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Chapter Text

The morning air is thick with the stench of smoke, and atop a pyre stands a lone figure bound to a stake. They raise their head, shorn hair fluttering around bare shoulders, their fine robes in disarray. Sharp green eyes meet his from across the crowd, and Luo Binghe watches as a smile cracks the icy facade of Shen Qingqiu.

- - -

The tide had turned in only moments.

Luo Binghe had watched anxiously as Qiu Haitang made her accusations, had listened as the Old Palace Master incited the crowd with calls of murderer and lecher, had waited for that moment when Shen Qingqiu would finally be in his grasp. Had wanted him brought low like the beast he had always accused Luo Binghe of being. Had wanted to drag him to the water prison, humiliated like he had been for years, and teach him the meaning of suffering.

And then someone in the crowd had called for his death.

Maybe if there had been others in the crowd from Cang Qiong sect to defend him, maybe if the sect leader had been here to call for order it wouldn’t have all gone so wrong. Would have demanded a full trial to protect the sects reputation, even if they all knew the verdict already. But there are no other Cang Qiong sect members here to speak for him.

Shen Qingqiu is alone, and the crowd is hungry.

Huan Hua Palace cultivators had grabbed Shen Qingiu before he could jerk away, binding cables pulled tight around his arms as he fought to get away, teeth bared in a snarl as the Old Palace Master solemnly declared his crimes worthy of execution. He thrashed in their hold, robes pulled halfway down his chest as he fought to get free. One of the disciples yanked him back by his hair, his sword slicing cleanly through the black locks. Behind them the sowers screamed as the cages holding them ignited, and the Huan Hua cultivators dragged the peak lord upright, pulling him towards the fire. Already disciples from Huan Hua had set up a post in the center of the square and were throwing wood on the pyre. Shen Qingqiu fought like a man possessed, snarling as he was dragged to the stake and lashed in place. Even with his cultivation bound the Peak Lord was no toothless wretch, and he lashed out with the only weapons left to defend himself. One of the disciples was headbutted as the peak lord was dragged over, while another fell back bleeding after he strayed too close and got bitten for his trouble.

Still, even Huan Hua's weakest disciples were more than a match for a Peak Lord who was currently no stronger than a mortal.

When he was finally secured in place he hung there for a moment, blood smeared across his face and panting as he sagged in his bindings. As he looked up his gaze caught on where Luo Binghe stands at the Palace Master’s side, still frozen where he’d stood since before the crowd had struck out. There’s rage in his eyes, of course, but it's only a shadow of the vicious tyrant that had ruled Qing Jing Peak all those years ago. As if the anger is merely a reflex and nothing else.

His scum shizun says something, the words lost to the clamor of the crowd, his bright eyes locked on Luo Binghe. He clenches a fist tight around the hilt of his sword, the satisfaction from earlier fading faster than the crowd of cultivators had torn into Shen Qingqiu.

Luo Binghe grits his teeth, watching the Huan Hua disciples throw a burning log at the base of the fire, the flames catching quickly on the dry wood.

Shen Qingqiu watches him from across the crowd, expression oddly blank. The man who as Peak Lord had reacted with immediate violence to even perceived insults, had murdered his martial brother for being bold enough to insult him to his face, now stands calm at his own execution. And as Binghe watches a smile creeps over his face, and he begins to laugh.

Binghe shoves through the crowd, cultivators snarling like beasts around him, the crowd mad with bloodlust. Shen Qingqiu’s laugh echo above the clamor even as the flames lick hungrily at the silk pooled around his feet. His head falls back against the wood, tears glinting in the fire light, gasping for breath as smoke and laughter steal the air from his lungs. Uncontrollable rage sears like a coal in Binghe’s gut at the sight. A voice is screaming in his head that something precious is being stolen from him, that some unknowable price is being paid, and it only grows louder as the flames begin to cover Shen Qingqiu.

Someone in the crowd screams as Binghe shoves another body aside, eyes fixed on the burning pyre. He can’t see Shen Qingqiu anymore, but the scent of burning flesh fouls the air. Shouts ring out around him as he unsheathes Xin Mo, jumping up the pile of burning wood.

In the back of his head he can feel the burning crimson atop his brow, and knows that he has exposed himself as a demon before a mob of cultivators already seething with violence. He can’t bring himself to care anymore.

Flames lick at his skin, the pain sharp but fleeting as his heavenly blood continuously heals him. Shen Qingqiu no longer has that luxury with his cultivation bound. The fire and smoke make it nearly impossible to see this close, but Luo Binghe is undeterred. He finally reaches the cultivator, grasping blindly through the fire to grab the man, deaf to the noise and heat around him. Xin Mo cuts cleanly through the binding cables as he pulls Shen Qingqiu from the pyre.

He raises Xin Mo and cuts through reality, disappearing into the darkness of the demon realm with Shen Qingqiu in his grasp.

- - -

Luo Binghe clutches his shizun tight, frozen in place as reality sets in. The man is limp in his grasp, and for a moment he is seized with terror at the thought that he is holding the man's corpse. But as he raises the peak lord into his arms, he can feel him trembling. Still alive then, at least for now.

“You realize there’s no going back after this, yes? You’ve exposed yourself as a demon to the cultivation world now.” Meng Mo asks. “What’s your plan?”

He ignores the dream demon and sets out for his rooms, steps quick with restrained fury. His unconscious shizun breathes weakly against his chest, a pained hitch accompanying each inhale. The Palace Master thinks himself clever, but he will regret harming what belongs to Luo Binghe.

“You won’t be able to set foot in the human realm without risking an attack from the sects.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luo Binghe grits out, “I’ll destroy the cultivation sects myself if I have to.”

Meng Mo is silent at that, but the pause feels tense. “What makes you think you can take on the cultivation sects alone? They imprisoned the last heavenly demon under a mountain when he was at the height of his power.”

“Tianlang-jun didn’t wield Xin Mo,” Binghe points out, “and Cang Qiong is missing a quarter of its Peak Lords.”

In truth, the only cultivator who might stand a chance against him is the Xuan Su sword. If the sect leader ever brings his blade to bear against Luo Binghe, he doesn’t know who will leave that fight alive. But Yue Qingyuan has a weakness in Shen Qingqiu. He’ll stay his hand for as long as he thinks doing so will keep the man alive.

In fact, he might even kill Luo Binghe’s own enemies if it becomes known that the Palace Master tried to execute Shen Qingqiu.

The half-demon smirks as he enters his rooms, pieces of a plan beginning to fall into place. He lays the fallen peak lord on his bed, removing the remnants of immortal binding cables caught up in the man's robes. He paused for a moment, considering, before winding a smaller section of the crimson cords around Shen Qingqiu’s neck in a makeshift collar. He was a prisoner after all. Better to keep his cultivation sealed until he learned to behave for Luo Binghe.

His shizun stirs weakly as Luo Binghe begins to remove the charred robes from him, pulling layer after layer after layer of burnt silk from the mans body. He'll have to bathe the man later he thinks, as the soot leaves darks streaks across his skin. He leaves the man in a single set of inner robes, mostly saved from the flames under the many layers Shen Qingqiu wears. Aside from soot stains near the hem, they remain untouched. His boots are a lost cause however, the flames having eaten through the fabric and to the pale skin beneath. There are vicious red burns tracing up to nearly mid-calf, the soles of his feet covered in cracked, blackened skin. He trails his fingers over the burns, something twisting in his gut at the sight.

A cough wracks his shizun’s body, sharp and painful sounding. Luo Binghe watches as he struggles to breathe, tensing up with a grimace and then going limp again as he gets his breath back. His eyelids flutter, mind busy even while he lays unconscious. He slides a hand around Shen Qingqiu’s neck, feeling the pulse in his neck flutter under his palm with each quiet wheeze.

He wants this man to suffer, but not like this. Shen Qingqiu hadn’t begged for his life when the crowd dragged him to his pyre, hadn’t screamed for mercy or even in pain. Instead he’d looked Luo Binghe in the eye and laughed. His hand tightens briefly around the man's neck, before letting go. He feels certain now that pain will not break Shen Qingqiu.

He looks forward to finding out what will.

Chapter Text

The air is chill when he wakes, cold tendrils brushing over his skin as he lays weightless. He rests against something warm. Head tucked close, legs swinging gently with he is moved. He’s being carried he realizes. The thought comes to him slow, like honey dripping into tea. It seems like it should scare him, to be so unaware in a strangers arms, but the feeling is distant, a drop of ink already disappearing in a river.

The chest below him rumbles, words muffled as if spoken through a thick blanket, all sensation and no meaning.

He flinches, awareness returning abruptly, as he is lowered into a tub of warm water. It burns as it reaches the cracked flesh of his feet, the skin alight with freshly stoked embers. He thrashes, scrabbling to pull himself upright. And when Shen Qingqiu finally wrenches his eyes open he is frozen by the burning red gaze of Luo Binghe.

- - -

His shizun is oddly peaceful while he sleeps. The wrinkled brow he is so accustomed to is smooth and unblemished now; his sneering glare finally wiped away. The man himself curls closer to the half-demons chest as he is carried, not yet awake to hiss and spit at the disciple he has long since hated.

Perhaps he should keep the man like this; venomless and vulnerable.

Or perhaps he should rip the man’s fangs out himself.

Luo Binghe enters his personal bathing chambers, a bath having been already made up prior to his arrival. The air is thick with the scent of jasmine, something he had smelled often during his time on Qing Jing Peak. Pity that the fragrant petals were never able to cover up the smell of blood.

He had stripped Shen Qingqiu down to a single layer earlier when he had checked him for injuries, and it takes only moments to bare him completely.

“Shizun should wake up if he doesn’t wish to drown in the bath.”

The man frowns slightly but is otherwise unresponsive, so with a smile he lowers Shen Qingqiu into the tub. He won’t actually let the man drown of course, but if he slips beneath the water for a moment then it is only the smallest fraction of what he truly deserves.

Shen Qingqiu begins to thrash almost immediately, gasping as water sloshes across his face. Luo Binghe watches intently from the side as the man grabs desperately at the walls of the tub, hauling himself up.

Shen Qingqiu looks up and freezes at the sight of him. Luo Binghe smiles cruelly back.

“Hello again Shizun.”

His shorn hair is dripping wet, the dark strands just brushing his shoulders as he shudders, his eyes bright as chips of jade in the lanternlight. The panic in his expression freezes over, replaced with icy nothingness. Shen Qingqiu stares down a Heavenly Demon, and sneers at the sight.

“Beast.”

Anger flares bright and furious in him before he shoves down with the long practice of Shizun’s most devoted disciple.

Even injured and at his mercy Shen Qingqiu is a vicious thing.

“Shizun should know better than to provoke this one.” He leans in, enjoying the way his Qingqiu tenses but does not retreat. “Unless he wishes this disciple to return him to his execution?”

The man is silent for once, so Luo Binghe continues speaking.

“If Shizun is found in the demon realm, he will be killed. And now, if he is found in the human realm he will be killed there as well.” He smirks slowly, “So it would seem that Shizun must remain a guest of mine.”

“As if you don’t plan to kill me as well?” grit out Shen Qingqiu. The man trembled, though whether it was from fury or fear was anyone’s guess. Fingers pressed white against the lip of the tub, beginning to splinter the wood beneath. There was murder in the mans eyes, so strong he could nearly taste the blood not yet spilled.

“Shizun will die only if this one grants it,” he grabbed the older man’s chin and held him fast before Shen Qingqiu could jerk away, “and that is not a mercy he has ever earned from me.”

In a flash he bit down sharply on his own tongue, blood flooding his mouth, and pulled Shen Qingqiu forward into a harsh kiss.

- - -

Shen Qingqiu fought the demon, even as his blood ran down his throat, even as he knew the inevitable end of this pointless struggle.

It was all he had ever known how to do.

Fight and claw and bite; even as the jaws of fate fell ceaselessly shut over his life. Lashing out against friend and foe alike even as the only battle he ever truly won was against himself. He had no real allies, no friends to defend him. Even his brother, the only man he had ever truly trusted had betrayed him at the first opportunity, so in what world could he bring himself to trust another?

Even as every pointless struggle had only ever brought more pain, and qi deviations, and yet more censure from his so-called martial siblings.

His fingers clawed at the beast’s face and chest, frantically trying to inflict some small amount of damage before the ability to do so was once again stolen from him.

The beast finally released him, smiling at Shen Qingqiu with bloody teeth as he ripped himself away, nearly toppling the tub in the process. He tried to get his feet under him, but the agony of his burned feet overwhelmed him at the first attempt to stand. He heard a cry, vision briefly going dark as he fell.

Strong arms caught him before Shen Jiu could do more than stumble, body limp as he breathed through the pain. A hand caressed his hair, a steady heart beating slow beneath his head. It was easy then, to let the dark take him.

- - -

A week after Shen Qingqiu set out alone on a mission to the plague-swept town of Jin Lan, a single missive is delivered to the desk of the Sect Leader. No disciple is seen entering the sect leader’s residence, nor are any of the Peak Lords known to have visited him to deliver it in their stead.

The letter simply appears, unassuming and plain, as if it came into existence there between the passing of a shadow and sunlight.

Yue Qingyuan completes his duties for the day, returning home healthy and unharmed.

A quarter of a shichen later, the Sect Leader of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect suffers a major qi deviation. He survives only by luck, a passing Mu Qingfang able to stabilize him long enough to seal his sword and prevent the sect leader from destroying himself and the sect alike with the explosive force of his unleashed core. And as the morning sun rises on the smoking remains of the sect leader’s house, a letter floats by as it crumbles slowly into ashes.