#all the peak leaders have 'qing' in their name so HOW DID I GET THIS SO WROMG

[fairsweetlonging]

i just found out that somehow i've been spelling shen qingqiu's name wrong the entire time and i don't understand how i did that. where the hell did i get "shen qianqiu" from???? i read the books first how did i not get his name right😭

[afsosville]

Time to over-analyze things with limited canonical information just because. Here are some of the reasons why Qing Jing may have been a hindrance to Shen Jiu's emotional development and solidified his corruption arc>>

Qing Jing was like the perfect peak to let all his mental wounds fester if you think about it.

Shen Jiu acting like nobility or an educated young master (as most disciples of Qing Jing are) is purely a coping mechanism. It literally screams masking! While the exact circumstances of how he got chosen for Qing Jing is unknown, we can assume he didn't have a choice since most disciples typically just follow their new master to wherever they take them from the selection grounds (with the exception of Bai Zhan lol). He was most likely hoisted onto the Qing Jing peak lord, as no master would've wanted him because of his fucked up meridians and late age. They acquiesced to take him anyway coz of Yue Qingyuan's/the sect leader's insistance. And because it's Shen Jiu, he would naturally do whatever it took to get to the top, and if he started acting like the very sort of people he hates, then so be it.

You can imagine how disastrous imitating his abusers is going to be (he's imitating noblemen in general, but he's definitely taking the Qiu's as a primary example). Shen Jiu clearly is trying to remove and forget everything about his past, and even accepts the rumours of him being a spoiled young master to cast away suspicion. He is coping hard. Not to mention, he was named QingQIU when he became Qing Jing's succeeding disciple. Listen I don't care if it was a bad coincidence or not but that doesn't endear me to Shen Jiu's shizun in the slightest (I'm only talking abt SJ's shizun in canon, not fics, the fics are great. But it's more than likely that SJ's shizun was negligent or abusive as well. Here's why I think that). Between all of this, there's no way he's processing any of that trauma when he's constantly forced to remember all of it. No wonder he slipped into the abuser role easily since he's literally out here actually being made to copy their behavior.

Qing Jing and even the rest of Cang Qiong were always hostile to Shen Jiu, even in his discipleship. These ppl went out of their way to run interventions on Shen Jiu when he's minding his own business. Yes I'm talking abt the whole brothel thing. There were doubtlessly so many disciples who went for the very reasons Shen Jiu was assumed of going for, so why is he the only one getting shit for it? Not only was going to brothels not even a crime worthy of conviction, it was even normalized to an extent. And it would've been so easy to figure out if he really was going for anything "lecherous" by just asking the women there. The fact that, that whole ordeal was never cleared up just shows they didn't actually care about the women or what he was supposedly doing to them. They only cared because it was Shen Jiu who was involved.

Shen Jiu being on any other peak would change things for sure even if it's marginally. Its probably just wistful thinking, but I know at least half of those peaks, even the fanon ones, would be better than Qing Jing at any rate. Again, Shen Jiu would claw his way up and try to succeed any way he can, so if he were put on another peak that would be a somewhat healthy environment for him, he would do well, regardless of the peak. Him doing well on Qing Jing doesn't mean anything other than showing off his awesome(horrible and problematic) coping skills. So really, I can't help but think Qing Jing wasn't a good fit for him, especially with Shen Jiu's specific brand of trauma.

I did a pole once asking if Shen Jiu would've done better on another peak, or if they were just curious to see him anywhere else, and I'm not surprised that the most voted for peak was Yin Hui, the fanon peak for espionage and assassins. Now I'm going to go another tangent why Yin Hui would be good for him later.

[zykamiliah]

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t think SJ would have ever been happy as a Peak Lord. The only reason he took the job was because of YQY and he thought he’d be able to protect himself better as someone of high status. He never had the right kind of mind or attitude for teaching and never had the social skills to get along with his peers. He’d have been much happier as a wandering cultivator but that wasn’t where YQY was so even then he’d have never been fully satisfied.

oh my god sorry for the late reply

i also think that sj got attached to having status and power because he knows that powerful people can get away with anything, since he knows what that's like thanks to Qiu Jianluo. He definitely didn't want to be on the receiving end of all that power and influence. I think that, even if he wasn't a good teacher, if he had able to deal with his inner demons (literally and metaphorically) he wouldn't have had so much trouble living in CQM. But he hated men to the point of being unable to sleep next to his peers, and when he became a peak lord he turned paranoid, thinking people wanted to undermine him and usurp his place, was envious of anyone with more potential or power than him. and like, not all of that was yqy's "fault", since we see in the qijiu extra's opening scene what he was like as a 12 years old. i love the parallels between qijiu as kids and qijiu as peak lords because the latter is basically a reenactment of their childhood dynamics: sj fighting with others, yqy the protector who always tried to smooth things over and let sj get away with anything, etc. then his dynamic with lbh and nyy is a reenactment of his life with the qius, this time with him as the one abusing his power. it sort of feels like there's something inescapable about their fates, and it goes to show how much work sj needs to achieve a modicum of peace, though of course if he was sure of yqy's love for him that would be a great start.

sorry for rambling. back on topic. why did sj became a peak lord?

“If I said that I wasn’t doing well at Qing Jing Peak, what would you do?” Shen Qingqiu asked, slow and measured. “Would you help me enter Qiong Ding Peak, just as you recommended me for Qing Jing?”

Yue Qingyuan gave it some thought, then said solemnly, “If that’s what you wanted.”

“Clearly I don’t want that,” Shen Qingqiu said with a resolute humph. “I want to be head disciple. Would you be willing to give me your position? Let me become the sect leader?” he asked, forceful and lofty. “For better or worse, Qing Jing Peak ranks second among the Twelve Peaks. I’d rather wait to succeed this one.”

it's clear he wants power and influence, and if he'd had the chance he would have gone for the sect leader post. can you imagine that??

In the past, Qiu Jianluo had forced Shen Jiu to learn how to read and write. Shen Jiu had been unwilling to learn, had detested it to the point of madness, yet now it was only through his abilities in reading and studying—through being smarter than his peers—that he’d been able to earn the Qing Jing Peak Lord’s favor. To make it even more laughable, of the thousands of possible names in this world, the peak lord had just happened to name him “Qingqiu.”

But no matter how laughable, no matter how it made him gnash his teeth, Shen Qingqiu still wanted that name, for this name represented that from now onward, a shining new life was his.

sj is ambitious. that's why i think he' wouldn't be happy with living like a common person. he also likes luxury so i guess he'd detest the life of a wandering cultivator because it would to much like living in the streets, where he spent most of his childhood. he likes quiet and staying inside. he liked the security of being at the top.

so i don't think it would be impossible for him to have a life more suited to him, that wasn't such a consequence of his traumas and how he copes with them, but like i said, it would take a lot of work and healing.

[tossawary]

I'm sorry this feels real weird, but I love PINTWILF a lot, and the fact that you really expanded on SQH's role and everything. And I really loved that you added the other unnamed peaks and melded them in, everything that you wrote about the peaks actually really fleshed them out and their roles. So what did you name the three other peaks, and what are their roles? I think I only really understand that Xi Jiao is an animal/beast peak?

It’s not weird! I’m quite pleased with the sect logistics I’ve been writing in PINTWILF (from a humor angle, not a realism angle) and so I’m happy to talk about it. This is the order of peaks I’ve been using in PINTWILF: 

(1) Qiong Ding Peak - Peak Lord: Yue Qingyuan (Canon) 

Apparently they’re responsible for general affairs. I’ve always assumed they’re also responsible for dealing with other sects and politics, outside of peak-specific specialties where another peak lord has the authority to represent the sect. 

(2) Qing Jing Peak - Peak Lord: Shen Qingqiu (Canon) 

Peak of scholars and strategists. I assumed from there that they would also be responsible for a lot of library and archive-related duties, and that they would have some talisman and seal experts, etc., and that QJ and QD would be closely tied in many matters. 

(3) Wan Jian Peak - Peak Lord: Wei Qingwei (Canon) 

Peak of sword masters. I assumed that this meant both martial weapon specialists and sword smiths. I also assumed that this could be expanded to many kinds of metal work. Where WJ and AD meet is probably where a lot of non-weapon-related fabrication happens. 

(4) An Ding Peak - Peak Lord: Shang Qinghua (Canon, minus #?)

I’ve seen people put An Ding anywhere from 4th to 12th. I’m not sure that An Ding has a canonical number. I prefer An Ding being 4th because of 1) how closely Qiong Ding and An Ding’s work would be tied and the importance of logistics, but 2) mainly how funny I think it is if SQH is only three murders away from being the sect leader. 

SQH: “Wei Qingwei, you cannot die. The chances of Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan offing each other is too high for you to die on me. YOU’RE MY LAST LINE OF DEFENSE. DON’T MAKE ME BE SECT LEADER.” 

(5) Xian Shu Peak - Peak Lord: Qi Qingqi (Canon)

It’s unclear what specialties XS has, probably because it only existed in PIDW as the “hot lady peak” (and MXTX never actually expanded it post-transmigration). It’s never come up, but I kind of dig the idea of XS doing some textiles work, anything from weaving fine fabrics to rope-making. (Who makes stuff like Immortal Binding Cables? It could be Xian Shu.) 

(6) Xi Jiao Peak - Peak Lord: Tang Qingling (Non-Canon) 

Yes, this is an animal/beast peak, because I’ve seen it brought up in a few fics, and I thought it would be funny for SY to be entranced by the idea, only for SQH to go, “Bro, I hope you have the stomach for blood and literal shit, because that’s where they butcher monsters for parts and collect crap for fertilizer.” 

I also like the idea of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect having actual pipelines based on the specialties, which make it a very profitable and efficient sect. (Also, where are they getting their food? Do they have livestock? Do they buy it all from the surrounding towns and cities? Xi Jiao is me deciding that, yes, they have livestock.) Liu Qingge brings in a monster, it goes to Xi Jiao, then the parts go out again to Wan Jian, Qian Cao, Zui Xian, and others. to become armor, medicine, potions, etc.. Or maybe just to An Ding to sell. 

(7) Bai Zhan Peak - Peak Lord: Liu Qingge (Canon) 

They make people who fight good. 

(8) Qian Cao Peak - Peak Lord: Mu Qingfang (Canon) 

Trains healers and makes medicine. I assumed that they would grow as many of their own plants as they could and do a lot of plant breeding. Medicine could also be a great source of income for the sect (another reason why QC is one of Shang Qinghua’s favorite peaks). 

(9) Ku Xing Peak - Peak Lord: Wang Qingjie (Canon, minus # and peak lord) 

The peak name is canon, but I can’t remember if they have a canonical number and they don’t have a canonical peak lord. They’re all all-male peak with an ascetic lifestyle, living akin to monks. 

I think I decided that they specialized in talismans and the creation of other spiritual tools, including and as well as ceramics. So, they work closely with many of the other peaks, but especially An Ding in supplying other peaks. I can’t remember why I decided this. I think maybe I decided that Ku Xing might have a philosophy that “to create purifying objects, the maker must also be free from impurities”? Hence the ascetic lifestyle. 

I also thought it would be funny if Ku Xing and Qing Jing had a little bit of a rivalry going on. Shen Qingqiu makes very good talismans and Wang Qingjie is NOT angry about it (in the way of someone trying not to be angry). 

(10) Zui Xian Peak - Peak Lord: Zhang Qingyan (Canon, minus # and peak lord) 

Again, the peak name is canon, but I can’t remember if they have a canonical number and they don’t have a canonical peak lord. This is the peak that apparently specializes in alcohol. 

So, I decided that they might as well be responsible for brewing other potions and solutions. Maybe they have people who specialize in alchemy. Qian Cao and Wan Jian and Xi Jiao (and nearly every other peak) probably do their own brewing of certain things, but it probably helps to have someone else dedicated to brewing on a large scale. Qian Cao grows the plants for a common medicine, then ships them to Zui Xian for mass-production, and the An Ding takes the result and sells it to all the nearby towns and cities. 

Zui Xian probably saves and makes Cang Qiong so much money. 

(11) Long Sheng Peak - Peak Lord: ??? (Non-Canon) 

This is a newer invention and I haven’t come up with a peak lord yet, but they’re named after “The Dragon’s Backbone�� and they specialize in plants and agriculture. This is my “this is how the sect gets fed” peak, alongside Xi Jiao. 

Maybe they don’t grow all the sect’s food themselves, but they support and work with the surrounding towns and cities to make sure that the local harvests survive all of PIDW’s horrible plants and monsters. Sometimes you need cultivators who can tell you why this year’s harvest is haunted and what to do about it! Maybe Airplane invented the equivalent of magical locust swarms and didn’t think twice about it, so someone has to deal with that! Maybe they grow the materials for Xian Shu’s textiles work! 

They work closely with Xi Jiao, Qian Cao, Zui Xian, and An Ding. 

(12) ??? 

I haven’t actually named the last peak. I haven’t really seen a need to invent one yet and it’s kind of been a in-joke with myself. It’s fun to imagine people being like, “Cang Qiong has twelve peaks, right? What’s that last one called again? I can never remember what that last peak is called.” 

Notes: 

I imagine that most of the peaks’ specialties overlap in one way or another. An Ding, Zui Xian, Qian Cao, and Long Sheng each do some agricultural stuff, but Qian Cao and Long Sheng (especially LS) do most of it. And so on. 

Cang Qiong Mountain Sect also doesn’t have to do everything in-house. Shang Qinghua also has to make orders from other sects and merchants for stuff that Cang Qiong either can’t make or don’t have the space/time to make. I just like the idea that CQ is so powerful partly because they’re so independent. 

If I keep the details loose, I can get a lot of fun humor out of it. 

[skullsandwineglasses]

Arsenal Military Academy (2019) Full Review

My first impressions of episodes 1-13 can be found here. I think I was a little dubious at first, but now that I’ve finished the drama, I have to say that I really enjoyed it. This is going to be a short(ish) review because I just don’t have much to complain about. [SPOILERS AHEAD]

The Leads

Xu Kai shines as Gu Yanzhen. Much more than he did as Mo Qing in The Legends. Gu Yanzhen is just such a fun character. While yes, he is an overgrown and spoiled rich kid, he has a great character arc. He learns how to be responsible, caring, devoted, and considerate. Whether it’s love or serving his country, once he’s devoted to something, he’ll put his whole heart into it, which makes him a great friend and leader. And despite his maturation and all that he’s been through, he still stays cheeky and playful until the end. 

That’s what I really like about this drama. It’s consistent. Both in terms of plot and character. And for cdramas, consistency is something that’s often butchered. This drama is 48 episodes long, which was perfect for developing all the plot points in the story. At first I was worried about the length. But the plot is so well-paced. There was no filler, and if there was, then I didn’t even noticed because I enjoyed all of the scenes and interactions between the characters. 

Bai Lu was great at switching between cross-dressing as her brother, and being her “true” self. She carried off being both masculine and feminine, and I enjoyed seeing these two sides of her character. What I also appreciated about this drama is how even when she is revealed to be a girl, nothing really changes in terms of how she acts or how she’s treated by others. Her classmates still call her by her brother’s name. She wears the same clothes, talks the same, walks the same. Of course, by that point, most people have already found out, but for the characters who haven’t found out yet, they don’t dwell on this revelation. They don’t say sexist things about her appearance or mannerisms. They treat her the same as they always have. At first, I was worried that the drama would have a dramatic plot shift after her identity is officially revealed, but there wasn’t a shift. Her reveal was actually not that big of a plot point. (Yes, she was put in prison and accused of killing the chief, but this was resolved in like 2-3 episodes). It blended in seamless with the rest of the plot, and there were bigger issues in the story to address. 

In my First Impressions review, I complained that Xie Xiang was a bit of a flat character. I still think she’s a little underwhelming in comparison to some of the other characters in the drama, but she was watchable and relatable, and she definitely grew on me more as the drama went on. I also applaud her for recognizing her feelings for Gu Yanzhen (I was worried that the drama would make her be conflicted between them), but she did frustrate me a little with how she couldn’t be upfront with Shen Junshan and just strung him along. 

Again, I liked seeing the different sides of her character. Xie Xiang was never a tomboy growing up. She likes theatre and the arts. She likes acting, dancing, and singing. She likes dressing up and accessorizing (when appropriate). Her best friend, Tan Xiao Jun, acts as a foil and shows us what Xie Xiang is really like (or used to be before joining the academy). But her brother was a huge influence and inspiration for her. She learned how to fight from him. She learned what is means to be righteous and fight for justice from him. But she doesn’t want to become him; she just wants to fulfill his dreams. In the academy, she isn’t the best student, nor does she want to be. She doesn’t want to compete with the others, but she just wants to best the best cadet that she can be. It’s all about challenging herself and pushing her own limits, not comparing herself to everyone else in the class.  

Supporting Characters

All of the secondary characters are great. Side characters and villains all served a unique purpose. Villains, such as Jin Xin Rong and the bully in the academy, were sympathetic characters. They all had their own backstories and development arcs, but they didn’t detract from the focus on the leads. In fact, the drama never strayed from the leads, unlike some cdramas were sometimes the focus would move away from the protagonists as the drama dragged on. Importantly, all the subplots were interwoven, and each mission that they completed progressed the plot and developed character relationships. I had a lot of praise for Qu Manting in my First Impressions review, so I won’t go into it again here, but she was a great second female lead (even though I did wish that she had less scenes with Gu Yanzhen). I was also surprised that she’s my age (and also Xu Kai’s age). She’s such a mature and steady actor. 

Edit: Just found out that Toby Lee who played Shen Junshan was the guy in Soulmate?? Didn’t recognize him at all. 

Plot

I loved the humour in this drama. It was quick, witty, and smart. But the drama did take a serious turn in the last arc where there were deaths of 3 prominent supporting characters, which was really surprising. I thought the drama would be a light-hearted comedy all the way through. So when I saw that it was possible for a prominent supporting character to die, I realized that there could be some real and serious consequences for characters in the drama. 

Speaking of deaths, I was also surprised by the amount of violence and liberal killing in the drama. The cadets at the academy never hesitated to kill, and murdering people never affected them. The writers justified the deaths by dismissing the victims as being traitors to the country, whether they were just a driver or security guard for the Japanese or a Japanese nurse or doctor. If they were affiliated with the Japanese and got in the way of a mission, then the leads would kill them. At times it felt like a video game because the cadets would use so much gunpowder to just plow through anyone who was an inconvenience to the mission. The drama also really advocates revenge, which was also really shocking. Revenge can be engaging to watch when it’s fictional, but I don’t morally agree with revenge, so I was surprised that a drama with so much killing and a revenge fetish was allowed to get past censorship. 

Overall, the plot was really good. The drama rarely ever dragged, except for maybe episodes 22-26 where it felt like Gu Yanzhen didn’t really have anything to do with the main plot, but the drama recovers quickly after that. Episodes 16 and 31 are probably my favourite in terms of interactions between the ML and FL. 17-22 are when they’re separated and bond with the supporting leads instead. That was clearly a purposeful move by the writers. They gave us peak sweetness between the leads and then separated them immediately afterwards. Those episodes made me worry that they would be angst, but there wasn’t. Those episodes showed that even when the leads were separated and went through hardships with someone else, they still thought about each other. Again, another example of how every mission progresses the plot and develops character. 

In terms of the romantic plot, I would say that about three quarters of the drama is about characters liking people who don’t like them back, and what you get is a convoluted love rectangle that expands to a pentagon. What I like about Gu Yanzhen is that while he can be childish and obnoxious, he gives Xie Xiang a lot of space. There were some scenes when either Huang Song or Shen Junshan was trying to pursue her and I was like, why isn’t Gu Yanzhen here to intervene? But then I realize that it’s actually good that he isn’t constantly stalking her. Gu Yanzhen may seem possessive at the academy, but he doesn’t prevent her from doing things either on or off campus. On the other hand, when Shen Junshan figures out Xie Xiang’s true identity, he acts entitled to her to the point where it feels manipulative. He would tell Xie Liang Chen that he’s meeting Xie Xiang for lunch, knowing that this would prompt Xie Xiang to dress up and rush off campus to meet him. He changed her room without asking her first, saying it was for her own good. I might have to rewatch the earlier episodes, but I don’t think Gu Yanzhen ever used her secret to underhandedly leverage power against her like that. I don’t think he ever tried to “test” her. It was only after she found out that he knew when he started to teasingly blackmail her with her secret in order to get her to wash his clothes or be nice to him, but this was done upfront to her face, so she knows what she’s dealing with. And also despite being constantly annoyed by him, Xie Xiang feels very comfortable with him. She trusts him. She knows that no matter what, he would never share her secret, so she was able to be herself with him from the beginning. In contrast, there was always a distance and formality between Xie Xiang and Shen Junshan, even though they went through a lot together.

The bigger question is why Gu Yanzhen fell for Xie Xiang instead of Qu Manting. I think it has to do with how Gu Yanzhen likes who he is whenever he’s with Xie Xiang. Manting is too much like his playboy self, so it always feels like he’s putting on an act or playing a game when he’s with her. They clash too much and both have huge egos, even though Manting has done so much for him and has seen him at his most vulnerable. But Xie Xiang is someone whom he wants to unconditionally protect and support. He teases and flirts with her, knowing that he’ll get a scolding and a beating. He wants to expend energy with Xie Xiang, but is fatigued with Manting. Xie Xiang is simple, down-to-earth, and has a purpose. She’s everything he isn’t. She anchors him, while he gets her to open and loosen up in what is otherwise a threatening and uptight environment. A classic example of how opposites attract. 

The Ending

The main character of this drama is the academy. Go figure since that’s the drama’s name. So it made sense that the final shot would be of the academy. Gu Yanzhen and Xie Xiang are shown walking off into the sunset just before that. And while I was really curious to see what their life would be like beyond the academy (I mean, what skills do they even have besides military prowess? What are they even going to do in terms of careers?), it made sense that the last shot we see of them is them leaving the academy. Their future is left to the imagination, almost like a fairy tale. That’s because their story is only one of many that comes out the academy. Their future is uncertain, but the future of the academy is certain. The academy is like a beacon, and it will continue to be here even long after the leads are gone. 

The deaths of Huang Song and Instructor Guo were just tragic. Huang Song never got to find out Xie Xiang’s true identity despite being her closest friend, and he had such a bright future and so many goals. Instructor Guo, who spent the last 2 decades in depression, never got to have his happily ever after. Li Wen Zhong finally redeemed himself, and yet the writers had him sacrifice himself. I thought their deaths were needless, but I did see how their deaths had narrative purpose. It still really, really sucks though.

I think I’ll give this drama an 8.5/10 if not a 9/10. It’s been a while since I last watched a drama with consistent pacing. Wish I could watch this drama for the first time again. 

Going to end the review with some pictures. 

The worldbuilding was really immersive thanks to the costumes, colour grading, OST, and set designs. 

Look at the power stances of this ensemble cast. They’re unstoppable. 

I can’t get over these two. Such a different dynamic from The Legends, but still so much chemistry. 

And deleted scenes though!! I don’t remember this sit-up scene in the drama. 

[vodkassassin]

🥒✈ doing fuck marry kill using whoever. Obviously they will be overheard, by mqf, mbj, or both. Also can have sqh state his sexuality which is nothing. Ace rep baby.

Yesss danci I can always count on you! Thanks for slipping my hc ace!SQH in there. Ily @dancibayo

—

“I’m bored,” Shang Qinghua grandly announces.

“Yes, so you’ve said, fifteen times already,” Shen Qingqiu states dryly, but his friend steamrolls right over him.

“I am so bored, so,” Shang Qinghua says, “Shen-ge. Fuck, marry, kill.”

Shen Qingqiu startles, nearly dropping his fan. He whips around to stare at the other with wide eyes. Shang Qinghua props himself up onto his elbow and the grin that’s on his face is mischievous and evil.

“Wh—Airplane?” He nearly squawks, and then returns the grin. “No, stop—!”

Shang Qinghua’s grin nearly splits his face. “Fuck, marry, kill! Tianlang-jun—”

“No!” Shen Qingqiu laughs, reaching for the nearby cushion to chuck it at his cackling friend.

Shang Qinghua ducks the projectile and continues. “Tianlang-jun, Zhuzhi Lang—”

“Airplane!”

“And Sha Hualing!”

“Her?” Shen Qingqiu shrieks, diving for another pillow. His fan tumbles to the floor. “Out of everyone you could have picked for the choices, it had to be her?!”

Shang Qinghua, nimble bastard that he is, managed to avoid this cushion too. “First round will be easy! I definitely didn't have a brain blank and totally forgot anyone else existed. Plus! Shen-ge, I have to cater to the player! Bi-represent!”

“If it’s catering to the player, then this isn’t the game to play when it comes to you,” the Qing Jing peak lord grumbles.

He grabs his tea up from the table he sits at and down the entire cup in one go as if it’s a shot.

“You gotta choose!” Shang Qinghua needles, and Shen Qingqiu casts him a glare.

“Goddammit, fine,” he groans. “Um…. Fuck Tianlang-jun—”

Shang Qinghua bursts into laughter.

Shen Qingqiu scowls, but it directly contrasts the grin that is unwillingly stretching across his face. “What? At least I know he’s got experience!”

“Oh my god,” Shang Qinghua gasps, and then waves a hand. “Okay, go on, go on.”

He narrows his eyes at him, and then slowly continues. “Marry Zhuzhi-lang, and kill Sha Hualing.”

“Do you really hate her that much?” Shang Qinghua asks curiously.

“No,” Shen Qingqiu shrugs. “I mean, she’s practically a teenager, and I hate teenagers on principal, but no. She was just the only one left.”

“Fair enough,” Shang Qinghua bobs his head in acquiescence. “Why marry Zhuzhi-lang, though?”

“Well, I can’t fuck him—”

“I mean, you could, you monsterfucker—“

“You’re so goddamn rude, you know that?” Shen Qingqiu rolls his eyes. “He’s just way too…. too baby. I can’t fuck him, so marry it is.”

“Oh, yeah,” Shang Qinghua finally agrees, staring up at the ceiling in thought. “He is just baby, isn’t he? Okay, good choices, I agree.”

“Your turn,” Shen Qingqiu says dangerously. Immediately, Shang Qinghua raises his hands into the air in surrender.

“I can’t play this game!” He whines. “I can’t fuck anybody! That drastically tilts the answer results!”

“Just change fuck to something else!” Shen Qingqiu demands. “You don’t get to just be the one who asks the question every time, that’s boring as fuck. Listen — kiss, marry, kill?”

“Kissing is like, the same as marrying though,” Shang Qinghua squints at the ceiling. He’s lying on his back now, feet dangling off the side of the bed. He gives them tiny, little kicks as he thinks. “Maybe, like, cuddle?”

“Isn’t that the same as kissing?” Shen Qingqiu scoffs. “Just use kiss, moron.”

“Fine, okay, fine. So! Kiss, marry, kill… who?”

“Kiss, marry, kill… Liu Qingge, Mu Qingfang —”

“Oh my god, bro, please—”

“Listen, this is my revenge — and Mobei Jun.”

Shang Qinghua turns his head away from the so very fascinating ceiling just to glare at him. Shen Qingqiu feels so special, very loved. “You totally suck.”

Shen Qingqiu stoops down to grab his fan off the floor and flips it open just to smirk over the top of it at his friend. “You gotta choose.” He quotes.

“I fucking hate you.”

“I mean, you could go back to being bored, it’s all the same to me.”

Shang Qinghua scoffs, lifting his legs up and pressing the heels of his feet into the bed. “God, okay! Umm… kiss… uhh…”

Shen Qingqiu presses a hand against his mouth to smother his laughter. “I’ll wait.”

“Why the hell did you make this so hard for me?” His friend grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “You totally hate me don’t you? Um, kiss Mobei Jun—”

“Called it.”

“Shut up, monsterfucker. Kiss Mobei Jun, marry Mu Qingfang, and— oh fuck,” Shang Qinghua sits up and turns toward him, pout out at full force. “There’s only kill left! Shen-ge! I can’t kill Qingge!”

“You gotta,” Shen Qingqiu shakes his head sympathetically. “That’s the game.”

“This isn’t fair! I gave you an easy out on your first go with Sha Hualing, you have to return the favor!”

“You already started choosing!” Shen Qingqiu argues. “Anyone else I give you now is just me choosing a random person for you to kill!”

“I totally forgot kill was a choice after you gave me the names! Shen-geeeee!”

“Goddammit, fine! You can kill Yue Qingyuan, for me, okay?”

Shang Qinghua pauses his wailing to shoot him an amused look, pout vanishing into nothing. What a brat. “You really have it out for that guy, don’t you? Um, alright, sure, I’ll kill the sect leader for you, but only because we’re bros.”

“Don’t turn this back on me! You’re the one who begged me to give you someone else to kill! Anyway, it’s your turn.”

“Haha! Fuck, marry, kill — Rong Qingsheng, Ju Qingsong, and Qi Qingqi.”

“Easy,” Shen Qingqiu scoffs. “Fuck Rong Qingsheng, marry Qi Qingqi, and kill Ju Qingsong. At least try and make this hard for me, Shang-ge, c’mon.”

“Wow,” Shang Qinghua sits up again to look at him, tugging one of the thrown cushions into his lap to hold. “No hesitation at all! You decided that so fast… what’s the thought process?”

“Rong Qingsheng is pretty, and not a douche at all, so I’d rate him pretty up there on the fuckable scale just for that. Qi Qingqi is a scary lesbian Amazonian warrior, and if I wasn’t male I’d definitely go for her, but if she ever needed to marry a man as, like, a cover for her true lesbian activities while under the thumb a homophobic dystopian government or something, then I wouldn’t mind submitting my application for that.”

“She can be pretty, uh…” Shang Qinghua makes a face. “I mean—”

“Purposefully provocative because she likes watching macho men squirm when she takes them down a peg and also has bigger muscles than them?” Shen Qingqiu sighs dreamily. “Yes, it’s boss as fuck.”

“Okay, I wasn’t going to word it exactly like that, but yeah,” Shang Qinghua admits. “And Ju Qingsong?”

“He’s an annoying pest. Kill.”

“Bro!”

“What? Please, You cannot tell me that you haven’t daydreamed about wringing his neck even once?”

“I mean. He can be kinda—”

“Irritating? Aggravating? Drive-one-to-murder?”

“—But! Under all that he’s a good guy! He can be really sweet, actually! He’s only really like that because he’s got a useless gay crush on—!”

The door is kicked in. Shen Qingqiu startles, dropping his tea straight into his lap while Shang Qinghua gives a loud yelp and falls completely off the bed with a resounding thump.

They both whip around to stare in uneasy and slightly-guilty silence at the group of people standing outside the door.

“Oh my gods,” Ju Qingsong says, face pale and arm still outstretched. “It was so amusing at first, but please don’t kill me, I promise I’ll be better!”

Rong Qingsheng leans around the man and stares at them for a moment, before casting Shen Qingqiu a wink.

“I wouldn’t mind,” the mild-mannered man says, and Shen Qingqiu brings a hand up to rub over his face.

“Not that I’m not incredibly interested to hear what this was all about,” Mu Qingfang says, from behind them, and Shang Qinghua squeaks. “But, it’s time for Shen-shixiong to take his medicine.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Shang Qinghua pleads, holding his hands up to cover his beet-red face.

“I’ll do you one better,” Shen Qingqiu says calmly, pulling off the tea-drenched outer robe. “If any of you eavesdroppers have loose lips about what you heard here, to anyone, then I will kill you. Understand?”

Ju Qingsong makes an odd sound in his throat, one that sounds both terrified and furious, and the way that the man glances between him and the smirking Rong Qingsheng leads Shen Qingqiu to believe he knows exactly who Shang Qinghua was going to say his ‘crush’ was. How adorable. Too bad for him, then, that Rong Qingsheng seems to find him just as annoying as Shen Qingqiu does.

“There will be no murdering of martial family,” Mu Qingfang says mildly, stepping into the room. “Is that water boiled? I thought I’d try the tea blend, since the capsule form doesn’t agree with you, shixiong.”

“Many thanks,” Shen Qingqiu says.

“Oh, it’s never a problem. Shang-shixiong, Qingge was looking for you. I believe he has the location of one of those flying thunder beasts the two of you were discussing the other day?”

“I don’t wanna go monster hunting again,” Shang Qinghua wails. “Why can’t he just play go with me and call it a day?”

“You’ve overstayed your welcome, Shang-ge,” Shen Qingqiu tells him, smiling politely at the betrayed look his friend shoots him. “Would you mind escorting these two out?”

“See if I ever bring you the newest tea leaf export again,” the An Ding lord huffs, climbing to his feet. “Rong-shidi, Ju-shidi, lets go.”

“Qingsheng, Qingsheng, let's play that game too—!”

“I’m not doing this with you, Qingsong. Shang-shixiong, let's go. I wanted to talk to you about next month's produce quota.”

“Sure thing, Rong-shidi!”

“But, Qingsheng—!”

“Bye, Shen-ge, see you later!” Shang Qinghua chines cheerfully as he tugs the moping man after him. Rong Qingsheng walks out ahead of them. “I had a lot of fun today!”

“Sure,” Shen Qingqiu says, fan fluttering before his face.

He’d enjoyed it too, of course, but he’d never say that out loud. Besides, Airplane already knows, right? There’s no need.

[tiramisiyu]

【未定事件簿】Tears of Themis: Main Story 6-16 Translation

Translation Masterlist | Video

Chapter 6 – Tiger’s Accomplice Ghost (Parts 1, 2): 6-1 / 6-3 / 6-5 / 6-7 / 6-9 / 6-11 / 6-13 / 6-15 ♦️ ♦️  6-16 / 6-18 / 6-20 / 6-22 / 6-24 / 6-26 / 6-27 / 6-28 / 6-29

--

NXX Base

On Wednesday morning, Lu Jinghe pushed open the main door to the base’s meeting room.

Lu Jinghe: Hah, I haven’t seen wrong, right? You’re surprisingly here, Mo Yi.

Lu Jinghe lifted his hand and looked at his watch, his meaning self-evident.

Mo Yi: If I said that I have not slept all night, would you also run outside to see where the sun has risen from?

Lu Jinghe: That wouldn’t be necessary. No matter how the sun rises and sets, it all won’t affect me.

Xia Yan: Sure enough, the transmission of data on this wristband has problems.

As if he hadn’t heard Lu Jinghe’s and Mo Yi’s dialogue, only after Xia Yan had finished with the work in his hands did he greet Lu Jinghe.

Xia Yan: You came pretty early.

Xia Yan: Why are you dressed so formally? NXX doesn’t have formalwear work requirements, right.

Lu Jinghe: I’m about to go hold a board meeting at the company – just taking the time to come to the base first to check some materials.

Mo Yi: There are results on the wristband inspection?

Xia Yan: Mhmm. Based on the hardware, the wristband we got from Wang Han doesn’t have any differences from typical health wristbands.

Xia Yan: But looking at the direction of data transmission, it doesn’t only collect in the Heirson examination centre’s cloud health system.

Xia Yan: I’m still tracking the exact recipient address, and I’ve already set up a program to crack it.

Xia Yan: Although it’s hard to estimate how much more time needs to be spent for now.

Xia Yan: If the data flows outside of borders, the time spent on inspection will increase by several times.

Mo Yi: I’ve already done comparative screening through the night on the examination centre’s examination report you gave me yesterday.

Last night, Xia Yan cracked the Heirson examination centre’s encrypted database, getting an examination report that had been partially specifically encrypted.

Mo Yi: From just the chemical experiment indicators, I can preliminarily estimate that the portion of participants with abnormal mental states is very high.

Mo Yi: But there is a very large discrepancy with the severity of their symptoms and their exact illness.

Mo Yi: I did a simple comparison to the cases of abnormal mental states already listed in “X-Note” and was able to find some coinciding people.

Lu Jinghe: So for the next step, you intend to directly contact the people in the cases and investigate their relationship to Heirson?

Mo Yi: That’s right. If we consider Mu Ziyou as a single piece of evidence, we might be able to find more illness cases.

Xia Yan: Lu Jinghe, you… ss…

Xia Yan stood up from in front of the computer, and was about to walk towards Lu Jinghe when he suddenly clutched at his left waist and sucked in a breath.

Lu Jinghe: What happened to you?

Mo Yi: …

Xia Yan: I’m fine, I’m fine. I pulled a muscle from suddenly standing after sitting for a long time.

As he spoke, Xia Yan took out a subdivided medicine container, held up a cup, and ate two pills.

Mo Yi: I saw you eating this medicine last night. What does it treat?

Xia Yan: Medicine? Oh, you’re talking about this?

Xia Yan waved the medicine container.

Xia Yan: This isn’t medicine to treat illnesses. It’s used to wake me up – a Ministry of Security secret formula.

Xia Yan: Agents are also normal people; we’ll also get tired if we haven’t slept all night.

Mo Yi: …

Lu Jinghe: Could you give me two pills? I slept late yesterday, and if I fall asleep at the board meeting later, I’m afraid I’ll get on the news again.

Xia Yan: I can let you eat some, but I can’t let you take the medicine away.

Xia Yan: Who knows if you’ll take it to Pax Pharmaceuticals to analyze the formula and mass produce it? Then I’ll have leaked its secrets.

Lu Jinghe: Aiya, you saw through me. Then I won’t randomly eat those medicines.

Lu Jinghe’s words were said meaningfully, and he also specifically shot a glance at Xia Yan’s medicine container at the end.

Xia Yan: How about you talk about the investigation progress on your side of things.

Lu Jinghe: With Heirson manufacturing illegal medications, Qin Shan wouldn’t be the only person in the know in the entire company.

Lu Jinghe: The backbones of the company, his aides, would probably know.

Lu Jinghe: It’s very hard for Qin Shan to regain consciousness now. I plan to start by checking on the people around him.

Lu Jinghe: And I also have an initial direction regarding exactly how Qin Shan was “poisoned”.

Lu Jinghe took out his phone and displayed a news article on its screen.

Mo Yi: The incident of Heirson staff members jumping from a building?

Lu Jinghe: Correct. A few years ago, news on Heirson factory staff committing suicide due to unbearable work pressure were revealed, one after another, online.

Lu Jinghe: But it seems like it was all heavy thunder with little rainfall. After the news passed its peak, no one ever mentioned it again.

Lu Jinghe: Zuo Ran’s been tracking the Xu Ping case this whole time. Xu Ping was also a Heirson staff member, and he also committed suicide.

Lu Jinghe: Then could there also be something strange about Heirson’s suicide cases from before?

Lu Jinghe: I came to the base because I wanted to check if I could find a list of names on related staff members.

Xia Yan: Speaking of which, we don’t know how the investigation on Zuo Ran’s side is going.

Just as the sound of Xia Yan’s voice fell, the three people took their phones with unplanned, identical timing and opened the chat screen…

--

City Police Station

Today morning, I came with Zuo Ran to the city police station. Yan Wei was still dealing with official business, so he had us wait a bit for him in the office.

MC: I looked through the briefing that Leader Yan sent on my way here.

MC: Xunye’s boss, Zhang Zhian, collaborated with others to rob armored vehicles in non-local areas 15 years ago.

MC: It was also 15 years ago that he fled to Stellis City. After that, the name “Zhang Zhian” disappeared, and it was replaced with “Qing Zhian”.

MC: The person who created a fake identity was called Gu Wei.

Zuo Ran: This Gu Wei is the deceased husband of Chen Hanzhang, and the founder of Wiley Financial.

MC: Deceased husband?

I had never paid attention to Chen Hanzhang’s marriage status, so it was somewhat surprising when being brought up now. I was just about to ask Zuo Ran when my phone suddenly vibrated several times in succession.

MC: What’s the matter…

I turned on my phone and took a look – Xia Yan, Mo Yi, and Lu Jinghe had sent messages to me individually.

Zuo Ran: What is it, have you encountered an issue?

MC: No, it’s just that the three of them all sent messages, asking me how the investigation process was going.

Zuo Ran: …

MC: Weird, they could’ve just directly asked in the group chat, so why’d they send messages individually.

I held up my phone and directly responded to the three of them in the NXX group chat.

--

[MC]: Morning everyone.

[Xia Yan]: Morning, have you eaten breakfast?

[Mo Yi]: Good morning. Are you already working?

[Lu Jinghe]: Morning, jiejie, where are you right now?

>I ate breakfast >I’m already working >I’m at the police station

[MC]: Of course I’ve eaten breakfast – Lawyer Zuo specially made it for me.

[Xia Yan]: So it looks like you ate breakfast on the way? That’s not too good.

[Mo Yi]: Mhmm, I agree about that.

[Lu Jinghe]: If you said earlier that you would be eating on the way, I could’ve had the chef at my place make some and sent it over to you.

[Zuo Ran]: The next time you want to know about the investigation progress, then directly ask in the group chat, so communication will be more efficient.

 >I ate breakfast >I’m already working >I’m at the police station

[MC]: Mhmm! I’ve already started work. Lawyer Zuo and I came to meet an important witness.

[Mo Yi]: Witness? Looks like Xu Ping’s package isn’t that easy to get.

[Xia Yan]: Do side issues keep coming up?

[Lu Jinghe]: Can you confirm that package is in Xu Ping’s hands? Don’t get deceived.

[Zuo Ran]: The next time you want to know about the investigation progress, then directly ask in the group chat, so communication will be more efficient.

  >I ate breakfast >I’m already working >I’m at the police station

[MC]: I’m with Lawyer Zuo at the city station – there’s an important witness we need to meet.

[Lu Jinghe]: Going to the police station this early? You’re working way too hard.

[Xia Yan]: Is your work schedule really reasonable? You got back that late yesterday, and you’re running around so early today.

[Mo Yi]: If you stayed at the base to organize data, you might have been able to relax more.

[Zuo Ran]: The next time you want to know about the investigation progress, then directly ask in the group chat, so communication will be more efficient.

>Case progress

[MC]: Since you were all asking about the case progress, I’ll just tell you all together rather than responding to you all one by one.

[MC]: Xu Ping’s package really is with that person called Zhao Fei, but he refuses to directly give it to us.

[MC]: We’re investigating a case related to illegal drugs. After we figure it out, we should be able to get the package.

[Zuo Ran]: There is an account record of Heirson raw materials in the package – it’s very important evidence.

>Ask about everyone’s progress

[MC]: Has everyone’s investigations been smooth?

[Xia Yan]: Of course it’s been smooth. I’ll tell you about the battle results after you return!

[Mo Yi]: It has been very productive, but the upcoming investigation will require your assistance.

[Lu Jinghe]: I’ve noticed something new. I’ll update you on the info after you’re done working.

>Leader Yan has come >NXX is lacking in manpower

[MC]: Ah, Leader Yan is here, let’s chat later.

[MC]: Lawyer Zuo and I will head off first to meet the witness.

[Mo Yi]: I hope it goes smoothly.

[Xia Yan]: You absolutely must not work too hard – pay attention to your health.

[Lu Jinghe]: Jiejie, remember to give me a call if you need me to help anywhere.

[Zuo Ran]: We’ll head off first. Leave a message if you all have something to say.

 >Leader Yan has come >NXX is lacking in manpower

[MC]: Everyone’s work is quite saturated. I seriously think we need new people.

[Mo Yi]: It’s not just anyone who has the qualifications to join NXX. I’d rather we lack than have shoddy options.

[Xia Yan]: I think it’s fine. We can absolutely deal with the work amount we have now.

[Lu Jinghe]: As long as we schedule it reasonably, the people we have now is sufficient. Jiejie, don’t worry.

[Zuo Ran]: Leader Yan is here, so we’re going to go meet the witness. Leave a message if you all have something to say.

--

MC: Morning, Leader Yan.

Yan Wei: You two have arrived – you’ve worked hard.

Yan Wei, who had arrived at the office, had an expression full of weariness – he’d probably been dealing with cases the whole night at the police station without resting.

Zuo Ran: You just finished a surprise interrogation?

Yan Wei: We’d finished interrogating the person a long while ago, but while suspects can sleep, the police cannot.

Yan Wei: Time’s tight. I’ll tell you both about Qing Zhian’s situation first.

Yan Wei: Beyond our expectations, he was cooperative. Too bad that he doesn’t know much – he’s likely just a peripheral person in Chen Hanzhang’s gang.

Yan Wei: Plus… Zuo Ran, have you heard of the “Tiger’s Accomplice Ghost”?

[pastthevaulteddoors]

My brain fogs usually end with me babbling.

This morning @delicatelygloriousphoenix allowed me to babble to them about a thought I had.

And then... It just kept going.

I’m still tired. Here’s a cut version of that conversation.

I had a thought before bed last night 'cause I'm finishing up the extras to SVSSS.

What if someone was reborn into Mo Dao Zu Shi and had to save everyone?

What if Jiang Cheng was the person they were born into? I can't remember the scene properly from the novel, but right before WWX interrupts the summit meeting on Koi/Carp tower, drinks LWJ's booze and accuses Jin Zixun of his labor camp is when this person becomes the new Jiang Cheng. He himself interrupts WWX's rant that nearly falls into a fight and demands that he/Lotus Pier are allowed to keep the rest of the Wens because they burned the place to the ground and therefore have a right to them to rebuild the place.

The argument is quick, and JC is like "I'm taking them" and drags WWX out in surprise. But he turns to LWJ and is like "You comin'?" so of course LWJ comes when he's actually invited to do so. They run off to the camp. JC tries to hurry to get there before Wen Ning is stabbed. They do get there earlier than in the show/novel, but WN is already stabbed (but not dead).

They drag the Wens and an unconscious WN out of the camp. WWX doesn’t go nuts because WN isn’t dead yet and JC is there to lay down some tsundere harshness in his stead.

They have to stop at a village before they get there where Wen Qing can work on her brother and the Wens can rest. JC buys them all rando threadbare robes so they don't stand out as Wens anymore.

Lan Xichen shows up at some point to see if he can't... not so much help as his position won't allow him to take sides on this, but there to 'check on his brother.’ When he gets there, he’s pushed to the inn room where he sees JC focused at WN’s side. He’s giving him spiritual energy while WQ rests nearby. That's LXC’s first little spark of  "Ah, JC is nicer than he first appears."

The Wens are supposed to be 'laborers' to help rebuild Lotus Pier, but JC's really just wanting to make sure that WWX isn't forced off to Burial Mounds and becomes an icon of hatred like the show/novel. And he doesn't have to remove him from the sect entirely.

However, he tells a distracted WWX that he obviously has ideas with his new powers and gives him leave to seclude himself to practice/create/invent but in a safe environment. Jiang Yanli is happy that her brothers are not alone yet able to pursue their separate interests/areas of need.

LXC suggests Gusu taking the Wens as well as 'laborers' since Cloud Recesses was also burned down by the Wens. In reality, they have more safe space for the Wens, it's harder to ambush the 'labor camp' when it's on a mountain peak.

This is where the ALIVE yet healing Wen Ning and Wen Qing ask the Lans to take care of A-Yuan as they are not in the best situation to take care of a child at their camp. This is where LWJ and the frequently visiting WWX basically adopt him.

I mean, if the Wens aren't in danger, WWX has no reason to go back to the burial mounds so of course he’d come to check up on the Wens a lot. Which just means hanging out with A-Yuan and the bunnies often. If LWJ happens to be there with him all the time... well... who’s to say what that means?!

Meanwhile, JC is trying to handle his sect with only a bit of help from WWX here and there, although Wen Qing shows up a lot, as does LXC as a gesture of goodwill and to help the young new sect leader.

JC enjoys being a leader and the System provided him with knowledge and ability to train his new sect. He used to be a salaryman when he was alive, this is far more exciting and much more stimulating.

JC is pretty oblivious that both WQ and LXC are absently crushing on this confident and warmly grumpy JC. He just thinks they like visiting him to talk sect leader stuff or night hunt or... maybe he even thinks they’re his friends.

BUT JC knows his mission is not done, as the System keeps reminding him.

He needs to make sure Jin Guangyao doesn't marry his sister but he can't break OOC or share his knowledge of knowing that JGY and Qin Su are siblings... so he subtly courts Qin Su instead to basically cock block JGY.

Which surprises all but whatever. JC has changed since becoming sect leader, or so they say (really, JC is a different person entirely but ya know).

JC is okay with it, saying Qin Su is a decent woman and pretty enough. He'd be okay if they'd end up marrying, although he's very aware that JGY might try to murder him for taking the girl he likes but he's got his defenses up.

The courting goes on for awhile and JC keeps blocking JGY’s advances where he can but doesn’t go further with his own.

A few years later, JC hosts a birthday party of four year old Jin Ling, with little Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen among others... so it's a mini sect leader party, too. All of this without going OOC, he's still a grumpy sect leader but he's less feared (like, in the novel, JC was a friggen murderer! He tortured and killed anyone he thought was using WWX's methods or was his incarnation!). People actually seem to like him!

Late night at the party WWX, JC, LWJ, and LXC were hanging out. They suggest going on a boat together because a lot of lanterns were going to be let off in the lakes for JL’s birthday.

JC 'accidentally' spills tea on LXC's robes so he has to excuse himself to change. The others wait by the boat and JC is like "Oop, I changed my mind. I'm going to do something else" and kicks the boat off with LWJ and WWX in it and walks away. He chills in a pavilion a little bit later, watching the lanterns on the water and a few boats out there when LXC comes back. He doesn't even ask when happened and joins him, watching the boat that their brothers are in. LXC and JC haven't talked about it, but they both low key ship LWJ and WWX so they're of agreement.

This event triggers the Wangxian relationship quest. JC is pretty happy that they don’t have to wait 13-16 years before they get to enjoy each other’s company.

And that's when JC himself starts to admire LXC. Not that he hadn't before, they had become friends of sorts from both rebuilding their sects, passing advice to each other, and generally get to complain to each other as young sect leaders. JC kept distance though, knowing LXC’s sworn brothers are his confidants but now and again LXC even lets on a bit of that drama (realizing how much NMJ and JGY are at odds) when JC mentions "they just gotta fuck and get it out of their system"

But yeah, it's during that conversation that JC is like "LXC is actually really attractive and fun to talk to..." crush style.

Then a new mission starts! JC has to team up with LXC to get JGY and NMJ together. All the while JC is loosely courting Qin Su still. Wen Qing has since moved on with her affections (WQ is fast realizing that everyone is gay and instead goes to make out with Mianmian because yes lesbians!).

So LXC realizes that he likes JC but doesn't think he'd be interested because of Qin Su and Wen Qing.

Meanwhile, JC is like "The author said the only gay couple in this novel was WWX and LWJ but!!!?!?!?!??!?!? everyone is gay!?”

At WWX and LWJ's wedding, LXC and JC spy on JGY and NMJ who end up kissing behind a tree. They're tipsy but success! JC gives LXC a high five which amuses LXC because 'wtf is a high five? that's so cute, what a grumpy dork'

JC outright stops courting Qin Su then, which pisses off her sect, that is in close ties with the Jins, which turn their anger towards the Jiang sect. So JC has to fight with the Jins in a political battle, and his sister is preggers with her third kid so she can't help much.

But it's finally JGY that stands up to his father to stop bulling smaller sects. No hard feelings for stealing Qin Su then dumping her, apparently.

It's about this time when Mo Xuanyu shows up and is like "you're my daddy" Lady Jin already hates her husband's illegitimate children but now she's furious, especially after her friend tells her that Jin Guangshan raped her and Qin Su is ALSO an illegitimate child (another reason JGY decides he doesn’t hate JC for cock blocking him).

All this combined, Jin Guangshan is shamed off his throne. Jin ZiXuan takes up a lead and JGY (now renamed Jin Ziyao as is the proper generational name) decides he's happy with not being an asshole (since he's getting good dickings with his boyfriend NMJ and Lady Jin has finally stopped bullying him) and decides that he'd be content, even happy, being his brother's advisor rather than dethroning him for sect leadership.

But of course there's gotta be drama. Shi Su and Jin Zixun are not the smartest of people but they've teamed up with Xue Yang who has a bit of the Iron. Together, they start to plot against the sects to overrule them, because they're dumb idiots with a semblance of power.

That's about as far as my brain went when I fell asleep and then this morning when the brain fog focused on that instead of on work while I was waking up.

Just something about 13 years later, JC and LXC are pretty close but not lovers yet, when something-something adventure and JC and LXC become a thing in a similar manner that WWX and LWJ did in the novel. RANDOM CONFESSION TIME that other people have to point out to them!

The following is related conversation but I don’t want to put my friend’s part so... it’s disjointed. Sorry not sorry I’m tired.

Continued conversation about wangxian being together:

because JC already knew they'd be together from the show/novel, and LXC shipped them, so they teamed up to get them to confess

That's what I meant when JC forced them onto a romantic boat ride together.

They weren't parted from the Wen fight stuff so instead of fighting at Nightless City, they had time to realize their feelings and not die instead of confess. ;p

Conversation... conversation...

So for so long JC doesn't know he's into guys (LXC in particular, kinda like SQQ in SVSSS) but just like JC in the novel, he gets himself blacklisted from the matchmakers. Meanwhile, this whole time his very close friend, LXC (they're really close now since JGY and NMJ are a couple so he doesn't like to third wheel it and instead spend his time with JC) things that JC is straight and lowkey crushes on him for 13-16 years before WWX and LWJ have to spell it out to them.

but Lan have a-yuan as adopted heir

He'd (JC) probably ask Jinli if one of her kids could be heir

What if Jin Zixun tries to take the sect leader throne or something. He'd be next in line if jin Zixuan didn't die and JGY didn't step up.

[tanoraqui]

[Part 1]

[now all on AO3!]

let’s get back to Nie Huaisang’s poor, innocent POV, shall we? Imagine that you a simple young man - not simple mentally, but simple in your desires. You’re naturally a bit of a fop, and you just want to live that life. Painted fans, pretty clothes, some light gossip with friends over wine...not practicing a blade-centric cultivation technique that’s both exhausting and often, eventually, deadly to the practicer...

In pursuit of this, you engage an old acquaintance in a little light construction of a dramatic but really quite simple lie to your beloved older brother (you really do love him, and you know he loves you; he’s just even more exhausting than the cultivation he insists you join in on). You talk about it together, and figure out something pretty good

and then she betrays you! more or less! in front of everyone, so there’s no way you can walk it back! And...okay, so her lie is also pretty good, and actually does align with a secondary goal re: your older brother, ie, preventing him from blade cultivation-related early death. So you only yell at her a little bit about that, when you followed her back to the rooms she’d been assigned, and it’s not so much “yelling” as “complaining very indignantly and loudly, but not so loudly that anyone can overhear what you’d meant to tell your brother (a harmless! little! lie!)” 

(you promise yourself to think faster if that sort of twist ever happens again, get the conversation back to the thing you actually wanted, but mostly you just desperately hope that nothing like that ever happens again)

And...she actually does help him. You have to help her bully him into it - you have to agree to practice with your own godforsaken saber in order to bargain him into it - but...your brother is calming down. You know more than probably anyone gives you credit for about Nie saber technique and its relation to qi deviation, and moreover you know your brother, and you can tell. So...you can forgive her a fair amount, perhaps

but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to whine, when she’s suddenly interrupting your even-harder-earned-than-usual free time. “Wen-gungiang, you’re blocking the peak! Of course I’ll do anything you ask, but please, I need to finish before the paint starts drying!”

Wen Qing just crosses her arms. “I mean it. A real favor.”

“What’s more important than painting my new fan?” Nie Huaisang begged

“Saving a child from death by malnourishment and stress at best, and more likely casual murder or, horrifyingly, overwork.”

Nie Huaisang blinks.

“Or I can tell Sect Leader Nie the real reason you brought me and Wen Ning to the Unclean Realm, how you wanted me to help you lie - ”

“No!” NHS scrambles to his feet. “Wen-guniang, you can’t! He’ll yell at me so much - !”

...and that’s how Nie Huaisang ends up back at the little town of Wen remnants in Qishan, fluttering his fan and rolling his eyes at the same Jin captain again. “I don’t knooow! I think I really am being punished this time.” He smiles just over the edge of his fan, with a lie he’s been planning the whole way over here. “Or maybe da-ge’s just going sweet on Maiden Wen. She yells at him back sometimes, about taking his medicine. I’m starting to think it’s the warrior’s way of reciting poetry in courtship!”

“Ah, Young Master Nie!” The captain/disciple - who I’m going to say is named Jin Qixian, a distant cousin of the main family - laughs. “Your life is so hard. But I’m sure your brother will get over any infatuation soon - that Wen girl you took wasn’t even that pretty.” She winks. “We have nicer-looking ones, though, if he ever wants”

“I think it’s more her strength of cultivational skill,” Nie Huaisang demurs, who’s been watching and sometimes working with Wen Qing for three weeks now, and can’t quite bear the direction this is suddenly going. Nor the memory of a guard shoving a man to the street just because he was in the way, which he saw as he landed. 

when they scrounge up the boy and bring him in - Wen Qing gave him a very detailed description of who to look for - it’s clinging to the leg of an elderly woman like a limpet. the child is scared in the way of children who don’t know what’s going on; the old woman is scared in the way of adults who do

“she’s his grandmother,” the guard who brought them shrugs sheepishly under the captain’s questioning stare. “came quieter this way”

huh. well, Nie Huaisang isn’t being blackmailed into picking up an entire extra grandmother. fortunately, he came prepared

he kneels down so he’s of height with the kid. “Hey, are you A-Yuan?”

the kid peers at him from behind his grandmother’s skirts and nods shyly

“Son of [father’s name] and [mother’s name]?”

the kid looks uncertain. The granny puts a guarded/comforting hand on his head and says, “Yes, Young Master...”

“Great!” Nie Huaisang tucks his nice fan into his belt and pulls out an also-nice but definitely more garishly colored and sturdily made one, and holds it out. “Because I have this present for an A-Yuan matching that description!” A-Yuan peeks out a little further, and he pulls it back. “But you’ll have to come here and get it.”

Nie Huaisang is the stranger in the park that your parents warn you about

A-Yuan has been inadequately warned about strangers in parks. He comes forth, and gets the fan. He even mumbles a shy “thank you” before stepping back to the safety of his grandmother

“I also have candy!” says Nie Huaisang, before the boy can take more than a step. The boy perks up. NHS waves a bag of sweets. “But for that, you’re going to have to come all the way back to Qinghe with me, so your Auntie Qing stops complaining about how you’re probably malnourished!”

Nie Huaisang is definitely the stranger in the park that your parents warned you about

The granny had been about to kowtow and start begging for him to leave her child alone, but she stops halfway to the floor, startled. “Wen Qing? Wen Qing sent - that is.” She bows. “The honored young master comes on behalf of Wen Qing?”

Under blackmailed duress! he thinks cheerfully (honestly this has all been going quite well.) With wide, harmless eyes, pinchable cheeks (for the granny) and a huff of annoyance (for the Jin guards) he whines, “Yes! And when all the mountain flowers are in bloom - I’m missing the nicest time of the year!”

All the play-acting really is fun - the best prank he’s ever pulled, in a way. He’s warming up to this whole scheme. And the boy seems quiet and biddable, or at least bribeable - Nie Huaisang can work with this!

A-Yuan bites his lip and points to the fan on NHS’s belt, a very one that he painted himself, on expensive Gusu silk. “If I come, can I have that, too?”

okay, he can maybe work with this

the disciples he brought with him are on the younger side, and thus more willing to hie halfway across the country on an errand that Nie Huaisang implied has his brother’s permission, but didn’t state outright. (Asking for forgiveness rather than permission is almost always the best way to handle Nie Mingjue.) This, it turns out, means that they have less strong golden cores, which means Nie Huaisang actually has to do nearly his fair share of carrying the toddler all the way back to the Unclean Realm. Under! blackmailed! duress!

Nie Mingjue greets them thunderously when they arrive, and Nie Huaisang is exhausted, even though they stayed at several inns along the way. Fortunately, it’s easier to summon tears that way, and he already has this story prepared: he’d actually promised Wen Qing to save her baby cousin (A-Yuan) as well, if she proved that she could really help his da-ge. And she did! So here he is, upholding the honor of Nie Clan! He just hadn’t wanted to say anything in case it jinxed Nie Mingjue’s health, or force him (NHS) to admit that he’d been such a poor negotiator for the Wens’ services, or - 

Once A-Yuan is settled in with the other orphans who both are and aren’t-quite-yet part of Nie sect*, Nie Huaisang also pokes his head into Wen Qing’s workroom, ie the infirmary apothecary, “You didn’t just trick me into rescuing Wen Xu’s secret bastard son or something, now long-lost heir to the terror and grandeur of the Nightless City, did you?”

* There was a war. There’s about half a dozen of them, too young to train but with no where else to go

“What? Nie Huaisang!” She leaps to her feet. “You’re back! You found A-Yuan?”

“Da-ge yelled at me for like 20 minutes in the front hall, how did you not notice? Yes - and I was thinking, and I wanted to make sure - ”

“You read too many romance novels.” She shoves past him. “Where is he?”

[smash cut to 2 weeks later] Nie Huaisang cannot work with this. He was supposed to acquire a toddler, not care for it!

okay, A-Yuan is pretty cute, and has a good appreciation for good art. So long as it’s brightly colored and/or involves butterflies. 

and it’s not Wen Qing’s fault that his brother put his foot down and declared that the child could stay but only with the other orphans; she and her brother were here to be healers, not mothers. earning their keep. 

(he’s still not really over the whole “Wen” thing, for all that Wen Qing has even managed to bully him into meditating before bed each night)

(Nie Huaisang is unironically starting to wonder if his brother is sweet on this terrifying harridan he foolishly brought into their home)

and it’s not A-Yuan’s fault that all but one of the women charged with caring for the orphans also aren’t over the whole “Wen” thing, and express this by caring for him as briskly and apathetically as possible

he finds this out on the third night that they’ve been home, when the last one, a young woman named Wu Yi, knocks on his bedroom door at some ungodly hour, with a wailing Wen Yuan on her hip. 

“Shh, shh,” she’s begging. “A-Yuan, you’ll wake the whole wing - ”

“I don’t want you!” he’s crying. “I want Granny! Where’s Granny!”

“Hey, hey!” NHS snaps in his face. “Hey, stop crying! One piece of candy for one hour of not crying for your granny, that’s the deal!”

(that is the deal, arrived at over the course of several day’s travel from Qishan to Qinghe. it helped that A-Yuan wouldn’t know how long an hour had been until he was told)

A-Yuan leans toward him immediately, still weeping. (Nie Huaisang has known him like...3 more days than Wu Yi has, but okay.) “Sang-ge! Don’t want candy, want Granny! Take me back to Granny!”

“Oh- hell - ” Nie Huaisang takes him and he’s cute but he’s gross, he’s crying and snotty and its all getting all over Nie Huaisang’s very nice jade silk sleeping robe; if this is what consequences are like, Nie Huaisang hates them. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you bothering your Aunt Qing, or Uncle Ning?” 

He addresses A-Yuan but looks at Wu Yi. Her gaze skitters away. “Sect Leader Nie was very clear...”

anyway, he’s a good kid, and he’s actually pretty good at carefully distributing seed in the aviary, or sitting quietly and entertaining himself with small toys while Nie Huaisang paints. To an extent. Wei Wuxian visited again, presumably for the express purpose of mocking Nie Huaisang for being forced to acquire a toddler, and spent the entire time setting a bad example. A-Yuan spent the next several days running around and shouting excitedly, and somehow found a wooden saber to wave around while he did so

A few days after that, the Sworn Brothers visited, and Nie Huaisang chose to hide out with the young orphans himself, assisting with snack time and play and even bedtime whenever possible. The alternative was either being dragged into hosting or breaking and suggesting that the three of them just fuck out their weird, multi-layered tension. or both in sequence.

if there wasn’t a chance of getting a proper heir between himself and the Sect Leadership, Nie Huaisang was aggressively uninterested in his brother’s sex life. But also, there’s only so much yearning/angry/whatever-the-fuck-is-happening-here tension a younger brother can take

Wen Qing found him on the second day, and waited until Nap/Enforced Quiet Time had taken hold before asking, quietly, “Does your brother trust Jin Guangyao?”

She was serious, so he thought about it. “No. But Lan Xichen does, and da-ge trusts Lan Xichen.”

Wen Qing made a noise that wasn’t quite neutral enough to hide her dissatisfaction.

“Why?” Nie Huaisang asked as though he was asking for gossip.

Wen Qing had never been one to gossip, nor to humor would-be-fools. “Wen Ruohan trusted him.”

(Meaning: what sort of man do you think Wen Ruohan trusted. Meaning: and look what happened to Wen Ruohan)

She left and fifteen minutes later, Wen Ning arrived, with a very specific look on his face. It was the look of one whose beloved-but-exhausting older sibling has ordered them somewhere Safe, who is obeying because they understand the danger but want to stay and help, are pretty sure they could help, but aren’t confident enough in how to actually disagree

Nie Huaisang recognizes it because he spent several months learning how to hide it in the Sunshot Campaign, in favor of a smile vapid enough to be contagious 

But A-Yuan didn’t stop having nightmares, and he learned how to slip out of his assigned bunk and come crawl into Nie Huaisang’s bed instead, to curl up like a sad little lump of fear of abandonment, which just meant that the tears and snot got on Nie Huaisang’s sheets, too. And he was starting to feel bad about the whole “fear of abandonment” thing, not to mention the lingering memory of the man shoved onto the street, the fear in that grandmother’s eyes, the smirk in Jin Qixian’s...

So a few days later he was back at the oversight office in Qishan, with the same biddable young disciples as last time, rolling his eyes pitifully over the edge of his fan. “I don’t knoooww, Jin-guniang! Except it’s definitely punishment for me this time...but you know my brother. He’s so scary! He says ‘Jump’ and you have to say ‘how high?’ - and then he says, ‘Onto your sword, Huaisang! You don’t practice enough!’”

Jin Qixian laughed at him as much as at deep-voiced impression, but that was okay. “And yet, Nie-gongzi, I see that you brought horses to ride, as well as swords...”

“I’m not going to carry an entire old lady back to the Unclean Realm!” he cried plaintively. “Do you know how hard it was just to take a three-year-old? I was tired for days.”

She laughs again, as Granny is brought in. “Well, your timing is good - this one was on the list for the work camp at Qionqgi Pass, to be transferred tomorrow.”

Nie Huaisang is 80% genuinely confused and surprised. The remaining 20% is cynicism, and the fact that every time he’s been here, the people have looked a little filthier, a little more trembling with fear and cold, and the guards’ noses a little higher in the air. Granny and the guard that brings her are no exception

He lets the 80% show

“What? Why send an old woman to a work camp - what good would her labor be?”

Jin Qixian shrugs. “Their names are all on a list, and we send the next batch when they call for more workers. If they can’t handle a little punishment, then maybe they shouldn’t have been Wens.”

Even the 20% is dismayed. But hiding that sort of thing is what fans are for. Anyway, it’s not Nie Huaisang’s problem - Qiongqi Pass isn’t even on the way home

“Come on then, Granny,” he says, and takes her by the arm. “Do you know how to ride a horse? I don’t know what I’ll do if you don’t know how to ride a horse!”

they’re about halfway back to the Unclean Realm, on a random stretch of road, when a single cultivator flies overhead from the direction of the Wen village, and lands before them. Looking somewhere between annoyed, harassed, and genuinely baffled, Jin Guangyao asks, “Nie Huaisang, what are you doing?”

To be continued... (this is almost certainly Part 2 of 3, but I’ve learned better than to say such things with confidence)

[drwcn]

I have a question about Discordance. How did the whole thing came to be? Like how did the Lan elders think that hmmm wei wuxian, mischievous sneaky boi, should be the one to marry the sect leader?

LOL 

No, well it started with Madam Yu actually. In the synopsis, I wrote that Madam Yu wanted to get rid of WWX because Jiang Fengmian’s favouritisim was really starting to affect the preparation for Jiang Cheng as sect heir. A lot of time he delegates tasks to WWX that he really should give to his son and heir. Madam Yu has had enough of that bullshit. The easiest way to get rid of WWX is to marry him out. That way, he is both simultaneously gone and Lotus Pier forms a advantageous alliance. 

If he is to marry out, it’ll look better if he marries a man rather than a woman, since WWX is a man himself. Men marrying out (ru-zhui 入赘) is already not something to be proud of (historically if a man married into the woman’s family it’s because her station and wealth is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than his, and in a misogynist society that’s not a proud thing for a man to do, but to advance in life, some men did do it.)

So for Lotus Pier’s pride, Madam Yu wanted a groom from a good family - so someone from a major sect - and ideally someone who is a good cultivator. Wei Wuxian’s position as a very favoured Head Disciple in Yunmeng, his rank (4th) amongst his peers, and the fact he was the son of Cangse Sanren meant Lotus Pier could set a certain high bar for groom candidates. 

In this au, WWX has already gone to Cloud Recesses. He’s a bit older, about 18-19 years old, and like all teenagers over the years he’s grown taller, stronger, and to an extent a little more mature. 

In this au, a lot of what happened when the guest disciples went to Cloud Recesses never happened, because Lan Wangji wasn’t around. He prolonged his self-imposed isolation and was cultivating in the snowy peaks of Mt. Gusu. (Of course the war never happened, because Wen Qing’s father is Sect Master Wen, and the Chief Cultivator is Jin Guangshan). 

But all other things being the same, WWX would’ve still encountered Jin Zixuan at the inn, they would’ve still left behind their invites, and therefore been stopped at the gates. This time, there’s no Lan Wangji to come and see them and tell Lan Xichen to let them in. So actually by the time Wei Wuxian came back with the invites, his siblings were still waiting for him. So there was no sword fighting on the roof, he didn’t make a fool of himself on the very night. And without his encounter with Lan Wangji that very first night, WWX wouldn’t have had anyone to annoy in class, and he wouldn’t try to spend all his time and effort getting on LWJ’s nerves. At best he’ll sneak in snacks with NHS. 

And without Lan Wangji, the One Brain Cell Trio wouldn’t have gotten caught drinking, and they wouldn’t have been punished...and all of those tomfoolery would’ve been better hidden (but not completely unwritten bc WWX is still WWX). 

And without a war, WWX would’ve stayed the full time at Cloud Recesses, and he would’ve been able to demonstrate his skills in cultivation and his cleverness (as much as LQR disapproves of some of his more unorthodox idea, he can’t deny that WWX is intelligent). 

In part 3 or chapter 3, I wrote from JYL’s point of view that Lan Xichen didn’t just marry Wei Wuxian for his pretty face. This more matured version of Wei Wuxian with full possession of his golden core is a very strong cultivator from a very good clan. He is favoured by JFM and is treated more like a young master who would’ve been taught the etiquettes and mannerisms of sect heir without being an actual heir. 

Lan Xichen himself is known in this au to prefer men, though I think if pressed upon, he would’ve accepted a female spouse out of duty. Now in his generation, if you look around, there aren’t that many heiresses of major clans for him to marry. Jiang Yanli is already married to Jin Zixuan. There’s Wen Qing, of course, but the Wens are deeply, deeply private people and Nevernight is very far away. Sect Master Wen loves his daughter very much and he had the good sense to keep her away from the political bullshit, so very few people have seen or met Wen Qing. (She will be around in the later chapters don’t worry). 

So if not a major clan, Lan Xichen would’ve had to marry from a minor clan. Well, why couldn’t he marry from within his own clan? Well he could, if his bride is an outer disciple, as in not Lan by blood, but what political advantage would that contribute to Gusu Lan? (Cultural note: you can’t marry cousins from within your family of your own last name. Historically even people who married their cousins, married cousins of different last names, aka from different clans.)

So potential wife candidates were scarce. Under these circumstances, the Elders agreed that a husband for Lan Xichen would be just as good as long as he is a strong cultivator and come from a very good clan so that an alliance may be made. Geographically speaking, Yunmeng and Gusu are adjacent, so it’s more convenient to have an ally right beside you. Wei Wuxian met all of their hard criteria, but his personality was a point of contention. So before the marriage was set, Lan Xichen and Wei Wuxian were allowed to meet and converse and try to get to know each other, because the Elders trusted Lan Xichen to be a good judge of character. LXC and WWX got on just fine and this was a marriage of convenience anyway. 

On the topic of heirs, the agreement was that WWX allow LXC to take on one additional concubine (female in this case) to provide him with children. Not any time soon, but eventually. WWX agreed. What’s not to agree? If LXC refused to take on additional spouses out of obligation to his husband, then Gusu still has LWJ and other Lan cousins, so they weren’t too concerned. 

Too bad for them, how was anyone supposed to know that Lan Wangji would fall in love with his own brother in law? 

[spaceskam]

in dreams of days and nights and everything in between

ao3

Lan Sizhui understood, on some level, that his memories couldn’t be entirely accurate.

No one had perfect memories, after all, and the fact that he’d lost his for so many years only made them less credible. Still, they felt real. They felt nice. That just couldn’t possibly be true. A childhood among corpses during a war shouldn’t have been nice.

He’d heard enough stories from enough mouths to know they couldn’t have been so happy up there. Long days, long nights, always just working to survive. He’d been told Wei Wuxian had been raising an army, but he knew that wasn’t true. Even so, the truth was that there were a plethora of elderly men and women who were weak and a still uncontrollable Wen Ning. What was joyful about that? What was joyful about being unsure of if there would be enough to eat, about the uncertainty of their survival, about a world full of people seeing them as monsters, about being raised by the most hated man alive? 

But, when he sifted through his own mind, he couldn’t find any of that.

He remembered crying, sure, but it was never like that. When he was hungry, they gave him food. When he was cold, they kept him warm. When he was scared, they held him. Names and faces were blurry now, but he was never unloved. He never felt lonely.

Sometimes, when he slept, he could remember things a little bit better. They got a little more vivid.

“Ah, A-Yuan,” Xian-gege had said, lifting him over a tree root that was protruding from the ground seconds before he could trip, “Watch where you’re going.”

A-Yuan just laughed, jumping again and again until Xian-gege laughed with him and grabbed his hand a little tighter to lift him off his feet again. He lifted him higher, swinging him a bit, and then swung him all the way up until he landed on his hip. A-Yuan smiled wide, his fingers going to his mouth as he settled against him.

They walked up towards home easily, navigating all the old trees that looked the same if you didn’t look at them enough. A-Yuan had, though, and he was sure he could walk all the way home all by himself. He never had to, though.

“You have to watch where you’re going,” Xian-gege said again. A-Yuan looked up at him. “Always, no matter what. You can’t stay safe if you don’t pay attention.”

“Why?” 

“Because it’s dangerous,” he said. 

“Why?”

Xian-gege scrunched up his nose and looked at him. A-Yuan smiled until he smiled right back. He took a deep breath and looked up, so A-Yuan looked up too.

“Ah, Wen Yuan, you’re a smart boy. You understand I’m here now to watch for you, but you have to watch so, when I’m no longer here, you can watch for yourself,” he said. A-Yuan reached out to touch his face.

“Where is Xian-gege going?”

“Nowhere,” he said and he said it firm because he meant it. A-Yuan nodded.

They walked a few more steps and A-Yuan watched. When he saw another tree root in the ground, he pointed.

“Xian-gege!” he said, “Watch where you go!”

He laughed and jumped over the root that was hardly sticking out of the ground. 

“Good boy,” he said, “You’ll be good at watching all by yourself one day. And you can watch for others too. That’s very good.”

“Why?”

“You should always watch for others,” he said, “It’s the right thing. Even when they say it isn’t, it’s the right thing.”

“Why?”

“Ah, you ask so many questions!” Xian-gege announced loudly, but he looked at him with a smile, “You see, one day, if I’m not here, you’ll watch for me. I’ll be gone, but it’ll be all fine because you’ll be here to watch and all of this, all the trees, all the mountain, all the sky, all the people, will be all yours. You’ll be the one who knows it best.”

“Mine?” A-Yuan repeated.

“Everything,” Xian-gege said, nodding. A-Yuan blinked hard and nodded, looking around. There was so many things to be all his. “Everything inside the wards. And, when you get a little older, I’ll show you how that works as well.”

“And outside?”

“Outside the ward...” he said, taking a long break, “Outside isn’t safe unless you’re with someone else. Your Xian-gege or your Qing-jie or, or the gege in white and blue. Remember him?”

“Rich gege!”

“Yes, he’s safe too, I think,” Xian-gege said, “So we stay safe here, inside the wards. Until you’re all big and grown and more powerful than even me, you don’t try to go out alone, you understand?”

And Lan Sizhui did understand.

He sat up in bed, a little out of breath and his eyebrows drawn together as he looked around. He was at home, safe in the Cloud Recesses. Things weren’t like that anymore. Wei Wuxian was roaming the world and Hanguang-Jun was adjusting to being Chief Cultivator and Sect leader while Zewu-Jun was in seclusion. Wen Ning was allowed inside the Cloud Recesses under the condition that Hanguang-Jun was aware when that was. Lan Sizhui (assuming Zewu-Jun had no children of his own) was set to be Sect leader one day due to strings that he had no idea how Hanguang-Jun pulled.

It was all better, it seemed.

But that didn’t stop him from thinking about the Burial Mounds of Yiling. He remembered when they’d traveled up there before all hell really broke loose and he remembered being weirdly comfortable with his surroundings. He just hadn’t pieced together why. He wondered if he went back there now if he would know it even better.

Lan Sizhui got dressed quickly and quietly. He knew it was inappropriate to be so impulsive and outright against the rules to be breaking curfew, but he couldn’t help it. He needed to see. So he left a note in his bed, telling whoever read it that he’d be back within a few days, and quietly made his way out of the Cloud Recesses.

He stood in front of the wards, unguarded by anything else for the night, and took a deep breath. He could hear Wei Wuxian in his head, telling him it wasn’t safe to leave alone. But he was grown now, wasn’t he? He led a group of other disciples on night hunts all the time, so he could go alone.

Besides, no one was here to tell him otherwise.

With a deep breath, he quickly dismantled the wards only to let himself out and then he put them right back up. It took only a few seconds and yet, by the time he turned around, Wen Ning was standing there and staring at him.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he said when Lan Sizhui took a sharp breath in, “I didn’t mean to scare you, A-Yuan.”

“It’s alright,” he promised, smiling softly to make sure he knew he wasn’t scared.

“It’s very late.”

“I know,” Lan Sizhui said, looking around. He gave it only a few minutes before someone came to check the wards. As tired as Hanguang-Jun was these days, he was never that tired. “Let’s go, I’ll tell you on the way.”

Once they were far enough out and well on their way to Moling and, hopefully, Yiling by the next morning, Lan Sizhui started to talk. Or, he did his best. It was still strange trying to vocalize what he remembered or what he wanted to know. But Wen Ning was always helpful and filled in any gaps that he could.

“I had a dream about Luanzang Hill,” Lan Sizhui began softly. Wen Ning blinked with his wide eyes, clearly listening intently. “And I want to go back there.”

“But,” he started, a million different feelings passing through his eyes in a way he was incapable of hiding, “Did-did you tell Wei-gonzi? Or Hanguang-Jun? They, they might not think--”

“No,” Lan Sizhui said, “That’s why I didn’t tell them. I don’t want them telling me no.”

“But--”

“You don’t have to come with me,” he said, “But please don’t tell them. I need to go see it on my own, without them watching me. I need to, Wen-shushu.”

That seemed like enough to make him agree. 

The sun was already peaking over the horizon by the time they made their way into Moling. They fetched a few things to eat for the rest of the trip before Wen Ning kept his head down as they approached a man by the river that would take them closer to Yiling. Lan Sizhui charmed him until he allowed them to rent a boat for longer than his usual time frame. Wen Ning stared at him intently the entire time, but he didn’t ask why.

“Do you remember everyone who lived with us then?” Lan Sizhui asked as they got going. He gave a little spiritual power that he’d normally use to fly to make the boat go a little faster. 

“Yes.”

“All of them?” he asked, “In my dream, Wei Wuxian mentioned someone called Qing-jie. Was she real or did I dream it?”

Wen Ning gave a little smile, “My sister.”

Lan Sizhui’s eyes went wide and he sat up a bit straighter, the boat slowing as his focus faltered. He had never been told that. Then again, he’d never been told about a lot of things. Hanguang-Jun was many things. Talkative wasn’t one of them. Funnily enough, the more Wei Wuxian spoke, the less he actually said. Neither of them were any help.

“I didn’t know your sister was there,” he said, “I don’t know if I remember her, I’m sorry.”

“I remember her,” Wen Ning said. Lan Sizhui smiled.

The boat ride was filled with stories of Wen Qing, strong and resilient and smart. She was a doctor and unapologetic about her intelligence, even when it came to the great Yiling Patriarch who had saved them all. She was the only one who never seemed afraid to lecture him. And she cared for everyone fiercely, including A-Yuan. She made sure he was clean and fed and warm and loved. Lan Sizhui felt an unspeakable amount of guilt when, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember her face.

“Did she look like you?” Lan Sizhui asked, desperate to at least try. Wen Ning paused in thought for a moment before he shook his head.

“She was perfect,” he decided on. Lan Sizhui couldn’t disagree.

They kept talking. Wen Ning got more comfortable and more animated as he continued to tell stories. He drifted away from just stories from the Burial Mounds and told stories about his time in the Cloud Recesses and how he met Wei Wuxian in the first place.

It was a funny thing to hear about stories of when Hanguang-Jun and Wei Wuxian were young, but it was nice to know neither of them had really changed all that much. Wei Wuxian was still brash, Hanguang-Jun was still stoic, and they were both always incredibly smart and where the trouble was. If nothing else in the world made sense, that did.

“I spoke to Huanguang-Jun, ah, Lan-er-gongzi very little,” Wen Ning said, “But I, I know he’s a good man. He, he took care of you, just as Wei-gongzi took care of you, even with... They’re very good men, very strong.”

“Yes,” Lan Sizhui said, nodding his head as he thought back to times he remembered far better. 

He’d followed Hanguang-Jun around whenever he could and, in the times he couldn’t because he was hurt, he followed Zewu-Jun. He never really remembered where they thought he came from. Hanguang-Jun was his a-die. Simple as that. Perhaps that’s when the strings to make him an option as an heir was possible.

“They raised you well,” Wen Ning said, smiling and nodding.

“They might not think so when they find out where we’re going,” Lan Sizhui said. It was meant as teasing, but Wen Ning’s eyes went wide and he shook his head.

“No, they will always think so,” Wen Ning said, “A-Yuan is very good.”

“Thank you.”

As the sun began to set again, Wen Ning urged him to take a nap and he’d wake him when they got to the right place. He didn’t want to argue and he also hadn’t slept in too many hours under the sun with too little sleep from the night before, so he agreed. He closed his eyes and laid in the boat, trying to keep closer to a meditative state rather than actual sleep.

However, it wasn’t long before he found himself on the Burial Mounds of Yiling all over again.

“Mine!”

“And who told you that? Xian-gege?” Qing-jie said, a scowl on her face as she brushed dirt off him. A-Yuan pouted until her face softened. “Xian-gege will tell you all the tales in the world, but it doesn’t make it so.”

“Ah, don’t lie to him,” Xian-gege said from somewhere. A-Yuan tried to look for him, but he couldn’t see him.

“Oh, perfect timing! The infamous Yiling Patriarch can come do his evil duties and wash his clothes you let him dirty!” Qing-jie yelled towards him. No sound came and he didn’t come closer. Qing-jie just rolled her eyes and focused back on A-Yuan. “Xian-gege plays games.”

“A-Yuan likes games.”

“I bet you do,” she said, reaching up to his hair. She took it down and the scooped it all up into a bun.

When she was done, she stared at him. Even when he looked away and got distracted by everything he could see, she looked at him. There was something wrong, but she said nothing of the sort. She never really did. Not in front of him, not if it was serious.

“Let’s go take a bath, A-Yuan,” she said, “Then I’ll toss you into Xian-gege’s bed for the night and he can deal with what’s yours or not.”

His hands went to his mouth as he nodded. She stood up and reached for his other hand, leading the way. She walked with her head held high. Whatever was wrong didn’t change that.

Lan Sizhui woke up with a start and it startled Wen Ning enough that he jumped back. He took a deep breath and saw that they were docked on the riverbed, Luanzang Hill visible in the distance.

“A-Yuan, are you alright?” Wen Ning asked.

“Yes, I’m alright,” he said, his eyes unable to move from the place he couldn’t stop thinking about. It was still very dark out, the moon lighting the sky. It should’ve been much more ominous than it felt. “I just... had a dream.”

“Oh.”

Lan Sizhui felt a little dazed as they made sure the boat was secure and started their walk towards the Burial Mounds. It took him a few minutes to really digest his dream before he could ask anything about it.

“Your sister,” Lan Sizhui started, “Qing-jie, ah, Wen Qing? She... She knew it wasn’t permanent there, didn’t she?”

“Hm? Oh, I-I don’t know,” Wen Ning said. When Lan Sizhui looked at him, it was clear he really didn’t know. Maybe she treated Wen Ning the same way she’d treated him. 

Lan Sizhui decided not to ask about it more. It was in the past. Whatever he thought about it now didn’t matter. The fact was Wei Wuxian had given them a handful of happy months, whether they knew it was impossible to keep everyone safe forever or not no longer mattered.

Perhaps he stayed a little too lost in thought because before he knew it, the sun was rising again. He knew by now it was long past the time people had noticed he was gone, but Hanguang-Jun hadn’t appeared on Bichen so it was clear he trusted him enough to know he wasn’t going to get himself killed. Or maybe he just trusted Wen Ning enough to know he would protect him.

They passed a few people on their way towards Luanzang Hill, but no one really gave them more than a cursory glance. It helped not to shake him out of his thoughts that only seemed to get louder as they got closer.

They reached a certain point and Wen Ning stopped walking and Lan Sizhui followed suit. A few feet away was a broken down structure, weathered and old. He’d seen it before when he’d come up here with the other juniors, but it felt a little different now when it was just him and Wen Ning.

“This is the entrance,” he said, looking over to Wen Ning. He looked back and nodded before they turned to the entrance together.

And they took a few steps through it.

Lan Sizhui took a deep breath as he let himself take in his surroundings. All the trees were virtually the same, but he knew the closer to home he got, the less it would look right. They’d destroyed so much. But this... 

“If I’m not here, you’ll watch it for me,” Lan Sizhui whispered to himself, scanning the surroundings easily, “You’ll be the one who knows it best.”

Wen Ning who smiling at him. He was young perpetually and he acted even younger, but his mind was still wise in ways that maybe was a bit harder to appreciate. In this moment, though, he was the only one that understood. The only one who could.

Lan Sizhui turned towards the entrance and took a deep breath, carefully mimicking the way the Cloud Recesses set their wards. They locked into place, sealing them inside, and Lan Sizhui felt like he could breath a little easier. 

“Everything inside the wards,” Wen Ning recited. Lan Sizhui looked over at him, eyes a little wide, but he wasn’t looking back. Instead, he was facing the way home. “Do you remember the way?”

“I think so,” Lan Sizhui said softly. He swallowed hard and took a determined step forward. “Let’s go.”

And they stepped over the tree root together.

[spiritoffox]

Ascending and Descending 2

For LiuShen Week 2020, a 7-chapter ghost story about Liu Qingge making questionable decisions while Shen Yuan is supposed to be dead but isn’t actually quite there yet. Happy ending, because why not?

Day 1 

DAY 2 Water/Sparing

‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month go to the river near Mountain Jie Cheng.’

He remembered staring at the laughing mask in silence, but he knew that his furrowed brows were telling everything about his misgivings about that offer.

The fifteenth day of the seventh month was the day of the ghost festival across the entire continent and everyone knew that you don’t go near Jie Cheng on that day.

That you should avoid the area during the entirety of the seventh month.

Countless battles were fought on that mountain and the entire place was essentially a graveyard one mired with enough resentful energy that not even a coalition between the top sects could cleanse it completely. 

‘In the middle of the river, there is an island with a small altar.’

The river was bad news too, the waters were rumored to be pitch black and untameable. The river ran undisturbed into the closest sea, it had no traffic at all and no bridges could be built on it either to be crossed.

Boats were capsized by something and there were never animals around the shores. Not even smaller critters, the area was completely cleared of any life. The plants were gnarly and twisted, but they thrived in the shadows.

And if it wasn’t the water that killed you, it was the mists wafting off of it.

'Spill some of Shen Qingqiu’s blood there, offer a proper sacrifice to the mountain.’

To get the shell’s blood he needed to get through Yue Qingyuan and the entirety of Qiong Ding Peak. The latter didn’t worry him much, he was the Peak Lord of Bai Zhan so no disciples offered any challenge to him usually. 

But he never claimed to be the strongest person in Cang Qiong Sect, no, that was always Yue Qingyuan in their generation of Peak Lords. And with the Sect Leader caring for Shen Qingqiu’s body personally, hidden deep within his Peak, that could be an issue.

Yue Qingyuan would not allow any harm to come to Shen Qingqiu’s body.

‘And call out his true name.’

Shen Jiu. If he remembered correctly before they were all renamed when they took their Peak Lord mantles, Shen Qingqiu went by Shen Jiu. And rumors had it that Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu grew up together, so their Sect Leader supposedly knew what name he went by when they were children.

However, none of that meant that Shen Jiu was his true name.

They did try calling for Shen Qingqiu’s soul to figure out what happened to him two times already. Both attempts were unsuccessful, so he had no idea how could he figure that mystery out while riding Cheng Luan at breakneck speed to Mountain Jie Cheng to get there in time.

‘Don’t be late, this is your only chance and you know it too, don’t you, Lord Liu?’

He knew it. Deep within his bones he knew it. There were hundreds of fairytales and the rumors numbered in the thousands about successes and tragic failures of people trying to bring back a loved one.

As far as Liu Qingge knew… those almost always ended in massacres or in something that needed to be cleaned up by a cultivator like him.

He had seen his fair share of botched summonings and revivals over his last century.

He wasn’t the Lord of Qing Jing, he wasn’t the strategist, the one who specialized in knowledge but he knew what he needed to do his job and he gained enough experience to have an instinct about these things.

And those instincts were telling him that this would work and he couldn’t spare another moment of indecision, he couldn’t spare another second of inaction.

He could see the dark water gleaming bright red from the setting sun and he picked up even more speed. He had to be ready at the altar by midnight.

He had to be there, spill the vial of Shen Qingqiu’s blood, offer the sacrifice which he didn’t actually have yet and he had to speak Shen Qingqiu’s true name that he still didn’t know.

‘What do I get out of this? If you fail, nothing. If you succeed… well, we’ll get back to that then.’

All of his knowledge, all of his training, all of his experience screamed at him not to make a deal with that being, but he still did it, because the lure was too strong. 

To have Shen Qingqiu back in this world? 

There weren’t too many things that he wouldn’t do for that.

Including making a deal with a being that he couldn’t be sure whether to call a demon or a spirit. It felt like nothingness and his mind shied away from even focusing on it long enough to get a proper feel.

And it didn’t matter in the end, he thought and finally touched down on the small island being extremely careful to avoid the water. The mist was trying to seep into his clothing, but the spells woven into the fabric were holding on so far.

He still had some time to get ready, he thought and sat down to meditate in silence, feeling the heavy weight across his shoulders settling down with him.

He had no idea how he was going to do any of this but damned if he wasn’t going to try his best.

Day 3

-------------------------

A bit short, but this is still mostly a draft.Thank you for reading, hope you have a pleasant day! ❤️

[ryukoishida]

LiuShen Week 2019 | Day 4 | In which they share kisses in different situations.

Written for LiuShen Week 2019  @liushenweek

Day 4: Loved (Free Day)

Title: And the Reason is You Fandom: Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System Characters/Ships: LiuShen Rating: Slightly NSFW Summary: Three times Shen Qingqiu kissed Liu Qingge, and that one time Liu Qingge initiated the kiss. A/N: Holy shit. Am I writing again? I know, I’m shocked at myself too.

-

i.

“Liu-shidi, I—”

There was a hint of strain in his usually calm, assured tone, as if he was using his last ounce of strength to hold himself back from reaching out to the man sitting so close to him.

His shivering fingers lightly wrapped around the back of the other man’s neck, and he pulled his head down, their breaths mingling for just a brief moment, hearts thundering and drowning out everything else.

Even when he was slightly under the influence of the venom, Shen Qingqiu still somehow managed to kiss him with such careful precision and control. The mesmerizing taste of his osmanthus-scented breath — a clear sign of him being poisoned — was overwhelmingly saccharine when he touched his lips gently against Liu Qingge’s, who could only widen his eyes at the unexpected turn of events.

Two hours ago, they had dragged their exhausted bodies back to the inn after exterminating a group of high-level flower demonesses who had enchanted and kidnapped the town’s young men in order to suck their vitality in aid of their cultivation.

It wasn’t a particularly difficult encounter they had in terms of an extermination mission, but the leader of those demonesses had been cunning, enough that Shen Qingqiu – who, at least according to a scoffing Liu Qingge, had been too easy on them as the lord of Qing Jing Peak had initially planned to extract the kidnapped victims in a more polished means without causing too much of a mess – had fallen into the demoness’s trap.

Neither of them was seriously injured in the end, but Shen Qingqiu inhaled some of the dangerous sweet pollen, which as he soon found out to be a very potent aphrodisiac, and no long cold soak in the bathtub was able to completely erase the devastating effects of such venom. Tendrils of tantalizing heat and sparks of prickling sensation snaked up from within the depth of his body and spread to the surface of his skin, making him slightly flushed and breathless, almost as if he had a fever.

Shen Qingqiu had been absolutely vigilant of any physical contact since they came back, but it was all over the moment Liu Qingge’s fingers brushed against the back of his hand — swelteringly warm and over-sensitive – when he was handing him a cup of warm tea in an attempt to sooth the twitching, pulsing desire within him.

It took Liu Qingge much longer than he was willing to admit to react to the kiss, for the initially chaste touch of their lips quickly turned into something much more intense, something that threatened to rip Liu Qingge’s breath and last strand of logic away.

Then the acute, unnaturally sweet floral taste of Shen Qingqiu’s tongue shattered the illusion when he tried to deepened the kiss, and Liu Qingge quickly staggered back, shoving away the slightly shorter man, who was putting up quite a fight for someone who was supposedly poisoned and weakened.

“Shen. Qing. Qiu.”

With each syllable of the man’s name, Liu Qingge’s voice dripped with icy impassivity and quiet fury: a warning, or a subtle sign of fear.

“Damn it, Shen Qingqiu! Wake up!”

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes were clouded with raw lust stirred up by an artificial source, but the kiss had been real, the little noise of discontent rolling from the back of his throat when Liu Qingge pushed him back had been real, the desperate grasp of his sleeves when he attempted to come closer once more, and the eager way with which Shen Qingqiu called for him had also been real.

But…

You are not yourself, Liu Qingge thought.

He wondered why his heart was hurting so much when he finally lost the will to fight and simply allowed Shen Qingqiu to embrace him as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

And I am not the one you truly want.

-

ii.

“Liu-shidi, stay exactly where you are and don’t move!”

As soon as the Sha Lu Er flopped lifelessly onto the ground with a thundering thud, its gaping jaws twitching a few seconds more as human blood dripped from its yellowing fangs before it laid completely still, Shen Qingqiu returned Xiu Ya sword back into its sheath and ran towards his companion, his furrowing brows and hastened pace the only signs of his unease.

“Are you all right? Dear god, your arm…”

“I am fine,” Liu Qingge would roll his eyes at his shixiong’s melodramatic antics were he the type to do so; instead, he just acted how he usually would – avoided eye contact at all costs and pretending everything was fine, like the flesh and bones of his left arm weren’t crushed into a bloody, mangled mass by that damn fifteen-feet-long shark-deer monster that had been wreaking havoc and endangering the villagers in nearby towns. “Shen-shixiong has no need to be overly concerned for me.”

A pause, and then something hard hit the back of his head.

Liu Qingge uttered a pained groan and glared at the other man through the messy fringes of his forelocks, his iron-grey irises blazing in irritation despite his pale complexion due to blood loss from his injury.

Shen Qingqiu’s grasp on the handle of his fan tightened until his knuckles turned white, his lips pressed into a firm line as he maintained their eye contact.

“What the hell was that for?”

“What do you mean — that I don’t need to be concerned for you?! Liu Qingge, I thought we’ve gone over this already! What you did just now, throwing yourself so carelessly into the fight, I—” Shen Qingqiu exhaled harshly, turning his head away as uncomfortable warmth crept up from his neck to his cheeks when Liu Qingge continued to stare at him with a hint of curiosity laced within the initial frustration. “That was for making me worried sick!”

Liu Qingge blinked once, twice, finally comprehending what Shen Qingqiu was insinuating, and he stumbled the two steps forward to close the distance between them, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Shen Qingqiu…” he murmured, eyes lowered in a silent apology.

Shen Qingqiu lifted his arm and gently gathered a strand of Liu Qingge’s ink-black hair in between his blood-stained fingertips.  He kissed his locks with a warm, tender light in his eyes that Liu Qingge had never seen before.

He didn’t dare imagine; he didn’t dare hope; he didn’t want to be disappointed.

“I cannot bear the thought of losing you, so please, Qingge, I beg you, don’t put me through that again.”

-

iii.

Shen Qingqiu kissed the back of the other man’s hand reverently, lips lingering on the skin marred with battle scars and tongue gliding over callouses hardened by swordsmanship training over the years. He traced his lips over the elegant structure of his fingers until he reached the tip of Liu Qingge’s middle finger, which he then took into the wet cavern of his mouth in its entirety, until the fingertip grazed the back of his throat, and he swallowed hungrily around it.

It was shameful: the wet sounds of Shen Qingqiu sucking on his skin like he couldn’t get enough of his taste reverberating in his ears, those mesmerizing red, swollen lips wrapping around his fingers, the trembling eyelashes surrounding the darkened irises that looked like Shen Qingqiu wanted nothing more than to consume him whole.

It was shameful, and Liu Qingge wanted to turn away from this unbecoming sight, but he couldn’t stop noticing how Shen Qingqiu’s chest was rising and falling deeply with each breath, or how his long hair, freed from the length of his hair tie, flowed like rivers of ink over the pale canvas of his shoulders.    

“Mnn… Shen Qingqiu, stop playing around and get to it…” he’d meant to sound menacing, but the breathless way with which he uttered the threat betrayed the swelling desire barely contained within his shivering body.

At long last, as if finally satisfied by the teasing he’d instigated against his beloved shidi, Shen Qingqiu pulled his head away with a knowing smirk, a thin string of saliva still connected from his lower lip to the tip Liu Qingge’s finger.

On the battlefield, Liu Qingge incited fear in his enemies and admiration in his allies simply by his presence and the powerful arcs and sweeps of his Cheng Luan sword; in the privacy of their shared bed while lying underneath Shen Qingqiu, Liu Qingge somehow lost the prideful and confident air that made him one of the strongest combatants in the cultivation realm. Instead, he would relinquish all his control to Shen Qingqiu, who would then patiently guide him between the valleys and peaks of pleasure through agonizingly gentle touches and ferocious, carnal ecstasy.  

“Qingge, is this how you ask your shixiong for something? Where are your manners, hmm?”

Shen Qingqiu had a light grip of Liu Qingge’s chin so that the other man couldn’t turn away as Shen Qingqiu had suspected he would.  

With bloodshot eyes and lips that’d been bitten raw, Liu Qingge muttered a fairly impressive, “fuck you.”

“I thought that was the plan, was it not?” Shen Qingqiu laughed, amused by Liu Qingge’s lackluster insult as he placed a soft kiss on the other man’s forehead. “Or are you having second thoughts?”

“Never.”

-

+i.

Shen Qingqiu was not good at cooking. He wasn’t awful at it per se, as he had the skills of making instant noodles with various toppings back in the good, old days without burning down his tiny apartment, but he’d choose to go exterminate a bunch of evil demonic beings over doing this any day.

But for his cultivating partner — the light and love of his life, his newly-wedded husband — he would cook him a proper meal even if it killed him.

Perhaps he was being a little over-dramatic in this matter.

Shen Qingqiu chopped the tofu half-heartedly, trying to recall the specific way Luo Binghe had taught him, but all his effort only resulted in uneven chunks of the silky white curds, one-fourth of the portion he was certain he’d turned into useless mush that couldn’t be pan-fried in the wok.

On second thoughts, maybe he should have taken actual notes when Luo Binghe had been teaching him how to make a few homely dishes just a few days ago.  

He was about to get another cube of tofu sitting in the wooden tub of cold water when Liu Qingge’s voice could be heard from the kitchen’s entryway.

“Shen Qingqiu, there you are,” the lord of Bai Zhan Peak had a slight, confused frown to his brows when he stepped into the kitchen and gradually made his way towards his partner. “I have been looking all over for you… what in the world are you doing?”

He raised one of his brows in puzzlement. “What is this? Are you… are you making dinner?”

“Trying,” Shen Qingqiu emphasized the keyword in this matter. “And failing miserably, as you can see.”

He stepped away from the counter to let Liu Qingge observe his progress — or lack thereof, rather.

Shen Qingqiu sighed, placing the knife down on the cutting board.

“Binghe spent almost four hours the other day teaching me how to make this dish, too. Now I feel terrible for wasting his time. It seems that I have learned nothing from our culinary lessons.”

Liu Qingge’s eyes flashed dangerously at the mention of Luo Binghe.

“Wait, you were with that brat? On your own? When was that? How many times have I told you to stay away—”

“Oh, calm down,” Shen Qingqiu chuckled, swiftly going over to his partner and wrapping his arms around the taller man’s shoulder, pulling him closer as he continued, “he’s just a mere child, Qingge. Why must you two always act so childish and hostile to each other every time you meet? It’s understandable for him to act this way since he’s still a teenager, but Liu Qingge, you are the renowned, respectable Bai Zhan Peak Lord. You don’t have to stoop down to a child’s level like that. I know you are better than that.”

“Hmph. I do not understand why you are so protective of that brat, but he is your disciple after all. Just… promise me to be careful of his intentions when you are around him by yourself.”

“Duly noted,” Shen Qingqiu noticed the genuine worry in his partner’s eyes, and he nodded solemnly in response. With the ill-chosen topic out of the way, Shen Qingqiu once again glanced over at the atrocity he’d created in the short span of twenty minutes of meal preparation. “Now then, I suppose I should clean up this mess and let the kitchen staff reclaim their space.”

“Wait,” Liu Qingge placed a hand over Shen Qingqiu’s as the Qing Jing Peak Lord was about to reach for the knife.

“Hmm?” Shen Qingqiu turned to look at his partner, his head tilted to the side slightly in question. “Qingge, what is it?”

“I…” Liu Qingge bit his lower lip as he struggled to put his thought into words, his cheeks gradually turning pink. “I would like to try your cooking, i-if you do not mind, that is.”

Almost as an afterthought, Liu Qingge lowered his head and pressed a firm but gentle kiss against Shen Qingqiu’s lips before he stood up straight once more, the tips of his ears burning such a bright red that it was impossible for either man to ignore.  

“Um,” Shen Qingqiu lost the ability to process for a good five seconds before he said with a bright smile that made his entire being glow with pure happiness, “sure.”

[neoblogcrying]

Day 3: Transformation (a)- AU

@liushenweek

Note: Mmmm I suppose you could say that this is loosely based off the Fruits Basket series? How exactly they’re different—well, you gotta read to find out!

One of the 4 great Cultivation Sects, Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, held a deep secret that none could know about. On top of each of the 12 Peaks on the mountain range stood a Peak Lord that protected the peak.

Mysterious and elusive, strong and mystical.

The Peak Lords were the definition of ‘power,’ and the same could always be said about their predecessors.

Even if a mediocre person rose to the title of Peak Lord, under the guidance of the previous Peak Lord, they were sure to rise to immense strength and status.

For sure, there was something special about being a Peak Lord, but Cang Qiong Mountain sect kept the secrets behind their Peak Lords a well-guarded secret. For centuries, other Sects like Huan Hua Palace would send in spies to dig into the secrets, but none have successfully completed their mission.

In fact, a few centuries back, one spy rose to the title of Peak Lord, but they betrayed their previous sect by taking the secret to their grave.

Shen Yuan was one such spy that was found and was raised for the sole purpose of uncovering the secrets of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect’s Peak Lords. As an orphan, he had no other choice to obey the commands of the sect that took him in if he wanted to live a long life. He was chosen because he had an uncanny resemblance to Qing Jing Peak’s future Peak Lord, Shen Qingqiu.

They looked so similar, you could mistake them to be blood related brothers, but everyone knew that Shen Qingqiu came from a wealthy family, so there was no way that Shen Yuan could possibly be related to the future Peak Lord.

When it came time to fulfill his mission, Shen Yuan waited for Shen Qingqiu to come down the mountain and ambush him with a group of others from the sect. They’d switch their clothing and haul the original away. Afterwards, all that needed to be done was to wait.

Shen Yuan purposefully gave himself an injury, so he’d be rushed to Cang Qiong Mountain for recuperation.

As he lay in his room, sleeping, a spirit visited him in his dream.

“You’re not Shen Qingqiu, but you share his blood. Curious, he never told me he had a brother.”

Brother? That’s news to him! Shen Yuan was an orphan who had no idea about what his family dynamics were.

As far as he knew, he was an only child.

He wanted to ask this stranger what made them think he had a brother, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t see anything but a misty fog that was slightly luminescent in the dark expanse of emptiness. It’s an understatement to think that this was unnerving for Shen Yuan. He was obviously in a dream, but he couldn’t see anything aside from the luminescent fog.

He couldn’t smell anything, and if he waved his arms around, he could feel nothing. Even the fog would evade his touch if he tried to reach out for it.

“Speak, what is your name, and what has become of Shen Qingqiu?”

As far as Shen Yuan knew, the Sect he was adopted into had kidnapped Shen Qingqiu in an attempt to have him spill his secrets. If he refused to tell, they may kill him after they’ve ensured that Shen Yuan wasn’t going to get caught.

With that said, he was probably safe for the next couple of months, unless Shen Yuan’s reports made them think otherwise.

“I… was told to act as Shen Qingqiu’s replacement while the elders tried to get the truth out of the real Shen Qingqiu. They’re convinced that the Peak Lords are hiding a heavy secret that’s the reason behind their strength.” Shen Yuan answered as concisely as he could as he was secretly doing his best to wake himself up from this dream, but nothing was working!

No matter how hard he willed himself to wake, it felt as though something kept pulling his consciousness back in!

A loud resounding laugh echoed the expanse darkness, almost making Shen Yuan go deaf from the sheer volume of the voice. Whoever it was that infiltrated his dream, they were powerful.

“That proud brat would rather die than tell the truth! I’m sure all the Peak Lords would feel the same. No, maybe that shameless rabbit would…”

Suddenly, behind the fog, Shen Yuan could see a shadow. The shadow was getting bigger, its dark silhouette getting crisper as it came closer.

“An Ox?” Shen Yuan spoke carelessly, wondering if he was seeing things.

“An Ox that wants to run you through with his horns for stealing Shen Qingqiu from him.” The ox grunted, scraping his hoofs against the transparent floor to illustrate a point.

The ox was much larger than Shen Yuan expected him to be. He towered over Shen Yuan with an imposing air of authority. If you stacked two fully grown men on top of each other, that’s how tall this creature was.

Also, the Ox was completely white in color, which gave him the feel of being a spirit of some kind.

He didn’t know what, but it was clear that this… spirit and Shen Qingqiu had some kind of connection with one another.

No matter if this was a dream, he didn’t want to die. It sounded like it would hurt!

The young man secretly cowered in fear, but he kept a brave and deviant expression on his face. He was truly the spitting image of the Qing Jing Peak Lord.

That’s to be expected, because they shared blood with each other.

This… could work.

If it was revealed that Shen Qingqiu was captured, the Ox would be forced to kill him through their connection, and he didn’t want to do that.

Out of all the Peak Lords he’s contracted himself to, Shen Qingqiu was his favorite. He may have a dirty personality, but his faithfulness to ‘the Rat’ was earnest.

That’s what the Ox liked about him, the fact that he was so loyal to the one contracted to the ‘Rat,’ no matter how he’d stubbornly argue that he didn’t care for Yue Qingyuan. The Ox knew that Shen Qingqiu was loyal to one person only and that fit his personality as well.

The Ox did not care for any of the other animals in the zodiac aside from the Rat. Each of the Peak Lords made a contract with a specific creature.

The Sect Leader was contracted to the rat. Shen Qingqiu was contracted to the Ox.

12 Peak Lords, 12 contracted animal spirits.

What of the Bai Zhan peak lord, you ask? Surely he’s contracted to a strong animal like a tiger or a dragon? No, as the 7th ranked Peak Lord, he’s contracted to the Stallion.

The Tiger was contracted to the Peak Lord of WanJian Peak, Wei Qingwei. The Dragon was contracted to the Xianshu Peak Lord, Qi Qingqi. Though it’s said she’s contracted to a dragon, she’s truly contracted to a small aquatic creature.

No spirit animal could hold more than one contract, so it would be impossible for him to contract to Shen Yuan, and that would pose a problem as the Peak Lords could sense who was a fellow peak lord by their specific wavelengths every contractor had.

If Shen Yuan truly wished to impersonate Shen Qingqiu, it would be impossible to do so without being contracted first.

Through their connections, people are able to tell another contractor apart from non-contracted people… but they’re unable to tell what or who each individual is contracted to.

It was also forbidden for the contracted animal spirits to tell their contractor who other people are contracted to, so it was up to the humans themselves to figure it out.

“If you value your life, you will help Shen Qingqiu reclaim his rightful place as Peak Lord. First, I know of a Spirit that may be willing to contract with you.”

…

…

…

It was weird dreaming about the time he’d learned the truth behind the Peak Lord’s strength.

Slowly, Shen Yuan blinked the sleepiness out of his eyes, lazily looking out to see that he’d taken a nap out in the sun. If not for the fact that the Ox was well known for being lazy, he couldn’t get away with such an act.

He had to be careful about his cat-like actions… like sleeping in the sunlight.

Yes, you guessed it. He was forcibly contracted to a Cat spirit, and he had to make fake reports back to the sect in an attempt to prolong Shen Qingqiu’s life. It seemed that it was a part of the contract to keep the secret of the Spirit Animals.

If you broke your promise, then you’d be cursed to take the form of the animal you were contracted to.

Do you understand what that means?

If Shen Yuan reported the truth to the Sect, he’d turn into a cat, FOREVER! Shen Qingqiu risks turning into an Ox that they could butcher for meat if he told the truth.

Who wants to do that?

No one, that’s who.

Speaking of turning into animals… he learned something else. It was only when the contractor felt heavy emotions that they transformed into their contracted animal.

It was apparently a big deal when Shen Qingqiu first transformed into his giant Oxen form because he got upset over losing to Liu Qingge in some competition. The Peak Lords had to gather everyone on the scene and erase their memories of the incident.

You know what’s interesting about all the spirit animals? They all have special props! The Ox carried a bag on its back that held scrolls! It’s what you’d expect out of a Peak known for its knowledge.

It made Shen Yuan want to see what all the other Spirit Animals looked like if not only to see what their props were.

Anyways, do you understand why Shen Qingqiu transforming back then is so important?

You guessed it! Shen Qingqiu revealed to the other Peak Lords that he was contracted to the Ox by transforming in such a public place.

What’s the issue? Shen Yuan is contracted to a CAT, which is definitely not the same as an Ox. If he transformed into his cat form, then it was obvious that he wasn’t the real Shen Qingqiu! He had to remain vigilant as to not reveal his contracted animal if he wanted to keep himself alive.

He deduced the fact that Yue Qingyuan had contracted the rat, because all rodents seemed to adore him, much like how cats adored Shen Yuan. What do you suppose his prop is? A crown to signify that he’s the Sect Head?

He tried asking once, but the Ox could only explain that each of the 12 peaks at Cang Qiong Mountain had an animal spirit shackled to it by a curse placed upon them by an ancient immortal cultivator.

There was some deal the animal spirits struck with this cultivator, and only when they finished their mission could they be freed from their duty of protecting their peak.

Since they’re shackled to their respective peaks, the Ox spirit had no way of knowing what happened to Shen Qingqiu. The most he knew was that Shen Qingqiu was alive, because if he had died… his contract would be annulled, and he’d have to find the next person to contract himself to.

Now, the cat is different because he’s not shackled to the mountain. Therefore, he’s able to stick with Shen Yuan no matter where he goes! You’d think that’s a great thing, but the cat had a horrible personality, and he truly loved to make fun of Shen Yuan at any given moment.

The Ox couldn’t go into much detail about anything, but he did advise Shen Yuan to stay away from Yue Qingyuan. There was deep history between the two men that not even the contracted animal spirits were able to gaze into. As this was the case, Yue Qingyuan was too dangerous to be around.

Luckily for Shen Yuan, there was a deep tension between the two men, so it wasn’t out of character for him to actively avoid the Sect Leader.

He does know another one! When Liu Qingge suffered a Qi-deviation in a cave… he found out that… HE’S A WAR HORSE!

Look, he almost died finding that out, but it was exciting! He transformed with a full set of armor! How cool is that!? He’s not a war lord for nothing!

The Ox and the Horse didn’t get along, so Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge weren’t on great terms either… but Shen Yuan was contracted to the cat.

This creature was lazy and had a God-complex. He didn’t care either way as long as you treated him with respect.

As such, the cat was fine with most of the animal spirits EXCEPT for the Rat. It seemed like the cat had a deep grudge against the rat.

After Shen Yuan contracted himself with the Cat, he was no longer able to speak to the Ox, which made him feel a bit lonely.

He stood up and stretched, intending to walk to the river and wash his face, but instead… he saw that there was a visitor on Qing Jing Peak.

He could tell by the broad shoulders that Liu Qingge of Bai Zhan Peak was cleaning his sword in the river.

From what he could recall, the very last time they’ve spoken was… after they parted from their last mission. A flushed heat rose to his cheeks, but he quickly repressed his emotions. He couldn’t risk transforming into a cat form right now!

Be calm, relax, and be natural. Opening his fan, he approached Liu Qingge quietly.

“Hello Liu-Shidi, what are you doing on Qing Jing Pea—AH! Shidi!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” He leaped back to see a giant war horse staring him down!

Wh-what made Liu Qingge feel such a strong emotion that he transformed!?

Quickly, Shen Yuan scanned the immediate area, only relaxing once he realized no one was nearby to witness this scene.

[You’re wrong! I’m not in love with you!] The horse before him snorted, bucking his hind legs out of restless annoyance.

…

What now?

[The Succubus has to be wrong!]

Really, what now? The Succubus told him about his future love, and he deduced that he couldn’t think of any woman that fit the bill.

Why was Liu Qingge so riled up about what the Succubus prophesized?

[…sigh That stupid ox gave me a real dumb ass to contract to. The Succubus wasn’t talking about a woman, but a MAN that you’re fated to. Your Liu-Shidi thinks you both are soul mates.]

What?

Shen Yuan recalled what the Succubus had to say, and with every word he recalled, his face would flush a deeper red color.

[Hey, wait… your heartbeat is beating too fast!] His contracted spirit animal tried to warn him, but it was too late.

He was beyond embarrassed to know that Liu Qingge thought that they were soul mates! Sure, he liked Liu Qingge, but he didn’t like him… that way? At least, he didn’t think he did?

Poof!

…

Once the smoke cleared, Liu Qingge didn’t see the massive ox he was expecting to see. Instead, he saw a fluffy brown and white striped cat wearing a facial mask that had fake horns attached to it.

That’s one way of saying that you were impersonating a Peak Lord!

Hm? Why did he transform into a small cat you ask? That’s because he’s not a Peak Lord! He was a lowly spy who had to lay low. That’s why he’s small!

[Shen… Qingqiu…?]

Liu Qingge didn’t know how to process this information. This isn’t what he remembered.

[YOU REALLY DID IT NOW, YOU IDIOT!!!!!! HOW ARE YOU GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS!? NONE OF THE PEAK LORDS HAVE EVER BEEN CONTRACTED TO A CAT! THE IS OX IS GOING TO KILL ME IF HE’S FORCED TO KILL THE ORIGINAL SHEN QINGQIU! HOW WILL YOU MAKE THIS UP TO ME, HUH?]

This was such a pickle! Don’t blame him, blame Liu Qingge for springing that up on him so suddenly!

Shen Yuan really wanted to dig his claws into something with how frustrated he felt. How was he going to explain this? COULD he explain it? How was this going to affect the original Shen Qingqiu? Would the Ox be forced to kill him?

If he dies… Shen Yuan will die too! It’s a part of the contract he made with the cat!

[You can explain later, pick up our clothes.]

The war horse picked the fluffy, brown and white striped cat by the back of the nape and walked along the river. Shen Yuan had hastily bundled the clothes into his paws, waiting for Liu Qingge to take them to—wherever.

Liu Qingge could hear that someone was approaching, so they needed to make a speedy getaway.

Shen Qingqiu and his contracted animal were quiet. They weren’t expecting this kind of a reaction from Liu Qingge. All the Peak Lords were supposedly protective of each other because of their secret—but he wasn’t causing a fuss right now?

If Liu Qingge was willing to accept Shen Yuan, then everything was going according to the Ox’s plan. If they managed to get all the Peak Lords to accept Shen Yuan (The cat contractor) as ‘one of them,’ then they would be freed from their shackles.

However, every attempt at this has failed because of how protective and suspicious the Peak Lords were of anyone who weren’t a part of their immediate group of 12.

With Shen Yuan being a spitting image of Shen Qingqiu, they had a chance of breaking their shackles! That was the primary reason as to why the Ox kept Shen Yuan alive.

He not only could help keep Shen Qingqiu alive by reporting back to his original sect, but he could also gain the other Peak Lord’s trust. If they trusted him enough, they may come to accept him after he tells them the truth.

[Whatever secret you have, I don’t care. I’ll help you.]

This would be music to the Ox’s ears if he was around to hear it.

Liu Qingge wasn’t an idiot. All the Peak Lords would have been notified if one of their own had died by their contracted spirit animals. Shen Qingqiu was alive, and it was impossible for him to be contracted to two different animals, and everyone knew he was contracted to the Ox.

If this… ‘Shen Qingqiu’ turned into a cat, that meant he was a different person, even if he looked the same as the original Ox-contractor.

Were they brothers? Twins? He’d never heard about this, so it had to be a secret from all the Peak Lords.

If it was made known that something happened to Shen Qingqiu, the Peak Lords may vote to kill him, and this fake would likely face the same fate.

He… may not love ‘Shen Qingqiu’, but he doesn’t want to see him die.

Shen Yuan could only allow Liu Qingge to hold him by the nape, patiently waiting to be let down.

[What’s your real name?]

[… Shen Yuan.]

Silence.

[I’m not in love with Shen Qingqiu.]

Again, with that? Shen Yuan fought the urge to roll his eyes at Liu Qingge. How many times will he repeat the same thing before he’s satisfied? Rubbing it in that he transformed because Liu Qingge spouted some random nonsense at him?

[I’m willing to believe I’m fated for Shen Yuan, however.]

[Hoh… he’s a bold one. Hey hey, don’t tell me you won’t respond to that? Going to leave a guy hanging? That’s the Bai Zhan Peak Lord, you know? You have to respond! Wait until I tell the ox later, he’ll die knowing this development! The Rat is going to be devastated! Haha! Serves him right for telling me the date wrong!]

Shen Yuan’s ears lay flat against his head as he tried to ignore the cat spirit. He was always so annoying and there was never a time of peace.

Why did it sound like Liu Qingge was accepting the fact he was soulmates with him now that he knew he wasn’t the real Shen Qingqiu?

What a fickle man!

[Now you accept the prophecy?]

[Shen Qingqiu loves someone else, so I had no chance. Shen Yuan is different.]

Liu Qingge stopped walking as he found a place that could hide them behind these large boulders. He laid down on the plush grass and settled the cat down on his front legs.

Even someone as emotionally constipated as Liu Qingge understood that Shen Qingqiu regarded Yue Qingyuan as someone special. It didn’t take a genius to know that love was probably involved.

[I will help you, so don’t go dying on me.]

POOF!

AAAHHHHHHH BEFORE HE THINKS ABOUT BEING TOUCHED BY LIU QINGGE’S WORDS OR WHATEVER, PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON!!!!!

The cat found himself sitting on Liu Qingge’s (naked) lap! He didn’t know where to look!

[Put your clothes on and let me go! If anyone sees you, you’ll be a cat hugging pervert!]

[Hey hey, ask him again if he knows about dual cultivation. This is the perfect chance to try~]

THIS DAMNED CAT!

“You’re soft.” Liu Qingge ignored his words in favor of petting his silky-smooth fur.

It was only a matter of time before—

POOF!

“L-Liu-shidi, look away!” Shen Yuan threw a wad of white clothes at Liu Qingge’s face so he wouldn’t see him in the nude.

The damned cat spirit was currently laughing its head off, goading Shen Yuan to invite Liu Qingge to dual-cultivate together. He wanted to see a show.

Shen Yuan bitterly wondered whether or not he was actually contracted to the rabbit with how indecent the cat was acting.

[vodkassassin]

Are you still taking prompts? SVSSS with LQG as LBH's shizun lol

I think this one got away from me....

“You ruined him,” Shang Qinghua exclaims, aghast, the first time he sees Liu Qingge’s brand new, first and only disciple.

The Bai Zhan peak lord grunts, offended. “I’ve only had him for two months,” he objects. “I haven’t had time to ruin him.”

Two feet away from them, Shen Qingqiu pivots from where he has been, not holding a conversation with, but staring down an increasingly anxious Secr Leader Yue. He snaps open his fan and holds it before his face, raising an eyebrow at them. He’s been doing that a lot more than usual, recently, ever since the fever. Shang Qinghua has suspicions.

“Liu-shidi has been doing an exemplary job with his new disciple,” the lord of Qing Jing peak says, to the dismay of everyone around him.

Behind his back, two peak lords glumly hand over a handful of coins to a smug looking Qi Qingqi. Bets had been placed on how long the ‘amnesia’ Mu Qingfang had diagnosed Shen-shidi with would hold out before his cruel and acidic nature would once again come forth. Standing up for and complimenting the teaching skills of Liu Qingge was the absolute antithesis of that.

Shang Qinghua has so many suspicions.

“You’re just happy you don’t have that lunatic disciple tearing up your scholarly peak,” the peak lord of the brewery peak, who’s name Shang Qinghua continuously keeps forgetting despite knowing the man for nearly sixty years already.

Shen Qingqiu narrows a look at the man. His fan flutters. “Define ‘don’t’.”

Which is true! Despite having been chosen for Bai Zhan during the selection exams, thirteen year old Luo Binghe has been seen on Qing Jing peak far too often for it to be accidental. The boy just won’t stay away, and furthermore (in an odd twist of events that Shang Qinghua can’t make sense of) doggedly walks in the Qing Jing peak lord as often as circumstance will allow. It drives Shen Qingqiu visibly mad.

“Aren’t you glad,” Shang Qinghua begins, turning his face away as to avoid the suddenly simmering glare his fan-waving shixiong is pinning him with, “that you decided not to take him for your peak after all?”

“It’s not like I had a choice.” Shen Qingqiu sniffs, and then admits, “Truly, it must have been a warning from the gods. I thank them every day for stopping me from making that mistake.”

“Your qi deviation did hit you rather abruptly,” Mu Qingfang murmurs thoughtfully, standing shoulder to shoulder with a slightly richer Qi Qingqi. “There were barely any warning signs. Usually it takes a few days at least for the deviation to get that bad.”

“I’m counting it as divine intervention,” Shen Qingqiu says.

“He’s not that bad,” Liu Qingge tries. The rest of them turn to stare at him incredulously.

“Have you,” Shang Qinghua starts, voice high and stressed, “... have you seen the lumber count? The tree density of your peak has been bulldozed by thirty percent! In two months! Liu-shidi!”

Shen Qingqiu eyes him sharply, but steps back to allow Mu Qingfang to edge closer to him, supposedly in case another nervous breakdown is showing its face. C’mon, Mu-shidi! Shang Qinghua isn’t that delicate!

“What’s a bulldoze,” Liu Qingge asks flaty, and Shang Qinghua makes a small, desperate sound in his throat.

“If I have to file any more arboreal conservation reports in the next decade, I’m going to go to Bai Zhan peak and shave it clean of trees myself.” Shang Qinghua states.

Shen Qingqiu snorts. Actually snorts. The gathered peak lords stare at him in astonishment, and a few more coins exchange hands with a very pleased-looking Qi Qingqi.

“Bald Zhan peak,” the scholarly master mumbles under his breath, and Shang Qinghua abandons his nightmarish daydream of a towering stack of paperwork in order to break into wheezing laughter.

“This is too weird,” the brewery peak lord mutters, edging away from them all. “I’m going to go watch Liu-shixiong’s new disciple pulverize the ranks of his martial siblings.”

“I’ll go with you,” Yue Qingyuan quickly offers, and the two of them, joined by a few others, are fast to disappear.

[vodkassassin]

For SVSS- Gifts of jewelry, with spite.

I could have sworn I had another prompt asking for what the other peak lords thought of the cucumberplane friendship, and I was going to smoosh it together with this incredibly vague prompt, but I couldn’t find it lmao. Anyway, here @starfata

There are OC peak lords in this, including the POV character. Rong Qingsheng peak lord of the agriculture peak number 12, Ju Qingsong peak lord of the 11th peak, and I finally named the booze peak lord Shui Qingyu. That’s it, I think. Read away!

—

Shang Qinghua enters the peak lord meeting with a loud bang, slamming open the door with much more force than it really needs. Being the last one to arrive, everyone else is already seated and exchanging quiet conversation with one another.

They all jump when he comes in, and stare in confusion at the scowl that adorns his face. They watch in abrupt silence as he steps into the hall, at how his eyes zero in on a suddenly smirking Shen Qingqiu, and Qi Qingqi leans her shoulder into the master of the agricultural peak that sits next to her.

Rong Qingsheng raises his eyebrow at her, keeping one eye on the An Ding lord that stalks forward without looking at any of them to sit in his own seat with a noisy and very pointed huff.

Voice lowered, Qi Qingqi smirks at him. “How much?”

“For what, exactly, this time?” Rong Qingsheng heaves a quiet sigh, long since used to his martial sister’s gambling ways.

If there’s even a hint of wavering odds in the balance of the drama that occasionally befalls the inner workings of their sect, you can be certain that Qi Qingqi has a betting pool running behind the scenes of it.

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?” She asks, and Rong Qingsheng is never one to wager money in any of her ridiculous and time-eating schemes, but then again— despite speaking directly to him, she’s not exactly asking him.

Seated to Rong Qingsheng’s right, the peak lord of the beast tamers peak leans around him to eye Qi Qingqi with a sharp gaze and an even sharper smile. “What do you think the stakes are, that Shen-shixiong did something to piss him off?” He asks, eagerly, always one to fall into a bet.

“I think that it’s already clear that he has, indeed, done just that,” Rong Qingsheng says, placing a hand on the other man’s shoulder and pushing him out of his personal space and back into his proper seat.

Ju Qingsong pouts at him, the ridiculous man. “Yes, but the question is, did he do it on purpose, or on accident and is just pretending he did it intentionally in the face of Shang-shixiong’s anger?”

“Why would he do that?” Rong Qingsheng asks, confused.

“Because he’s a dick?” Ju Qingsong shrugs, and leans behind his back this time to make eye contact with Qi Qingqi. “Ten silver on Shen-shixiong doing it on accident, though. He’s a good actor, we can’t be sure he doesn’t have as much of a clue as to why Shang-shixiong is upset with him as we do.”

Qi Qingqi grins, pulling a loose sheaf of parchment out of absolutely nowhere — no, that had definitely come from in between her breasts. And a charcoal pencil, too? How does it all fit? Why.

Rong Qingsheng feels so tired, all of a sudden.

“Qi-shijie,” someone else murmurs, and Rong Qingsheng glances over his shoulder, already exhausted, to see Shui Qingyu of the brewery peak hunched behind them like he thinks he’s being sneaky. “Five silver on Shen-shixiong purposefully having antagonized Shang-shixiong.”

“All of you are idiots,” Liu Qingge grunts from where he’s sidled over to lean over Ju Qingsong’s table.

The rest of them eye him closely, and Qi Qingqi’s charcoal pencil pauses on its scribbling. If anyone were to have any sort of inside perspective of the odd friendship that exists between the Qing Jing and An Ding peak lords, it’s the Bai Zhan one. For some reason that probably makes no sense whatsoever, Rong Qingsheng is certain.

Liu Qingge continues, “Qinghua definitely started it.”

Immediately, Ju Qingsong rolls his eyes and leans heavily into Rong Qingsheng’s shoulder. He shoves the man away, once more, but he just returns, again.

“Shang-shixiong wouldn’t be this pissed if he’d made the initial insult himself, would he?” Ju-shixiong ponders. “He’s always been pretty good about taking responsibility for his own actions and accepting any retribution for them.”

Rong Qingsheng watches as Liu Qingge squints at their martial brother, and then reluctantly nods.

“He is,” the man says, tapping a finger thoughtfully to the base of his sword. “But…”

Qi Qingqi’s charcoal pencil shivers with anticipation as it hovered over her parchment. Rong Qingsheng isn’t sure it contains notes solely about the wagers, anymore. “Liu-shidi? What’s your insight?”

Liu Qingge makes a face, like having any sort of insight to it at all is a burden and insult to himself personally. “It’s different,” he eventually admits, “when it’s Shen Qingqiu.”

For some goddamn reason, isn’t vocalized, but all the peak lords exchange knowing looks anyway. Not even Liu Qingge, who’s closest to them, knows what the hell is going on there. Mu Qingfang might have a better take on the two ‘bros’, but even he looks confused, in that exasperated and tired sort of way of his, half the time whenever Shang Qinghua or Shen Qingqui pull their antics with one another.

Speaking of which—

“I’m going to get you back for this,” Shang Qinghua is grumbling, loudly. His arms are crossed, and he’s glaring balefully across the room at where Shen Qingqiu so smugly lounges in his seat beside a faintly puzzled looking Yue Qingyuan.

“You can certainly try,” Shen Qingqui says so quietly that it’s more like he’s mouthing the words than actually saying them, and the An Ding peak lord bristles like he’s been insulted in the gravest of ways.

Rong Qingsheng takes a moment to study him. Shang Qinghua is dressed in his usual peak lord attire, dark blue robes and flowing silk indigo over pants and a high-collared shirt of black, a gauzy and transparent light colored, shorter outer robe thrown over the entire ensemble. For someone who spends a lot of his time running two and fro across all the peaks of the sect chasing down some paperwork or report or other, Shang Qinghua has always been surprisingly stylish. His hair is done up in his usual full bun, held in place with the An Ding lord hairpiece and two silver needles.

Rong Qingsheng narrows his eyes, trying to parse out what, exactly, is different about his senior martial brother today, aside from his current outburst that isn’t typically within his personality unless he’s chasing after someone for an audit of their peak finances.

He resists the urge to shiver. Rong Qingsheng has never had any glaring holes in his peak’s budget histories, but he can quite vividly remember the last time An Ding had come to audit them, and he fervently hopes that the next occasion will not come any time soon.

It takes a few moments, but he eventually spots a difference in Shang Qinghua’s wardrobe. The man isn’t typically one to wear earrings unless they’re simple gems or small hoops. It could be theorized that the dangling ones just get in the way during work? Are distracting when attempting complicated maths and other calculations? Whatever the case is, the ones Shang Qinghua wears today are ornate and incredibly expensive looking, long enough to brush against the tops of his shoulders if he were to shrug, and completely uncharacteristic of the An Ding peak lord.

Not that Rong Qingsheng makes it a habit to creepily examine all his martial siblings whenever he comes across them, but he’s not blind. If you place a pretty person in front of him, what’s he suppose to do? Not look them over? Being a lord of the twelve peaks of Cang Qiong, Rong Qingsheng has ample opportunity to observe his beautiful martial siblings, and Shang Qinghua is as pretty as the rest of them. So what if he’s stared at him enough times to notice a minute change in his jewelry?

There’s a nudge against his ribs. Ju Qingsong leans into his space again, his breath ghosting across his face.

“You’re blushing,” his martial brother whispers, and Rong Qingsheng shoves him.

Ju Qingsong comes back like a boomerang, a grin on his face and his hands latching around Rong Qingsheng’s arm like some sort of infatuated maiden. “Who is it this time?”

“Nothing,” Rong Qingsheng says, calmly, and turns his eyes pointedly away from the line of Shang Qinghua’s neck. Definitely doesn’t notice how the new earrings accentuate it, or how they sparkle in the light and swing just barely with the man’s smallest movements.

He gets poked in the ribs again for his non-answer, but thankfully their sect leader finally stands to bring the meeting to order, so Ju Qingsong has no time to continue needling him.

The meeting is boring as all the others, only highlighted by the brief snack break that the Qiong Ding and Zui Xian disciples tag team to cater. Zhangmen-shixiong always goes out of his way to make sure the monthly meet between peak lords aren’t so dry and mundane that they all simply end up dying of boredom, but there’s only so much even their honorable sect leader can do. By the time the meeting rolls to an end, Rong Qingsheng can feel the edges of sleep tugging at his awareness, and none of his martial siblings look any better.

Except Shang Qinghua, that is. Then again, the peak lord of An Ding has never seemed to allow himself to feel boredom, especially at meetings of any kind. Being in charge of such a detail-oriented sphere of the sect business, Rong Qingsheng assumes, requires one to pay close attention to even the littlest of trivialities.

How time consuming. How much work does it take, to constantly be on alert for every little mention of every little faucet of their collective lives, taking careful note of every little action and reaction and conversation and tucking them away to be used at a later date in conjunction with the running of the sect, without going absolutely mad in the process? Shang-shixiong is the most frequent visitor of their sect leader’s offices for a reason.

He’s never once fallen asleep during a meeting. Rong Qingsheng simply cannot relate, and neither can any of the other peak lords.

The very second that Zhangmen-shixiong brings the meeting to a close, Shang Qinghua jumps up from his seat and makes a beeline toward Shen Qingqiu, who has also begun to look incredibly sleepy and bored out of his mind, but much better at concealing it behind his trusty fan. The Qing Jing peak lord glances up to meet the gaze of Shang Qinghua as he approaches him, and he brings the fan down an inch, a lazy smirk steals across his face.

“Do you like them?” Shen Qingqiu asks almost coyly.

The rest of the peak lords loiter in the room, holding conversations with one another but not paying attention to them because they’re all focused on the confrontation happening at the front. Rong Qingsheng is a little ashamed that he’s one of them. Not ashamed enough to leave, though.

Shang Qinghua comes to a stop before Shen Qinqiu’s table and kneels, huffily, directly onto the hard stone floor across from him, sweeping his sleeves behind him before crossing his arms over his chest. How he’s able to act befitting of a peak lord and yet behave so casually at the same time is surely a paradox, yet he somehow manages it.

“I fail to see why I have been gifted them in the first place,” Shang Qinghua comments idly, though he sounds oddly sarcastic.

Shen Qingqui sets down his fan, only to go for his teacup and use tha to cover his rather sharp smile instead. “But, do you like them?”

Distantly, he can hear Qi Qingqi murmur gleefully from behind him. “How much did you want to wager on Shang-shixiong starting it, Liu-Shidi?”

There’s a grunt. Then, reluctantly, “... Three silver.”

“So low? Liu-Shidi, that’s not very confident of you.”

“S-seven silver!”

“Qi-Shijie, stop trying to extort Liu-shidi. He’s never placed a bet before.” Oh, did Mu Qingfang join them? “Also, put me down for ten silver on Shen-shixiong being the one who started it, but Shang-shixiong being the one who caused it to continue.”

Ju Qingsong frowns. “Are they actually fighting? Shen-shixiong hasn’t intentionally aggravated anyone for a reaction since the fever.”

“What would they be fighting about?” Shui Qingyu asks, confused.

“Something stupid.” Liu Qingge grumbles, but in a knowing way, and so they all turn to listen, like a bunch of nosy eavesdroppers. Which is precisely what they are.

Rong Qingsheng feels so, so tired.

Across the room, Shang Qinghua is scowling. “You can’t just give me expensive jewelry and think that’ll make everything better.”

“Aren’t you calling the kettle black, here, Shang-ge?” Shen Qingqiu asks, using another of the odd metaphoric phrases than only he and Shang Qinghua seem to understand the meanings of. And then there’s the overly familiar form of address, which he’d begun using a few months after the fever broke, but to which Shang Qinghua had rather suspiciously had very little reaction to, and even reciprocated.

It’s all just really, really weird, if you asked Rong Qingsheng. But, then again, no one ever does.

“Are you calling me a hypocrite?” Shang Qinghua asks incredulously, fingering one of the new earrings as if self conscious. Ah, is that what Shen Qingqiu had been saying?

“Well, I’m not calling you a stalwart.”

“Joke’s on you then, Shen-ge, because I’m the most stalwart person here.”

Shen Qingqiu pauses, eyes flitting over to a bemused Yue Qingyuan, and then briefly across the rest of the peak lords, who all very consciously do not duck their heads, before he nods slowly in acquiescence.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’ve got me there. But, you still haven’t answered my question.”

Shang Qinghua scowls, removing his hand from the earring and folding it pointedly against his other in his lap.

“... Fine,” he huffs irritably. “Yes, I do.”

Shen Qingqiu takes a sip of tea, eyebrows raised. “You what?”

“I’m not saying it again.”

“You have to. That was the deal.”

“There was no— ugh!” Shang Qinghua throws up his hands, and Shen Qingqiu’s lips quirk a little before he chuckles. Actually chuckles! Yue Qingyuan looks positively poleaxed, from where he sits silently and as unobtrusively as possible at his table a foot away from the two bickering friends.

“You can’t insult my sense of fashion and style and then just, what, not expect me to get revenge? Shang-ge, please. You know me better than that.”

Rong Qingsheng’s brows furrow. This is revenge? Gifting Shang Qinghua expensive earrings was a form of revenge? Revenge for what, exactly?

“And you know me better than to think I won’t be getting you back for this,” Shang Qinghua sniffs, standing up from the floor. He points a finger at the fan-toting lord of Qing Jing, and exclaims, “I’m going to get you a gift so great that you won’t possibly be able to top it.”

“Watch me,” Shen Qingqiu immediately retorts, as if Shang Qinghua’s announcement had been some sort of threat, eyes narrow and fan flipping open to cover his lower face.

It’s a beautiful face. Rong Qingsheng has always wondered why Shen-shixiong is so self conscious about it as to constantly cover it up. It can’t be to hide his expressions — he hardly ever allows his thoughts or feelings to show on his face in the first place. It has to be something else.

Shang Qinghua glares, pivots on his heel, and stomps toward the exit. He breezes right on by the eavesdropping peak lords without even sparing them a glance, and slams the door behind him on his way out.

Rong Qingsheng is so confused, and it doesn’t look like any of his martial siblings are much better.

“I can’t even figure out who wins the pot,” Qi Qingqi harrumphs grumpily. She shoves the parchment and charcoal stick back into her cleavage like it’s just another pocket. Both items vanish, and Rong Qingsheng wonders a little hysterically whether she’s got some sort of quankin space array tattooed in between them or something else equally as absurd.

“Well, that would require knowing who started it,” Ju Qingsong shrugs. He’s got a hand on Rong Qingsheng’s shoulder and is leaning against him. He shrugs him off like the irritant that he is, and gets another pout for his troubles.

Mu Qingfang hums. “We will just have to wait until things settle down between them, and ask.”

He and Liu Qingge exchange a glance, and then look away from each other with odd, amused little smiles on their faces.

“It might be a while,” the doctor adds.

He walks away toward the exit himself just as Yue Qingyuan approaches their little group.

“If the peaks lords wish to have lunch together in Qiong Ding, arrangements can certainly be made,” the sect leader begins, and gives them a placid smile. “However, I do not not believe this to be the case. Do my shidi and shimei not have any work to do today?”

Rong Qingsheng cringes, exchanging a sheepish look with his martial siblings. They all beat a hasty retreat back to their own peaks. Finding out what exactly is going on between their two most dramatic and ridiculous martial brothers is going to have to wait.