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stiltonbasket · 8 months

Note

If you do Bingyuan prompts:

Bingge discovering/realizing that his children’s beloved head teacher is the friendly Shizun from the other world would be a delight!

(Shen Yuan with a miniature army of tiny heavenly demon children who adore him is just super cute!)

By the age of twenty-five, Luo Binghe possessed—or thought he possessed—all the wealth and treasures in the world that a man could want. His vengeance upon the Cang Qiong Mountain sect was complete, the mountain range burned and its peak lords slain but for the master of Qian Cao Peak and Qi Qingqi, whom he had spared for Liu Mingyan’s sake—and he had long since established himself as Emperor of the demon realm, with no small amount of influence in the world he was born to by virtue of his marriage to the Little Palace Mistress, Hua Zhihan.

But then—half-way through his twenty-seventh year, and three years after the construction of his great fortress close to Huan Hua Palace—he stumbled through a rent in the very skin of the world and found himself back upon Qing Jing Peak, cradled in the arms of a man who wore the face of Luo Binghe’s hated shizun.

He had hardly been there an hour before he discovered that that Shen Qingqiu had been nothing like the jealous fiend who tormented Luo Binghe in his youth. On the contrary, he had welcomed Luo Binghe into his home and bed like a new bride reuniting with her husband at the end of a long day’s work; and for several months after Luo Binghe returned to his own palace in the demon realm, he found no satisfaction in his endless riches, or the tens of wives in his harem.

He spent a full season hunting for that Shen Qingqiu in his own world afterwards, for he knew somehow that the living Shen Qingqiu who had married the other Luo Binghe and his own former Shizun were not one and the same. The Shen Qingqiu Luo Binghe knew had nothing in common with that man other than his face, and even that had been so altered by the spirit living behind it that Luo Binghe had not recognized him as Shen Qingqiu at first sight; but the other Luo Binghe reminded him a great deal of his own child-self, and how single-mindedly he had loved Ning Yingying in those early days at Cang Qiong.

But years went by, and Luo Binghe found nothing—no shadow or trace of that gentle Shen Qingqiu, whether living or dead—and at last, he drank himself sick on dragon-blood wine and unburdened himself to Ning Yingying, confessing that nothing under the sun had brought him joy since that one jewel-bright day with Shen Qingqiu three summers earlier.

Of course, he did not breathe a word about what had actually happened—for Yingying and the others believed that the strange, bewildered husband who stumbled into the hougong that day was none other than Luo Binghe himself, and he had never seen fit to disabuse them of the notion—but she seemed to understand that the better part of his life’s joy had left him, and said:

“A-Luo, if we sisters can’t make you happy as we used to anymore, do you think—do you think a child might make you happy? We’ve been married for nearly ten years, and I hoped…”

Luo Binghe thought for a moment, still dizzy from the six pots of wine he drank with his evening meal; and amid the soft haze clouding his thoughts, he realized that he would have died of envy if the poor imitation of himself from the other world had had a child with his Shen Qingqiu.

But the only children he had seen on Qing Jing Peak that day were a handful of young disciples in their early teens, far too old to belong to that pitiful Luo Binghe. It struck him that this was something that other Luo Binghe could never have—must never have, lest Luo Binghe know what had happened and find his way back to that dream-world to quell his jealousy by ripping his other self limb from limb—and then—

“It might not be a bad idea,” he heard himself say. “What about Yingying? Would you like a child?”

“Very much,” Yingying whispered, taking Luo Binghe’s hand.

Their first daughter, Suoxin, was born the next year; and when the head taiyi placed her in Luo Binghe’s arms, a tiny mote of the tumult in his soul grew calm, and never returned to trouble him again.

The birth of Suoxin’s younger sister Changying followed exactly a hundred days later, for Hua Zhihan had demanded a child of her own as soon as she heard that Ning Yingying was pregnant, and Luo Binghe saw no reason to refuse her. Several of his lesser wives had attempted to follow suit, but he was adamant that no children should be born to them until the children born of his five chief wives had safely reached the age of about three or four: especially after the tragedy that accompanied the birth of Luo Binghe’s first son.

The taiyi later discovered that his mother—Qin Wanyue, who had suffered a miscarriage at Sha Hualing’s hands some six years earlier—had been born with a deformation in one of the chambers of her heart; and due to her general good health and the strengthening effects of her cultivation, Wanyue never noticed it. But her cultivation was not sufficient to protect her from the strain of childbirth; and scarcely five minutes after the baby took his first breath, Qin Wanyue drew her last, dying without knowing anything more of her child than a single, snatched glimpse of his small red face.

The infant was given the name Luo Nianzu, in remembrance of his mother, and handed over to Liu Mingyan to raise. Mingyan had not wanted a child of her own, though she was more than willing to bring Nianzu up in Wanyue’s stead.

And in the wake of Qin Wanyue’s passing, Luo Binghe vowed to himself that he would never sire another child. He had been the instrument of her ruin, wittingly or not: and with three healthy heirs, of whom one was a boy, he refused to risk a second death in the harem.

But his resolve had not hampered Sha Hualing’s plans: and in truth, Luo Binghe should have known better than to expect otherwise. One night, she took Xin Mo from the stand beside his bed and stabbed Luo Binghe straight through the shoulder—rather more ferociously than usual, he thought—and absconded from the palace with three phials full of his spilt blood, returning a fortnight later with a fat baby boy swaddled in one of her own silk veils.

“Did you give birth to him?” Luo Binghe frowned, after he tasted the child’s blood mites and found that they were nearly identical to his own. “You were only gone for two weeks.”

Sha Hualing only laughed at him, and asked that he give their son a name. Luo Binghe named him Shunlei, with the shun for obedience and the lei for thunder; and though Hualing took the hint at once, she was so well-pleased with Shunlei’s name that Hua Zhihan spent the next month sulking about it.

The three years that followed Shunlei’s arrival were peaceful ones, for the demon realm had been brought to heel with Sha Hualing’s aid, and Mobei-jun grew more ruthless towards Luo Binghe’s enemies with every passing day. Yingying and Mingyan governed the harem both kindly and firmly, calming any disputes among the lesser wives and punishing those whose bids for favor put their sisters in danger; and they never faltered in their duty to the little ones, so that Luo Binghe went untroubled by the children’s needs until Liu Mingyan declared that Suoxin and Changying were old enough to begin studying with a trained taifu.

“I already have a candidate in mind,” she said to him over dinner one evening. “Will my lord permit me to look after the arrangements myself?”

“I don’t see why not,” Luo Binghe replied. “Do what you must. Only ensure that the taifu is well educated, and knows how to teach little children without frightening them.” One Shen Qingqiu was bad enough, after all.

And so, preparations went forth for the children’s education. Liu Mingyan wrote to the prospective taifu, who accepted the offer of employment and asked for a month to settle his affairs before moving to the palace; and Yingying began teaching Nianzu and Shunlei how to read, in the hope that the taifu would agree to instruct them alongside Suoxin and Changying.

Luo Binghe, having nothing further to do with the matter, left for the northern desert with Mobei-jun and Sha Hualing.

Linguang-jun had decided to rebel against his nephew’s rule again, and Luo Binghe was weary of indulging him. In the aftermath of Shang Qinghua’s betrayal, he and Mobei-jun had both decided that Linguang-jun’s continued existence was far more trouble than it was worth.

All told, he remained away from the palace for over two moons. When he finally returned, in midsummer, he went straight to his own courtyard and slept for three days without moving a muscle.

And then he awoke, and heard a soft strain of qin music issuing from the other side of the wall.

Luo Binghe froze.

That courtyard was meant to be empty; it had been empty since the day it was built, eight months after he met that other world’s Shen Qingqiu. Luo Binghe had filled its four rooms with books and bamboo furniture, and even the double bed in the inner chamber had been a replica of the one the other Shizun slept upon—and the courtyard’s little garden had a pavilion with a built-in table for a qin, since the construction of that Shizun’s house and garden made it plain that he liked to practice out of doors.

Who had dared set foot in that courtyard while Luo Binghe was absent?

Hua Zhihan? Qin Wanrong? Certainly not Yingying or Liu Mingyan; it resembled the living quarters at Qing Jing far too closely for either of them to find any peace there.

Trembling with fury, he pulled on the robes he was wearing last night and rushed over to the adjoining courtyard, where he stopped short at the threshold of its white-painted moon gate and gaped at the spectacle awaiting him within.

There was a man sitting at the qin table in the pavilion—a man, in the compound where Luo Binghe lived with his wives—playing a rearrangement of “Flowing Waters,” with Luo Shunlei on his lap. Suoxin and Changying were seated on either side of him, armed with child-sized guqins of their own, and Nianzu was nestled against the man’s shoulder, asleep.

And his face—

Luo Binghe had never seen such a face before. It was not the face of Shen Qingqiu—not the Shen Qingqiu he knew, at any rate—but the light in his eye and the warmth of his voice as he spoke to Suoxin were very like that Shen Qingqiu’s, though Luo Binghe noticed that there was a shade of difference between the two.

He is older, Luo Binghe realized at once, as his heart thundered inside him. The other Shen Qingqiu was young, judging by his manner—perhaps forty, at the very oldest—and my Shizun never even reached the age of fifty.

The other Shizun had worn green, he remembered. He preferred the same clean-cut style of dress that Luo Binghe’s shizun liked to wear, and of course their bodies and faces had been the same, as well; but this man wore s different face entirely, and his worn silk robes were a clean, stark white, like the garments of the wandering rogue cultivators who used to pass through Luo Binghe’s hometown when he was a boy.

The trappings of his flesh made no difference, however.

Luo Binghe knew him for what he was at first sight.

It struck him then that this must be the taifu Liu Mingyan selected for the children. He could not fathom why she would have housed an imperial tutor in the hougong, of all places: but now that he was here, Luo Binghe would rather walk through the Endless Abyss again than permit him to leave.

Luo Binghe could have stood in the doorway and stared at him for a lifetime; but then the taifu looked up and clambered to his feet, tugging the little girls along with him. Shunlei remained where he was, gripping the soft front of the taifu’s gown like a baby monkey clinging to its mother’s back; and Nianzu, securely balanced on the taifu’s hip, slept on without noticing that the man had moved at all.

“My lord,” the taifu said, bowing. “This humble servant offers his—”

“Xin’er greets Father!” Luo Suoxin cut in, glancing up at her teacher for approval. “Did I do it right, Shizun?”

“Yes, except for the part where you interrupted me first,” the taifu laughed. “Go on, Changying.”

Luo Changying nodded and stepped forward.

“Chang’er greets Father,” she said, rather more gracefully than Suoxin.

“Well done,” said the taifu. “Now, Shunlei…?”

Shunlei blinked and tightened his grasp on the taifu’s robes.

“A-Shun is hungry,” he complained, refusing to meet Luo Binghe’s eyes. “Shizun, snack time.”

Luo Binghe bit back a smile. This man was somehow more indulgent with his young charges than the other Shizun had been, and the sight of him holding Nianzu and Shunlei was so desperately sweet that Luo Binghe nearly reached out and touched him.

“Daozhang is the new taifu, I suppose?” Luo Binghe asked instead, taking another step forward. “Your name?”

The taifu nodded.

“This one is called Zhu Qinglan, my lord,” he replied, trying in vain to coax Shunlei down to the ground. “Now, A-Shun, my good little disciple…”

“Shunshun won’t look at him,” the baby insisted, his little voice muffled in the folds of Zhu Qinglan’s coat. “I want to eat cake, not see Fuqin.”

To Luo Binghe’s astonishment, Zhu Qinglan sat down on the steps below the pavilion and drew a wrapped package of sesame cakes out of his sleeve.

“Your imperial father has come back to see you after two months, and you act like this?” he chided, placing one of the cakes on Shunlei’s outstretched palm. “Now, eat your cake like a good child; and then you must get up and greet your father properly, like Xin’er and Chang’er.”

Luo Binghe lifted his hand.

“No need,” he said mildly, watching with half-crazed eyes as Zhu Qinglan stroked Luo Nianzu's fluffy hair. “Shun’er is always upset after this lord returns from his travels abroad. I do not see the children as often as I would like; but I try to dine with them at least once a week, and that little demon in your arms refuses to speak to me for days on end if I ever dare to arrive late.”

With that, he turned on his heel and swept out of the courtyard. He could not stand in Zhu Qinglan’s presence any longer, lest he do something that would terrify his children and turn their Shizun against him forever; and as it was, the little demon servant who brought breakfast to his quarters ten minutes later nearly died of fright at the sight of him.

“Zhu Qinglan,” Luo Binghe said to himself, after the petrified lackey made his escape. “The name suits him, whether it is a false one or no.”

He drained the last of his tea, and smiled.

“I’ve finally caught you, Shizun.”

#svsss #bingyuan #binggeyuan #the scum villain's self saving system #my fic #i live to serve and i have delivered #this is my first foray into multichapter svsss fic so please reblog if you liked it/would like to see more!#shen yuan's name is still shen yuan btw #we will unravel the backstory behind the name he's using Later #as well as some other.....backstory #;)

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