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Ming Fan watches as Luo Binghe spears him, sheathing his hand to the wrist in Ming Fan’s guts. He chokes back a moan as agony blossoms in his core and burns its way through his body. He nearly blacks out from the sensation, something more primal than pain as his insides shift to make room for his shidi. He's overwhelmed with it all. The heat skittering feverishly over his skin. His breath punched out of him. Revulsion at the wet squelch of his entrails. The pain. The pain. The pain. Luo Binghe looks from the mess of red around his arm to make eye contact, his face twisted into a cruel smile. Something passes between them, and everything slows for a moment. Ming Fan realises he was already screaming only when he stops, his throat raw and bloody.
It’s quiet then, except for the heavy breaths passing between them. Ming Fan blinks the tears from his eyes, finally getting a good look at Luo Binghe. The less said about how he looks, the better. He’s covered in so much dirt that it’s hard to see the skin underneath, and bleeding from a vicious wound on his forehead, but Ming Fan would know that sniveling face anywhere. Is that a grin or a grimace on his face? There’s no recognition from Luo Binghe when their eyes meet. His eyes barely seem to focus at all, like he isn’t seeing Ming Fan. Like he’s looking at something else entirely. He looks more like a wild animal than like the shidi Ming Fan used to push around. More like a demon than the favourite student of Shen Qingqiu.
The moment passes, and Ming Fan feels Luo Binghe close a fist around something deep in his abdomen. Agonisingly slowly, he begins to pull. Ming Fan starts screaming again, his hands scrabbling first at the dirt underneath him, then at the edges of the mess of his guts, desperate to hold himself together. He can barely hear himself scream as his heart pounds in his ears. Can barely sense that over Luo Binghe’s howling. Can barely wonder if he’s howling in pleasure or anguish.
That line of thinking is cut off as Ming Fan hears, and feels, cracking from deep within his belly as Luo Binghe pulls. He squeezes his eyes shut, anything to escape or make it stop—make it stop—when he feels a clawed hand take hold of his jaw. Blood rushes in Ming Fan’s ears, and it’s as if his eyes are forced open. Forced to be present to his own unmaking. Luo Binghe’s voices murmur low and loud, an unending chant. It’s the last thing Ming Fan hears before Luo Binghe bares his teeth and wrenches his hand free.
Ming Fan jerks upright, coughing and retching. Pain still burns in his stomach. He can’t breathe, can’t focus his eyes to see. He claws desperately at his stomach, feeling for the wound. There’s nothing. Nothing aside from his sweat-soaked inner robes. Finally he can force air into his lungs, slow and deep, and everything comes back into focus.
He’s in his bed on Qing Jing peak. It’s still dark. Everything is silent apart from his ragged breathing. That’s good. No one heard him wake—no one heard him scream or cry out in his sleep. He can’t handle more questions from his other shidi. He can’t handle these unceasing dreams every night. He can’t handle the concerns that he isn’t fit to lead as head disciple. If it goes on much longer, he wonders if they’ll be proven right.
Every night, he wakes up with the ghost of pain still echoing in his bones. Sometimes it’s demons systematically paring and coring him, pulling flesh from bone and splitting him between them. Sometimes it’s beasts mauling him, vying for the most tender of his innards as they spill across the ground. Always, he can feel someone—can feel Luo Binghe—watching. But this is the first time they came face to face.
It can’t be real, can it? Luo Binghe is dead. Ming Fan has to keep reminding himself. Luo Binghe is dead. Shizun said so, and he’s clearly not lying with the state he’s in. So what else could it be? Some sick remnant of his spirit? A demon from the conference puppeting his memories? Getting revenge on everyone who mistreated him? It’s not like Ming Fan ever wanted him dead, but maybe this is what he deserves after the way he treated the little shit.
If it is real—and Ming Fan isn’t just imagining it—then Luo Binghe is dangerous. His spirit needs to be sent on. Or sealed. Or something. But what can Ming Fan even do? He doesn’t even know where Luo Binghe would be, and it's not like he has anyone he can turn to. Not the other disciples, and certainly not Shizun. Shizun’s grief over losing Luo Binghe subsumes everything else; he’s more likely to go looking for Luo Binghe than he is to help Ming Fan in any way. And what if Shizun finds him? What if Ming Fan isn’t who Binghe is looking for? What if he is?
No, Luo Binghe has to stay dead. So Ming Fan has to stay quiet.