Work Text:
Inner Disciple Shang - soon to be given the name "Shang Qinghua" - was diligently sweeping the floor, yawning and occasionally bemoaning his fate, when he suddenly felt something lodged inside his throat.
It was as if something was stuck in his throat, blocking the air. Like something he ate had gone down the wrong hole.
Shang Qinghua coughed harder and harder, until the thing became unstuck from his throat and fell down to the floor. Breath heaving, he looked down at the culprit in deep annoyance.
It was a flower.
A pretty one, with five tiny blue petals.
Shang Qinghua picked it up and turned it around with his fingers. The petals were thick and smooth.
After thinking for a while as he rarely did, he could only come up with one explanation:
Somebody, somewhere, was thinking of him with hopeless longing.
Slowly, Disciple Shang's face broke into a smug grin.
—
All day long, Disciple Shang had music in his steps.
The sight of an An Ding Disciple sweeping floors with a genuinely happy look on his face was enough to make anyone uneasy. Eventually, someone confronted him.
"Shang-shidi!"
"Ah, Wei-shixiong!" greeted Shang Qinghua cheerfully.
"Shidi, you seem to be having a good day!" said Wei Qingwei brightly. "Are congratulations in order? Did you finally make it to inner disciple?"
"...I was promoted five months ago, shixiong," said Shang Qinghua, suddenly weary.
"Just kidding, just kidding," said Wei Qingwei with a grin. Shang Qinghua suppressed a sigh. He could never tell if this guy was sincere about his "jokes" or if he was just good at covering his ass. "Well, then, Shang-shidi, what's got you so cheerful this morning?"
Shang Qinghua was about to make up some plausible story when he realized he didn't really have a reason not to brag. So he gestured at Wei Qingwei to come closer, then carefully pulled out the blue flower from his pocket.
Wei Qingwei looked at it quizzically.
"It was stuck in my throat this morning," said Shang Qinghua modestly.
Wei Qingwei looked intrigued. "Shidi, why were you eating flowers?"
"...Wei-shixiong, don't you know what it means to have flowers stuck in your throat?" said Shang Qinghua, somewhat put off. Can't I just have one easy bragging session in my life?
Wei Qingwei shrugged nonchalantly. "No, what does it mean?"
"...It means I have the flowering sickness," said Shang Qinghua. He patiently began to explain why he had the right to brag.
The flowering sickness happened when a person became a target of a passionate, hopeless one-sided longing.
Everything in the world is created out of energy. Just as it is possible for someone to be cursed from other people harbouring hatred for them, it is possible for one to be physically affected by other people harbouring strong affection for you. What is commonly known as the flowering sickness is a rare manifestation of this effect, where your energy reacts to the hopeless longing being sent towards you in such a way that a piece of their essence forms itself in the form of a flower inside your body.
But why a flower, you might ask. (No?)
In fact the whole worldbuilding came out of a misunderstanding caused by Airplane's speedy writing. He’d once experimented with using poetic descriptions, ending a scene with Luo Binghe coughing out "blood-red flower petals" on the snowfield. Results were mixed. Some Luo Binghe fans commented that even literal flowers would make more sense then the protagonist spitting blood from such a nothing battle. Airplane took the hint - the next chapter began with Luo Binghe 1-punch-KO’ing the villain, picking up the “flower petals” from the ground, and, remembering the legend, beginning a search for the girl hopelessly in love with him. This led straight to a beautiful pa-pa-pa session in the snowfield with the girl (coincidentally the same girl who the villain had kidnapped), then a much rougher pa-pa-pa in the same snowfield with a jealous Sha Hualing.
It had been a well-received chapter. Another weekend well-spent, catering to his fans and making good money.
Who could have foreseen that one day, Airplane himself would be undergoing the same flattering experience as the protagonist?
Ha!
Finally, somebody in this world has some appreciation for the author!
"Someone's in love with you?" said Wei Qingwei, sounding amused. “That’s incredible!”
"...There's no need to sound like that, shixiong," protested Shang Qinghua.
Was it so unbelievable? Sure, he wouldn't have guessed it of "Shang Qinghua", either. But it's not like his face is terrible to look at!
Besides, everyone's got different tastes, don't they? There's probably some kind of niche appeal to his face!
"Sure, sure, but what a coincidence!" said Wei Qingwei with enthusiasm. "Shidi, I never told you this, but I know a shimei who used to have a thing for you!"
"Eh?!"
"It's true! She used to spy on you whenever I brought you over to clean the sword storage."
What? So that's why you kept picking me every week to dust off every single sword in the Room of Nine-hundred Swords?!
"She's into Yue-shixiong now," said Wei Qingwei, dealing another blow at Shang Qinghua's good mood. "But for a while, she was rather intense about you, shidi! But I guess whoever’s into you now must be even more serious about it!"
"Ah, possibly, possibly," said Shang Qinghua vaguely.
In truth, this wasn't really a guarantee - getting the flowering disease was more of a luck than anything. It had to be, or wouldn’t people like Luo Binghe be spitting out flowers every hour of the day?
Shang Qinghua didn't feel like elaborating on this to Wei Qingwei. He could only hope that the sickness would last for more than a few weeks. How shitty would it be, if it only lasted for a few days? His self-confidence would take a serious blow!
Hey, look, whoever you are - keep it up for a few weeks at least, alright? I won’t ask for much more than that!
—
When Shang Qinghua came home that evening, he was startled to find a demon lord waiting for him in his bed.
"My king?! What - what brings you here? Is anything the matter?"
Mobei-jun gave him a dark look. "Do I need a reason to come and see what's mine?"
"Ah, no, no, my king. Of course not!" said Shang Qinghua hastily.
Mobei-jun seemed to be in a dark mood. The boyish lines of his face looked more pronounced than usual.
Shang Qinghua waited for a command, but there wasn’t any. Mobei-jun just seemed like he was in a bad mood, and wanted to vent.
Any minute now, he’d decide to vent physically. Shang Qinghua sought for a way to escape his fate.
“- Would you like to have some dessert, my king?” he said, moving back towards the door. “There’s a new pack of sky-nectarine desserts - ”
Mobei-jun narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to leave?”
“What? No, my king!” Excuse me! If anyone should leave, why would it be me? This is my room! “The storage is only a moment’s walk away! This servant will be back in a heartbeat!”
For a heartstopping moment, Mobei-jun said nothing, only glaring at Shang Qinghua.
Shang Qinghua swallowed. Seeing Mobei-jun’s eyes follow the movement, he couldn’t help but tense further.
“ - Go get it, then,” said Mobei-jun. He lay back down on the bed.
Sighing in relief, Shang Qinghua left the room, singing his praises.
The outside had turned cold by now. Shang Qinghua shivered as he ran to the storage.
What am I doing here in the middle of the night, he lamented to himself. Running on bare feet, avoiding the outer disciples standing guard, all just so that I could appease His Majesty lying comfortably in my bed, where I should be sleeping right now! And just when I have the early morning shift tomorrow…
For a moment, Shang Qinghua indulged himself in the fantasy of a beautiful maiden warrior with a heavy crush on him coming to his rescue and saving him from one self-absorbed demon.
…Of course, if such a righteous warrior happened upon the scene, the first thing they’d do would be to renounce Disciple Shang from the sect as a traitor to all humankind.
…But what if they weren’t so righteous? What if it was a maiden warrior un-pure of heart who had a great fondness for one An Ding Disciple? What then?
Ha, if that were the case, upon seeing the scenery, wouldn’t their affections move on from Shang Qinghua to Mobei-jun immediately? Unless they were blind - but even then, the moment Mobei-jun speaks…
“I’ll let you have this one,” muttered Shang Qinghua darkly as he carefully raided the storage.
You win this time, your majesty!
—----
It lasted for longer than a few days.
Years later, having reached the very top, Airplane was still regularly coughing up those pale blue petals.
He had made efforts to find out about the culprit, none of which were halfway successful. Hanging around the sisters at Xian Shu Peak had only gotten him a terrible reputation.
As a professional liar, Shang Qinghua felt doubly resentful on the rare instances where the pure truth he told was received as a lie, so he gave up on that road when a couple of shijies expressed suspicion about the clean petals coming out of his throat. (They're waterproof, alright? They're cursed magical spiritual waterproof flower buds!)
—---
Coughing up a flower every day quickly grew old.
It didn't always happen at the most convenient time, either. More than once he'd disturbed the silence during meditation time with a series of loud coughs before managing to sneak out.
It wasn't long before Airplane almost began to wish that the young lady would just get over it.
He decided to cut to the chase, and started asking around for a girl who might be interested in going out with him for a fun night in town. He soon found a couple of sisters who were interested.
Airplane set to work.
He invited them all in the same day, took them to the worst restaurants in town, then ended the day by asking each of them for a private talk, in which he asked them if they could lend him a large sum of money.
While this was very effective in tarnishing his reputation among the good sisters of Xian Shu Peak, the culprit stubbornly clung on to their sentiment.
Nobody ever volunteered to lend him money, mind you.
Eventually, Airplane gave up. He couldn't risk his reputation getting too bad if he wanted to be the next An Ding Peak Lord. Besides, what if it was someone he barely knew at all? What if it was some girl he'd met a few times while he was out in town, who had somehow gotten a fantastic impression of him in the short time they interacted?
Who knows if it even is a girl? It could be a guy. A married woman. An elderly man with a fetish. When you think about it, the list is endless. The pool is too large!
The duration of love is like, two years, isn’t it? So, rather than try to figure out who it is, wouldn't it be better to just let it run its course?
It wasn't like this was a life-threatening disease. It wasn't all bad. He had even used it a few times to skip out of boring meetings.
Shang Qinghua only wished that he could choose the timing. The An Ding Peak Lord had many opportunities for business meetings. Wouldn't this have made a great party trick?
—--
The flowering sickness did not subside. Soon it became a part of his life, one he hardly put any thought to.
Shang Qinghua - now known to the world as such - was not even paying much attention to his coughs when Shen Qingqiu said in astonishment, "Is that a flower?"
Shang Qinghua looked down at the table, where he had thoughtlessly laid down the pale blue flower he'd just coughed out. "Sure looks like it," he said.
"Airplane! You have the flowering disease?"
"Ah, I've had it for a few years now," said Shang Qinghua nonchalantly. Inside, he was feeling immensely smug once again. "Have you just noticed?"
"I thought you had a lung condition!" said Shen Qingqiu. "Your coughs sound like they hurt!"
"They do," admitted Shang Qinghua. "They’re actually really inconvenient."
The sad reality was that this fan of his had brought far more pain and disruption to his life than most of his anti-fans. "Whoever is in love with me is torturing me daily!"
"You deserve all of it and more," said Shen Qingqiu with feeling. "Any idea who it is?"
"Not really," said Shang Qinghua honestly.
After the few failed attempts, he hadn't made a lot of effort to find out, reasonably assuming that the fervor would die down after a few years. Why not just enjoy the boost to his mood while it lasts?
"She has to be a student," decided Shen Qingqiu. "She has to be someone who's only seen you behave like a respectable Peak Lord."
"Pretty sure it's not a student, all this started when I wasn't even the An Ding Peak Lord," said Shang Qinghua.
At these words, Peerless Cucumber dropped the map he had been holding. He had experienced a heavy blow to his worldview.
"Airplane, are you serious? That's like ten years! At the least! She's still into you?"
"Why are you so surprised?" complained Shang Qinghua. In fact he himself was a bit taken aback to realize it had been going on for that long. But even he had his pride. “I’m a Peak Lord too, you know? There are people who look up to me!”
"Shouldn't you at least have figured out who it is by now?" said Shen Qingqiu. His naturally kind heart ached at the thought of some poor woman having a terrible crush on this ignorant fool for decades. "You have to help them get over you! You're breaking this poor maiden's heart!"
"Do you think I haven't tried?" protested Shang Qinghua. "It's not that easy!"
Shen Qingqiu gave him a judgemental look. He felt certain that if someone had been in doomed love with him for decades, he would have figured out who it was, magic throat flowers or not.
Later that week, as Shen Qingqiu watched Shang Qinghua avoid the snake demon by falling down to the ground and pretending to be dead, he couldn’t help but shake his head at the thought of the poor maiden.
More than ten years of longing to be with this guy! She must have seen what he’s like in real life, right? What was it going to take for her to get over him?
—---
If Shang Qinghua had heard that comment, he might have had an answer for him a few years later.
As it turned out, it only took selling out the entire human race to demons.
Not long after Shang Qinghua made his escape to the demon realm, having been revealed as a traitor to his people, he realized that he hadn't coughed out a flower in weeks.
Shang Qinghua felt a bit bad for his anonymous fan. What an unpleasant shock it must have been, finding out that the cool(?) cultivator you'd been crushing on for years was actually an enemy spy.
Ah well, such is life. It's all part of growing up, etc etc…
See, this is why it's better to be an otaku. Never put your trust in real people! Much more cost-effective to invest all of your time and money on true high culture - anime, games, web novels..
Let’s look at the facts, here. Fictional idols, they never betray you. They never turn out to have regularly beaten up their classmates or suddenly come out with a marriage announcement. If they did, that poor author would be stoned and hanged on the public square! Hahaha…
"What did you say?"
Shang Qinghua snapped out of his reverie. "Eh?"
He turned to face Mobei-jun, who was imperiously peering down at him from the bed.
Despite the changed situation, their relative stations in the room were the same as it had been in An Ding Peak. Mobei-jun's room in Luo Binghe's summer palace had one bed, and Shang Qinghua was to sleep on the floor next to the bed.
At least this time, he was given a sheet - although that was the bare minimum necessity, one might argue, given that the floors were literally made of cold stone.
After much begging and whining, Mobei-jun had even deigned to throw him a thick piece of fur - one that was taken straight from the floors of the main hallway, he later found out, when he heard Sha Hualing accuse the servants of misplacing it. Ever since then he had been insisting on cleaning the room by himself, lest he be killed in a fit of rage by Sha Hualing or her servants.
"What was that for, just now?" said Mobei-jun.
Shang Qinghua realized he had, in fact, let out a series of weird noises (giggling, sighing, scoffing…) while thinking back to the days of the online forums.
He looked down. Thankfully, while his head was floating somewhere above, his hands had been restlessly working on their own. His finger joints ached from all the sewing.
"Ah, my king, I was just considering if there might be a better method for fixing your cloak," Shang Qinghua said easily. He held up the cloak so that Mobei-jun could have a better view of what his hands had been working on. "You know this servant does his best to keep it in the best condition. But my king must have surely noticed that the same spots are constantly being torn off, no matter how many times this servant fixes it. The material has thinned too much around the areas."
"So?" said Mobei-jun.
"Well, my king - this cloak has served its purpose well over the years,"
Here Shang Qinghua paused for breath to judge the look on Mobei-jun's face. So far, neutral.
Maybe Mobei-jun had managed to get his hands on some new funds after all. Maybe they could be living like kings even before the inheritance! New cloak, new pants -
" - but, perhaps it's time for a new look -"
Nope, nope, nope! Step back, step back!
"- to be bestowed on this old, faithful servant of yours," said Shang Qinghua. "My king, have you heard of a 'stone-washed' look? It is a technique used in foreign lands, designed to enhance the rough look of the material -"
Mobei-jun listened with a bored look on his face while Shang Qinghua made his enthusiastic pitch. Afterwards, he made one comment.
"So, it's wearing it down and leaving it as is."
"It's more than that, my king! It's all about the image!"
"Are you tired of fixing my cloak?"
"My king! How could you accuse this servant of such a thing? Even if this servant was exhausted with having to repeat the same work over and over and over again, he'd never dare to make a suggestion to my lord out of consideration only for his own convenience! The eyes of the public - "
"Are you out of black thread?"
"No," said Shang Qinghua reluctantly.
"Then keep it fixed," said Mobei-jun. He casually socked Shang Qinghua in the back of his head.
Biological tears gathered in Shang Qinghua's eyes. He sniffed, sending a look of reproach towards Mobei-jun. "My king, your poor servant's fingers are tired…"
"Then do it tomorrow," said Mobei-jun magnanimously.
Shang Qinghua suppressed a moan of frustration.
Tomorrow, what tomorrow? Weren't you summoned by Luo Binghe to report by dawn? Then when am I supposed to wake up to fix this?
Mobei-jun had already turned his gaze back to the book he was reading in bed. Seeing his attention was elsewhere, Shang Qinghua wrapped one hand inside another and secretly raised up a single finger at his handsome face. Then he wiped his tears, stretched his hands, and picked up the needle again, grumbling.
Still, it wasn't all bad, living with Mobei-jun.
Mobei-jun was keeping him alive and well, even in this den of demons. As long as Shang Qinghua made sure to stick with Mobei-jun at all times - give him no time to miss him, so to speak - he could be assured of his own survival.
His face always provided a nice distraction, too.
Could have been worse, Shang Qinghua told himself as he worked on the old cloak. At least I'm not coughing up plant pieces on the daily anymore.
—--
It came as a great shock to Shang Qinghua when he started coughing flowers again.
"- What the fuck?" he gasped out loud, when he could talk again.
Behind him, he heard a gasp.
"Young master, that's the flowering sickness!" said the old beggar woman who was sitting nearby. "I've seen it before, I know it when I see it!"
"Ah, haha, is that so?" said Shang Qinghua woodenly. "Flowering sickness? Is that a thing? You've certainly lived a full life, auntie!"
He examined the flowers. They were both the same old weird flower, with five thin pale blue petals.
Two at once, though, that was new. No wonder his throat had been feeling clogged up…
This had to be his old fan, back at their old tricks again. Getting back into their old crush, now that the An Ding Peak Lord was considered to be an honorable Peak Lord once again.
They sure took their time getting back into him. The An Ding Peak Lord regaining his honor is old news! It’s been -
…How long had it been since he was reinstated as the An Ding Peak Lord?
Shang Qinghua counted the days on his fingers. He was surprised to realize that it couldn't have been more than twenty days ago.
The battle at Maigu Ridge, saving Mobei-jun's life, Yue Qingyuan welcoming him to the sect again, Mobei-jun taking him away at night, the whole fiasco with the inheritance… getting back to the human realm and finding a bustling town where he could hide from the full-fledged demon noble probably even now furiously chasing after him…
All of that had happened during the past twenty days.
The old woman crawled closer. Shang Qinghua, making the reasonable assumption that she wanted to examine the flowers for herself, put them on his open palm and offered them to her.
She picked up one flower and examined it, turning it round and round between her fingers as Shang Qinghua often used to do. Then she put it back down on his open palm next to the other one, and carefully closed his fingers around it.
"Somebody out there is longing for you desperately," said the old woman with feeling. Shang Qinghua smiled and nodded awkwardly.
"Young master, I'm sure you have your reasons for spending your nights in the streets - but if you're out here only because you think nobody will give you a warm welcome, you must think again!"
Ha, Auntie, you have no idea. The moment I go back home and make a new post, thousands of readers are going to click on it and welcome me back!
They'll be asking for updates, again…
And there I'll be, sitting with my cup noodles, typing away on my keyboard, again…
"Someone out there is desperate for you to return to their life!" insisted the old woman. Her fingers felt uncomfortably warm against his closed hand. "Even now - just now, they were thinking of you!”
There's no way out but through, reasoned Shang Qinghua. He nodded consolingly, making various sounds of agreement.
Honestly, it had cheered him up a bit. It was flattering to learn that this fan was thinking back to him again after years of silence. Probably while shooting off his airplane, given the late hour, but still.
But look, Auntie, what good does that do to me now? All that matters to me now is that there's a demon lord out there who's probably seething in rage trying to catch me!
…Ha, what does that matter, anyway? I’ll be home any day now!
To Shang Qinghua's alarm, tears started gathering in the old woman’s eyes.
"Young master, they're still waiting for you to come back! It won't matter what mistakes you've made, what riches you have lost… what sins you have committed… you’re still so young, you can still be forgiven…"
"Thank you for your wise words, auntie," said Shang Qinghua hurriedly. He carefully extracted his hand from her grip, patting the back of her hand with his other hand. Then he quickly picked up his things.
"You've convinced me. I'll be a new man! I promise I'll return home to - to this person, and live out the rest of my life without regret! In fact - I'll do it right now! I'll go home to my family!"
Shang Qinghua stood up dramatically. He quickly fled the corner.
That's it, time to leave town, he thought.
After all, who says you have to stay in towns? Didn't the legendary cultivators of old stay in mountains, to become one with nature? It's not like he hadn’t done his fair share of mountain landscaping, back at An Ding Peak!
Good-bye, my fan! I’ll be going back to my room, back to the thousands and thousands of readers!
Flowers, who'd have thought? What a persistent dreamer! More than a little naive, too, if they're so willing to forgive and forget!
My fan, whoever you are, people like you are in grave danger in this world. Try to not let people take advantage of you!
—--
It is said that the moment you conceive yourself to be happy, you cease to be so.
Luckily, Shang Qinghua didn't consider himself to be happy.
He just was, these days. Without a lot of people noticing, not even himself.
What happened was this : Shang Qinghua had become friends with his former idol, his favorite character he had ever written.
These days, Mobei-jun was hanging around An Ding Peak a lot. Unlike Luo Binghe, he wasn't regularly chased out by Bai Zhan Peak disciples. This was not because he was tolerated more, but because nobody but Shang Qinghua had a clue he was in there.
It wasn't like he was doing a lot. He mostly stayed firmly inside Shang Qinghua’s study, either napping, peering over Shang Qinghua's shoulders, or sometimes even working on his own paperwork. When asked, he'd briefly leave the room to fetch clean paper, or a pot of water.
The most notable event that happened was Mobei-jun helping Shang Qinghua tend to the inner gardens. Since Shang Qinghua still couldn't stay crouched down for a long time, Mobei-jun had acted under his commands, pawing through the soil without a word of complaint. He had even helped apply the fertilizer, albeit with a look of faint disgust on his face the whole time.
Remembering Mobei-jun's face that day still made Shang Qinghua giggle to himself.
If there was one thing in Shang Qinghua’s life that had grown worse, it was his coughs.
Ever since the flowering sickness had returned, they were hitting with double, triple the power. It wasn't unknown for Shang Qinghua to be coughing up three or four flower during a single cough. Once, to his disturbance, the flowers had been attached to a small piece of branch.
Shang Qinghua couldn't shake off the terrifying image of a flower tree taking roots inside his lungs, although Mu Qingfang had assured him that this wasn't the case. They were just raw spiritual energy gathering into a form of a tiny flower. Like a reverse atomic bomb.
According to Mu Qingfang, the worsening state was just the natural progression of the disease. In fact, it was rare for it to stay docile for as long as his did. His previous state had been the abnormality, not the other way around.
This revelation was enough to throw Shang Qinghua into a state of panic.
"So it's just going to get worse and worse?!"
"I'm afraid so, shixiong."
"Isn't there anything you can do?" said Shang Qinghua desperately. If that was the case, never mind his lung, wouldn’t he eventually just choke to death on a flower branch anyway? What a joke - dead from plant material, after all that drama about going back!
“I’m afraid there’s not much that can be done from this end,” said Mu Qingfang, not unsympathetically. "Shixiong, has this person ever made a confession? Have you explicitly turned them down,person or are they just assuming that they will be?”
“They’ve never come forward,” said Shang Qinghua resentfully. Trust an anonymous fan to cause unending havoc in your life in the name of love!
“Have you considered talking to them about it? If they truly care for you, perhaps the two of you could come to an agreement,” said Mu Qingfang, perhaps implying that Shang Qinghua could talk his tormentor into throwing themself off a cliff. That or agree on a one-time-only dual cultivation. That was all you had to do, really - it wasn’t as if Bing-ge ever did the girl ever again after marrying her.
In any case, Shang Qinghua could do neither. He was forced to admit that actually, after nearly twenty years, he was still nowhere near close to figuring out the identity of his daily tormentor.
Mu Qingfang nodded calmly.
"Then maybe that could be the first step," he gently suggested.
—
Easier said than done, thought Shang Qinghua as he angrily munched on sunflower seeds in his bed.
What am I, a detective? How am I supposed to find this person when I have no clue who they are?
…Haha, let's be real. They have no clue who I am! If they did, all this could be over in a second!
You think relationships are a joke? You can't base these things on fantasies, real life is different! Why do you think people get divorced? It's not because they weren't in love when they started!
….That said, twenty years - that was a long time to star in someone's fantasies.
Respect where respect is due - at least this person was loyal to their fantasy. What consistency!
—-
For the first time in a while, Shang Qinghua sat down and really considered who this person might be.
At this point he was leaving no stone unturned. A married woman desperate for an escape. An old lech with a hyper-specific fetish. One of the former inner disciples who he beat to the spot of Peak Lord. Could it be that at some in point, as the cliche goes, hate turned into love?
He even considered some of the named characters. Mu Qingfang was always nice to him, right? Perhaps… too nice?
Shang Qinghua pulled at his hair in despair.
Fuck! The pool of suspects was somehow still too large!
How come that there were so many people who had been regularly seeing him for twenty years?! Back when he was a hikikomori otaku, he’d barely talked to five people a month! That’s including the cashiers and the delivery riders!
Maybe he should make an advertisement, or something.
Have you been thinking of one person every night for twenty years while jerking off? If so, make a confession today! If you reach the right person, you might get to have one single night you’ll never forget!
Consider it your long-time-club-member-reward! Nobody else even comes close!
Come to think of it, this was true in many ways.
Let's put it this way: even the most faithful of his fans hadn't followed after the Great Master Airplane for twenty years. True, none of them really had the chance, but he doubted anyone would have gone that far. The web novel boards are a battleground, alright? One wrong step and thousands of fans unsubscribe! It’s hard to keep a fan for one week, who’d have followed him for twenty years? Besides…
Well, his mom and dad hadn't either.
Hell, even he himself had no experience with following after someone for twenty years! Unless you count Mobei-jun, of course…
“Eh?” said Shang Qinghua out loud. “- Ah!”
Mobei-jun, of course!
He'd been following Mobei-jun for… even longer than his "fan" had been following him!
No gap in the middle, either! (What? That one month? Who wants to count that in?)
What’s more, things had actually progressed between him and Mobei-jun! Incredibly, these days the two of them could even be said to be friends! Close friends, even…
…And friends are supposed to share the same burden, right? So, Mobei-jun definitely should have to listen to him complain about this! Not to mention, help him out figure out who it is!
It did feel a bit weird to think about talking of such things with Mobei-jun - what were they, gossiping teenagers? But these days, Mobei-jun always gave an answer to whatever thing he said, even if sometimes it was to call it stupid. Sometimes he seemed to put a lot of thought into it, too.
…Besides, even if Mobei-jun had nothing valuable to contribute, Shang Qinghua just wanted to brag about it a little.
Hey, did you know that someone’s been thirsting after me for twenty years? No, really! It’s a real pain!
Not that I can blame them, who among us can control the directions of our heart, but what an inconvenience!
Haha, my king, you understand, right?
—-
Shang Qinghua didn't really keep around a wealth of communication arrays, so he waited until the next time Mobei-jun came around.
He didn’t have to wait for long. These days, Mobei-jun came to visit nearly every day. Sometimes he even came to see him for five minutes before leaving, as if all he’d needed to do was check that he was still there.
Seeing Mobei-jun enter his study, Shang Qinghua excitedly greeted him.
Mobei-jun raised a hand in acknowledgement. He looked to be in a good mood - that is, his eyebrows were eased.
Just as Shang Qinghua was about to unburden himself, Mobei-jun looked around the room and saw the blue flower on a branch resting on his desk. "That one won't grow in your garden," he said casually.
Shang Qinghua almost bit his tongue. "...They won't?" he managed.
In twenty years, he hadn't once met a person who had recognized the flowers as actual flowers. He had always assumed that they were just magical items made for people to cough out.
"You’ll be wasting your time," said Mobei-jun. "Why do you have them?"
His face darkened, as if to say 'Don't you dare make me fix your garden again so soon!'
"Ahahaha, it's actually a funny story…" said Shang Qinghua. He couldn’t actually come up with anything to follow that up. "Where - where would they grow, then?"
Mobei-jun waved a finger at the water jar in front of him, freezing it instantly. He raised a finger, which cracked the ice into little pieces. Then he took the flower branch and planted it in the ice.
Shang Qinghua stared at it.
The pale blue petals looked absolutely beautiful on the ice cracks. The thick, waterproof waxy petals that had always felt fake to him now looked like they were made to withstand freezing climates. What he had taken for magical extra features suddenly looked like extremely pragmatic choices for a plant to survive.
Shang Qinghua felt a ringing in his ears.
He looked at the man. He looked at the plant. He looked at the man again.
“It’s you?!” he shouted.
Mobei-jun frowned. "What are you -"
"You!" said Shang Qinghua, daring to cut off Mobei-jun mid-sentence. Eyes wide, he pointed an accusatory finger at Mobei-jun.
"It’s you - You want to do me!”
A freezing silence descended on the room.
"I can't believe - all this time, it's been you? What the fuck!" cried Shang Qinghua, in shock. "What - since we were seventeen? What was all that beating, then, you pervert? I -"
"Shut up!" said Mobei-jun.
Shang Qinghua paused. Mobei-jun's face had gone pale, he noted. His expression was like nothing Shang Qinghua had ever seen before.
"- that is… I'm - I'm glad to have found it's you, my king!" said Shang Qinghua, swiftly reversing course with an aim towards 'reassurance'. "...Haha, of course I'm glad! I was always worried it'd be some old crone, you know? Some old lech with despicable fantasies -" despicable fantasies that Mobei-jun may very well hold, he realized. It wasn't as if he had anything against despicable fantasies in principle, so he quickly backed away from the topic. "- anyway, I'm really thankful that it's been my king the whole time! Since I’m your faithful servant, you can - well - you can do me any time? Who am I to refuse my king, hahaha…”
At these words, Mobei-jun suddenly stepped forward.
Shang Qinghua's mind was still blank. He instinctively yelped, leaning behind and clutching at the table behind him.
Mobei-jun caught his arms and held them firmly in place, stopping him from backing away further.
"Just what do you think I want with you?" said Mobei-jun. He sounded absolutely furious.
"Ah-?" said Shang Qinghua, panicking. An endless abyss suddenly seemed to have yawned opened under his feet. "Nothing? Nothing! I was just kidding!"
"Do you think you can just say anything to me?"
"No, no, of course not! Forget I said anything!" said Shang Qinghua.
By now, the temperature of the room had shifted to possibly sub-zero. Shang Qinghua shivered, his teeth clattering.
Mobei-jun made an enraged sound. He let go of Shang Qinghua's arms, turned back, and stepped out of the room.
What?
Shang Qinghua stared blankly at the door.
What - was this it? Mobei-jun was so offended at the suggestion that he just - left?
It wasn't Mobei-jun after all?
He was just gone? That was it?
That's - that's good, right? It wasn't Mobei-jun after all!
Haha, could you even imagine? Mobei-jun and Shang Qinghua! Just imagine if Mobei-jun had been pining after him for years. Beating him up black and blue all that time! What is he, a fetishist? What a crazy idea! Just because they're friends now - something like friends, anyway…
…He wasn't completely gone, right? After all that effort to bring him back? He'll get over it in a few days! A few weeks, at the worst. He has to!
…Anyway, just imagine if it had been Mobei-jun who had been starving for meat all these years. Would one night even be enough? My lower half would be destroyed! Haha!
On the whole, a good thing that it wasn't Mobei-jun! What a relief!
What a relief…
—-
Shang Qinghua felt as if something was stuck in his throat. But when he tried to cough it up, nothing came out.
Shang Qinghua felt like he couldn't breathe. It didn't seem to be flowers, this time.
—-
Just then, the door suddenly burst open.
Mobei-jun marched in, holding a blanket in one hand. He roughly draped it over Shang Qinghua's shoulders. Then he held out his other hand.
Shang Qinghua looked down.
His other hand was grabbing what looked like a sunflower. The sort of sunflower that Shang Qinghua had seen a million times, the sort that was grown in Qian Cao Peak and sold from An Ding Peak. It looked wet and gross, as if it had been spit out.
"Ah," said Shang Qinghua.
"Stop saying confusing things," said Mobei-jun.
Who’s saying that to who! thought Shang Qinghua.
“It’s true?” he asked, just to be clear. Mobei-jun nodded curtly.
“Oh,” said Shang Qinghua. “Hold on! Then why were you so offended when I said you could do me?!”
Mobei-jun made a noise as if he was frustrated beyond belief.
But at least he didn’t leave the room again.
—--
The curse (as Shang Qinghua still thought of it) still had to be removed, so he insisted on sleeping together that very day. Mobei-jun didn't disagree.
Shang Qinghua spent the rest of the night in great pain and wondered if he was getting punished for writing all those first time papapa scenes.
But in the morning, Mobei-jun held Shang Qinghua and brought him to the dining room, bridal style. Then he went to the kitchen and cooked them noodles. All that, with the slap mark still fresh on his face.
The coughs weren't bothering him any more, either.
So - in the end, it turned out pretty okay, this curse.