Work Text:
Of course Shen Qingqiu is annoyed by being expertly captured by the raiding party while alone on a mission with Luo Binghe, but he is only annoyed. After all, he knows exactly what these people want, and at worst, this should be something of a catch-and-release.
The demons who make their homes among the cliffs that line the East River mark every trading-fair and celebration with gladiatorial matches. These contests pit cultivators against the great beasts of the demonic deserts, and perhaps even a horror or two that’s managed to escape the Abyss itself. (Supply permitting.) Captured cultivators are considered excellent sport. They fetch good prices and often even survive the battles they’re subjected to, winning back their freedom in the process. Demonic audiences jeer at the spectacle of their traditional enemies brought low, forced to perform for the masses and then to slink off at speed even when they're victorious. The escaping humans are, after all, seldom foolish enough to rise against the demons deep within their home territory, and in the face of said foes’ far greater numbers.
Of course the rarest treat of all, should a lucky raiding party come across one, is a virgin cultivator. These the demons guard more closely, and even if a virgin cultivator proves successful in the contest, she is hardly ever offered her liberty. Having just demonstrated their strength and skill by surviving, such humans make excellent presents for any visiting noble who the lords of the River Towns wish to impress: exciting, exotic concubines. Airplane, naturally, milked three whole wife plots out of this shit.
At the moment, Shen Qingqiu is more concerned with the memory of those half-assed chapters than with the safety and sanctity of his own, full ass. (What, after all, could possibly happen to Luo Binghe? Even during his whump phase, no one’s going to be able to deal permanent damage to the Stallion Protagonist.) Deliberately insouciant, Shen Qingqiu provokes their captors. Angry people make mistakes, and one mistake is all Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe need to overpower the score of enemies still-standing and effect their escape.
But when the demons’ hellhound sniffs at both Shen Qingqiu and his seventeen year old disciple, it sits back on its haunches and howls approvingly. Twice.
Shen Qingqiu blanches. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters under his breath. “There’s no way in hell—”
The raiding party’s forward-thinking leader knocks the Peak Lord unconscious before he can finish that thought. Xiu Ya is powerful, and has a reputation for cunning. He’s likely planning something, and he’s far too valuable to let slip away. The finder’s fee for this pretty, unknown Cang Qiong disciple will cover the whole trip, but Shen Qingqiu is worth his weight in gold.
“Shizun!” Luo Binghe gasps as the blow lands and his teacher slumps in his bonds. The boy glares bloody murder up at the raiders’ chief, who pays both the youth’s struggles and his promises of retribution no mind. Such a prize as she’s taken merits the use of one of the band’s expensive emergency transportation-portal talismans. (And these are dear indeed: of the fine sort sold only by the reclusive mages of the Northern Desert.) The raiding party gathers their wounded, concealing every trace of their presence in human territory and then stepping into the wide array. Within moments, the lot of them stand in the receiving hall of the largest city on the East River’s gladiatorial commission. The raiders’ leader catches a passing aide, addressing him in a language that narrow-eyed, watchful Luo Binghe can’t follow—a dialect not even Meng Mo, when swiftly consulted, proves familiar with.
Luo Binghe lets the other demons drag him, surly and calculating, to the cells. That is where they’re taking Shen Qingqiu, after all. And whatever happens, the young man knows that he must remain with his beloved lord.
Not for the first time, Shen Qingqiu wakes to find himself thoroughly immobilised by immortal binding cables. As soon as his groggy eyes focus, Shen Qingqiu realises he’s looking up at the relieved face of his favourite disciple: that the murmur he’s been hearing, the touch on his brow and the lap his head is pillowed on all belong to the protagonist. Shen Qingqiu coughs, embarrassed, and tries to right himself. He winces at the throbbing in his temples, and finds himself being tugged back into his disciple’s gentle clutches.
They are obviously in a cell. Not ideal, certainly, but manageable. Nothing if not adaptable, Shen Qingqiu is already formulating a new plan.
In a still-pained murmur, Shen Qingqiu explains almost everything he knows about these people and their customs to his student. He outlines the trials that await them and the treatment virgin cultivators can expect in this place. Shocked and likely outraged, the young man’s fingers clench around Shen Qingqiu’s shoulders.
“I won’t let that happen,” Luo Binghe vows darkly.
His precious bun may still be just a boy, but Shen Qingqiu knows he really won’t let it. Admirable and endearing determination aside, this stupid world is hardly likely to let Luo Binghe lose. …that said, there is a chance it could decide to yield Luo Binghe up to a love-sick demonic maiden (and, as an afterthought, to give his foredoomed tutor over to the rough mercies of the first passing comedic Katisha figure). Best to remain vigilant, Shen Qingqiu thinks with a hard swallow.
“Then you must fight for our liberty,” Shen Qingqiu says, letting his disciple hear his master’s confidence in him.
“Of course, Shizun,” Luo Binghe promises: the picture of filial devotion, even down here in the dripping dark. “For you.”
Shen Qingqiu nods graciously, accepting the proffered loyalty and offering his own trust in return.
“We’ll come through this,” Shen Qingqiu promises his still-anxious but bright-eyed, hopeful disciple. “You’ll be fine, Binghe.” That, at least, Shen Qingqiu knows to be true.
Though concerned about the risks, Shen Qingqiu is looking forward to seeing the protagonist in action again. Actually, this should be quite a bonding activity for the two of them! A bout of shared hardship—companionship in adversity, and all that—stands a good chance of sweetening Luo Binghe’s recollections of the teacher who must eventually betray him. And given that they’re both men, there’s zero chance of the coming battle awakening the whole ‘demon pon farr, mate-winning battle-bloodlust rut’ shit from the book.
“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu says after a moment, “your hands are free, aren't they? Do you think you might untie me?”
“Oh!” Luo Binghe says, with a guilty start. “Oh yes! Right.”
The flaws in Shen Qingqiu’s reasoning begin to become apparent to him when a panting Luo Binghe, having just finished decimating all comers, swivels his head and lurches towards his master. They’d been thrown into the arena together (the novelty of a shizun and disciple pair having evidently not been lost on the event organisers). The seal on Luo Binghe’s powers had broken when, after facing a series of increasingly-dangerous challengers, they’d finally been confronted with what had initially appeared to be a Roman-style naval arena battle (but which had actually contained Bonus Leviathan Content).
Shen Qingqiu knows very well from the source text that when a demon of Luo Binghe’s rank enters a contest such as this himself, any cultivator prize on offer is his by right (source: arena wifeplot 2 of 3, aka wife 47 of 96 (official)). A heavenly demonic sigil now blazes on Luo Binghe’s forehead, blatant and impossible to mistake. His pupils are night-black and blown wide; they entirely swallow up the young demon’s newly-red irises. He is slathered in his opponents' blood, and his Qing Jing uniform has been ripped to fetching shreds (his master’s having hardly fared better).
Luo Binghe paws frantically at his lord. “Shizun,” he gasps, “did I do well, Shizun? Did you like it?” The young man seems prepared to crown his run of conquests by taking his cultivator prize right here in the middle of the ring.
Shen Qingqiu swallows, trying to think fast. Who here can he trust to take care of Luo Binghe in this state? Absolutely no one. And that’s if he could get away from his disciple long enough to explain the situation to someone sympathetic.
Luo Binghe is far too busy nuzzling and pressing himself against his mentor to negotiate with their captors. It’s left to Shen Qingqiu to collar someone who speaks basically-xianxia-Mandarin. Shen Qingqiu takes the bewildered respect the East River demons feel for a champion and their erstwhile sovereign and harnesses that sentiment to an effective claim to the privileges Luo Binghe has won in battle and is entitled to by birth. Namely a room, right now—before Shen Qingqiu finds the weight of both the protagonist and the plot bearing him down onto the blood-splattered sand, before the eyes of this vast, raucous crowd.
The soldiers who shoved the two of them into the ring this morning now serve as a sort of honour guard, conveying the victors to fine retiring rooms normally reserved for rich guests attending the games (and enjoying their own cultivator prizes in the aftermath of battle: that kind of thing seems to do it for a great many demons). The irate Xiu Ya demands that food and fresh clothes be left outside the door. The frost in his tone makes these low-level guards nervous about what will happen to them if the man is forced to come looking for supplies. Xiu Ya is rather above their pay-grade.
I was the capture target, Shen Qingqiu thinks as the guards depart. I got too clever, trying to buy my safety by tricking the book. In this genre, the logical outcome of receiving Luo Binghe’s protection is obviously—
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe whines for his master’s attention the second they're left alone in the suite. “Shizun, please.” The young man tries to scent-mark his master, even while he scrabbles at what’s left of the Peak Lord’s clothes. “You asked me to, so I waited. I waited.”
Luo Binghe’s eyes are uncomprehending, starving pools. His hands shake where they touch Shen Qingqiu, as though he’s suffering. Even so, his touch is light. Even like this, he is still trying to be gentle.
“Oh, Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu murmurs. And for a moment, he forgets all questions of narrative inevitability, and all about the payoffs this sort of story owes its central character. He forgets everything but his disciple’s need, and his own uncertain capacity to meet it. He’ll do what he can—he must. In the arena, Luo Binghe tried to risk his own charmed life to preserve his master. His master can only offer up a little of his own, charmless one in turn.
The following day—still too wrung-out even to open his eyes—Shen Qingqiu contemplates their situation. He could almost swear he’d seen Sha Hualing up there in the royal box, and he has a sinking feeling that isn’t just paranoia. Someone wearing a red, vague excuse for a dress had been parked in the best seat in the house, toying with dinky opera glasses. Sha Hualing did canonically attend these fairs on her father’s behalf, too. No doubt she’d munched her melon seeds and enjoyed the long-anticipated sequel to her last encounter with Cang Qiong's finest.
Perhaps Shen Qingqiu ought to have begged her to aid his disciple in his place, but the thought was so unpleasant that it hadn’t even occurred to him at the time. Sha Hualing is volatile, and can be shockingly violent in her tastes. Not a good starter-wife at all! His Binghe might as well have lost his virginity to the eight-fanged ice bear that had almost taken his arm off yesterday.
Still, that’s just great. How is Luo Binghe supposed to woo the demon general after she’s seen her dashing prince fully feral, trying to mount his decrepit professor in the dirt? The boy only let himself be pushed off after he’d thoroughly, publicly scented the Peak Lord! Even given Sha Hualing’s singular tastes, this is hardly the stuff teen girls’ fantasies are made of. (Shen Qingqiu stifles a groan of annoyance; he doesn’t want to wake the doubtless-exhausted disciple in his arms.)
If that had been Sha Hualing, then she’s very likely waiting to ambush them outside the city. She’ll certainly want revenge for her humiliation that day at the Peaks. They are deep in demonic territory, and Luo Binghe’s heritage is far too tenuous a guarantor to ensure that he’ll be simply given an extremely valuable transportation talisman. Each is a one-way ticket: not something most ordinary citizens have much use for. The raiding party that sold them on to the gladiatorial commission will be long gone, by now.
They ought to sneak out of both the arena complex and the town outright: to try and make their way home, praying that the journey will give Luo Binghe the time he needs to learn to conceal his demonic mark. If it doesn’t, they’ll have to find somewhere relatively safe and stall. Perhaps canon’s shifted to the extent that this is how Luo Binghe’s coming of age power-up arc is going to play out? After all, how is Shen Qingqiu supposed to toss his disciple into the Abyss for ‘concealing his demonic heritage’ when said heritage has just been dramatically unconcealed?
When Luo Binghe wakes he smiles up at his Shizun just as he might any day, when rousing his master and bringing in their breakfast.
“You didn’t need to let me sleep,” Luo Binghe murmurs, his hand stroking the skin of his master’s chest as he pushes himself upright. Shen Qingqiu coughs and straightens, leaning back against the headboard (gingerly favouring the parts of him that still ache, even with System easy mode cheats like the oil in the dresser). As Shen Qingqiu explains his plan in a low voice that won’t carry beyond the probably-guarded door, Luo Binghe’s indulgent fondness gives way to focus. He nods along, comprehending his master’s ideas perfectly.
Shen Qingqiu is relieved, but a little puzzled. He’d supposed Luo Binghe would be abjectly embarrassed by all that had passed; he expected a barrage of mutually-humiliating apologies. Yet Luo Binghe is behaving quite normally: as though he slammed his master into a mating press and growled at him to take every drop of his seed every day (while Shen Qingqiu choked on air and writhed on the massive cock pinning him to the sheets of a strange, gilt-crusted bed). Perhaps Luo Binghe is delicately ignoring the events for his master’s sake, or simply can’t lucidly recall the particulars thereof. It could be that even given his own prior inexperience, the young stallion is by nature blasé about such subjects. That seems unlike his disciple, but it's perfectly in character for Emperor Luo. After all, Shen Qingqiu's white lotus is destined to blacken like paper held close to a flame, and to warp into something almost unrecognisable. Shen Qingqiu supposes that he knows everything and nothing about what Luo Binghe is like: what he might do, and who he might become.
There is no more point in brooding over that inevitable loss than there is in mourning the eventual heat-death of the universe. Shen Qingqiu decides that they can discuss whatever they need to later. For now, they have a road-trip through the demonic realm to speed-run.
Incidentally, the guess about the door being guarded turns out to be correct. When Luo Binghe opens it to fetch the food and clothes Shen Qingqiu requested the previous night, he’s greeted with a solemn clap on the back from the older she-demon standing watch. Speaking a broadly comprehensible dialect, she tries to say something encouraging about his having ‘become a man last night’. Scarlet-faced, Luo Binghe scuttles back through the door. When Shen Qingqiu asks what they told him, Luo Binghe claims he couldn’t understand a word and swiftly changes the subject.
Luo Binghe chokes on the water he’s drinking. Prudent, cautious Shen Qingqiu has just introduced himself to the rough lot they’ve met at a well on this, their second day on the road, as the mate of the heavenly demon he accompanies. The implication rests heavily on his hearers: though human, Shen Qingqiu is protected. He is dressed, like his mate, in local garb: no intrusive invader, but a citizen of the demonic realms by marriage, passing through land he has every right to be in. The cultivator won’t attack them unprovoked, and in turn, they ought not to offer him any provocation.
Luo Binghe takes his shizun’s lovely line up like a mantle. He proudly tells anyone who might need to hear it that the man beside him is claimed, is his own personal property. Even given Shen Qingqiu’s vast stores of knowledge about what they’ll find here, his apparent freedom from Without a Cure and his native competence (bolstered by Luo Binghe’s own strength), trudging through the demonic realms is wearying, dangerous business. Luo Binghe is both an asset and a liability right now. Coming to grips with his unleashed power, the young man wobbles like a new-born faun. Yet he is charged and invigorated by his lover’s presence, and by the altered bond between them.
He recalls the day when his shijie realised he was in love with their master. In a voice laden with sympathy, Ning Yingying had blurted out, “oh, A Luo. But nothing can ever come of it!” Thoughtless as ever, even when she was trying to be kind.
“Don’t you think I know that?” he’d hissed back, shamed and maddened. But she’d been wrong: they both had been. Everything has come of it.
Of necessity, he and Shen Qingqiu’s nights on the road have been occupied with alternating watches rather than with love-making. Luo Binghe tells his shizun that when they’re somewhere safe—when they’re home—he’ll offer his shizun his due. He promises his beloved lord an eight-course feast to celebrate their homecoming. Even if they’re a little tardy in it, Luo Binghe still thinks it important to carry out the auspicious rituals proper to a wedding. He wants to do them, and he wants his shizun to have them.
Shen Qingqiu—so fetching, in the dark cloth that marks the nobility of this place: looking like an exalted and powerful demon himself, in their costume—smiles on his husband. Calls his disciple a sweet boy, and strokes his cheek with his hand. His thumb lingers on the place where Luo Binghe took a hit intended for his master in the arena: where the ice bear’s fang had rested, threatening to crush Luo Binghe’s skull in its jaw, before Shen Qingqiu had sliced up, clean through the beast’s brain, to free him.
“Your cuts have healed nicely,” he observes. “But then, they would.”
Luo Binghe has spent the past years terrified that if his shizun were ever to discover his tainted blood, he’d be disgusted by it. But Shen Qingqiu accepts the uncanny capability and potency of Luo Binghe’s body as though he expected all this: as though it’s just another part of Luo Binghe, whom he loves. Luo Binghe feels tears welling in his eyes when he thinks of it. The relief is that potent. Shen Qingqiu speaks of their remaining in hiding for as long as it takes for Luo Binghe to gain control over his blood-huaidan; Shen Qingqiu offers to come away from all the world, for Luo Binghe’s sake. To leave Qing Jing and everyone on it behind, simply to protect his favourite disciple. As though the offer's nothing, when it means the world to Luo Binghe.
Luo Binghe can’t wait to taste Shizun’s acceptance once more: to lavish all the tenderness stored up in him on his lord. During their only night together, biology robbed him of the chance to pour out the full measure of his devotion. And even that, Shizun accepted. But of course refined, fussy Shen Qingqiu wants—deserves—sensible safety and a proper bed, before they celebrate their union again. Luo Binghe usually finds his master’s exactitude eminently reasonable, and even a little charming. This is no exception. He will make every effort to ensure that his husband has all that he’s accustomed to, and more.
Disharmony enters their journey unexpectedly, striking out at them like a street-thief might grab a coin purse. Despite all the advice they’ve heard to the contrary, Shen Qingqiu believes they’ll do better to take the slightly shorter path through the yao-infested mountains than to march across the low plains where such scant crops as the demons here grow struggle to flourish. Shen Qingqiu’s knowledge of the world is almost as remarkable as his adaptive responsiveness to its challenges. Luo Binghe trusts him absolutely, but on this occasion, some of Shen Qingqiu's answers make his consort uneasy.
“You’re hardly vulnerable to the mountain yao, given your dual nature,” Shen Qingqiu says, brushing off the young man’s worries as though they’re immaterial. “It’s a whole week’s difference!”
“A week at worst,” Luo Binghe concedes. “And if we came under attack I’d give my life to protect you, of course. But Shizun, we ought to choose a path that doesn’t needlessly place you in danger in the first place. Yao prey upon the fully-human mind. You’ve already survived one qi deviation during our years together. Isn’t it better for you to avoid unsettling forces when you can?”
Shen Qingqiu huffs in frustration, acting as though he’d like to clearly explain the situation to his disciple, so that Luo Binghe can see things as he does, but finds himself unable to manage it.
“Who’s Shizun, here?” Shen Qingqiu snaps instead, throwing back his sleeves to place his hands on his hips. He obviously doesn’t realise that the gesture makes him look every inch the irate wife.
Luo Binghe fights the tug of his lips. “You, my lord, of course,” he soothes. (If Shen Qingqiu's safety weren’t at stake Luo Binghe would heartily agree that the sun was the moon, simply to please him.) “But Shizun, haven’t circumstances changed, just a little?” He cajoles. “As,” and here, Luo Binghe feels his cheeks heat, “your husband, my concern for your safety can’t simply be dismissed as though I’m still a child.”
Shen Qingqiu laughs, which Luo Binghe always adores seeing. “You are still a child,” he teases. Or at least Luo Binghe thinks he does, until that well-loved mouth opens again to betray him, murdering Luo Binghe’s complacent self-satisfaction in its bed.
“And you’re only ‘my husband’ when someone who might get ideas about attacking us is in earshot,” Shen Qingqiu says casually, as though reminding his disciple of something they both know perfectly well.
“What?” Luo Binghe says, after a moment.
Shen Qingqiu, who’s walked on—in the direction of the mountain pass—turns back to look at him. Luo Binghe watches worry distort Shizun’s countenance, sullying the Peak Lord’s placid expression.
“What did you say?” Luo Binghe almost whispers. “Shizun, you asked me to fight for you. You—” the flush on Luo Binghe’s face deepens with arousal and shame, “let me make you my mate. You’re my husband, now. What else could you be?”
“We are severely outnumbered here, and have been forced to extract ourselves from a very dangerous situation by any means necessary. And in the arena, you needed—something I could give you.” Shen Qingqiu reddens himself now, looking away. “You don’t want that,” Shen Qingqiu says after another moment, with iron authority. He is still glaring at the ground. “I don’t know why you think you do, but trust me, it will pass.“
“What if I did want it?” Luo Binghe asks, letting half a breath and the wind carry the truth of the last three years of his life: a truth he’d spent the past weeks believing would define its future, its entirety. “What if I do?”
“Then you’d be confused,” Shen Qingqiu snaps. “Mistaken. Manipulated by circumstance. Binghe, really!”
“I see,” Luo Binghe says with a hitch like a laugh in his voice. “Of course. Of course I’m mistaken. ‘Nothing can come of it.’ This just isn't the kind of thing that happens. At least not to me.”
“No,” Shen Qingqiu says with something like relief. “No, obviously!”
“I apologise for my presumption,” Luo Binghe grits out, and it’s the closest he’s ever come to yelling at his master. Even when Shen Qingqiu beat him (so long ago, now), Luo Binghe didn’t answer him with this degree of rancid anger humming under his polite words.
Shen Qingqiu shakes his head, waving even Luo Binghe’s resentment away. He clears his throat. “We’ll follow your suggestion,” he tries, ever so tactfully. “It’s a very good one, Binghe. They always are.”
“As my master wishes,” Luo Binghe says, keeping his eyes down and his voice flat as they turn back towards the lowlands.
With each day they spend walking closer to the border, Shen Qingqiu’s concern mounts. Luo Binghe remains faultlessly dutiful and civil, but Shen Qingqiu’s usually eager chatterbox offers little to no conversation. They are together constantly here, even more so than they normally are on Qing Jing Peak. There is thus no missing the perfunctory way Luo Binghe performs such chores as fall to him. The boy’s listlessness. He still tells unsavoury-looking strangers that his companion is his husband, but now he speaks stiffly, with tension visible in the set of his shoulders. It makes Shen Qingqiu realise the extent to which last week’s Luo Binghe had sounded like a man on his honeymoon, eagerly telling every apathetic shop-clerk he met the good news: narratively predestined to boast about his acquisitions, even when they weren’t much to boast of.
After some days, Luo Binghe collects himself. He’s still duller than he’s wont to be, and perhaps a little resentful. But the awful influence that both the sudden, disorienting release of his biological urges and the arena trope exercised on Luo Binghe seems, at last, to begin to wane. The natural arc of his character is, presumably, beginning to reassert itself. (Shen Qingqiu still has his concerns about the boy’s worsening colour, but it hardly seems tactful to voice these with things between them as they are.)
One night, Shen Qingqiu warms his hands at their camp fire. He'd gathered the wood and kindled it with a careful qi flicker, and while he managed it, Luo Binghe brought down a horned, red-dappled hare. Shen Qingqiu had told him that the animal was safe to eat and instructed him as to its habits. Shen Qingqiu now watches the rabbit turn on the spit, feeling a tired kinship with the poor bastard. He’s grown used to long silences, and so he starts when Luo Binghe suddenly speaks.
“Under what circumstances would you consider it?”
Luo Binghe’s voice is pitched low. He is staring intently into the fire between them, as though he expects something oracular to appear in its sparks.
“Binghe?” Shen Qingqiu prompts, uncertain as to what he’s being asked.
Luo Binghe raises his head, meeting his master’s eyes with a cool, direct gaze. “What prevents you from entertaining me as a prospect, Shizun?” His voice is crisp, and his words are unmistakable.
“Oh,” Shen Qingqiu says, blinking. “You’re still—thinking about that.”
“Yes, Shizun,” Luo Binghe says. His voice is tight, and there is almost a sneer in it. The tone shocks Shen Qingqiu. For the first time in their long acquaintance, he wants to remind Luo Binghe to respect their relationship as master and disciple. But right now, he hardly dares.
“You know,” Shen Qingqiu says after a pause, affecting a strained, genial smile, “very soon, you’ll meet a nice girl. You already know so many enchanting young women! There’s Yingying, of course, and—”
“That isn’t an answer.” Luo Binghe doesn’t raise his voice, but then Shen Qingqiu knows from the book that he seldom does, when he’s furious.
Is Luo Binghe really never planning on forgiving Shen Qingqiu for something he did to keep them both alive? What else can he do to break his disciple out of this funk? Shen Qingqiu always knew he’d lose his Luo Binghe to the narrative in the end, but like this? So fast? And without even the clean cut of his own betrayal and the fire of the Abyss to cauterise the wound?
Shen Qingqiu uproots a blade of grass and drops it in the fire. A plume of fragrant purple smoke erupts. “Violet Vale,” Shen Qingqiu affirms with a nod. “I thought it might be. That’s a property of the clover, here.” He clears his throat. “You know,” he says, as casually as he can manage, “I’m almost certain there’s a nest of succubi to the east of us. Not two days’ walk.”
“I don’t want a nice girl,” Luo Binghe says, staring at Shen Qingqiu as though he’d bore holes in his skull with his eyes alone if he could. “I don’t want to dabble with a succubus. I’d cut off my arm rather than watch you do it.” Shen Qingqiu winces; Luo Binghe shrugs. “Why not? You know it’d only grow back. I want my mate to ever condescend to touch me again. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it, Master. You were willing to have me before. Do I have to be dying, to evoke your pity?”
Shen Qingqiu watches Luo Binghe’s laboured breathing. It’d be easy to dismiss it as a byproduct of the boy’s being worked up, but Shen Qingqiu is afraid that the causal relationship runs the other way. A sheen of sweat coats Luo Binghe’s temples, despite the only moderate heat of the fire. Shen Qingqiu stands and approaches Luo Binghe, beginning to catalogue the symptoms; Luo Binghe lurches helplessly towards his shizun’s outstretched hand.
“Mating withdrawal?” Shen Qingqiu mutters. He’s thinking rejection fever, and biting his tongue against the words. Schooling his mind away from the very idea. Mating withdrawal is a malaise, but rejection fever can get very ugly.
He outlines the symptoms of the whole range of possibilities aloud, trying to remember them all. The vagaries of PIDW’s plot meant that mating withdrawal and rejection fever afflicted demonic harem members on several occasions, when circumstances prevented Luo Binghe from properly attending to a freshly-enfolded conquest. “But that’s not possible for you,” Shen Qingqiu mutters, dragging Luo Binghe’s sweat-slick curls off his face.
“Shizun knows almost everything about my kind,” Luo Binghe says, wetting his dry lips. “But it seems that even his knowledge is imperfect in some respects. Why shouldn’t such a common ailment afflict me, too?”
Because you’re Luo fucking Binghe! Shen Qingqiu wants to shout. “As a heavenly demon, you possess certain—”
“A heavenly demon is still a demon, Shizun,” Luo Binghe interrupts him. (Which makes Shen Qingqiu think that the boy really is ill: sullen as he’s been of late, it’s still quite out of character for him to offer his master any such disrespect.) “I’m likely vulnerable to most of the weaknesses of my race, given the right conditions.”
That is a point, Shen Qingqiu thinks. Conditions. Luo Binghe had always been too strong to suffer these sorts of ill-effects, even when his partners were laid low by them. What's changed, to make Luo Binghe vulnerable where he hadn’t been before? Is this due to Luo Binghe’s tender age? Qi-related? A side-effect of his having taken a man—a yang imbalance? To ensure a healthy demon-for-demon mating, the pair in question is really supposed to spend a fortnight dual cultivating quite regularly. But he and Luo Binghe haven’t bonded: not in the strictest sense of the term. Can a demon even bond with a human? Luo Binghe doesn’t even know how to establish such a link yet. He won’t for another four volumes!
Struck with unavailing guilt at the part he’s played in making Luo Binghe ill, Shen Qingqiu rises from where he’s been crouched at his disciple’s side.
“You’re experiencing some of those symptoms, then?” Shen Qingqiu asks, in order to render the matter absolutely clear.
The situation had only become dire after their conversation at the foot of the mountain. For the past week or more, Luo Binghe’s brain has sparked with insistent need whenever he looks at his master’s back as they walk. He always wants to be with Shen Qingqiu; he always wants him. But in recent days, it has begun to physically pain Luo Binghe that he can’t truly have the man. Out of pity or desperation, Shen Qingqiu might permit a reprisal of their wedding night. But never, as Luo Binghe had fondly hoped, out of love and answering desire. Pain sits resentfully in Luo Binghe’s bones; he’s borne it silently for days now, unable to distinguish between heartache and his body's revolt. Now pain makes his tongue unguarded and uncivil. He hardly knows what he’s saying. He only knows that even if Shen Qingqiu allows him every liberty, Luo Binghe still can’t have his beloved in a way that matters.
Luo Binghe nods. Yes, he is ‘experiencing some of those symptoms’.
Shen Qingqiu thinks about asking which, but Luo Binghe’s sullen silence makes him greatly fear that the answer is ‘all’.
“My acting to—relieve you will only make it worse,“ Shen Qingqiu tries to explain. “It could render any connection between us permanent.” He glances east, along the road. “You can walk for two days, yes?”
“I won’t take them,” Luo Binghe says through clenched teeth, dismissing the inhabitants of the succubus nest out of hand. “I don’t want them.”
“Just for medicine,” Shen Qingqiu clarifies. “If we can find their chieftain, she’ll have drugs that can ensure a part-formed bond withers without harming either party. We’ll get you through this, Binghe.” He rests his hand on his disciple’s shoulder. “I promise.”
Luo Binghe lacks both the heart and the breath to tell his master that he doesn’t want to buy his pain off with tinctures. There is only one way he’d like to settle this, as distasteful as Shen Qingqiu evidently finds the idea of a lifetime bound to his disciple. But Luo Binghe’s life is not entirely his own, and this is not wholly his choice. He has given himself over to Shen Qingqiu, for his master to use as he will. If that usage is bitter, then so be it. Luo Binghe did not promise himself only so far as his own inclinations ran. He still loves his lord. That state does not, ultimately, depend on Shen Qingqiu’s loving Luo Binghe as the young man would be loved, or indeed on Shen Qingqiu's loving him at all.
After Shen Qingqiu impresses the succubus clan by begging for his young disciple’s life (demon though the boy is), after Luo Binghe passes through the fever and emerges sound and hale, after he masters his demonic features and after they return to Qing Jing, everything is stilted still, and everything is awful. He and Luo Binghe have managed to miss the chaos attendant on the Immortal Alliance Conference. For years, Shen Qingqiu has believed the overhanging threat of the conference to be the central—even the only—problem of his life here. Having bypassed his own reckoning, Shen Qingqiu feels simultaneously delivered from damnation and cheated: even though Luo Binghe sleeps in the next room like always, Shen Qingqiu has still lost his disciple. He tiptoes around his own right hand. Only in snatched moments do the two of them find their old camaraderie, seemingly by accident.
The System prompts Shen Qingqiu to facilitate Luo Binghe’s conquest of the demonic realms via alternative means, and makes Shen Qingqiu responsible for securing a new ultimate weapon to replace Xin Mo. After much thought, Shen Qingqiu does manage to recall a valuable artefact he can ‘discover’ the whereabouts of in an ancient scroll: something Cang Qiong’s lords will urgently want to retrieve. It’s some ‘pop out and find the Nine Yin Manual for me, won’t you? And grab the last testament of General Yue Fei while you’re out—’ level bullshit, but when have wuxia and all its bastard children ever shied away from that?
When Shen Qingqiu announces his loyal, partly-demonic chamber disciple’s extreme suitability to undertake the quest, the Peak Lords are too caught up in dreams of avarice to make much of the revelation. (Especially given that Shen Qingqiu claims this startling information, hitherto unbeknownst to he and Luo Binghe both, saved their lives when they were kidnapped.) Shen Qingqiu rather feels he should be congratulated for solving the social crisis of Luo Binghe’s heritage so painlessly. But when he presents the lords’ decision to the young man in question, he finds no such gratitude forthcoming. Yue Qingyan and the other Peak Lords bought Shen Qingqiu’s quest ruse entirely; Luo Binghe, on the other hand, regards his shizun with flat suspicion.
“You need me to leave your side, and to gather power in the demonic realms,” Luo Binghe parrots back. “To locate a priceless trove you have only tentative clues as to the whereabouts of. You think it could take some months.” Luo Binghe smiles, coldly. “Why not be honest, Shizun? What you propose will surely take years.”
“Perhaps,” Shen Qingqiu admits, taking refuge behind his fan. “But only you could do it, Binghe. I dare send no one else.”
“Perhaps,” Luo Binghe echoes in turn. “But then you don’t want to send anyone else as far away from you as possible, do you?” Luo Binghe asks, regarding his shizun steadily.
Shen Qingqiu’s hand tightens on his tea cup, feeling as though his heart is cracking. What’s happened to the two of them? Is being the all-conquering, never-refused stallion protagonist really more important to Luo Binghe than everything else that makes up their relationship? Shen Qingqiu knew to expect this, after a fashion, but it’s awful. It’s so awful, to lose Luo Binghe’s care. (And can he even blame Luo Binghe for it, if the boy's being consumed by his own destiny like pathogenic fungus consumes a carpenter ant?)
“I never said that,” Shen Qingqiu objects. Something in his tone forces Luo Binghe’s hard expression more open, as though Shen Qingqiu's shoved at a door stuck deep in the mire with the whole weight of his body. Shen Qingqiu’s eyes feel tight and hot. It does not occur to him that tears are standing in them.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe says after a moment, as though he doesn’t know what else to say. “This commission will take years. And. And what age would someone have to be, for you to ever consider—”
“An adult,” Shen Qingqiu interrupts him. “Properly guaned at least, for heaven’s sake.”
“Twenty one,” Luo Binghe, all of eighteen himself, says with a nod. He doesn’t think it should matter—that any of this should. But if it’s what Shizun needs, then Luo Binghe will give it to him. In taking his shizun Luo Binghe promised to provide for him, even if the man in question recognises no such obligation between them. Luo Binghe supposes that his shizun doesn’t wish to be made uncomfortable by the spectacle of his disciple counting the hours in the interim, holding onto the slender promise of a possibility. Devoted as always (and Luo Binghe has remained devoted, even in these difficult last weeks), but brittle, visibly desperate and overwhelming in his affection: less able to call any of what he feels and does by some more appropriate name.
By twenty one, Shen Qingqiu knows that Luo Binghe will have lined up seven soon-to-be wives. There’ll be a baby on the way, besides. Shen Qingqiu feels, he assures himself, nothing about that. The System ordered him to deliver his disciple unto glory, and so he will. He must. After all, Shen Qingqiu still values his mess of a life, for some reason. But by sending Luo Binghe away, Shen Qingqiu knows that he’ll also silence his own screaming need to make his disciple happy again. To fix their relationship. To do anything, even suggest that they sleep together again, to collapse the waveform of unobtainability that renders this mistake persistently attractive to Luo Binghe. (To confirm Shen Qingqiu's point that this is a temporary madness, however many times it takes them to do it.) If Luo Binghe is out of sight, then Shen Qingqiu will not have to sop his own guilt by throwing maidens at an absent man. He will not have to watch himself inevitably be proved right.
It is raining when Luo Binghe finds Shen Qingqiu in a border town, after three bitter years of separation. This is a coincidence. Shen Qingqiu takes every Cang Qiong mission that might lead one to the border by coincidence.
Luo Binghe rides at the head of a guard, and he's here to round up the very same marauding demons (escaped prisoners, on the other side of the line) that have brought Shen Qingqiu to this village. Shen Qingqiu notes that his disciple now wields the iron sceptre that granted his counterpart dominion over the very earth of the demonic realms in the final chapters of his story, before that maddened king fell from grace. The sceptre exacts its own toll, but a lesser one than Xin Mo asked of the original Luo Binghe. Shen Qingqiu sent his disciple forth to bring the sect lost scrolls (which he must recently have found, in the same cache as this weapon). But in truth, he sent his protagonist out to win the throne he was born to.
Without words, Luo Binghe notches his bow. From his fell demonic horse, he shoots an arrow through the throat of the demon striking at his master’s back while Shen Qingqiu is occupied with another enemy (who Xiu Ya capably dispatches). Luo Binghe signals his band to clean up the remaining mess with a wave of his hand. He slings his bow over the saddle notch and dismounts. Tall, slender and powerful, twenty one year old Luo Binghe walks to his teacher and kneels at the man’s feet. He doesn’t seem to notice the mud that smears the skirts of his riding armour when he does so, just as Shen Qingqiu pays no mind to the rain soaking his own long hair and making his robes cling to his limbs.
“No guan?” Shen Qingqiu asks. A moment later, he curses himself. What a stupid thing to say; it sounds so eager.
Because he is eager. The years have been long, and never in all of them has Shen Qingqiu been as happy as he was trudging through the demon realm with Luo Binghe when they were still dear to one another, and deep in one another's confidence. He has hoped, without letting himself think it, that Luo Binghe would return to him recognisable. Still his dear boy, in any sense. And he so clearly is, even as he's also changed, and more than he once was.
“I thought my husband might give it to me,” Luo Binghe responds in a new, deeper voice that crawls up Shen Yuan’s spine and makes a buzzing nest at the base of his brainstem. Everything Shen Qingqiu adamantly believed about their union being a narrative accident—every fixed assurance he began to doubt, in the course of a thousand nights alone—is shaken by those words. By the mature, measured constancy in his disciple’s voice.
“Well,” Shen Qingqiu falters, his hand itching for his fan. “I do have such a thing with me, at the inn. In my luggage. In case you—” he cuts himself off. Stupid.
“You didn’t deny it,” Luo Binghe says, his lip twitching.
What, ‘husband’? Well.
“I suppose I didn’t,” Shen Qingqiu replies, matter-of-fact. Honest.
This time, Shen Qingqiu is exact regarding his own meaning. He is so precisely careful not to hurt his young lover, whose fragility he underestimated in the past, when Luo Binghe was still as much a protagonist to him as a person. When he’d thought a heavenly demon need fear nothing, especially not heart-ache. Shen Qingqiu says not a word about the other wives he now apprehends Luo Binghe has not taken, and never intends to take. They spend a month alone together to seal the bond, just to be safe.
During that time, Shen Qingqiu does confess how much it hurt him that Luo Binghe had seemed to care nothing for him, if he were disinclined to be the man’s wife—how much it had pained him when his disciple had set every other love between them at naught. Frantically disagreeing, Luo Binghe actually raises his voice. Angry, he accuses his master of having misunderstood everything. Of dismissing him, actually! To the literal demonic realms! An accusation that, in turn, vastly annoys Shen Qingqiu, who has to dance around the whole idea of transmigration and emphasise every other reasonable worry he entertained regarding their marriage. Luo Binghe confesses that he loves Shen Qingqiu all the more for having missed their closeness. Sometimes he finds it difficult to believe that he has such an impact on the master of his own heart. After all, Luo Binghe has always felt that one of the finest things about Shen Qingqiu is his capacity for care, and has found this compassion best expressed in Shen Qingqiu's tender regard for one particular disciple.
After those sad final weeks and these last years spent far apart, Shen Qingqiu delicately uncovers his wounds. It feels like it felt to strip off heavy, rain-soaked robes in a warm, candle-lit inn room in a border town—when Shen Qingqiu, bare of every pretence, crowned his disciple with a guan and recognised Luo Binghe for a man. Shen Qingqiu lets himself know the awful, heavy tenderness of every moment of this new-made union. Lets his world and his husband and his marriage be real. Lets himself mean everything he says, and finds that what he has to say is freighted with more love than he ever believed himself capable of. And light as air, for the weight.