#AND YUE QI LOOKING AT THE BURNT REMAINS OF THE QIU MANOR??

[milktrician]

For the wip game, "Your shadow beckons me" ?

This one covers two wips I have but they both center around Shen Yuan being a clone of Shen Jiu, being cloned while he was in Qiu Manor. I might write both of these ideas out someday? This first one covers the idea while in the Qing generation's disciple era:

Shen Yuan wakes to that same young man from before staring at his face. His handsome face is covered in tears, the skin under his eyes flushed and nose rubbed red.

“A-Apologies. Visiting hours are over but Mu-shidi allowed me to stay.” The guy states as he cleans his face with a handkerchief. He takes in a long deep breath before he is able to look at Shen Yuan once more, “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. This one is named Yue Qingyuan by his Shizun.”

“…I look like your friend. Don’t I? That’s why you’re here?”

Honestly he just wants this guy to not cry over him. Seriously, huh? Don’t grieve over him, grieve somewhere else man!

Yue Qingyuan lets out a defeated laugh,

“I suppose so.”

He sits up, noticing the book across his blankets he probably passed out reading.

“Don’t compare me. I don’t think that’s good for your head.”

Yue Qingyuan takes a sharp breath, “Sorry.”

He sighs, “I suppose I should be thanking you though. Aren’t you the one who led them to me?”

“Not to you directly. I was looking for someone else.” Yue Qingyuan seems to frown.

He shrugs at the phrasing, “Hey, you’re still the reason I’m here. You basically saved me, huh? I’d probably be rotting in that plant pod thing and maybe never developed some consciousness. I’m alive because you got to me in time.”

He smiles, because it feels like the right thing to do.

Yue Qingyuan only seems to stare at him, newly formed tears streaming down his cheeks. What the hell he thought he was doing a good thing! Dude, stop crying!

“Hey—don’t cry. Why are you crying?”

He grabs the discarded handkerchief and pushes Yue Qingyuan’s hands out of the way to wipe the man’s face like you would do for a young kid. The guy accepts his touch, visibly slumping in his seat. It takes a few minutes for him to calm down, before he stands and collects himself.

Yue Qingyuan opens the door, turning behind him and muttering, “Apologies for bothering you. I’ll leave you be.” 

“…Okay? Uh, see you later, I guess?”

Yue Qingyuan bites his lip, but leaves nonetheless.

Next snippet is from the other wip of this idea, probably a little bit before pre-canon:

Shen Qingqiu didn’t know what he was doing when he accepted a mission in this city. Perhaps it was the way Yue Qingyuan looked at him during the meeting. Or the way that brute taunted him, or the way Shang Qinghua tried to take the mission off him instead. Who knows why that coward would try his hand at investigating this mess.

But said mess had been dealt with by his senior disciples, and they had a night at the inn to recuperate before heading back to the sect in the morning.

And here he was. Only a short flight away from what used to be a sprawling manor outside the city.

Lazy bastards never even cleaned up the burnt mess, instead it seemed picked clean by animals and looters. The wood that’s left has rotted, and flora have taken the rest of the space for themselves to conquer.

The smell of ash still somehow permeates as he walks along the remains, leaving a mental note to clean all this off of his robes before daylight. What’s left of the structure of the rooms and hallways all seems so small now. Standing tall amongst its remains.

And then his boots press onto metal, a soft clang that alerts him to a hatch hidden under debris. A place possibly untouched after all these years.

He remembers a hatch like this. Briefly.

He was drugged, his vision going in and out as he was carried someplace else. He remembers it smelled musty. Like the earth after it rains. Afterwards all he could feel was a burning sensation in what he now knows is his spiritual veins.

In a fluid motion he clears the debris with qi and throws the hatch open, not caring for the way it dirties his robes as he climbs down. He finds more overgrowth, weeds and plants similar to those outside. They’re different from the local flora he realizes, and must have spread out of this man-made cave.

He feels the massive pool of spiritual energy first before Xiu Ya glows to light the cavern. There, he sees its source. A large plant pod, bigger than any flower or fruit he has ever seen. It’s filled with a mass of spiritual energy, almost as if this plant has cultivated itself on its own. Its roots have spread all across the room and dug through the ground and stone to reach the surface to gather more nutrients.

He moves closer. The qi signature feels so familiar. He closes his eyes as he places a hand on the pod, and the qi begins entering and cleansing his system without resistance.

It feels like…

Him.

Focusing on cycling his qi back into the plant he almost freezes when it enters a system of spiritual veins. When he feels soft breathing through the pod. A heart beat.

His hands tear open the pod, fighting against the sticky substance that’s been holding it together for more than a decade. It spills out onto the floor, viscous, and all of a sudden his arms have encased the figure falling out of its prison.

There’s a young child in his arms, only slightly older than his youngest disciples. His hair only barely touches his back, limbs thin, and uncovered by cloth in this time are the ribs poking through his skin.

The same scars echo on this child's back.

The branding is clear as day.

This is him.