xiang Fei's wrist before settling over his hand.
"A-Fei," he said.
Very quietly.
Xiang Fei stopped breathing.
The winter evening returned to him with abrupt, painful clarity.
What day were you born?
What shichen?
Which character was used for Fei?
He remembered the narrow strip of paper disappearing into Shen Qingqiu's sleeve and, suddenly, several further pieces of information from twenty-seven years of divination training presented themselves for consideration.
Birth dates.
Eight characters.
Compatibility.
Auspicious days.
Marriage.
Xiang Fei stared.
Shen Qingqiu's expression altered almost imperceptibly.
"Do not."
Xiang Fei's mouth opened.
"I haven't said anything."
"I can see you thinking."
"That's invasive."
"A-Fei."
There was a warning in it now.
There was also something else.
Xiang Fei felt his own smile begin despite every effort to stop it.
He had known Shen Qingqiu's birth name for longer than he had known Shen Qingqiu. For years it had belonged to the muddled collection of facts inside his head, another piece of information he could never safely explain. Only recently had Shen Qingqiu placed it willingly between them.
Shen Jiu.
Xiang Fei turned his hand beneath Shen Qingqiu's until their fingers fitted together properly.
"A-Jiu."
Shen Qingqiu went very still.
For one terrible instant, Xiang Fei wondered whether he had finally pushed too far.
Then colour rose slowly beneath Shen Qingqiu's ears again.
His fingers tightened around Xiang Fei's.
Xiang Fei's smile widened.
Shen Qingqiu's eyes narrowed at once.
"What now?"
"You asked for my birth date."
"We have established this."
"My birth name. My mother's family name." Xiang Fei leaned back just far enough to study him properly, delight beginning to overtake disbelief. "You checked our compatibility."
A faint muscle moved in Shen Qingqiu's jaw.
That was as good as a confession.
Xiang Fei stared at him for another breath.
Then he laughed.
"You checked for an auspicious marriage date before you even asked me?"
The colour beneath Shen Qingqiu's ears spread.
"I had not said marriage."
"You took my Eight Characters."
"For a calculation."
"A-Jiu."
"Do not call me that in that tone."
"What tone?" Xiang Fei squeezed the hand still caught in his. "The tone of a man discovering that his prospective husband has apparently progressed directly from flirting to wedding preparations without remembering to propose?"
Shen Qingqiu's expression sharpened.
"I kissed you."
"That was very nice."
"Twice."
"I noticed."
"And you kissed me back."
"Enthusiastically."
"Then what exactly remains unclear?"
Xiang Fei considered him with exaggerated seriousness.
"The proposal."
For perhaps three breaths, Shen Qingqiu said nothing.
Then he leaned closer, eyes narrowing until Xiang Fei could see the threat forming in them.
"Xiang Fei."
The use of his birth name should probably have warned him.
Instead, Xiang Fei smiled.
"Yes?"
"If you require a formal proposal after spending the past year trying to marry me off to Liu Qingge, then you may wait until Heaven itself descends to provide one."
Xiang Fei laughed hard enough that Shen Qingqiu attempted to pull his hand free.
He did not let him.
"All right, all right." He drew their joined hands back between them and brushed his thumb over Shen Qingqiu's knuckles. "I suppose this one can be generous."
"How fortunate."
"But for the record—"
"Do not."
"—I would have said yes."
Shen Qingqiu stopped.
The irritation remained in his face, but something beneath it softened so quickly Xiang Fei might once have missed it.
He did not miss it now.
After a moment, Shen Qingqiu turned their joined hands over and laced their fingers together properly.
"Good," he said.
Xiang Fei looked down at their hands.
Then at the jade, the scattered tablets, and the man sitting across from him.
For once, there was nothing left to interpret.
