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Chapter Text

He’s escaped.

The words ring in Luo Binghe’s head, echoing over and over again as he clenches Xin Mo and fights off a qi deviation because Liu Qingge escaped with Shizun’s body.

Without Shizun’s body, Luo Binghe can’t bring him back. Without Shizun’s body, he has lost everything.

It is a cloud of panic in his head, swelling into his throat and filling his lungs and making it impossible to breathe. Demonic energy roils inside of him in an angry boil, pushing him to grind and cut and tear and shred. The room is full of dust from the collapsing palace around him, and he does not care about any of it. He wants to tear it all down, wants to flatten the world around him to make it pay for what they took from him.

The panic manifests as rage, his eyes burning red and huadian flaming. Xin Mo whispers in his ear in a croon that he cannot ignore: get revenge, tear those at fault to pieces, flay the skin from their bones and soak in the blood that spills from their corpses and revel in the shrieks and screams caused by limbs ripping from their bodies, blood and sinew and flesh all tearing under your hands and the blade, claws sunk deep into the organs of those that took from you what is yours—

Luo Binghe screams, despairing.

When he opens his eyes, he sees a blurry form in front of him—the one who caused this, who jumped between him and Luo Qingge and allowed the brute to escape with his beloved. He can’t see straight, anger tingeing his vision with red and blurred with unshed tears, and he prepares to launch himself at the figure and rip him to shreds with fangs and claws and steel for what he had done.

A flash of fear crosses the face, and something in the expression makes him falter.

He almost doesn’t, but there’s something in the back of his head that stops him, that stills his hand because with the face and the expression it looks like Shizun.

It couldn’t be.

He freezes, jaw clenched and knuckles white around the hilt of Xin Mo, which still whispers to him (make him pay make him pay make him pay rip his throat out spill his guts on the ground and tear the tendons from his bones make him pay) as he remembers the inexhaustible well of spiritual energy that the man had been and the way that his face had almost made him strangle one of his more talented subordinates. 

His vision blurs again as the rage takes him back over, drowning him in the knowledge that not only has this man caused him nothing but pain since showing up, he’s taken away from Luo Binghe the only thing he has left in this world. He snarls and Xin Mo sings with the realization that it is about to be bathed in blood once more. The man who caused Shizun to be lost must pay.

Something collapses behind him with a crash, loud enough and dramatic enough to buffet him with wind and dust. Unbidden, his head turns towards the source of the noise, and by the time he turns back, the man is gone.

Luo Binghe roars, turning and throwing Xin Mo at the fallen rubble of the wall behind him, infusing it with demonic energy and reveling in the explosion that follows. Xin Mo does not enjoy being used as a tool to destroy things that are not living, but Luo Binghe does not care. He will travel to the Demon Realm tonight to slake its thirst if he must.

He rages for hours, escaping into the Demon Realm and leaving the rubble of Huan Hua palace to the disciples that live there. They will start to fix the damage—he has more important things to do. He slays beast after beast, nearly wiping every dangerous creature in one of the Northern cave systems before Xin Mo’s whispers in his head start to abate, and he no longer feels as if he may massacre all of the humans in Huan Hua palace.

If he did, Shizun would be disappointed in him.

When he is done, he cuts another hole in the fabric of the realms and travels to his rooms in his Northern palace. He sits on his bed and considers his next move.

The first thing he thinks of are his blood parasites. The not-Shizun has ingested them, and there is nowhere that he can go that Luo Binghe cannot find him. He could get revenge from a distance, sending them into his limbs and his organs and his head and causing agony, biting and tearing and pinching without killing. He could make the impostor wish he were dead a thousand times over, and refrain from giving him the release of death that he desires. 

But then he remembers that face that he had made, when he thought Luo Binghe was going to kill him. It had looked just like Shizun’s.

Could it be? Could it be that Shizun was alive, somewhere else, living in a body that looked close to before, but different enough to make him appear to be another person? The more he thinks about it, the more likely it seems, and the more he realizes that he might not need that corpse back. If Shizun has already found his own body, one even more powerful than before, then who is Binghe to try to change him?

He will have to make sure that the stranger really is Shizun, first. Once he has confirmed that, he can make his plans from there.

All he knows for now is that if it is Shizun, he can force him to come back. Shen Qingqiu has always been weak to his disciples, and Luo Binghe is confident that he can make Shizun want to come back to him. He just needs a bit of time to prepare. He has to be ready.

He will make sure that Shizun finds his way back to him.

Shen Qingqiu has escaped Huan Hua palace, rented a sword to travel faster on, and spent an hour fleeing in a random direction before he begins to wonder why Luo Binghe has not yet used the blood mites against him.

The rage and insanity in Luo Binghe’s eyes were real. Shen Qingqiu had been moments from being torn apart, and he wouldn’t have had a chance, even in the jumped-up battery pack of a body he was currently using. If not for that odd moment of hesitation and following explosion, he would never have been able to get away.

Now that he has managed it, he knows that he was merely lucky. But his luck is sure to run out sooner rather than later—not only has he failed to keep this new face out of the limelight, but he’s managed to attract Luo Binghe’s rage all over again! Even without everything he’s learned about his disciple (don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it) he has accidentally stumbled right back into being on the hit list. And no one can escape the blackened protagonist—certainly not him, it appears. 

Not that Luo Binghe actually wanted to kill him, apparently. He just wanted to kiss his Shizun, instead. While it could arguably be called an upgrade from being ripped limb from limb, Shen Qingqiu wasn’t interested in going back to that arrangement, either!

Knowing Luo Binghe, he will do something to draw Shen Qingqiu out; it feels more than likely that his next move will be to raid Cang Qiong mountain sect. He will have to keep an ear out so that he can stop his disciple, turning himself in if he must. The thought of depositing himself right into Luo Binghe’s clutches is a bit terrifying, but what must be done must be done. He cannot leave his sect siblings to fend for themselves against a demon emperor when he can do something to stop it, even if it comes at the price of his freedom.

He worries as he flies, finally landing in a village in the middle of nowhere and sending his sword back to where it came from. He stops at an inn and digs a few coins out of his pockets (stolen, whoops) and realizes that after tonight, he will have no more money. Still, it is enough to buy him tea and a hot meal and a room, and he collapses into bed as soon as he is able. He realizes that the System hasn’t appeared since he woke up in his new body. If nothing else, that makes him feel a little bit better.

He can deal with everything else in the morning.

That night, he dreams of Luo Binghe tearing his own dream constructs to pieces. He dreams of Binghe crying, of Binghe throwing himself into his arms, thinking that Shen Qingqiu was nothing but a figment of his imagination. He listens to Binghe plead for his forgiveness and acceptance and love, and can’t help but to gather his precious disciple back into his arms.

When he is not the target of Binghe’s rage, when Binghe isn’t being subsumed by the horrible Xin Mo, he really is…quite cute.

He makes Luo Binghe promise, in the dream realm, not to attack Cang Qiong, and Binghe nods with big, teary eyes, swearing that he would never do something to disappoint Shizun so. Shen Qingqiu has no reason to doubt him—why would he bother lying to something that he thought was a figment of his dreaming state?

In the end, he can’t help but hold Binghe close, his fingers stroking gently through soft curls like he’d never had to stop.

When he wakes up in the morning, he feels hazy, and finds himself fisting his clothes over his heart. His chest aches. 

Clearly he just slept wrong or something.

Shen Qingqiu travels back to near Cang Qiong mountain, but all is quiet there. He hears from the cultivators that a quiet funeral was finally held for his corpse, and he ignores the pang in his chest at the thought of all of his sect siblings grieving for him.

He considers climbing the mountain, reintroducing himself. But that would defeat the point of this new, separate identity. And no matter what he wants to believe, it is nearly impossible that Luo Binghe has forgotten him. If anything, he is simply biding his time before he decides to come after the man who caused him to lose the corpse he’d been taking care of so diligently.

He leaves the town near his sect the same day that he arrives, resolving not to cause any more trouble for those who have always done their best to look out for him. It is his turn to look out for them, instead.

A week later, Shen Qingqiu finds himself camping in the middle of the forest. He’d run out of money after the very first night, and while a few odd jobs and drawn talismans as he passed through towns have been enough to keep himself fed, they haven’t really been enough to keep him at an inn every single night. Instead, he has elected to save the money he can and stay in the forest while he must.

He is not really built for such living, he’s discovered, and he misses having a comfortable bed to sleep on. That said, he wouldn’t be a cultivator if he was unable to start a fire or fend for himself, and other than a few small wildlife-related incidents and a particularly uncomfortable root system one night, he hasn’t had too many mishaps.

Not to mention that traveling through the forest allows him the chance to do other things—observing the local flora and fauna, for instance. 

While he’d enjoyed reading the texts that Qing Jing peak had on hand whenever he had the free time, and during the years that Luo Binghe had been in the Abyss he had travelled when he’d gotten the chance, he hadn’t really had the opportunity to simply do whatever he wanted. He was always accompanied by an unduly worried peak lord (usually Liu Qingge or Shang Qinghua) or even an overly anxious disciple, and after their main objective in their travels had been completed, they’d been obliged to return home. Therefore, he’d never truly had the chance to explore the way that he had wanted to.

Tonight, for instance, he has made his camp near a large oak tree with a suspiciously large dug-out warren in its base. It was much too large for a normal fox, but the pure black fur that seemed to dissolve into curls of smoke when he touched it were enough to confirm to Shen Qingqiu that he was looking at the lair of a Shadow Fey Night Fox, which are nearly more smoke than solid and only visible to the naked eye in the daylight. They are nocturnal, however, which means that the only chance to see them is when they are returning to their den with the dawn. Thus, if Shen Qingqiu camps here and wakes up early enough, he might have the chance to actually observe the ghostly creature.

They are relatively harmless, mostly being incredibly cool and a useful way to carry messages through the night if you manage to capture and train one, so Shen Qingqiu does not feel as if he must stay awake and on guard throughout the night. Instead, he curls up under an outer robe that he has been using to sleep under at night, and drifts off, unworried.

When he next opens his eyes, he is sitting in the middle of a bamboo thicket. There is a pond to his left, and a few feet of clearing in front of him, but everything else is concealed by densely-planted stalks of bamboo. In the curious way of dreams, there is no light source that he can observe, but the little clearing is bright enough that it could be midday, despite the shadows that the bamboo stalks should be casting into the space.

It is cool, and a breeze drifts between the stalks, rustling them against each other softly. It is altogether pleasant.

Still, Shen Qingqiu fights off the chill that runs down his spine.

Shen Qingqiu ignores the feeling, instead turning to the little pond that he notices on his left. It is only a few feet across, the waters still and clear. Through the shallow waters, he can see the green, moss-covered rocks at the bottom. 

He leans over to look more closely at it, abandoning his self-trained usual perfect posture in favor of supporting himself in the grass on one hand, legs folded next to him. When he catches sight of his reflection in the pond, he startles.  It’s his own face that he sees—the face owned by his new mushroom body, not the original Shen Qingqiu’s. He’s still wearing the low-grade martial cultivator’s robes that he’d obtained cheaply a few days ago.

The combination of his own current appearance with the curious concreteness of the dream that he is experiencing makes it obvious what has happened to him. His own dream state is never so clear, and he would never be able to think so straightforwardly or experience time in such a linear manner in his own head. A dream so coherent can only be put together by one person, and that person has clearly finally decided to deal with the stranger that caused him so much grief!

Just as he comes to this realization, the soft rustling of the bamboo to his right intensifies. Shen Qingqiu’s heart jumps into his throat and he hurriedly pushes himself back up into a proper sitting position, brushing his long hair behind his shoulder as he does—he’d left it down for sleep, something that he knows he will regret in the morning. Still, he has never been so diligent about caring for his hair as Binghe was. 

He has just settled when Binghe emerges from the thicket, his height combined with the fact that he is standing making him naturally loom over Shen Qingqiu, intimidating. He is clothed in black robes embroidered with silver thread, arms crossed over his chest and curls tumbling down his back and around his shoulders. He silently studies Shen Qingqiu, who is forced to look up at him from his spot on the ground, neck craned back. The silence extends into discomfort after a time, sending Shen Qingqiu’s wits skittering as his nervousness and anxiety mounts. 

Finally, Shen Qingqiu brokenly clears his throat. “Lord Luo,” he starts haltingly.

Luo Binghe raises a curious eyebrow at him, causing him to immediately trail off and shut his mouth.

After everything that has happened and all of the shocking things he’s learned, he really has no idea how to read his disciple anymore! He falls back into silence and clenches and unclenches his fists over his knees as he waits, Binghe staring inscrutably down at him as the silence settles back into place.

Time passes as the quiet extends between them, tension stretching out taut like a rubber band. It feels like they hang in this suspense for hours—for all he knows, with Luo Binghe’s control over his dream realm, it has actually been that long.

An age has passed before Binghe finally moves, the rustling of his clothes as he uncrosses his arms causing Shen Qingqiu to almost visibly startle. Luo Binghe arranges his robes around him as he sinks to the ground gracefully in front of Shen Qingqiu, settling comfortably onto his knees. He leans in almost infinitesimally, narrowing his eyes a little bit as he studies Shen Qingqiu’s new face more closely.

Shen Qingqiu swallows in response to the attention.

“You let that brute take Shizun’s body,” Luo Binghe states. 

The words fall like stones in front of Shen Qingqiu, making him tense. It isn’t stated venomously, but the words are certainly an accusation. And they’re not an accusation that he can refute, because he very much did allow Liu Qingge to take away his corpse. He had to do something! He couldn’t just let Luo Binghe keep cuddling his cold body forever—who knows what that was doing to his psyche?

Shen Qingqiu lets his gaze fall to the side, landing on the clear waters of the pool next to them. It’s far too difficult keeping Luo Binghe’s gaze, under the circumstances. “And why did you need such a thing? Shouldn’t it be buried and respected? Isn’t it so much worse for everyone to keep it like that?”

The questions are presumptuous, and Shen Qingqiu wishes that he had a fan to hide his face. Instead, he just continues to stare with feigned interest at the pond, as if there was anything there to attract his attention. What pretty moss this pond contains! He just can’t look away! 

Luo Binghe huffs, and the tension between them—well, it doesn’t exactly ease , but it does shift. It feels as if Luo Binghe is maybe just here to have an uncomfortable conversation rather than to rip him to pieces in the dream realm. Then again, he could always change his mind if he wants to.

“It’s none of your business what this lord wanted to do with his Shizun,” Luo Binghe states clearly, and Shen Qingqiu is avoiding his face but he can hear the frown in his voice. “But…if you must know, I was going to bring him back.”

Shen Qingqiu darts a quick glance at Luo Binghe to see him frowning intensely. He looks unhappy more than he looks angry, and Shen Qingqiu represses the mental urge to reach out to him and ask him what is wrong; it’s not like he can do anything to fix it. The body is gone, it’s not coming back!

“Why would you want to do that?” he asks slowly. He already knows, of course, but that is only because Luo Binghe had treated him as a construct of his own dream realm the other day, not because Luo Binghe told him! He has to pretend he doesn’t have the information yet. Not to mention, well. There’s something in him that feels the urge to pick at it, to confirm that everything really is as he’s learned, like picking at a scab before it has healed enough. “Do you hate your Shizun so much for what happened between you, that you need to punish him all over again? Wouldn’t…wouldn’t it be better just to let him rest?”

Luo Binghe jolts as if electrocuted, his eyes widening and lips parting in a gasp as he rocks forward, an involuntary reaction that shocks Shen Qingqiu more than anything else. “No!” he cries, voice full of audible distress. “I love Shizun. I would never hurt him. I want him back!” 

And Luo Binghe bursts into tears.

Shen Qingqiu spends a moment just sitting there, flabbergasted, eyes wide as he watches Luo Binghe’s fill with tears and spill over his cheeks, huadian flickering as he sniffles. He doesn’t look like an evil demon lord when he cries, he just looks—well. He looks sad . 

Shen Qingqiu is reaching out before he can stop himself, and Luo Binghe tips forward easily into his arms, burying his head against Shen Qingqiu’s chest as his shoulders shake. Shen Qingqiu wraps his arms gently around the sobbing demon, curling his fingers gently into his hair as he strokes Binghe’s back soothingly, looking sightlessly over his crying form at the bamboo thicket in front of him.

What is this situation that he is in? Why would Binghe cry in front of a complete stranger like this? Is he really that lonely? It is unlikely that he has anyone else to confide in within his palace in the northern Demon Realm or among the Huan Hua residents, and without his harem, he must truly have no one to turn to. There’s no other reason that Luo Binghe would simply throw himself into the arms of the first stranger that was even a little bit nice to him.

It makes something within Shen Qingqiu ache, to realize how alone Luo Binghe is. And now he has taken away the only thing that Binghe truly seemed to care about, and with Binghe crying so hard against him like this he can’t help but feel more like a bully than anything else. His corpse had to go, but did he have to make Binghe so miserable when it happened?

He clears his throat gently, grasping at anything he can say to try and make things better. “Maybe it would be best just to let him rest,” he tries slowly, and Luo Binghe wails.

“I don’t want him to rest,” Luo Binghe says between deep, heaving sobs. It would be distasteful, except for the fact that Luo Binghe is unearthly beautiful in anything that he does, so he more falls into the category of ‘gorgeous distressed maiden’ than anything else. “I wanted him back, and you let them take him from me!” He lifts his head, eyes still brimming with tears.

The last sentence is enough to send a chill through Shen Qingqiu, and he loosens his grip around Luo Binghe’s shoulders. Despite the fact that Luo Binghe is looking up at him with big, damp eyes, he can’t forget how powerful the demon lord is. If Binghe decides to get revenge, he could tear his dream self to pieces.

More likely than not, the thought has already occurred to him. 

Shen Qingqiu bites his lip, and Luo Binghe flicks his gaze down for a moment, then back up to meet his eyes again. “Don’t you think he would want to be buried properly?” he asks, knowing that he is walking a fine line that he could tip over the edge of at any moment.

Luo Binghe visibly hesitates. There is a moment where something flashes across his face—it looks like rage, fangs on display in a snarl—until it passes as if it was never there, leaving Shen Qingqiu reeling and wondering whether it happened in the first place. 

“I think that Shizun would hate me if I wanted revenge, and if I raided Cang Qiong to get it,” he says haltingly, looking down into his lap.

Shen Qingqiu almost cheers out loud. Finally, a moment of lucid thought from his obsessed disciple! He needs to hurry and encourage it before Luo Binghe dissolves back into tears and starts bleating for his Shizun again. He pulls the rest of the way back, pulling himself out of Luo Binghe’s grip, but reaches down to grab his hands before Luo Binghe retreats all the way. He presses Luo Binghe’s hands between his own, hoping that the movement comes across as reassuring. 

His mushroom self wouldn’t know Luo Binghe’s master, but he can at least speak in general terms. “You give him cause to be proud of you,” he murmurs. “And this lowly one cause to be eternally grateful, if you choose not to take revenge.”

Luo Binghe stares for a long moment at their hands pressed together, then pulls from Shen Qingqiu’s grasp only to switch their positions, enveloping Shen Qingqiu’s hands in his. His hands are much larger than mine these days, Shen Qingqiu thinks blankly, unsure of what to feel about the thumb brushing gently over his knuckles. What is this turnaround, from the rage of that day to what he is experiencing right now? He doesn’t understand what has happened between then and now to have Luo Binghe seem so utterly free of anger towards him. 

“Liu Qingge is the one who is at fault, of anyone,” Luo Binghe says, bitterness and frustration seeping into his tone. “And even though he attacked me countless times for the possession of Shizun, I am unable to return the favor.”

Shen Qingqiu can’t help the pity that he feels well up at him in response to Luo Binghe’s clear distress, but he holds his tongue. What is there to say—that he supports Binghe in his efforts to keep his corpse hostage? He doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that all of this drama has happened literally over his dead body! Still, he did not expect Luo Binghe’s very real distress over his corpse to cause him to feel so emotional. What kind of person does that make him?

He decides to very carefully not think about the answer to that question.

Instead, he inhales slowly, wishing once more that he had some way to hide his face—or at the very least his hands to himself. Luo Binghe is still holding his hands gently, almost caressing, palms warm in a way that is starting to become highly distracting.

“If Lord Luo truly does not blame this one,” he says slowly, “then…well. I am not Shen Qingqiu, but if Lord Luo is lacking company he is welcome to visit me in the dream realm as he pleases. If he would like some form of companionship.”

As soon as he says the words, he wants to throw himself into the pond next to them. Why would he invite Luo Binghe to spend even more time in his presence? He should already consider himself lucky that Luo Binghe does not yet know his true identity—how long will it take the protagonist’s superior IQ and reasoning skills to figure out who he was if they keep spending time together? There’s no way he can deceive the Demon Emperor for that long. He needs to keep their contact to a minimum!

It’s too late to take the words back, however. As soon as they leave his lips, Luo Binghe looks up at him with wide, sparkling eyes. He looks ethereal, hopeful, and absolutely adorable.

“Really?” Luo Binghe asks, voice clearly hopeful.

Shen Qingqiu clears his throat uncomfortably. “Yes, well…Lord Luo might as well keep using this one for the qi exchange anyway, right? So at the very least, I will see you in three weeks, on the full moon.” 

Shen Qingqiu has been reduced to advertising himself as a convenient portable battery pack. Somehow, it feels like reaching a new low.

Luo Binghe nods slowly, thoughtfully. “It would prevent this Lord from having to cause harm to the other potential vessels, as yours does so well with the exchange. You…what should this Lord call you? It seems that while you know my name, your identity remains a mystery to me.”

Shen Qingqiu spends a split second considering introducing himself as Peerless Cucumber before he nearly slaps himself silly about it. He couldn’t say that with a straight face to the protagonist, absolutely not. Instead, he coughs and introduces himself as the other name he went by in his previous life. “Shen Yuan is fine,” he says.

“Shen Yuan,” Luo Binghe muses, nearly seeming to caress the words as he speaks them. “This Lord will see Shen Yuan in two weeks’ time, then,” he says, and he finally releases his grip on Shen Qingqiu’s hands.

They feel cold now, not warmed between Luo Binghe’s palms. Shen Qingqiu tries not to think about it. 

“If that is what my lord wishes,” Shen Qingqiu says. It’s not like Shen Qingqiu has the ability to manipulate the dream realm—he’s going to be entirely at the mercy of Luo Binghe’s whims at this point!

All he can do is hope for the best, and that he manages to actually keep his identity to himself.

Luo Binghe dusts invisible specks of dirt off of his pristine black robes as he finally stands, looking just as composed as when he entered the clearing in the first place. “This Lord looks forward to getting to know you, Shen Yuan,” he says, an odd sort of smile twisting his face. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know how to read the expression, and it makes him nervous. “But for now, you shall be left to your dreams.”

He turns and strides away, disappearing into the bamboo thicket. Shen Qingqiu stares after him long after the last glint of silver thread on his robes fades into the shadows. For a long time he sits there, in the quiet and calm clearing, wondering if anything more is going to surprise him tonight. 

Eventually, the dream dissolves into mist, and the rest of his sleep is deep and formless.

Chapter Text

In the past weeks since he was pulled into that inexplicable dream with Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu has been forced to get his life together a little bit, a good portion of this in no small part due to the fact that he has realized that sleeping in the forest when he does not have to is not actually his calling. He prefers a nice and comfortable bed, thank you! Even the terrible ceramic pillows are better than leaves and twigs disrupting his sleep by digging into his spine all night—and while he enjoys the wildlife, he enjoys it far less when he wakes up to it chewing on his robes or crawling on his face.

He has learned, through trial and error, that most towns have some sort of problem easily solved or addressed by a wandering cultivator. Everyone wants simple talismans to help ward off evil, and often there are small problems in an isolated village that are not large enough issues to employ the services of a large, well-established cultivator sect. Wandering cultivators do not get paid as much and do not get to do the large, interesting jobs, but it is usually enough to rent a room for a few nights before he moves on.

In the meantime, as he travels, he takes the chance to explore the parts of the realm that were less featured in Proud Immortal Demon Way, such as the western regions far from the demonic border. 

Oftentimes between villages or on its outskirts, isolated farmers and their families are also willing to take in someone for the night in exchange for a pair of hands or a simple telling of what news comes from around. This tactic doesn’t always work—Shen Qingqiu has also been practically chased off by angry men who don’t want him anywhere near their lands, sure his plan is to steal from them in the night. He can’t particularly begrudge them their paranoia, but it is always disappointing when he is forced to spend extra hours walking to the nearest main town in order to actually rent a room to rest in.

It is one of these villages that he is traveling towards, remote enough that he does not even know the name of it, where he comes across a small farmstead as night is beginning to fall. He has been travelling a dusty, underused road for the majority of the day, unsure exactly of where it would end but fairly certain that it probably led somewhere, considering that despite the lack of use it still showed some signs of foot traffic.

The small cabin is down the hill from the road, bordering large fields that seem to hold some kind of grain fields—Shen Qingqiu has never been well-versed enough in actual agriculture to be able to tell. His specialty is limited to Airplane’s shitty plot device plants. He is pretty sure they are not rice fields, at least—those don’t grow so tall, he doesn’t think.

Probably.

There seem to be a few oxen grazing far out past the crop; there aren’t enough there for the meat to be an export, so they are likely used in the planting and the harvesting of the fields. There is not much else that he can see, and Shen Qingqiu is just about to move on, knowing he’ll have to hurry if he hopes to reach the closest town to this place by nightfall, when the door to the cabin opens and a man appears at the door.

“Xiansheng!” he cries, waving his arm wildly, as if Shen Qingqiu isn’t already standing there and looking at him. He jogs up the hill, nearly stumbling over his feet in his haste. 

Shen Qingqiu observed the man as he scrambled up to waylay his path. He wore simple hemp robes, but they were a little bit worn out—whether the man had yet to replace the clothing or if he simply didn’t have the money wasn’t yet clear, but if the man’s distress was anything to judge by, it was likely the latter caused by some disaster that had befallen him.

“Xiansheng,” the man repeats himself, panting, as soon as he makes it up to the path, bowing hurriedly and a bit perfunctorily, as if he rarely gets the chance. “You are an immortal master, are you not?”

Shen Qingqiu clears his throat, waving the fan that he has been carrying with him to dispel the heat as he walks. “Is there anything that this master may do for you?” he asks calmly, making sure not to let the curiosity seep into his words. 

The farmer looks hesitant for a moment, almost as if he plans to take back the question and hide himself back away in his little house, before he pulls himself together and spills out, “The land is dying!”

Shen Qingqiu’s hand pauses, and he raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?” he asks.

The man flushes a little, ruddy behind his tanned skin, and hurries to clarify. “It’s the fields,” he says. “They’ve slowly been dying, and something is happening to them. The land becomes untillable and rotted, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ve lost almost a fifth of my crops this year. I won’t be able to pay the taxes to the lord if I’m unable to turn enough of a profit, and I can’t even begin to figure out what’s wrong, only that there has to be something out there causing all of this.” A short pause. “Nothing I’ve ever seen does that to fields, not any kind of bug or rot that I’ve come across.”

Frankly, Shen Qingqiu had been hooked since the start of the explanation. If he’s to investigate, however, he will certainly need more information than this. So he nods, contemplative, looking out over the fields that the man must be talking about.

“You suspect that it’s something demonic in nature?” he asks mildly.

“I don’t see what else it could be,” the farmer grumbles, then shakes his head and huffs. “If you’re willing to even just take a look, I would be happy to give you dinner and a bed for the night. If you can find out what’s causing it, just name your price. I don’t have that much money, but I’m not the only farmer around here facing this. We’ll all help pay you, if that’s what it takes. And I’m sure you’re plenty strong enough to make sure we keep our word.”

He eyes the sword that Shen Qingqiu has strapped to his waist. It’s mostly just a symbol of status for the time being—it’s not a cultivator’s sword, and he’s unable even to infuse it with qi to fly on. If he needs to do any real battle, he’ll rely on his fan above the sword; it’s more likely to break with the strength that he uses to wield it than anything else. Still, its presence is enough to keep him from being harassed on the road, and is enough for people like this farmer to identify him as a cultivator. 

And the man is certainly correct; if Shen Qingqiu wanted to simply rob him and leave, there is nothing a simple farmer would be able to do to stop him from doing so. Shen Qingqiu is fine just trusting the man at his word, anyway—even if he doesn’t end up getting paid a large sum, he will be happy enough with some food and a bed for the night.

So he nods towards the farmer, smiling. “This master will be in your care for the night, then,” he says.

Shen Qingqiu allows the farmer to lead him into the slightly ramshackle house. The farmer introduces himself as Huang Chen, who explains that he normally lives alone with his son—his wife had died of an illness several years earlier. The son is not here at the moment, however, as he recently left to go hunting in the nearby woods for meat that they can smoke to keep preserved. He would likely be back in the next several days, but Shen Qingqiu would be welcome to use his bedroll in the meantime.

The farmer is not much of a cook, but he generously split the small meal that he’d been preparing for himself between the two of them despite Shen Qingqiu’s protests; he hates to take food from someone so obviously impoverished when he can rely on his own cultivation and inedia, but when it looks like the man will be more offended if he refuses he acquiesces and accepts a small portion.

The food is really not very good. It is more of a mushy porridge of grain than anything else, and the texture leaves much to be desired! There is not much in the way of flavoring, either, leaving a pretty poor texture along with nothing to show for it. 

Shen Qingqiu valiantly does his best to try not to think about a time when he was served the best meals in the three realms, accompanied by a pretty smile and bright eyes, and miserably fails.

After he’s choked down what he can of the… dubious …food, he looks over at the farmer. “This issue with the fields that you’ve been having—would it be possible for me to go out and take a look at the state of things?”

The farmer glances out the window that has been propped open to let in the cool evening breeze. “It is getting late,” he says slowly, “but a quick look should be fine. Should I lead you to the worst of it?”

Shen Qingqiu bows his head in agreement. “That would be quickest, thank you,” he says. He doesn’t want to spend his evening wandering the fields on his own, certainly. But he’s curious, and he wants to get a look at whatever it is that is eating this guy’s crops before nightfall. He should hopefully get an idea about what’s causing things pretty quickly, and maybe be able to wrap up the issue on the spot if it’s something easy to deal with.

The walk out into the fields doesn’t take too terribly long, if only because the damage becomes apparent almost immediately.

The farmer brings him to a nearby field of tilled earth that Shen Qingqiu had, from a distance, assumed was just a partially-planted area. About half of the field is growing normally, tall brown stalks of whatever plant this man is growing—some kind of grain? At this point, Shen Qingqiu realizes that it would be too embarrassing to ask and show his ignorance.

Not to mention the fact that he is distracted by the parts where the plant is not growing.

It appears that at some point, it was. In fact, this whole field had probably been tilled and planted at the same time, but a good half of it is missing. In the middle of the field. And the plants are not just dying there—it’s most certainly not the case of bugs or animals or any mundane creature or affliction of any kind.

The plants are melting . There is a big patch of dark brown sludge in the middle of the field, stalks visibly drooping into it. It looks like decomposition on steroids gone incredibly wrong. Besides all of that, there’s the odor. It doesn’t smell quite as bad as rotting flesh does, but it definitely smells pretty awful. Shen Qingqiu waves his fan in front of his face to dispel the scent as best he can. 

“Ah,” he says, looking out over the rot and muck.

“Do you see why we don’t know what to do?” the farmer asks, sounding tired and frustrated. “These pop up all over the fields, in completely random places. We have no idea how they’re happening and there doesn’t seem to be a way to predict the next one. It doesn’t seem to be specific to crop, or type of soil, or anything that we can determine. I’m at the end of my rope.”

All of that is good information. Sometimes Shen Qingqiu is asked to assist with a problem, and the person who called him wants him to fix the issue without telling him anything about what’s actually wrong. In fact, that was quite common when he was acting as a peak lord. Oftentimes, the people with enough money to petition a big sect also are the ones who have caused their own problems, and they naturally do not want to air out the dirty laundry that would make things easier to sort out.

“Does it spread?” Shen Qingqiu asks.

The farmer shakes his head. “No. These… patches appear overnight, and it’s as big as they get. The problem is that they keep popping up, and they ruin nearly the whole field.”

If it’s not growing, that’s good. They probably have more time that way—Shen Qingqiu would have been worried about an excretion from a demonic beast that caused spreading rot like this. At the very least, if it’s confined, it’s not an immediate danger.

Another important question comes to mind. “Have you touched it?”

“One of the other men poked it with a stick, and he said the stick rotted to pieces in his hand. None of us have been that anxious to go wading in whatever it is that can do that.”

Ah. He should really go out and look more closely at the spot, but one glance towards the west shows that it’s near sundown. With his luck, he’ll trip on something in the dark and fall face first into the acid-rot. 

He allows himself one last glance at the disgusting muck, wrinkling his nose distastefully, and turns back towards the farmer. “I’ll come back tomorrow while you go about your work and take another look. This is sufficient for the night.”

The farmer nods and leads the both of them back to the house. That evening, Shen Qingqiu is lucky enough to sleep on an old bedroll and under a threadbare cover. It’s not much, but he’s learning to be less picky, and he’s been traveling all day. He falls asleep quickly.

When he opens his eyes, he’s sitting on a bed in a room draped in red silks and luxury. It’s a room fit for royalty.

Unlike most of his dreams, usually murky and formless for the large part, the details of the room are easy to pick out. He is sitting on a bed with deep red and black sheets. The pillow is anachronistically soft, which is something that Shen Qingqiu had commissioned for his own room as soon as he broke his OOC locks but has not seen anywhere else before now. The bed frame is a dark wood and almost western in style, although the carvings on the frame and headboard are clearly eastern in nature. 

There is a dresser in the corner and a series of shelves along one wall, displaying what must be priceless treasures and no small number of books. Shen Qingqiu can’t tell what the books are from here, and any letters he does see are oddly hazy, difficult to read.

In the center of the room is a small, low table, enough for a few people to sit and eat meals at, although it shows no signs of use. In fact—most of the room is austerely clean, with absolutely nothing out of place. There is very little life in the room; no personal touches, no little messes, and nothing laying around when it should be put away.

There is a door opposite the dresser, although it remains closed, so Shen Qingqiu cannot peek out into the hallway to see what else is there.

Still, the corners of the room are shrouded in a deep shadow, the clean lines of the walls blending out into an unnatural smoky haze. It’s just enough for Shen Qingqiu to recognize the dream for what it is, rather than assume that he’s been kidnapped somewhere.

Naturally he realizes that this must be Luo Binghe’s dream—no one else could host something so clear! However, the location gives him pause. He doesn’t know it; unlike the bamboo forest of last time, the place is entirely a mystery to him. That said, based on the decor and the features of the room itself, there’s only one place he can think of that it might be: Luo Binghe’s bedroom in his underground palace at the border of the Northern Demon Realm.

He wonders if the odd, unused nature of the room is a product of the dream, or if Luo Binghe’s room really is this empty of life and personality. It wasn’t like this in the bamboo house—although most of the things left around tended to be Shen Qingqiu’s messes, Luo Binghe was just as liable to leave a few papers sitting around, or a book he was reading, or pause and set something down while he had to attend to some other task. Shen Qingqiu hadn’t been into the side room all that often after Binghe moved in, but he’s certain there were more personal touches there than here. 

It makes his heart pang a little, to wonder if what he did to his little white lotus took even that away from him. A space that he could treat as his own, and a place where he didn’t have to be perfect all the time.

He fervently hopes that it’s just the nature of the dream.

He doesn’t have too long to wallow, however. Luo Binghe enters the room a few moments after Shen Qingqiu has managed to get his bearings in a swirl of black and red robes, hair pulled up and huadian shining on his forehead. He closes the door again behind him, then turns to Shen Qingqiu with what can only be described as an eager expression.

“Shen Yuan,” he greets. “Apologies if my pulling you into this dream tonight has been an imposition.”

The words are unfailingly polite, but Shen Qingqiu feels the unspoken threat in the words; there is no way he would admit to being put at a disadvantage by Luo Binghe’s whims!

He inclines his head. “It has been a while since we have spoken,” he says noncommittally. “This one gave Lord Luo his leave to visit whenever he wishes. Still, it has been longer than I might have expected.”

Something flickers over Luo Binghe’s face, a shadowy expression that Shen Qingqiu immediately forces himself to forget. “This Lord was dealing with a few things, these past days,” he says cooly. “But those are not matters to speak of tonight, I should think. Has Shen Yuan been doing well, since leaving my palace?”

That sure is one way to put it , Shen Qingqiu thinks. Who knew that leaving his palace worked as code for ‘running away for your life at top speed’ these days?

“This one has been doing well enough,” is all he says instead. “I am staying with a farmer on the outskirts, looking into a problem he is having with his crops.”

“Oh?” Luo Binghe raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps Shen Yuan would like to share about the problem, if he’s looked into it yet? This lord knows one or two things, and might be able to assist.”

One or two things, his ass—Luo Binghe has certainly far surpassed Shen Qingqiu at this point! Normally, Shen Qingqiu would not dare to impose upon the Demon Emperor for his opinion about some crop failures, but since he asked…not to mention, he’s still in the process of thinking it through himself, and being able to voice his thoughts aloud might help him come to a better conclusion than just ‘this is definitely not a natural phenomena.’

“If my lord would like to hear of a simple farmer’s dilemma, I would be happy to share,” is what he ends up saying.

Until now, Luo Binghe had been hovering at the door, keeping distance between them as they dispensed with greetings and reacquainted themselves with each other. At this agreement, however, Luo Binghe finally moves, approaching Shen Qingqiu on the bed and sitting down next to him, turning so that his body faces Shen Qingqiu’s, watching him with an attentive expression.

Abruptly, Shen Qingqiu realizes that the bed that he’s sitting on is Luo Binghe’s bed. Not only that, but he’s sitting on it with Luo Binghe .

Not that this should mean so much, right now—apparently, Luo Binghe hasn’t been bedding all of the beauties and women of the human and demon realms that he’s met, so even the proper, non-dream version of the bed would probably be untouched. Still, how could he sit on the bed of the disciple that he knows views his master in a romantic light and not feel incredibly embarrassed and self-conscious about it?! The only consolation he has is that Luo Binghe doesn’t know who he is right now, in the mushroom body.

He coughs to distract himself, hoping the heat that he feels in his face isn’t actually showing up in a blush that betrays his thoughts. It’s not as if he thinks Luo Binghe will approach him in any overtures—he’s been oddly monogamous about his attentions so far—but just the thought of Luo Binghe and bed and Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe in his bed are enough to make him overthink everything terribly.

He hurriedly starts speaking, hoping to move on as quickly as possible. “The farmer mentioned that he and other people who plant in the area have been having their fields dying. When visiting the fields, I realized that they did not just mean that the plants were becoming infected or eaten or anything that one might expect—instead, there are huge patches that seem to be rotting into the dirt overnight.”

Shen Qingqiu hesitates, hoping that his words are not misconstrued beyond the meaning that he intends for them. “I thought that the lack of signs of plague or earthly beasts indicated that the culprit might be a demon of some kind.”

Luo Binghe hums, considering. “And the rot does not spread in any way?”

Shen Qingqiu shakes his head, relieved that Luo Binghe did not take his assumption as an attack of any kind. “No, the spots stay consistent in size. The rotted land left behind is poisoned, though—one of the farmers dropped a branch into one of the patches and it reportedly was broken down with the rest of the sludge.”

“Ah.” A moment later, Luo Binghe’s eyes light up. “There is something that comes to mind, actually.”

Shen Qingqiu starts. “Really?” he asks, curious.

“It sounds like it could be a Scaled Scavenger Mole,” Luo Binghe suggests. “Although those aren’t usually found outside of the demon realms. They tend to stick to their territories and don’t go outside of them unless relocated by force or circumstance.”

That is enough information for Shen Qingqiu to know what Luo Binghe is talking about. The Scaled Scavenger Mole is a mole-like creature that travels underground, excreting a substance that breaks down organic matter that it can then consume to gain nutrients. Although this makes for a dramatic effect on plant matter if it is burrowing near the surface, the main diet of the mole is smaller demonic creatures that it manages to catch unawares in its rotten sludge. In the human realm, it is probably only just surviving on what it can absorb from the crops in the farmer’s fields. Normally, they eat only a few times a week, absorbing a small amount of nutrients as it burrows to support itself between meals. Now, however, it is hungry and out of its element, and therefore has been appearing with increasing frequency among the fields. Shen Qingqiu will have to stop it as soon as possible if he wants their fields to stay intact. 

In the original story, Luo Binghe had actually run into them before—or at least the patches that they’d left behind, preventing him from reaching an important checkpoint that he needed to without braving the acidic sludge. The moles themselves never actually showed up in the story, so Shen Qingqiu didn't remember them until they were brought up by name.

What a stupid name. 

However, it is a dead ringer for what the farmers seem to be experiencing. “As they get hungrier, they are braving the fields more and more often,” Shen Qingqiu muses. “Disregarding however they got to the human realm, they likely have a burrow somewhere nearby. As long as it’s found while they’re sleeping during the day, they should be easy to dispatch.”

Luo Binghe smiles at him and it feels a little bit like getting hit by the force of the sun. “This lord is glad that Shen Yuan agrees with my assessment,” he says, sounding pleased.

“Lord Luo is well versed in demonic beasts,” Shen Qingqiu points out. “This one would be amiss if he ignored your wisdom and knowledge in these matters.”

The smile turns bitter. “Everything I know was taught to me by my Shizun,” he says.

Ah.

Shen Qingqiu does his best not to react too strongly to the statement. This old man really did not teach you that much, protagonist! You read all of the books in the Qing Jing peak library on your own! He probably has retained more of Shen Qingqiu’s library than Shen Qingqiu himself has.

Still, with the sadness lingering in Luo Binghe’s eyes, Shen Qingqiu can’t help but reach out to pat him gently on the shoulder. Luo Binghe looks up at him after the touch, face unreadable. Shen Qingqiu quickly withdraws his hand and casts around for something to ask to draw attention away from the unasked-for touch. He should know better than to be putting his hands on the Demon Emperor for no reason!

“How has my lord been doing, these past few weeks?” he asks, and then considers hitting himself. Such a question surely will only make things worse right now.

Luo Binghe sighs, and his posture turns from the perfect, straight-backed posture of a ruling lord to a more slumped position. He curls in on himself, as if he is too weary to keep straight. His eyes turn down to his hands, fingers curled loosely on his knees. 

“This lord has been keeping busy the best he can,” he says. His voice is bitter, astringency lacing his every syllable. “Without anything else to hold my attention, I’ve returned to my home in my northern palace and am subduing the final remnants of dissenters in the north.”

Shen Qingqiu glances around them, at the beautiful soulless room. “And this room is yours?” he asks.

Luo Binghe hums in assent.

“It is beautiful.”

“Perhaps Shen Yuan would like to tour the palace some day,” Luo Binghe says wryly. “Considering he and this lord will be becoming more closely acquainted as time wears on, and I will be here for the most part for the foreseeable future.”

Luo Binghe seems to rally a bit at this thought, actually, lips quirking into a bit of a smile as he glances over at Shen Qingqiu. The thought doesn’t completely turn him away—in fact, Shen Qingqiu would love the chance to visit the Demon Realm again, especially if he gets to see the Emperor’s palace! It was extensively described in Proud Immortal Demon Way , and was famous for being rich, beautiful, and incredibly intimidating to visiting envoys and demon tribes. Shen Qingqiu would love to see the throne room, among many other things! He doubts that Luo Binghe would let him into any of the treasure rooms that hold the most interesting various artefacts and beast parts that he would have collected by now, but even the most remote guest treatment would be well worth the trip.

“That would be agreeable,” Shen Qingqiu finally says, voice placid. A thought occurs to him. “Lord Luo has only mentioned the northern territories thus far. Do you have plans to conquer the south?”

Luo Binghe makes a face and props his elbows on his knees, shrugging inelegantly. It’s an incredibly casual maneuver for someone who is supposedly an emperor talking to what amounts to little more than a particularly useful subject, but it makes Shen Qingqiu relax a little bit. He likes it when Binghe is casual around him, no matter the situation. Despite everything…he misses being close.

“There’s more opposition in the south,” Luo Binghe says, sighing. “The demons there tend to be more—well, feral—than those in the north, and they’re less willing to make alliances. Subduing them requires more bloodshed and brute force.”

“I can’t imagine that being a true obstacle for you,” Shen Qingqiu says automatically.

Luo Binghe glances over at them, a spark of surprise in his eyes. “Shen Yuan truly has that much faith in this lord? It’s nations of demons there, and conquest is dangerous.”

Shen Qingqiu feels his face warm at the admission, but presses on anyway. “Of course Binghe can do it, if anyone can,” he insists. “Don’t you wish to conquer the whole of the Demon Realm?”

He takes no notice of the slip of his tongue, but Luo Binghe’s gaze sharpens, intensifies.

“Do you want me to?”

Shen Qingqiu frowns and looks away, the intensity of the look trained on his face making him cast about for something to focus on. The curtains around the bed are really pretty, aren’t they? He wonders what they are made of—are they human-made, or did he commission one of the spider-silk clans to spin and weave the fabric for him? It would be an egregiously ostentatious show of wealth for bed curtains, but if anyone could do it, it would be Luo Binghe.

He doesn’t know why Luo Binghe would be asking for his opinion about any of this. Why should it matter? Then again, perhaps Shen Qingqiu is just the only person he can talk to about even matters such as these. He had come to that realization earlier, hadn’t he? Still, the conquest of the realms is different than simple talks about feelings. He grabs a small decorative pillow that is nearby and pulls it into his lap, admiring the embroidery in the fabric. 

“This servant doesn’t think that his opinion should matter,” he says slowly. “But I think you should do whatever you wish, regarding the realms.”

Luo Binghe hums. “I don’t think it is necessary anymore. I likely won’t aim for conquest unless they leave me no choice. I have very little drive for war these days.”

Something in that phrasing nags at him a little. “Not necessary anymore?”

He looks over to see Luo Binghe frowning a little. “At the time, I wished to prove my strength to someone. The conquest of the Demon Realm was to assist in that. But that…doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Someone?”

“My Shizun.”

Ah. He should have known that would be it. Shen Qingqiu clears his throat awkwardly, trying his best to process the information—Luo Binghe, conquering the demon realm for him?— before he forces the conversation forward. “Then will you find a new drive, perhaps?”

Perhaps the question is a bit callous, and he regrets it as soon as he asks it. He certainly hadn’t appreciated it when Liu Qingge told him just to get a new disciple after he lost Binghe, had he?

Thankfully, Luo Binghe doesn’t seem to take offense to the question. He looks at Shen Qingqiu for a long while, leaning imperceptibly closer, narrowing his eyes a little. The expression on his face is inscrutable, but it at least does not seem to be anger. Shen Qingqiu holds his breath without realizing what he is doing. 

This is the second time Luo Binghe has spent so long just staring into Shen Qingqiu’s face! What is so interesting about it? It’s not even as pretty as the original’s, what with his own features mixed in. There’s nothing weird or particularly fascinating about it, so look away with that piercing gaze of yours, please!

Shen Qingqiu fidgets, and the corner of Binghe’s mouth twitches. “Maybe I will,” he finally says, and it takes Shen Qingqiu a moment to realize that it is an answer to the question he asked before the impromptu staredown. “As long as it is something that would make Shizun proud,” he adds airily.

Shen Qingqiu raises an eyebrow. His mushroom body wouldn’t know, he supposes, so he gives into the temptation to ask: “Did your Shizun really mean so much to you?”

“He does,” Luo Binghe says simply. He uses the present tense, which doesn’t escape Shen Qingqiu’s notice.

Before Shen Qingqiu can respond, Luo Binghe rises from the bed, straightening his robes as he does. “Shen Yuan should join me for tea,” he says.

When Shen Qingqiu looks at the small, unused table, he realizes that it suddenly contains a tea tray, complete with an already-steaming kettle. Of course. This is a dream—there is no need to wait for water to warm, or to go and fetch the ingredients for the tea from anywhere. The dream realm is as Luo Binghe wills it.

Shen Qingqiu rises as well, approaching the table and sitting down across from Luo Binghe. He reaches out to prepare the tea, only to be stopped by Luo Binghe’s hand on the back of his.

“Allow this one to prepare it,” Binghe murmurs.

Shen Qingqiu can do nothing other than acquiesce, returning his hand to his lap and watching as Luo Binghe goes through the familiar steps of steeping tea leaves and pouring the tea, serving Shen Qingqiu as if he’d never stopped. Of course, he has no idea who Shen Qingqiu is right now, but the familiarity nudges something in Shen Qingqiu’s chest, making him ache for years past.

It feels like stealing moments as is, allowing Luo Binghe to serve him as he used to, without knowing who it is that he is serving. But Shen Qingqiu takes the moment and holds it close, stores it deep inside himself so that he can keep it for the future; a wonderful, soft moment between the two of them. A reflection of their time as master and disciple, even if Luo Binghe does not currently know to call him Shizun.

He accepts the tea with hands as steady as he can make them. Even though it is just a dream, the tea is perfect.

“I used to serve Shizun like this,” Luo Binghe finally says, after he’s poured his own cup, reflecting Shen Qingqiu’s thoughts without realizing it. 

“Ah?” Shen Qingqiu asks.

“Mm,” Luo Binghe confirms, taking a sip. “He used to sit across from me, the way that you are right now. He would ask me about my day and my studies, and always seemed interested in the answers, no matter how mundane. It’s not how I fell in love with him, but the attention made me happier than anything else. When he was especially pleased with me, he would pat me on the head.” Binghe smiles to himself. “That was my favorite. I always wanted to please Shizun, for head pats.”

Hearing about Binghe’s point of view of his discipleship is absolutely mortifying. Shen Qingqiu can only hope that the embarrassment doesn’t show on his face. 

He didn’t have any idea that Luo Binghe had been in love with him, even then.

He can’t help but pick at it.

“It’s not how you fell in love with him, though?” he prompts, wishing once more that he could hide his face as he asks the shameless question.

Luo Binghe doesn’t seem to mind, at the very least. He seems pleased to talk about this, as if this is what any demon emperor would be happy to speak about over tea to a near stranger. “No, it’s not,” he says. “I started to fall in love with him the first time he was kind to me, and then I fell for good when he first put himself between me and someone trying to harm me.” A pained look crosses his face momentarily. “Now I know that I would not have been harmed by the poison that he contracted. If he had known about my lineage then, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to stand in its way, whether or not he knew of my immunity.”

He did! Shen Qingqiu thinks fervently. He absolutely knew, and he threw himself in front of the poison anyway!

But that’s not something he can say, so he casts around in his mind for an appropriate response instead and blurts the first thing that comes to mind. “And you…” he stammers over the word, "cared for him, even so?”

Luo Binghe’s lips curl into a sweet, introspective smile, looking down at the cup of tea in front of him as if he could use it as a mirror for the Shizun he’d lost. “I do,” he says, voice sure. And then, much more darkly: “No matter what he feels, I always will.”

He glances up at Shen Qingqiu, eyes flashing red, and Shen Qingqiu does his best to suppress the shiver that runs down his spine.

“Of course,” he says faintly. Then, perhaps a bit stupidly, “And no one else will do?”

Luo Binghe had been in the process of lifting the cup to his lips again. At the question, he slams it back down, his mood instantly shifting. “No,” he barks harshly.

“Apologies, Lord Luo,” Shen Qingqiu says hastily, realizing that he’s treading unstable ground. “This one didn’t mean to offend.”

Luo Binghe sits back, observing Shen Qingqiu quietly for a moment, before he sighs. “My Shizun cared for me in a way that no one else did,” he says, voice deadly serious. “At the time, he believed in me when no one else did, and protected me when no one else would. This lord does not wish to reiterate himself in this manner again.”

“Yes, my lord,” Shen Qingqiu agrees, and takes a sip of his tea before he can make another foolish remark.

“Anyway,” Luo Binghe adds, his mood slipping back to the friendly, calm tone from before, “for now, this lord has A-Yuan as a friend, doesn’t he?” He reaches forward across the table, placing his hand on the back of Shen Qingqiu’s over the cup that he is holding. It’s warm.

Shen Qingqiu blinks, trying to adjust to the abrupt change in atmosphere. “Of course,” he agrees quickly, smiling weakly. A friend is one way to put ‘convenient qi cauldron!’  

He finds himself letting go of the tea cup in order to allow Binghe to slip his hand into Shen Qingqiu’s, Binghe’s thumb smoothing over his knuckles. Binghe grins widely at the allowance.

“The next time we see each other, it will likely be the full moon,” Luo Binghe says.

Ah, so the friend bit was just to bring up his convenient demonic-qi-dump arrangement. That makes significantly more sense, Shen Qingqiu supposes. 

“That makes sense. Lord Luo is very busy, I’m sure.”

“There’s no need to prepare in any particular way. I will find you. If you can, try to be alone when nightfall comes. It will be easier that way.”

Shen Qingqiu glances at Luo Binghe’s side, where Xin Mo rests, even in the dream. Of course he doesn’t have to meet Luo Binghe anywhere—there’s nowhere he could possibly run! That’s why he’s been allowed loose in the first place.

“I understand,” he says slowly.

“That’s alright?” Luo Binghe asks.

“Of course it is,” Shen Qingqiu says, and Luo Binghe perks up into a grin. “You have to do it, right?”

For some reason, the smile becomes abruptly strained. “Right,” Luo Binghe agrees.

Shen Qingqiu wakes up still feeling Luo Binghe’s hand in his.

He shakes it off quickly, grabbing his little sword and heading out of the little house. It’s already daytime—he has never been good at regulating his sleep, and the farmer has probably been out and tending his fields since long before daybreak. Still, the fact that it is already day will serve him well, in this case.

There is a forest nearby the farm, close enough to border the fields. That is easily the most likely place that a Scaled Scavenger Mole would nest, so he heads into it, keeping his eyes out for signs of the huge creature.

He finds them quickly.

Anywhere the mole burrows too close to the surface, the vegetation of the forest starts to rot over the path, leaving acidic patches of muck that give him an easy trail to follow. Hopefully the sludge will dilute and wash away with the next rainfall. Either way, Shen Qingqiu will have to remember to warn the farmer about wandering thoughtlessly through the forest for a while.

He finds the moles in under half a day. They smell absolutely disgusting, and black sludge oozes from between the scales that cover the giant moles’ bodies. There are two of them; perhaps mates, although Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know enough about these creatures to determine whether they are male or female. 

He manages to surprise them in their den and slay one of them before it has the chance to retaliate. The other, however, wakes and bolts out of the den before Shen Qingqiu can dispatch it as well. Shen Qingqiu can do nothing more than give chase and lure it into a fight.

The less said about combat with a creature that oozes disgusting acidic muck that melts the forest around them, the better. Suffice it to say that he manages to eliminate it without losing any limbs or too much clothing—unfortunately, the natural weave of his clothes had turned out to be extremely susceptible to the excretion.

Because of course it was.

Still, his sword is sufficient for a task such as this, and when he finally fells the creature, he returns to the den to ensure that there were no more hiding that he had missed.

The den itself is empty; he determines quickly that it’s too small for more than the two moles that he had found. However, as he is leaving, he sees something, half-dissolved in some old slime. He fishes the thing out carefully, then raises an eyebrow as he realizes what it is.

A small scrap of black, silken fabric.

He didn’t remember hearing about any deaths in the area, and he’s fairly certain that the farmer would have told him if people were going missing. While it could belong to an unsuspecting traveller, Shen Qingqiu doesn’t think that anyone would be likely to travel so deeply through the forest. That leaves one likely option: that whoever left this cloth here also left the moles here in the first place.

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu warned Huang Chen about the situation before he left, ensuring that he knew that the moles had been taken care of; he was sure to warn him about the leftover patches, telling the farmer to inform everyone he could to leave them be at least until the rain diluted them. He keeps the scrap of fabric to himself, knowing that there was nothing that this man was likely to know of it, but was sure to confirm a lack of human disappearances.

As he’d expected, no one that the farmer knew of in the area had gone missing. 

Shen Qingqiu allowed the man to ply him with a small modicum of coin, pooled from all of the farmers in the area.

“You’ve saved our crop,” he had insisted. “We will be able to afford the tax this year, with your help. It is our homes and livelihood that you have preserved. Let us thank you.”

At that, he’d given in and taken the money—it would obtain him hot meals and a place to stay the night for a while.

When he asked, he also received information about the roads and towns nearby. The one he had been heading to was the closest; after that, the road loops around back towards the center of the country. Apparently, he has been coming close to the mountainous borders in the west. The road will angle north, cutting through a dense wood before winding its way through the northwestern towns. If he travels for long enough—months, in a caravan—the road will turn back towards the central plains and territory watched by Tian Yi Overlook.

For now, the area he is in is mostly ungoverned; Tian Yi is the closest major sect to the western and northwestern territories, and they are not plentiful enough to answer more than the most dire of calls for help. This makes for good work for Shen Qingqiu, who will be far more in demand by those who need his expertise.

He thanks the farmer for his knowledge—what an NPC, knowing even the locations of the biggest cultivation sects in relation to their current location—and sets off down the road, tentatively looking forward to the next week or so of travel.

He does his best not to think about what is waiting for him at the end of the week.

The full moon. Luo Binghe.

He stops in the nearest village for the night, where he spends an uneventful but restful time under the roof of the only run-down in the place. It is enough for him; he’s fed some disappointing but hot food, and the bed is not the worst that he has slept in. It’s better than the ground, at the very least—not every inn even succeeds in that much.

He asks around the city, but no one recognizes the smooth scrap of fabric; there’s not even a hint of someone who recognizes it but lies about it. It feels as if these creatures have almost appeared from thin air. However, it can’t be the case; for monsters to come this far without having alerted every sect between the Demonic Borderlands and here,  someone had to be shepherding them.

Realizing that he will have to find a larger town before he can think about next steps, he departs the village the next day.

He spends four full days in the woods between the village and the next town; it is full of fascinating creatures, both mundane and magical. Shen Qingqiu can’t help but to linger in the area, exploring the less-trodden parts of the forest in order to observe Jewel-Winged Peacock Butterflies—a hawk-sized butterfly that trailed real peacock feathers with jewels glinting in the eye of the feather—attack prey of anything smaller than them that they can hypnotize with the glint of their gems. He narrowly avoids walking into bushes of sex-pollen flowers three times in total, and has two embarrassing encounters with creatures that try to corral him into their nests for various reasons.

It is a nice detour, but he knows he has to get back to puzzling out the issue with the fabric scrap. He is beginning to think that he will have to work his way to the Demon Realm to find actual answers about it. Not only that, but he wants to find his way to a proper town and bed for the actual night of the full moon. Luo Binghe will be performing the qi exchange then, and Shen Qingqiu will deserve a comfortable place to sleep after he goes through that! He can’t imagine that it will feel any better the second time than it did the first time that he was subjected to it.

Shen Qingqiu allows himself to stop at the next inn he finds and reserves a room through the full moon. He keeps to himself for the most part, meditating in his rooms and not bothering with meals when inedia can sustain him sufficiently, but still manages to attract plenty of attention from the general population. Strangers rarely come to small towns so far from the central plains, and ones traveling on their own are always someone to keep an eye on; he knows that he is being watched with suspicion at first, and then fascination as he practices his sword forms in a field just outside the walls each morning.

He does actually manage to get some business, that way—a few talismans for those who request them are enough to keep him supplied with tea and meals for the days that he stays, and he is happy enough to help where he can. He wishes he were doing something more suited to his skills; as the chief strategist of Cang Qiong, he rarely did things as rote and simple as talisman creation—but it is enough to keep him busy, at the very least.

The day of the full moon dawns like any other. Shen Qingqiu follows the simple routine that he has created since arriving—he wakes up, heads downstairs and out of the town to go through his morning routine, stretching and going through his sword forms. A few hours later, he returns to the town to stop at a small tea shop, settling down to go over and organize the notes that he had taken during his time in the forest those few days more comprehensively. Afterwards, he heads to his rooms and settles in for meditation until nightfall.

The whole time, he does his best to ignore the dread pooling slowly into his stomach, deepening and causing his chest to go tight when he thinks of what the evening will bring. Not that he thinks that Luo Binghe wishes to harm him, exactly—the past few dreams have been enough to convince Shen Qingqiu that he’s been pardoned for the moment—but he is. Well, he’s nervous.  

He hasn’t seen Luo Binghe in person since he had been feral and holding onto his corpse, halfway into a demonic qi deviation and with Shen Qingqiu on the wrong side of his rage. Before that, he’d experienced the exact thing that he was planning to willingly submit to tonight, and it hadn’t exactly been pleasant. Pardon Shen Qingqiu if he wasn’t looking forward to the experience again!

Not to mention that he simply hasn’t seen enough of what Luo Binghe has become since their five-year…separation. Luo Binghe had already been blackened when he’d come out of the abyss, but the rage and power he’d seen from the Heavenly Demon years ago didn’t come close to what he observed just a few weeks ago. Would that aura still be there, Shen Qingqiu found himself wondering. 

He doesn’t know if he looks forward to it or not. It makes him nervous, something fluttering anxiously in his chest, but he can’t deny the certain thrill that the thought of Luo Binghe, brimming with power, sends through him.

So he does his best to ignore everything running through his head, forcing himself repeatedly back into meditation no matter how many times he loses track of his wandering thoughts as he sits. 

Finally, as the sun is beginning to set, leaving orange light to slant through his cracked windows, bathing the room in the dim shades of sundown—he feels it. And it is a feeling , much more than it is anything that he sees. A buzzing that starts under the skin, behind his eyes and in his teeth, making him acutely aware of his flesh layered on muscle and bone and beneath his fingernails. He allows his eyes to open, knowing that there is no way he can pretend to meditate through a sensation like this.

Luo Binghe cuts through the fabric of the universe with Xin Mo. The opening starts as a single point of darkness—not just dark, but a complete absence of light, one that sucks in the air and color around it. The point widens into a line, and then slices down, widening and curling out in swirls of brain-defying darkness, wisps of empty void that leak out of the opening. Shen Qingqiu can’t wrap his head around it, this hole in the universe where nothing exists.

And then Luo Binghe steps through.

He is somehow more beautiful than he is in the dream realm—more real, the shine of his hair and gentle glow of his huadian and silken embroidered robes more regal than anything Shen Qingqiu has ever seen before combining to form the image of someone larger than life. He is bigger than Shen Qingqiu remembers from the last times they’d seen each other—his mushroom body is slightly shorter than the original good’s—and everything about him makes Shen Qingqiu feel slightly breathless.

“Lord Luo is very punctual,” he says for lack of anything else to say, hoping that he sounds put-together enough and not like an absolute mess of a poser cultivator. 

The darkness swirls behind Luo Binghe, retreating into the gaps between the world, the void collapsing in on itself as the rift closes. Moments later, the room is back to normal, and Shen Qingqiu has to fight off the desire to shake his head, feeling like his ears might pop with the sudden vacuum disappearing. 

Luo Binghe looks around the room that Shen Qingqiu has rented for himself, humming curiously. Shen Qingqiu grips his fan in his hand, feeling oddly judged—this isn’t even his room! It’s just a place that he’s found for the night to recover.

Finally, Luo Binghe sniffs and turns to Shen Qingqiu properly. A smile graces his face, transforming the intimidating demon lord into the incredibly smooth and charismatic man that Shen Qingqiu knows he can be when it benefits him. “Shen Yuan seems well,” he says. “This Lord is pleased to see him after so long.”

Ah, he really seems so sincere. It almost makes Shen Qingqiu forget that he is just here to be a fancy battery pack and sometimes friendly advice-giver-slash-therapist.

“This master is pleased to see Lord Luo as well,” he responds. “I presume that my lord is ready to get the exchange under way?”

For a moment, an expression almost like irritation flickers across Luo Binghe’s face, although it disappears quickly. If Shen Qingqiu didn’t know any better, he’d think that Binghe wanted to sit around chatting like gossipping girls at a sleepover. It would be silly to think that, though—Luo Binghe has to be far too busy to just sit around trading stories when he has an empire to run. 

In the end, Luo Binghe simply nods in agreement and approaches where Shen Qingqiu stands in front of the bed, braced for what is to come.

Shen Qingqiu knows that it will hurt. He remembers how badly, and he knows that the month between that time and this one has dulled the memory enough that he is likely underestimating how bad it will be. He can’t help but to close his eyes as Luo Binghe places a warm hand on his chest over his robes.

There is a tense moment where nothing happens, and despite himself, Shen Qingqiu opens the eyes he did not realize he had shut only to see Luo Binghe looking at him with concern. He forces the tension from his limbs, only realizing upon loosening up just how tightly he has been holding himself.

“Maybe Shen Yuan should lay down for this,” Luo Binghe says, doubt creeping into his tone.

Shen Qingqiu wrinkles his nose. “This master did just fine with Lord Luo’s quick exchange last month,” he deflects.

It is easy to see from Luo Binghe’s face how much he does not even start to believe him. 

“This lord knows how much the exchange cripples a cultivator,” Luo Binghe points out. “Just because your…abnormal cultivation is enough to withstand the demonic qi and drain does not mean that I am ignorant to how it must affect you.”

Unfortunately, there is not much he can say in response to that. Because it hurt! It really fucking hurt, and he doesn’t actually want to go through it again!

Then again, to be able to stick close to the protagonist in this way…it’s worth it.

Shen Qingqiu takes a breath, warring with himself for a moment before he finally gives in and all-but flops backward onto the hard inn bed. Luo Binghe settles onto the side of the bed next to him, his thigh pressing against Shen Qingqiu’s right hip with how he folds it to lean over Shen Qingqiu. 

Luo Binghe once more presses a hand to his chest, leaning down and over him, eyes trailing over his face and flicking lower, to where he presses his hand against his robes. 

“Is Shen Yuan more comfortable now?” Luo Binghe murmurs, something in his voice making Shen Qingqiu feel flushed with warmth.

Binghe, you really do not have to lean so close!

His face is mere inches from Shen Qingqiu’s, searching his face for a hint of discomfort—of which he is feeling plenty, his body prickling all over as Luo Binghe hooks his thumb in the gap between Shen Qingqiu’s robes to the inner layer. It has, however, completely distracted him from the fear that he was feeling just before. 

“Just get it—” Shen Qingqiu starts, and Luo Binghe does.

It feels like he is imploding and shattering into pieces at the same time. It’s like being shot through with a million volts of lightning and crushed under the weight of a falling car at the same time. It feels as if he’s been run through by a freight train. In summary, it’s absolutely awful. He can’t even scream; his breath is punched out of him with the rapid influx of demonic qi, leaving his mouth open and gasping wordlessly. He probably looks awful, lips parted and face pale, chest heaving under Luo Binghe’s hand for breath that won’t come.

His own qi drains near-instantly as Luo Binghe siphons it out, flowing through his meridians and into Luo Binghe’s. His spiritual veins work rapidly to filter out the demonic qi before it settles into his core at the same time as Luo Binghe sucks up all of the spiritual energy that he has, balancing his own dual cores.

His vision goes entirely black.

Then, his body kickstarts and Shen Qingqiu is able to inhale a ragged breath, his hand coming up to clutch Luo Binghe’s wrist, unsure whether to keep his hand pressed to his chest or to push it away. He exhales, then takes another deep breath, feeling his pulse pounding in his ears. Finally, his spiritual energy begins to rapidly regenerate, draining as Luo Binghe pulls at it but filling faster than Luo Binghe can deplete it.

When he comes back to himself, he feels a tickle at the side of his face. It takes him a moment to realize what it is, but when he turns his head to the side to get a face-full of hair he realizes that it’s Luo Binghe’s curls against the side of his neck and cheek from where Luo Binghe has his face tucked against Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder.

His head feels hazy. For a moment, he can do nothing but breathe, matching his inhales and exhales to Luo Binghe’s admittedly-ragged ones, teaching himself how his lungs work again. He muddles through his thoughts, blearily wondering what Luo Binghe seems so overwhelmed about—he had been just fine the last time that this happened, hadn’t he? Just shot Shen Qingqiu full of demonic qi and walked away, chipper (read: dangerously ill-tempered) as before.

He doesn’t seem so put together now. He remains tucked against Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder as Shen Qingqiu twitches, feeling slowly returning to his limbs. It takes him a moment, but he clumsily lifts his arm to wrap it around Luo Binghe. He pats the back of Binghe’s head, uncoordinated but doing his best to comfort.

Binghe’s curls are so soft, Shen Qingqiu thinks to himself. So nice to pat. He missed this.

“Binghe,” he mumbles after a minute, words vaguely slurred. As his qi continues to generate and Luo Binghe tapers off the siphon, however, his head finally starts to clear. He realizes that he’s patting Binghe’s head just like he used to and forces himself to stop. He doesn’t quite manage to pull his hand away entirely, however; he just rests it in thick curls, telling himself that he’ll move it once his limbs are a little more cooperative.

Any minute now.

Binghe finally lifts his head a bit, his eyes shining as he studies Shen Qingqiu’s face, looking worried. “Apologies for putting Shen Yuan through so much,” he says quietly. “I know this hurts you.”

It does. It really does hurt. And yet…

“If it helps Binghe, then I am willing,” he says tiredly. More than anything now, he really just wants to take a nap. Or, more accurately, fall unconscious for the next half a day.

A moment later and Luo Binghe finally sits up, his hand lingering on Shen Qingqiu’s chest without pushing down on it. “Still, it is not pleasing to cause so much pain to someone who is kind to me,” he says. 

Ah, Luo Binghe’s ‘return kindness tenfold’ nature returns. It’s reassuring to Shen Qingqiu that at least that much remains of his little white lotus, after everything. He was even shockingly kind about the loss of his master’s body, something that Shen Qingqiu still doesn’t really know how to deal with. Maybe, despite the dream and the kiss (don’t think about it don’t think about it—) Luo Binghe had already started to accept him as lost. He forces the thought out of his mind, not wanting to dwell on it. 

It is harder to justify pretending he doesn’t know Luo Binghe, now that he knows that he wasn’t the target of Binghe’s ire the whole time. Still, he doesn’t want to be the one to start the protagonist’s harem! This is truly…it’s better for everyone, he tells himself firmly.

Even though he’s started to feel a bit like he’s playing a mean trick. At least he’s used to pretending to be a new person.

“It is only once a month,” Shen Qingqiu finally responds, gathering himself. He starts to push himself up into a sitting position, and Binghe is quick to assist him, reaching behind him to help prop him up. His limbs are stiff after holding them so rigidly at the huge instant influx of demonic qi, and he grimaces. He’ll definitely want to sleep all of this off later. “And if Lord Luo needs this to balance his energies, then it is better to use me than a host that can’t take the damage.”

“That is true,” Luo Binghe responds, nodding maybe a bit more readily than Shen Qingqiu thinks is necessarily appropriate. With that attitude, he’s going to think that Luo Binghe prefers using him specifically, as opposed to any others! Then again, he is likely considering the lives of others. It is true that no one else has such an absolutely OP qi generating system as Shen Qingqiu.

“Will Lord Luo be leaving now that he has made the exchange, then?”

Luo Binghe looks reluctant, but he nods slowly. “My original intent was to stay and ensure that Shen Yuan was well recovered after, but there are urgent matters needing my attention. There has been more unrest near the border than usual, and I cannot be away for long. I must offer my apologies for leaving so soon.”

Shen Qingqiu can’t help but inwardly cringe. Why phrase it like an apology for abandoning a one-night-stand, Binghe? Shen Qingqiu is not a booty call! He is just a physical vessel there for Luo Binghe to make use of whenever he needs, all right?

Not that that sounds any better.

“Lord Luo surely has many responsibilities that he must see to,” Shen Qingqiu responds diplomatically. “I will not be very interesting company right now, anyway.”

It’s true. He’s so tired now. He can tell he’ll be sleeping for a long time this evening.

“Perhaps we will meet in the dream realm again soon,” Luo Binghe proposes with a smile that makes Shen Qingqiu feel a little weak inside.

“Perhaps so,” he manages.

Luo Binghe sits back finally (and when had he leaned in so close?) and reaches into his sleeve to pull out a small pouch. He presses it into Shen Qingqiu’s hand, who raises an eyebrow at the wait and clink of silver inside. 

“This is the least that this lord can provide,” Luo Binghe promises, voice low. “Especially if it will help you on your travels.”

Well, Shen Qingqiu isn’t about to refuse the payment. Even if it makes him feel a little bit like a call girl, he really does need the support. He can support himself, but it’s so much easier to have a little extra on the side in case of emergencies! Or a lot extra, in this case.

“Thanking my lord,” he says, accepting the payment.

Luo Binghe’s hands linger over his for a little bit longer, then finally pull away. Shen Qingqiu watches Luo Binghe rise from the bed, grasping Xin Mo in his hands. “I will see you again soon,” he promises warmly, and cuts a new hole in reality. It is just as disconcerting as the first time, darkness and void swirling out into the room, making his skin prickle and ears pop.

With a final glance behind him, Luo Binghe finally disappears through the rip, which seals behind him moments later. Shen Qingqiu stares at the space where his disciple had been for a long time after.

This had been the first time he’d seen Luo Binghe in person since the incident at Huan Hua palace. He doesn’t know what to do with everything that the meeting made him feel.

Luo Binghe was right there in front of him. He was warm, and alive, and beautiful, and pressed close and worried about him when he was in pain. Shen Qingqiu missed him more than he would be willing to admit to himself.

He rubs his chest. It continues to ache, even though the pain from the qi exchange had long since faded.

Chapter Text

In the end, he has to rent another spiritual sword. 

After Luo Binghe’s visit, Shen Qingqiu had collapsed into bed and slept well into the afternoon of the next day. Only his cultivation level saved him from waking up too sore to move. He allowed himself another night of lazing about in the inn, simply spending the day resting and reading a book that he had picked up at a previous village. It wasn’t anything interesting or special; not particularly good or bad, but a book that he read simply to pass the evening.

The next morning, he had continued on his journey. The next town he came to was far larger than the previous that he had stopped at, but it unfortunately wasn’t enough to help him solve his problem of the origins of the fabric; a seamstress identified it as silk, but had no idea as to the origins. Shen Qingqiu had been fairly prepared for this to end up happening, however, and so in the end moved through the town as quickly as possible, using some of the money Luo Binghe left him to rent a sword that he could infuse with qi to use to travel to the demonic border as quickly as possible after another few days of travel to an even more populated place.

While the borderlands between the human and demon realms are normally quite desolate, looked after only by the few cultivators willing to patrol the rift and defend the humans from any flesh-happy demons, there are spots along the border that have managed to coalesce into something like trade hubs. Most demons do not have any eye for what humans find beautiful, and simply raid the human realm for anything that they may want; there are, however, several notable demon clans of more humanoid appearance and tendencies that do appreciate human aesthetics, or have cleverly discovered things that are easily sold as luxuries in the human realm—demonic plants with specific properties, for one (often aphrodisiac), or specific and specialized trade goods.

It is at one of these towns that Shen Qingqiu stops and returns the sword that he had taken out on loan. It is late when he gets in, so he quickly finds a room at an inn that doesn’t look too terribly run-down and closes himself in for the night. He goes to sleep earlier than he normally would, but doesn’t have any dreams.

He hasn’t dreamed of Binghe since the full moon happened. Not that Binghe had reached out to him much before the visit—only a few times between the past two moons—but he finds himself anxious, wishing to hear from him again. They are supposed to be building a friendship, aren’t they? Shen Qingqiu can’t contribute until Luo Binghe makes the connection!

And something about seeing him in person again, in all of his demonic glory, close and firm and real—well. Shen Qingqiu missed him. Even if he isn’t seeing Luo Binghe as his old master, it was so nice to see him again. Comforting.

Still, he forces himself to shake off the disappointment that he feels and gets out of bed, ready to comb through the town to find someone that can tell him about the fabric scrap. It ends up only taking about half a day to find someone that recognizes it.

“Oh yeah, this could only come from the Southern Spider Silk Sisters,” the seamstress says to him, casually rubbing the scrap between her fingers. “They sell us silks to distribute through the human realm. They’re quite popular with well-to-do cultivators for their higher tensile strength and the fact that they’re quite cooling in the summer.”

Shen Qingqiu suddenly has to wonder if maybe his old summer robes were made of this same fabric. It would be incredibly cool, if so.

“Do you know where they are located in the demon realm?” Shen Qingqiu asks, not feeling very hopeful.

However, the woman is nodding before he’s even finished. “They often complain about how long they have to travel to get to us, since they’re further north than we are,” she says. “Apparently the spider clans prefer the north part of the southern climates for being warmer but more humid. They’ve tried to get us to set up another post down the border more than once, but it's not worth it for only the silk. Even with the trade, there’s only so many people willing to risk themselves so close to the border.”

Shen Qingqiu accepts the fabric scrap back from her and bows in thanks. “I appreciate your information,” he says.

“Just don't go bringing trouble back here if you cause it,” the woman says, eyeing his cultivator’s robes and the sword at his side. 

“Of course not.”

He’ll certainly try not to, at least.

He wishes that he had a proper spiritual weapon, but he supposes a clan of demons willing to trade with humans should not be too terrible to meet with. He has his fan if he needs it, after all.

Shen Qingqiu spends the remainder of the day preparing for his trip, packing extra dried foods in case he ends up in the Demon Realm for longer than he expected. He doubts it will happen, but it is much better to be prepared than to be caught off-guard. He ends up going to bed early that night a second time in a row, ready to set out the next morning.

Once again, he doesn’t have any dreams.

Shen Qingqiu sets off into the Demon Realm the next morning, slipping through the rift at the border and finding a well-traveled road leading south. He wears a weimao over his face to shelter himself from the unforgiving demonic climate. Figuring that must be a good indicator of trade routes, he turns along it, looking around as he walks. He had briefly been to the Demon Realm before when he had snuck into Sha Hualing’s residence. This section near the border is much the same as the other; an arid, dry land mostly covered in rocks and loose dirt. Any plants he can see are scraggly and run down, just managing to grow through sheer stubbornness. 

As he travels, the landscape slowly changes. The shift isn’t obvious at first, but the dirt begins to darken in color and feel more packed, less sandy. The plant life begins to look a little more—well, alive . 

The atmosphere shifts to something a bit cooler, a bit less dry. The whole land seems to shift from red sand to something more soil-like, and plant life becomes more common. Not that the plant life is common for the human realm; the trees sport baffling shapes, likely feeding on something other than the burning demonic sunlight. The colors they sport range from brown to a dull, russet red, to a deep bruise-like purple. The effect is beautiful, albeit entirely uncanny. The trees dig straight into the grey rock of the land, roots cracking down into the stone and breaking it apart in order to anchor themselves. Shen Qingqiu is fascinated by their tenacity, the ability to drill down into solid boulders in order to grow. 

The road breaks off in several places, but Shen Qingqiu continues following the main path. He has an idea of what kind of settlement that he’s looking for now, and no matter how much he might want to explore, he would be stupid to go wandering off through the Demon Realm on his own right now. He’s not backed by a cultivation sect that would notice if he went missing these days, after all, and very little of the demonic realm is what one would call friendly to humans of any kind.

He is starting to get worried about nightfall—he remembers something about freezing cold nights to contrast the meltingly hot days from the original story—when the trees suddenly thicken into something imitating a forest and a branch of the path veers off straight towards the copse of trees. The perfect place for a group of spider demons to shelter from the unfriendly climate if they don’t wish to live underground the way that many demons do. 

Almost as soon as he enters the forest, the world around him mutes and darkens. The trees shade him from the sun, and the veil of his weimao further fuzzes the world around him, making it feel almost dreamlike. For a while, he thinks the wisps that he’s seeing out of the corner of his eyes as he travels further into the trees are just folds of his veil. It takes him almost walking straight into one to realize that he’s seeing spiderwebs instead—small ones, just little strands of silk here and there. 

The spiderwebs begin to crop up in the limbs of the trees more and more often the further he walks, and the webbing progresses from thin strands of silk so small he can barely see it, to twisted threads thick enough that no human realm spider could produce such a thing. It’s still fine webbing—incredibly thin and precise—it’s just the sheer size and amount of it that makes it so unbelievable. 

The path emerges into a clearing in the forest. The clearing is spotted with trees and homes built into the side of them, webbing stretching across the tops of the canopies to ensure that the makeshift village is still hidden from the view of the sun. The homes are made of wood and webbing used to hold them together, giving the whole town an oddly run-down feel for how well put-together the place is. To one side of the village, huge vats of various liquids boil, releasing a combination of scents that makes Shen Qingqiu feel dizzy. Some are sweet—obviously herbs and flowers—but others are strong and foul enough to make him want to retch. He forces the feeling down, focusing on his fascination in this seemingly empty clan’s home. 

This is where the demons weave their spider silk into cloth. The vats are clearly for dyes, and thick woven ropes of what must be more silk drape across the trees at the edge of the clearing, where cloth shimmers in a whole rainbow of colors. It’s a huge contrast to the browns-and-reds and white of the rest of the village, muted in the way it blends into the trees surrounding them.

He sees a flicker out of the corner of his eye. It’s not the first one he’s seen. He knows that he’s being watched, and he has been for a while now. 

“Hello?” Shen Qingqiu calls softly after a moment. 

A woman emerges from the forest. Shen Qingqiu is suddenly reminded of a fact—in fact, he is not just reminded. The fact hits him with all the strength of being sidelined by a truck running full throttle down the highway. The spider silk demons is one of the few clans that the original Luo Binghe had never taken a wife from.

One look at the demon in front of him explains it.

From her mouth emerges the protruding fangs of a spider, scaled up to force themselves into a human face. They are not remotely prettier in such high-definition. She has two eyes larger than any human’s eye, pure black. Three more smaller ones dot her temples, all perfectly round and unsettling. Her waist pinches off into nearly nothing, then widens into what Shen Qingqiu can only see as a spider’s lower body. It is pitch black, with four sets of legs carrying her smoothly into the clearing and a set of spinnerets emerging from—well. Shen Qingqiu is uncomfortably aware of where the spider silk must come from.

Her skin is quite literally paper white, as if she has never seen the sun, veins streaking blue beneath the skin. Her spider’s body is as white as the rest of her skin. In a show of contrast from the horror show that is the rest of her figure that makes Shen Qingqiu have to choke down hysterical giggles, she still has a sufficiently ample chest to be one of any of Airplane’s beauties. She is swathed in sheer silks from her own clan, barely enough to cover anything that Shen Qingqiu would feel scarred seeing. He has to remind himself not to look away.

She is certainly no gorgeous maiden to be deflowered by Luo Binghe. The fans would have rioted if this clan had ever been described in any sort of detail. Shen Qingqiu would have given his left arm to see it. 

Shen Qingqiu hurries to bow to the demon, distinctly aware that this woman is most certainly not the only spider demon nearby. Not when he’s walked right in their—well, lair, for lack of a better term.

“This humble cultivator apologizes for interrupting your work and entering your home uninvited,” Shen Qingqiu says, voice as polite as he can make it. “I have been tracking an enemy that released a creature upon a group of unsuspecting humans, and the trail has led me to your impressive establishment.”

He isn’t lying—the work they do is more than impressive. It’s absolutely amazing! He just wishes he could admire it from a much further distance than he currently is. 

The woman blinks at him, which is an incredibly unsettling experience. First the large pair of eyes blink, and then the other three sets follow in a staggered wave. It feels a bit like being winked at repeatedly, only way more uncomfortable because the person winking is a huge, spider-shaped monster. 

“And why should we entertain you ?” the demoness asks. Her fangs click while she speaks, interspersing her words with a shck sound every few syllables. If it is meant to be a threat, it is working.

Shen Qingqiu feels uncomfortably like dinner. Thankfully, he came prepared.

He reaches into his sleeve and retrieves the pouch that Luo Binghe had given him the week before. “Of course none of the Spider Sisters are required to answer my questions,” he agrees. “But I do have silver on offer for whoever is willing, and can promise no harm to you or your clan.”

The woman eyes the pouch with naked greed, then reaches out with nails three inches long and piercingly sharp to pluck the pouch out of Shen Qingqiu’s hand. She likely uses them in her work. 

“You may call me Weaver,” she says. “Now, your questions?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Shen Qingqiu can see a few other spider demons emerge into the clearing on either side. They look similar to the Weaver, although Shen Qingqiu really has no true way to gauge these things about this particular clan. He sincerely hopes that they are beginning to reveal themselves due to curiosity rather than anything more nefarious.

“I have here a scrap of silk that I retrieved from the den of the monsters, and reason to believe that the clothing comes from whoever set them on the human realm. Eventually, the cloth led me here. A seamstress told me only your clan could make silk so soft and strong.”

It was true enough, and a bit of flattery never hurt anyone. He produces the fabric shred, handing it gingerly over to the Weaver, careful of her claws. She examines the fabric, winding it around her nails and then, curiously, sniffing it. Finally, she nods.

“This is from our clan,” Weaver agrees, pincers clicking. “And, in fact, I know exactly what bolt of silk this particular scrap came from. It was a unique dye batch, made using the black blood of a cursed beast that wandered into one of my webs. The scent, though faint, is unique.”

Honestly, it’s better news than Shen Qingqiu ever would have expected to hear. He tries to prevent himself from perking up noticeably, but he can’t help the small smile that breaks through his straight-faced poser facade. He pulls out his fan instead, covering his face to hide the joy at his success.

“Would it be possible to get a description of the client?” he requests, hoping his silver will go that far.

It seems he is in luck, because the woman nods. This quest is going well, so far—he’s done pretty good picking all of the correct NPCs to speak to!

“Yes,” she murmurs. There is more movement from the corner of Shen Qingqiu’s eyes, but he needs this information before he can address whatever is going on behind him. Perhaps the human is an interesting side show to the clan—it seems none of them get out much. Not a hint of a tan around here. “It was purchased by the mistress of a northern demon clan,” she says. “The one that lives in the burning ice caves near the frozen volcanoes in the northern half of our realm.”

A bit unspecific—and burning ice, really?—but there is plenty for Shen Qingqiu to work with. He needs to get out of the spooky spider den and head back to the human realm so he can prepare for another trip, this time to the north. 

“Thank you for your assistance,” Shen Qingqiu says, bowing once more over his fan. “This cultivator shall be taking his leave now. I do not wish to prevent you from your textiles for longer than I already have.”

He turns, only to feel his blood freeze in his veins. The path that he had walked in on has been entirely blocked off, strung over with spider webbing. One of the demonesses is using her spinnerets to attach a last strand to the trunk of a tree as he takes it in. The whole clearing is covered in far more webbing than it had been when he first arrived—slowly weaving a net, trapping him in. His mundane sword will be useful against the nearly impenetrable strands of the spider clan. His fan might be able to do something, but he doubts he will be fast enough to actually cut through all of what they’ve woven in such a short period of time.

The back of his neck prickles as he suddenly is confronted with the sensation of a creature lurking directly behind him.

A clicking of pincers just inches from his ear sends shivers down his spine. “Oh, but we cannot allow such a delicious cultivator to leave just like that,” Weaver purrs. “Apologies to the master, but we think we shall take you as well as the money. Hunting has been poor lately, and my sisters and I are very hungry, after all.”

Shen Qingqiu tries his best to escape.

His hat falls to the ground as he leaps away from the demoness behind him and towards a part of the trees that look the least covered in webbing. A qi-infused blast with his fan is sharp enough to cut through some of the strands, leaving only a very few crossing the trunks of the trees. He does his best to leap through, taking a swan dive between the strands. For a moment, he thinks that he’s made it through.

Unfortunately, his long xianxia hair is his downfall. A few strands catch in the webbing and stick fast. Immediately, he’s pulled to a stop, and tugging does nothing more than make his hair even more tangled in the sticky web.

He knew, he knew his hair was going to ruin his day eventually! This long xianxia hair is just so inconvenient always—it was better with Binghe to help him take care of it, but on his own he hates dealing with it—and now it’s going to cause him to be eaten by spider demons!

The Weaver approaches, long spider limbs carrying her down the trunk of a tree from above.

“Hello, Shelob,” Shen Qingqiu mutters under his breath.

The demoness ignores him in favor of leaning in uncomfortably close—and biting him in the shoulder with her pincers.

The venom in her bite starts to work almost immediately. She has barely started to wrap him in webs when he falls unconscious.

His dreams are piecemeal, fuzzy and swirling indistinctly around him. He struggles to pull together any thoughts, the venom tearing any sentences from his head before they have the chance to fully form. There are flashes of color and fleeting scenes, but it is all intangible, failing to stick in his head. He fights to remember even so much as his name, his own identity nebulous and difficult to grasp—there have been so many, after all.

Shen Qingqiu struggles through the venom-induced haze, half-awake and half-unconscious, cognizant of his body entirely enclosed up to the throat in some substance and unable to move, being dragged across the ground somewhere. The inability to move is reflected in his drifting dreams, leaving him unable to do anything but let incomplete scenes flash through his head, swirling away before they’re even fully formed. For a minute, he thinks he sees a flash of red and black, the shining huadian and surprised eyes of his disciple, but even that is swept away before he sees more. 

He comes to some indeterminate amount of time later. He opens his eyes, groggy, and thinks that he has gone blind for a moment before they start to adjust to the darkness. He is hanging in a dense copse of trees, entirely shaded from any view of the sun and dark enough to feel as if he is inside. Likely the spider demons have used their webbing to ensure that their food is as well-protected as possible.

Because that is what this place has to be. He is hung from the webbing that encloses him at the back of his collar, and his head is still free to turn and look around him. When he does, he sees other wrapped cocoons of creatures; most of the cocoons are split open with a sharp and ragged slice down the middle. Shen Qingqiu can imagine how that turned out for whatever creature was inside. In fact, nothing else here seems to be alive. It appears that the spiders prefer their prey dead before they eat them.

That, or eating their prey alive is the preferred option, and the dead creatures in the area are simply for food storage. Like dried meat strips as opposed to fresh cooked catches. Shen Qingqiu keeps his thoughts analytical, doing his best not to acknowledge that in this situation, he is the freshly-caught catch to be consumed.

His head is killing him. Thoughts are still difficult to grasp, and the venom has made him both dizzy and nauseous. He spends a moment weakly struggling in his bonds, but the effort is predictably fruitless; there is no way he is going to break out of these. It would figure that his eagerness to follow some silly mystery quest line would get him eaten by spiders.

What a humiliating way to go. Eaten by unsexy spider women.

The venom isn’t done making its way through his system, and it tugs at his consciousness. He spends a minute fighting it, but there is not much that he can do to stay awake—he is far too weak to break free, anyway. He lets the lure of unconsciousness pull him back under.

The dream coalesces fully this time. He is in the bamboo house.

For a moment, he panics, until he looks down at himself and finds that he is still wearing the clothes that he had been wearing to visit the spider clan. He is still in his mushroom body; he has not been found out by Luo Binghe on top of his imminent future as a bloody meal. 

He sits on his own bed in the house. Binghe kneels in front of him, looking up at him with naked worry in his eyes. His hands grip Shen Qingqiu’s knees, overly-familiar but too anxious to cause anything other than the slightest ping in Shen Qingqiu’s subconscious.

“Shen Yuan drifted into my dream realm earlier, but something was wrong,” Luo Binghe frets. “I have been searching for your consciousness since then. What has happened?”

Something about Luo Binghe’s powers over the dream realm temporarily pulls Shen Qingqiu’s thoughts together, overriding the drifting lack of clarity imposed by the venom. He finds himself clinging to Binghe’s hands on his knees, irrationally afraid that if he lets go, he will start drifting again and be swept back into the unsettling indistinct dreams from before.

“I was investigating the cloth that I told you about,” he says haltingly, struggling to pull himself together and use any form of formality in his speech. “It brought me to—to—” he trails off, reaching mentally for the place that he’s in. Intellectually, he knows he must still be affected by the venom, and it’s making it hard to remember. Subjectively, he feels unmoored, like he’s losing pieces of himself with his inability to call to mind where he is. He grips Binghe’s hands more tightly, his nails digging into Binghe’s hands without meaning to.

He can’t bring himself to let go.

“I can’t remember,” he finally says, voice small.

Binghe bites his lip and leverages himself on Shen Qingqiu’s knees, pushing himself up to sit on the bed next to him. He gently pulls his hands out from underneath Shen Qingqiu’s grip, ignoring the faint cry of protest in favor of cradling Shen Qingqiu’s face in his hands, gently, oh so gently.

“That’s alright,” he says. “I am going to send you back to sleep. Your consciousness is fuzzing, and I don’t wish to cause any damage to your mind by holding you here. But I will find you. Alright? This lord will make sure no harm comes to you.”

Shen Qingqiu nods, his breath caught in his throat. He keeps trying to remember, and he can’t, and out of the corner of his eye he can see the outline of his hands go fuzzy and indistinct, as if he is splitting apart. Even Luo Binghe can’t keep him here right now. “Please,” he manages, voice thick.

Luo Binghe smiles at him reassuringly, and Shen Qingqiu can’t help but to believe that everything will be alright.

“I will be there to fetch you in minutes in the waking world,” Luo Binghe promises.

And Shen Qingqiu relaxes into the push to his consciousness, letting Luo Binghe send him further into his own head, into a dreamless darkness.

He wakes to the touch of sharp claws on his face and the diminishing prickling sensation of a vacuum. The vestiges of thought that his pounding head can draw together make him flinch his head weakly back, remembering the needle claws of the spider demoness from before he was poisoned. It doesn’t work, although the claws on his cheek are replaced by the back of a hand, gentle against his cheek. 

“—here to get you, don’t worry, I’ll—”

Trying to concentrate on the words is like trying to grasp smoke. His thoughts are trickling out of his head like sand from between parted fingers, steadily emptying. The venom does not seem to be leaving his system; he distantly thinks that his symptoms are getting worse. 

Maybe he’s dying.

The thought isn’t enough to cause much more than a distant alarm, disconnected from his body. He’s unable to move, barely able to think, and it’s difficult to muster up a care when he’s unable to string together a thought.

“—hear me? Answer me, please —”

The voice, heard as if through underwater, pings in the back of his head. He recognizes it.

“Binghe,” he slurs, cracking his eyes open. His vision is too blurry to make anything out, but he can see a dark mass in front of him, a black-clothed figure that must be Binghe.

If there is a response, he doesn’t hear it. Instead, the higher tones of a woman cuts through the space between them, and the cool touch on his cheek leaves at the same time that the figure in front of him vanishes. Shen Qingqiu lets his eyes drift close as a roar fills the air and the clash of sword and claws rings out. The clang is quickly replaced by the distinct sound of blade meeting flesh, and a shrill shriek of pain.

He must pass out again for a minute, because when he drifts back to consciousness all is silent again. 

Shen Qingqiu tries to open his eyes, but this time the effort is just too much for him. Instead, he ragdolls listlessly as an arm wraps around his waist over the webbing to support him, and the tension at his collar suddenly goes slack. Everything goes sideways for a moment, and he thinks that it is just a spell of vertigo before he realizes that he is actually sideways, laying on the ground.

He can hear a man’s voice speaking to him—Binghe’s, he thinks, insistent but soothing in tone. He clings to it mentally, trying and failing to hang onto the words being spoken. 

There is another tugging at the webbing around him before it all falls loose; Luo Binghe’s claws shredding it apart. Distantly, Shen Qingqiu feels hands wrapping around one of his, but his fingers are nearly entirely numb. He has very little sensation in any of his extremities, he notes.

Distantly, he feels himself being lifted, and he realizes that he is being carried against a warm chest. His head lolls against it, unable to hold himself up properly. He would be spitting thousands of complaints against being treated like a maiden in distress if he were cognizant; as it is, he can do nothing but let himself be held.

Binghe is still speaking. Shen Qingqiu strains to pay attention to something, anything, and picks up on what must be a string of pleas and babbling: “—got you, Shizun. Just hold on. Just—”

I’m trying my best , he thinks to himself. I won’t be killed by such a low-level cannon-fodder trick.

He tries his best to stay conscious, but the venom is potent, and he can’t keep holding on. He blacks out again soon after.

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu has no dreams during his period of unconsciousness. 

He briefly wakes up a few times, but never more than a moment, and never catches more than a few snatches of his surroundings—the glimpse of a face hovering over his, the grasp of a hand, or the murmur of a soft voice speaking to him. Each time, he strains to do more than twitch—to make a sound, to squeeze the hand holding his—but he always falls back into darkness before he manages to do anything, exhaustion pulling him under.

Emerging back into consciousness comes with a massive headache. The first time he squints his eyes open for what he thinks must be good this time, he closes them immediately again, because the light pierces his head and causes the throbbing in his skull to evolve into a pounding.

He can hear a soft exhale, an oh, and a moment later the light behind his eyelids dims.

“The lights have been turned down, Shen Yuan,” Luo Binghe’s smooth voice tells him with barely a murmur, a soothing sound that manages not to incite his headache.

Shen Qingqiu blinks his eyes back open after several moments, ignoring his head swimming until Luo Binghe comes into focus in front of him. He perches beside Shen Qingqiu on the bed that he’s laid out on, grasping Shen Qingqiu’s hand in his lap. Luo Binghe looks over him with such clear worry in his eyes that Shen Qingqiu forces out a weak smile. It suddenly comes to Shen Qingqiu’s attention that he is not dead or spider food or suffocating in a cocoon of webbing or dying from poison or anything else that he thought was going to be his fate the last time he was conscious.

“Binghe came and got me,” he realizes. His voice is raspy, throat parched from lack of water. Luo Binghe releases his hand to lean over and produce a cup of water seemingly from nowhere, and he hurries to gently leverage Shen Qingqiu up to help him drink.

Shen Qingqiu thinks he would be perfectly capable of holding his own cup, but he doesn’t complain, allowing Binghe to gently trickle water into his mouth. His arms are quite weak, after all. Even as a cultivator with his OP body and stupidly high level of cultivation, that poison must have done him a significant amount of damage. 

Luo Binghe lowers him back down afterward, returning the cup of water to the table and taking his hand again. “Of course,” he says. “This lord never would have left you there after the scare in the dream realm.”

The…what?

Shen Qingqiu frowns. “What scare? What dream realm? This one hasn’t had any dreams recently.”

Luo Binghe stiffens. “Shen Yuan doesn’t remember showing up in my dream realm? He was very disoriented and clearly under the effects of a potent poison; I had to use my blood mites in order to heal the damage.”

Shen Qingqiu wracks his brain for a moment. He remembers talking to the Spider Silk Weavers; he remembers being betrayed by them and failing to escape, being poisoned and wrapped in webbing. After that, all had gone back. He had only assumed that Luo Binghe had come to save him because what else would have happened for him to be suddenly free and in his presence? It’s the only logical conclusion.

“The poison appears to have interfered with my memory,” Shen Qingqiu sighs. “Suffice it to say that I understand that Binghe came to save me, and likely took care of the Spider Silk demonsfor me.”

Luo Binghe cracks a little bit of a smile. “Shen Yuan has it correct enough. That clan could not continue to exist, not when it threatens harmless cultivators the way that it did.”

It is a bit of a harsh standpoint, when you consider that Shen Qingqiu is the one that put himself directly in the demoness’s path, but he cannot complain when the result is that he was saved. He had no idea how much being the confidant of the protagonist would benefit him in situations like this! Without Luo Binghe, he would be spider food right now. 

It leaves him feeling uncomfortably like one of the original’s wives that needed rescuing, but he quickly pushes aside the feeling. Even the strongest cultivators need assistance sometimes. And especially if said assistance can make Luo Binghe look cooler! If it’s a benefit to him, Shen Qingqiu can play his part, so long as this doesn’t become a repeating kind of adventure. 

He takes the chance to glance around the room that he’s woken up in. For a moment, he experiences a sense of deja-vu. There are red silks, and an anachronistically soft bed with sumptuous red and black sheets and cushions. Past Luo Binghe, he can see a small, low table. Although the room shows a few more signs of life than the last time he’d seen it—the water, for instance, and the table has a few things discarded onto it, though he can’t see what they are from here—he absolutely recognizes it! It’s Luo Binghe’s room in his underground palace!

Which means that he is not just in a dream version of Luo Binghe’s bed. He is in Luo Binghe’s actual bed, taking up space and preventing him from sleeping there and tucked into the incredibly comfortable covers.

Why would you bring me to such a place, ah, Binghe? You should be tucking your wives in here—oh. He remembers again the confession that he received in the dream realm when he had been posing as one of Luo Binghe’s dream entities, and it’s enough to make him lose steam on his rant entirely. He can’t really use Binghe’s wives as an excuse anymore, can he? But still—they are just friends! He isn’t Shizun anymore, so he is still completely un-romanceable! ‘Shen Yuan’ is just some guy to Luo Binghe!

He finds himself feeling a little bit faint, and wonders if despite the healing that the venom is acting up again.

Something that Luo Binghe had said belatedly occurs to him. “Binghe healed me?” he asks. Actually, now that he thinks of it, the blood mites were never removed from his body—that would be how Luo Binghe found him on the night of the full moon, as well as to rescue him from the spider clan. 

Shen Qingqiu squawks inelegantly when Luo Binghe suddenly slips off of the edge of the bed to kneel next to it, still gripping Shen Qingqiu’s hand, his face hidden due to his ducked head.

“Apologies for using the blood mites on Shen Yuan without permission,” Luo Binghe cries. “The poison was corroding his spiritual and corporeal veins and this lord had to act immediately.”

Shen Qingqiu blinks; he didn’t know that Luo Binghe had considered how he would feel about the mites being used without his say-so. As far as Shen Qingqiu is concerned, hasn’t he already given permission for them to be used to find him on full moons? Luo Binghe had already dosed him with them, and there’s no chance of getting rid of them—Shen Qingqiu might as well benefit from the good things that they can do for him, right?

That, of course, brings to mind the other good things that the blood mites can do, and Shen Qingqiu hurries to clear his throat before he starts blushing at his own thoughts. Those things are most certainly not in the cards for him!

“Of course Lord Luo can use his blood mites on me to save my life,” Shen Qingqiu hurries to say, and before he thinks twice, reaches out to pat Luo Binghe on the top of his head. It is just so pattable when it is lowered right in front of his hands like that! “There is, ah, no reason to feel so bad. It seems that it is thanks to you that I am still here. This one is in your debt.”

Luo Binghe looks up suddenly, eyes wide and face a little flushed. His eyes are a bit watery-looking, as if he was on the edge of crying just moments ago. “There is no debt that this lord would hold Shen Yuan to,” he breathes.

Something in his voice makes Shen Qingqiu’s breath hitch. “Oh. Well, of course. Lord Luo is very generous.”

Luo Binghe finally lets go of Shen Qingqiu’s hand to lever himself up from his kneeling position, sitting down next to Shen Qingqiu on the bed. Shen Qingqiu is mostly inclined on the pillows again, so when Luo Binghe perches on the bed next to him, he towers over Shen Qingqiu. “Shen Yuan should call this lord by name, now that we have experienced so much together. Don’t you think?”

Honestly, the question feels reasonable enough—while Luo Binghe’s status means that someone like Shen Qingqiu should always show him the proper respect, his unique position as a qi-dump-slash-confidant clearly gives him some special circumstances and benefits. In fact, this is a good sign that he’s doing a phenomenal job ingratiating himself at Binghe’s side, even if he’s doing so by getting poisoned and needing rescuing. There is the smallest part of him that thinks that getting too familiar might lead to a slip of some kind—there is a reason Shen Qingqiu took the chance to escape Huan Hua palace and roam the land—but the rest of him, the part that wants to be close to Binghe again, to be able to refer to him properly as a friend…that part can’t help but to reach out for the offered closeness.

“Luo Binghe is very generous, then,” Shen Qingqiu corrects with a small smile, internally suppressing his giddiness. 

Luo Binghe smiles down at him in satisfaction, clearly pleased to get his way. The two of them sit there in silence for a moment, grinning at each other like idiots.

Finally, Luo Binghe breaks the silence, clearing his throat and smoothing his face into a more neutral expression. “Why was Shen Yuan talking to a clan as dangerous as the Spider Silk demons, anyway?”

Ah. Well, that is a fair question, considering that Luo Binghe had been forced to rescue him from the clan. 

“Do you remember the Scaled Scavenger Moles that were terrorizing the farmers around the outskirts of Tian Yi territories from a few weeks ago?” Shen Qingqiu asks.

Luo Binghe nods; of course he remembers, his memory is such that he never forgets a conversation when he puts his mind to it.

“Well,” Shen Qingqiu continues, “after taking care of the creatures, I found a scrap of fabric in the den that the moles had been staying at. It wasn’t from a victim or anything similar; this master concluded that it must come from whoever relocated the monsters so far from their natural habitat.”

“Ah,” Luo Binghe says. “And the fabric scrap was made of spider silk from that particular clan?”

Shen Qingqiu reaches into the pouch at his side—while his clothes have been changed (which he steadfastly refuses to think about), his personal artifacts are all still on him—and pulls out the small silken scrap to hand to Luo Binghe. Their fingers brush as he hands it over for his inspection. Luo Binghe looks closely at it, running a clawed thumb over the fabric to feel its texture, and he nods. 

“This is certainly demonic silk,” he says. “So you decided to just…go and speak to them? With no other preparations?”

Shen Qingqiu tries not to sound defensive, even though the way Luo Binghe puts it does make him sound a little silly. “This master figured that, being a cultivator, he was well defended from anything particularly dangerous. I additionally had the money from Luo Binghe’s previous visit. I figured that a bribe should be sufficient to buy the information and my life. Unfortunately, it was only enough to buy one of those things.”

Luo Binghe wrinkles his nose. The movement is absurdly cute on a grown demon lord, and Shen Qingqiu momentarily has to put his all into resisting the urge to coo at him. 

“Spider demons are notoriously territorial,” Luo Binghe tells him, as if Shen Qingqiu wasn’t fully aware of that information and hadn’t simply chosen to ignore it for the sake of the investigation. “You quite literally stumbled into their web.”

Well. When he puts it that way.

“But they did recognize the fabric, and they told me where they sold the rest of the bolt. They had no reason to lie to me, especially since they attempted to—well.” Eat me , Shen Qingqiu decides not to finish. “So this master is at least confident that the information is good.”

Luo Binghe raises an eyebrow at him. “And? Where did it come from?”

“The Weaver told me that the fabric lot was purchased by a demoness of a northern demon clan in the burning ice caves.”

Curiously, Luo Binghe immediately makes a face when he hears this information.

“Does that mean something to you?” Shen Qingqiu asks.

Luo Binghe shrugs, as if to dismiss the significance of his reaction. He looks a little bit—abashed? “The clan has been brought to this lord’s attention before,” he says. “They have been the suspected perpetrators of several raids on the human realm in recent months. They were notably unhappy with many changes that this lord has been making in the Demon Realm since coming into power.”

Shen Qingqiu looks at the fabric, still in Luo Binghe’s hands. Luo Binghe, seeing the direction of his gaze, holds the scrap back out to him, but Shen Qingqiu shakes his head. It’s not like he needs it anymore; Luo Binghe is free to dispose of it. Instead, Binghe tucks it into his sleeve like it’s a momento to keep. Does it please him to have a testament to the time he had to save Shen Qingqiu’s life? Ah, whatever, Shen Qingqiu thinks. If it makes him happy, he can have it. 

“So Luo Binghe is still at least familiar with the clan to some degree?” Shen Qingqiu asks, his mind turning to the task at hand. “If he could provide any information before this one goes to investigate, I would be very appreciative.”

Luo Binghe starts. “Shen Yuan isn’t investigating anything, at least for a while,” he says.

“I have recovered admirably in Luo Binghe’s care. I am sure I will be up to continuing my investigation shortly,” Shen Qingqiu argues. He only feels the tiniest bit dizzy right now; he will be completely ready to go by the morning, he is sure!

“Shen Yuan needs rest first,” Luo Binghe orders stubbornly.

Shen Qingqiu frowns. He knows he does, but he can’t just keep taking up Luo Binghe’s space and bed, no matter how unused the room appears to be. “I should still take my leave, though, to recover elsewhere. This one couldn’t possibly continue to stay in Binghe’s room.”

At that sentence, Luo Binghe’s face darkens as his mouth twists into a scowl. The atmosphere of the room, already dark due to the dim light and demonic presence, becomes suffocating with an increased pressure of demonic qi in the air. Shen Qingqiu finds himself holding his breath, going back over his words quickly to figure out where he fucked up.

“Shen Yuan will stay here to recover,” Luo Binghe says authoritatively, his voice sharp and biting. His eyes glow a little red in the dimness of the room—had they been doing that before?

Honestly, it sounds almost as if Luo Binghe is trying to put Shen Qingqiu on house arrest . What kind of demand is that? 

Shen Qingqiu scowls in response to Luo Binghe’s order, rolling his eyes despite himself. “Lord Luo should remember that, despite being emperor of the Demon Realm, he cannot just command human cultivators to do whatever he wants.”

This is patently untrue; Luo Binghe, using force, could get anything he wants and Shen Qingqiu knows it. Still, this unruly disciple in front of him deserves a little bit of a scolding!

There is a moment where Shen Qingqiu thinks that Luo Binghe is going to blow up at him, but a second later it passes, and the atmosphere of the room returns to normal. Luo Binghe’s face softens, and although he still looks stubborn he doesn’t look like he’s about to start throwing helpless human cultivators in pointless imprisonment just because they’re a little poisoned. 

“Apologies,” Luo Binghe says smoothly, waving away the last of the tense moment. “But Shen Yuan needs to recover, and other places in the Demon Realm are no place to do it. Doesn’t staying here simply make more sense, both for your recovery and for your investigation afterwards?”

Shen Qingqiu immediately realizes how futile arguing with this stubborn little sheep of his is. Even when he was young, he was completely intractable when he got into moods like this! How did he ever teach Binghe to be so obstinate, he remembers lamenting to himself more than once during his younger years when Binghe had gotten into a snit over some thing or another—what Shen Qingqiu was eating while he was away on disciple hunts, or visits from Liu Qingge, or even something as silly as the time or two he forgot to take his medication exactly when he should have. 

Unfortunately, when Luo Binghe got into moods like that, it was far better to just go along with whatever silly idea he’d gotten into his head rather than arguing about it forever, going in circles. And now that Luo Binghe is a big bad demon lord, Shen Qingqiu figures he has even less of a chance of changing his mind about whatever he’s gotten into his head about Shen Qingqiu’s apparent fragility.

Shen Qingqiu sighs, deep and put-upon, making sure that it was notably obvious that he is being magnanimous about giving in to this requirement for rest. “If Luo Binghe insists, this one can continue to recuperate for a bit longer,” he says magnanimously.

Luo Binghe immediately brightens now that he has gotten his way, and Shen Qingqiu feels a little bit played.

“Then Shen Yuan can just sit back and let me take care of him,” Luo Binghe says firmly.

Well. if Luo Binghe puts it that way.

Over the next few days, Shen Qingqiu experiences an extreme amount of nostalgia mixed with embarrassment. Luo Binghe tends to him as single-mindedly as he had when Shen Qingqiu had been his master, excepting the times during the day when he has to leave his rooms in order to deal with various issues in the palace in person or host audiences. When he does go to these things, he always ensures that Shen Qingqiu is comfortable; that he has a snack and a drink and plenty to entertain him—and how did he figure out just what kind of literature Shen Qingqiu hated to read so much? The books are exactly the kind that he used to hide in the Bamboo House where no one could find them, filed between copies of the more boring tomes that he kept from the Qing Jing library. 

It had become obvious pretty quickly that Shen Qingqiu wasn’t entirely recovered from the venom that he’d been infected with; the first two days he had been unable to get out of bed at all without practically collapsing into Luo Binghe’s arms. Thank goodness Binghe had been so insistent on staying right next to him as he tried to get out of bed, even if collapsing into his arms and chest caused him an inordinate amount of fluster! Even when he’d mostly recovered and was only prone to tired spells, Shen Qingqiu mostly kept to Luo Binghe’s rooms, at Luo Binghe’s request.

“The palace isn’t well suited for a human who shows any sign of weakness, even one as talented a cultivator as Shen Yuan,” Luo Binghe had told him obstinately. 

Shen Qingqiu could, reluctantly, accept that. Even trusted demons are known to stab each other in the back, and no one would blame a demon who even turned on their own siblings if said siblings showed sufficient weakness! And, as much as he did not wish to admit it, he was not at full strength.

So while he recuperated, he stayed mostly to Luo Binghe’s rooms. The first night he had been worried about sleeping arrangements—he was in the protagonist’s bed, after all—but Luo Binghe had disappeared shortly after dinner and not returned until he’d brought breakfast in the morning. Shen Qingqiu resolutely ignored the slight pang of disappointment that it had caused.

Instead, he enjoyed the meals that Luo Binghe had made him—he had missed Binghe’s cooking far too much in the time they’d been apart—and waited until he felt well enough. Really, it didn’t even take very long. It was only three or four days in total, spending his days reading bad literature or keeping Binghe company as he worked his way through important documents and spending his nights sleeping in the big comfy bed alone, wondering what Luo Binghe was doing at that very moment. Still, by the end of those days, Shen Qingqiu was going entirely stir-crazy. 

Which is why he sneaks out for a little bit on the third afternoon.

He doesn’t actually go far, because he’s not entirely an idiot and he doesn’t really want to get caught off-guard by another demon with a mind to eat him. However, he’s been recovering quite well, and he’s going to lose his mind if he has to spend another day simply sitting in Luo Binghe’s room with nothing to do! Not to mention that Luo Binghe has been out of the room since the morning, apparently hosting meetings with various demon lords in his throne room. The Demon Realm is mostly conquered, but there are still parts of it that he does not have firm control over, and further outskirts that remain outside of his control. His grasp in the southeast remains tenuous, and he has to be careful to keep on top of any potential uprisings and make what true alliances he can.

Unfortunately, Luo Binghe had complained dryly that morning as he’d been preparing for the meetings—dressed in a resplendent array of red and black cultivator’s robes embroidered in silver and green, draped in jewels and gems and necklaces and earrings that glittered and caught the light and made him look every inch the Emperor that he was—maintaining his realms meant for a lot of tedious meetings.

Shen Qingqiu hadn’t heard the whole explanation as to why he was gone, too busy trying to process Luo Binghe as the Demon Emperor in his full glory, something he’d never had the chance to see before. He’d seen him undercover at Huan Hua, both as a cultivator and as the new palace master, and he’d seen him when he’d come to do the qi exchange and now the past days after Luo Binghe rescued him, but in both of those instances he’d been wearing a cultivator’s robes. They were rich and beautiful, yes, but they did not hold a candle to the formal sweeping attire that Luo Binghe wore that day.

Shen Qingqiu was fairly certain that Luo Binghe had caught him staring, and preened further to allow Shen Qingqiu more time to admire him, but how could Shen Qingqiu be blamed for being so dazzled by a sight like that? Luo Binghe was literally the most beautiful man in the world, and every inch of him radiated that fact. It was all Shen Qingqiu could do to act normal enough about it, complimenting him on his resplendent robes and urging him off for the day to host the meetings that couldn’t move forward without him.

And of course, after Luo Binghe didn’t return for the next several hours, Shen Qingqiu had gotten bored. He leaves the rooms quietly, holding his breath as he exits, and is almost surprised that there is no one posted at the doors to make sure he doesn’t leave. In fact, the whole hall is entirely deserted of demons of any kind, and Shen Qingqiu doesn’t run into anyone as he wanders down the corridor. Had the whole wing been cleared while he was staying here? Shen Qingqiu isn’t sure how to feel about that.

He peeks into several rooms as he walks, but most of them are entirely unused, partially furnished, or slightly dusty guest rooms. He does find himself at the door to what appears to be Luo Binghe’s actual work space at some point, piled high with papers and documents and books of all kinds, as well as several maps of various portions of the Demon Realm pinned to the walls. Shen Qingqiu resists the urge to go in, however, not wanting to accidentally get himself in trouble for spying on what could be highly sensitive documents. 

In the end, two hallways later and after an interesting uphill incline, he comes to a closed door with a soft brown varnish, vastly different from the austere black walls of the rest of the palace. Shen Qingqiu can’t help his curiosity. He nudges the door open, glances in, and freezes in place.

It’s the bamboo house.

Well. It’s not actually the bamboo house. For one thing, the bamboo shoots growing around the outside of it are more in the realm of dying than growing , and they are reduced to a few brownish stalks scattered about the area. The door that he’d opened had emerged into a space that was actually exposed to the sky above them, but it appeared that the bamboo still didn’t favor the conditions in the Demon Realm.

The bamboo house, however, was almost a perfect copy. It made Shen Qingqiu’s chest hurt, to see it exactly as he remembered it, knowing that he would never be going back there. The whole time, however, thoughts raced through his head— why was it here? For what reason did Luo Binghe build this? What kind of person would do such a thing?

It was as if Luo Binghe had simply recreated his childhood home, right in his palace. But why?

Just as Shen Qingqiu was beginning to think that he shouldn’t be here, and that he should return to his rooms after all, he felt a presence behind him.

He glanced back to see Luo Binghe standing directly behind him, his hands clasped behind his back. Luo Binghe gazed straight forward, eyes locked on the bamboo house. 

“I wanted to bring Shizun back here,” Luo Binghe says, his voice steady but empty of emotions. “I thought he would like it, if he had his home here, and he wouldn’t leave me if I could provide him everything that he had back on Qing Jing peak. I thought that even if he didn’t want to come, I could force him to stay, and make him come to love me.”

The words make Shen Qingqiu’s blood run cold. Luo Binghe hadn’t just recreated his childhood home—he’d created a cage. For Shen Qingqiu, who had barely escaped it.

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t dare respond, instead keeping silent.

“But he left me anyway, and now everything I planned doesn’t matter anymore,” Luo Binghe goes on. “And every time I do the qi exchange with you, and Xin Mo’s grasp on my mind is at its lowest, I remember that Shizun would have hated to be forced, anyway. He was always at his most beautiful when he was free to do as he pleased—free from his obligations, free from poison. I would have done better to convince him that I was worth loving some other way.”

At that, Luo Binghe finally looks away from the bamboo house, turning to lock eyes with Shen Qingqiu. Shen Qingqiu’s head swims, and he feels at once horrified and devastated by everything that Luo Binghe has said. His sweet disciple, wanting nothing more than to be loved—and instead, Shen Qingqiu is hiding from him right under his nose. 

His sweet disciple, who admitted to wanting to lock him up forever no matter what he wanted for himself.

Shen Qingqiu clears his throat, which is thick with an emotion that he can’t name. “I’m sorry,” he manages, and knows that he means a lot more by that apology than he can say.

Luo Binghe gives him a small smile, one that is weak but genuine. “Shen Yuan has done nothing wrong, although this lord would have preferred that he hadn’t wandered. If he can forgive this one for my admissions, perhaps we could return to my rooms? The meetings are done for the day.”

Shen Qingqiu nods, and allows Luo Binghe to close the door behind the two of them and lead the way back to his bedroom. As they walk down the hall, descending back down into the caverns of the palace, Shen Qingqiu can’t help but glance back at the simple brown door.

That could have been his fate, if he had been just a little less careful.

He turned back forwards and hurried to catch up with Luo Binghe.

Finally, on the fourth morning, as Shen Qingqiu is finishing breakfast with Luo Binghe, Binghe puts down his bowl and looks up from the meal. “Shen Yuan has been doing much better today, it appears,” he ventures. 

Shen Qingqiu nods. “I believe I’m entirely back to normal. Or at the very least, sufficiently to be up and about,” he agrees.

“So you will be leaving to investigate the clan soon?”

“Yes, either later today or tomorrow, as soon as I’ve prepared to go,” Shen Qingqiu says. 

Luo Binghe leans over their meal, jostling the plates laid out on the tray between them. Despite the fact that Shen Qingqiu had woken up feeling perfectly well that morning, Luo Binghe had insisted on serving him breakfast in bed. The gesture had been sweet enough—and Shen Qingqiu had been feeling lazy enough—that he had graciously accepted, and their meal had been organized between them on a tray that stood on the mattress between them.

“Could this Binghe go with you to investigate?” Binghe asks, eyes big and pleading. “I know more about the clan than Shen Yuan does, and this is also a problem for me to deal with as emperor, if they are plotting so seriously against the human realm.”

As if Shen Qingqiu would turn down assistance from Luo Binghe! As long as he joins, Shen Qingqiu shouldn’t end up in any stupid situations like the one he’d gotten caught up in with the spider demons. Not to mention that Luo Binghe was correct that he knew more about the clan than Shen Qingqiu, and it was his business as emperor what his subjects were doing. 

Shen Qingqiu resists the urge to duck and hide his face as he considers how exciting it will be to go on a proper investigation with Luo Binghe. A chance to see the full demon lord in action! He’s only gotten a few tastes of Luo Binghe at his most powerful, up until now; the last time must have been when he saw him fight Liu Qingge over—well. And he had been unconscious for the slaughter of the spider demon clan, which was incredibly disappointing when he’d realized it after he first woke up.

“All right,” Shen Qingqiu says, giving into the urge to open and hide behind it. “This master would be pleased to have Luo Binghe with him on this next investigation.”

Luo Binghe beams at him, and the excitement on his face is beautiful. How could Shen Qingqiu not acknowledge that fact?

Chapter Text

“The Frosted Flame clan operates out of the caves that can be found in the southwestern face of the frozen volcanoes in Mobei-jun’s territory,” Luo Binghe had informed Shen Qingqiu as he’d been packing their bags, folding and tucking spare sets of robes into qiankun pouches as he’d spoken. “My informant tells me that they have sentries at the entrance to their tunnels, but they don’t patrol the surrounding area, so we should be able to get fairly close before we are noticed. At that point, it is hopeful that the clan will give us an audience, so we can investigate from there.”

The clan itself, Luo Binghe had continued, was comprised of one of the more human-like races of demons, thus explaining the notable intelligence in their actions regarding raids on the border. The caves that the clan live in and tend to are the home of a gem—more of a crystal, really, given their relative frequency—that, while absolutely blisteringly cold, give off a soft white light. Mobei-jun’s northern palace was full of them, Luo Binghe had commented, as they were a convenient source of light in a frozen place where fires would be less welcomed. They were like a type of night pearl, with extra chill properties, and were valued for both their utility and beauty.

Shen Qingqiu had spent several solid moments internally laughing at Shang Qinghua’s expense for coming up with such an inhospitable palace that he was now forced to live at.  Served the hack right.

The mountain range that hosts these caves is home to three notable volcanoes, all three of which are perpetually frozen in a state of mid-explosion. There had been a magical event some few hundred years ago that had caused a fluctuation in spiritual energy and rift in space near the volcanoes at the time of the mass eruption that had caused the magical freeze, Luo Binghe had told him, apparently intuiting how interested Shen Qingqiu would be about the area. The event itself was unrecorded—demons tended not to record their histories in any written style, and the eruption followed by freeze in the area had likely disposed of any who could have begun an oral tradition about it. 

“They are very beautiful to look at,” Luo Binghe had finished. “Shen Yuan will hopefully enjoy the chance to get to view them.”

Shen Qingqiu had agreed eagerly.

Since then, there has been several days of travel with Luo Binghe. For some reason, he had never brought up Xin Mo as an option to quickly travel. While Shen Qingqiu had pondered on this—whether it was due to a growing influence on his mind that he was trying to curb, or lack of ways to suppress its resentment after its use (without Luo Binghe’s notable harem), or some other reason, he hadn’t been able to figure out, and he also hadn’t been about to bring it up. Not to mention that, selfishly, he did like the idea of spending some more time in person with Luo Binghe. Even if he has to leave to keep up his front as a wandering cultivator after this, he can’t miss a chance to see the fully-formed post-Abyss Binghe on a mission!

The travel itself from the palace to the far reaches of the border where the volcanoes are located is fairly unnotable, with Shen Qingqiu pointing out those demonic beasts that he recognizes at a distance, prattling on to Luo Binghe about their notable features and weaknesses even though Luo Binghe has likely come across them already at some point during his travels throughout his own empire. In exchange, Luo Binghe indicates the nearby major clans, the more important demonic families that they pass, and touches on the various politics between them. It’s all fascinating information, and Shen Qingqiu can’t help but to be extremely impressed at all Luo Binghe has learned about his realms in just a few years. 

They alternate walking and sword-travel, since carriages are too likely to be overtaken or attacked in the Demon Realm and Luo Binghe had vetoed the demonic mounts of his palace for Shen Qingqiu with the claim that they were still too feral around human cultivators; he had begged Shen Qingqiu’s forgiveness for not having trained them properly. Shen Qingqiu had waved him off, a bit touched—it’s not like Luo Binghe was regularly hosting humans in the demon realms. There was no reason for him to have trained his mounts for such a thing!

They camp out at various places that Luo Binghe has mapped beforehand; these places tend to be empty caves that he’s claimed as his own territory or similar isolated locations. They do not stay with any other demons for the simple fact that Luo Binghe plainly does not trust any that do not work directly under him. Shen Qingqiu can’t blame him; he can’t count how many times the original Binghe was undermined or betrayed by various demonic entities or clans that pretended to swear loyalty to him.

Thus Shen Qingqiu continues to enjoy food made by the protagonist on a daily basis. While Luo Binghe mourns the lack of a proper stocked kitchen and ingredients, the meals that he makes continue to be absolutely phenomenal. Shen Qingqiu sits at a small fire in a cave on the third night of travel and enjoys a meal that would easily be at home on the table of a young lord, and finds himself nostalgically wishing that these times didn’t have to end.

Luo Binghe is banking the fire—it’s not smart to have one lit for longer than necessary, even in mostly empty territory like they are currently in—and he hums quietly while he works. He is clad in black robes with a beautiful red lining and embroidery done in a shimmery thread nearly the same color as the robes themselves, giving them a beautiful effect. They are enclosed at the wrist, covered by vambraces to allow for movement and generally in the style of cultivator’s robes, but their elegance and value are obvious to anyone who looks. Despite the obvious refinement of his appearance, his diligence and current good temperament make him appear for all the world like the sweet and gentle disciple that Shen Qingqiu remembers. 

The sight makes Shen Qingqiu’s heart clench with affection and loss both. He really doesn’t want to go back to his wandering cultivator life after this. Traveling the human realm was cool and all, and he enjoyed getting a close-up look at some of the interesting creatures that live there, but it was just…well, it was so much work! Half the time he didn’t get to go where he wanted, because he was too busy trying to find anyone to hire his talent as a wandering cultivator so that he could find a bed! He spent so long making silly tedious talismans, and he barely got to exorcise anything, because the biggest and coolest creatures all get outsourced to the big sects. He likes helping the little guy as much as the next person, of course, but it’s not fun. It’s not cool, and Shen Qingqiu has tired very quickly of sleeping in the forest or at shitty little inns with uncomfortable beds. 

Give him his Bamboo House with its comfort and its night hunts that he could take on his whim! Give him his disciple who takes care of all of the aches and pains and discomforts of the day, leaving him to keep himself busy doing as he pleases!

More than any of that, though—traveling by himself is lonely.

Since transmigrating, Shen Qingqiu has spent relatively little time alone. The most that he spent on his own was when Luo Binghe was away in the Abyss, and even then his disciples and the other peak lords bothered him—ahem, checked in on him out of concern—near constantly. Spending all of this time with Luo Binghe now makes him yearn for company again.

Which makes him wonder—would Luo Binghe even take him back? Ah, he sounds like a heartbroken girlfriend even in his own head, phrasing it like that. But the point stands; Luo Binghe all-but drove Shen Qingqiu off after he angered him, back in Huan Hua Palace. Then again, before that, Shen Qingqiu had been obligated to stay near Luo Binghe for his use as a cultivation tool. 

Perhaps he could play on that, see if Luo Binghe would like Shen Qingqiu to stay close, see if he would prefer not to have to track him via the blood that Shen Qingqiu carries inside of him. If he plays on Luo Binghe’s sense of practicality, it just might work, as long as he can do so without sounding silly or desperate. Please take me back is a sentence that Shen Qingqiu would much rather go into qi-deviation than say, thank you very much!

A little voice in his head tells him that he’s being an idiot, even as he praises Luo Binghe once again for the wonderful meal. He left Binghe for a reason in the first place—Luo Binghe is perceptive, and it’s impossible for anyone to keep anything from him when he has the mind to figure out a secret. This is about his own safety; if Luo Binghe found out that on top of letting go of his own body, that he’s been pretending to be a stranger the whole time, he would surely feel like he’d been played for a fool. Even with the silly notion that he’s in love with his Shizun, he surely couldn’t forgive a deception like that.

Shen Qingqiu begins to think that he might have, perhaps, miscalculated a little bit when he started this whole deception in the first place. 

It’s not like he really thought Luo Binghe was going to enact revenge on him anymore. He knew that Luo Binghe had instead imprinted on him like a little duckling and fallen in love with him, after that dream that he accidentally infiltrated! Even if he had suspected it to be a trick of some kind, that ship has long since sailed. Instead, he set up an elaborate scheme to abandon his sect and his disciple, because he didn’t want to take his own identity back and deal with Luo Binghe’s scary gay feelings.

Then again, how was he supposed to reject the protagonist? Wasn’t this better, all around? A clean slate for the both of them?

He’s sure that it must be.

But if it is—why does it make his chest hurt? He could do anything with his time now, and here he is, trying to plot his way back into Luo Binghe’s sphere. He can’t really blame himself, he supposes. It is Luo Binghe, after all, and Luo Binghe enacts a magnetism around him, a sphere of influence that just causes people to want to get closer. Shen Qingqiu has simply found himself one of the many that have likely gotten caught up in everything that makes Luo Binghe so…well. Attractive.

Ahem.

Shen Qingqiu forces himself to set aside the question of what he will do after this for now. He can deal with all of that later. When he’s ready to untangle the knot of deceptions and issues that everything has become.

The next morning, the two of them take their time getting ready.

“This lord can likely get us a room in the caves for the night, under the pretense of needing a place to stay during travels as Emperor,” Luo Binghe says, after they have dressed and finished breakfast.

“Will they abide a human staying with them?” Shen Qingqiu asks, legitimately curious.

Luo Binghe simply shrugs. “They will have to, or they risk angering their lord. They might request an explanation for your presence, but they cannot turn you away without offending me. They wouldn’t do that.”

Privately, Shen Qingqiu wonders if this is true of a demon clan that is known to be raiding the border of the human realm, but assumes that having the Demon Emperor beside him will give him a few benefits in terms of protection. It is certainly convenient to have someone so OP with him when he needs it. On his own, he likely never would have gotten the chance to investigate the clan. 

“We should leave soon, before the height of the day,” Shen Qingqiu says, reluctantly shouldering his bag and grabbing his weimao from where it had rested at the side of the cave. Even in the northern part of the Demon Realm, the blazing sun is far too much for his skin. Despite the temperature, which has dropped steadily as they have travelled, the sun’s rays stay as dangerous as ever. Luo Binghe, of course, needs no such protection. Even in the unforgiving heat of the realm, he stays fair and comfortable, simply choosing to walk beside Shen Qingqiu as they leave the cave. 

The mountains are a breathtaking sight. Shen Qingqiu had seen them slowly come into view over the past day or so, but approaching the feet of the mountain helps him put into perspective their sheer size and magnificence. The frozen lava mid-explosion defies all laws of physics and sense of proportion; the sun hits the eruption and cast scattered light all around the mountain as if shining through crystals. In some of these places, the ice has acted as a magnifying glass and started fires around the area, standing in stark contrast to the cold that has increased in intensity as they have drawn closer. 

As they get close enough for the cavern entrance to come into view, Luo Binghe pauses to offer Shen Qingqiu his elbow. Shen Qingqiu hesitates for a moment before he takes it. It must be some part of Luo Binghe’s cover for him; he doesn’t complain, no matter how he knows it makes him look. 

From the entrance of the clan’s cave network emerges a figure riding a massive white furred creature; as it gets closer, Shen Qingqiu recognizes it as a Giant Snowy Krill-Bear.

Shen Qingqiu tightens his fingers on Luo Binghe’s elbow in excitement. “Look at that mount,” he whispers excitedly, not bothering to hold up his usual bullshit aura of frigidity in the face of something so cool.

Luo Binghe raises an eyebrow at him. “You like it?” he asks.

Shen Qingqiu nods, although he doesn’t go on, minding his tongue as the rider gets closer and the creature comes into better view. The Giant Snowy Krill-Bear is a cross between a polar bear and krill, which sounds stupid until you see one in person.

It has the general shape of an absolutely massive white polar bear, except for the fact that it has far too many legs and a krill’s tail extending out several feet behind it. It is hard to see from a distance, but it is covered in furred plates of armor that harden naturally as the Krill-Bear grows, until its entire body is covered in plates of white armor that could deflect all but the most powerful of blows. It looks cute, but its teeth are sharp, it has a bite that could sever limbs, its claws can rend steel to shreds, and a single bat of its powerful paw can send a cultivator flying. On top of all of that, the long krill-tail is as powerful as a battering ram. It is an absolute tank of a creature, and they are only tameable if they are raised from cubs, and even then only just. They are also especially useful for being semi-aquatic—their limbs allow for extraordinarily fast travel over land, but their tail helps them drive themselves through nearby bodies of water at incredible speeds.

Shen Qingqiu wants to ride one so badly. Airplane’s creatures are, by and large, often really fucking stupid. But some of them are still incredibly cool, and this is one of them. 

The demon doesn’t dismount from the creature when it draws close. The bear is guided by a headstall and reins, with a sharp riding crop in hand to press between plates of armor if it starts to veer off course. The saddle is made up of a leather harness around its chest and belly and padded seat between its shoulders, simple and crude, yet effective. 

“Your business?” the demon calls down. They wear very little clothing; just a simple wrap around their chest and another around their hips, precariously covering what might need to be covered, and all of their limbs are swirled with pale blue markings, barely visible in the light. The markings creep under their hair and out across their cheeks and forehead as well. It almost looks as if a jellyfish has wrapped around their limbs and pressed its tendrils into their skin.

Luo Binghe lifts his chin to respond. “This lord is Luo Binghe, Emperor of the Demon Realms. My companion and I have been travelling on business, and need a place to stay for the night.”

He does not request a room. He does not have to.

The demon nods down at the two of them, and jerks their head towards the caverns. “You will be brought inside to meet with the head of our clan. She will organize the stay for you and your companion for the night.”

There is something about the way that the demon says companion that makes Shen Qingqiu’s skin prickle, but he grits his teeth and resolves not to say anything about it. Whatever gets them into the caverns is good enough! 

“Allow this servant to lead you inside,” they add with a perfunctory bow over their reins, and they make a clicking noise in the back of their throat and tug on them to turn the massive creature. It is taller than Shen Qingqiu is at the shoulder. It must weigh tons—the amount that it must need to eat to sustain itself has got to be incredible.

Luo Binghe glances at Shen Qingqiu, raises an eyebrow as if to say wasn’t that simple? and follows after the massive mount. 

As they enter the cave and they are shaded from the light of the sun, Shen Qingqiu finds himself holding back a sound of interest. The light blue patterning on their demon guide has begun to glow in the shadows, a hypnotizing shade of soft neon blue. Bioluminescence. Fascinating.

Thankfully, the full darkness that Shen Qingqiu might have begun to worry about never occurs. Instead, the caverns start to drop in temperature as they travel down them, and Shen Qingqiu is glad that Luo Binghe had packed thicker sets of robes in their qiankun pouches. He circulates his qi for now to keep himself warm. There is a soft white glow coming from the depths of the tunnels, and as they emerge out into a cavern he realizes that it stems from the cold crystals that the clan exports, set into the walls as lights. 

The room appears to be a large meeting or food hall, set with several low tables arranged in front of one raised on a small dias. A demon woman lounges in a chair on the dias, several attendants surrounding her to attend to her while she discusses what appears to be a tablet of figures with a man across from her. Before they get close enough to hear the conversation, however, she catches sight of their escort and their mount.

The escort swings down from the massive Krill-Bear, and one of the attendants hurries to take its reins and lead it down a side corridor. The escort approaches the woman swiftly and whispers something into her ear, gesturing towards Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu. The woman listens attentively, then nods and rises from the table with a smile on her lips. She looks similar to their escort, with elaborate frilly markings that glow along her limbs, although her chest is notably bigger than their escort's. The clothing she wears is incredibly thin—the glowing marks can be seen shining through the faint scraps that she does have on. Don’t these demons get cold, Shen Qingqiu wonders desperately while he tries to figure out where to keep his eyes.

 “Emperor Luo,” the woman greets with a low bow, her breasts nearly spilling out of her scant clothing, “This humble servant is Min Mingzhu. Our lowly clan welcomes you for the night.” She hesitates for a moment. “Your companion, as well. You will be well provided for, during your stay.”

Luo Binghe pretends not to notice the hesitation. He nods, as if this is exactly what he was expecting to hear. It likely was—this kind of confidence looks good on him, Shen Qingqiu can’t help but think. “A room for my companion and I for the night will be sufficient. Just one. And a warm bath, I should think. The caves here are cold for a human, even a cultivator. Ah, and access to your kitchens.”

The woman grins, baring teeth. “We are not well suited for humans,” she says sharply, and Shen Qingqiu believes her. “But they will be provided. Your guide will lead you to your rooms, and you will pass the kitchens on the way.”

Their escort from before hurries forward, gesturing for them to follow. Luo Binghe strides after the demon, keeping Shen Qingqiu at his side. Shen Qingqiu allows Luo Binghe to continue to lead him, even though he feels a bit awkward at this point hanging off his elbow. Plus—one room? What kind of a stipulation was that? You didn’t even share with this master when at your own palace, Luo Binghe!

Their guide leads them quickly, poorly disguising the fact that they are trying to depart as soon as they can. They point out the kitchens to Luo Binghe as the group passes, then pauses in front of a small offshoot tunnel with a poorly-maintained cloth hung in front of it like a door.

“Apologies for the poor quality of the rooms,” the escort says insincerely, “but we cannot provide better until another night without further notice. Your baths will be provided to you within the hour. Good night.” 

And with a quick, perfunctory bow, the escort hurries off.

Luo Binghe chuckles, apparently not caring about the insult to his authority. Then again, he could rout this whole clan if he chooses to, with a little effort and the mustering of some forces. It is likely simply not worth his time. “After you,” he says, lifting the curtain and gesturing Shen Qingqiu inside. 

The rooms that they walk into are certainly not fit for any high-profile visitor, much less an emperor. There is a privacy screen, a table, a small bed, and a forlorn piece of furniture in the corner that might, with a squint, pass as a vanity with a little bronze mirror sitting atop it. The decor of the room is minimal, even for demons.

Shen Qingqiu snorts, wishing that he had a fan to open just so he could flutter it derisively. His fan had been lost with the attack from the spider demons. He was still feeling the loss. “These demons are on thin ice, to risk insulting their emperor so,” he says.

Luo Binghe huffs and moves past him into the room. “Demons, for the most part, do not appreciate the art of subtlety,” he points out. “Although most show more self-preservation than this, when it comes to insulting one so much more powerful than they. Either they are sorely misinformed and believe they have nothing to fear from angering me, or there is something else going on.”

Shen Qingqiu nods, striding over to the small bed and looking back to Binghe. “Why the one room for the both of us?” he asks, gesturing dryly at the bed. “This master would assume that there was some reason.”

“This lord doesn’t trust demons so obviously hostile towards humans, not enough to allow Shen Yuan to be isolated in their home,” Luo Binghe responds, and then grins, baring teeth. “Also, their reaction to the implication that you were my consort was…illuminating.”

Shen Qingqiu fights off any sort of reaction to that particular statement and averts his gaze quickly, resolving not to think too deeply about it. Luo Binghe, don’t you know it’s uncouth to mess around like that? How impertinent!

He sits on the bed and rests for a moment while they wait for the bath, and Luo Binghe unpacks a few belongings for the both of them. The tub is brought up after a long interval—long enough that it is almost certainly a snub. It is filled with water barely warmer than tepid and apologies are given due to the cold environment, insincere though they are. 

“Would Shen Yuan like to bathe first?” Luo Binghe asks magnanimously. “Before the water gets cold.”

Shen Qingqiu raises an unimpressed eyebrow and fishes a heating talisman from the bag at his hip, slapping it to the side of the tub. “We are cultivators,” he points out dryly. “But as you offer so sincerely, it would be my honor to accept.” He wants to bathe, okay? He can’t be blamed—it’s been days of travelling through the Demon Realm and his last bath was the one drawn for him the night before they left Luo Binghe’s palace.

Luo Binghe simply laughs and waves his hand toward the tub. “Of course, go ahead,” he says, sounding distinctly amused, and a sly, teasing grin crosses his handsome face. “Does Shen Yuan need assistance with washing his hair, perhaps?”

Ah, Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu can’t keep up with that level of teasing! He finds himself sputtering, feeling his ears flush with embarrassment. “This one is perfectly capable of bathing himself,” he manages, voice perilously close to a squeak and not at all the imperious tone he’d been striving for.

Luo Binghe chuckles again, stepping back. “Whatever Shen Yuan says,” he agrees innocently, the minx. “In the meantime, this lord will go prepare dinner. I’ll be out for an hour or so.”

Shen Qingqiu can’t help but roll his eyes at the term of address—why call himself lord, he thinks, when he’s talking about doing chores? Still, he agrees with a nod and ushers Binghe out of the room, eager for both his bath and for the promise of dinner soon. 

After Binghe disappears through the passageway, Shen Qingqiu disrobes and slips into the warm water with a pleased sigh. He would love to languish in the warmth that soothes his muscles, aching from long days of travel, but the knowledge that Luo Binghe could be back anytime pushes him to rush through his wash, even with the tub tucked away behind the privacy screen. He is suitably clean before long, and only allows himself a moment or two to relax before he forces himself to leave the cold, shivering as his damp skin is exposed to the chill air. He quickly fetches a clean white inner robe to drape over his damp skin, tying it loosely closed around his waist before he uses a soft cloth to begin toweling his hair gently dry.

He’s lucky that he pushed himself to bathe so quickly, because he hears footsteps coming down the hall to their rooms while his hair is still damp. 

“Binghe finished cooking earlier than expected—” he starts, beginning to turn, but the needle finds his throat before he manages to turn all the way. He only has time to think oh shit, Binghe’d been right to distrust these guys before the world around him goes dark. 

Shen Qingqiu has no dreams.

He wakes up to a massive headache, an inability to circulate his qi, and a severe case of deja-vu.

Why does he always end up tied up and underdressed? The lack of qi flow is naturally due to the red immortal binding cables criss-crossing his chest and securing his wrists to a wooden beam behind his back; meanwhile, he is still in the single thin inner robe that he had loosely fastened around himself in order to tend to his hair after his bath, and it had come precariously loose during his handling from his captors. It splays open around his bare thighs, making him incredibly aware of the danger of making too quick a movement, and gapes open from where it's practically slipping off his shoulders to the tie around his waist, only held in place by the immortal binding cables. Really, it’s too much! Absolutely too far, way worse than even the Skinner Demon incident!

Even worse is that he realizes quickly that he is not alone in the room.

There is a woman pacing in front of him, forcing him to crane his neck back to watch her from where he’s sprawled on the ground. She looks familiar, and it takes him only a moment to place her as the woman who greeted them when they first arrived, Min Mingzhu. 

She is wearing the same wispy, gauze-like coverings that she had been wearing earlier that day and looks perfectly comfortable in it. She glows a soft blue in the dim lighting, only one frost crystal lighting the cave that Shen Qingqiu is tied up in. He himself is absolutely freezing, barely clothed in only one layer. Honestly, if whatever situation he’s found himself in doesn’t get him, cultivation aside, he might find himself done in by hypothermia instead.

His movement alerts her, and she crouches right in front of him with narrowed, glowing eyes and reaches out to poke his cheek with a clawed finger. 

“Perhaps the mistress could keep her hands to herself,” Shen Qingqiu suggests dryly, because he has always been strong with self preservation.

The demoness tsks and steps back, rising back to her feet. Shen Qingqiu notices that, like Sha Hualing, she is barefoot. Do demonesses not get cold feet in this universe? What is with that? 

“I would much rather not dirty my claws with the likes of you,” she sniffs. “But I had to check that you were awake; that’s good, we can get started soon.”

Hm. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t particularly like the sound of that.

“And why would you need a lowly human such as myself, if you hate us so much?” Shen Qingqiu asks, hoping to at the very least start a monologue going. Anything to buy him time and get him some more information, because right now he’s really working with nothing.

Thankfully, it works. Min Mingzhu snorts and leans against the cave wall, looking over Shen Qingqiu’s head as she narrates. “The frozen volcanoes that our clan resides in is near to one of the border rifts with the human realm,” she starts. “Many years ago, humans were far more plentiful in the area, and demons had to be careful not to be hunted down like animals by the cultivators. And we were careful, minding our own business, until the cultivators decided that they should hunt us down anyway.”

Shen Qingqiu wonders how true this story is—privately, he thinks it’s far more likely that a demon did something to provoke the cultivators in the area, but cultivators aren’t particularly gentle when it comes to dealing with demons, either. Liu Qingge is a prime example of the ‘stab first, ask questions later’ kind of behavior that many cultivators exhibit. 

Min Mingzhu pushes off from the wall, pacing and beginning to gesture as she grows more agitated. “They came through the rift and raided our clan, killing indiscriminately. Only those who hid in the deepest recesses of our caverns, cold enough that the cultivators couldn’t stand it and we barely could, managed to survive.” She pauses. “This was several generations ago, of course, but we don’t forget. And demons certainly never forget to pay back a debt.”

This is said with a sharp grin, her teeth gleaming in the dim light. Shen Qingqiu is very familiar with that particular demonic trait—Luo Binghe exhibited it in spades. 

“First we built back up the clan, but once we were strong and powerful again, we were ready to provide retaliation. So, ritually, the young ones of our clan go back to raid the human realm as they come of age to warn them away. To remind them that we won’t take what happened to us lying down.” Her voice grows more excited, bloodthirst creeping into her words. “It is a coming of age ceremony among us, and we have slowly driven the humans back and away from our borders. We have to preserve the ritual—I remember my first time gutting a human that was trying to stab me; we can’t let the monsters live. If we leave them be, they’ll rally and try to root us out again. We have to be allowed to continue. The raids cannot stop.” She turns to Shen Qingqiu, mania flashing in her eyes. “Which is where you come in, human.”

The story and description of the ritual finally manages to ping some recognition in Shen Qingqiu’s head. He remembers this demoness and her sob story that amounted to simply requesting free reign to murder human civilians for something that happened centuries ago! In the original story, Min Mingzhu had been summoned to Luo Binghe’s palace when her raids on the human realm hadn’t ceased. She had shown up, on her own, and given her sob story in Luo Binghe’s throne room. Luo Binghe hadn’t merged the realms at that point of the story, so border disputes between the realms were still a huge problem. Still, Emperor Luo couldn’t simply let her get away with starting fights without his permission—so naturally, she was folded into the harem and convinced to stop her raids, wooed by the power of the heavenly pillar. Luo Binghe had never actually gone to the frozen volcanoes of her clan in the story, so Shen Qingqiu hadn’t remembered who this particular demoness was before now, since she showed up in isolation in the story and was just integrated into the masses before anything interesting happened. 

In retrospect, Shen Qingqiu is kind of mad. The frozen volcanoes are actually kind of really cool! And what a waste, just for some glow-in-the-dark sex!

Not that that’s going to be the solution to the situation in this derailed version of reality. Shen Qingqiu thinks of his current Binghe and his single-minded desire for his Shizun that he doesn’t seem to be getting over any time soon, body or not. The previous ‘fold-into-harem’ solution for this conundrum is not going to be helpful anymore. His blackened lotus is definitely not searching for any new wives, even if taking one would solve dispute issues.

Shen Qingqiu wonders if the current Luo Binghe could be said to have higher standards than the original or not. On one hand, he’s not marrying a woman to solve what is really a fairly petty issue. On the other hand, he’s hung up on someone he believes to be gone, perpetuating a belief that he can get him back. 

Maybe his standards really are just terrible!

Shen Qingqiu raises an eyebrow at Min Mingzhu. “Where I come in?” he asks. “How does capturing me help you with your problem? For that matter, how did releasing those mole-beasts into the human realm help, either? This master is presuming, of course, but the signs all indicated that you were the one responsible.”

Min Mingzhu tuts dismissively. “That’s the real reason you came here, then? Of course it was us—we needed to make a fuss! Without the attention of Emperor Luo himself, we couldn’t properly make our case. A demon can’t simply walk up to his palace, you know. You would get gutted without a proper reason to be there. So we needed to get enough attention to get called into his presence.”

Shen Qingqiu gapes at her for a moment. “Did you maybe try writing a letter?” he manages.

“Too easily declined,” she responds, which—no! She didn’t try a letter at all, it seems! She just went to cause the biggest problem she could, like a child throwing a tantrum to try and gain the attention of their mother! 

Shen Qingqiu manfully takes a deep breath to calm himself, then another one. 

He does not feel any calmer, but Min Mingzhu keeps going before he can fully burst out into an impassioned rant about how stupid her approach has been. “You were simply an extra piece of leverage that stumbled right into our hands and was too good to pass up, given the opportunity. Despite being human, Lord Luo appears to be…fond of you. I suspect that he will be motivated to agree to our demands in exchange for your safe return to him.”

Luo Binghe does not like being threatened. Min Mingzhu has, unfortunately, likely signed her own death warrant with a move like this. Shen Qingqiu may or may not make it out of the situation, but he can at least take heart that Luo Binghe would never let someone who killed one of his allies in order to get their way simply walk free.

Shen Qingqiu shivers, working his jaw as his ears pop. 

He keeps talking. “You think that, what, holding me captive will convince him to let you keep killing humans as long as you promise not to kill me?”

“You’re obviously important to him,” she says flippantly. “As someone sharing even a bed with him, that he is willing to cook for, of course he has reason to be interested in your well-being. And I don’t mean to do anything to you, so long as he just lets our clan continue to run as we have been.”

Even in a different body, he’s being cast as Luo Binghe’s lover.

“And if he refuses?”

“Then I’ll kill you,” Min Mingzhu promises. “I make it a personal rule not to let humans live when they’re so much better off dead.”

“Ah.” Shen Qingqiu works his throat for a moment, then sighs. “Yes, of course. But—just one thing.”

“Yes?” Min Mingzhu asks impatiently, raising an eyebrow. 

“He heard you say all of that, and he doesn’t look happy.”

Xin Mo emerges from Min Mingzhu's middle as Luo Binghe drives the blade through her body from behind, its tip dripping red. He leans over her shoulder, lips next to her ear as he croons to her: “No one puts a hand on my Shizun.”

Shen Qingqiu’s blood runs cold.

Min Mingzhu scrabbles at the blade protruding from her belly for a moment, then a flick of Binghe’s wrist from behind her causes a crunch from somewhere inside her, and she goes limp as the sword slices up through her body. When Luo Binghe pulls the sword from her corpse, she collapses onto the ground at Shen Qingqiu’s feet, a pool of blood slowly beginning to spread around her. Red streaks Luo Binghe’s fingers where they’re clasped around the hilt of his sword.

Unlike the incident with the spider demonesses, Luo Binghe does not move to untie him immediately. For a moment, the two of them just look at each other. Shen Qingqiu thinks back through their past interactions and feels distinctly stupid. 

He also feels incredibly exposed. He curls one of his legs closer to his body, freezing when the movement attracts Luo Binghe’s attention, his gaze darting down to Shen Qingqiu’s exposed thighs. 

In order to distract himself—and Binghe—from his dishevelled appearance, Shen Qingqiu clears his throat, face burning. “How long has Binghe known?” he asks, not bothering to keep up with the formal distance he’d been forcing himself to remember while he was pretending to be a stranger.

Luo Binghe steps over the dead body between them and kneels down in front of Shen Qingqiu, settling back on his heels with Xin Mo balanced across his knees. “Since Shizun allowed Liu Qingge to escape with his previous body,” he says simply. “The expressions he made, the movements, the way he spoke—even his face, a little bit. All of it was Shizun.”

His voice is frank, tearing Shen Qingqiu’s constructed reality to shreds without a thought. His gaze, however, is deep and piercing; he searches Shen Qingqiu’s face as he speaks, and Shen Qingqiu struggles to keep eye contact, wondering what he is looking for.

“What was all of this, then?” Shen Qingqiu asks, falling back into the persona of an immortal master as easy as breathing, straightening his spine despite the restricting red cables and his voice going smooth and cool. “Was Binghe simply messing with this master? Were the dreams just a method of humiliation? Something else?”

It is, apparently, the wrong move. Luo Binghe’s face crumples, falling into an expression of abject misery as he rocks back, swaying as if taking a physical blow. “No!” he cries. “I was trying to court you!”

Shen Qingqiu blinks, his head looping a 404 not found error code as he searches for a response to this. Somehow, he had temporarily forgotten that bit, disjointed from his current identity as the stranger he’d been trying to play. Right. Luo Binghe was, for some reason, in love with him. And he had known who Shen Qingqiu had been the whole time, and played along with his little deception just to—what, stay close to him?

“Shizun was so scared of this Binghe in his previous body, but was perfectly fine being near me in his current form,” Luo Binghe continues emphatically, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “This disciple just thought that, maybe, if Shizun was willing to be close to me like this, that if you weren’t afraid of me, that I could convince Shizun that my feelings were genuine and that I don’t mean him any harm! And maybe he would miss me, and remember that he cared for me when I was just a disciple, and maybe he would be willing to treasure me again, even despite the fact that I am a Heavenly Demon.” He sniffs, dramatic and pathetic and a single sparkling tear falls down his cheek, drawing Shen Qingqiu’s gaze as his heart beats loudly in his ears. “This disciple just wanted Shizun to like him again, and would do anything to ensure that happened. Even if it meant playing along with Shizun’s game, and visiting him only in the dream realm, and pretending he was a stranger and new friend instead of the one dearest to my heart.”

Shen Qingqiu feels hot and cold at the same time, and he tugs against the restraints securing his wrists behind his back, wishing to reach out to Luo Binghe in front of him, so close and yet entirely out of reach. He’s not sure what he wants to do, he just strains with the desire for contact, for something. 

Luo Binghe’s eyes flicker down his chest for a moment at his aborted struggle, but he still doesn’t move to undo Shen Qingqiu’s bindings. He shifts minutely forward, and though the distance between them is still infinite, Shen Qingqiu can nearly feel the heat of his skin, Binghe’s curls falling between them, almost brushing his ankle. 

“Binghe,” he says helplessly, frustrated with the inability to say or do anything in a situation like this. “Of course this master—of course I care for you. Of course I like you. How could I not?”

Shen Qingqiu’s breath is uneven; his heart pounds loudly in his chest. He is so cold. Why is he so much colder than he was before Binghe arrived?

At his words, Luo Binghe finally bridges the gap between them, reaching out to brush the back of his knuckles against Shen Qingqiu’s cheek. Shen Qingqiu tilts his head against the touch—he shouldn’t be encouraging such behavior, he thinks distantly, but he misses the affectionate way that Binghe treated him and something about being called Shizun again disarms him completely. 

Then Binghe pulls his hand away again, and Shen Qingqiu blinks his eyes back open—he hadn’t even known they’d closed. 

“Shizun always cared for this disciple very well,” Luo Binghe agrees. “Just not in the way that I want.”

And he sounds so sad about this, so heartbroken, that Shen Qingqiu responds before he can think twice about his words.

“Maybe I do.”

There is a pause as both of them digest his response. Shen Qingqiu panics quietly, because why would he say that? Why would he imply that he, towards the protagonist—

But then again, he had missed Binghe so much, hadn’t he? Even when they were together, when he was acting like someone else, he had constantly pined for his little disciple again. And constantly admired him, as well, because Binghe had grown up so cool. Not that he’s into guys, it’s just, if it was a man, it would have to be Luo Binghe, right? Because Luo Binghe is perfect, and Shen Qingqiu has always liked him best.

“Do you mean it?” Luo Binghe asks, breaking the silence, his eyes shining with a hope that Shen Qingqiu would be cruel to simply shatter.

So, despite his panic over his sexuality, and his brain screaming at him inside his head, and his stomach performing flips, he responds, “I think so. Yes.”

Luo Binghe lurches forward and kisses him. 

The kiss is—well, it’s not much better than the one that happened in the dream realm all those weeks ago. Shen Qingqiu is still tied up, and he can’t do anything to force Luo Binghe to be more gentle, and his head thunks back against the pole behind him as Binghe bites his bottom lip and kisses with bruising intensity. Then Binghe presses one of his hands behind Shen Qingqiu’s head to at least cushion him there and that at least gets marginally better, but really—Shen Qingqiu doesn’t have that much practice, but this child is really too enthusiastic! 

He tilts his head to the side, pulling fruitlessly at the wrists tied behind his back. Luo Binghe’s lips trail against his cheek before he pulls back, pouting at the rejection.

“Gentler, Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu instructs breathlessly, staring off at a point over Luo Binghe’s shoulder. “And don’t bite. You’re not a dog.”

Luo Binghe droops at the chastisement, but says, “Yes, Shzun,” dutifully and Shen Qingqiu allows him to kiss him one more time. Not that he can do anything to avoid it, at this point; he is quite literally tied up and unable to run away!

Thankfully, Luo Binghe is far gentler this time. His warm mouth presses against Shen Qingqiu’s, artlessly at first, but as the seam of their lips catch and slide against each other he increases the pressure, and. Well. Perhaps Shen Qingqiu can see the appeal of this.

Luo Binghe is clearly afraid to deepen the kiss again, keeping things light and simple between them, but the heat of Binghe’s lips on his and the hand questing to his waist, slipping behind him to press against his lower back and forcing him to arch against the cables, are enough to make him feel warm and syrupy inside, making him shudder with the intensity of everything that he is feeling. He is hyper-aware of the large hand splayed across his back, the silk fabric of Luo Binghe’s robes brushing against his exposed chest, the fan of Luo Binghe’s long eyelashes over his cheek, the taste of Luo Binghe’s lips on his.

They kiss long enough for Shen Qingqiu to go breathless and his spine to hurt with the strain of the arch he is putting it through. When Binghe finally pulls away, Shen Qingqiu can feel the tension slowly leak from all of his limbs, leaving him shivering in the chill of the cold air rushing between them, cooling his flushed, exposed skin.

He feels so much. It’s too much.

Something complicated passes over Luo Binghe’s face as he studies Shen Qingqiu’s, and he nods to himself after a moment, seemingly deciding something.

“Ah, Shizun needs more time,” Luo Binghe says, his hand sliding from Shen Qingqiu’s spine to his waist, then away entirely. “That’s okay.”

I don’t, Shen Qingqiu wants to say reflexively, but he hesitates. Kissing Binghe was…it was a lot. He doesn’t think it was bad, if he thinks about it, but his head is still spinning from all of the rapid-fire revelations, and the knowledge that Luo Binghe knew who he was the whole time. He had taken up his fake identity in the first place to avoid being pulled into Luo Binghe’s harem, after all. Maybe he should take some time to sort out his own thoughts.

He’s brought out of his thoughts by the feeling of the cords around his chest suddenly becoming loose. Luo Binghe is leaning into him, their chests pressed together and his arms encircling Shen Qingqiu, fingers on the knots behind him. It is very obviously not the most efficient way to untie Shen Qingqiu. He doesn’t say anything about it or complain, though; he simply rests his chin on Luo Binghe’s shoulder and closes his eyes, soaking in his warmth. These caves really are far too cold for someone who can’t circulate their own qi to keep their temperature up.

Luo Binghe’s long fingers play against his wrists as he tugs at the last set of ties, warm and gentle. He uses his claws to pick at the knots, and they come loose fairly quickly. Shen Qingqiu sighs in relief at the rush of energy that returns to him and begins bringing his temperature back to normal. He doesn’t pull away, however, and neither does Luo Binghe. Without the cords tying him up rigidly, he sags against Luo Binghe’s body, sighing as Binghe wraps his arms more fully around him, bringing him into a hug. Shen Qingqiu brings his arms around Binghe in return, curling his fingers against Binghe’s shoulder blades, clutching him tight. 

“This Shizun missed Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu finally says, his voice quiet. “Even when spending time with him in dreams.”

Luo Binghe’s arms tighten around him a little. “This disciple missed Shizun too,” he murmurs in Shen Qingqiu’s ear. He pulls back an eternity or a moment later.

Binghe extricates himself from Shen Qingqiu’s grip, then pushes himself to his feet. He hesitates for a moment, then slides his outer robe off his shoulders and drapes it over Shen Qingqiu’s shoulders gently. Shen Qingqiu experiences a moment of intense embarrassment, remembering the Water Palace and everything that happened there, but pulls the robe further over his shoulders this time. In any case, hasn’t he been recast as a wife now, essentially? Luo Binghe’s outer robe is actually his to wear, by rights. Not to mention that it is warm, and he is severely underdressed, and Binghe’s hungry gaze was starting to make him feel things that he wasn’t ready to look further into yet!

Luo Binghe lets out a sigh as if he had been holding his breath, and reaches forward to help Shen Qingqiu to his feet on mysteriously shaky legs. He lets go of Shen Qingqiu’s hands once he is standing as if the action pains him, but he takes two decisive steps back, clasping his hands behind his back as if bodily preventing himself from reaching forward to touch again.

“Shizun should take all of the time that he needs to consider things. He can find me when he is ready, at Huan Hua Palace,” Luo Binghe announces formally, then clears his throat and fixes Shen Qingqiu with a penetrating, beseeching look. “But don’t make me wait too long.”

With that, he leans down and picks up Xin Mo from where it had been discarded on the ground during their kiss, and cuts a hole in reality. He gestures towards it with a polite wave of his hand, and Shen Qingqiu swallows, nods, and steps through.

He finds himself in his room in the inn at the border town that he’d been staying in before he went to confront the Spider Silk demons, his room unused and untouched, as if someone had kept it ready for him the whole time that he was gone. He turns around quickly, realizing what is about to happen, but the rent in space closes a moment later, leaving him alone. 

He stands there, motionless, for a long time afterwards.

Chapter Text

When Shen Qingqiu had finally pulled himself together, he had found that Binghe’s robe contained a pocket in the inner lining with a small pouch of money. He hadn’t been sure whether Luo Binghe had expected what was about to happen—how could he have predicted all of it, down to the need to give his robe to Shen Qingqiu—or if he simply always carried spare money like that, but Shen Qingqiu had decided to use coins from the pouch as he needed. After all, literally all of his own belongings, down to his own clothing and borrowed sword, were still back in the caves in the Northern Demon Realm.

The first thing that he did was send for the proprietor of the inn and request a set of robes just to make himself decent. After getting properly dressed he found, upon asking, that his room had been paid for in full until the upcoming full moon, so he retreated back to it in order to decide what to do next.

He might as well not let the rented space go to waste.

After getting his clothing and his rooms sorted, he went out into town to purchase bags and a few extra essentials—another set of clothing more to his taste, a few ribbons and a simple wooden hair stick, since he had of course been kidnapped with his hair literally down, and some cured meats that would serve him in a pinch if he got caught in the middle of nowhere. He purchases an inexpensive paper fan as well, relishing the feel of it in his hand once more.

Shen Qingqiu is drab and casual in his new clothing compared to the elegance of Luo Binghe’s robe, still spread out on his bed as if waiting to be worn again. His hair is in a simple ponytail, lacking any of the jewelry to go with a more elaborate style. He could afford more; Luo Binghe carried much more than petty change in that purse, so it wasn’t a matter of money, and a town that specialized in traded textiles had plenty to offer. He simply wasn’t motivated to look for himself, accustomed to being dressed from a pre-prepared closet.

And, if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t want to fully outfit himself, because he’s not sure what is going to happen next.

In fact, he loiters in those rooms for an entire week, living off of Luo Binghe’s money for his meals, spending the day touring the town and the surrounding borderlands, distracting himself from his thoughts with searches for interesting flora and fauna to observe at the rift between the human and demon realms. The full moon creeps steadily closer and Shen Qingqiu determinedly doesn’t think about it, instead foraging for Iridescent Reflecting Blooms, which only grow on the border between realms and resemble simple white carnations in form but shimmer with color when infused with qi; blue for spiritual and a deep purple for demonic. 

Fascinatingly enough, they are one of the only living things in the world other than a Heavenly Demon that can support two systems of qi, and when infused simultaneously with spiritual and demonic qi, they shimmer with a two-toned iridescence that is supposed to be beautiful to behold. Shen Qingqiu infuses one with his own spiritual energy, admiring the blue shimmer in the bloom, but the rest he transfers into a little pot that he purchases and brings back to his rooms at the inn, leaving them white with the thought in his mind to see if he can witness their fabled iridescence sometime in the future. Somehow. 

As a Heavenly Demon, the original Luo Binghe used the flowers as both a party trick and a romantic gesture, infusing them with both types of qi at the same time, or enticing one of his cultivator human or demon wives to use one type of qi while he used the other, providing them with a pretty token of affection. Shen Qingqiu had actually found the move rather romantic—and he can’t help but to be curious about what it might be like to experience for himself.

The week passes both slower and more quickly than he expects, and it’s only the day before the full moon when he realizes that, if he doesn’t go to Luo Binghe, then Luo Binghe is going to have to come to him for the qi exchange. Just because Luo Binghe is giving him time to think (a thing that he is determinedly avoiding doing) doesn’t mean that Xin Mo will stop working to unbalance his energies, and Shen Qingqiu still has the only body that can handle such an influx of demonic qi.

He figures, without thinking too hard about the implications, that perhaps it is his turn to go to Luo Binghe, instead of making Luo Binghe come to him.

With that decision made, he is quick to rent a spiritual sword, packing his things from the inn—clipping a few flowers from the pot to tuck into his belongings and leaving the rest for the room—and carefully bundling Luo Binghe’s robe into his bags before he sets off towards Huan Hua Palace. The road is long from where he is, and he realizes that he’s set off with hardly thirty-six hours before the rise of the full moon. If he was going on foot or even by carriage, he would have no chance of making it. As it is, a spiritual sword can fly leagues faster than any other mode of transportation can travel, but it pushes the limits of his spiritual qi regeneration to make it. He flies almost entirely through the night, stopping in some unnamed forest that he passes to grab a few quick hours of rest, thanking himself for his foresight in purchasing those cured meats that will help him to regain energy faster.

Shen Qingqiu reaches the borders of Huan Hua territory around Bai Liu Forest as evening approaches the day after he leaves. As he enters lands he is more familiar with, he somehow manages to speed up even more. His thoughts bounce around in his head as he gets closer to the palace itself, knowing that his qi signature had likely triggered wards as he had entered, and that Luo Binghe will be waiting for him in the entrance hall to that palace. He stumbles over and over again in his head about what he can possibly tell Binghe; what decision he’s going to make.

As Huan Hua’s ostentatious sect comes into view, however, Shen Qingqiu realizes that he knows exactly what he’s going to say. 

There was never any other option for him, was there?

He’s politely greeted by a human disciple at the gates and led directly to the throne room. Luo Binghe had seemingly been holding court there; the last group of demons is trailing past as Shen Qingqiu enters through the main doors, throwing interested glances as they walk by each other and the demons exit the throne room.

The disciple that escorted him here bows silently and exits as well, leaving Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu alone in the room. Luo Binghe rises from his throne, resplendent in court clothing, dripping in jewels and finery, a notable contrast from Shen Qingqiu’s undyed commoner’s clothes. Luo Binghe descends the steps and approaches where Shen Qingqiu stands, his voice caught in his throat now that he is seeing Luo Binghe standing in front of him in person.

Luo Binghe reaches out as he closes the distance between them, but then pauses, closing his hand in a fist and dropping it back to his side as he instead comes to a halt just in front of Shen Qingqiu. “Shizun has returned,” he says.

Well, that was obvious, wasn’t it?

“It’s the full moon tonight,” Shen Qingqiu responds, pulling out his newly purchased fan to open against his chest, just for something to do with his hands. “Binghe needs to perform the qi exchange.”

Luo Binghe blinks and seems to deflate just a little bit, somehow taking up less space despite the bulk of his frame. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t particularly like the effect. “I could have used someone else this month,” he says after a pause. “If Shizun needs more time. You don’t have to come back yet.”

“Of course Binghe shouldn’t use anyone else; this body is best for performing the exchange, is it not? This master taught Luo Binghe not to cause any undue harm to others—especially when there is a perfectly suitable option around,” Shen Qingqiu snips back. 

If anything, this makes Luo Binghe even more upset, and he outright frowns. “I want Shizun to want to come back,” he insists stubbornly. “Not just for some…silly transaction that was an excuse to be able to visit Shizun when he was undercover.”

That wasn’t what Shen Qingqiu meant at all! He is beginning to think that they are quite bad at this. “This Shizun—I want to be here,” he finally bursts out, snapping his fan closed in front of his face. “With Binghe. For the qi exchange, but also. Also, because it’s Binghe, and I miss you.”

It’s humiliating to get the words out and he feels as if he’s never going to recover from the embarrassment, but Luo Binghe’s expression as he cries Shizun!!! and throws himself into Shen Qingqiu’s arms does make it all worth it. Shen Qingqiu is almost bowled over by the bulk of his disciple, so much bigger than him especially in the shorter mushroom body, but he holds him tightly, one hand going up to cradle the back of Binghe’s head, fingers carding through his hair. 

Luo Binghe pulls back just far enough to kiss him again. He’s thankfully learned from the first two attempts, and while he starts the kiss off perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, a soft noise in the back of Shen Qingqiu’s throat reminds him to settle and press his lips firmly but gently to Shen Qingqiu’s, and Shen Qingqiu’s face burns but he allows himself to be kissed right there in the middle of Luo Binghe’s throne room.

Finally, however, he can’t stand it anymore, and he pushes against Luo Binghe’s chest, unentangling himself from his sticky disciple’s grasp, though he curls his fingers in the front of Binghe’s robes so he doesn’t go too far. 

“Not in public,” he manages to say, keeping his eyes fixed somewhere around Luo Binghe’s collarbones, admiring the pretty stitching and embroidery on the hems and the shimmer of the silk of his outer robes. 

Shen Qingqiu glances up at Luo Binghe’s face just in time to see his eyes darken and expression go a little bit wolfish. “If Shizun would like to go somewhere private, that is easily arranged,” Binghe offers.

Not what Shen Qingqiu meant at all!

Still, it doesn’t stop him from nodding jerkily, allowing Luo Binghe to excitedly grab his hand and lead him out of the throne room and through the sprawling Huan Hua Palace halls. He stops at what must be the Palace Master’s rooms, eagerly gesturing Shen Qingqiu inside. The room is far more well lived-in than the rooms in the demon palace on the northern border, and Shen Qingqiu inwardly sighs in relief that Luo Binghe at least seems to have made some place for himself.

Shen Qingqiu feels the heat of Luo Binghe behind him just before Binghe wraps his arms around Shen Qingqiu’s waist from behind, resting a chin on his shoulder. Shen Qingqiu’s hands flutter for a moment, unsure where to rest them, before he finally places them both on Binghe’s arms around his waist, leaning back against his chest. The touch is overwhelming and new, but Luo Binghe is familiar to him, and he finds that he quite enjoys it.

“Shizun is dressed so simply,” Luo Binghe says, sounding oddly almost petulant. “Did Shizun not find the money pouch in my robes? He should have been able to afford much better.”

Shen Qingqiu abruptly can’t help but feel a little bit embarrassed for how poorly he’s dressed. Especially when compared to the gorgeous raiment of Luo Binghe’s.

“This master simply thought that, if I were to return, that Binghe would wish to handle such things.” He realizes even as he says the embarrassing words that they are true, and he’s glad that he’s not facing Binghe directly at the moment. While his clothing was an essential part of his life as Shen Qingqiu, he hated having to put so much thought into his dress, and Luo Binghe taking over the ordering of new robes for him when he got older had been a significant assistance. Shen Qingqiu enjoys the final product, but he realizes that fashion has never been his strong suit, and he had allowed Binghe to prepare his outfits from the moment that he expressed an interest and ability to do so. 

Luo Binghe visibly perks up behind Shen Qingqiu, tilting his head into Shen Qingqiu’s and then turning it to press a quick, excited kiss to his cheek. “If Shizun permits, I will put in for new commissions immediately. In the meantime, there are some things prepared that should be appropriate for someone of Shizun’s status.”

“What status,” Shen Qingqiu grumbles, although he is quietly pleased, a small smile pulling at his lips. “Like this, I am just some random cultivator, am I not?”

Luo Binghe pauses, and unwraps himself from Shen Qingqiu to tug him over to the bed, where he sits in front of Shen Qingqiu, keeping their hands clasped between them. Shen Qingqiu stands between his knees, indulging the closeness. 

“Does Shizun not wish to return to his status as Peak Lord of Qing Jing?” Luo Binghe asks carefully. “It should be easy to be re-established, and this one can vouch for Shizun if needed.”

Oh. Shen Qingqiu feels a well of emotion in his chest that he didn’t entirely expect at the thought that he could go back to his peak and his fellow peak lords; that he could see his disciples and maybe teach them again. He supposes Ming Fan and Ning Yingying will be adults by now, just like Luo Binghe, but there were still young disciples on the peak when he left—could he really have the chance to see them again? It has been a long time since he has spoken to Yue Qingyuan or Liu Qingge, and he realizes abruptly that he missed them far more than he had realized.

“I didn’t know that was an option,” Shen Qingqiu says softly. Then, “Doesn’t Binghe want me to himself?”

Luo Binghe frowns, but doesn’t deny it. “Where Shizun goes, so do I,” he says stubbornly. “If Shizun accepts me back on the peak, then I will do everything I can to make sure that he can have it back, if that’s what he wants.”

Shen Qingqiu feels a welling of emotion in his chest, a spring of gratitude and affection and desire all rolled up into one big feeling that is too much for his body to contain, and he blames it all going to his head for the fact that his next move is to lean down and kiss Binghe entirely of his own accord.

Luo Binghe makes an adorable little surprised noise, but he returns the kiss eagerly, letting go of Shen Qingqiu’s hands in order to wrap them around his waist and pull him forward. Shen Qingqiu lets himself be maneuvered and finds himself straddling Luo Binghe’s thighs, his arms looped around Binghe’s shoulders as he kisses him, eyes closing as he lets himself fall into the kiss. 

This time the impatience seems to get to him, and Luo Binghe nips at Shen Qingqiu’s bottom lip just a little too hard. When Shen Qingqiu gasps at the sharp bite, Binghe slips his tongue into Shen Qingqiu’s mouth. At the same time, one of the hands on his waist slides down to his upper thigh, holding his leg tight against Binghe’s hip. Shen Qingqiu refuses to admit the noise he makes in reaction as a moan.

The kiss has quickly turned heated, a hot wet slide of tongues and lips against each other as Shen Qingqiu’s brain melts about the hand on his thigh and the other with a thumb pressed against the crease of his hip. He dissolves into the sensation, all thoughts leaving his head as he simply surrounds himself with Binghe, Binghe, Binghe.

Luo Binghe, the greedy thing that he is, continues to push for more. He uses the leverage of his grip on Shen Qingqiu’s thigh to press him closer, and Shen Qingqiu thoughtlessly allows himself to be guided into a downward grind of his hips, and it’s just as Luo Binghe moans into his mouth that he realizes oh, that’s what I’m sitting on. He breaks the kiss, panting, and does his best not to entirely combust at the sight of Luo Binghe looking up at him with spit-slick lips and flushed cheeks, pure adoration and lust in his eyes.

“Binghe, you—” he mentally grasps around, searching for something to say and ignoring how breathless his voice is. “The qi exchange!” he finally realizes.

Luo Binghe blinks at him a few times, face blank, before it appears that he begins to process words again. “The qi exchange,” he repeats, not quite a question.

“It’s the full moon tonight,” Shen Qingqiu clarifies, manfully ignoring the sensation of Luo Binghe hard underneath him. He really is in the most humiliating situation, straddling Binghe’s hips and balancing with his arms over his shoulders like this, isn’t he?

Luo Binghe finally looks like he’s beginning to comprehend what Shen Qingqiu is saying, and he sighs and tucks his forehead against Shen Qingqiu’s collarbone, speaking directly against his chest through the cloth of his clothes. “The exchange is painful. I don’t wanna hurt Shizun anymore. It’s not necessary.”

Shen Qingqiu rests his hand on the top of Binghe’s head, patting gently as he frowns. It’s not like he particularly enjoys the exchange either. He knows it hurts; he’s the one that has to deal with the pain! But still, “Binghe can’t just not do the exchange. Xin Mo will unbalance your energies and then your mind without anything to help with stabilization. I want Binghe to be the master of Xin Mo, not the other way around. I just got you to myself, ah? I don’t want anything else with sway over your pretty head.”

“Maybe…” Luo Binghe tilts his head up, propping his chin on Shen Qingqiu’s chest to look at him with big, unsure eyes. “There is a way that this one has read about, that is supposed to help with the painful effects of the demonic qi exchange.”

The coy way in which Luo Binghe says the words should have been enough to put Shen Qingqiu on guard, but instead he just hums, waiting to hear what it is. Even if it’s unpleasant, he’s willing to give it a try! As much as he’s pushing for the exchange to go ahead, he’s not going to be so stupid as to avoid something that might make it go a little bit easier on him.

“This master is willing to give whatever method Binghe has in mind a try,” Shen Qingqiu says.

“....Dual cultivation is supposed to help make the exchange process easier, as the pathways between the two bodies doing the exchange should already be open and receptive to the influx of demonic qi, helping them take it and filter it through their meridians more quickly and efficiently.”

Shen Qingqiu almost spits blood at the words that he, frankly, should have expected. Airplane, you hack, he thinks spitefully, because of course dual cultivation is the answer to everything in this godforsaken universe. Half of that explanation barely even made any sense! Shen Qingqiu would almost want to accuse Luo Binghe of making things up in order to sleep with him, except for the fact that he really does believe that Binghe wouldn’t lie about a potential method of sparing him pain. His disciple may be incredibly manipulative—he isn’t entirely ignorant of that—but he rarely straight-up lies to Shen Qingqiu about things, especially when it’s important. 

The longer that the silence stretches as Shen Qingqiu fumes to himself, the more Luo Binghe seems to wilt in front of him. 

“Shizun shouldn’t feel pressured,” Luo Binghe mutters after a long interval, looking put-out but resigned. “If he doesn’t want to try, then we won’t.”

Really, Luo Binghe, give this master a break! Shen Qingqiu has just begun to get used to the idea of kissing the protagonist and another man; he hasn’t even begun to comprehend a future where they sleep together yet! Presumably, that’s what he was supposed to spend their time apart considering, but he really didn’t think about it at all. He’s only just now trying to catch up, and it’s taking him an extra few moments. Surely he can’t be blamed for that?

“Ah, Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu says, voice pained, “If we’re to attempt such a thing, you can’t be calling me Shizun when we’re like that.”

Luo Binghe perks up immediately, all traces of disappointment disappearing from his face as if they were never there. “Of course, Shizun!” he agrees shamelessly, and Shen Qingqiu raps the closed fan that he still carries in his free hand against the top of Luo Binghe’s head. Luo Binghe pouts about it, but brazenly fails to repent for his missteps, and Shen Qingqiu sighs exasperatedly but lets it go for the moment.

Shen Qingqiu is about to say something else, but Luo Binghe excitedly leans up to kiss him again and whatever thought was in his head flies out of it as if it was never there. He loses himself in the taste and feel of Luo Binghe, opening his mouth eagerly this time to Binghe’s tongue and moaning softly at the slide of it against his. This only seems to encourage Binghe, who presses their bodies together tightly—he didn’t go soft at any point during their little talk, of course, and Shen Qingqiu rocks his hips tentatively down against the hardness beneath him.

Binghe moans shamelessly into his mouth and rolls his hips back up into Shen Qingqiu, using the grip on Shen Qingqiu’s hips to pull them tightly against each other. Shen Qingqiu’s head refuses to comprehend what that might feel like without all of the layers of robes between them, and he allows himself to simply throw himself into the rock of their bodies against each other, chasing the pleasure of rolling his hips down into Binghe as they kiss. He drops the fan at some point, his fingers going limp with the pleasure of it all, and he doesn’t think that he can come just from this, but it does simply feel good. 

Luo Binghe is, naturally, the first one between the two of them to grow impatient with the slow, rolling pace that they’ve set between each other. He tugs at the sash around Shen Qingqiu’s waist, easily undoing it, and Shen Qingqiu allows Luo Binghe to strip his upper layers from his body, leaving him in nothing but the loose pants and his shoes, which he reaches behind himself to pull off one-handed, balancing on Luo Binghe’s shoulder with his other arm and breaking the kiss to press their foreheads together, panting against his lips. 

Shen Qingqiu kisses Luo Binghe again as soon as his shoes hit the floor, trying to distract himself from his own bare upper body, and he presses his hand to Binghe’s chest, slipping it into the opening of his robes to press against warm skin. He feels the ridged scar from Xiu Ya under his touch, and whines a little, suddenly infused with the desire to have Luo Binghe bared to him as well. He pushes his hand further under the robes, pulling his neckline askew. 

Luo Binghe lets go of his waist, but it’s only to pull loose the metal ornament and belt that he’s wearing, tugging it free with a few deft movements and dropping it over the side of the bed, letting Shen Qingqiu continue to shove at his clothing. 

Something in Shen Qingqiu burns at his own shamelessness—he’s just gotten together with Luo Binghe, if that’s what this is, and now he’s already shirtless and trying to bare Binghe’s skin. If anything, he’s just as bad as any of the original flavor’s wives, eager to throw himself bodily at the protagonist! Then again, if you count the previous years of Luo Binghe’s apparent pining…well, perhaps this is only fast for one of them. Either way, Binghe is nothing if not eager to have Shen Qingqiu’s hands on his body, because he effortlessly allows Shen Qingqiu to push his outer and inner robes off his shoulders, baring himself to the waist.

Shen Qingqiu breaks the kiss again and leans back, allowing himself a moment to just look. Luo Binghe is beautiful, all broad shoulders and a strong chest and curls spilling down his back in glorious waves. Shen Qingqiu rests his hands on Binghe’s pectorals, the fingers of his right hand brushing gently against the scar that he put there.

“Binghe is beautiful,” Shen Qingqiu murmurs, more to himself than anything else.

Luo Binghe just smiles up at him, pleased with the compliment. “So is Shizun,” he says. “In the previous body or this one. Although he is softer in this body, and a little bit smaller.” Binghe presses a hand to his ribs directly under his chest, swiping his thumb over a pebbled nipple and making a pleased sound at the way Shen Qingqiu arches and bites his lip in response to the touch. He hadn’t expected to be so sensitive there—wasn’t the chest supposed to be a thing that was sensitive specifically for women? Luo Binghe quickly lets go in order to lick his thumb and then repeat the action, this time swiping his warm damp thumb over his skin and making Shen Qingqiu shiver at the cool shock from damp skin exposed to the air after.

“Binghe,” he gasps, curling his hands on Binghe’s chest into fists, squirming at the pleasurable touch. He rocks his hips down into Luo Binghe’s again, then gasps when Binghe lifts him closer with a hand on Shen Qingqiu’s ass in order to duck his head down and lave his tongue over where his thumb had just been. 

Shen Qingqiu arches into the hot press of Binghe’s tongue, torn between pushing closer and worming away from the sensation, but he allows Binghe to guide his hips in a steady rut against his stomach, the fabric of his pants the only thing keeping his cock from sliding against Binghe’s skin. He grinds against Binghe’s abs and buries his fingers in curls, grunting a little when he gets caught in the fancy guan holding Binghe’s hair back. He quickly tugs it out and tosses it to the side on the mattress, letting Binghe’s curls cascade freely down his back.

Luo Binghe trails hot kisses from one side of Shen Qingqiu’s chest to the other, then lifts his head to kiss the underside of Shen Qingqiu’s jaw. Shen Qingqiu jolts and tilts his head down to kiss him properly, towering over Luo Binghe on his knees the way that he is. Luo Binghe tilts back to accommodate the angle, then slowly lowers himself to his back on the mattress, Shen Qingqiu supported as their position is changed to horizontal. He squirms back, slotting their hips together to properly grind against Binghe again, hissing at the slide of precome-damp fabric.

“Shizun,” Luo Binghe is crooning against his lips, between kisses. “Shizun tastes so good, feels so good against me, I can’t wait to taste him, to see him come apart, to find out what makes him moan in pleasure—”

“Shut up,” Shen Qingqiu hisses, scandalized, and shoves his tongue into Luo Binghe’s mouth just to make him quiet for a moment.

The move more than works. Luo Binghe moans, low in the back of his throat, and rolls the both of them over so Shen Qingqiu is now the one pressed into the mattress, surrounded by Luo Binghe with his thighs spread around his hips as Binghe ruts artlessly against him. It’s so much. It’s too much, and Shen Qingqiu refuses to have the first time he comes with Luo Binghe be when he still has his pants on. He kicks against Luo Binghe’s thigh and shoves at his chest until Binghe moves back, making a disappointed sound.

“Binghe did nothing wrong,” Shen Qingqiu says in response to the expression on his face, knowing that he is bright red. “It was simply—could we take everything off, before going further?”

This is more than enough to make Luo Binghe perk back up, and he nods, eyes dark and hungry.

“Of course, Shizun,” he says, curling his thumbs into Shen Qingqiu’s pants and waiting for him to lift his hips before he pulls them down and off his legs, over his socked feet. He drops them over the side of the bed, then pulls his own pants over his hips, and—

“Absolutely not,” Shen Qingqiu says.

He thought that this method was supposed to prevent pain during the qi exchange. There’s no way that he’s not going to be caused pain if Luo Binghe puts that inside him! His body can’t handle it!

Luo Binghe pouts a little at him, moving back between his thighs, now fully unclothed. “Not even if I am careful, and gentle, and promise to do everything I can to make Shizun feel good?”

Shen Qingqiu takes a deep breath. His body was made by this universe, and porn logic says that if the wives of the harem enjoyed it so much, then there has to be something there for him, right? Plus, if he is willing to admit it to himself—he is curious. What will that feel like inside of him?

“Just…go slow with me,” he finally mutters, laying back down on the mattress to look at the ceiling, feeling defeated.

Luo Binghe blocks his view as he leans in to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Shizun can be the one inside if he would prefer?”

A temporary thrill runs through him at the thought. That’s definitely something that he wants to revisit in the future, but for now… “Maybe next time,” he manages.

The idea of a next time makes Luo Binghe grin widely, and he kisses Shen Qingqiu again, quickly, then moves down between his legs, trailing kisses down first his chest, then his stomach. Shen Qingqiu tenses as Luo Binghe’s mouth slides over his abs, then his tongue presses into the crease of his hip, fingers resting loosely over both of his thighs. His upper body feels exposed like this, and he can only look down at Luo Binghe dipping down between his legs to press a biting kiss to his inner thigh for a second before he looks away, going tense with the pleasure-pain of the bite. The mouth on his thigh disappears, only to make Shen Qingqiu cries out when Luo Binghe’s tongue drags up the side of his cock from the root to the head, wrapping his lips around it to suck.

Shen Qingqiu buries a hand reflexively in Binghe’s hair again, twisting his fingers tightly in the strands, making Binghe moan around the cockhead in his mouth. Shen Qingqiu’s hips jerk reflexively in response. Luo Binghe tightens his hands on Shen Qingqiu’s thighs, thumbs digging into the flesh and pushing his hips back against the bed as he lowers his head, lips sliding down Shen Qingqiu’s length. 

Luo Binghe isn’t perfect at this—he can’t keep a consistent rhythm, and the first two times he tries to take too much into his mouth he nearly chokes—but he improves quickly, clearly testing different rhythms and presses of his tongue to see what makes Shen Qingqiu moan or tighten his fingers in Binghe’s hair, what makes him feel good. His mouth is warm and wet on Shen Qingqiu’s cock and the sensation quickly causes pleasure to build in his stomach. He looks down once more to see Luo Binghe looking up at him through his eyelashes, eyes brimming with unshed tears and lips stretched wide around Shen Qingqiu’s cock, and without warning he curls in on himself and comes into Binghe’s mouth. 

For a moment he feels horrified—he’s pretty sure there’s etiquette out there about giving a warning before blowing a load into someone’s mouth, but Binghe just takes it all and swallows, pulling off his length only when Shen Qingqiu is entirely spent and panting. 

“Shizun is beautiful when he comes,” is the first thing out of Luo Binghe’s mouth when it is free, and Shen Qingqiu briefly considers smothering himself. “Was it good?”

Was it good, he asks, as if Shen Qingqiu didn’t just come about how good Binghe’s mouth on him felt. Shen Qingqiu would chastise him if he wasn’t too busy soaking in the pleasure of the moment, feeling loose-limbed and satisfied.

But Luo Binghe looks up at him with such earnestness, his eyes still damp and red at the corners, and Shen Qingqiu swallows down his embarrassment to give a small nod. Luo Binghe’s lips curl into a self satisfied smile, and he raises up to lift himself over Shen Qingqiu again, brushing a quick kiss to Shen Qingqiu’s jaw as he reaches under the pillow behind him, grabbing a small jar before he slides back down and kisses Shen Qingqiu’s hip again.

“Spread your thighs further,” Luo Binghe murmurs, voice dark like syrup and Shen Qingqiu complies before he thinks twice, giving Luo Binghe space to work.

He begins with kisses to the inside of Shen Qingqiu’s thighs again, working both lips and teeth—the teeth and biting aren’t so bad at the meat of his thighs—and Shen Qingqiu relaxes into the slowly building pleasure of the sensation. He realizes that Binghe must be sucking mark after mark between his legs, but figures that here, at least, any bruising will be hidden, so he just lets it happen. 

Luo Binghe rises enough to leave one quick, sharp nip to his hip bone, making him yelp and swat ineffectually at Binghe’s shoulder, then mouths at his balls, which feels both good and humiliating at the same time, before he lowers himself fully between Shen Qingqiu’s legs to press the flat of his tongue to Shen Qingqiu’s hole.

Shen Qingqiu gasps. “Binghe! Don’t—”

Binghe pops his head back up, frowning. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

It didn’t feel bad exactly, just—there have been a lot of new experiences today already. “Next time?” he asks weakly, knowing that Luo Binghe will hold him to it but also that he’ll probably whine and complain but capitulate to Shen Qingqiu if he’s really insistent.

Luo Binghe sighs, clearly put-out, but he nods and kisses Shen Qingqiu’s stomach apologetically. “Next time,” he murmurs against Shen Qingqiu’s belly button, voice petulant. 

“And come up here?” Shen Qingqiu asks after another moment, feeling needy but wanting Binghe closer than he feels when he’s down between his thighs.

Luo Binghe brightens and rises to kiss him, which—is a little gross, considering where his mouth has been, but Shen Qingqiu kisses him back despite it all, tasting himself on Luo Binghe’s tongue and barely noticing the soft noise of the jar in Luo Binghe’s hand being uncapped. He certainly notices when the slick finger presses between his thighs, though—first of all, it’s cold. Shen Qingqiu jerks, hissing, but relaxes when the oil quickly warms between the heat of Binghe’s skin and his own. 

The finger that pushes into him is a slick and odd sensation and he’s not sure how to feel about it, but Binghe’s face over his when he pulls away from the kiss to focus, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, paying such close attention to Shen Qingqiu’s every reaction, fills him with an affection that he cannot begin to ignore. He cups Binghe’s face in his hands, kisses him sweetly, ignores the feeling of the finger inside of him, and instead immerses himself in the sensation of Binghe’s chest pressed against him, the taste of his soft lips, and the curls that spill over his shoulders and around Shen Qingqiu’s head, closing them in a little curtain of intimacy. 

Luo Binghe fingers him open impatiently, adding the second finger a little fast and a third finger definitely too fast; Shen Qingqiu gasps and smacks Binghe on the shoulder at the sting of the stretch, the muscles in his thighs going tense. Binghe pulls back from the kiss to study his face, brow furrowed with strain and a little bit of pain, and Shen Qingqiu can’t help exhaling in relief when the fingers are removed.

“Is Shizun alright?” Luo Binghe asks, worry suffusing his tone and tears springing to his eyes, and Shen Qingqiu internally sighs at the need to reassure Binghe that he’s fine. He’s the one with fingers inside him preparing for that horrible monstrosity; he thinks he’s the one that deserves more pampering in this situation!

He reaches up to pat the fluffy curls hovering over him, relaxing his muscles now that he’s no longer being pushed to his limits. “I’m fine,” he manages, wondering how to put things without dying of embarrassment. Shouldn’t Binghe be better at this—wasn’t he supposed to be a harem master of countless beauties? Of course, now he only has one old man and he’s turned into quite the crybaby, so maybe that negates his abilities.

Maybe he just needs more practice. That’s okay, Shen Qingqiu can help him with that—if they can get through this first time without a disaster, at least.

“Slower?” Shen Qingqiu adds hesitantly, knowing that—yes, Binghe’s eyes glisten with even more tears as he wilts, disappointed to be told he’s done badly.

“Yes, Shizun,” Binghe murmurs, though he slips two fingers back inside Shen Qingqiu without any warning, making him gasp and flex his thighs around Luo Binghe’s hips. “This disciple accepts any instruction in how to please Shizun.”

Stop calling me that, Shen Qingqiu wants to snap, but Luo Binghe is a miscreant who won’t listen anyway, and just as he opens his mouth to complain Luo Binghe curls his fingers in a certain kind of way and brush against something inside of him that makes him jolt in pleasure and the complaint comes out as a loud moan instead. Ah, so that’s the prostate, Shen Qingqiu thinks.

Luo Binghe freezes for a moment and Shen Qingqiu has half of a second to process his humiliation at how loud he was and what is about to happen next when Binghe’s eyebrows draw together in concentration and he presses his fingers back to the same spot. Shen Qingqiu bites his lip but doesn’t fully muffle the sound that he makes in response, and his hips roll down into the touch without his permission, chasing the pleasure.

After that, Shen Qingqiu’s brain dissolves into nothing more than soup as Luo Binghe seems to take slower as code for use the next millennia to torture your Shizun, because Luo Binghe spends what seems to be a small eternity driving Shen Qingqiu into a pleasured frenzy, kissing along his jaw and neck as Binghe works him looser in aching increments, making Shen Qingqiu’s limbs go weak with pleasure as he can do nothing other than cling to Binghe and try not to come a second time, before Binghe even gets his dick wet. Shen Qingqiu would have to hide forever and never show his face again if that happened. 

Shen Qingqiu barely notices the third finger pushing inside him with the other two, too distracted by Binghe’s teeth on his collarbone. He’ll be covered in marks by the end of the night, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Instead, he rocks down on the fingers inside him, still biting his lip, and ignores the smirk pressed against his skin. 

Finally, Luo Binghe pulls his fingers out again, and he leaves a patronizing kiss to Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder, ignoring the hurry the fuck up glare that he’s being given. He slicks himself up with oil—good—and places one hand on Shen Qingqiu’s knee, pushing his leg up high enough to stretch the limit of his flexibility.

“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu gasps in a scold, but it comes out as more of a pathetic little plea, and if Shen Qingqiu wasn’t already red from the exertion of the night so far he would be blushing in embarrassment.

Luo Binghe’s eyes are between his legs, and Shen Qingqiu can feel the head of Binghe’s cock press teasingly against his opening while Binghe watches, enraptured, as he pushes in. Three fingers wasn’t enough, Shen Qingqiu thinks frantically, unable to breathe for a moment, but it’s more uncomfortable than painful and he forces himself to relax and breathe in and it gets better from there. He stares at Binghe’s beautiful face, his shining eyes and flushed cheeks and soft lips parted in pleasure as he sinks himself into Shen Qingqiu, hips rocking slowly. Luo Binghe is still staring at where Shen Qingqiu’s hole stretches around Binghe’s cock, and it’s humiliating, so Shen Qingqiu wraps his arms around Binghe’s neck and pulls him back into a kiss.

The rushed movement stretches his thigh, draws Binghe abruptly deeper into him, and he moans into Binghe’s mouth. Luo Binghe takes advantage of his parted lips to dip his tongue inside, taste him, and he pushes further in slow, sinuous movements. Shen Qingqiu is so full he can feel Binghe in his throat—his fingers were nothing compared to his cock, and the stretch is so extreme that he can feel his body struggling to accept it, to cope with something so deep inside him. But he breathes through it, and focuses on the sweet taste of Binghe, and Luo Binghe’s hips touch his as he finally pushes all the way inside.

“Shizun,” Binghe moans into his mouth, syrupy and pleasured, and he doesn’t wait before he begins to fuck Shen Qingqiu in earnest.

Shen Qingqiu’s back arches as his whole body goes tense with the sudden fervor of it, clutching at Binghe’s shoulders and little ah, ah noises pushing out of his throat as Binghe fucks him in stuttering, inelegant thrusts. Binghe fills him up to the throat, and for a moment he doesn’t think he’ll be able to take it, but he breaks their kiss and throws his head back and lets Luo Binghe use his body in the way that pleases him best as the discomfort dissolves into pleasure when the head of his cock slides past his prostate inside him. 

Time goes fuzzy, and Luo Binghe peppers wet, openmouthed kisses from beneath his ear to the hollow of his throat, and Shen Qingqiu will never be able to get the sound and feel of Binghe moaning into his skin out of his ears. It is so good that he almost forgets that there is a point to all of this, and by the time he remembers he’s fighting off the urge to get a hand on himself, to come again before Binghe has.

“Binghe, the exchange,” Shen Qingqiu manages, and for a moment Luo Binghe doesn’t hear him, face pressed into the curve of his neck. Shen Qingqiu grabs his chin with a hand, lifting his head and forcing Binghe to make eye contact, and Luo Binghe’s entire body goes still, quivering with anticipation. “The qi exchange,” Shen Qingqiu repeats, his voice tight. “We have to do the qi exchange.”

Luo Binghe blinks for a moment, and clarity returns to his expression as he nods. “Of course, Shizun,” he says, and when Shen Qingqiu lets go of his chin he leans in to kiss him softly, his hips starting up their movement again with a slow, deep grind, making Shen Qingqiu’s entire body go hot and staticky with the feel of it.

Luo Binghe doesn’t use his hand to initiate the qi exchange this time. Instead, he presses their chests together, kissing Shen Qingqiu again—this time deep and open-mouthed, swallowing any other embarrassing noises—and qi begins to circulate between them. The demonic energy filters through Shen Qingqiu’s chest as his own spiritual qi rushes to Binghe’s meridians, filling them and balancing his energies. He feels lightheaded with the rush of the demonic qi, and the chill of it counteracts the heat of their coupling, but his own spiritual energy regenerates even faster with the qi rushing between them, dual cultivation helping him filter the demonic qi from his body. It’s not painful, and while he’s left feeling weak and cold by the time the demonic qi leaves his body, a warm hand wrapping around his cock quickly brings the heat back to his blood.

Shen Qingqiu comes with Luo Binghe’s hand on him, still slick with leftover oil from earlier, and he gasps as he spills over himself, drowning in the pleasure as his limbs go tense and he clenches on Binghe’s cock, then falls slack as the aftershocks course through his body like waves. He groans weakly as the pleasure tips into overstimulation, making his thighs twitch as he squirms away from Binghe’s touch, and Luo Binghe lets go of his cock but doesn’t stop fucking him, his thrusts increasing in speed and intensity as Binghe moans into his ear, whispering things about how Shizun feels so good and he looks gorgeous when he comes and he could spend forever like this, in the heat and clench of his body.

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes are pricking with tears with the overstimulated pleasure of it, his entire being overwhelmed with Binghe inside him, over him, around him. He buries his fingers in Binghe’s hair and draws him into an artless, messy kiss just to press their lips together, and he swallows Binghe’s cry when he finally, finally comes.

Shen Qingqiu lays there, panting, as Binghe pulls away from him, easing out of his body. He feels gross and open, and come drips from his hole soon after Luo Binghe pulls out of him. He makes a face at the ceiling, and glares weakly over at Binghe, who tries to look sympathetic but mostly looks hungry, gaze lingering just a bit too long at where Shen Qingqiu is dripping and aching—somehow, Shen Qingqiu thinks that complaining about his current state of discomfort will do nothing but backfire on him right now, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Luo Binghe kisses his forehead and rises from the bed, throwing on one of his inner robes before he slips from the room wordlessly. Shen Qingqiu watches with barely-open eyes as his beautiful, nearly-flawless skin is covered by the fabric, and feels a pang of loss, although in his head he thinks that just that amount of coverage really isn’t enough to be decent—there are bruises on Binghe’s throat that he doesn’t remember leaving, and it’s far too obvious what they have just been doing. Binghe returns quickly, however, with a small basin of warm water and a washcloth. 

He cleans Shen Qingqiu up attentively, pouting when Shen Qingqiu smacks him when he presses a finger into his sore opening, though Shen Qingqiu doesn’t give in to the pout. This master is done for the night. He’ll pass out if Luo Binghe subjects him to anything more! 

Thankfully, Luo Binghe dutifully wipes him down with the warm washcloth, trailing kisses along his arms and legs as he goes. The attention is nice, and Shen Qingqiu is boneless and mostly asleep by the time Luo Binghe sheds his inner robe again and rejoins Shen Qingqiu in bed.

Shen Qingqiu shamelessly nestles himself against Luo Binghe’s chest and decides that he is just as comfortable that he had imagined when reading the original story, based on how many maidens were obsessed with doing such a thing. It just happens to be him that gets to reap the benefits this time, and he’s decided that he’ll take full advantage. 

“Shizun?” Luo Binghe’s voice whispers into the dimness of the night, breaking the silence.

“Hm?” Shen Qingqiu murmurs, struggling to bring himself to attention enough that he doesn’t miss Binghe’s words.

Luo Binghe wraps an arm around his waist, his hand caressing the skin of Shen Qingqiu’s abdomen. Shen Qingqiu grabs it and wraps their fingers together, preventing him from wandering too far and getting any ideas. “That was better, right? Than the previous month?”

Inwardly, Shen Qingqiu rolls his eyes. Really, Binghe should know better than to need to ask such a pandering question! Wasn’t it obvious, what with the way that he had come more than once during their…relations?

Shen Qingqiu just sighs, tightening his fingers around Binghe’s. “Yes,” he murmurs. “Binghe did well.”

He can practically feel Luo Binghe perk up against his back, far too energetic for someone who just got laid. Shen Qingqiu is nearly unconscious, can’t Binghe be the same? “Then we can do it again? Next month?”

“Of course this master will continue to help with the qi exchange,” Shen Qingqiu says.

“Can we dual cultivate outside of the full moon? More often than that?” 

Shen Qingqiu can hear the puppy-dog eyes in the question, but it’s far too shameless for him to have the face to respond. Instead, he reaches back artlessly behind him, smacking Binghe weakly on the shoulder. “Go to sleep, Binghe! Enough questions.”

This is enough to make Luo Binghe settle behind him, although Shen Qingqiu can feel his lips curved into a satisfied smile when he presses a kiss against Shen Qingqiu’s bare shoulder.

“Of course, Shizun,” he responds.

Shen Qingqiu is asleep in moments.

The next morning, Shen Qingqiu wakes up comfortable and warm, still naked, his back tucked up against Luo Binghe’s chest and knees cradled by Luo Binghe’s, the two of them nestled together like a pair of clamshells. His fingers are intertwined with Binghe’s over his chest, and he can feel Luo Binghe’s exhales across the top of his head as he breathes, deep and even with sleep. 

The night before comes back to him in pieces, and he tightens his grip on Binghe’s hand, tugging it up to brush his lips against their intertwined fingers. Most of his body is aching, and getting up will likely be a nightmare, but he searches himself and finds a distinct lack of anything approaching regret. Luo Binghe is his, after all, and he has his future at the sect, and he doesn’t have to worry about exploring the world alone anymore because his favorite person in the world wants no one other than him. It is a far cry from what he expected when Luo Binghe first came from the abyss and he prepared this body, but now, warm and comfortable in his disciple’s arms, he feels silly for trying so hard to avoid Binghe after learning that revenge wasn’t what he sought. After all, if anyone would have the power to turn the head of someone straight, it would be Luo Binghe. 

He had never stood a chance, he reasons.

He is awake far earlier than he would be on a normal day, and dawn is just beginning to break. In the dim light of the morning Shen Qingqiu can barely make out the shape of his clothing, discarded carelessly on the floor, and he has the distinct feeling that after they are taken from the room today that he will never see them again. He spies his bag lying in a heap where he had dropped it at some point the night before, and remembers that he has Binghe’s outer robe in it to return.

Oh! Suddenly excited, Shen Qingqiu rolls out of bed to reach for the bag, only to collapse in an inelegant heap on the floor as soreness shoots through his hips. He sits there for a moment, utterly stunned and blinking sightlessly at the bag. Shen Qingqiu takes back how comfortable and happy he had been this morning. Luo Binghe is a menace, and Shen Qingqiu absolutely will not survive handling like this on a regular basis!

“Shizun?” 

The sound of Luo Binghe’s sleepy voice draws him out of his thoughts. Shen Qingqiu turns around to see Binghe with his face peeking out over the edge of the bed at him, bleary-eyed and innocently adorable. Shen Qingqiu’s irritation melts away faster than ice cream on a hot day and he offers a slightly embarrassed smile to Binghe, endeared by his sleepy incomprehension. 

“Nothing, Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu says softly, the dim morning light making him want to whisper, to respect the softness of the early hour. “I simply remembered something that I wanted to show you, and wasn’t paying attention to how my body would handle…” 

Last night’s treatment, he doesn’t say, but the way Luo Binghe’s eyes go a little bit heated lets him know that Binghe understood what he meant perfectly.

Shen Qingqiu stretches out and fetches his bag without bothering to stand, and he looks back after he’s grabbed it to see Luo Binghe watching him with an intent gaze, his eyes roaming bared skin. He feels distinctly exposed, but he ignores the blush that he hopes isn’t visible in the dim light (and also Luo Binghe’s demon-enhanced night vision) and slips back up into bed, sitting up against the headboard in order to dig through the bag. 

Luo Binghe curls against his side, wrapping an arm around his waist and tucking his nose right under his ribcage. His breath tickles a little, and Shen Qingqiu tries to rap him on the head about it in admonishment, but instead finds himself just carding his fingers gently through the hair at his scalp and rummaging through the bag with his free hand. The Iridescent Reflecting Blooms have wilted a little bit, crushed and knocked about as they have been in his bag, but they are in decent enough shape, and, importantly, still have their petals open.

Shen Qingqiu drops the bag over the side of the bed to the floor, keeping the flowers in his hand.

“What’re those?” Luo Binghe asks curiously, lips moving against Shen Qingqiu’s stomach as he speaks. 

With effort, Shen Qingqiu lifts the hand that is on top of Binghe’s head. “Sit up for me,” he says, and Luo Binghe lifts himself up to instead tuck his body against Shen Qingqiu’s side, resting his chin on Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder to look at the flowers he holds. 

“These are Iridescent Reflecting Blooms,” Shen Qingqiu continues, carefully arranging the white flowers in his hand to hide the worst of the wilting. “I kept several in my room at the inn. They have an interesting property when infused with both demonic and spiritual qi at the same time—amusingly enough, they are one of the few species other than Heavenly Demons that have the ability to handle both simultaneously. Unfortunately, I cut these before I left, so they won’t last very long, but they’re still fresh enough for it to work. Would Binghe like to give it a try with demonic energy, while I provide spiritual?”

Shen Qingqiu turns his head to see Luo Binghe looking at him with shining eyes, and the force of emotion in them is enough to make him turn his head back to the blossoms. 

“Of course, Shizun,” Luo Binghe says, the smile audible in his words, and he curls a hand around Shen Qingqiu’s, the tips of his fingers brushing the stems of the bunch. “Now?”

“Now,” Shen Qingqiu agrees, and both of them channel qi simultaneously.

The flowers immediately brighten, color shooting through the delicate veining and blooming outwards to infuse throughout the petals, a deep shimmering purple and blue intertwining and layering on top of each other. The flowers glow with energy, the shimmer of their color shifting with the light and angle that they are held at, and Shen Qingqiu is satisfied that they are just as beautiful as he had hoped.

“They’re lovely,” he murmurs to himself, tilting the blooms this way and that, before he picks one of the less damaged ones out of the little bunch and turns to tuck it into Luo Binghe’s curls, just behind his ear. “There we go,” he says. “A pretty flower for pretty Binghe.”

Of all the things that have passed between them, this is the thing that makes Luo Binghe blush, his cheeks going pink as he ducks his head against Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder, though it doesn’t hide his pleased little smile. “Thanking Shizun for the flower,” he says demurely, then gets a little glint in his eyes that gives Shen Qingqiu a moment of warning before Luo Binghe leans back up to kiss him, although he keeps it soft and sweet.

“It won’t last,” Shen Qingqiu says regretfully, “but some day, perhaps we could keep some in the Bamboo House? They have to be re-infused to keep their color, but tending something together would be nice, don’t you think?”

Luo Binghe absolutely does think, because he tackles Shen Qingqiu back down to the bed and kisses him silly at the very thought.

Later, after they have dressed—Shen Qingqiu in new elegant robes provided to him by Luo Binghe, fitted so that they must have been made and tailored for him in advance—Luo Binghe cooks and provides breakfast for the both of them. Shen Qingqiu steals repeated glances at Luo Binghe while he eats, unable to get past how handsome Binghe has grown up to be, his thoughts turning to how cool it will be to help him manage the Demon Realm in the future, to help him with his role as Emperor. 

Luo Binghe clearly catches him staring, because he straightens and smiles to himself while he eats, pleased, but doesn’t outwardly call him out for it. It isn’t until Shen Qingqiu finishes eating before either of them speaks.

“I’m sure there are many preparations to be made if Binghe is to accompany this master back to Qing Jing in the future, but would it be all right to simply relax here, at Huan Hua Palace, for a bit before we start?” Shen Qingqiu asks.

He is excited about the opportunity to see his fellow peak lords again, but he knows how smothering they all are, and how all of them will make constant demands on his time whether or not he wants them to. Before he starts to cope with all of that, he wants some time to himself to prepare, dammit! And–well, he also wants some time with Luo Binghe. It is different, now that Binghe (outwardly) knows who he is, and with this shift in their relationship, Shen Qingqiu needs some time to adjust. Throwing him publicly coming back from the dead is sure to make everything far more dramatic than it needs to be. He feels a bit guilty, but Qing Jing peak can continue to function without him for a while longer.

Luo Binghe pauses in the middle of finishing the food out of his bowl, then slowly puts it down, deliberate in his movements. He is looking down at the nearly empty bowl, intent, when he speaks. “I thought that Shizun would want to see his sect siblings as soon as possible.”

Shen Qingqiu does want to see them. “This master would prefer to spend some time with Binghe alone, first. Perhaps travel some, if it is possible.” Just because he prefers to stay with Binghe doesn’t mean that he isn’t still interested in exploring the realms. With a Heavenly Demon at his side, there are even more amazing places and creatures that he could go and see! Luo Binghe has his responsibilities as emperor, but they could at least maybe go on field trips, of a sort.

Luo Binghe looks up, and Shen Qingqiu is shocked to see his eyes damp with unshed tears. “Shizun wants to stay with me?”

Why is his disciple such a crybaby? Still, it tugs at something in his chest, and he leans in to cradle Binghe’s face, brushing a thumb over the corner of his eye and tutting. “Of course this master does,” he reprimands. “I came back here just for you, didn’t I?”

Luo Binghe wraps his hand around Shen Qingqiu’s wrist, keeping his palm on his cheek. “This disciple just wants to be sure that’s what Shizun wants,” he murmurs, tilting his head to kiss Shen Qingqiu’s palm. “Of course I want Shizun with me, always.”

Ah, this child! Shen Qingqiu has no idea what to do with him.

“Even with this face?” he asks. For a moment, he surprises himself. Shen Qingqiu hadn’t realized that he’d even cared what Luo Binghe thought of the mushroom body, with a face that resembles his old mortal one the same as it resembles the original Shen Qingqiu’s. 

Luo Binghe smiles. “Shizun is Shizun,” he says simply. “I am happy as long as he is with me. And his face is beautiful either way, in both bodies.”

Well then. That is quite clear, isn’t it?

“Then this master is happy to stay with Binghe as long as Binghe wishes him to,” Shen Qingqiu murmurs.

“Forever, then,” Luo Binghe replies, swaying close, yearning in his eyes.

Shen Qingqiu kisses him across the table in answer.