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Shen Qingqiu is handsome.
This is not without persistent upkeep, done out of obligation as much as vanity.
Shen Qingqiu has taken great lengths to tend to his hair as it grows long, preserving both its health and sheen. When those at the Warm Red Pavilion compliment the care placed into maintaining his hair, combing through it with gentle, yearning touch, Shen Qingqiu feels no small amount of pride with how far he has come. There are a plethora of benefits to his present appearance which were once restricted from the gaunt, misfortunate thing left on the streets. Now, people must listen to him.
“We will always hear you, A’Jiu.”
“I know,” comes the grateful reply.
Even if the bastards refuse to heed him, they are unable to refuse the hook of an elegant immortal master. Nothing is spared his due diligence, down to his choice of fan meant to complement the robes adorning his figure. The complications of arranging such tedious designs have been humbled to a mere habit, requiring but a single glimpse and personal, selfish inclination to determine the appropriate wear for any given occasion.
“How beautiful, jiejie!”
“Lovely as always,” she breathes with a shine in her eyes, “Thank you, A’Jiu.”
“Mn.” A wave of the hand. “Be careful.”
In the years since he has risen to be Qing Jing’s Head Disciple, he no longer hungers as ardently—no longer the indignant, starved animal driven toward utter indecency. Though he maintains a slender figure, malnourishment no longer haunts his peerless image. Even if his spiritual veins betray its lasting detriment, a traitor in all things, the only living person who learned of this debility has stitched their mouth shut without ever breaching the subject thereafter. From then on, Shen Qingqiu has begrudgingly requested Mu Qingfang’s presence when absolutely necessary, refusing the risk of exposure to anyone else. At threat of letting himself go untreated otherwise, he has shirked any favors they may call upon; it is their soft heart unwilling to bear the knowledge of his troubles without acting of their own volition. Shen Qingqiu himself has asked nothing of them.
This body often causes trouble, as if it means to spite him. Ungrateful thing. Even in the decades spent exercising meticulous control over each piece, there are moments in which his limbs will cease to listen beneath prickling, numbing pain. Unassuming touches in places which force his nerves to seize and burn through qi with abandon. Splitting migraines which no tea may soothe, unceasing and merciless even after a night’s rest, forcing him to wait.
However, Shen Qingqiu is far more spiteful. He meets every challenge, and brushes past it as gracefully as is expected of him.
A hand pressed to a forehead. “A’Jiu, please rest.”
She meets stubborn silence.
“A’Jiu, dawn is breaking and your friend misses you. Please, come rest, so she may.”
Another few, hasty scratches upon parchment. A pause. Then, the candle goes out.
“Fine.”
How unfair it is, then, that Shen Qingqiu should feel isolated from his strenuous efforts.
There is a certain level of dignity he rises to meet. A certain threshold of bodily maintenance he does not permit himself to underperform in, as it is owed to this refined man whose gaze meets his own in the mirror held by this meimei. Not only for the benefits which he reaps as its inhabitant, but perhaps… a sense of guilt.
Unearned guilt, he knows. This is Shen Qingqiu’s body first and foremost. His to occupy and preen and abuse as he pleases. Yet it seems that each time those cold, distant eyes glimpse the barest reflection, he is again reminded of the dissonance present in his restless soul. The man is a bastard as all men are, no matter his beauty, and possesses the haughtiness befitting of a covetous young lord. That every ounce of presumed sexual allure be violently confiscated and drained from him until he can no longer harbor interest in such flagrant desires would be a mercy undeserving. Better still were he betrayed through its wanton and rendered worthless with each layer of being stripped from him—beginning with that insufferable mask of propriety.
It is, in this sense, the very same reason Shen Qingqiu’s resentment has leveled into apathy on the whole. Even if no one knows, nor will ever know, the truth stands that this man’s past has been entrusted to him alone. The tortures he endured did not blemish his appearance irreparably. With much practice and guidance at Shen Qingqiu’s knee, he has been able to integrate into higher society without struggle and resume a role amidst them. Naturally, even there he is subject to the unique, intimate terror of knowledge. Of what will become of him once these peers are made ware of the utter rot written just beneath.
However, said role was beginning to wear on Shen Qingqiu. In these past weeks, he has found himself increasingly bitter in his one retreat, his one place of solace, with no manner in which to settle proper. Were it not a waste of the body he’d been granted, he would have clawed this face off for each compliment awarded to the man they presumed him to be.
“Enough,” he says and raises a single hand to cover the glass, grudgingly reining in the impulse to shatter the ornate mirror within the young girl’s grasp.
“Jiùjiu, what’s wrong?” Persistent as ever.
Shen Qingqiu steals a sharp breath, attempting to soothe the tension within through the aid of his qi—only to be reminded how the recent thundering deviation left his veins brittle and exposed. Where even his cultivation betrays him, sore at every fracture, he attempts to shift focus instead upon the gentle pressure of the comb running through the man’s hair. His hair. His hair, because it is not as if the man which owned this shell ever bothered with maintaining it.
Truly, some days he wished that wretch would return and grant Shen Qingqiu some reprieve. As it stands—is he, or is he not, still playing servant to a young master? This is ludicrous.
A frustrated scoff breaks from his lips.
“Yingying, please fetch a fresh batch of tea,” comes a softer voice from behind him. Shen Qingqiu shut his eyes before he could catch the girl’s curious gaze. In this moment, he cannot risk tempting forth the sort of comment he knows someone of this man’s calibre would slyly deliver behind the ill guise of humor. Carrying his spirit has always been much too much to bear, no matter the benefits to reap as a split-tongued vulture hovering in wait. Satiated through the entrails of this husk.
Once Ying’er steps away and the door closes with a click, Shen Qingqiu finally opens his eyes and sees his lips draw thin in the mirror she left propped on the table. He feels himself grow wary of the reflection, even with his jiejie massaging the tension in his back. Those eyes narrow in evident displeasure, mouth drawn into a taut line as though determining whether to deign lowering himself by delivering punishment personally. Its sharp features—an ovoid face cut by its firm jawline, just above where the neck came to a point, with high cheekbones and a knit brow—only render the expression more severe.
When a flinch slips past Shen Qingqiu, the man’s mocking imitation is nearly enough to make him sick.
Nan Xiuying plucks the mirror from the table once she gives up on the massage, returning to simply hold Shen Qingqiu with loose arms and a sigh. “What’s wrong, A’Jiu?”
He does not even wish to speak with this voice, which always pitches low to start, uncaring of his efforts to curate a light, crisp enunciation. At the nonverbal suggestion to face her, Shen Qingqiu chastely grasps her hand. Glancing aside, his confession dares not rise above a murmur, “This is not me.”
Freezing at the statement, he can practically feel the sympathy seeping off her in waves. It is enough to push him upright, away from the strange, infectious twisting of mites invading his gut.
Quietly now, without reaching for him, she maintains: “Whichever you it is, you are welcome.”
“As you say.”
Nan Xiuying huffs in annoyance at the dry reply. Still, she perseveres to reassure, “Did this jiejie not say she would always hear A’Jiu? How fickle do you presume me to be?”
“This one will never be Jiu,” he says plaintively, in a voice that is pleasant to the ear and familiar to wield, but not at all his own. “Not truly.”
The wry smile trailing his words is strained, to which Nan Xiuying returns a frown. These musings which plague him are indeed disquieting, and perhaps silently he may admit they are painful, but to bear the shame so openly before another… he must be losing his mind just the same.
That thought is petrifying.
“Nevermind that,” he quickly waves a dismissive hand. “It has become late enough this one is speaking nonsense.”
“Does A’Jiu dislike his appearance?” she probes, daring as in all things, but nonetheless considerate when it comes to him. After all these years, still he hasn’t a clue what persuaded her to grant him grace.
“There is nothing to be done regardless.” Casting aside his glare, unwilling to have it reach her no matter his frustrations, he forces the words through. “The luxury of revising it lays not in my hands.”
She folds her arms. “Ay… If even an immortal master cannot, what is to be done for the rest of us?”
“It is precisely the mantle of an immortal master which prevents such indulgence.” Shen Qingqiu scoffs, “Truly, it is unbecoming to linger on this thought at all.”
“Why so? In the privacy granted here, why should either of us wring our necks with the fickle strings of what’s supposedly becoming?” Nan Xiuying sternly frowns, the sight etching in wrinkles scarcely hidden away by her modest pale makeup. These traitorous eyes of his remain fixed on the soft rouge of her lips, lighter still where it lay false blush upon her cheeks, rounding her existing gently features to an almost unfair degree.
Shen Qingqiu abruptly tears his gaze elsewhere.
“…So long as we’re careful, A’Jiu, our pavilion has a great many things to help. If only for the night. Would you not let us?”
“This one does not need help,” he snarls, only just catching his tongue and drawing blood to keep it silent. Turning aside to shield himself and press the hem of his inner sleeve to his mouth, he catches sight of her doubtful expression. Frigidly, he continues on to scowl, “Cultivators have their own methods with little restriction. Do not waste cosmetics unnecessarily.”
“A’Jiu says this as though he does not pay us in excess,” she tuts exasperatedly. “Finding clothes, at least, is of no trouble. Would that be suitable?”
“Nothing is suitable.”
“Do enlighten me, then,” is her airy reply.
Shen Qingqiu glances back to her. Nan Xiuying tentatively presses a hand forward, to graze his shoulder, unjust concern shadowing her sweetest features. In an instant, he rips from her to stand—violent envy broils in bile, brought forward to spit, “Look at me. What can change this?”
Still sitting, she shrugs. “Those cosmetics you declaim.”
“I do not intend to make a fool of myself.” This damning hand of his touches upon his cheek, tempted to wrest the skin open to gesture at the sharp bone beneath. “I understand well enough what best suits these features, and curate accordingly. Is there anything to improve?”
“Oh-most certainly, if it leaves my friend so unhappy.” Nan Xiuying leisurely rises to join him with the table’s support. The fingers then brushing against his inner wrist stay but a quiet suggestion. Through narrowed eyes, he reluctantly permits her to lower his hand and clasp them together. “Your appearance is not poor by any means, you know. But, if A’Jiu does not like it, then neither do I.”
“Pushover,” he mutters reflexively. A surprised glow rises to her face; he can scarcely stand to look.
Far too familiar.
When he pulls away toward the window, she trails him with an apparent frown forming in her tone. “A’Jiu, are those old cultivators really all that strict?”
Shen Qingqiu scoffs. His eyes flit over her when she draws herself to his side, then return to observing the customary warm luminescence of the district. “Hardly. However, there are certain standards I must maintain to ensure I am not undermined. Unlike Yue Qingyuan, this disciple hasn’t the privilege of being an acting peak lord.”
“Ah,” she pauses in recognition, ”that one.”
It is by practice he smothers the urge to laugh, bitterly, at the manner in which he has tainted the grand Yue Qingyuan in her eyes. Yes, that one, dismissive of all contributions toward setting the final known Heavenly Demon to rest. All those lesser mortals crowding the streets below certainly consider anything short of exalting him an insult. These solipsistic fools believe themselves worthy of an upstanding cultivator for the centuries to come. Irreproachable after what he’s achieved, isn’t he? What should his past matter?
The privacy talismans dampen all sound, but their clamor is becoming obnoxious. He slowly closes the window with brewing venom. “Respect is a strange thing. Barely anyone was willing to divulge the name he used—to me. Yue ‘Jingyi’ insisted they did not.”
“That’s terrible,” she mutters. Then, as a wary afterthought, “I never quite understood why he used that name, of them all.”
So that none would delve anywhere close to the gutters he rose from, he does not say. Naturally, it is easier to imagine Jingyi, with its feminine connotations, was his birth name. It left no speculation toward a mired past hidden away beyond the common tragedy projected upon him. After all, this is a real given name. Not just another number meant to lock him in his inhuman caste—the only thing he would have known to inscribe at his arrival. Yue Qi wasn’t literate in the least when he abandoned him.
For all Shen Qingqiu knew, this was the actual name he held before being sold. Yes, Yue Jingyi was so fortunate as to have one and never so bestial that he’d stoop low enough to resent his starving family.
As if they deserved any mercy for putting their only daughter up as a scapegoat.
Were those bastards truly easier to return to than the slave boy that leeched off his altruism?
Shen Qingqiu’s hand tightens on the windowsill.
“It is strange,” he concurs, his voice taut. “However, if it is manipulation, it is poorly done. The only thing he left behind was his given name.”
Nan Xiuying hesitates. “What was his name before?”
The sharpened glower sent her way is warning in itself, calm as he contains his voice. “It does not matter.”
Divulging his years as a slave is more than he’d ever concede to anyone. The blanketed understanding the pavilion grants him will inevitably wear through should his burdens become too gruesome to bear. It came to a head once, years ago, by fault of his lacking cultivation. Scars which he mistakenly failed to anticipate Ru-mei having a weak stomach to. Those detailed carvings embedded in his stomach and thigh. Etched into skin with obscene threats amidst the covetous condescension all too vivid in memory. Years have passed, and still the dead of night has him teeming with dread feeling the young master’s hands hovering near with a modest knife, yearning to bury himself in the fresh blood spilling down.
Ying-jie and Xiang-mei remain composed at the vile little sight, but Shen Qingqiu does not care to challenge them in flaunting anything more. There is no need for them to know. The slave branding on his collarbone has long-since been removed, and the Qian Cao Lord took initiative to rid the mark of Qiu engraved on the back of his neck of her own volition.
The same method, she said, that Yue Jingyi used.
He immediately hated that name.
Hated to see Yue Qingyuan, the head of Qiong Ding, gaze behind himself with a smile when he recognized a stranger’s name more than the sweet voice which uttered it. The curled lips burnt at the edges when he realized it was Shen Jiu who called and intended to drag him away from the admirers enjoying the heel of his pedestal. Undeserving scum basking in the amiable patience granted to them and taking full advantage of it, of him, entirely mindless in hungering for the attention their shixiong supposedly allowed to be squandered by Shen Jiu. Hypocrites, each and every one.
The fear, and flicker of anger, kindled in Yue Qingyuan’s abyssal eyes when he witnessed Shen Jiu echo that damning name on his filthy, cut tongue… all because he couldn’t bear being caught in the ash of his lies. A phoenix born entirely new, being hunted by this venomous vulture for answers yet unspoken.
Never spoken.
That was that.
“He is no longer that man,” he adds after a time.
Existence on the mountain would be easier were that true. Yue Qingyuan is merely a shadow grown from what he was. All refined by Cang Qiong but sourced in squalor: ever the mediator; practiced smiles crafted to demure; down to the cadence and timbre of his voice.
The hurt claws him open. Deprived of it for too long.
To think, that same voice he held onto to survive years of desecration would finally make its cruel reprisal from the lips of a Yue Qingyuan free of Shen Jiu’s burden.
However much loathing he felt then—at the voice of a sworn brother long dead—it would have paled to the torment of losing that with all else.
In distant memory, this Yue always held a deeper pitch than the slave girls. Starvation kept him chaste amidst puberty, but nothing could rid his paranoia: fretting that didn’t end at Liu-jie’s recent kidnapping, but persisted by the intimate fear inherent to losing control of one’s body. Still, he’d stubbornly resolved to make the most of it and spite the rare concern Shen Jiu wasted on him. With his hair up, he’d been indistinguishable from the others sent to do manual labor or begging on the streets between contracts. Pretending kept him safer. It even made him happy.
Does he remember Liu-jie? Or was she thrown out with a guilty conscience like the rest to favor Cang Qiong?
A rapping on the door stirs him from his thoughts. Nan Xiuying goes to answer while Shen Qingqiu stays. Tonight he is in no state to appease Ying’er.
With a few brisk yet fond words, Nan Xiuying relieves her daughter of the heavy tray and sends her to stay with Xiang Yan for the night. Shen Qingqiu waits until the door closes to take note of what she’s brought. Along with his usual tea blend, baihao yinzhen, a generous handful of mooncakes lay to the side.
Just his luck, he thinks wryly. To be reminded of the birthday preluding the Autumn Festival on a night already spoiled by that man.
Nan Xiuying sets the tray down, then carries herself to his side. A delicate hand touches his arm and he relents to her guiding him silently toward the table. Here, they quite informally sit at the same end; Nan Xiuying acquiesces the bamboo mat for him, kneeling at his side and lifting her hand once he’s secure to begin gingerly pouring the tea.
Shen Qingqiu is reluctantly grateful that this arrangement will keep her from prying at his facade.
As always, the lenity comes with a price. She must be feeling daring tonight, for not after more than a few sips, she watches the candlelight and muses, “It must be strange working with him.”
“...Yes,” he admits, closing his eyes. ”I do not wish to speak of him, in any case.”
To think, he once called this person his zhiji.
“It’s alright.” Nan Xiuying’s petal-soft hand clasps around his. No callouses disturb the smooth skin stroking the back of his own, nor disrupt the assurance offered. “A’Jiu, you have us,” she promises in his stead, “your sisters.”
Acid burns through his tongue, “As if I belong amongst you.”
“Don’t you?”
His hand reflexively curls into a fist to hide its tremor. Her fingers pause in place, gliding over his wrist to lightly grasp and feel of his pulse.
“You’re our friend,” she claims without a speck of shame, such that Shen Qingqiu cannot help but sneer.
“A customer as any other, who pays for your companionship.”
“In excess,” she reminds pointedly. “You’ll spoil even those you do not pay for, and defend our young serving girls from the unsavory sort. They’ll say you’re strict and aloof, yes, but you’ll listen to them. And is that not all we wish? I still recall the day I’d finished late and found you entertaining them with your playing the qin. Madam Xin will claim you’re her ilk, but I can certainly say she has never been an indulgent matron.”
Opening his cold eyes does not put a stop to her mellow recollection. Rather, it seemingly encourages her.
“Why, you’ve started teaching my Ying’er to read, at such a young age. You spoil her the same way as our Xiang-mei, you know?” Nan Xiuying gleams, the candlelight resplendent in her onyx eyes. “I pray Immortal Master Shen forgives my impertinence, but as this lowly one sees it, A’Jiu is already one of us.”
Breathing in broken shards, his mouth twists to spit: “I am a man.”
And every despicable thing that comes with it.
“If you can believe my shixiong would deceive people, manipulating his proximity to womanhood, then what of someone who pursues it?” Shen Qingqiu rips his hand from hers and his jagged voice rises without him, scathing to the ear, “All those with eyes and ears understand it’s disgraceful to search out a woman’s comfort. To what end should I let you play me for a fool?”
A shaken, dry snarl tears from his throat when she brings a handkerchief to his eye.
“Don’t touch me! I’ll never fit among you—even my bones understand that much. This damned body, I…”
Until he sees deep scarlet stain the pale cardinal cloth. A hand of his own darts to his face, following the path of blood.
Deviating.
Shen Qingqiu numbly assesses his status, instinctively arching in on himself to aid in drawing his qi closer from where it’s begun to flare. With his focus on steering his spiritual energy back through and leveling out the knots of his distorted veins, his physical strength crumbles. Helplessly, he leans into her shelter.
“A’Jiu, your jiejie’s going to wipe the blood.”
“Fine,” he hisses through clenched teeth, letting her carefully touch up his face and ruin her cloth in the process. It’s a wonder she continues to bother with making a show of wasting it on him.
“This is my friend’s body.” Nan Xiuying presses closer only to affirm her presence. “Understand? This is my friend’s body, and I love it as I love you.”
What a worthless thing to say, he thinks faintly. Neither one of them deserve this pathetic display.
No one should witness such a thing, least of all any friends. The thought strikes at him until he is breathless and seething.
No derision from the world at large would ever put an end to him. Shen Qingqiu rarely pays it mind. Why heed those ignorant or disbelieving that what they scorn are humans only marginally less fortunate than themselves? Who’ve never thought slaves could rise beyond their destined graves, let alone become people?
Yet Yue Qingyuan joins their ranks. Gazes upon him as any other prospering lord would, eyes more piercing than every one before him and offset only by his penchant for pity and worthless guilt tarnishing his face. Utterly useless, all of this prostrating and shallow repentance—as if he did not pursue greatness! Doing so knowing that Shen Qingqiu will never stand beside him as a paragon, not with the very foundation of his being ruined.
The noble always survive at another’s expense, after all.
From where he’s risen to stand as a righteous leader, how could he ever fathom a fatal weakness so debasing as this? Needing to console oneself in these scant few hours with women’s affections? What does it matter whether or not Shen Qingqiu is now a slave to worldly desires? He’ll never be anything more, in that acting lord’s eyes. It’s always been easier for his sort to deride their Xiao-Jiu as just another whore for attention, so let him choke on his presumptions like any other master of his.
That weed keeping his heart beating, planted in the dead root of his chest, is already beginning to rot. It will wither if he must see Yue Qingyuan discover the truth—to have the hands that once cradled him turn to punish.
It is enough to bear the weight of his silent scorn buried between every trite contrition. Shen Qingqiu must never have him know the full breadth.
Something in him shatters.
“How dare you.”
Humiliation pricks at his skin, heating his face and burning behind his eyes where tears should be, were he not already broken. The arm wrapped around his back in a near embrace tightens around him, hand angled to hold his heavy shoulders still. Shen Qingqiu allows it, the parasite he is. His craving conquers the need to spite her.
“How dare I, what?” Nan Xiuying retorts coldly. “Not even an immortal cultivator may dictate who I choose to love.”
An impatient sigh escapes her and he bristles. Folding the handkerchief over to subdue the blood, it’s again lifted to his cheek to wipe a fresh trail and applied with enough pressure to have him face her.
In place of any scowling, a wry smile is what meets him. “Take a gander at Kong-bao for any proof of that—you disapproved of him from the start.”
The fond moniker has him sour, furthered with the knowing lift of her lips in response. Old Master Ning’s heir, not as though anyone believes he is with his temperament. Pettily, “That bumbling drunkard broke your handmade pipa.”
“A’Jiu!” she calls with no bite. “My baobei’s no drunkard. Can we fault his lack of tolerance?”
Shen Qingqiu deadpans.
“Don’t answer that,” she wisely decides instead. “Whatever the case, it was an amateurish work at best.”
“Madam Xin is not an indulgent matron,” he dryly repeats. This pipa, as all things within the pavilion, required the madam’s approval for her to present to customers.
Nan Xiuying flushes slightly beneath her powdered face, nevertheless charging ahead. “There’d been no opportunity to work on one since I was a teenager. So if anything, it breaking gave me reason to try my hand at it again. Perhaps I should thank him.”
“Do not belittle yourself,” he frowns absently, allowing this diversion of a conversation for now. “If that imbecile must stay under his father’s thumb, one would expect richer payment than simply reimbursing your material.”
“For all the time spent on its creation? I do believe he has more than compensated, if Yingying’s any proof of it.”
Decidedly unmoved by her coy lilt, Shen Qingqiu raises his brow to prove his point stands.
“Ay,” she clicks her tongue, “Old Master Ning is… difficult, but his support will go a long way once he’s convinced. Kong-bao’s taught me enough to hold a conversation with his father in Hokkien, and you helped fine-tune it. Everything will be well. Kong-bao will take care of me.”
Shen Qingqiu scoffs. That man would not take in his own daughter were it not for the woman he’s infatuated by. Until Ying’er is old enough to speak with as an equal, she is considered ignorable. All his kind are the same. They will pass along their young to burden servants. Allow them to be coddled with someone obliged to answer every beck and call.
For all his faults, he doubts Nan Xiuying’s spouse will think much of the act. There will be nothing so malicious as what happened in Qiu Manor, but her Ying’er will be surrounded by as many pleasant lies as is required to keep the estate in prestigious condition. Raised in a nest shielding naivete, she will be dependent on and unable to comprehend that compassion is not the state of the world. Even her mother cannot be trusted to break the illusion—her own heart softer than it has any right to be.
“Someone ought to take care of our A’Jiu too,” Nan Xiuying breathes a more wistful sigh, her brows pinched, and her touch glides over his shoulder blade toward the small of his back. “While you are here, this jiejie will do her utmost. I wish to see A’Jiu for who A’Jiu is.”
“How can I be?” he asks faintly, “In a body that is not mine.”
There is no pity on her face. Only determination shines through. “Then, we’ll just have to see how close we can get.”
“Not very,” he warns. “Only the barest. Nothing which would last under scrutiny.”
“But it can last for tonight.”
With such confidence, Shen Qingqiu feels his protest die without even scraping up the scathing words it intends.
Ironically, his lacking objection inspires her to hesitate at last.
“Yingying will stay with Xiang-mei for the night, no matter what you choose. This jiejie would never mind playing a small something instead.” Her free hand settles atop his own; the one unconsciously brought to his chest to monitor his qi. A weak pang strikes him to be reminded of the paint upon the tips of her lithe fingers, where his efforts appear ever unnatural. “I only wanted to tell you, it doesn’t need to stay this way.”
What blazing vitriol surges inside him burns itself out as swiftly as it came. Turning his hand over, he gently presses into hers before gesturing for her to stand. “Bring the pipa.”
She rises to retrieve her instrument without a word. It is a beautiful piece; the head sculpted to resemble a dragon’s lotus, with the tuning handles elegantly chiseled to subtly help Madam Xin grasp it in her examination. The strings themselves were traded with Cang Qiong, the very same silken texture used for bows, effortlessly iridescent and guiding the eye down its neck to admire the dark band of flora painted across its base.
Nan Xiuying settles in her seat, fingers drifting along the base before finally finding their place. Through the easy beginning, Shen Qingqiu quickly recognizes the light delivery of Plum Blossom Melodies. Ever spirited when played by her hand, a far cry from the reserved manner in which he recites the seemingly hopeful tune.
Another mark against him, that he cannot meaningfully embody this without his cynicism bleeding into the chords. Staring into his cup, he lets the tea swirl slightly, leaving only an echo of his muddled reflection.
Yet, is it not his right to grasp unto happiness where he can? As a cultivator? As a human?
Rumors disparaging him for lowering himself to the sordid Warm Red Pavilion have already run their course. Acknowledging his alleged wrongdoings will never free him from association. Any attempts to cleanse himself, however put upon, will be akin to smearing in wine stains. Those pristine as his martial siblings would refuse to shoulder the bloodied camellia on his record, but perhaps Nan Xiuying’s proclamations were not entirely misplaced. There is truth in that he will always have people's support here.
Shen Qingqiu never dared reciprocate it aloud, but Nan Xiuying is careless enough to claim friendship with him. Apparently as the sort of steadfast idiot who knows only to give pieces of herself away, who has witnessed the aftermath of his worst deviations and resolved to offer aid all while rejecting the barbs spat at her.
Others have torn past his veneer with less effort, fleeting as those connections are. As a younger disciple first permitted to leave the mountain, unfamiliar with the city at its base aside from Wu Yanzi’s hauntings, one of the serving girls suggested he peruse a bookstore her sister inherited, nestled away in a quieter offshoot from the bustling crowds. Aside from the Warm Red Pavilion, it’d become his favored reprieve. The new owner seemingly had anecdotes for each novel Shen Qingqiu would select, a pleasant conversationalist without ever imposing herself. Never once was her enthusiasm doused when he would comment on the inaccuracies of her preferred fantasy works, for she would continue to question him and contemplate on the experiences he shared with a ridiculous smile.
Later on, even Xiang Yan surprised him on the return from one of his lone missions. In the early morn, a period closest to rest this city achieved, she utilized Madam Xin’s favor for a rare excursion with Ying’er. To his surprise, she called for him to join her with the excuse of showing off the child curled on her lap, flecks of a sweet bun surrounding the girl’s mouth. Annoyed by the sight, Shen Qingqiu took a napkin to her face and deftly ignored the mischievous shine in Xiang Yan’s eyes when he mistakenly woke a very bemused baby.
A baby who, right under Shen Qingqiu’s nose, had somehow learned to address him as jiùjiu from the fiend that is her mother.
For all his griping, it felt natural when Xiang Yan asked him to join in the festivities that year. There is something amusing when he finds time in the aftermath of their busiest weeks, their patience run thin and words sharper for it. The sight of their exasperation felt vindicating, all guises torn down with the knowledge he’d never mind. It was humanizing.
Much later, he met his wick’s end seven days into the New Year’s Festival. It had driven him to impose where he had no right to: the singular day of rest the Madam provides for renri. To satiate her upon arrival, Shen Qingqiu largely overpaid without any verbal plea, voice hoarse after an especially vicious argument with Yue Qingyuan that had sent him deviating. Freshly eighteen, he’d known nowhere else to go.
Against all rights, they’d welcomed him with open arms. Every year thereafter, his birthday would be shared with them.
Starved as he was for closer affections, it was Yue Qingyuan who decided to bury that. Shen Qingqiu had no use for any polite indulgence out of misplaced pity—there is nothing special to his apparent kindness, when it is the shallow thing shown to all. Yue Qingyuan has the entirety of Qiong Ding at his beck and call every autumn, and Shen Qingqiu has his own kin to embrace every coming of spring. There is no rational need for one another.
Meditating over the remainder of the song, he waits until the last few notes trail off before resting a cautious hand on her wrist. “May I?”
“Of course.” Nan Xiuying offers her pipa with a smile. Arranging it in his lap, he runs his fingers along the intricate plum blossoms carved into its back, drawn after ones resting within the pavilion’s private courtyard. No grand display of skill, but nonetheless prevalent in its quiet confidence.
Yes, even he may play a woman’s instrument for an audience when it is her.
Reveling in this, he reconstructs one of his shizun’s favored qin pieces: Autumn Moon Over Han Palace.
Nan Xiuying idly sways to it, enjoying a few of the mooncakes as he plays through. With each note carrying the spite he thrives upon, channeled with unusual caprice, it fluently compensates for any amateur technical delivery. Practice is forever locked to the pavilion’s hidden corners, after all, yet he finds to share its imperfections is a special thing.
When he is Lord of Qing Jing, he must find another instrument to gift her. Rather, one made by his own hand. Dedicated for her to exchange all the time she has wasted away at his side. Besides, he refuses to be outdone by her lovesick dog of a husband. Any monetary gift is superficial, and she will have more than enough wealth upon securing her fabricated past for Old Master Ning’s approval. It is what can be done with money which brings happiness. Proof of a capable and thoughtful person to fall back upon.
It will be an interesting practice, in any case. Under her guidance, Shen Qingqiu may even craft himself a pipa to cherish.
No—ridiculous man. He cannot risk that as a disciple.
His hands falter momentarily, but he swiftly realigns himself with his qi steadily circulating to keep himself present, allowing the music to flow through him from moment to moment. Its resentment picks up as he falls into the later verses.
Beginning this project will be viable only when no one may challenge him. None except Yue Qingyuan. A null issue. Aside from public events and meetings amidst the head disciples, his shixiong rarely deigns to grace Shen Qingqiu’s presence. Furthermore, any servants who should tend to his bamboo house will never be permitted in his personal quarters. The pipa—his—will never be found, so long as he waits.
The music tapers off with a frown.
Here, there are far fewer restrictions. Hardly anyone has bothered to shadow him since rumor of his visits settled as baseline knowledge. Can he not be selfish? To abuse the pavilion as a shield, and have Ying-jie care for him as she so insists upon? The very nature of Shen Qingqiu is to claw indiscriminately until his desires are in reach, but to have the sin taint another’s hands instead…
Tempting, isn’t it?
First, however, he puts on mock sweetness, “Jiejie, will there be no pastries left for your A’Jiu?”
Not as if he cared to have them, the filling rotten with memories of times better left forgotten. Nan Xiuying blushes so easily under his tease; with a huff, she splits the treat. “Let your jiejie have this,” she chides while offering it. “The kitchens won’t make mooncakes any other time of year.”
Setting the pipa aside, he pushes her hand away. “If you insist. Have your fill.”
“You should have yours as well,” she raises a pointed brow, eyes flicking toward the rest on the tray while she finishes hers. “A’Jiu cannot sustain on tea alone.”
A small bitter smile rises to his mouth, which he conceals with the teacup. After a sip, he lowers it and simply inclines his head. “A’Jiu is a cultivator.”
Nan Xiuying lays herself over his shoulder, lamenting: “A’Jiu is foolish.”
“Perhaps I am,” he acquiesces with a curt nod, setting the cup down with a quiet clink. “Only for tonight.”
Hearing the answer at last, Nan Xiuying smiles brightly. “I’m glad.”
“Yes, well,” Shen Qingqiu glances aside, “visits will be sparse these coming months.”
“Let’s enjoy this then, A’Jiu.”
Giving a pleased little sigh, her fingers slowly run from his shoulder down toward the sash keeping his robes in place. Trepidation bursts through his chest when she passes over the clasp, his hand startles to stop hers.
“I wouldn’t want any makeup ruining your uniform,” she explains apologetically, releasing her grasp to entwine with his. Shen Qingqiu relaxes and tentatively lets her go.
His friend carefully proceeds to undo the belt, pulling it from his waist and pausing for a moment to allow him to reorient before continuing on. Tenderly, she strips him of his outer robe and lets it fall around his hips, lifting him then to kneel and remove them to be folded with his coat. The rhythm is familiar, unused as he is to this process with the candles still lit. Left with only his two inner robes, he feels bare. His stomach flutters in apprehension, hands clenched tight at his knee when she rises to retrieve a small pouch from her satchel.
Nan Xiuying lays it out on the table and he finds himself suddenly wary staring them down. After a brief inspection, she lightly rests a hand on his shoulder, “Just a moment A’Jiu, jiejie’s going to dampen another cloth."
“Mn,” he steals a glance to keep her smile. “Be quick.”
“I will, I will.”
Left alone, Shen Qingqiu breathes.
There are quite a few items he recognizes from Qiu Haitang’s own cosmetics, albeit much more vibrant than the natural look that girl had enjoyed. To be a brothel worker inevitably lends itself to performance, but all she sought was to accentuate her already enviable beauty. The most she’d ever indulged was a brighter shade of lipstick, one her bastard of a brother bought her.
Ever watchful, awaiting the excuse of his slave’s misdemeanor, he’d sat aside while Qiu Haitang implored their servant to apply it for her. Shen Jiu’s hands had been injured the day prior—crushed for his failure to learn at that monster’s knee—yet he grit his teeth to bear the pain, feigning it behind the smile she adored, and kept his grip steady without daring to touch her to stabilize himself.
Back then, her face appeared round and soft, childish in a way that he’d rarely chanced by, let alone so closely observed. This near, his thoughts whipped around until he could not clearly see what lay before him. How terribly trivial it’d have been to claw those spotless cheeks open and use the blood to smear her lips instead. To use the stick to poke her umber eye out rose as an impulse each and every time she’d peek open to giggle, then returned to pursing her lips like the fish crowding their estate’s pond. What an effortless spectacle she made of herself. Much unlike the beast before her who kept a permanent scowl.
Another thing beaten out of him.
Even then, the role of young master had been deferred to him. Expectation to deceive and keep his sister’s ignorant happiness to embolden her pursuit. After kissing her precious A’Luo’s cheek and exclaiming her endless thanks, she’d wrapped her arms around Shen Jiu and pressed a mirror into his hand. Her smile was blinding. The glass, an old alloy adorned in speckled jewels, was inherited from her mother before moving onto the estate. It trembled in his hands as she delighted in these innocent things—it’d taken nauseating effort to subdue the compulsion to bash the metal through her teeth or into her skull. All to subject her A'Luo the helplessness Shen Jiu suffered, to kill her innocence and finally end the deadlock.
By years of practice, he held himself under its lock and key and silently endured that final year.
The key is his now. Without any master to tell him no, who is to stop him from making use of this unused vessel?
There is no one left to punish this body, save for himself. This abasement remains in-line with those long lost orders.
By the time Nan Xiuying returns, he has determined he will stay and see this night through. She kneels with him and begins to wipe his face with the wet cloth; a plain white one meant to cleanse it and lay the groundwork for all else. Shen Qingqiu stills his expression, eyeing her warily when she reaches to dip a brush in some form of powder. The silent indication to close his eyes has him hesitate, but at her smile, he reluctantly does so.
The powder tickles his face as it’s applied. Once it is settled, she uses a thinner brush to apply the eyeshadow. Summoning his will to not move keeps him tense with every gentle tug on his lids. Not quite uncomfortable, and certainly not painful, but it feels strange.
“Relax, A’Jiu,” she says, allowing a break in her work to soothingly stroke his hair. Although he scowls, he does endeavor to compose himself.
Nan Xiuying hums quietly while she finishes. Afterward, there is a lull in which he is sorely tempted to open them again, but he settles for impatiently listening to her tamper with something on the table—he scarcely keeps from recoiling when another thin brush is brought along his eyelashes. Her hand starts on his shoulder and warns of its path up to hold his chin. As Shen Qingqiu does not protest to the touch, she continues outlining his lashes. Then, she brings another large brush to swipe his cheeks in light, quick movements.
With it finished, she pats his shoulder twice to allow him to open his eyes again, then plucks a red shade of lipstick and tilts his head up a bit further. Shen Qingqiu feels hollowed out, his throat dry as he watches her concentrate on pressing it to his lips. At once, he’s made ware of how broken they are; raw from where he’d chewed them off. A tic he intended to stifle, but has unconsciously fallen into since that brute sliced open his lower lip. Picking at the scabs has always been an undignified habit.
Nan Xiuying does not comment on it at all, beside a quiet thumb brushing over the slight rise once the lipstick is in place.
Noticing his staring, she smiles back at him again, her eyes forming crescents as she asks: “Should we add a huadian too, for good measure?”
“Very well,” he says, careful not to have his tongue touch his lips at all. “Something simple.”
There is no need for her to get carried away in this practice. Knowing her, she would shamelessly suggest a bird’s pattern or something equally elaborate; he would much rather stay with the usual blossom designs, those which he has already seen in her artistry.
“Alright then,” she agrees with a cheerful nod, “though I’d never mind indulging you later, you know.”
“Hm.” Shen Qingqiu catches the knowing glimmer in her gaze. “I’m indulging you enough.”
At that, she teases, “If you say so.”
She laughs so freely—his chest constricts at the levity with which her voice carries, and he stamps it out before the unwillful thoughts can fester.
Nudging his head down and brushing his hair aside, Nan Xiuying keeps her palm cradled against his temple. Her skillful fingers delicately draw the design. Blessedly soft as butterfly wings touching upon his forehead.
“A’Jiu looks lovely,” she murmurs, admiring her efforts. When a strand of hair falls from his bangs, she makes a soft ‘oh’ sound and unclips her own hair pin—one of her husband’s. A small floral accessory with beads hanging from the fire lily.
“There is no need,” he bristles, all too conscious of what that man would think seeing his gift being appropriated in an utterly careless display.
“It’s alright, A’Jiu.” She hushes him, tucking the hair behind his ear with its clasp. “There you are.”
With the way she gazes at him, one would think she is spoiling her daughter. His fist clenches tightly in his lap before he forces himself to touch one of the beads in curiosity. They are a welcome, near imperceptible weight unlike the dangling earrings he has tried in the past. There is some soft clicking when he turns his head away to gather himself.
“You know, I’ve a dress that’d look wonderful with this,” she muses. “A’Jiu doesn’t need to wear it, but let me see if I can find it.”
After nudging the mirror, still face-down, toward Shen Qingqiu, she stands to leave. Truthfully, he is reluctant to risk catching a glimpse of himself and feel his will crumble, putting an end to this when Nan Xiuying believes there is more to be done.
In the strangely silent room, his heart pounds incessantly in his ears. The faint agarwood incense has finally permeated the room as a whole. Its scent is comforting, spitefully though he admits considering its pervasive reputation as a calming essence. Only by association with the safety inherent to the pavilion does it truly shine.
Shen Qingqiu cautiously reaches for the pipa again. Steadying himself, he plucks absently at it to fill the disquietude.
On habit, he repeats the first few basic stanzas drawn along the neck until he finds a point of intrigue in the pattern. Reining it in to a slower melody, he follows the intonation of “Ascend the West Tower in Silence” and allows intuition to drive the tune from there. The poem itself was selected from the previous Qing Jing Lords’ favored archives, with Shen Qingqiu told to curate a cohesive collection to practice his calligraphy and bookbinding. His shizun publicly burnt his first attempt with shoddy rationale beneath the flowery ridicule; he must finish recreating it within the next few days unless he wishes to be burnt next.
Sighing, he leans into the lower notes and lets them linger in echo. Shen Qingqiu will have time to prove himself yet.
Not tonight.
A discordant note startles from the pipa at the door clicking open.
The tension holding him frozen does not ease until he recognizes Nan Xiuying’s face. Turning away with a stubborn huff, he sets the pipa down again and lifts himself to his feet in a fluid motion.
“You should practice your compositions more often,” she says warmly, closing the door behind her and approaching the bed; Shen Qingqiu catches a glimpse of a few different fabrics draped over her left arm.
“This was nothing.”
“Always so harsh on yourself,” she tuts, beginning to lay the robes out on the mattress. “I enjoy hearing you play on a whim, they’re always so much more… lively.”
“Lively?”
Waving a hand, she gathers her words. “It’s as you say: your recital is perfect, but it lacks the energy.”
“Hm.” Hearing it from another’s mouth is significantly worse, but he cannot fault her for repeating his own critique.
“That’s what makes your original pieces so special, A’Jiu.” Nan Xiuying turns to him, her expression surprisingly open. The instinctive ire is quickly clamped down by another surge of disconcertion at realizing the genuine tinge to her words. An exasperated, fond and breathy laugh escapes her when he tries to turn away again, stopped only by her hands touching the collar of his inner robe. “Is it alright to loosen this?”
“If you must,” he mutters, allowing her to spread the collar a bit further down his shoulders. Her hands lightly touch the revealed undervest, slightly tugging it up and reaffixing the clasp to stabilize it.
Now in place, Nan Xiuying selects a silky, deep maroon blouse, pressing her fingers along the gilded trim with a satisfied hum. Silently signaling for him to turn, he extends his arms slightly to ease the process of slipping it on. She is intimately careful with helping him dress. Certain not to linger too long, nor pause and bring unbidden attention toward his flinching when her hands brush up against his lower stomach to securely tie the blouse. If she feels the hitch to his breath from where her hand rests on his back, or from her daring proximity to him, she does not comment on it at all.
There is much relief in that, albeit singed. In his rational mind, he reasons she will not use these vulnerabilities against him. For the sake of what he’s paid, if not the friendship she brazenly upholds in all she does—where she trusts him to speak if this becomes too much. It is strange to trust she would heed him without interrogation, in turn.
Shen Qingqiu levels out his breath when she bows away to bring the skirt for him to step into; a healthy, earthy green which is then pulled up over his flat chest. It hangs clumsily and he is again reminded how foolish this entire farce is.
This is not his to have. How could it ever be?
His eyes drift elsewhere while Nan Xiuying attempts to make something of this mess. She brings it up a tad further and tightens the initial binding, smoothing out the fabric from his chest down to his stomach—mindful not to press into his waist, though he nearly bites at her for treating him as if he’s nothing but a spooked animal.
The sound of her amused breath shocks him out of his state. “What?”
“Oh, A’Jiu, you’ve still some growing to do,” she inclines her head, eyes flicking downward. Shen Qingqiu reluctantly follows, noting how the skirt grazes the floor. To his muted surprise, comfort snakes its way into his chest at the sight. Vindicated to know that for all the unfortunate aspects of his body’s frame, his stature keeps him at her height.
Quietly, he muses, “I suppose so.”
Nan Xiuying pulls his long hair back and taps at his chin to have him lift his head. Bringing the loose hair about his shoulder, she continues intertwining the skirt ribbon with another thin white one pulled from where she’d wrapped it around her wrist. Throughout her work, she wears such a satisfied grin as she easily winds them around one another until the bands hang loosely at either side. A pale hezi with embroidered orchids is then wrapped around the hem for decoration at a silent nod of assent.
Once she steps back, Shen Qingqiu feels nerves crawl up through slit intestines without her stabilizing touch. Almost desperately, eyes flit to her face to steal the assurance of her proud gaze.
A knocking at the door disrupts any other solace to be grasped for. The nerves already sparking are at once ignited and take Shen Qingqiu a step further away from Nan Xiuying until Xiang Yan’s voice rings out: “Guimi, the mirror?”
“My own, it’s a bit larger than the handheld,” she explains with a bashful look toward the door. “This jiejie asked her to fetch it for us once Yingying fell asleep.”
Shen Qingqiu mutely nods, stepping aside for her to reach the door all while ensuring to stay away from the cracked opening. The two converse quietly at the doorway—none of it reaches further, for there exists an endless beating behind blood rushing through these ears. Begging to be proven this is a mistake. The shame would be easier to bear were it so.
With quiet farewells, Nan Xiuying brings in the mirror held against her torso, about the size thereof. A wintry wind carves through this weakened chest at the sight, all else excised in anticipation to be replaced with what must be seen hereafter.
Then, the mirror is propped against the windowsill ahead. There is no place to escape.
Nan Xiuying lingers for a few moments longer, her expression hidden behind the reflection, before providing some semblance of privacy, of peace. The glass beckons Shen Qingqiu closer on hesitant steps.
The makeup brings a newfound softness to these usually sharp features, with even those stern crimson lips now rounded and full. It is dizzying to witness the change; such that these pale cheeks dusted in blush grow warmer still beneath the scrutiny of dark phoenix eyes, never once having conceived of the privilege of resembling the same alluring curves of healthy women’s faces. The verdant qixiong ruqun, accented by petal rose and flecks of gold along the end of its skirt, beckons forth a graceful silhouette which hints at a generous impression of the lithe figure beneath.
Nan Xiuying lays a light pibo over these thin arms, fluttering into place as the last accessory intended to perfect this form. Its sunlit gauze radiates an inviting elegance befitting of a young scholar’s spirit.
Shen Qingqiu can only stare.
She is happy.
He begins to retch.