Work Text:
“Wait- Qi-ge!” Xiao-Jiu cries out miserably. Yue Qi looks back at the shut door one more time, wishing he could see Xiao-Jiu’s face through it; but he already glimpsed it once, and if he stays any longer, they’ll both be caught.
“Shhh, Xiao-Jiu; what is it?”
“I-” The voice hesitates, wavering. There is a scrabbling sound, like he’s pressing himself even closer to the other side of the door -- he must be dragging his mangled legs behind him. “Really, don’t forget about me, okay? Otherwise, how will you come back and save me?”
Yue Qi stares at the floorboards. There is something sinking in his gut; he’s slow to comprehend the words. In the pause, Xiao-Jiu starts again, pleading even more desperately.
“Seriously, don’t -- don’t forget me!”
He opens his mouth to respond.
--
When Shen Jiu wakes from his febrile spell, he seems a bit disoriented, but nothing too extraordinary.
Yue Qingyan breathes a silent sigh of relief, and feels the air gust out between his lips in an alien sensation. There seems to have been something he was going to say, but he has temporarily been robbed of it — the thought has rushed out with the rest. Even as he worries over Shen Jiu, the sensation will not fade. It is alright. It will come back to him later, he is sure.
Shen Jiu lives. There is time yet.
--
“The way he is now is quite an improvement.”
There is a murmur of agreement among the peak lords — no one speaks louder than a mutter, but it is clear the general consensus of the room. Yue Qingyuan smiles.
Shortly afterwards, they conclude the meeting, agreeing to not mention a word of it to Shen Jiu. It must remain hidden. There are some things, considers Yue Qingyuan, that perhaps one ought to be ignorant of.
He is walking through the forests of Qiong Ding peak, meandering slowly back to his office, and apparently so lost in his thought that he only notices his hanger-on when a throat clears roughly behind him. He spins quickly around, but he is calm as he does so: he recognizes the roughness of this chosen method of attention-grabbing.
“Zhangmen-shixiong,” hedges Liu Qingge, and Yue Qingyuan’s attention flickers to his shidi’s uncertain face.
“Yes?” The word flows passively from him, his mind still doing preliminary tasks in his office even as his body deals with his new interruption; these days, much of his dialogue is done without thought. It assists in his duties, to be able to apply himself elsewhere as his mouth maintains the difficulty of reputation.
“Shen Qingqiu-“ The emotions that flicker through Liu Qingge’s eyes in that split second are powerful enough to impress upon any viewer his complicated feelings on the owner of that name, and are doubly impressive to anyone who knows Liu Qingge enough to know, also, his penchant for discarding any feeling unrelated to the immediate fight. To get Liu Qingge to think so deeply about him, when before the name would provoke only immediate hatred — Xiao-Jiu, muses Yue Qingyuan, what has become of you? Where have you gone?
This is a nonsensical line of questioning, of course. Shen Jiu is resting and recovering from his recent near-fatal poisoning on Qing Jing peak, albeit short a few memories, and with a new scar to add to his already ravaged meridians. Near-fatal poisoning. Yue Qingyuan tries not to think about that, and shifts his gaze back to Liu Qingge. When had it drifted away?
Liu Qingge is looking at him expectantly and with increasing suspicion. Yue Qingyuan must have missed what he said. The advantage of such a forthright shidi is that any misstep is easily located and corrected simply by navigating the unobstructed terrain of his face — it is a far cry from Shen Jiu, whose every expression is a carefully controlled defense. Is. Was? Yue Qingyuan does not entirely dismiss the possibility that this bout of uncharacteristic geniality, too, is some sort of strange new veil of disguise, another way for Shen Jiu to retreat from the world that seeks only to wound him, but increasingly he does not think so. Shen Jiu would not flaunt his vital points like he is doing now, not even as a decoy. He is not stupid — he knows every offered trail finds its way back to the heart eventually. It is better to dissuade entirely, rather than invite an attack and find you have accidentally guided the blade through your chest. Yue Qingyuan understands that Shen Jiu understands this, because he has been leaving bait out Shen Jiu for years and years and years, and never once has Shen Jiu bitten; with every offered weakness, Shen Jiu looks at him with more derision, more disgust, more barely-veiled disappointment. Looked? Liu Qingge opens his mouth to speak, and Yue Qingyuan smoothly guides himself back to the path of the conversation. “I apologize, shidi. This one’s mind was wandering elsewhere — could you be so kind as to repeat your words once more?”
Liu Qingge gazes at him strangely, but does not suspect him any further. Yue Qingyuan can tell, because the bridge of his nose is smooth and absent of creases. He dips his head in a curt nod, which is as much respect as can be expected from Liu-shidi.
“It is true that Shen Qingqiu has become much more respectable-“ he is very direct with his words, Yue Qingyuan thinks faintly- “but this shidi understands that there is- was- an… unaddressed issue, between Zhangmen-shixiong and Shen Qingqiu.” After a moment of thought, Liu Qingge belatedly adds, “Shixiong. Shen Qingqiu-shixiong.”
His shidi waits expectantly for his response, and, caught by surprise, Yue Qingyuan can only give a dip of his head in tacit confirmation. Despite his reticence, it still feels as if he is losing Shen Jiu face, and a familiar guilt creeps up his spine. He should remember that Shen Jiu wants nothing to do with him. He does remember. How can he forget?
Ignorant of Yue Qingyuan’s internal berating, Liu Qingge seems to think this is a satisfactory response, and barrels onwards. “Given Shen Qing— Shen-shixiong’s behavior towards Zhangmen-shixiong, and his recent qi deviation, it is clear he has forgotten entirely whatever was between Zhangmen-shixiong and himself. And. He saved me. In the Ling Xi caves. So—“ Here he bites his lip in thought, clearly unused to pausing before opening his mouth, and Yue Qingyuan feels a brief flash of sympathy; Liu Qingge has been uncharacteristically cautious in his speech, and Yue Qingyuan understands the difficulty of swallowing back unwanted words. “So,” he begins again, carefully, “This may be a chance for Zhangmen-shixiong to… retry, and remove what— what ‘errors’ may have been… ‘made’… the previous attempt.” Even as gently he closes out this last statement, his tone sounds vaguely like curdling milk. Now that he is worth the effort to try again, floats through the air, implied. That it was left unsaid to begin with was a testament to his current levels of consideration.
Yue Qingyuan is not often blindsided, and if he was told he would be, he would not have expected Liu Qingge to be the one doing so. But it seems his shidi is startlingly perceptive, and empathetic to boot. At least, he hopes Liu Qingge is the empathetic one. It would be no small shame to realize that the entire sect was privy to his and Shen Jiu’s interpersonal conflict. Shen Jiu would hate that — would hate being known to be associated with him in any capacity, positive or negative. But there is only so much one can do, when both of them are peak lords in the same sect.
Yue Qingyuan slips seamlessly into a calm smile. “Ah, thanking Shidi for his concern. Rest assured, Liu-shidi, this shixiong will take your advice into account. I apologize for troubling you with such personal trifles.”
Liu Qingge offers him another glance of concern, turning away.
“Yes,” He says stiffly. “Of course.”
An awkward pause. Yue Qingyuan waits patiently for Liu Qingge to shuffle away, but instead his shidi stands there, back to his shixiong, as on-edge and uncomfortable as a caged beast. Finally, he breaks the silence once more.
“He saved me,” says Liu Qingge, his voice strangely hoarse. Yue Qingyuan feels a slow and creeping dread.
--—-
Shen Jiu is selfless. He has been bedridden, and possibly injured for life, taking a hit for his disciple. Or so he is told. Yue Qingyuan was not present at the time. (Yue Qingyuan is always busy -- Yue Qingyuan always has no time.) He can only try to imagine it, the scene. A huge demon, looming over that disciple— Luo Binghe — great panting breaths almost upon him, cloven hooves barreling through the dirt; and then a flash of silver, a body in front of his, a high and pained whinny piercing through the air—
Yue Qingyuan stops himself forcibly; there is a roiling unease under his skin, and he cannot understand why. After all —
He is every bit as selfless as Xiao-Jiu.
—
“Shen-shidi was always an object of my admiration,” Yue Qingyuan smiles, glancing back at Shen Jiu.
—-
“Shixiong,” says Shen Jiu, and Yue Qingyuan inclines his head in placid acknowledgement.
Shen Jiu has been different. Undoubtedly, it is because of the amnesia from the qi deviation. He smiles more freely. He is more deferential, more placid. His motions carry an ease of unsettling boldness; it disguises him in strange ways. Something about it tickles at the back of his brain, urging some faint memory forward. Sometimes Yue Qingyuan wonders if he is there at all.
Shen Jiu says something else, but at that moment, the wind picks up -- the words die out on the breeze.
--
“Why did you use the past tense?” Asks Shen Jiu.
”I— forgive this shixiong. It was a slip of the tongue.”
—
Liu Qingge’s advice is sound.
Yue Qingyuan approaches Qing Jing peak with a sense of deep foreboding — this has never gone well before, and try as he might, he cannot imagine an outcome where it goes well now. But he is spurred onward by the faint promise of a Xiao-Jiu who smiles at him; he had already gotten a brief glimpse of it, in the time since the fever, and he is desperate for more. He has only been able to quell his ache for it by throwing himself fervently into his work — it is no wonder that the little push by his shidi was enough to get him to trek over the very next day.
It is easy enough to make a passable excuse for his visit besides that slim chance at reconciliation, anyway — The lord of the second-highest peak was weak and bedbound right now, and surely one of the duties of the Cang Qiong sect leader was to look over his shidi, to ensure they were all in good health, so the entire sect functioned harmoniously like a single unit. This is the reason he repeats in his head as he crosses the rainbow bridge on foot — by the time he arrives at the peak, he can almost convince himself of its truth.
Once he arrives, he swiftly pulls aside a disciple he’s seen on a few occasions, whenever he’s visited in the past— Ming Fan, if memory serves correctly— and asks him to go ahead and inform the peak lord of his arrival. It will not do to arrive unannounced, and risk Shen Jiu’s further ire. He is already cutting it close, visiting without at least a day’s prior notice — but Liu Qingge’s words had wormed their way into his dreams, caused his night to be restless and laden with thought, and when the dawn’s light hit, his addled, sleepless mind had not been able to resist the almost-physical pull towards Qing Jing peak. Xiao-Jiu was right, he thinks for the thousandth time — He really is too impulsive. But he is already here, and he cannot back away now, when everyone has already seen him; even if he left, word would still reach Shen Jiu’s ears, and he would only be even more incensed having heard Yue Qingyuan had stopped by and not spoken to him at all. No; now that it has come to this, he can only mitigate the inevitable annoyance by sending word ahead, as he idly takes in the serene environment around him.
The sound of guqin playing float around the peak’s slightly swaying bamboo stalks, intertwining with the ever-present shifting of leaves to create a harmonious, soothing ambiance. Birdsong fills the air intermittently where the guqin pauses. The faint chatter of disciples is present here, as it is in most every peak — sans Bai Zhan, where the sound of swords clashing and bodies hitting the dirt overpowers all — but it only adds to the feeling of peace and calmness which envelops the entirety of Qing Jing peak. It has always been like this — Qing Jing peak is, after all, the peak of scholars and artists — but for some reason, he notes oddly, it seems to be more pronounced these days. The mellifluous melodies sound a little bit more relaxed, the idle murmuring a little more carefree. When a wrong note twinges through the air, there is no longer the same sense of thin frustration, for a brief moment, threatening the peaceful air. Even the birds seem more cheerful. It puts Yue Qingyuan on edge, for reasons he cannot explain. Something rises in the back of his throat.
Ming Fan rushes back down the path towards him at a brisk pace, just shy of running — an amusing impulse many of the disciples of the sect seem to have around the sect leader, a twitchy nervousness belying their stiff and uptight behavior. Yue Qingyuan regards him with the same kind smile as always, inclining his head to allow the child to speak.
“Shizun says Zhangmen-shibo can come in,” he reports, breathlessly. “Allow this humble disciple to escort you.”
“Very well,” he acquiesces with another faint nod, and matches his pace to Ming Fan’s as they continue back up the path to the bamboo house.
“How is your shizun? I imagine with Qingqiu-shidi incapacitated, the disciples of Qing Jing peak may be facing a few difficulties.” He inquires, idly, as they walk. The guqin playing has all but disappeared now, replaced entirely by the rustle of the bamboo around them. It stretches along both sides of them in a thick forest, crisscrossing shadows lining the ground in dappled light. It is a perfect place, he thinks, for someone to hide, and never be found.
Ming Fan startles at his words, eyes whipping up to his face for a moment before once again dropping in respect. ”Well! Ah, that is, Zhangmen — Shizun is doing much better, after a few days of recuperation. We disciples have been diligently training in his absence! It is no issue at all, for us. Our only wish is for our shizun to recuperate as quickly as possible.” All of a sudden, his face sours, and he turns his head away. “Even if…”
Yue Qingyuan peers at him in interest. “Even if…?”
Ming Fan startles, again, like he’s been caught red-handed — really, Yue Qingyuan knew that a sect leader might be an imposing figure, but wasn’t this a little too much? — “Ah, it’s nothing! This humble disciple doesn’t wish to trouble Zhangmen-shibo with insignificant matters.”
“There is no need to worry,” Yue Qingyuan gently prods, now curious despite himself. “Nothing pertaining to Qingqiu-shidi’s recovery could be insignificant to me.”
The boy bites his lip, considering, before muttering out, “Shizun has recently allowed that b— ah, that is, one of the disciples, to live with him in the bamboo house’s side room, and cook for him. This disciple is unruly, disobedient and weak, and many of us worry that he is not worthy of sharing close quarters with shizun and preparing his meals. But shizun allows it, and though we know he can practice inedia, it is good for shizun to eat, so even if he will only eat meals made by that disciple, then…” he trails off, suddenly uncertain, and begins glancing searchingly at Yue Qingyuan’s face for any indication he has overstepped.
Indeed, it is a major breach of polite etiquette to not only so openly slander a fellow disciple to your sect leader, but also admit to worrying over your shizun like a mother would a sickly child — but Yue Qingyuan is too delighted at this development to give even a soft reprimand. For Shen Jiu to have disciples that cared for him so much — furthermore, for him to trust a disciple enough to let him stay in his own home! He pushes down the pang of doubt — since when has Shen Jiu trusted so easily? — to warmly respond. “This is indeed an important development. Thank you for informing me of this,” and here he goes out on a limb, hoping his assumptions had been correct, “Ming Fan.”
The assumption clearly pays off— the boy’s eyes light up, starstruck, at the idea that the sect leader at all remembers his name. In an instant, he chatters on further about the various happenings on the peak, his initial nervousness clearly dispelled entirely by this newfound elation. For the rest of the walk, Yue Qingyuan doesn’t need to give any response more substantial than a soft hum of acknowledgement, or the occasional questioning ‘hm?’ to have Ming Fan diving further into whatever it was that piqued his interest. While he keeps half his mind on whatever Ming Fan is saying — it is always important, of course, to keep up to date on the current events at Qing Jing peak insofar as they pertain to Shen Jiu, which is all of them, given that it is his peak — his thoughts begin to wander off to wonder at what this elusive trusted disciple of Shen Jiu must be like.
What sort of person would get Shen Jiu to allow them to not only serve him food without suspicion, but to let them stay in his own abode while he slept? The only person he could currently conceive of being allowed this rare privilege is the little girl that Shen Jiu so dotes on — Ning Yingying, he believes. But Ning Yingying could never be described as unruly or weak — disobedient she might sometimes be, she had never been the sort of thug that Ming Fan was clearly describing. In fact, Yue Qingyuan is having a hard time envisioning any disciple at all in line with Ming Fan’s description that Shen Jiu would still allow so close to him, which only made him all the more curious to see the sort of person this mystery disciple was — perhaps he would see a glimpse of them when he arrived at the bamboo house, given their current residence there?
When Ming Fan finally knocks on the door of the house, announcing respectfully, “Shizun, I’ve brought Zhangmen to see you,” Yue Qingyuan is nearly beside himself in curiosity.
“Come in.” Shen Jiu’s melodic voice drifts from between the slats of the house, and Yue Qingyuan is beset with a sudden bout of nerves as Ming Fan opens the door and steps aside.
The first thing he notices as he enters through the doorway is — was it always this messy?
After that initial week or so of fretting over Shen Jiu following the fever, Yue Qingyuan had largely kept away from Qing Jing peak, despite how much he had wanted to rush over, to hold his hand to Shen Jiu’s forehead, to feel his temperature, to make sure he was eating alright, to wrap his arms around his slim shoulders and — well. Irregardless, he did so because he knew enough to know he was not wanted, especially not when Shen Jiu was still vulnerable and disoriented. Then, it had quickly become apparent that Shen Jiu’s strange behavior was not simply the temporary effects of a particularly severe qi deviation, and it had seemed that, perhaps, he was no longer as unwanted as he might once have been. But, even so — he had not wished to push it any further than Shen Jiu was willing to, thankful enough that Shen Jiu would even gaze upon him willingly. He had been overwhelmingly grateful for every kind word, every polite smile, every missed insult in their ensuing conversations. In fact, now that Shen Jiu was finally approaching him of his own volition, he visited Qing Jing peak far less, fearful of inviting his anger now that there was finally something between them to break. No, he didn’t dare ask for more.
All this to say— this is the first time he has visited the bamboo house following the fever. To the untrained eye, it might look perfectly respectable. All the fans arranged neatly in their stands, the paintings clearly recently dusted, the tea set arranged on the low table, warm tea already prepared in the pot. But he spots the differences: a stray paper on the desk, where it should have been neatly filed away. The tail end of a robe peering out from the wardrobe. The fans are out of their usual color-coded order, and one of them has been left open on the shelf instead of being slid back into its usual position. Yue Qingyuan has always thought fondly of the bamboo house, which so concisely managed to embody the personality of Shen Jiu, as abodes often did — but now it leaves him with a vague unsettled feeling, like everything has been moved a few inches to the left.
Shen Jiu is sitting elegantly on the other side of the low table, composed as always, eyes curving in soft welcome. He gestures for Yue Qingyuan to sit with a wave of his fan. It is one of the ones Yue Qingyuan purchased for him, he notes, a jolt of pleased shock running through him. Shen Jiu has never before used one of his gifts. He follows Shen Jiu’s direction, shifting his attention to Shen Jiu and taking in his shidi the same way he takes in the rest of the room — indeed, his hair is slightly crooked, the front part more to the right than how it usually sits, and the topknot is done up in a slightly different fashion than usual. There is a wrinkle on his robe, holding his collar at an imprecise angle. He absentmindedly reaches out to smooth it out, catches himself in the action, and straightens himself once more. Shen Jiu blinks at his dropped hand between them bemusedly.
Before Yue Qingyuan can begin to explain himself, there is a quick pitter-patter of feet to the side, and two hands reach out to pick up the teapot. This, Yue Qingyuan realizes, must be the mysterious disciple. He turns his head to look, and breathes in sharply.
He knows this face. He has seen it contorted in pain, in focus, in single-minded determination. He has never once seen it smile like this, the eyes curving upward in soft delight even as his mouth remains a straight line, pouring out tea into the two cups laid out on the table.
“This is…?” He asks, moving suddenly dry lips to speak as he gazes fixedly at the child. No matter how hard he searches, he cannot find the marks of any bruises, nor a healing cut, or, in fact, even any indication of the sleepless exhaustion that those tender features had once always carried. He looks as if he has spent his entire life never knowing a single woe.
“Ah, yes — This is my disciple, Luo Binghe. He will be living in the bamboo house from now onwards, to assist in my duties.” Shen Jiu is smiling at the child, softer than Yue Qingyuan had ever seen.
He had known, of course, that Shen Jiu’s attitude towards the child had changed. But he had never had a good look at him, to see just how much it had changed. He had only begun to glimpse the depths of it when Shen Jiu had thrown himself into poisoned spikes to save the child’s life — but still, he had thought that that had only been the result of the duty of a master to his disciple. Even that was a nearly unfathomable step up. At the time he had been too busy with attending to Shen Jiu and quelling the clamor in the sect following the demon invasion to spare a glance at the child that Shen Jiu had risked his life for.
Luo Binghe looks utterly content, rosy-cheeked and finally letting the smile curve up his face under Shen Jiu’s attention. Even as he inclines his head respectfully to Yue Qingyuan in greeting, his eyes stay utterly fixed on his shizun. Shen Jiu is gazing fondly at him in return, and a hand reaches out, almost unconsciously, to pat Luo Binghe’s head. Yue Qingyuan watches it make contact, the disciple ducking down with a shy but obvious pleasure at the touch, and feels, all of a sudden, quite ill. His stomach performs a strange swooping sensation, pleased and nauseous all at once. He takes a sip of the tea. It’s perfect. “I see,” he says, neutrally. Then, with more feeling injected into it — “I am glad you have found someone to aid you in your recovery. You can always ask for help, Qingqiu-shidi — Cang Qiong mountain sect will spare no expense to succor one of its peak lords, no matter the situation.”
He is probing — The Shen Jiu of the past would have been hissing and spitting at the mere mention of any sort of assistance, let alone a direct suggestion for him to seek help. This one simply inclines his head in respectful acknowledgement, smiling faintly. “It is much appreciated, Zhangmen-shixiong, but rest assured that this one’s health is much improved. I will remember your words in the future, should I ever find myself needing assistance.”
A peculiar hope rises in Yue Qingyuan’s chest, a satisfaction which has been quietly growing ever since he had first heard Ming Fan’s muttered words, and only now makes itself prominently known. If Shen Jiu was now open to accepting help, then — weren’t the other peak lords right? Wasn’t this only a good development? He allows a smile to spread across his face. “Good,” he says quietly. “That’s good.”
—
When that jiejie Xiao-Jiu adores (read: does not actively disparage) is sold, Xiao-Jiu does not say anything. Where all the younger children wail, Xiao-Jiu is harsh, sneering with a mocking glare.
“Stupid fools, all of you,” he bites out. “Wasting time on tears when we barely make enough to feed ourselves — one less mouth to feed is only a good thing, and all you can think about is crying like a bunch of children! She was too old to keep bringing in money by begging, anyway. Keep crying, that’s fine by me — hopefully you’ll all cry yourselves to death!”
The others yell at him for his heartlessness, try to hit him with shaking fists, and Yue Qi is forced to pull them apart. Even still, Xiao-Jiu is left nursing a black eye and several long scratches down the sides of his face. Yue Qi gently scolds him as he tends to the wounds, but internally, he is only relieved, beyond glad that Xiao-Jiu is unaffected from the loss.
It is only at night that he notices Xiao-Jiu’s shoulders softly shaking. He dares not say a word.
—
“Did you save Liu Qingge, Shen-shidi?” Yue Qingyuan hums, lifting his teacup idly to his lips. It is steeped and blended perfectly once again; Luo Binghe stands deferentially to the side. He cannot help but wish for the slight bitterness that had characterized Shen Jiu’s own tea — too faint to be picked up by anyone but him, who had tasted it hundreds of times, against Shen Jiu’s will.
Shen Jiu startles, slightly. It is more than usual. His eyes do not narrow in distaste. This is increasingly usual. “Ah— yes. I stumbled upon Liu-shidi in the throes of a qi deviation. It was my duty as his shixiong to assist.”
Yue Qingyuan makes a soft noise of acknowledgement. He thinks of Xiao-Jiu, clawing, biting at the ratty children who looked down on him. He rubs one hand over his chest absentmindedly.
—
When he had first come to the sect, Shen Jiu had not yet refined the art of hiding everything behind a cold and impenetrable veil. He had been reserved, and he had known when to keep his head down, yes, but he could not quite stop the rage from blazing in his eyes, or his lips from curling into a sneer. Even as Qing Jing peak lord, there were some moments he still could not manage this. Still, when he had first entered, there was something different about it. More raw, more unrestrained.
This brief period of time had been the most wonderful and horrible period of Yue Qingyuan’s life in recent memory. Every time Shen Jiu had seen him, before the terrible anger, before the hatred and the loathing and the disdain, there had been a paper-thin and distant expression, which had taken him a few encounters to place. But once he had placed it, he at once wished he had never seen it at all. He could barely stand to be in Shen Jiu’s presence, it had made him so violently sick; and yet, at the same time, the memory of that expression had left him scrambling to chase after Shen Jiu to confirm once again, that it was there, that it was real, that he had not imagined it.
It fluttered on Shen Jiu’s delicate features like an old but familiar tune, like it had made a home there, once. It was less of an expression and more of a reflected memory, a reedy strand of vestigial emotion, persisting stubbornly through time — the echo of a profound and fragile hope.
It had only happened for a week or so. Even now Yue Qingyuan is not sure if he had imagined it in a fit of wishful thinking.
—
When Shen Jiu sees him, he smiles.
—
“Stupid Qi-ge,” Xiao-Jiu snarls, and Yue Qi groans in stifled pain. His bloodied left hand clutches onto a piece of meat. He had been offering it to a feral dog in a moment of brief pity, seeing its injured and starved form — he had seen this dog innumerable times before, shared a street with it for countless nights, and had felt a brief sentimentality at its current plight. It had felt emblematic — analogous to each other, perhaps, a shared understanding. He had realized, suddenly, that he didn’t want it to die. Now his hand is gashed and torn from sharp teeth, and the reddening inflammation around the wounds do not bode well for a quick recovery.
Xiao-Jiu kicks the dog’s limp body a few more times in vengeance. His hands are slick with blood.
—
After Yue Qi is locked in the caves, bloodied and bruised and agonized and half out of his mind, he cannot move. Even his neck is stiff and unyielding — the most he can do is dart his eyes around frantically, examining the rugged walls of the cave. Yue Qi spends days on end staring at the wall, the same wall, the same god damn wall, and he can’t move. He can’t even scream. And the light is so dim — when he lets his eyes rest on the wall until his vision darkens, until it all gets hazy and static-filled, the wall could be anything. It could be the wall of an alleyway, or some closed-tight stable, packed with huddling children. It could be the towering gate of the Qiu estate, which he had deftly clambered over. If he really stretched it, it could even be a wooden door, bolted shut.
But try as he might, behind the wall of the cave, there was nothing but more stone. He couldn’t hear a tiny voice, calling out to him in plaintative fear. He couldn’t see a strip of pale skin, a wide, desperate eye peeking in through a tiny crack.
Instead, he imagines Xiao-Jiu crashing through the stone wall, dragging him up, dragging him out of the caves, into the blessed light. He would scowl and spit and snarl. His hands would be slick with blood. He would ask a question, any question, and Yue Qi would be given a choice, finally, and he would—
—
There was a moment, sometime during that terrible three-day fever, where Shen Jiu’s face had looked the same as it did from that crack in the door.
—
Shen Jiu is so kind, after losing his memory.
He is kinder than Xiao-Jiu.
Was it really so terrible? Yue Qingyuan thinks, from time to time. He is busy, and his thoughts stray frequently. When they stray, they become like this: egotistical, selfish, unreasonable. He knows they were slaves, he knows they were beggars, that they fought every day for a scrap to eat, but even so —
Was it so terrible, to have grown up with me?
—
He never really sees the scars that the Qiu left Shen Jiu, until the fever. He looks at the character branded into his shidi’s shoulder blade, and he thinks of the way Shen Jiu had shivered, when they had all been bestowed their new names.
He traces the lines across Shen Jiu’s spine then, faintly crisscrossing in endless patterns and covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and feels a great thrill of terror run through him. A great and dawning comprehension. He has only seen the child once or twice, walking in during a whipping, but, all the same—
It looks awfully similar to Luo Binghe’s back.
—
Luo Binghe dies, and Shen Jiu will not speak for days on end. He is catatonic with grief. Tears stream down his face intermittently.
That’s not right, thinks Yue Qingyuan.
—
When they were young, it was a rare occasion to see righteous cultivators out and about in the city. It was such that if it happened, the whole town would inevitably catch wind, make a spectacle of it. Some minor trouble would have cropped up in the town — perhaps a stray demon, or a low-level rogue cultivator — troublesome enough that one of the noble families or the village head had seen fit to submit a request to a nearby sect. Given enough time and casualties lost, a nearby sect would then perhaps deign to send over a disciple or two on a training mission, and the people of the city would all collectively hold their breaths in anticipation.
Their arrival was impossible to miss. They stuck out against their environment like they moved on a layer above, like they were an object on a piece of paper — more real than the rest of the world. Human-plus. The townspeople would all marvel at their impressive raiments, the elegance and power imbued into their every action; the effortlessness with which they pushed through space around them was captivating, even as junior disciples. It had seemed — immutable, in a sense, the difference between a human and an immortal. People would look at them and think: no wonder I am down here and starving and cold, and they are high up in their lofty peaks. They have enlightened themselves past what we could dream of; they have transcended us, body and soul. (And it was demonstrably true, wasn’t it? Cultivators were powerful beyond comprehension, untethered from petty bodily needs — a mere glance from one would make you feel foolish for worrying about things like starvation, poverty, or slavery. After all, such things — weren’t they only transient? Weren’t they mere pains of the flesh? What did they mean, against the backdrop of the indomitable spirit, against the sharp gaze of a cultivator?)
Thus, the people would behave appropriately: no self-respecting inn would charge a cultivator full price for a night to stay, and no restaurant wouldn’t include an extra dish or two free of charge. Children would run up to the cultivators in the street, urged on by their parents, and shyly bow, giving thanks for their presence, for their very existence on this plane. The city would be united in merry sentiment: how joyous, that we are able to share a space with such divinity, that they would exist in the same realm as us at all!
The slave children were no exception to this merriment. They scurried like mice underfoot, hoping to catch a glimpse of the visiting cultivators; systems were set up between them, ways to alert each other if one of them happened to see the trailing edge of a particularly auspicious sleeve, the shine off the pommel of a sheathed sword. It was bragging rights if you spotted them first, or even at all; the ones who did would go on about it for days, exaggerating every detail — their eyes were as piercing as stars, and with every step, the earth beneath their feet trembled. Those wild claims were never met with even a hint of skepticism or doubt — for all the distance already between them, wasn’t it all as good as true, anyway?
Xiao-Jiu was the only one who staunchly refused to participate. Naturally, this meant Yue Qi had to sit it out as well. Crouching side-by-side in a little alleyway, the bustle of the crowds outside (It was hazardous to beg on the streets these days; with the presence of such noble visitors, the city’s nobles would be hypervigilant to hide the existence of any filth), Xiao-Jiu would complain nonstop about the frivolity of it all, the fawning behavior of the people, the loftiness of the cultivators. Their hyper-humanity. And inevitably, he would arrive at his last huffy statement, when he had exhausted all else to say:
”I hate cultivators.”
Yue Qi nudges his side gently with a shoulder. “I thought we were going to become powerful cultivators together? What happened to that?”
Xiao-Jiu frowns, face unexpectedly serious. After a moment of contemplation, it morphs into a petulant scowl. “I think, even when I become a cultivator, I won’t be able to stop hating them.”
—
Shen Jiu moves with unmitigated elegance — the Xiu Ya sword, through and through. Qing Jing peak lord. His night hunts, his missions, they are all resounding successes, completed swiftly and with efficiency. He is known as the bane of demons across the realm — he is received with awe and respect in every settlement. Yue Qingyuan feels unwarranted pride burst up within his chest, followed by shame — does he have the right to feel pride? Shen Jiu’s accomplishments are his alone. But still, in the darkness of his office, he is proud.
—
In Jin Lan city, a thousand accusations are thrown at Shen Jiu.
Yue Qingyuan defends him as best he can, but still Shen Jiu chooses to leave. The bitterness in the back of his throat is not unexpected, but when he catches a glimpse of Shen Jiu’s expression, he feels a sudden sense of vertigo, some axis tilted slightly down.
Shen Jiu is wearing a familiar, stiff mask. Yue Qingyuan could recognize it from a mile away. So why, then, does resignation sit so oddly on his face — like it had never once found a home there? Like ill-fitting clothes.
—
In any case, after the cultivators left the city, everything would always return to the normal matter of course. The disruption to the status quo had merely been removed; the blockage was excised, and that was enough. The people would go on working and the children would go on begging, and while they were there, those esteemed guests wouldn’t have given any of it a second glance. Nothing would change at all.
—
Shen Jiu dies, an explosion of qi in the air. He is saving Luo Binghe.
Yue Qingyuan is not there.
How, he wonders, is he always not there?
He has been told it was beautiful — a dramatic display of selfless devotion. A grand gesture of the heartfelt bond between master and disciple.
Yue Qingyuan considers Luo Binghe’s scarred back.
He considers Xiao-Jiu’s frenzied, endless wish for life, fighting and stealing for the best locations, the most food. Shen Jiu’s fervent ambition, when he first entered the sect — never sleeping, never eating. He had plucked the guqin until his fingers bled, and then some. He had practiced calligraphy and poetry and painting until he was covered in ink all over, and he had run through sword forms until his palms split.
He considers the years and years of painstaking work to untangle meridians, to repair and steadily nurture a golden core, a slow accumulation of decades, spitting strife and struggle and jealousy — detonated in an instant.
You said, he thinks tiredly, that you had used up all your loyalty on me.
—
When he gets out of the caves, he finds the Qiu manor burnt down. He does a bit of asking around. Allegedly, one of the Qiu survived. He can’t manage anything more than a bone-deep disgust at this news. Why her, and not-
He goes back to the sect.
It’s easy, to live without Xiao-Jiu. He has been doing it for years, by that point.
Yue Qi lives, and lives, and waits to die.
—
Sometimes, Yue Qingyuan dreams of Shen Jiu.
It is ridiculous, he thinks, privately. Shen Jiu is not dead. But even still, a small child dressed in rags, and then an elegant figure clad in green, dance in tandem throughout the night.
—
When Shen Jiu takes in Luo Binghe, Yue Qingyuan does nothing.
—
Yue Qingyuan is in the forest of the immortal alliance conference, treading softly through the underbrush. He is the head disciple of Qiong Ding, and the future sect leader of the greatest sect in the martial realm, and he is cutting down demonic beasts, and he is waiting to die.
Yue Qingyuan is in the forest when he sees a ghost. He can hardly breathe. It is covered in blood, hands a slick and dark red, eyes wide with a sort of primal terror. His chest is heavy with something terrible when he opens his mouth, and he doesn’t quite know what he’s about to say, only that he needs to say it, urgently, that he absolutely must force these mystical half-present syllables past his lips. And then there is a demonic cultivator, and a drawn sword, and the blood of fallen disciples all over the surrounding leaf litter, an Yue Qingyuan doesn’t care about those syllables anymore, about any of it, about the blood or the cultivator or the sword, because he’s trying to leave, Xiao-Jiu is trying to leave, and he cannot let that happen. He draws his sword, and he is willing to die.
Yue Qingyuan is in the forest, and there is the corpse of a demonic cultivator behind him, and Shen Jiu has taken his hand, and they are running. He is laughing, loud and giddy and excited, and he is, in this moment, very, very alive.
—
Shen Jiu is dead, and the world moves on as it did all those years ago, swept along with the ashes of the Qiu manor.
Yue Qingyuan expects to feel — what? Perhaps a sense of loss, of emptiness. A profound weight. Back then, he had felt unbearably leaden, inhuman, even as he moved through those established motions with ease. But maybe these things are easier the second time around — he quickly finds that he is not as affected as he had, perhaps, braced himself to be. The world seems to have changed very little.
Well. Many things have changed. Luo Binghe has become sect leader of Huan Hua, and their two schools have become public enemies, disciples brawling in the streets. Luo Binghe also makes off with Shen Jiu’s corpse. Liu Qingge charges off to fight for his body every other day, each time coming back beaten and bruised, and even more determined. Yue Qingyuan marvels at this indomitable spirit. Where does he find it? At times, Yue Qingyuan thinks Liu-shidi cares more about Shen Jiu’s death than he himself does. The thought should shock him, scare him — but he only accepts it with a hollow confusion. Where had it went wrong? How had it become like this? He really does not know.
Sometimes, in the privacy of his office, after a late night, Yue Qingyuan slips. Sometimes he lets himself think that recurring forbidden thought, which chases him around in circles again and again: These moments — Shen Jiu dead, the sect in turmoil, all of Qing Jing cast in the grey veil of grief — they have not felt very different from the last six years at all.
—
This is what he dreams of:
He is in the Ling Xi caves, and no-one comes to save him. The walls are bare. He cannot move; even his neck will not twist. His eyes stare blankly forward. Behind him, there is something. He recognizes this something. It bleeds into the air — it is speaking a language that he knows but cannot understand. Behind him, something is asking him a question. But he cannot move; not his tongue or his lips or his throat. Behind him, something is asking him a question, and he knows the answer, but he too knows that he should not say it, and he will not say it, and he cannot say it. A gust of ash blows over him. The walls remain walls.
Something moves behind him, where he cannot see. He hears the sound of an opening door.
Inexplicably, the sound fills with a great sense of urgency, an immense, pressing feeling that he must turn around, that if he doesn’t turn around it will be too late, that he must figure out a way to turn around. Every muscle in his body tenses and flexes, and white-hot agony rips through his body. But he cannot move.
The door creaks shut behind him.
He waits in the caves for a very long time. No-one comes to save him.
—
Ning Yingying is a bright star of a child streaking through Qing Jing peak. When Yue Qingyuan first sees her, clutching the robes of her shizun as she peers at him from behind Shen Jiu’s back, he is not particularly sure what to think. Luckily, it seems that Shen Jiu is of the same mind — with one hand, he pushes that head full of messy braids securely back behind his body, hiding her from Yue Qingyuan’s sight, and suddenly she is no longer present to be thought about. He feels a pang in his chest.
”Zhangmen-shixiong,” Shen Jiu sneers, glaring down his nose at Yue Qingyuan. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Had this humble Shen been informed of your visit, I would have prepared a pot of tea.”
”It is alright,” Yue Qingyuan says, humbly. “I only need a moment of your time, and then I will be out of your hair.” He peers slightly behind Shen Jiu’s figure, spying the bouncing curls of the girl hidden behind him, and cannot resist asking — “Is this your new disciple, from the selection?”
—
Shamefully, Yue Qingyuan does not visit Qing Jing peak for some time, following the debacle in Hua Yue city. It had just hardly seemed like the most important thing to concern himself with, what with the mess of the inter-sect conflict, and Cang Qiong’s own internal frissons, and the increasing frequency of demonic invasions, and — and the more he thought about Qing Jing peak, the more he would begin to consider the puzzling familiarity of Shen Jiu’s death, of grieving him, like a twice-over deja vu, and the more a strange fear would start to snake up around his heart.
All this to say, he does not really question exactly who is running Qing Jing until several months after the disappearance of its peak lord. It is only until the aftermath a peak lord meeting, shuffling half-aware through the various notes he had jotted down, that it suddenly occurs to him with a dull surprise that he has not heard hide nor hair about the state of Qing Jing for the past — it had to be at least six or seven meetings by this point. He furrows his brow. Why hadn’t Shen Jiu —
The realization strikes his muddled mind like a lightning bolt. Without even being fully aware of his steps, he rushes over to Qing Jing, his duty as a sect leader and the sudden alarm of such a large oversight completely overriding his longstanding trepidation; fortunately, upon his arrival, he is relieved to see the peak still standing. Of course, if the peak had completely gone to the dogs, he would have heard of it long ago — even if not from official channels, then at least from a stray disciple coming over to alert him, or otherwise from word of mouth. Still, it pays to expect the worst. With confirmation of the disciples’ apparent safety and the peak’s sanctified peace still unbroken, he slows his step and takes in the environment.
The peak carries a somber air about it still; it has not even been a full year since the death of its peak lord. The entirety of the mountain is yet in mourning. Even so, the birds sing, and the bamboo is green and swaying in the breeze. The soft sound of music winds through the air persistently, even if it is now quieter, stopping and starting in short bursts. The disciples who see him startle quietly and bow, and he nods politely in greeting as he walks.
Before he can turn and ask a nearby disciple to locate exactly who is currently responsible for the peak — for such upkeep can only be the result of the hard work of a leader, or a set of them — someone approaches him of her own volition. The disciples around her make way, their gazes familiar and respectful; they regard her as they would a senior, if not a peak lord. Their reactions make it abundantly clear: she is the one in charge, or, at the very least, one of them.
Ning Yingying, in Shen Jiu’s absence, has bloomed.
”Zhangmen-shibo,” she says, bowing respectfully. “How can this humble disciple be of help?”
”Disciple Ning Yingying,” Yue Qingyuan greets pleasantly. “Am I correct in assuming that you are responsible for the continued functioning of Qing Jing peak?”
Ning Yingying rises from her bow, looking away in an expression of slightly abashed pride. “Ah, yes. In Shizun’s absence,” She sounds weary at the statement, and with an abruptness Yue Qingyuan realizes it is said like a stagnant wound, like a half-forgotten thought — “Ming Fan and I have stepped up to complete whatever tasks were necessary to keep the peak in order. We apologize for not notifying Zhangmen earlier — we did not wish to disturb your work.”
Yue Qingyuan composes himself from his flash of unsettling commiseration — he can read between the lines well enough. ‘Work’ is a stand-in for ‘grief’, of course; it is clear now his favoritism had not gone unnoticed this entire time, despite how assured he had been of his stealth. The entire sect has been walking on eggshells around him following Shen Jiu’s death. He appreciates the consideration, but how is he to say the problem is not how affected he is by it, but how unaffected? (Perhaps, he thinks briefly, Ning Yingying can understand.)
In the end, it is the sect leader’s duty to protect the sect, not the other way around — It is unacceptable for him to allow such an important duty to go unrectified for so long, and furthermore all but force two young disciples to take on such a hefty responsibility. He is no grieving widow, but the head of the martial world’s preeminent sect. He flashes an appreciative smile, and chooses to shelve his flaring self-chastising in lieu of expressing his gratitude. “Many thanks to both you and Ming Fan — please pass my regard on to him. I apologize for neglecting Qing Jing peak for these past few months; the fault for such an oversight, of course, is entirely mine. I am capable of taking over the overall management of Qing Jing from here — thank you for your help, Ning Yingying.” Internally, he begins to draft up where in his schedule he can slot in time to do the miles of paperwork involved with being peak lord of Qing Jing. It will be manageable, he concludes, provided he cuts back on a few hours of sleep each night.
“Oh, no!” Ning Yingying waves her hands in front of herself frantically, assuring him. “It really is no trouble for Ming Fan and me to handle it, Zhangmen. You already have your own peak to oversee — we couldn’t possibly trouble you with our affairs as well. The Qing Jing disciples can manage Qing Jing’s matters. Please don’t worry yourself.”
“Ning Yingying, it is the duty of the martial elders to manage the sect, and the duty of the disciples to learn.” Yue Qingyuan pushes, calmly. “You must focus on your martial training, without the stress of managing an entire peak bogging your mind and spirit down. This is a crucial time in your qi development, and any small distraction may bring about disproportionately large detriment.” He is nagging more than is strictly necessary, but he feels, perhaps, a lingering duty to protect her as best he can, given Shen Jiu’s favor of her.
“It is no stress nor distraction for Ming Fan and I at all — after all, we are splitting the work of one into two. It will be without a doubt more harmful for you to take on such an increase in your burden than for us to simply perform a few menial tasks to upkeep the place on which we have lived for so many years. Allow us to maintain our own peak, Zhangmen,” She returns, peaceably. “And, in turn, our dignity.” Her words are unexpectedly solemn, and when her eyes meet his steadily, he understands exactly what she means — what she wants. A vigil; groundskeeper to a living memorial. (A secret memorial, perhaps, for just the two of them, for an unknown loss and a shared grief.)
Ning Yingying is stubborn, insistent, and, due to a somewhat sheltered upbringing, possesses a rarely-seen disregard for hierarchy and rank. Yue Qingyuan at last acquiesces with a weary smile — he has no other choice. “Very well then. Since you seem to be doing a perfectly fine job of it already, I will leave Qing Jing peak in your and Ming Fan’s capable hands. But by all means, Ning Yingying, please seek me out should you ever come across any issue to complex for you to handle.”
”Of course, Zhangmen.” She says, pleasantly, and Yue Qingyuan is beyond sure that she will never, in a thousand years, seek him out. He silently resolves to seek a private meeting with Ming Fan as well in the coming days— he is not above taking advantage of an impressionable youth’s hero worship to ensure that one of the two will reach out, should things become too overwhelming.
As he departs from the peak, he cannot help but find the force of her character charmingly familiar. Some six-year knot in his chest loosens, ever-so-slightly. It’s only been a few months since Shen Jiu — only been a few months for Ning Yingying to mature between then and now, so he really doesn’t know why it comes into his mind — Perhaps it’s the way that he had not seen Shen Jiu speak a word about her after the fever, Luo Binghe’s name replacing hers on his tongue; a staid and plain compassion where once she had been so fiercely protected. Perhaps it’s the way she moves, the way she comports herself — as if she is used to handling this same stale fog of familiarity that he has. The affect of a left-behind daughter. Either way, as he leaves, he can only think:
Xiao-Jiu, you would have been proud to see what she’s grown into.
—-
And it is all — it is all a whirlwind, and Yue Qingyuan has no part of it, not one bit. Yue Qingyuan is on the sidelines. Yue Qingyuan is gently handling Shen Jiu’s corpse, brought home at last by Liu Qingge. Yue Qingyuan is touching his cold hand, looking at his still face, and feeling, inside his chest, very little at all. Yue Qingyuan is fighting Luo Binghe and Yue Qingyuan is defeated. Yue Qingyuan lives, and lives, and waits to die.
Yue Qingyuan sees Shen Jiu, come back to life again, and thinks oh, is that right?
—
“What did you say?” asks Shen Jiu.
”It was nothing,” says Yue Qingyuan.
—
“Shen-shidi,” Yue Qingyuan begins, slowly. After the whole debacle of Without-A-Cure, and Liu Qingge’s surprisingly astute suggestion, Yue Qingyuan has taken to visiting Qing Jing peak whenever he has a spare moment. It is as if some mental block, which had kept him away all this time, has been removed.
Shen Jiu hums in response, and gracefully takes a sip of tea. His hair has, once again, been done up slightly askew.
Yue Qingyuan stares into his teacup, fiddling with the rim slightly as he contemplates how to begin. He lifts his gaze upwards at last.
“Suppose, for a moment, that there was someone you cared about deeply. And you failed them, and they possessed towards you a- a deep resentment for this failure. A warranted resentment. But you cared about them still. And then they changed, and they looked towards life, towards all the world, with a sort of-“
He struggles to articulate, here, exactly what he means. It is rare in his life that Yue Qingyuan does not know what he is going to say before he says it, but here he is speaking from impulse, just the way he had so painstakingly worked to rid himself of all those years ago. Shen Jiu, he supposes, has a way of bringing it out within him, despite Yue Qingyuan’s best attempts. But now Shen Jiu is patient, regarding him with a sort of distant pity, and Yue Qingyuan looks away, back down to his cup. “They were different,” he finishes lamely.
Shen Jiu frowns, but before he can open his mouth to respond, Yue Qingyuan continues. “And it is good, of course it is. He- that is, they - they smile, and are happier, and are kinder. They are embraced anew by the world. But… even so, you feel a sort of strange grief at the loss. At the change.” He meets those familiar dark eyes again and traces the new creases at the edges, cataloguing the slight differences between memory and present. “Is it selfish, covetous, to feel this way? To wish, at times, for his unhappiness to return?”
Shen Jiu takes a moment to contemplate his question. In the meantime, Luo Binghe trots over to refill his teacup. Yue Qingyuan has not had a drop, but the disciple tops it off anyway with a deft hand. “Well,” Shen Jiu says at length, “any change will feel frightening and unfamiliar, after a certain length of time. It is not strange to desire the known over the new, even if the new might promise fresh beginnings. You do not have to forget who they once were, to care for who they are now.” An inquisitive gleam enters his eye. “If I may inquire, shixiong, who exactly might you be speaking of?”
“It is nobody that you would know,” smiles Yue Qingyuan.
—
“I deserved it,” says Shen Jiu, solemnly.
Yue Qingyuan says nothing.
—
At Mai Gu ridge, everything is blurry. The world is ending, and he knows, distantly, that he must get up and fight. He must get up and lead. It is incumbent on him, as the leader of the foremost sect of the martial world, for him to be a paragon of strength, of virtue; it is his duty to never falter, and never waver- he must get up and- and-
And he sees Shen Jiu, and it is as if a great and yawning cavity in him has at last, after decades and decades of groaning tension, collapsed all at once. He cannot think, and he cannot move, and he wishes, desperately, for someone to come for him. But Shen Jiu’s hands are clean, and Yue Qingyuan’s neck is stiff and unmoving, and there is a sudden and profound terror that crashes over him — a complete surety that if he doesn’t say something now, he will never be able to again.
As Shen Jiu bears him up, he works his jaw, straining, pulling, dredging up the right things to say from a deep and ineffable well, yanking it out with all the energy he can muster — and finally, finally, words begin to spill from his lips. They flow from him in a painful but inexorable succession, in a weary, bleary march, until he is laying everything bare at last. And as he is speaking frantically, nonstop, a dam burst of withheld meaning, he is looking at Shen Jiu’s face, is looking Shen Jiu’s eyes, is hoping, hoping beyond hope, hoping that, please, please —
But Shen Jiu does not react the way he should.
Shen Jiu is looking at him in horrified confusion, and then Shen Jiu is looking at him in dawning realization, and then Shen Jiu is saying — I won’t. I won’t. Yue Qingyuan’s chest turns cold, guts churning, even as his head is hot with blood and pain. He feels, inexplicably, like he is forgetting something. Yue Qingyuan asks — are you determined to never call me Qi-ge again? And Shen Jiu says — Shen Jiu says —
—
“Qi-ge?” calls Xiao-Jiu, hesitantly.
There is something pressing down on his chest. He can’t respond. Still, even so — He parts his lips, moves his tongue, mouths out the syllables over and over and over again. Like if he only strained a tiny fraction harder, if he only reached a little bit further, then, maybe, just maybe,
—-
“Xiao-Jiu,” says Yue Qingyuan.
”Shixiong,” Shen Jiu corrects gently, “It’s Qingqiu.”
Shen Jiu walks towards Luo Binghe, and Yue Qingyuan watches him go. Tracking that familiar form as it grows smaller and smaller, the vibrant hue of green robes receding steadily into the distance, Yue Qingyuan is suddenly struck once again with the inexplicable feeling that he has forgotten something very, very important.
—
(But he really can’t respond. He cannot make a single sound.)
—
I thought you weren’t coming.
Crawling towards the shards of Xuan Su, Shen Qingqiu thinks vaguely that he ought to repent in some way; some impotent but noble wish for death, an ultimate and transcendental act of selflessness which absolves him of all which had come before. Isn’t this the moment? Isn’t some vast book creeping slowly towards its tidy conclusion, the story of him being drawn out to its closing paragraphs? He has finally seen the consequences of his actions borne onto his only remaining ally: the apotheosis of Shen Qingqiu, remorseful at last. Then the audience would, at the end of it all, see that this pitiful character truly had some sort of moral compass, and they would breathe a sigh of quiet satisfaction, that all things had at last come full circle, that the broken could have been mended, had only some unknowable action been taken before -- and so this contemptible life of his flourishes into tragedy.
But even wretched as he is, in perpetual limbless agony, this is still not something he can concede to. This tenderhearted pity is not something he can swallow -- His chance to rise to humanity is forwent. Stubborn to the last! Vile, selfish beast! Yes; it is all true -- Qiu Jianluo was right, all those years ago. And yet: wasn’t it Yue Qingyuan’s foolishness, that made him run into an obvious trap? No-one in this world would make such a ridiculous mistake, risking their own life to save Shen Qingqiu, except him, and so he had suffered for his impulsivity, as he always had. Shen Qingqiu had told him not to return, and he had still done so. He had had a whole sect to look after, and yet he had haphazardly and without a second glance charged into danger. Weren’t all of these statements, too, unflinchingly true?
Now that he had seen this to be the case, he could not bear to forgive Yue Qingyuan for these transgressions. And in fact, the more he thought, the more terribly angry he became, until he was so burning with hatred that it bubbled into a great yawning emptiness. What sort of self-respecting sect leader risks himself for a thing like Shen Qingqiu, who gnaws relentlessly at the hand that feeds, seeking to sever it completely? What sort of idiot simply reaches out the other hand, trying to settle a debt which had been paid off ages ago? Yue Qingyuan, that brainless, noble imbecile — he shouldn’t have died like this, a victim of a trap baited by his spiteful shidi, who had not even the conscience to regret his part. Shen Qingqiu shouldn’t have had to bear his death. It shouldn’t have been like this. It shouldn’t have. It shouldn’t have. He simply couldn’t understand.
So instead of wishing for his death — what had his life ever been worth, anyway — he makes a new wish, just as impotent:
I wish that Yue Qingyuan had never remembered me at all.
--
“I promise I won’t forget,” says Yue Qi.
“Forget what?” asks Shen Qingqiu.