Chapter Text
The celebration which followed Tianlang-jun’s imprisonment might have been the most elaborate to which Shen Qingqiu had ever been invited.
It was also, in Shen Qingqiu’s opinion, obscene.
Gladhanding. Celebration. Everyone so delighted. So excited. Over what accomplishment? He’d estimated over two hundred dead, though he doubted anyone would own their sect’s body count to those outside their individual circles. With the medical cultivators, headed by Mu-shidi, overwhelmed by the sheer number of casualties, he would be unsurprised to discover the true total doubled the original by the end of the night. Yet here they were, installed in the largest of Huan Hua Palace’s many ostentatious reception halls, toasting as though they had something to boast over. One Heavenly Demon contained; two hundred dead. It did not strike him as an unqualified success.
Moreover, the Old Palace Master had spent the majority of the evening staring at him.
Or perhaps this was an exaggeration. It would be more accurate to say that every moment during which the old man wasn’t being congratulated on inspiring and mounting such a questionably triumphant endeavour, he spent staring. Shen Qingqiu did his best to avoid staring back. If there was something he needed to address, he would do so when it became a true problem rather than an oddity possibly explained away by an elder man’s (potentially inappropriate) interest.
Shen Qingqiu had not directly participated in the capture of Tianlang-jun, his cultivation deemed insufficiently advanced to be much use. It did not stop the gathered party from using his strategies to mount the attack, however, hence his invitation to this… remarkable gathering of individuals. He’d imagined how battle would take shape even before Yue Qingyuan—as his first official act as Cang Qiong sect leader—approved their involvement. All but Shang-shidi agreed that such a course of action would advance the interests Cang Qiong. He’d thus offered up his plans with no little hesitation and in spite of the contempt his martial siblings had shown when he’d protested.
He’d refused to commit any of his disciples to the fight, earning himself yet more scorn. He, however, would return to Qing Jing and not spend his days wondering why it seemed terribly empty.
The Old Palace Master finally broke away from the intrusion of sycophants and made his way across the room towards Shen Qingqiu. The nearly suffocating scent of cloves preceded him, suffusing the air, incense-heavy—
cloves wood under his knees and palms cloves pain cloves pain cloves pain cloves
—and enormously cloying. Shen Qingqiu flicked open his fan and hid behind it, though the delicate silk offered limited protection.
“Immortal Master Shen,” the Old Palace Master said with a polite, albeit shallow, bow of greeting. “I have been hoping to make your acquaintance. When I saw you across the room, I thought you looked very familiar.”
“Oh? I do not believe we have met before.”
The Old Palace Master’s eyes narrowed just slightly. “No? Are you quite certain?”
There seemed curious weight behind the question. “Certain, yes. I did not attend the previous Immortal Alliance Conference and before then I would have been far beneath the notice of such a prestigious person.”
The skin around the Old Palace Master’s eyes untensed, a subtlety Shen Qingqiu might have overlooked had the question itself not begged close attention. “Ah, you must be correct. Forgive me, Peak Lord Shen.” Shen Qingqiu nodded and began to turn away, thwarted when the other man continued, “I did not see you on the field of battle. Did I hear that you counselled against such righteous action?”
The last few words he said loud enough to be overheard by a nearby tangle of Huan Hua Palace disciples. While they didn’t immediately retreat to go and chirp over it to their fellows, their feet took on a distinctly shuffling sort of agitation which indicated the desire.
No sense denying it, nor did he wish to. “I did.” Two of the disciples finally ran out of their limited patience and peeled off to spread the report. They needn’t have bothered; Shen Qingqiu had no doubt that certain other Peak Lords had already rallied to the task. “You desired to avenge the life of a single disciple. Many lives were lost in the effort, the majority of which from sects besides your own. This was my chief concern when our Sect Leader announced his intention to participate.”
He’d tried to make Yue Qingyuan see reason, only to be shouted down by the rest of his martial siblings, all but called a coward by some and outright by others. The only one who’d agreed with him had been Shang Qinghua, who remained about as useful in such matters as a comb without teeth.
Yue Qingyuan had merely smiled sadly and changed the subject. Later, he’d come to Qing Jing Peak to promise Shen Qingqiu that he would return unharmed. As though his welfare ranked higher in Shen Qingqiu’s concerns than those of every other Peak Lord and disciple of Cang Qiong. While that might have been true, once, years had passed since then. Unable to articulate himself in his anger, Shen Qingqiu had chased the sect leader out of his house and, in doing so, lost his last chance to change Yue Qingyuan’s mind.
“Perhaps had more people joined the cause we would have suffered fewer losses,” the Old Palace Master said. How odd he managed to say it with the same, benign look upon his face. Shen Qingqiu had never bothered hiding the ugly parts of himself; when he spoke venom, he wished the poisoned to look upon the snake from which it came.
“Or more. Tianlang-jun did not go quietly.” In this, the Heavenly Demon had lived up to Shen Qingqiu’s expectations.
“It is unfortunate that your predecessor ascended before this,” the Old Palace Master said, “She would have been a valuable ally in such a fight, and perhaps less predisposed to placing math before honour.”
“I assure the Old Palace Master that my shizun would have raised similar concerns.” Shen Qingqiu wished he had not been so hasty with his fan earlier—it would have been immensely satisfying to snap it out. Shizun had been the master of effective fan use.
He finally stepped away unhindered, the Old Palace Master staring at his back as he crossed the room. Passing by a small knot of disciples—three from different sect, one wearing a Bai Zhan uniform—he marked the sudden quiet of their chatter. Apparently, the Old Palace Master’s insinuations had spread quickly. Doubtless his intention, though Shen Qingqiu could think of no reason why; he was certainly used to the slanderous words of his martial siblings, but what could he have done to earn the enmity of such a prestigious person?
A conundrum he was obliged to set aside when Yue Qingyuan appeared at his elbow. Unfortunately, the Old Palace Master had not been the only one sending him persistent and significant looks; Yue Qingyuan’s were merely more pleading than assessing. He’d spent a noticeable amount of time speaking with the Old Palace Master, so perhaps it was natural that his sect leader wished for his attention. And if Shen Qingqiu thought for a single moment that were the case, he might have deigned to accommodate Yue Qingyuan’s desire for attention. However, he’d spent far too long as the recipient of similar such looks and had no desire to validate them now.
“Shen-shidi,” Yue Qingyuan greeted, “I am pleased to see you making friends.”
“Condescending twaddle,” Shen Qingqiu snapped. Yue Qingyuan’s smile dimmed but returned again almost immediately. Shen Qingqiu hated it; nothing proved the Sect Leader's smile more false than his insistence on wearing it for every occasion. How could anything be trustworthy when it refused to express itself sincerely?
He glared at Yue Qingyuan, relishing the silence which grew increasingly uncomfortable with every moment. Eventually, Yue Qingyuan—in a way he likely thought to be subtle—cased the room. Upon spotting Qi Qingqi, he (presumably) caught her eye and decided to make his cowardly little excuses and flee rather than spend a single moment being genuine.
Shen Qingqiu glared at the back of his fan, contemplative for only a moment, before abruptly turned towards the main doors to the hall. The small congregation of younger disciples crowded around it all watched his approach, disdain turning to anticipation and then resentment when he refused to cower or slow his step.
Two particularly musclebound specimens—physical cultivators, he decided with a sneer—manoeuvred themselves into his path, albeit without looking his way, obliging him to walk around them. Unfortunately for them, Shen Qingqiu found himself unwilling to accede.
A snap of his fan and a burst of qi sent them both stumble to the side, clearing his pathway. One of them reached for his sword, but at a glare from Shen Qingqiu, carefully repositioned his hand and tried to look innocent. Disgusting. More than likely the same species of brute as Liu Qingge, who thought first with their biceps and second not at all. He extended his senses, just a touch, in case they decided to attack him from behind. Liu-shidi, in this at least, was cut of more honourable mettle than Shen Qingqiu generally expected.
They did not attack him, but nearly the moment he left the hall they began following him. Stupider, then, than Liu Qingge. His boorish shidi only ever challenged him in formal settings. While obviously designed to humiliate Shen Qingqiu in front of others and give his insistence on beating Shen Qingqiu into the dirt a veneer of respectability, it also meant that Shen Qingqiu needed to restrict himself to ‘righteous’ means of self-defence.
(Shen Qingqiu knew now that he and Liu Qingge had terribly different definitions of ‘righteous.’ Had he understood Liu-shidi’s understanding to be limited to anything learned at the foot of an appropriate instructor, instead of techniques designed to actually keep a person alive, he might have adjusted his approach from the offset and saved them both some trouble. Tch. Naive, cloistered, idiot Shidi.)
How many people had noticed their interest? If Shen Qingqiu did need to defend himself from violence and it turned ugly, as such things were wont to do, would there be any hope of deflection or denial?
Should they corner him, as he suspected these two intended, they would not be offered such protection. He quickly turned a corner, removing himself from the main alleys threading between the buildings. Out of the way, darker corners were more suited to this, he decided. Wu Yanzi would have counselled murder. Then again, his first instinct to address even minor inconveniences were thus. He’d once burned down the home of a merchant who swindled him.
He turned another corner, and another. He thought, for a moment, they’d lost him in the labyrinthine walkways but then heard their heavy steps upon stone behind him. Shen Qingqiu all but bared his teeth in frustration and slipped into a narrow side passage, then wrinkled his nose when he caught a whiff of a pungent odor—one that reminded him of rotten vinegar.
Shen Qingqiu escaped the passage and stopped short as a blade swung up into his field of view. He batted it away with his folded fan and drew back, already on edge thanks to his shadows and prepared to bite the throat out of anyone who might try to harm him.
He anticipated the following blow and blocked it yet again with his fan, the ribs cracking with the power behind the strike. The blade itself had been dulled for practice and warded against harm, yet the strength of the blow turned it into a club, and one wielded by a person of skill. One more blow and his fan all but shattered, he cursed and cast it aside, then flung himself backwards and readied himself to draw Xiu Ya.
In his expanded field of vision, he finally got a good look at the woman who’d drawn on him, her broad frame bent by both terrible sickness and the enormous swell of a pregnant belly. The wall next to her seemed to be doing the majority of the work in keeping her upright, though the tensed state of her arm and wrist suggested that she had no little strength remaining in her.
It took him an embarrassingly long moment to recognize her. In his defense, he’d only ever seen the Huan Hua head disciple once or twice and never looking this close to death. It had been speculated—at length and with disgusting glee—that Tianlung-jun had violated Su Xiyan before killing her. He’d traced the rumours back to one of the Old Palace Master’s closest aides; Shen Qingqiu had attributed it to their desire to stir up hot blood and avenge their shijie.
“I had not anticipated a gui on Huan Hua Palace grounds,” he said. Despite his words, he noted that she still drew breath; not dead, then.
Su Xiyan lowered her sword, smiling through bloodless, cracked lips. “Finish me off and there will be one more.” She choked on a chuckle, but even the gentle shake of her shoulders robbed what little remained of her strength. The sword fell from her hand and clattered on the ground.
Shen Qingqiu tensed when he heard a call from nearby; his aggressors presumably excited to have some hint of their prey.
“The doctors—”
“No,” she growled, eyes blazing. “Not here. Not them.”
Suspicion took root in Shen Qingqiu’s mind, an obvious explanation springing fully formed into place.
“It would be to your benefit,” he began, “And the benefit of your… lover?” She did not acknowledge the word, “To go before the gathered sects and offer some explanation.”
Su Xiyan pressed her hand against the side of her swollen belly. “No,” she repeated. “Not in front of him—”
cloves cloves cloves cloves
“—Not until the baby is safe.”
From the looks of her, neither of them were safe.
But Shen Qingqiu knew of a place where they might be.
“Quickly, then.” Before his two shadows caught up. He drew Xiu Ya and offered her his hand. When she started to reach for him, her knees buckled and he barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground.
With a curled lip, he hefted her into his arms. A carefully-applied talisman cloaked them in shadow and masked their escape as he took flight.
“Have you brought me to a brothel?” Su Xiyan mumbled as he half-carried her through the back door of the Warm Red Pavillion.
“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu said, unable to keep the waspish snap from his tone. Undoubtedly, like all other righteous cultivators, she’d find fault in it. And if she did, then she was welcome to walk right back out the door and find some other fool willing to cross the Old Palace Master—
“Oh, good.” She listed dangerously to the left and Shen Qingqiu had to adjust his hold to keep her sturdy. “He’ll never look for me here.”
One of the girls, Xiao Hua, spotted him when she turned a corner. Her eyes widened. “Shen-xiansheng! Oh!” She darted forward and tucked herself up against Su Xiyan’s other size, then abruptly stumbled with the weight. Su Xiyan was not a small woman, even without the additional encumberment of her pregnancy. “Here, I’ll help you to Madam Huang.”
They stuck to the back corridors, quietly avoiding the grandiose main room and its laughing occupants. The Madam kept the largest suite in the building for herself, a magnificent set of rooms lavishly decorated and lined with perfectly comfortable day beds. Shen Qingqiu awkwardly settled Su Xiyan upon the largest of them.
Su Xiyan patted his arm. He stared at her hand upon him, startled to silence at the presumption.
“Thank you,” Su Xiyan murmured. He sniffed, but did not cast her hand off him. The last person to touch him with anything resembling camaraderie was… Well. Qiu Haitang, in all likelihood. He didn’t even recall his shizun having placed a caring hand upon him; she’d never had time for such nonsense. And while Yue Qingyuan had certainly attempted to take such liberties, Shen Qingqiu had dodged every attempt.
He shocked himself by placing his hand atop hers. “You—” He paused. Her hand felt far too warm. Now they’d found passingly decent lighting, he noted the feverish quality in her cheeks. He touched her forehead, unsurprised to find it blisteringly hot beneath his hand.
“She is overheated,” Shen Qingqiu told Xiao Hua. “Fetch up all the ice and cool water available.”
“Ice will be expensive, Shen-xiansheng.”
“Cost is no consequence. Go.”
She went.
“Poison,” Su Xiyan said, voice weaker than it had been. “He… he made me…” She closed her eyes. They snapped open again almost immediately. “The baby.”
Madam Huang had connections with the only local doctor willing to help the girls—usually at Shen Qingqiu’s expense, though he found it an acceptable expenditure with everything they gave him in return. The man might not be a brilliant medical cultivator, but the idea of asking Mu-shidi for help, which he would most certainly be denied, filled Shen Qingqiu with revulsion.
“I’ll send for a doctor,” he said. “And there are remedies which may help.” Going to Shang-shidi to acquire such things would be unavoidable, but at least the An Ding Peak Lord had a modicum of discretion, even though he rarely showed the common sense to demonstrate it. Moreover, he was one of the only other Peak Lords who ever treated Shen Qingqiu with respect, fear-fuelled though it seemed to be.
Xiao Hua returned with both the Madam and a tray of chipped ice.
“Well, Immortal Master Shen, this is a surprise,” Madam Huang said. She did ‘sly insinuation’ quite well, but he supposed she had decades of experience with effecting such a tone.
“Madam Huang. Thank you for your hospitality, unanticipated though it may have been.” He retrieved the tray from Xiao Hua and offered one of the smaller chips to Su Xiyan. She accepted it and placed it on her tongue with a wince.
“Hmm.” She looked Su Xiyan over, paying close attention to her sweat-sheened forehead and her pregnant belly, respectively. “Yours?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shen Qingqiu snapped.
“But it serves me so well when I am,” she said. “Xiao Hua, go fetch Doctor Zhang.”
Xiao Hua took off, nearly at a run before remembering herself and returning to her usual graceful glide.
“I apologize, but it seems I shall have to impose on your hospitality for a few weeks,” Su Xiyan said, “And possibly a month or more afterwards.” She took another ice chip to suck on.
“We are happy to accommodate any friend of Immortal Master Shen,” Madam Huang said. “He is our patron and valuable friend.”
Su Xiyan squeezed Shen Qingqiu’s arm. “He seems a good friend to have.”
The words stuck at the back of Shen Qingqiu’s throat like a jagged chip of bone.
When Madam Huang excused herself a moment later, Shen Qingqiu found himself hard-pressed to look at Su Xiyan at all.
“Here,” he said, pushing the tray closer to her. He tried to pull away, but Su Xiyan held tight to his sleeve.
“You have proven a worthy friend,” Su Xiyan told him, the ice clacking against her teeth as she spoke.
“Tch. I have not done a thing to merit this,” he all but snarled. “And in any other circumstances, you would never speak such rubbish.”
Su Xiyan chuckled weakly. “Don’t be so sure. I’ve been informed that I have strange ideas as to what constitutes good company.”
He supposed, with a glance at her stomach, that was true enough.
He passed her another chip of ice.
The doctor recommended against ice. “Warming foods only,” he said.
Advice that Su Xiyan promptly ignored once he left, the very blood in her veins alight with painful fire as she tried to keep the poison from passing to her child. A lesser cultivator would have already succumbed, but she’d spent too long training her body to respond to her commands to let weakness get the better of her now. The fire inside her had eased somewhat with the help of the ice, regardless of the doctor’s opinions. It had been exacerbated by the acidic air in the water prison prior to her escape, and even now she felt it preparing to strike at her the vulnerable occupant in her womb the moment her will failed her.
Su Xiyan was far too stubborn to let that happen.
Shen Qingqiu remained at her side, and she tried not to hate the fact that it wasn’t Tianlang-jun. His death had ultimately been her fault, though he’d undoubtedly laugh at her in their next lives for accepting the blame for herself instead of placing it where it truly belonged.
Her lips tightened and she sucked furiously on the last piece of ice, delighting in a daydream of formless violence and the knowledge that she’d eventually see her shizun dead.
Shen Qingqiu remained at her side after the doctor left, though she had released his sleeve. Once she’d eaten all the ice, he’d sent off his little friend to buy more, shoving a sizable purse into her hand.
“She’s sweet,” Su Xiyan said. Like a sparrow, flitting about outside a window with a cheery song and excited to please those within.
“She was abandoned here as an infant,” Shen Qingqiu said. He glowered down at his hands. “I had thought to find a proper home for her, but I was interrupted in my efforts, and confined to Qing Jing Peak for several months. Afterwards, it seemed unfair to take her from the women who’d been tending to her.”
Like everything he said, there was a wealth of meaning in his words, and far more in what he avoided saying. Such a fascinating man. And one she was inclined to trust, given that her shizun had specifically gone out of his way to tell her how untrustworthy he found the Xiu Ya Sword. She’d trusted the old bastard too blindly for too many years, almost to her ruin. If she’d seen him truly as an insidious viper instead of beloved mentor—
Too late, now, for regrets. Time later, for revenge. Now she had to focus on herself, her child, and the enigmatic man before her.
Everything she knew of Shen Qingqiu had come by way of her shizun: a lecher, and manipulative monster who had sunk his teeth into Yue Qingyuan and held sway over all Cang Qiong. She was no longer inclined to believe it. No one as truly vile as his reputation purported would have gone out of their way to help her in defiance of his sect’s foremost allies. And she’d been in enough brothels and entertainment halls to know when the girls were afraid of a guest.
(She mourned over the lost echo of a boisterous laugh at her side.)
“I need to thank you.”
He stood, abruptly. “I shall go to Cang Qiong and acquire the items you need,” he said. On top of the remedies he’d mentioned earlier, the doctor had left a lengthy prescription to help her pregnancy along in its last few weeks.
“No, you will sit and let me thank you properly,” Su Xiyan said. He reached into his sleeve for something—perhaps the fan she’d destroyed earlier—and grimaced when his hand withdrew absent of the comfort.
“I am not in the habit of accepting gratitude,” he told her stiffly. He did sit, though.
Privately, Su Xiyan doubted he was in the habit of being offered it at all.
(How many of those rumours had come from the mouths of other disciples of Cang Qiong? She knew at least one Bai Zhan disciple who had shot his mouth off during the last Immortal Alliance Conference, taking great pains to tell everyone around him that the Peak Lord of Qing Jing had succumbed to the latest in a string of qi deviations, likely brought about by his own indolence, and had thus been too weak to attend and represent his sect.
“Ah, Yan-er, make sure you avoid this deviant,” Shizun had said, patting her shoulder.
Su Xiyan had nodded, though her thoughts had been elsewhere at the time. Countless li away, with a broad-shouldered demon who laughed at everything because he found the world a place which inspired great joy.
Su Xiyan would rip out her shizun’s beating heart.)
“That’s fine. I don’t mind repeating myself. Heavens know I needed to do so often enough with—” She coughed instead of letting her voice break. “Forgive me. He was always distracted by something.” Her lips pressed together. “Silly things. The smell of cooking meat. Children playing. Pipa players in the marketplace. A funny hat.” Her hand dropped to her belly. He would have been absolutely fascinated by her pregnancy and overjoyed at the idea of fatherhood. She hadn’t known when they’d met for the last time. He’d died without knowing, probably believing that she’d betrayed him.
“I cannot fathom warm relations with a demon,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Nor imagine one curious.”
“Every living thing has a sense of curiosity, Lao Shen.”
He twitched and she immediately decided upon it as a nickname. His looks of derision—aimed only at the doctor, thus far, though she had high hopes of seeing more in the future—were hilarious and endearing all at once. Like an angry kitten. He aimed one at her now and Su Xiyan had to stop herself from laughing at him. He wouldn’t appreciate it. Moreover, she doubted he’d understand it to have the kindness she’d mean to offer. Poorly socialized, she decided. They’d work on it together.
Shen Qingqiu returned to the bamboo house in the early hours of the morning two days after fleeing Huan Hua Palace. He’d left Su Xiyan resting comfortably—for the first time in months, according to her account, which seemed to line up with the beginning of the Old Palace Master’s claims of abduction—and with Xiao Hua solemnly promising to attend to her every need. Madam Huang had provided Su Xiyan with her own room for the duration of her stay, waving off the first three offers of payment before finally taking what remained of Shen Qingqiu’s money once Xiao Hua returned from the ice seller.
While in the brothel, he’d only slept fitfully for a handful of hours, unable to rest until he’d been sure that her fever had fully broken. It had nothing, nothing, to do with her insistence on treating him civilly. Warmly, even. He merely did not want his efforts to have gone to waste. He remained in bed late into the afternoon to make up for the deficit.
When he woke, after dressing and ordering one of his disciples to bring tea and a light repast, he made his way towards An Ding Peak.
Shang Qinghua had not attended the capture of Tianlang-jun. Had actually been one of the few Peak Lords to not talk down to Shen Qingqiu when he’d spoken up against the endeavour. Shen Qingqiu thought he might have even detected a hint of approval, though his shidi had been too cowardly to speak up in his favour. He supposed he could forgive it; Shang Qinghua already had the dubious honour of being the Peak Lord with the most responsibilities and the least glorious peak. Allying himself with the odious Qing Jing Peak Lord? Some of their martial siblings—Liu Qingge chiefest among them—would go out of their way to make his life even more difficult.
The thought proved almost prescient; Shen Qingqiu spotted the Bai Zhan War God himself making his way along the rainbow bridge from An Ding Peak.
Would he be able to escape this without incident? He kept his eyes fixed forward, ignoring Liu Qingge’s furious glare as they drew nearer. Perhaps, if he kept walking and did not acknowledge—
“Shen Qingqiu,” Liu Qingge growled. “You left the celebration at Huan Hua Palace. Where did you run off to? Or should I bother asking?” His lip curled in disgust.
“Liu-shidi will, of course, draw whatever conclusions he wishes,” Shen Qingqiu replied.
When he tried to keep walking, Liu Qingge stepped into his path. Tch. Honestly. Did he have nothing better to do than harangue busy shixiongs?
“No need to draw conclusions when facts are before me,” Liu Qingge said.
“Ah, then you know for a fact where I went?”
His lips tightened into an angry line. “I don’t, but—”
“Then your conclusions are based upon speculation and nothing more. Perhaps Liu-shidi should visit my Qing Jing library more often, in order to improve his understanding of dialectics.”
Liu Qingge stared at him, obviously baffled. It took Shen Qingqiu a long moment to realize that in one fell swoop, he’d both teased Liu Qingge without true ire and invited him to visit Qing Jing. Shen Qingqiu snapped his fan open to hide his face, glad for the shield, though he still mourned the loss of his old favourite. Su Xiyan’s gentle way of poking fun at him had made him too comfortable. He needed to remember to properly armour himself when in the presence of his martial siblings.
Determined to take advantage of the surprise, Shen Qingqiu tried to dodge around Liu Qingge and continue on his way. Liu Qingge grabbed his arm, abruptly reminding Shen Qingqiu why he despised the other man.
“Release me,” he said, infusing all the cold of a killing winter into his voice. He tried never to betray the revulsion which filled him whenever someone—especially a man—touched him. It was a weakness, and one that would undoubtedly be exploited.
Liu Qingge instead tightened his grip. Shen Qingqiu kept his mask of disdain firmly in place. Wu Yanzi, and Qiu Jianluo before him, had taught him the importance of keeping base reactions and welling discomfort hidden away. He refused to allow this brute the upper hand.
“You shamed all of us by leaving to do… that,” Liu Qingge stated. “Zhangmen-shixiong won’t ever admit it, but you humiliated him. The Old Palace Master asked after you in front of the entire room and all he could do was flounder and make your excuses.”
“Should I ever require our Sect Leader to make excuses for me, please assume I’m dead,” Shen Qingqiu said. Liu Qingge’s hand tightened again to bruising. Would this end in yet one more of their ill-conceived duels?
“Maybe if you were, you’d stop embarrassing Cang Qiong.”
“I am flattered that Liu-shidi believes I’d die in something other than ignominy,” Shen Qingqiu said. This time, there was enough venom in his voice that Liu Qingge’s hold on his arm loosened. Shen Qingqiu took the chance to insert the tip of his fan between his sleeves and Liu Qingge’s fingers and twisted it, fully forcing Liu Qingge’s hand away from him. He finally felt as though he could breathe. “Excuse this shixiong, Liu-shidi. I have business on An Ding.”
He daringly exposed his back to Liu Qingge and walked away. Liu Qingge would not attack him from behind; he’d been raised with too many naive ideals to take such dishonourable action. Which was why, should he and Shen Qingqiu ever fight in earnest, Shen Qingqiu stood a small chance of winning.
He arrived at Shang Qinghua’s office in short order. The door seemed ill-set in its tracks, with a telling crack in the wood roughly at the height of Liu Qingge’s right hip. Shen Qingqiu glowered at it, as though the man himself were right in front of him in all his disastrous fatuity. Shen Qingqiu folded his fan tightly and used it to ease the door open, wincing at the unseemly screech of damaged wood.
“Shang-shidi should prioritize this repair,” he stated, stepping into the room. He shivered, an unexpected chill slipping into the folds of his robes. “It degrades all of the Cang Qiong Peak Lords if he does not demand the respect we are due.”
Shang Qinghua, sitting ramrod straight and staring at him with wide, wide eyes. “Shixiong,” he said, strangled.
Shen Qingqiu raised an eyebrow. “Shidi?” The papers on his desk were askew and a large smudge of ink crossed the bridge of Shang Qinghua’s nose. Shen Qingqiu wished this was the first time he’d found the An Ding Peak Lord in such disarray, but it was disappointingly typical.
“Wh—what does Shen-shixiong need?” he asked.
Shen Qingqiu reached into his sleeve and withdrew both the doctor’s prescription and the list of his own suggestions. He handed it over without a word and waited in icy silence as Shang Qinghua read it over.
“Ahem. Uh. Shi—shixiong?” Shen Qingqiu met Shang Qinghua’s eyes, but remained silent. Shang Qinghua only lasted a handful of heartbeats before the silence got the better of him. “This. Um. This looks like a prescription that. Uh. Might be useful for a pregnant cultivator?”
With surprisingly graciousness, he did not look at Shen Qingqiu’s midsection. This either indicated a lack of imagination on his part when considering the myriad dangers of the world around them, or knew—correctly—that Shen Qingqiu would kill him for even suggesting it.
“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu agreed, shortly.
Shang Qinghua swallowed either his nerves or his next question. He took a steadying breath and offered, “I can have them ready in a week.”
“Two days,” Shen Qingqiu demanded.
“Oh, I can’t possibly—”
“You will have everything I require in two days,” Shen Qingqiu stated. He’d promised Su Xiyan he’d return before the waxing crescent.
Shang Qinghua slumped a bit, then winced. He straightened and rubbed his lower back. “Fine, fine. Two days.”
“Are you injured?” Shen Qingqiu demanded. “Did that brute—”
“Nah, Liu-shidi just wanted to figure out when I can organize the repairs for the Bai Zhan dormitory. Someone put someone else through a wall, blah blah blah.”
Hmm. Shen Qingqiu believed Liu-shidi limited his personal love of tormenting his shixiong to Shen Qingqiu himself, but he did not care for Shang Qinghua’s pained movements. He alone should be the one enjoying the privilege of tormenting Shang Qinghua, as the only one who did so deliberately instead of unintentionally.
He left without another word, quiet enough that he heard Shang Qinghua’s sigh of relief behind him. With a small smile, quickly hidden, he made his way back to the bamboo house to address the undoubtedly substantial number of tasks left for him by his useless disciples.