Archive of Our Own

When Shen Qingqiu qi deviated for the second time, he lost his memories again.

He knew this... theoretically. What memories he lost, however, were as much of a mystery as the memories themselves.

He still remembered his three years as the Peak Lord of Qing Jing Peak. He remembered that he had only been here for three years, and that the 'elsewhere' he'd come from was vastly different, though the concepts and details were a little hazy. He knew he'd had two older brothers and one younger sister, doting parents, and enough money to never worry about food or housing even if he did nothing but noodle around on the internet for the rest of his life. Where he'd gone to college and his friends' names were lost to him, but he knew that he'd gone from rich and lazy as a fuerdai in Shanghai to rich and lazy as an immortal cultivator in xianxia-land.

He knew that he'd had to act like the person he'd replaced at the start, and had to wait a bit before rehabilitating his image. He knew he'd taken on his predecessor's most hated disciple as his favorite after he'd saved the boy from certain death in a demonic duel, largely due to how incredible a cook the boy was, and how Shen Qingqiu wasn't above using his poisoning as an excuse to be even lazier than before. He knew he'd come to love the boy on his own merits after years of living together, constantly thinking of him as a 'white lotus' and 'sweet bun' and 'white lamb'.

He knew that the boy had died, shoved into the Endless Abyss, during the Immortal Alliance Conference that was held every four years.

He knew that he had been the one to push him.

For the life of him, Shen Qingqiu couldn't remember why.

He could remember the scene in high detail—the mark of a heavenly demon on his dear disciple's forehead, the tears on the boy's face as he begged his normally-indulgent master to just listen, the string of absolute bullshit tumbling out of his own mouth—and absolutely none of what had been going on in his head.

And Shen Qingqiu would really like to know what had been going on in his head!!

Binghe, his precious Binghe, was a heavenly demon!!! That was the ultimate super ultra triple-S class rare demon of this world!!! And Shen Qingqiu, for some absolutely absurd reason, decided to tell him he was an abomination who should just go die!!! What the fuck!!!!!!

Even putting aside that he was fully sure he would die for that boy in any given situation, no questions asked, he had met the equivalent of a natural shiny on a 0.001% encounter rate in real life and told him to go fuck himself, and then murdered him for real.

Shen Qingqiu struggled to even comprehend that he'd done it at all, much less why, and even less why like that?

Going to Mu Qingfang revealed nothing. There was nothing his shidi remembered that Shen Qingqiu did not, and the memories he knew he was missing weren't ones that were known to other people. Meditation brought up nothing. Memory restoration artifacts brought back nothing. He took a pilgrimage to stare for three days and three nights into the Pool of Recollection and received nothing.

Eventually, he realized that he could do nothing about it until he came up with more ways to try to cure the memory loss, and put it out of his mind.

He held vigils over the sword mound dedicated to his disciple, mourning an entirely normal amount for a boy who had loved him, trusted him, been grievously betrayed by him, and then died by his hand. The reason Ning Yingying was calling him a grieving widow was simply because she didn't have the full context for why one might mourn such a person. No one did.

No one except Shen Qingqiu, who had been left with heartbreak and a gaping hole in his life the size of a constant companion he'd wanted to keep forever—however long 'forever' might be.

Certainly longer than two years.

Binghe had been so young...

(It was for thoughts like those that Shen Qingqiu allowed himself to shed a tear, crumpled in front of the sword mound in guilt and confusion and pain, and wished he knew why it had happened at all. Surely... if only he knew why...)

Unable to trust himself until he understood why he'd done what he did, he ended up delegating almost everything to Ning Yingying and Ming Fan. Peak matters, night hunts, even his own meals ended up in their hands.

He remembered trying to set Binghe up with Ning Yingying from time to time, and how much the child had resisted it. Silly boy. She had grown into a perfectly lovely young woman, as to be expected! If Binghe had still been alive, would he have come to see the light...?

And Ming Fan! Shen Qingqiu knew that he and Binghe had had their... issues... at the start (no thanks to the original goods), but Ming Fan had grown and matured as well, and if Binghe were still here...

Shen Qingqiu resolutely downed the cup of incredibly subpar tea that Ming Fan had left him and picked up the dossier on the night hunt Ning Yingying was telling him to take part in—apparently because both of the people responsible for managing Without a Cure were going, and nobody knew how long it would take to solve.

If Ning Yingying thought it was a good idea, it probably was. (Doubtlessly better than any of his own...) Looked like he was going to Jin Lan City.

He made Ning Yingying come with him.

He was distantly aware of what it might look like, but 'what it might look like' was a distant concern in comparison to the much more immediate issue of needing someone to make sure he didn't jump off the deep end again. Mu Qingfang was a doctor who could help with a physical issue and Liu Qingge could (probably) keep him from doing too much harm, but neither of them knew him like his core disciples did, and Ning Yingying would be much better at spotting something going awry and notifying the other two about it.

It made him feel a bit like he was carrying around a seizure alert dog, but it was better than pulling a second round of you have never meant anything to me and deserve to rot in hell for the circumstances of your birth on one of his other friends.

Besides, Ning Yingying was quite cheerful about seeing the outside of the peak again. Enrichment!

She was faithfully performing her duties as sidekick-slash-service-animal when Shen Qingqiu got tagged by a strangely heavy 'frail' old lady, who then bolted into a nearby alley, leaving behind a telling, bright red rash.

Shen Qingqiu and Ning Yingying traded a glance, and took off running.

They absorbed Gongyi Xiao—who was apparently here with Huan Hua—and Shen Qingqiu pretended he didn't see the complicated look Ning Yingying gave the two of them when she saw them interact. Yes, Huan Hua Palace's head disciple looked like Binghe. Shen Qingqiu knew, okay? He knew. Don't look at him like that!!

The being bolted into a three story building that looked to have been a brothel at some point, and a quick comb of the ground floor turned up nothing but corpses. Shen Qingqiu led the way up to the second floor, hearing voices and movement ahead.

"It's no trouble."

Shen Qingqiu's legs seized on the second to last step of the staircase. His heart leaped into his mouth, then stopped. His chest and limbs were awash in cool realization and tingling adrenaline.

No. He was hallucinating. He'd finally gone fully insane. There was no way—

He took the last two steps, trembling, and looked to where the voice had come from.

Binghe.

Binghe alive.

Binghe wearing black and red, the baby fat of his face melted away, turned into the kind of handsomeness that left a trail of broken hearts behind him, broad-shouldered and lithe, the deep pools of his black eyes full of starlight.

Binghe looking tense and wary behind his smooth smile, as faultlessly polite as always, that unyielding focus brought to bear on something larger than himself—

Binghe alive.

His Binghe, who he knew was dead, except— except— except—

Shen Qingqiu barely heard Gongyi Xiao's, "Senior Shen?" barely even registered that words had been said, except that it got Binghe to look in their direction, a flicker of something passing through his expression that was too quick to name.

His expression, that was mobile, alive, here and—real?

Shen Qingqiu stumbled forward one step, then another, blood rushing in his veins in painful, desperate hope—

He didn't launch himself across the distance in something the internet may have called a glomp back in the day. He was too cool for that.

He did walk considerably quicker than normal, though. "Binghe," he said, for once to the youth himself instead of some poor disciple who made the mistake of being roughly as tall, or stepping in the grass in a way that was too reminiscent, or being at hand when Shen Qingqiu wanted something.

"Shi—" Binghe started, the set of his broad shoulders wary and vulnerable at the same time, and that was as far as Shen Qingqiu let him get before dragging him into a rough hug, hands shaking, a horrible lump in his throat.

He was solid. Not a figment of Shen Qingqiu's overwrought imagination. He was solid and real, and he smelled—he smelled like opulence and strange soap, a ghost of demonic brimstone in the background, but his skin and the the faint traces of sweat were the same, if matured a bit.

Muscle and height and—oh, he'd grown. No longer almost exactly Shen Qingqiu's height, but the perfect height to slot his chin onto his disciple's shoulder. Warm. He was warm and his heart was thumping, steady and strong and—

Shen Qingqiu shoved qi into his meridians, checking his spiritual energy; it was strong and slightly unbalanced, with a second set of veins that held demonic qi. His natural dual system struggling to keep itself in order, but—it was there and alive and Binghe was alive—

"Binghe," escaped Shen Qingqiu on a trembling breath, tears suddenly stinging his eyes as the overwhelming relief and horror of it all, the knowledge that the worst, most unforgivable act he had ever committed hadn't killed the most precious person in existence. He squeezed hard enough to feel the boy's bones creak in his grip. "You're alive."

"Sh-Shizun?" Binghe squeaked out, undignified.

Shen Qingqiu drew back and started patting him down, taking note of the quality of cloth of his robes and the muscle beneath, grabbing the boy's face to search it for any signs of a fake, or simulacrum, or anything that might give away the lie to the miracle.

The expression he found there was exactly the expression he would have seen on his precious white lotus's if he'd randomly grabbed the boy and started inspecting him. Shocked and flustered, a warm pink tinting his jade-perfect cheeks.

Shen Qingqiu let out a shuddering breath of something that felt much too powerful and complicated to be labelled as 'relief'. "You're alive," he repeated thickly.

"Y-yes," said the boy he had tried to kill for reasons entirely unknown to him—to either of them.

Shen Qingqiu pressed their foreheads together briefly. "This master is—grateful beyond words."

The Huan Hua disciples were making fussy noises that Shen Qingqiu mostly didn't register, only realizing there were more real people in the room with them when Ning Yingying cried out, "A-Luo!!"

Shen Qingqiu stepped back just in time for Ning Yingying to tackle her shidi in something that was definitely a glomp.

"Where were you?!" she half-wailed while Luo Binghe blinked down at her in utter bemusement. "We thought you were dead!! You horrible, awful, awful, awful—unfilial dummy!!" Shen Qingqiu's mouth twitched into a smile despite himself. "Me and Ming Fan had to try to be you while Shizun was grieving like a widow—"

"This master was doing no such thing," Shen Qingqiu interjected irritably, giving her a reprimanding fan tap, but she didn't seem to realize he was there.

"—and do you know how hard it is to be you?! We were going out of our minds!!! And now we come around and you were alive all along?!! We don't know how you could deal with those horrible Bai Zhan disciples and no one could figure out how you arranged the chore roster so well and we could hardly convince Shizun to eat most days—"

"Yingying," Shen Qingqiu said, with as much collectedness and calm as could be summoned under the circumstances—which, thanks to his poser powers, was quite a bit.

At some point during her ramble, his long-lost, miraculously unmurdered disciple had turned to him with a raw question burning in his black eyes that Shen Qingqiu wanted to hide from, but knew he couldn't.

If nothing else, he owed his Binghe an explanation, inasmuch as he could provide one.

Not that, I experienced a full psychotic break and have no idea why I did it, but if I ever try to do it again, please kill me without hesitation, was a good explanation, but it had to be better than nothing, right...?

"Luo-shixiong!" one of the gold-robed disciples cut in. She was a pretty young woman around Luo Binghe's age who Shen Qingqiu thought he might have seen in the Immortal Alliance Conference, perhaps. "Don't be tricked! That's the man who abused and discarded you! Don't be taken in by his pretty lies! Either of them!!"

That shixiong bit stung, but... he was grateful, just a little bit, that Luo Binghe had people that cared for him properly. The boy's charisma was next-level, so of course he would end up surrounded by admirers, but how many of his admirers would be willing to mouth off in front of a Peak Lord of the most respected sect in the jianghu for his sake?

Binghe, who appeared not to appreciate what he had, instead curled a proprietary arm around a quietly sobbing Ning Yingying and stared into Shen Qingqiu's eyes like he might pry all the dirty, dirty details from his soul with a stare alone. Without moving or looking away, he said, "Gongyi Xiao."

The other young man snapped to attention. "Luo-shidi?"

"This one will be returning to discuss things with—his sect," Binghe said, watching Shen Qingqiu like a hawk as he said it. "The mission will be left in Gongyi Xiao's care."

"Yes, Luo-shidi," said Gongyi Xiao, looking and sounding deeply confused. "When may Huan Hua Palace expect to see Luo-shidi back...?"

Calculation flickered through Luo Binghe's eyes, imperceptible to anyone who wasn't used to that look immediately being followed up by a teary pout or too-innocent suggestion.

"Never," Ning Yingying jumped in before he could speak, thick with tears. She'd only pulled her face away from Luo Binghe's chest far enough to spit the word out unmuffled. "A-Luo's coming home."

Shen Qingqiu watched the calculation evaporate into something terribly raw and vulnerable, and knew then and there that it would be him leaving the peak before he dared to turn the boy away again. He sighed and tapped Ning Yingying's head. "Let us make certain that Binghe wants to come home first, ah?"

"He doesn't—why would he?" snapped the female Huan Hua disciple, flushed and indignant, and, as well-intentioned as she was, it was obvious that she didn't truly know Binghe at all. Perhaps... given the chance... but no. It was clear as day what that poor child wanted. There never would be a chance for her to learn.

(Something in Shen Qingqiu's chest released under the other pile of emotions he wanted to shuffle under a rug, which was fine by him! One less thing to think about, at all, ever.)

Outwardly, he flicked open his fan to look at her over the top of it, cool and collected and not at all like he might be in a similar state to Ning Yingying if he was a young woman instead of a male immortal cultivator. "That is for Luo Binghe to express for himself, don't you think?"

Her lip curled in a sneer, but Shen Qingqiu didn't wait around to keep trading barbs. He turned away and led the way out, pausing at the top of the stairs to say, "Come," and waited for his two disciples(?) to fall in line like obedient puppies before descending.

Luo Binghe felt like he was walking through a dream.

He'd... he'd had a plan, hadn't he? He was going to establish himself as a righteous cultivator, prove to Shizun that he was more than his filthy blood, capable of still being good, despite it all, and then force the man to acknowledge him and take him back.

Emphasis on force.

Shizun wasn't the most expressive man at the best of times, and the look on his face when he saw Luo Binghe was so full of open, desperate, painful hope it might have killed him if he'd seen it for more than a couple of heartbeats.

And then his master had crossed the room and hugged him tight enough to bruise (bruises he was carefully keeping his blood mites away from), babbling about how Luo Binghe was alive and he was grateful for that, and—

Luo Binghe had never been one to turn down an opportunity, but this one was just too good to be true... wasn't it?

He reminded himself that it was Ning Yingying who had insisted he come home, that it was Ning Yingying's attachment (affection, love) he was exploiting to make sure Shizun couldn't push him away again. Shizun loved Ning Yingying too much to let her down (to push her away) like that, and Luo Binghe could use that, would need to use it.

...Right?

Shizun led the three of them to where the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect delegation was staying—a run-down weapon shop, with Mu-shishu and Liu Qingge within.

Mu-shishu did not tackle him and start sobbing, but the profound, unmitigated relief on his face was shockingly reminiscent of Ning Yingying's, and even Liu Qingge seemed glad to see him. Liu Qingge!

Luo Binghe wondered abruptly if Shizun had simply forgotten what transpired during the Immortal Alliance Conference. If he simply did not remember what he had put Luo Binghe through, or why.

The thought nearly made his blood boil, fury and pain welling within him, Xin Mo's reaching tendrils humming with cold delight—but no. His control was better than that. It had to be better than that. He couldn't afford to take it out on Shizun. He couldn't give Shizun any excuse not to see him. He had to be perfect, he had to be—

"Yingying," said Shen Qingqiu once they arrived at a bedroom door. "If I could... speak with Binghe alone?"

There was that strange relief again, a tentative brightness to her smile that Luo Binghe picked up and turned over like a puzzle piece. "Yes, Shizun! I'll go help Mu-shishu."

She stopped to give Luo Binghe another hug before she left. Before the Conference (before the abyss), she had slotted right under his chin. Now she didn't even reach that high, her face squarely in his chest as she wrapped her arms around his middle and gave him a squeeze. Distantly, he reciprocated with a gentled pat to her shoulder, thanking the practice he'd had around Huan Hua Palace to properly curb his strength around humans.

And then Shizun waved him into the room and shut it behind them, putting up a sound-muffling talisman and effectively sealing off either of them from calling for help.

Did he realize just what a heavenly demon could do? Did he know that even a peak lord couldn't cut him down fast enough to prevent him from healing over and over and over? Did he not remember anything at all—?

"This master is certain Binghe has questions," Shizun said, ambling over to the small table, where one or two might take tea. "Ask."

Luo Binghe opened his mouth to ask something clever and smooth that would gauge just how much the man remembered of their parting, but what came out was a graceless, unmeditated, pathetic, "Why?"

There was a cot in the room, shoved to the side, and it smelled like Ning Yingying. Xin Mo happily suggested killing her to inherit her place, and he pushed it back.

Shizun set his fan with an uncharacteristically loud snap that Luo Binghe felt like a sword glare, and sighed. "I—this master—I don't know."

Luo Binghe opened his mouth and stopped. "...'Don't know', Shizun?"

His master snatched the fan up once again and began to pace, a nervous tic that Luo Binghe had witnessed less than a handful of times in his time as a disciple. "We were being attacked by demons at the Immortal Alliance Conference. We approached the rift they entered through. You fought a powerful demon. The demon broke the seal on your demonic heritage. Your heavenly demon heritage."

Luo Binghe's heart froze, rabbiting in fight or flight, terror making his extremities tingle. He remembers, he remembers, he remembers, and now he's going to—

Shizun scowled and smacked the wood of his fan into his open palm. "I told you that your lineage was a special sort of evil and cast you into the Endless Abyss after telling you that it was the only place for your kind." He stopped pacing, brow tight and muscle in his jaw twitching. "I don't know why."

He was telling the truth.

Several things that Luo Binghe had convinced himself were simple fact over the past three years suddenly made no sense at all.

"...Shizun?" he said, hating how weak his voice sounded, but unable to stop it. Distantly, he was aware his hands were shaking.

"I don't know why," Shizun repeated, his eyes searching the room's walls for answers and seeming to find none. "Not only did I tell my personal disciple, the child I was—am—duty-bound to protect that he deserved to die for things he could not control and then try to kill him myself, but—a heavenly demon!"

"...Heavenly demons are intolerable to the heavens," Luo Binghe offered, and immediately wanted to hang himself. To remind Shizun of such a thing at this point in time...!

"No," said Shizun, nearly cutting him off, shooting Luo Binghe a glare so reminiscent of his predecessor that Luo Binghe shivered a little bit despite himself. "They're—you are not. Heavenly demons are one of the rarest creatures in this world!! You can count the number of them on one hand with fingers left over!! They're incredibly powerful beings of noble blood and meeting one is a once in a lifetime opportunity." He paused to glare at the wall while Luo Binghe struggled to pick his jaw up off the floor. "I meet one, once in a lifetime opportunity, and I tell him to go fuck himself—" Luo Binghe jumped, heat surging in his face. "—and shove him into hell. What the fuck?" Luo Binghe's heart only lurched violently this time. "Am I going to go start gutting giant pandas next? Dodos? Tasmanian tigers?"

...Putting aside his master's sudden affinity for suggestive profanity and a string of creatures Luo Binghe had only a distant, passing knowledge of, it occurred to Luo Binghe—not for the first time, but for the first time in a long while—that his master had long held a badly hidden interest in the demonic creatures in this world, and had previously always displayed at least a little bit of excitement upon meeting a new one.

It had been a part of why Luo Binghe hadn't thought he would be so completely outright rejected for his blood, and why hearing what he had heard had left him so rocked to the core—but here and now, Shizun was just as baffled as he had been, standing at the edge of the rift.

Shizun didn't know either.

Shizun was shocked and offended that he hadn't been purely enthusiastic to learn about Luo Binghe's filthy blood.

...What was Luo Binghe supposed to do with that?

Shizun sighed and flicked open his fan. "If Binghe wishes to take this master's life in return, he would understand—"

"No!" Luo Binghe yelped, because he had lived in a world without Shizun in it for long enough, and only the promise that he might return to Shizun on the other side of it kept him holding on. "This disciple wishes for no such thing, he only... only wishes..."

"For answers," Shizun finished, and Luo Binghe hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Answers that this master cannot provide."

A pensive silence fell, in which Luo Binghe could feel the sharp, jagged, desperate teeth of betrayal retreat and dull, leaving behind a puppy's gummy teething, the plea of a child mourning a pet or a toy.

He might never know why, but—here and now, Shizun hadn't rejected him. Pain would fade; questions could be laid to rest. Although...

"He does wish for other things," Luo Binghe confessed.

Shizun flicked open his fan and raised it, but didn't shield his face from Luo Binghe with it as he gazed at him with cool interest—a sight which made Luo Binghe's heart stutter and stomach swoop just as much as it always had.

He swallowed hard and tried to remember what he had been about to say, because 'a kiss' and 'Shizun's hand in marriage' definitely hadn't been it. After a moment, "This disciple wishes to go home. He wishes to serve Shizun again, as he always has."

Shizun blinked slowly, like a cat. "Is Binghe not worried this master might betray him again?"

Terrified. Luo Binghe smiled faintly, tiredly. "As long as Shizun accepts this one by his side, this one is satisfied."

The look Shizun shot him said that he smelled the lie in the truth. Then he sighed again, fanning himself. "This master has been... concerned... about further incidents, and has been having Yingying and Ming Fan keep an eye on him." A knot loosened in Luo Binghe's chest, just a bit, that the reason for Ning Yingying's obvious closeness had stemmed from care (affection, love) for Luo Binghe. "Although..." Shizun's eyes fixed him, suddenly bright with curiosity. "Did Binghe inherit the ability to use blood mites from his heavenly demon side?"

Reflexive terror clenched Luo Binghe's gut, but in the face of Shizun's expectant gaze, he forced himself to nod.

Shizun looked satisfied. "Good. Binghe will feed this master his blood mites."

Luo Binghe blinked. "This disciple will—what?"

"Blood mites will afford Binghe a measure of control over this master, should he lose his mind again," Shizun explained casually, like he was explaining how they should take down a monster on a night hunt, instead of suggesting his disciple should be able to move his body like a puppeteer. "Your shijie and shixiong have a system of alerts in place, but Binghe's blood mites are a much cleaner solution. Should this master attempt to harm Binghe again, Binghe may trap or neutralize him as necessary." He paused, tapping the fan to his bottom lip, and Luo Binghe was, for the first time in his life, too distracted to be envious of it. "This master would, of course, expect his disciple to similarly prevent harm to this master's allies."

"...Yes, Shizun," Luo Binghe said faintly, trying not to let on how hard he was reeling.

Shizun clearly knew exactly how blood mites could be used for control and harm. He knew, and yet, he— to Binghe—

The degree of trust—

Luo Binghe blinked back stinging tears. If he had been angry, scared, hurt—if he had doubted the sincerity of his master's regret—if he had wanted Shizun to understand just how badly he had betrayed him—

All of it was gone now, and his head was ringing in the aftermath.

After digging in his qiankun pouch for a bit, Shizun retrieved a set of clean acupuncture needles, and approached Luo Binghe. He showed Luo Binghe the needle he planned to use, displaying it for inspection, then held his other hand open, asking for Luo Binghe's hand for piercing.

Numbly, Luo Binghe laid his right hand in the man's smooth palm.

Shizun spent a few moments inspecting his hand, turning it this way and that, stroking the skin in a way that was somehow both brisk and brimming with the infinite gentleness and affection that had characterized Luo Binghe's youth, and Luo Binghe started making good use of his blood mites to keep his blood on its proper tracks, instead of making him squirm or concentrating in certain inconvenient locations the way it kept trying to.

(It was just his hand, but he swore he could feel Shizun's touch all over and it was doing... some inappropriate things to him.)

He finally paused at the fleshy outer side of Luo Binghe's palm, dragging his nail over the skin as if to test Luo Binghe's sensitivity, and said, "Here?"

"Shizun," Luo Binghe murmured, meticulously blush-free no matter how hot he was under the collar, "this one survived the Endless Abyss."

The pain of guilt crossed Shizun's features, satisfying and aching in equal measure, and he huffed. "Yes, and this master would like for him not to have to do it again. Here?"

Luo Binghe swallowed the lump in his throat. "...There is fine."

The needle, designed to be as painless as possible, slid into his flesh with a sting he wouldn't have flinched for even as a child, piercing just deep enough to draw a bead of red to the surface, and then it retreated.

Luo Binghe had to use his blood mites to keep the wound from vanishing the instant the needle left.

Shizun massaged the blood vessels on either side, and Luo Binghe obediently directed more blood out of the wound until Shizun seemed satisfied, and then Shizun dropped his head, a waterfall of black silk curtaining his beautiful face, sooty eyelashes brushing porcelain cheeks, thin lips parting and—

—sealing over the wound, sweet and meltingly soft and wet, gentle suction and the pressure of a sinuous tongue as it lapped at Luo Binghe's skin, and—

Luo Binghe clapped his left hand over his mouth to strangle the noise he was about to make and didn't fully manage, his control over the blood in his body fritzing out as Shizun meticulously licked him clean.

"Binghe?" said Shizun, straightening and blinking at the cherry-red blush on his not-entirely-filial disciple's face. He tilted his head. "Is anything wrong?"

"No!" Luo Binghe got out on a garbled squeak. His heart was beating painfully hard. He was never washing that hand again. He only regretted that he hadn't made his master stab him in a more sensitive area, so he could felt it all properly. "This disciple is—quite well."

Shizun lifted a single eyebrow at him, subtly amused, before his eyes widened in understanding (though, knowing Shizun, it was most likely 'understanding') and he reached up to pat Luo Binghe's head, which he quickly ducked to accept. "Poor boy. That must have been rather embarrassing to experience, ah? You did very well."

...Sometimes, Luo Binghe was sorely tempted to find out where the edges of his Shizun's powers of obliviousness lay. If Luo Binghe just kept aggressing and aggressing, how long would it be before Shizun could no longer deny that his disciple's feelings towards him weren't filial at all?

If living with his master for two years had taught him anything, the answer was almost definitely 'much longer than was logical or sane'.

He would accept the praise, though. "Thanking Shizun."

Shizun patted his head a bit longer (had he missed it even a fraction of as much as Luo Binghe had?), then said, "Can Binghe feel his blood mites within this master?"

Luo Binghe reached out with his senses, feeling the blood dispersing through Shizun's body, and nodded.

"Good." He (sadly) retrieved his hand, and Luo Binghe straightened. "Let us test to ensure that Binghe's power is sufficient to properly control this master in times of need."

"...What?" said Luo Binghe, voice cracking.

What followed was easily the most intimate experience Luo Binghe had ever had in his life.

Holding one of Shizun's in both of his, he learned how to direct the motion of his hands, how to force motion, and how to prevent motion. Letting go, he relearned all of those things while controlling his beautiful, ethereal master's very gait. Shizun made him learn how to stop his master from pouring a cup of tea, and then how to prevent his master from swallowing a cup of tea, and then how to remove liquid from his lungs without hurting him. Shizun made him learn how to control his breath, his mouth, even his voice—placing the entirety of himself, his body, his identity under the control of Luo Binghe's shaking hands.

"This master tried to kill you once, Binghe," he said as he fought against Luo Binghe's commands to approach him, and lost. Steady green phoenix eyes fixed on Luo Binghe's face, serene as a still lake and unyielding as steel. "I'll not do it again. Ever."

Luo Binghe's vision blurred, overwhelmed and heart-sore, and he let go of Shizun's blood mites in a hurry as a sob tried to escape if throat.

Shizun barely stumbled, pausing half a heartbeat before continuing towards his disciple, soft footsteps nearly silent on the wood floors.

"What's this?" he murmured as he stepped into Luo Binghe's space. A handkerchief was produced from his qiankun sleeve and dabbed across Luo Binghe's cheeks. "This old and still crying? What is this master to do with you, hm? There, there..."

Luo Binghe shuddered and caught that slender, graceful body in both arms, and crushed his master in the hug he had been too distracted to return previously. Thusly secured, he buried his face in Shizun's neck and bawled.

They stood there an indeterminable amount of time, Shizun running soothing hands down Luo Binghe's back and combing through his hair, murmuring reassurances that slowly gained a ragged edge and then trailed off, the smell of additional salt palpable through Luo Binghe's stuffed nose.

"...I'm sorry," Shizun finally murmured, wet around the edges. "Binghe, I never wanted to—I never would have—I am so, so, so sorry."

Luo Binghe just cried harder.

Somehow they ended up with Shizun seated on the edge of the bed and Luo Binghe kneeling on the ground before him, face in his stomach and arms tight around his waist.

"I just wish I knew why," Shizun lamented again, long fingers scritching Luo Binghe's scalp. "My qi wasn't erratic enough for deviation—that came later. Was I possessed? Is there really no other answer than that I'm insane?"

Luo Binghe hesitated a long moment, briefly sick to his stomach at the idea, but knowing he couldn't keep it from his master, no matter his own feelings on the matter (Xin Mo did not like that sentiment). "Shizun... this one... this one has the power to explore dreams."

A ripple ran through Shizun, not of fear, but—excitement? "This master has never come upon reports of influence over dreams in his readings."

"This disciple has been receiving instruction from the demon known as Meng Mo," Luo Binghe confessed shakily to Shizun's stomach, but the man only ruffled his hair. "If... if this disciple were to walk into Shizun's dreams... he would be able to see the madness." Or the legitimate reasons his otherwise quite sane master had decided to kill him.

Shizun contemplated this for a moment, his thumb absently stroking Luo Binghe's hairline, then he sighed. "This master... would like to know. If only to know what might come next."

Luo Binghe forced himself to nod, and wished he hadn't offered.

Stalling for time, he made his master lay flat on the bed, well enough away from the edge to not fall off, and then laid beside him with an equal amount of fuss, and then took his hand like it made a difference, just to have the anchor.

When he finally couldn't put it off any longer, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, reminded himself that Shizun still had his blood mites and couldn't push him away again, and tugged them both into sleep.

Shizun's dreams were... strange.

Very strange.

He gently ushered the man's partial consciousness into his own dream realm, which wasn't the best place to be, per se, but wouldn't let harm come to his master while he still breathed. When there was nothing but an empty dream before him, Luo Binghe carefully permeated it.

Qing Jing Peak.

The bamboo house.

Disciples shouting in the distance, indistinct words spoken in happy tones.

Idyllic, and yet...

There was a heavy specter of sorrow that dampened it all, curling around the edges, suffocating the life within. The disciples' happiness was distant, fake, even though Luo Binghe knew that this new Shizun loved all his new disciples and wanted this for them. The air was stale; the gentle sounds of nature grating.

Walking into the bamboo house hit Luo Binghe with a wave of grief and guilt so powerful his eyes stung anew.

The table was almost impossible to approach; the void of pain and yearning grew and grew the closer he drew. Glancing across it, from Shizun's habitual seat to his own, drew his eye to a distortion, a wound. The gaping absence of Luo Binghe.

Shizun... really did miss me, he realized, trembling to the core with it. The sheer force of it.

In the abyss... he'd wished that Shizun would regret it. Would miss him. Would want him back enough that he wouldn't have to prove anything to come home.

Here, in Shizun's mind, he realized that Ning Yingying hadn't been exaggerating when she had said... when she had expressed Shizun's grief. If anything, Shizun might have missed him more, with no distractions to keep him from it.

The door to the side room was a similarly aching void, to speak nothing of the (perfectly preserved) room itself.

When his feet numbly carried him to the kitchen, he could see the ghosts of childish hands, could almost hear the vibrations of his old work song, could feel the impression of a bright smile that echoed through the whole space as sweet, precious, mine.

Luo Binghe covered his mouth and turned away, feeling his entire face burn.

Mine.

If Luo Binghe had come home directly and held on and promised, yours, yours, yours, would that have...?

Would he...?

...Would...?

He could barely start the thought, much less finish it.

At least that answered the question of whether Shizun missed him. Like a limb, like a child, like a—a lover.

Luo Binghe pressed his hands to his hot, hot face, scrubbed it, reminded himself, with difficulty, that this wasn't what he was here for, and pressed on.

The dream itself was thin. Not the warped landscape he had found in some others' minds, with strange concepts linked together in unnatural ways and treated as immutable fact and strange, bunched-up folds of meaning tucked inside innocuous observations, but... denial. A protective layer.

He felt around the edges of it, finding where the denial was the thinnest, and slipped through the barrier with barely a ripple.

He stepped immediately into a thick miasma of guilt and horror. The same scene, but darker, unsafe, yawning mouths lined with teeth waiting to bite and tear and shred and consume waiting around every corner.

To stay here would be to be driven mad.

But it was not mad already.

It wasn't thin in the same way, but there was still... something... something... something...

Something blue.

Luo Binghe turned, picked a direction that he knew Shizun never traversed, and started walking.

The edges of that dream took longer to reach than they strictly should have, with a strange dead space beyond what the mind had constructed where normally he would have walked right out of another's mind.

Luo Binghe kept walking.

The ground under his feet slowly faded from a neutral brownish green to an oddly bluish glow, aquamarine and liquid.

Luo Binghe kept walking.

He came to a stop when the blue turned patchy and erratic, light flickering in a way that was halfway between a sputtering candle and a jumping arc of lightning.

There, he slipped below.

Where he ended up was... quite strange.

Broken metal tubes, tiny arcs of lightning jumping from stalks of metal, acrid smoke leaking from more panels of metal. The walls and floor were metal as well, a clear pathway stained with soot. On either side, there were... rooms. Like one might use for a stage play, open broadly to the walkway and showing a variety of scenes.

One held the bamboo house. Another, the basement of the manor where they had faced off against the skinner demon. Another, the rift into the Endless Abyss.

Next to the Endless Abyss, there was a metal rack, from which two corpses hung like empty costumes.

The first was damaged, the flesh of its right arm melted away from bone the way ice melted, red hanging in large droplets down its side. Dressed in a demon emperor's garb, it was nigh identical to Luo Binghe as he was now, but for the fact that Luo Binghe would never allow himself to look that rough. That cruel.

The second was his seventeen year old self, tear tracks staining its face and blood soaking through his conference uniform, right over the heart, frozen look of deep sadness on its face.

Chilled to the bone, Luo Binghe continued.

The throne room of the Underground Palace. His bedroom in the Underground Palace. The Water Prison. A forest location. A crypt and empty coffin.

Eventually, he reached the end, which was a circular metal room with a floating tube of blue-stained water in it. There was a shape of a person within who stroked across all of Luo Binghe's senses as Shizun.

...Well, Luo Binghe had known that his Shizun wasn't the one who had first brought him to the peak, but he admitted he'd guessed a different sort of possession.

He turned to the walls, which held a heap of metal that labelled itself as a 'terminal'. He approached it slowly.

【 Secure Boot enabled.

Character identified as 'Luo Binghe'. Administrator privileges granted. 】

【 admin@Scum-Villains-Self-Saving-System: /Shen Yuan/core# 】

Luo Binghe blinked at the two panels of blue that had popped up before him. The latter wanted a prompt of some sort. Aloud, he said, "What is this place?"

【 Answering Administrator: The location that binds soul 'Shen Yuan' to role 'Shen Qingqiu'. 】

Shen Yuan. Yuan. The wall that surrounds. Protects. Luo Binghe's mouth tugged into a smile, a melting ache in his chest.

"What are you?"

【 Answering Administrator: This one is a Transmigration System. 】

A system by which something 'transmigrates', then? Transitory, migration. How Shen Yuan came to be his Shizun, presumably. He had come here on a mission, however.

"Do you know what happened at the edge of the Endless Abyss, during the Immortal Alliance Conference?"

【 Answering Administrator: Yes. 】

"Do you know why it happened?"

【 Answering Administrator: Yes. 】

Luo Binghe's heart thumped in his mouth. "Why? Why did it happen the way it did?"

There was a long silence that felt more like hesitation than inability, and then a mirage took over the room.

Luo Binghe watched in silence as a young man called Shen Yuan avidly read a story called Proud Immortal Demon Way—a story which infuriated him beyond belief, except for the main character. Luo Binghe.

This other Luo Binghe was a cruel, unstable tyrant, who had been bullied and abused relentlessly by Shizun's predecessor until he had no faith in the world left, and was pushed into the Endless Abyss in a final standoff.

He survived the abyss much the same way that Luo Binghe had, except... with a great deal more sex—both for dual cultivation and for pleasure...—really, no wonder it had taken him five years to escape!! Other-self!! Do you think with anything except your dick??

He finally returned from the Endless Abyss with the help of Xin Mo (and... more sex... a great deal more sex...), celebrated by killing everyone who ever wronged him in increasingly inventive and brutal ways and bedding and wedding their wives/sisters/mothers/daughters (not a single man? Not one? Were his other-self's tastes that restrictive??), then went on a great big conquest to rule all the realms and merge them into one (also with the help of Xin Mo, and still more sex with still more women), only to end at the top of the world with nowhere else to go and no one else to conquer, bored with life itself.

(Luo Binghe could help but think, a little acidly, that perhaps if his other-self had narrowed his attentions and enjoyed the world around him and not cheated on every person he had ever loved, then perhaps things wouldn't have turned out like this, but what did he know?)

The man known only as Shen Yuan was so enraged by this ending that he blacked out, and woke up in the body of the man known as Shen Qingqiu.

And right beside him, there was a blue window that read, 【 Activation code: “Dumbfuck author, dumbfuck novel.” System automatically triggered. 】

Luo Binghe watched with a lump in his throat as the tangle of exasperation and fear dissipated into an almost-smile as Shizun saw the beaten form of his fourteen year old self, a heretofore unseen warmth stealing over his entire countenance, even as the System hovered in the background, blaring warnings.

At the time, he had thought that Shizun was simply in a startlingly good mood, and perhaps was taking a gentler touch to his training because of it, sparing Luo Binghe that little bit of extra pain.

The play of his Shizun's life continued, blue boxes popping up to direct his actions from time to time, with Shizun always worming his way through them to dote on Luo Binghe with all his heart,

Every so often, he stopped to ask the System, "Do I really have to push him?"

And every time, the System would answer, 【 If Luo Binghe fails to complete the “Endless Abyss” scenario, ten thousand satisfaction points will be deducted. 】

And every time, Shizun's brilliant green eyes grew a little dimmer.

A few days before the Immortal Alliance Conference, Luo Binghe watched his younger self return from a mission through Shizun's eyes—a slender, graceful, shining youth of peerless moral and physical caliber, gentle and warm and seductively genuine in his affections.

...Perhaps, Luo Binghe thought, bemused and giddy as he took in the effusive reflection of his younger self, I should have asked for that kiss after all.

Though, he thought as the scene continued, pinching his nose with a blush, seeing his own young face from the outside, he really... really had to wonder how oblivious his Shizun was. The hearts in his eyes hadn't been remotely subtle. If Shizun hadn't realized the adoration was fully mutual at that time...

The atmosphere in the room shifted, with an odd tightness around Shizun's eyes that Luo Binghe hadn't seen back then. The cadence of a too-weighted question about strength and trials, met by Luo Binghe's naive enthusiasm, head full of nothing but stars and hope and images of saving Shizun, defending their home, showing up Liu Qingge...

And when he had gauged Luo Binghe's sincere, if misguided desire for power, he breathed a half-sigh, dismissed Luo Binghe, and spent a long while staring at a blue window that read, 【 If Luo Binghe fails to complete the “Endless Abyss” scenario, ten thousand satisfaction points will be deducted. 】

By the time they both stood at the edge of the rift, Luo Binghe was painfully, painfully aware of what he would see.

His seventeen year old self was backed up against the edge, crying, terrified, incongrously beautiful with it, pleading with Shizun to just listen...

...And behind him, a red screen stretched scross the sky, counting down the time Shizun had left to force him down.

Now, Luo Binghe could feel the self-loathing tucked into the edges of Shizun's impassive face. Could hear the echoes of what his predecessor would have said in that situation. Could see the white-knuckled grip on Xiu Ya's handle.

After Luo Binghe fell, the window changed.

【 Congratulations! You have successfully completed the key quest, “The Legend Begins: Luo Binghe’s Fall and Rebirth.” Reward: Protagonist satisfaction points +10,000. 】

Then:

【 However, due to extraordinary circumstances, a new point value has been activated: Luo Binghe’s heartbreak points. Due to excessively high heartbreak level, protagonist satisfaction points have been reset to zero. Please continue to work hard! 】

Luo Binghe stared at that message for as long as it existed, and suddenly understood quite a few more things about his other self, and why he had done what he had done to his enemies. He meticulously kept his hands from shaking, his heart from pounding, and his face from flushing. It wouldn't do to let on how much he wanted to kill and kill and kill and kill and kill and—

(Despite his bloodlust spiking higher than it ever had in the abyss, Xin Mo remained surprisingly quiet.)

Luo Binghe considered stopping the simulation there, because his path forward was eminently clear, but curiosity had him lingering, the place in his heart that craved pain as much as it craved soothing telling him to watch what came next.

Shizun floated through the rest of the conference seemingly in a daze; his winnings were carelessly dumped on Ming Fan, the other Qing Jing disciples were given a headcount that faltered halfway through, and Shizun drifted off to pack. Ning Yingying, pale and strained, fixed a tremulous smile on her face and herded Shizun this way and that to prepare him to leave, and together, the diminished numbers of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect left for home.

In the days—weeks—that followed, Shizun refused all food, drifting from task to task and leaving them all unfinished in his distraction until he returned to Jue Di Gorge and collected the shards of Zheng Yang.

Luo Binghe watched his master kneel and paw through the dirt with tears streaking down his face that refused to stop.

The shards were delivered to Wan Jian to be reforged, a stake procured from one of the gardener's sheds, and Shizun's unpracticed, clumsy attempts at gouging the wood started to spell out Luo Binghe's name, stroke by stroke.

After a sword mound was set up in a little clearing behind the bamboo house, Shizun stood and stared at it for a very long time.

That night, he stepped into Luo Binghe's dusty, untouched room, sleepless and ragged, and sank to his knees beside the bed.

"I'm sorry, Binghe," he rasped, pressing his face into Luo Binghe's mattress. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have done it. I never should have done it. I was wrong. I'm so sorry. It should have been me. I should have... I should have... I didn't..."

His master's shoulders shook as he knelt there, misery and regret and grief radiating off of him in waves, joined slowly by jagged anger that grew and grew into rage, hot and unstable as he started cursing out the System, and...

Oh, Luo Binghe realized faintly as he shakily wiped tears off his own face, he's qi deviating.

There was nothing that could be gained from trying to stop it, not when it was a summoned mirage, but Luo Binghe dropped to his knees beside the trembling figure anyway. Tendrils of qi rose up and lashed out, unfelt.

"It's okay, Shizun," he murmured, unheard. "You did pick right. You should have done it. This disciple is grateful you did." His mouth tugged to the side as his chest stung. "Well. Perhaps this disciple wishes his master had been kinder about the whole thing. You could have asked me to jump, you know. I would have. I would have been honored to be given such a task. You could have told me to retrieve Xin Mo for you, and I would have done it. You could have told me to train and return to you stronger. You could have told me you were in danger, and I would have done anything at all to save you."

The scene started to distort and jump oddly as Shizun's qi struck at nothing. Panels of blue jumped up around him, garbled, cycling through alien languages.

"I understand why you didn't, now," Luo Binghe continued, raising a sleeve to wipe at his cheeks again, "but I still wish you had. I wish you had been able to trust me. I wish you had been able to trust that I learned all that you taught. And I wish you had been able to trust that you taught well, because, Shizun..."

The qi vortex rose in intensity, leaving gouges in the walls even as it avoided every one of Luo Binghe's possessions, things that were so desperately precious to Shizun because of how precious they were to Luo Binghe.

"...you did." He stared at the stuttering, fading mirage, back straight and hands curled into loose fists on his knees. "And this disciple is honored to call you, and you alone, my Shizun."

And then he was sitting alone on a steel floor, surrounded by strange metal constructions that flashed colored lights.

【 admin@Scum-Villains-Self-Saving-System: /Shen Yuan/core# 】

Ah, right.

This filth.

This filth that put Shizun through much pain and trial and grief for its own sick amusement, that hurt his Shizun—

"What happened after that?" he asked calmly, because it wouldn't do to lose his temper here.

【 Answering Administrator: This System suffered heavy damages as a result of Shen Qingqiu's qi deviation, and put itself into Secure Boot mode until repairs could be made. Damaged data included the full history of this System's link to Shen Qingqiu, and the link's dependency, the novel Proud Immortal Demon Way. Would Administrator like to see the full list? 】

Luo Binghe considered. "Does any of it pertain to the health, mind, or body of Shen Yuan or Shen Qingqiu?"

【 Answering Administrator: No. 】

Luo Binghe nodded to himself and turned to the tube that held Shizun's natural form. "Release him."

The blue-stained water drained away, and the strange, transparent tube rose up, leaving Luo Binghe's beloved in a soggy lump on the ground.

...All the more to pay this 'System' back for.

Luo Binghe crouched beside the body and checked that it was the soul root, the part of Shizun that made him Shizun, and was reassured by the thrum of vitality eminating from his core. He gathered Shizun's soul root into his arms, tucking the man's head under his chin and cradling him close. Then, making sure his grip was solid both in a physical sense and in a dream power sense, he took a number of steps back, until they were safely out of the epicenter of the room.

"System?"

【 admin@Scum-Villains-Self-Saving-System: /Shen Yuan/core# 】

"How do I remove everything that you are from my Shizun's life, for good?"

【 Answering Administrator: Administrator may run the "delete all" command. 】

Luo Binghe nodded. "Delete all."

Sometimes, one must put aside revenge for sheer practicality.

He secured Shizun's soul root a bit tighter in his arms, carefully shielding them both from any blowback as the strange room was eaten away as though by acid in the form of little blocks of light.

He waited until the room was fully gone before bringing Shizun's soul root back to where it had been suspended in blue-stained water—the place with the greatest connection to Shizun's physical mind—and, the worst of it over, he finally properly looked at the form in his arms.

He was shorter than his Shizun by a solid number of cun, and stockier, too. His arms were distractingly bare, the delicate bones of his wrists and the soft flesh of his forearms on display. His face was a little sharper, more angular. Younger.

...For all appearances, Shizun's soul root couldn't be much more than five or six years older than him.

That was... an odd thought.

Had they met under other circumstances, would Luo Binghe have been saying, gege, gege, to try to attract Shizun's eye? Maybe... maybe Yuan-ge? A-Yuan?

Luo Binghe shook his head vigorously, face warm. Now wasn't the time to get distracted! Or even less filial than he already was!! Just because they were closer in age than he'd thought...

Shizun's hair was criminal-short (what sorts of mischief would his kind, easy-mannered, lackadaisical master get into for it to come to this?), and there was a strange style of eyewear perched on his nose, and his lips, slightly fuller than Shizun's, looked really, incredibly soft...

No, no, no! Ahh, but Luo Binghe should be looking elsewhere at this rate, shouldn't he.

He closed his eyes and stretched out his senses, tracking the System's destruction, deletion, making sure it uprooted itself entirely, the way it promised.

When there wasn't a trace of unnatural blue or strange metal constructions left in Shizun's mind or soul, Luo Binghe breathed deep and slow, and brought his power to bear. Pulling from Shizun's memories, he focused on concepts of home and comfort and belonging and sleep, and manifested them, bringing a space blooming to life around them.

It was half Shizun's bedroom the bamboo house, and half... somewhere else. The bed and mattress and sheets were different, and there were a couple of structures made of strange materials that his subconscious labeled computer/entertainment and ramen/nostalgic food and so forth. At the same time, there was Shizun's vanity and box of ornaments, art scrolls that Luo Binghe had gifted him as a disciple on the walls, night beyond the paper windows, perfume satchels that Luo Binghe had recently replaced tucked about the space.

There was a small table beside the bed with a light, a stack of trashy novels, and two small sculptures—first of that other Luo Binghe in full demonic emperor regalia, holding Xin Mo aloft, and the second of Luo Binghe himself in his white disciple robes, sitting crosslegged and carving a bamboo cup.

Luo Binghe stared at the two of them, swallowed hard, and carried Shizun's soul root to the bed. Tucking the man in, Luo Binghe gave into the urge to stroke his hair. It was just as soft as it looked.

"You're safe now, Shizun," he told the sleeping figure. "It won't hurt you again. I promise."

Despite not having Shizun's consciousness, the figure's liips still twitched into a faint smile, recognizing Luo Binghe right at the very core of himself. "Protected by Binghe... No safer place in this world, mm?"

And then his eyelashes fluttered and closed completely, sinking deeper into sleep while Luo Binghe sat, frozen and blushing furiously.

...Being so close to the most intimate parts of Shizun's soul really wasn't good for Luo Binghe's health. To be so clearly, deeply, and profoundly trusted—

"Shizun is so unfair," he mumbled, then pressed his burning face into Shizun's mattress and waited for his heart to calm down.

Once it had, he stood and exited the room, beginning the journey upwards through Shizun's (much calmer) consciousness.

After Binghe had shuffled Shen Qingqiu into his dreamscape, Shen Qingqiu waited around for a little bit, got bored, and started walking.

It really was bleak in here, ah? Pockets of a haunted wasteland in places, full of cliffs and danger zones, curls of foreign malice tainting the sky. There was greenery too, tucked into little protected pockets, forget-me-nots and clover and violets hiding away from the harsh conditions, but they were sparse compared to the echoes of darkness that resonated throughout the space.

"Binghe," fell from Shen Qingqiu's lips, heart aching worse than ever. "Did I do this to you?"

It had been like this before, but—the flowers hidden away, the dried grass beneath his feet, the lightning-struck saplings...

"I'm sorry," he said to the apocalyptic world around him. "I'm so, so sorry."

Not that it made any difference to say it, but it let off a tiny bit of the pressure of the overwhelming regret that felt like it was due to choke the life out of him at any moment.

When he had first seen his disciple in that brothel hallway, he certainly hadn't foreseen the day ending here.

But, well. At least Luo Binghe would doubtlessly be able to sniff out what exactly had gone wrong that any number of memory restoration artifacts had been unable to touch. That boy could accomplish anything he put his mind to, up to and including escaping a place like the Endless Abyss.

Ahh, all that time together and he'd never asked!! It had seemed secondary to the possibility of it happening again, but Shen Qingqiu was curious!! Such a place was supposed to be inescapable!! Whatever Binghe had pulled to get out of there had probably never been done before!!

He shook off the thoughts and kept wandering, before realizing, distantly, that the foreign malice had a source, and he was walking towards it.

...Huh.

Shen Qingqiu walked faster.

Following the source led him to a deep canyon, the pit and miasma and thick, seductive allure of fury lingering there like stagnant water.

Had Binghe always had this? Or was it new? Shen Qingqiu felt that it must be new, because he'd never felt such a thing from his disciple before, and an evil this overwhelming surely couldn't stay hidden for long.

Maybe he had been cursed in the Endless Abyss...?

Shen Qingqiu considered this as he kept walking, coming to the conclusion that if it had been a curse from the abyss, then it was his responsibility to mitigate its effects, inasmuch as it was possible. If he couldn't do it here, he could get the details from Binghe later and they could set about trying to find a solution together.

Now that Binghe was here.

Now that Binghe was alive.

Now that Shen Qingqiu could never, ever try to change that again.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and kept walking.

(Perhaps he might have been a little leery of giving another person such full and utter control of his body, but... Binghe deserved this much, didn't he? After what Shen Qingqiu had done... If Binghe truly wanted to come home and spend time with him again, then safeguards were not just advised, but necessary. He wouldn't subject Binghe to that, not ever, ever, ever again.)

When he finally arrived at the lowest point of the canyon, there was nothing there except a sword.

That, Shen Qingqiu thought, bemused, is the most evil sword I've ever seen in my life.

The blade hungered; the blade thirsted; the blade wanted nothing more than death and sex and more death and more sex, and would do or say whatever it needed to to convince its wielder to chase those things with no sense or recourse, and was powerful enough to swamp the mind until every bit of their identity was replaced by desire for those two things.

Oi. Binghe. What sort of insane devil's bargain did you take?

That said, Shen Qingqiu was still an immortal cultivator with a considerable amount of power, even strangled by Without a Cure as it was. Surely he could do something about this—

Out of nowhere, the air blackened, thick and deep with hatred, and lashed out in a gust of violent glee, whipping Shen Qingqiu's robes around him.

Just as soon as it happened, the air turned oppressive, a metaphysical sensation of weight crushing on the canyon, pressing down more and more until the malicious intent was trapped and tamed within.

...That was interesting.

Shen Qingqiu tossed up a few talismans around the evil thing, just testing, and as he expected, they burned away in short order—but the stronger they were, the longer they took to burn away, and layering the talismans increased the effect further still. They lasted longer, also, when the fire of its power banked when Shen Qingqiu applied them.

It was with these effects in mind that he withdrew a long switch from his qiankun sleeve and attached a bit of cinnabar to the end, then set it to the ground and began to circle the evil sword.

It took a tick or twenty, but he eventually had an inert purification array circling the sword, a suppression layer circling the purification array, a protection array circling the suppression array, another layer of suppression, another layer of protection, a concealing array around that one, and another three layers of preservation arrays surrounding that.

Overkill? He glanced at the very unstable, very evil sword. No, definitely not. Just the bare minimum, probably.

He sliced open his palm on Xiu Ya, which had followed him in, and walked around each circle to line them with blood, vaguely grateful that what he was spilling was a qi-laden idea of his blood, rather than his actual blood, or he might have passed out before he was halfway through!

Really, heavenly demon blood would have been a more powerful binding, but with the sword's connection to Binghe, there was no telling whether it could creep free of its prison by following him out, so Shen Qingqiu wasn't going to bother trying.

Once every array was bound with both cinnabar and Shen Qingqiu's spirit-blood, he stood outside of the arrays and waited, meditating, until that flare of power followed by an even more powerful banking happened again.

Then it did, and—purification, suppression, protection, suppression, protection, concealing, preservation, preservation, preservation.

Nine arrays. May they be everlasting.

Shen Qingqiu spent a while catching his breath after that (it was a good thing dream figments couldn't get dirty), and looked up to note, with satisfaction, that the foreign malice curling through the sky had disappeared, leaving behind blue and white and a brilliantly shining sun.

Thusly accomplished, he wandered back out of the canyon and beheld the little pockets of greenery starting to creep from their protection, new green leaves unfurling for the sun, some of the brown of the ground giving way to hints of life.

Much better.

Much, much better.

He wandered some more until he was bored, and then picked a little circle of forget-me-nots to kneel beside, and return to meditating.

Some time later, he felt Binghe approach, and opened his eyes to see the young man standing before him with a complicated, yet utterly soft expression.

"Shizun," Binghe murmured.

Shen Qingqiu smiled. "Binghe."

"Xin Mo's influence...?" Binghe ventured shyly.

"'Xin Mo'?" Shen Qingqiu echoed with a blinked, then realized there was only one thing his disciple could be referring to. "Ah, the sword? It was trying to drive Binghe to insanity, so I sealed it. Binghe should avoid its use when at all possible. It may be possible to destroy it in full, though we should make certain the backlash won't result in problems first, because it really was a very powerful artifact."

Binghe's gaze fell to the patch of forget-me-nots—which had grown while Shen Qingqiu meditated, and now curled around his seat and crept into his lap, almost affectionately—and skittered away, an odd little smile on his mouth. "...Thanking Shizun."

Shen Qingqiu might have thought the sentiment was sarcastic or reluctant, if not for the way the greenery around experienced a growth surge, blooming around his wrists and spawning numerous little domes of green and white around the edges of the patch. He shook off the stalks and stood before he could leave a weird butt-print in the flowers growing in his disciple's mind. "Did Binghe find the source of the madness?"

"Mm," Binghe hummed, watching first Shen Qingqiu's hands, then the rapidly growing foliage. "Shizun isn't mad. He was under possession."

Shen Qingqiu tilted his head, confused, and summoned a fan to fiddle with.

"This disciple can explain, but..." Binghe shot Shen Qingqiu a devastating smile, glancing up at him through his eyelahes despite being a whole four centimeters taller, and all of Shen Qingqiu's resistances crumbled. "...He would prefer we rest first, and speak over breakfast. Rest assured, Shizun will be in no danger for waiting."

Shen Qingqiu acquiesced easily (he was tired too) and let his disciple usher him back to his own dream realm, leaving an odd trail of forget-me-nots in their wake.

Shen Qingqiu woke slowly, the warmth of the dream lingering around him like the scent of incence that had just burned out. Binghe here, Binghe alive, Binghe hurt, and Binghe would have been honored—

Ah.

No, he wouldn't have.

Binghe was dead.

Just another dream.

Shen Qingqiu looked around the room, the dull ache and sharp guilt doing annoying things to his esophagus and eyes. Looked like Ning Yingying was up already, her empty cot made neatly. The window was open, letting in scents of the dying city waft in. His own bed was more rumpled than he would usually have left it, but it was a rather busy dream, so some thrashing was to be expected.

He should get up.

Soon.

In a bit.

If Binghe wasn't here to sweetly pester him awake, he didn't want to, and if neither Ning Yingying nor Ming Fan were here to give him a piteous, but Shizuuuuun, then there wasn't really a point in getting up anyway, was there? That was fine. He could use the rest.

He rolled over and closed his eyes, determined to ignore the dampness of his eyelashes. It had been a convincing dream, okay? It was hardly his fault if it swept him away a little. Even the room itself seemed to almost smell of... well.

He told himself to stop thinking and just go back to sleep.

"Shizuuuun..." an achingly familiar voice crooned before he could.

Shen Qingqiu's eyes snapped open against his will. The smell of congee didn't dissipate with the rest of the dream.

Long strides—no longer a puppyish bounce, but smooth and light, almost inaudible but for the swish of fabric—crossed the room from the door to the tableand set down a breakfast tray with a click. "Shizun, morning has arrived. Won't you eat what this disciple has prepared for you?"

Shen Qingqiu hastily pushed himself into a sitting position, half with his chest siezing in violent hope and half with deep frustration with his own mind for not knowing when to quit.

Binghe... didn't look like he usually did in Shen Qingqiu's dreams. He was taller. Broader. More elegantly built. Less of a slender youth and more of a young man recently come into his own. There was little baby fat left on his face, and the features it left behind were fit to grace any romance novel cover.

The organ in Shen Qingqiu's chest gave a very strange lurch and backwards-feeling thump. "...Binghe."

The mirage of his long-lost disciple smiled, warm and a little raw. "Yes, Shizun?"

Shen Qingqiu clawed at the air in a clumsy gesture to beckon him closer, and, in a very un-dream-like way, his disciple obediently stepped forward and allowed his (solid, warm, living) wrist to be grabbed. Shoving qi into his meridians, Shen Qingqiu found that, no, that was Binghe's qi—spiritual and demonic both, both much steadier than they'd been when he'd done the exact same thing... yesterday...

"Is everything alright, Shizun?"

Dazed, Shen Qingqiu's gaze wandered up the black robes to the movie star flawless face. He had his hair gathered into the same high tail he always had.

"...Shizun?"

...Right.

Not... a dream?

Horrifyingly, his vision blurred. What kind of Peak Lord—what kind of grown man—Binghe was alive, alive, alive—

He cleared his throat and snatched up his fan, shielding his face until the tears could be blinked back fully. "Fine. I—this master is fine. Nothing is wrong. Thanking Binghe for breakfast. It smells wonderful."

Binghe paused, then let out an almost soundless huff, halfway to a chuckle. "Of course, Shizun. Reminding Shizun that this disciple promised an explanation for Shizun's actions this day at the Immortal Alliance Conference."

Many memories slotted back into his mind, including sending Binghe to track down the source of the insanity and drinking his blood mites to remove the rest of the danger—along with his absolutely mortifying behavior upon seeing the boy again—and he released a small sigh. "Please."

Binghe helped him dress and care for his hair properly, and no matter how guilty Shen Qingqiu felt about the whole thing, his disciple's pleasure in the act was undeniable, the sparkle in his star-bright eyes and the cast of a thrilled flush dusted over his skin like a confection.

Those soft curls of his were as fluffy and alluring as ever, Shen Qingqiu found, and couldn't stop himself from reaching out to pat a couple of times, despite knowing that his disciple was a full-grown man and surely too old for this kind of treatment.

From the happy crescents of his eyes and slight blush, Binghe didn't appear to mind.

The ever-filial disciple seated his master at the table and served them both breakfast, and then, upon prompting, stopped watching said master eat with a rapt stare and instead gave him an abbreviated version of what he'd seen in Shen Qingqiu's mind.

Apparently, the entity that had transmigrated Shen Yuan into the body of Shen Qingqiu in the first place had been keeping him captive and issuing him orders from his subconscious, one of which had been to force Luo Binghe into the abyss on pain of death. Seeing the dissatisfied scowl on his master's face, Binghe appeared to melt a little bit, and his ensuing smile was far too maidenish to be accompanied by the words, "My master had been reassured at length that his Binghe would escape with his life intact."

Shen Qingqiu swallowed the bitter pill of having been enough of an idiot to think that that made anything better, and reassured himself that Binghe could defend himself from any of Shen Qingqiu's missteps henceforth.

"I would have jumped for you if you'd asked," Binghe said softly as Shen Qingqiu cleaned his bowl. His eyes were terribly open and gentle. "So, if it happens again—please ask."

"If it happens again, I will take my own life before it can come to pass," Shen Qingqiu snapped back, setting his spoon down with a huff. "Better that than to sustain through what comes after."

From the way Binghe's eyes widened, he had said something a little too telling. Dammit. He snatched up his teacup to hide his expression.

After a moment, Binghe carefully said, "Ning-shijie did say my master grieved for this one like a widow."

Ning Yingying!!

Shen Qingqiu forcibly suppressed the blush. "Yingying is prone to—overly flowery descriptions."

Binghe leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table and propping his cheek on his fist. Criminally long eyelashes fluttered briefly, a charming hook of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "Ah, then if this one were to ask his shishus...?"

Shen Qingqiu shuddered internally to think of what the other two might call his entirely normal mourning period. There were too many creatures in this world that mated for life for Liu Qingge not to have a comparison close at hand, and god knew what Mu Qingfang would come up with. "Ah, well..."

"Shizuuuun," the young man crooned again, pink-cheeked and grinning with so much delighted adoration that it was difficult to look at head-on. "We aren't even married."

Shen Qingqiu sighed sharply and raised his cup, prepared to chide the boy for such a joke—

"Yet."

It took Shen Qingqiu several moments of frozen contemplation to finally register that this boy he had raised was referring to the possibility of the two of them... getting married.

Oi. Oi, oi, oi, oi. Hold up. Hang on. What?!

"Binghe..." he started, and then realized he had no idea where to go from there. His face started to burn traitorously. "What do you mean, 'yet'?"

This unfilial brat just grinned wider, with enough sweetness and heat to make any viewer shiver. "Your Binghe means that he means to change that one day, and would like to alert Shizun to his intentions."

His face felt even hotter—well, you try getting proposed to out of nowhere!! By someone as gorgeous as Luo Binghe, no less!!!—and his throat emitted a strangled noise. "Binghe, I—..."

"Hm?" said his disciple, the look on his face supremely distracting and, frankly, dangerous in the extreme!

Shen Qingqiu gathered himself with difficulty, took a very deep breath, tried not to spiral too hard into my disciple is gay?! and said, "Binghe, I—this master is straight."

Binghe blinked, uncomprehending.

"I do not favor men," Shen Qingqiu elaborated. (That if he did, Binghe really, truly, would be perfect in every conceivable way was a niggling bit of knowledge he was simply not going to touch.)

If anything, Binghe looked even more confused—which, mighty insulting there, thank you!—then his face cleared in understanding and a little bit of bemusement. "I see. So Shizun doesn't view this one as a man...?"

Shen Qingqiu opened his mouth, then closed it. "Of—of course I do—how did we get there?!"

Clear obsidian eyes like moonlit pools at midnight captured Shen Qingqiu's helpless gaze, the lower petal-soft, lush pink lip jutted in a confused moue. "Shizun seems to favor this one just fine."

The noise that left Shen Qingqiu's throat was unprintable. "As a disciple!" he snapped, fan raised in warning. His whole body felt like it was burning with the force of his blush. To be misunderstood in such a way—!! "A disciple!! The sect's rising star!! This one's personal apprentice!! I raised you as my own!!"

A look of calculation settled into those starry eyes, then went dangerously soft and warm all at once. "Ah, this one understands."

"Good," Shen Qingqiu sighed, and settled back into his seat, firmly ignoring the suspicion that his disciple had understood nothing at all, as well as such inconvenient sensations as the heat in his face, the thumping of his heart, and the odd tingling below the belt at considering, just a little too strongly, what someone as beautiful as Binghe might look like in wedding-red silks.

"Apologizing to Shizun—your Binghe was presumptuous," his disciple said agreeably—too agreeably. Whose Binghe, ah?! "He finds that he misses wearing his sect's colors. Could he yet further presume to borrow some robes of Shizun's, to remind him who he truly belongs to?"

...Oi.

At Shen Qingqiu's suspicious glare, he just looked even more genuine and adoring, somehow. "It would pain your Binghe deeply if anyone thought he could be willingly taken from your side when he has fought so desperately to return to it. Would my master have them doubt his devotion to you?"

Shen Qingqiu took a moment to curse out this child's masterclass in smooth-talking at length in his (pounding) heart, then shoved the qiankun pouch that held his personal affects at him with a growl. "Do what you want, you incorrigible brat."

While Binghe didn't comment on his aloof master's snippy fluster and flush, the bashful pleasure in the quirk of his lips and crinkles at the corners of his eyes, as well as his own high color, left no doubt that he had seen it just fine, and Shen Qingqiu's thin face had burnt down to the bone.

If seeing Binghe once again dressed in green and white did something strange inside Shen Qingqiu's chest—well, that was only to be expected. His child had returned to him. His pride and joy who he had thought dead for years was alive and well and coming home. It was only natural that one's heart would skip a beat, ah!

It had nothing to do with the fact that the fine materials of his clothing Binghe had borrowed, despite being the least fine materials on Shen Qingqiu's person, were still fine enough to imply that the man was less of a senior cultivator within the sect and more of a peak lord's spouse. Shen Qingqiu's spouse specifically, given the colors.

Ning Yingying promptly ruined it when they came downstairs, when she greeted the two of them with a respectful, "Shizun," and a happily teasing, "and Shimu!"

Shen Qingqiu decided he was simply not going to address that whatsoever.

"This shidi is working on it," Binghe said placidly, and Shen Qingqiu thwapped him with his fan. He didn't look terribly discouraged. Which was bad, of course. It wasn't like Shen Qingqiu wanted the most beautiful person in the universe actively pursuing him. What a waste that would be.

Apparently, the gates to the city were open again; Liu Qingge had rounded up the rest of the sowers and Mu Qingfang had finalized the cure, and was distributing it outside.

Meeting the commotion outside was a surprise. Apparently all four sects' leaders had come to view the successful resurrection of Jin Lan City, which seemed like overkill to Shen Qingqiu, but maybe after all the disciples they'd killed in this endeavor, they'd come to verify it themselves...?

(If the Old Palace Master's expression upon seeing Luo Binghe dressed all in green and white and happily glued to Shen Qingqiu's side was a bit satisfying, well, that was only natural. Take that, poacher!)

The sowers had been taken alive, to be shown off to the wronged people of Jin Lan City, and Luo Binghe, keeping Shen Qingqiu rooted to the spot with little warning tugs at the blood mites (incurring twin feelings of bone-deep safety and distant concern for what, exactly, his disciple was worried about), strode up to the cage and made rather a spectacle of suggesting they be burned, to uproarious cheering, and they were carted off to be burned where their poison could not affect the masses.

Then the Old Palace Master stepped forward and started slinging accusations at Shen Qingqiu.

The accusation of mistreating his disciples was a strange one.

"What business is that of Huan Hua Palace's?" he questioned, baffled. Had the social rules of this world swung so wildly in the three years when he wasn't paying attention? "It's an internal matter, is it not?"

The Old Palace Master puffed up. "When your disciples come running to our sect, that certainly makes it our business, don't you think?"

"No," said Shen Qingqiu, tilting his head behind his fan. "What disciples? This lord hasn't been alerted to any changes to our peak's numbers."

He glanced at Ning Yingying as he said it, and she nodded smartly, confirming the statement.

"That young man right beside you certainly has many grievances—enough to send him running right into our arms," Old Palace Master said, as oily as ever and unwilling to be deterred. "Why don't you tell us about them, Luo Binghe? Rest assured that Huan Hua Palace will be behind you every step of the way."

Shen Qingqiu tried to glance sharply at Binghe—he didn't blame the boy for being cautious about returning, given the circumstances of their parting, but...—but a gentle tug of the blood mites forestalled the reaction.

Binghe stepped forward. "Yes. It is true. This one has many grievences with Shizun."

Shen Qingqiu narrowed his eyes at the tone.

Placing his hand over his chest, Binghe began, "For instance, when this disciple wakes him up in the morning, Shizun will often pretend to be asleep, even though this one knows he's not, to force Binghe to fully pester him awake, often leaving us both late to the breakfast this one prepared for him so carefully and with so much love. Isn't that too cruel?"

From the expressions of those present, they did not think this particularly cruel. Shen Qingqiu was allowed to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"And my master can be so terribly cold. Even when this one completes all of his chores and studying early, my master sometimes withholds his affection." Binghe drooped, summoning tears. "This disciple often has to ask his master to pat his head. He would humiliate his Binghe in this way, denying him even the scraps of love he gives so easily to others..."

This child has all the grievances of an overly pampered housecat, Shen Qingqiu thought, and was certain he wasn't alone in thinking this. The Old Palace Master certainly didn't look like he thought this was going his way.

"And he always leaves his books on the table, even though he's been told so many times to put them back on the shelves when he's done!" Binghe continued, sliding cleanly into miffed housewife, airing all her petty annoyances with her husband. "And he always works and works and works, leaving no time to listen to this disciple's qin progress in the evenings. And just this morning, he didn't even praise the meal I cooked for him!"

"Now that one's a lie," Shen Qingqiu muttered, and, at Binghe's perfectly wounded sajiao pout, he added, "Come now, I told you it was as wonderful as always, didn't I? Binghe's cooking is, of course, unmatched in flavor, quality, and presentation. There are only so many times this master can say it before it becomes meaningless, ah?"

Binghe brightened instantly, tears vanishing. Addressing the crowd, he smiled beatifically and said, "This disciple was mistaken, and has no grievances to air with his Shizun."

He then bounded back to Shen Qingqiu's side and ducked expectantly for headpats, and, after sparing a moment to mourn his face, Shen Qingqiu gave them to him.

Old Palace Master looked like he'd bitten into a lemon.

Next up was a woman he'd never seen before in his life claiming to be his wife (which made Binghe cling to him and scowl, fully committed to the housewife act), and Shen Qingqiu apologetically informed her that he could not take responsibility for her heart as he had no memory of her, but the sect would, of course, be willing to put her up in comfort for the rest of her days and support her through her effective widowhood.

Her face twisted in several ways before accusing him of also killing her whole family, which was a rather different matter, Shen Qingqiu thought! But, also! When had a powerful righteous cultivator ever faced consequences for a little single-household massacre?!! Qiu-xiaojie, come with better ammunition!!

Indeed, the Sect Leader stepped in to smooth it over with an apology and a promise of investigation by a neutral third party (both Qiu-xiaojie and the Old Palace Master seemed very displeased with this outcome, but couldn't actually force the matter with so little evidence), and with that, the strange string of accusations trailed off, leaving the Old Palace Master discreetly fuming (what did Shen Qingqiu ever do to him, ah?!) and the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect to gather and catch up.

Shen Qingqiu got a private carriage for him and Binghe to take back to the mountain, and dragged story after story about the creatures and locales in the Endless Abyss out of his disciple, which Binghe shared with a slightly complicated look, that was nonetheless pleased whenever he slipped in his injuries and was immediately subjected to his master's fussing and fawning.

Their return was heartily celebrated by the Qing Jing Peak disciples—though, oddly, none of them seemed inclined to do anything more than steal a back clap or quick hug before ushering them on their way home. Thus the journey back to the bamboo house was entirely smooth except for the moment that Binghe stepped through the threshold and promptly burst into tears.

Well. Shen Qingqiu couldn't claim to be totally unaffected by how much this old place felt like home again.

He ushered the poor boy to the daybed and let him cry it all out on his shoulder, then laid him down for a nap, only to find him rising not an hour later, insisting on making dinner... still while crying.

Shen Qingqiu made him hydrate and gave the rest up for lost.

Maybe it's the lingering effects of the sword...? he wondered, and retrieved Zheng Yang from the sword mound, just in case, while his dear disciple wept over the stew pot.

Instead of forestalling further tears, when Binghe walked into the main room and saw his old sword, reforged, promptly dropped the tray that held their dinner, leaving shards of pottery and spilled dishes all over the ground as he sank to his knees and bawled.

This child!!!

Shen Qingqiu ended up bridal carrying him to his room, dumping him on the (slightly dusty) bed, and ordering him to stay there until he'd calmed down and gotten a good night's sleep.

Thick, clumped, shining eyelashes fluttered, their owner nigh unbearably beautiful even with a reddened nose and a multitude of tears in varying stages of drying on his face. He'd started out pretty and only gotten wildly moreso as he grew. Unfair, really.

"Yes, Shizun," the boy finally croaked, burying his face half in the pillow as he watched Shen Qingqiu through one eye.

"Good," Shen Qingqiu huffed, and left.

He took care of Xin Mo's physical form as best he could (now with full access to talisman paper, qi-infused ink, and tomes of research on how to suppress demonic energy!), and once it was fully papered over in suppression seals, he hung it on the wall and replaced it with Zheng Yang in his disciple's belongings.

And then... then.

Well.

He should sleep, shouldn't he?

Right.

Sleep.

He made it as far as dressing for bed, braiding his hair, and laying down before he remembered what it had been like to wake up earlier that morning. He didn't—he didn't want to wake up like that again, dammit! He might as well just read, right...?

Books didn't hold him.

Mind teasers and weiqi didn't hold him.

Paperwork didn't hold him.

Music, carefully played under a muffling talisman, didn't hold him.

And.. really. How did he really know Binghe was still there, hm? What if... what if it had been a dream? What if Binghe hadn't actually—

What if, what if, what if—if he was going to torture himself like this, he might as well watch the boy sleep!!

Or check in on him, at the very least. That was normal, right? He'd found him just two days ago!! It only made sense to make certain...

Half an hour later found Binghe's endlessly deep charcoal-black eyes fluttering open and finding his (well and truly pathetic) master's not twenty centimeters from his own, the man kneeling at his bedside with arms folded on the mattress.

The corner of his mouth hooked up in an expression so soft and sweet that Shen Qingqiu's thin face burned, hurriedly looking away.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"The ground must be uncomfortable, Shizun," the youth finally rasped, sleep-thick. His gaze warmed further. "Won't you come up? There's room."

"No, there's not," Shen Qingqiu snorted, but was far too tired to argue, and so crawled into the xianxia version of a twin bed with his broad, nearly hundred-ninety centimeter-tall disciple, and predictably ended up in a full-body embrace with him.

As this meant he could feel Binghe's heart thumping fast and hard against his chest and smell the familiar soaps and oils on his skin, Shen Qingqiu had considerably fewer objections than normal.

"Ah," Binghe started, an octave higher than normal, stiffening and breath hitching, and Shen Qingqiu obligingly flopped beside him instead, squashed uncomfortably against the wall, and laid a hand over the boy's heart—which was fully racing now.

Shen Qingqiu tapped a fingernail to the clothed, utterly plush left pectoral. "Calm down and sleep."

A long silence, long enough for Shen Qingqiu to finally drift off in earnest, and then Binghe whispered, "Yes, Shizun."

And, together, they slept.

(That's a lie. Luo Binghe did not manage to sleep for even a single wink.)