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"I am going to eviscerate all these men," Shen Qingqiu mutters to Yue Qingyuan, seated next to him at the dais. He hears Yue Qingyuan's pained exhale but pays it no mind, only staring fixedly down at the crown with his fan opened to hide his sneer.
"This problem, if it is not solved, will mean the death of our traditions!" The town mayor seems about to dissolve into tears, and one of his underlings pats him on the shoulder in commiseration before handing him a handkerchief.
He blows his nose into it. The noise is horrid, and Shen Qingqiu debates whether he should simply leave.
But he can't. He is stuck on this mission with Yue Qingyuan as a "show of fraternal peace and understanding" between their peaks, never mind that Shen Qingqiu's opinion of fraternal anything is that it is best left as a cold corpse.
"Can you provide us with more detail on the rite and what has been happening?" Yue Qingyuan says, unruffled. He taps his long fingers on the table in front of him, ignoring the tea they've both been served. "Shen-shidi and I will be best positioned to help you the more information we have."
The village council looks at each other, blushing, and finally Shen Qingqiu loses patience and points at the nearest wizened old lady. "You. Explain."
She straightens up, blinking rheumy eyes, and sucks her teeth before saying, voice a croak,
"On the first full moon after the lantern festival, the town holds a marriage hunt for our unmarried omegas and those from surrounding villages. Only alphas selected by the omegas' parents or the omegas themselves are allowed to participate in the hunt, but for the past two-"
"Three," the mayor interjects, only to quail as she turns her gaze on him and lifts her gnarled walking stick, jabbing it in his direction.
"Three, then, what do I care? For the past years, an omega has died during the hunt. One or two, then three last year. Now no one wants to participate, but under the laws of our ancestors, matings are not blessed unless by the hunt and the forest."
"I have an omega son," one of the councilmen says, "of the age to be married and have children for our posterity, but I cannot let him participate in good conscience." He wrings his ink-stained hands. "With no matings, there will be no children, and who will take care of us in our old age?"
"How were the omegas killed?" Shen Qingqiu asks. Blunt, maybe, but he has no time. He wants this over with.
Yet another man introduces himself as the town doctor before saying,
"They had their throats torn out." He swallows. "With teeth."
The council members pale. One of them steals a handkerchief and dabs at her eyes.
Yue Qingyuan makes an absolutely unnecessary noise of sympathy, a low rumble that Shen Qingqiu ignores. "Were there signs of struggle? Did anyone see the perpetrator?"
The doctor shakes his head, slow, and frowns. "No signs of struggle on the bodies that I could find. No blood or dirt beneath the fingernails, no bruises or cuts anywhere but the throat. As for signs in the hunting grounds-"
"Nothing," a rugged woman in the back speaks up. "I am the groundskeeper for the hunting grounds, honored cultivators." She bows slightly before going on, "I went over every chi of the grounds and found nothing: no drag marks, no unduly broken branches. The barriers over the hunting grounds did not break from moonrise to moonset, so no one entered after the hunters and quarry did, and I checked every one of them myself."
Hm. This is starting to be almost interesting.
Shen Qingqiu snaps his fan shut, drawing everyone's attention, and drawls,
"And everyone is absolutely sure no one was hiding in the hunting grounds before moonrise?"
The councilmembers glance at each other before one brave man speaks up,
"We are a small town, honored one. If anyone had been missing, we would have noticed, and our children would have resisted a stranger."
Idiot. It would be all too easy for an unknown alpha to hide in the forest, and there are some alphas whose scents are enough to persuade even the most recalcitrant omega. Before Shen Qingqiu can retort, Yue Qingyuan cuts in,
"May we see the hunting grounds? I know your ceremony is tomorrow, but-"
That sparks yet another uproar, the council members beginning to seethe and yell at each other, and Shen Qingqiu meets Yue Qingyuan's guilty gaze and sneers.
-
There is nothing special about the hunting grounds as far as Shen Qingqiu can tell, except for the trees' irritating propensity to snag at his clothing. The earth squishes beneath his feet, damp from the evening rain, and he presses his lips flat to keep from complaining further.
Just ahead, Yue Qingyuan walks with the groundskeeper, his frame huge next to her, and gallantly holds up branches and pushes aside brambles for her as they go. A waste of energy on his part, but what does Shen Qingqiu care?
"This is where the first one died three years ago," the groundskeeper says as they enter a small clearing. "We found the body the next morning after he didn't emerge." She gestures to a tree at the edge, its appearance perfectly ordinary. "He was lying beneath that tree."
Shen Qingqiu steps toward the tree, reaching into his qiankun pouch for some talisman paper, a brush, and ink. With the death being so long ago, it does not seem likely that any resentful energy lingers in this place, but still -
He sketches a quick seal on the paper, then feeds it with spiritual energy before placing the paper against the bark and stepping back, gaze narrowed.
The groundskeeper gasps as the paper's edges catch alight with a faint green fire, the corners folding inward as the paper shrinks. The ink of the seal bubbles, flashes green, and then in one burst of smoke and light, the paper crumbles to ash, falling to the roots of the tree.
"Not a demon," Yue Qingyuan says, folding his arms in thought. "Perhaps a cultivator, or an unsettled ghost?"
"Tch." Shen Qingqiu prods at the ashes with his foot, slides his seal supplies back into his sleeve, and turns to the groundskeeper. "I will need to see the other places where the bodies were found."
The next site rules out demons again. At the last site, the seal burns a deep red like the heart of a forge, responding to the faint traces of residual energy, and Yue Qingyuan sighs.
"An unsettled ghost, I see."
The groundskeeper frowns. "Is that harder to deal with than a cultivator?"
"Possibly." Yue Qingyuan drums his fingers on the hilt of his sword, thinking. "Ghosts are often creatures of habit, and will not manifest unless the correct conditions are met. Which, in this case, seems to be the particular night of the marriage hunt, with-" he coughs, "-eligible omegas present in the wood. The hunt is tomorrow, I believe?"
What?
He can't possibly be-
Shen Qingqiu glares at him over the groundskeeper's shoulder, fury boiling inside his chest, making his fan creak where his fingers have tightened around it.
Yue Qingyuan, for all that he is a traitor, is not stupid. He winces, his face going pale.
Shen Qingqiu is going to kill him.
-
"I can explain," Yue Qingyuan says the moment Shen Qingqiu closes the door to Yue Qingquan’s room at the inn behind them.
Gritting his teeth, Shen Qingqiu places a silencing talisman on the door. He then turns, leans back against the doorframe, and folds his arms.
"Please do. Because although you are a fool, I know your plan is not to have me go into the forest as an eligible omega to lure out the hungry ghost. Using me as bait is cruel even for you."
"Jiu-er-"
"Don't call me that," Shen Qingqiu snarls, a lash of spiritual energy making the terrible paintings on the wall rattle, and Yue Qingyuan swallows. Nods.
"My apologies. But the ghost will not appear unless the proper conditions are met, and I cannot in good conscience ask one of the omegas of the town to be a potential sacrifice."
Shen Qingqiu's jaw tightens so much it aches. "But you can ask me."
Yue Qingyuan sighs, his powerful shoulders slumping. He runs a hand back through his hair, then says, "You are powerful. You have learned to control your cycle, so once the ghost appears, you can ignore their scent and proceed with the exorcism."
"And you will be the hunter?" Shen Qingqiu asks, and hates the faint pulse and throb of heat in his belly at the thought. Ridiculous instincts, weak heart that still yearns - the first thing he learned how to do at Cang Qiong was suppress his omega nature, for all it ever brought was suffering. "I am supposed to trust you to control your instincts?"
Yue Qingyuan's expression crumbles as if struck. "I swear to you, I will not touch you. If we were not in this situation-"
"But we are. And you are asking."
Yue Qingyuan simply looks at him with that hangdog expression on his face, the same one Shen Qingqiu loathes seeing aimed at him back on the peaks. Guilt, and sadness, and longing for Shen Qingqiu to talk to him-
He deserves nothing from Shen Qingqiu, least of all his time.
"I know, and I would not ask if the lives and livelihoods of these people were not at stake."
Shen Qingqiu turns away to stare out the window, biting his tongue. The town is like any other small market town, with its damp alleyways, its stalls crowding each lane, the noise of too many people and animals in too small a space; what makes this place worthy of him and Yue Qingyuan?
Yet if he refuses entirely, the news will spread across the peaks, and his goal of curing whatever is ailing in his cultivation will retreat even further away. The other peaks will be less likely to share their hidden resources with a shirker. Of course, Yue Qingyuan would swear to not reveal anything, but the fact of them returning empty handed would be enough.
And then what would Cang Qiong do? Send Liu Qingge out to handle it? The fool is only fit for fighting beasts, not anything with greater intelligence.
"If-" he begins, and does not turn to see the doubtlessly irritating hope on Yue Qingyuan's face, "If I were to agree to participate in this, it is on one condition."
"Yes?"
"I will keep Xiu Ya with me." He turns, folding his arms across his chest, and lifts his chin. "I refuse to be caught unarmed again."
Something flickers in Yue Qingyuan's gaze - pity, perhaps. He drums his fingers on the hilt of his sword, then says, reluctant,
"I understand your request. My concern is that this ghost may be selective, and since the marriage hunt does not involve weapons, will the ghost refuse to manifest if we bring our swords?"
Ah. Shen Qingqiu hates admitting it, but there is validity to the concern. Yue Qingyuan, for all that he is thoughtless, has never been stupid. He works his jaw before saying,
"An astute point. I propose a compromise. If, by the time the moon reaches its highest point in the sky, the ghost has not made its appearance, I will cast Xiu Ya outside of the barrier." He locks eyes with Yue Qingyuan then, holding his gaze despite the naked surprise on Yue Qingyuan's face, and says, flat,
"Understand that if, for whatever reason, the ghost is able to incapacitate me, I will be relying on you to... assist me."
Yue Qingyuan swallows, straightens up, and lifts his chin, pressing his fist to his heart. "On my honor, I will not fail you."
They both hear the unspoken 'again' swell in the silence, filling the room and the space between them with bitterness.
"Tch." Shen Qingqiu turns away, back to the window. "We shall see, I suppose. Are there any other aspects of the rite you were able to find out?" He tenses as the floorboards shake beneath Yue Qingyuan's heavy tread as he joins Shen Qingqiu by the window, his scent - dried herbs and rain - muted but undeniably there.
As Yue Qingyuan is there, the heat of him felt all up and down Shen Qingqiu's side, the strength of him visible in the corner of Shen Qingqiu's eye as Yue Qingyuan sets his forearm above the window frame and leans his weight on it, muscles tensing.
It is almost worse that for all that he has done, Yue Qingyuan still remains handsome.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," Yue Qingyuan says, his attention following Shen Qingqiu's gaze down to where an alpha and omega are walking together, hand in hand, their arms laden with baskets from the day's shopping. "The barrier is maintained by seal steles at the four corners of the wood. We will need to drink a tincture before entering the wood that connects our qi to the barrier steles; apparently they thought that if they could make the barrier respond to participants' distress, it might stop the deaths." His strong throat moves with his swallow. "The next year, they found three bodies."
"I am not surprised whatever bumbling cultivator they found was unable to help." Shen Qingqiu well remembers Wu Yanxi, and how he'd fleeced everyone he could out of what little money they had with minor cultivation and parlor tricks. "Anything else?"
"Ah," Yue Qingyuan says delicately. "We will have to wear red."
Shen Qingqiu closes his eyes and bites down the urge to yell. "Of course."
He should have turned down this mission, no matter the consequences.
"I will," Yue Qingyuan says, earnest as always, "endeavor to make sure this experience is as painless as possible for you."
"How noble of you," Shen Qingqiu says, and escapes to his own room for tea, painting, and some extremely irritable poetry composing.
-
"Shen-shidi," Yue Qingyuan says, "you look well."
Shen Qingqiu folds his arms, disgruntled. Red has never been his color, and the townsfolk have dressed both he and Yue Qingyuan in wedding scarlet and gold. On him, it merely highlights the pink in his skin, but on Yue Qingyuan-
The color and the cut of the hunter's robes suit him well, highlighting the breadth of his shoulders and the taper of his waist, and while Shen Qingqiu does not glare at the giggling omegas clustered behind the assembled council, it is a near thing.
He had no such compunctions about staring down every single alpha who tried to get too close to him when he emerged from the inn. It was a pleasure to see how they quailed.
"You look... fine."
Yue Qingyuan lights up at that as though Shen Qingqiu has paid him the highest compliment, a smile passing across his face, and the crowd of omega admirers sigh. Several of them release sickly-sweet clouds of scent that make Shen Qingqiu’s nose burn.
"Honored cultivators," says the mayor, and Shen Qingqiu turns to him with a sneer. "The moon is near, so we should begin the rite."
"We begin with the tincture, correct?" Yue Qingyuan asks.
The mayor nods and presents a gaudily jewel-encrusted goblet, brimming with a translucent golden liquid, scented faintly of herbs. "Indeed! Drinking this tincture will permit you to enter the barrier, and will allow the barrier to flash if you are in distress."
Not that either the tincture or the barrier stopped six omegas from dying terribly, but the man looks so proud of his cup and potion that even Shen Qingqiu has not the heart to cut him down.
"I assume, as the quarry, I go first?" His voice is near a snap; he has been prey enough times in his life, and he has never wanted to experience it again. "Hand it here."
The mayor, wisely, does not respond other than by offering the cup.
Shen Qingqiu takes it, eyeing the tincture. The smell of herbs is overpowering, and for a moment he wishes that Mu Qingfang were here. He would likely be able to identify exactly what this tincture consists of.
But he is not, so Shen Qingqiu raises the cup to his lips and takes a long sip. The tincture is near-flavorless but for a strange tingle that burns across his tongue and down his throat, radiating out in waves of warmth from his stomach. An odd sensation, but likely harmless.
"Here, Yue-shixiong." He passes the cup to Yue Qingyuan, then turns toward the moon gate to the hunting grounds. Lanterns have been strung up along the forest's perimeter, casting flickering golden light and shadows among the branches and gnarled trunks, and the gate itself is festooned with wishes for their success in appalling calligraphy.
The moon crests the horizon, and the barrier shimmers into existence: the same pale white-blue as the moon itself, like an enormous soap bubble curving over the forest.
"How long must Yue Qingyuan wait before following me?" It will, perhaps, be nice to get some time alone in the ridiculous forest.
"About two ke, Shen-daozang."
Shen Qingqiu nods and settles his hand on Xiu Ya, striding towards the moon gate. As he approaches, the strange feeling in his stomach increases with each step, rolling and warming and-
The barrier falls over him, and damn it all to hell, the tincture was an aphrodisiac.
Inside the barrier, the air is still, all sound taking on an odd, muffled quality. Shen Qingqiu is more than justified in spitting a few choice curses as he circulates his qi to keep the aphrodisiac effects at bay, but they are present even so: a throb and tingle in parts of his body he has steadfastly ignored these past years; the increased pounding of his heart; sweat threatening at his temples.
He casts a glance back over his shoulder, where the blurred shapes of the onlookers move on the other side of the barrier. Yue Qingyuan towers over all the rest, tall, strong, muscular, able to provide and protect-
Shen Qingqiu is going to wring the mayor's neck when he is through with this.
He turns back around, unsheathes Xiu Ya, and walks - he is not stomping, he is control itself - further into the woods.
The forest is no less irritating in the night than it was during the day. He walks in a straight line, dodging brambles and stepping over streams and rocks. No sign of any ghosts, or demons, or even a foolish human: just the rustle of wind through the trees and the soft crunch of his feet on the leaf litter. He pauses once the barrier shimmers overhead.
Yue Qingyuan has entered, then.
A turn west, and more walking, and he stands where the most recent deaths occurred. There is a small outcropping of rock, covered in moss and the debris of dead trees, and at its base the fallen ashes of his talisman.
He flares his qi to alert Yue Qingyuan to his position, then approaches the rock. It is an ancient thing, worn smooth by time and rain, but when he searches it for resentful energy, there is almost none: a faint, residual flicker that could be either the murderous ghost or the lingering imprint of the dead omega's final moments.
The aphrodisiac burns low in his belly, and he shifts, gritting his teeth as slick makes itself known. It has been years since he felt this, and he did not miss it: the awareness of being open, receptive; the ache of wanting to be filled. A careful application of qi blocks it anew, but he can still smell himself - parchment, bamboo, the acrid edge of sickness -
"Shen-shidi," Yue Qingyuan says from the edge of the clearing. His nostrils flare as he inhales, and something hungry flickers over his face before he smooths his expression into solicitous concern. "The tincture?"
"Mm." Shen Qingqiu rests one hand on Xiu Ya's hilt and gestures at the boulder. "The residual energy is the same, but I do not detect any spirits within the barrier." The more he can keep Yue Qingyuan thinking about anything other than his cycle, his omega status, the better.
Yue Qingyuan approaches, but pauses as Shen Qingqiu stiffens, then steps back to remain at a respectful distance. "Neither do I. Perhaps it is not the appropriate time for the ghost to appear?"
"Potentially." The town doctor had not been able to identify an approximate time of death, so the omegas might have died anywhere from moonrise to moonset. "I suppose we should wait and see. I will meditate."
Yue Qingyuan nods, and sits down beneath a tree as Shen Qingqiu finds his own spot by the boulder. He sits down, crosses his legs, and lays Xiu Ya across his knees, then closes his eyes to meditate.
Meditation has always been difficult for him; it was not part of Wu Yanzi's cultivation practice, and Shen Qingqiu has never enjoyed how it forces him to be aware of the scarring in his qi meridians. Still, it is a way to pass the time, so he stretches his awareness out.
Outside the barrier, the many flickering candles of the villagers remain clustered by the moon gate. Inside, there is only him and the steady brightness of Yue Qingyuan, all else the-
His nose twitches.
Yue Qingyuan's scent has changed: taken on a heavier, spicier edge of incense, of wanting, and the broken little omega buried deep within Shen Qingqiu responds-
"Yue-shixiong."
"Hm?"
"Your scent."
"Oh! My apologies. This tincture is-" Yue Qingyuan coughs, abashed, "-unexpectedly potent."
Shen Qingqiu cracks open one eye to glare at where Yue Qingyuan sits against the tree trunk, his forearms tense, muscle taut, a few beads of sweat on the line of his strong neck that Shen Qingqiu wants to-
"Be that as it may, control yourself."
Yue Qingyuan winces. "Of course."
They wait another four ke, Shen Qingqiu searching for any new source of energy as the time passes, and nothing. Nothing but for his own awareness of the rising heat within him, and how much more of his qi he is having to devote to holding back the tincture's effects.
He should demand a sample for Mu Qingfang once this is all over.
"Shen-shidi," Yue Qingyuan says softly, and he opens his eyes to find Yue Qingyuan looking at him with something dark and regretful in his gaze. "The moon is at its height."
Shen Qingqiu's fingers go taut around Xiu Ya's sheath. He looks up, past the barrier, and finds the moon at its zenith. "I see." Something freezes in his chest as he forces himself to release Xiu Ya, then whistles, the sword rising from his lap and arcing up, out of the barrier.
Shen Qingqiu watches it go, aiming for a little copse of trees just outside the barrier. He'll be able to whistle it back if he needs to, but depending on the strength of the ghost, he may not have time to wait for its return.
His hands feel empty without a weapon, so he flicks one wrist, carved fan falling from his qiankun pouch into his right hand, and then turns around.
"Any luck, Yue-shixong?"
Yue Qingyuan closes his eyes for a moment, his qi flickering and rushing outward, and if Shen Qingqiu shivers beneath its touch, that is no one's business but his.
"Nothing, Shen-shidi. Perhaps it will not appear so long as I hold Xuan Su."
Yue Qingyuan stands from his meditative position, muscles flexing in the powerful lines of his legs, and approaches, his scent overwhelming, inviting, drawing Shen Qingqiu's gaze down from the broad expanse of his chest to his-
"Stay there."
Yue Qingyuan halts. He inhales. "Shen-shidi. Is that-?"
Shen Qingqiu crosses his arms. "My scent? Yes. I am well aware of its less than ideal properties, so it would befit Yue-shixong well to keep any commentary to himself."
Yue Qingyuan blinks. "Less than ideal-? Oh. Well, I can smell that you have been unwell, but your scent is... lovely."
Shen Qingqiu, caught flatfooted halfway through working himself up into a snarl about how he had just told Yue Qingyuan to say nothing, snaps his mouth shut. Unfolds and refolds his arms for lack of anything else to do, staring aside. 'Lovely' was certainly not how anyone had described his scent before he'd learned to suppress it; 'pale,' 'weak,' and 'nonexistent' were popular adjectives.
He clears his throat. "How long should we wait before sending Xuan Su through the barrier as well?"
"Perhaps we should visit the other two murder sites first," Yue Qingyuan suggests. "If, after the last of them, the ghost has still not appeared, I'll relinquish my hold of Xuan Su to see if that summons it."
Shen Qingqiu nods, then whips around on his heel and forges toward the second site. His idiot instincts respond with a riotous burst of pleasure to Yue Qingyuan following him, all of him far too aware that an alpha in prime condition - fit, fertile, protective - is tracking his steps, gaze fixed on the back of his neck.
He grits his teeth and circulates his qi even harder, forcing his way past the burn in his meridians to choke off his scent as much as he can.
Yue Qingyuan makes an upset little noise, edged with a growl, and Shen Qingqiu steadfastly ignores the gnawing hunger in his body that deepens at the sound.
The second site - a cluster of willows over a small stream, where the bodies had been found wedged among the roots - bears no fruit, so Shen Qingqiu mutters a curse and leads the way to the most recent site.
This one is deepest in the woods; a tiny, ramshackle shrine to some forgotten deity, with its wooden frame covered in moss and its altar empty and bearing only dust. As the moon descends overhead, pale light gleams on the cracked roof tiles, leaves the windows dark and watchful as eyes.
The bodies had been found before the temple entrance, laid out in a neat row on the stone footpath. Shen Qingqiu kneels to press a hand to where they'd been, finding something - something more than residual, a flickering of qi in the earth itself, tinged with anger.
"Whatever it is," he says, rising and dusting off his hands, "if it exists, it is here."
Yue Qingyuan casts a glance skyward, where the moon is nearly halfway through its descent. "I suppose I must give up Xuan Su to convince the ghost forth. Shen-shidi, would you mind creating some sealing talismans before I do?"
Shen Qingqiu nods and removes the materials from his qiankun pouch. It takes only a few moments to inscribe several sealing talismans, the calligraphy worn into him by countless repetitions, before he puts away the ink and brush and hands half of the talismans to Yue Qingyuan.
Their fingers brush, heat against heat, and Shen Qingqiu cannot help but scent Yue Qingyuan: his strength, his presence, his... lust.
He hates that he does not hate it, even as Yue Qingyuan swallows, dark eyes flicking up from their hands to Shen Qingqiu's face, down to his neck, the collar of his robe, as physical as a touch.
He steps back, folding his arms, and the two of them stand, armed with sealing talismans, and wait.
And wait.
And wait, until Shen Qingqiu snarls,
"What else could you possibly want?" They are unarmed, he is an omega, Yue Qingyuan is an alpha, they are dressed in damned red and gold and within the sacred wood at the appropriate time drugged up to their-
"Shen-shidi." Yue Qingyuan coughs delicately into his fist, the motion bizarre on such a large man. "Perhaps the ghost is waiting for us to both unblock our scents."
Shen Qingqiu wheels on him, taking several steps back, and bares his teeth. "You first."
Yue Qingyuan shrugs, a lopsided smile tugging at one side of his mouth, and Shen Qingqiu hates the tug deep within him at the sight of that smile. "Very well." He stops circulating his qi to tamp down his scent glands, and within moments his scent billows out into the grove: smoke, heat, a seductive promise of protection and strength -
Shen Qingqiu catches himself breathing in, catches the faint edge of smugness on Yue Qingyuan's face, and sneers, releasing his own. Paper, ink, bamboo, tinged with an acidic dose of illness - the smell is familiar and hateful, and yet Yue Qingyuan breathes it in, eyes closing, and shudders, muscles tensing beneath the wedding garb.
"There," Shen Qingqiu starts to say, only to start and turn as resentful energy coalesces beneath the shrine: far more energy than he's felt in a ghost before, and he and Yue Qingyuan share a glance before they both adopt fighting stances, sealing talismans at the ready.
A shadow moves within the shrine, something darker than the night itself. A scent of carrion, of blood and rot, seeps forth from the yawning windows and door, and invisible chimes ring in the air, clearer than all other sound.
"Yue-shixong."
"I see it." Yue Qingyuan steps closer to him, so close their shoulders brush, and something in Shen Qingqiu relaxes.
A hand reaches forth, clamping about the edge of the doorframe - white and drawn, skin like parchment over bone, nails cracked and torn and leaking black ichor.
Shen Qingqiu hurls a sealing talisman, and before it hits the pillar, the hand moves. Too fast for a shambling corpse - the talisman attaches itself to the pillar and burns up in a gust of red flame.
"Why?" The ghost's voice is a cracked, wretched noise, more breath than sound. "Why?" Another hand, as skeletal as the first, and then a foot, bare and ragged, emerging from the tattered and stained hem of red cloth. "Why?"
Yue Qingyuan tries his best shot, but the ghost simply snatches the talisman between two fingers and burns it.
"Back up," Yue Qingyuan mutters, and for once in his life, Shen Qingqiu obeys without complaint.
"Why won't the bite stay!?" howls the ghost, its voice rising into a keening wail that tears at the air itself. Its head finally breaches the darkness of the door, emerges into moonlight, and both Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan stare, breathless.
It's impossible to tell if the ghost was once male or female, its frame too withered and its red-and-gold clothing too tattered and stained to make out any cut. It has long, dark hair, matted and gore-knotted, that spreads about its face, and its face is -
A ruin, a skull, with its entire lower half a great gash of a mouth that flops down onto its neck, revealing fangs dripping blood that march back into its gaping throat and a lashing, pale gray tongue, glistening in the moonlight. Above the wide maw, two wide and agonized eyes that are all too human, that seem to pierce Shen Qingqiu through.
"A dead alpha," Shen Qingqiu says, low, and immediately regrets it.
The eyes snap to him, narrowing. The thrashing tongue stills, then flicks at the air like a snake's, tasting his scent.
"An omega," the ghost says, and, horribly, lifts one blood-crusted hand to comb back through its hair in a mockery of seduction. "Unmarked, unmated, mine-" Its voice pitches sharply up into a gibbering groan, and it flings itself at Shen Qingqiu.
It moves like something unearthly, like all its bones have broken, racing forward across the clearing with speed nearly too fast to process -
Shen Qingqiu dodges. Catches sight of the head rotating entirely backward to look back at him before the ghost slams into a tree, crouches, and hurls itself forward.
The beast flies through the air, its tattered clothing whipping in the wind of its passage, and Shen Qingqiu ducks again, twists to slam his palm up, laden with another sealing talisman.
His hand hits, sinks into rotten flesh, the creature's shoulder yielding to the force of his strike. Soft, clammy warmth envelops his hand, slime covering his fingers. He gags, reels backward.
The ghost gibbers again and springs to the top of the shrine. It lands with a racket of sliding roof tiles, several shattering beneath its weight and falling to the forest floor below, and all around them, birds rouse from their nests in the trees and escape skyward towards the indifferent moon. The beast crouches, head hanging low, swinging back and forth like no human form is capable of, its gaze jittering from Yue Qingyuan to Shen Qingqiu and back again. The ghost's left arm hangs limp now, its shoulder fractured and maggots and ichor boiling from the wound Shen Qingqiu left, and Shen Qingqiu gags again, wiping his hand on his trousers.
"This omega," the ghost says, its voice creaking and splintering, "this one is strong." Its black gaze turns to Yue Qingyuan, and its gray forked tongue lashes at the air as it spits, "Too strong for you!"
"Shen Qingqiu is strong," Yue Qingyuan agrees, unruffled, even as his eyes narrow as he searches the trembling outline of the ghost for a weak point. "Strong enough to choose for himself which alpha he desires. Strong enough to not need an alpha."
The ghost rears back, the whites of its eyes showing. Its limp lower jaw flaps. "Choose? Yes. He will choose me."
Before Shen Qingqiu can move, launch himself into another strike, the ghost crouches down on the rooftop. Its bloodied and disjointed fingers dig into the tiles. It croons, a horrible rattling parody of the usual soothing sound an alpha makes to calm their distressed omega, to coax them closer, and its scent boils outward in a choking black cloud -
Shen Qingqiu covers his mouth with his sleeve, forces qi into his meridians and focuses it on his nose to turn off his scent receptors. But just as he's readying himself, the edge of the cloud reaches him, and his qi sputters and dies beneath the weight of his disease.
The scent is glutinous, thick; a clinging, greasy odor of rotten fat and dried blood.
Then it shifts.
Incense smoke, fine-quality ink, the subtle notes of green tea; fresh dough of a bao dimpling beneath Shen Qingqiu's teeth when he was brave enough to steal one; rich egg custard tarts, fine silk, everything he has been denied -
Without his permission, without his awareness, his leg moves. His body takes a step. The ghost's face melts and reforms in his blurring sight to something so bright he cannot quite look at it, but his instincts know that it is handsome, that the bite, when it comes, will be soft, and the pain sweet.
"Shen-shidi?" Yue Qingyuan's voice is edged with panic, but it is muffled, unimportant next to the clarion sound of the alpha on the roof, calling him. "Shen-shidi, stop!"
"Mine," the alpha says, low, wanting. "All mine, this good omega; that pretty white neck of yours will hold my bite, won't it?"
"Uh-huh," Shen Qinqiu's mouth slurs. His voice is loose, blurry: not at all the usual crisp disdain he speaks with, and there is something wrong about that, but it's okay. It will all be okay once his alpha has him. "I'll be good for you, alpha." He lets go of the blocks on his slick glands, on the wall holding back its arousal; why would he need to control either of them? He can't remember. They're for his alpha, anyway.
Yue Qingyuan roars. The sound tears at Shen Qingqiu's ears, raw and desperate and demanding, and he halts, blinking, the curtains around his vision rolling back to reveal Yue Qingyuan hurling himself at the ghost, fist cocked back.
The ghost shrieks and twists, a great cacophony of snapping bone and shredding muscle, and throws up its working arm, but Yue Qingyuan slams into it like lightning from heaven, fist tearing through its shoulder and upper chest cavity. He snatches the arm between his hands and tears, the great muscles of his back and shoulder standing out in sharp relief, and the arm comes free with a rip.
"Disgusting creature!" Yue Qingyuan snarls, and Shen Qingqiu has never heard such hatred in his voice before.
Yue Qingyuan does not fight the ghost.
He dismantles it, tossing aside the arm and smashing his palm, laden with a sealing talisman, into the hollow cave of its stomach before it can lose form and escape. It is efficient and brutal; the ghost totters, tries to snap its jaws shut about Yue Qingyuan's head, and Yue Qingyuan steps away.
He catches the upper jaw in one hand, the lower jaw in another. The muscles of his arms and chest and back swell as he fights the pressure, and then, in one great sound of ripping flesh and cracking bone, he tears the ghost's head in two.
The ghost gurgles and dissolves into dust, a cloud of gray ash that spirals up on the night wind towards the stars and moon above. The crushing pressure of evil qi lessens in the clearing, and Shen Qingqiu reels back, scrubbing at his nose with his clean hand.
Him, the lord of Qing Jing Peak, momentarily seduced by an unclean spirit -
His jaw clenches, humiliation burning in his chest.
Pathetic.
And even worse that the ghost's manipulation and the aphrodisiac are now working in tandem, his heat spilling over, past his control - he can feel the slick inside him, spilling over, the emptiness, the need to be taken and fucked and filled -
"Shen-shidi."
He startles out of his self-loathing to look up, shaking the sweat from his eyes, at Yue Qingyuan's approach before wrapping his arms around himself as the first cramp carves deep.
Yue Qingyuan looks every inch the conquering alpha, his hands covered in a rival's blood, triumph and lust burning in his eyes, and then he blinks and is every inch the conscientious, worried friend.
"Shen-shidi, are you all right? Is the aphrodisiac too much?" He pauses, as if waiting for Shen Qingqiu to bare his fangs, and then, encouraged when he doesn't, comes closer. "How can I assist?"
Shen Qingqiu straightens up, hissing through his teeth as the cramp eases. "Can you stop the cycle?" It is likely a vain request, as deep in it as he is; he has denied his body for so long that it seems all the pent-up desire is washing over him in waves, stiffening his nipples against the fabric, making his cock twitch in its confines.
"May I?" Yue Qingyuan reaches out and waits for Shen Qingqiu to place his wrist in Yue Qingyuan's hold.
His hand is huge, fingers overlapping on Shen Qingqiu's thin wrist, and warm, and strong, and -
His qi is also warm, gentle on scarred meridians as it flows through Shen Qingqiu, searching.
Shen Qingqiu knows the answer before Yue Qingyuan says it. His expression is grave, sympathetic, even with the edges tinged with alpha desire. His voice is solid when he says,
"I am sorry, Shen-shidi. The cycle is too far advanced. We would need Mu Qingfang to halt it, and-" he clears his throat, abashed, "-it does not seem likely to extinguish itself without... assistance."
Shen Qingqiu breathes. In. Out. His scent is everywhere, beseeching, as is Yue Qingyuan's. His hands tremble at his sides. His vision wavers, as seeing through mist rising off a lake.
"And I suppose you are offering."
Yue Qingyuan coughs, shifts so as to turn his hips away from Shen Qingqiu's gaze, and Shen Qingqiu's channel tightens, releasing another wave of slick as if in preparation. "I am. I would not wish to know that Shen-shidi was suffering, if there was a way I could prevent it." He sounds so damnably earnest.
"Fine." Shen Qingqiu lifts his hands to begin undoing the buttons on his top, and Yue Qingyuan splutters, raising a hand to block his own sight like a virgin maiden.
"Shen Qingqiu!"
Shen Qingqiu pauses, hands on his buttons, and frowns. "What?"
"I-" Yue Qingyuan peers through his parted fingers at Shen Qingqiu, and what little of his face Shen Qingqiu can see is scarlet, "I would like to kiss you first. Before the-" he waves his other hand in Shen Qingqiu's general direction, "-the disrobing."
A true romantic. How Yue Qingyuan kept that part of him, even now, is beyond Shen Qingqiu. He lets his hands fall with a sigh, and says, half-anticipatory, half-resigned,
"Very well. Qingyuan may kiss me if he wishes."
Yue Qingyuan drops his hand from his face and smiles, broad, as if honestly pleased by the invitation. His scent rises, warmer now with lust and affection, and he steps closer to Shen Qingqiu, so close the heat of him beats against Shen Qingqiu's skin.
Shen Qingqiu forces his hands to remain loose at his sides, tries to keep the anxiety from his face; Yue Qingyuan has no need to know that while Wu Yanzi and Qiu Jianluo had done nearly everything that could be done between an alpha and an omega, they had never deigned to kiss him.
Yue Qingyuan lifts a sword-callused hand and curls his fingers, tucking a warm knuckle beneath Shen Qingqiu's face to tilt it upwards. His gaze is dark, heated, searching Shen Qingqiu's face for something that he does not find, if the relaxing of his expression is any guide. "Lovely," he breathes, and before Shen Qingqiu can fight past the muddle of his own heat and bad temper to snap that he is certainly not, Yue Qingyuan leans in and kisses him.
He kisses slow, thoughtful - not the bestial, brutish way Shen Qingqiu has grown used to seeing in alleyways and shadows, with the alpha conquering, forcing themselves past all resistance - his thumb rising to stroke slow and hot over the line of Shen Qingqiu's jaw, his lips soft where they press to Shen Qingqiu's. He slides his mouth from the corner of Shen Qingqiu's to the center, lips parting to suck Shen Qingqiu's lower lip between his own in a burst of hot, sweet pressure, and Shen Qingqiu gasps, shivering.
He is unanchored but for the earth beneath his feet and Yue Qingyuan's mouth against his skin, and, hardly daring to believe himself, he lifts his hands to entwine his fingers in the cloth stretched over Yue Qingyuan's broad chest. His eyes fall shut as Yue Qingyuan releases his lip and kisses a line down to the hinge of his jaw, pausing there and breathing in, the rasp and heat of his breath in Shen Qingqiu's ear making him shiver.
"Are you well?" Yue Qingyuan murmurs. His broad hand cradles Shen Qingqiu's jaw, moving with Shen Qingqiu's swallow as he manages, voice more dazed than he would like,
"Is that it?"
Yue Qingyuan's grip tightens fractionally. He leans back, meeting Shen Qingqiu's gaze, but then - for once - seems to decide to err on the side of discretion and only says,
"Would you like more?"
Shen Qingqiu licks his lips instinctively, freezing when Yue Qingyuan's black gaze drops to his mouth. The fire burning inside him is only increasing, boiling beneath his skin, demanding to be sated, and the instinctive kneading of his hands in Yue Qingyuan's clothes is doing nothing to ease it. "...yes."
"Gladly," Yue Qingyuan says, and steps closer, his other arm settling about Shen Qingqiu's waist: a support, not a restraint, for he does not tighten it too far. He tips Shen Qingqiu's head to a better angle, then leans in, sealing their mouths together.
This kiss is deeper, slower, like the undertow of a river. Yue Qingyuan presses at the seam of Shen Qingqiu's lips gently, requesting entrance, and with a shudder, Shen Qingqiu surrenders. His knees go weak at the first sweep of Yue Qingyuan's tongue within, the flick of it against his teeth, the hungry way Yue Qingyuan chases his taste, and a humiliating little whine bubbles up from his chest to break between their mouths.
Yue Qingyuan bears him up. The hand at Shen Qingqiu's jaw shifts back, fingers hesitating before sliding into the fall of Shen Qingqiu's hair, and the faint tug has Shen Qingqiu gasping, swaying forward.
Yue Qingyuan kisses him again, thorough, as if mapping an unknown and yet well-beloved country. Growls, the sound stringing all of Shen Qingqiu tight, when he catches Shen Qingqiu's lip between his teeth and nips at it, Shen Qingqiu's hips jerking, his throat opening around a whine.
The sound - too open, too vulnerable - has Shen Qingqiu leaning back, shaking hands pushing Yue Qingyuan back.
Yue Qingyuan looks... wild. Hungry. His mouth is dark and shining, his cheeks heated, his eyes misted over with arousal. "Qingqiu?"
"I am ready," Shen Qingqiu announces, voice only slightly fogged with heat and need, "to disrobe." His pulse throbs between his legs, his cock stiff and dripping in his trousers.
Yue Qingyuan blinks. "Oh. Yes." He loosens his grip on Shen Qingqiu, and some ridiculous part of Shen Qingqiu misses the pressure immediately. "I regret I have nothing to offer for a bed."
Shen Qingqiu does not say that he has been taken in far more ignominious circumstances than these, and by people he liked far less. Instead he only glances at Yue Qingyuan's garb, which required far more cloth than his own.
"Ah!" Yue Qingyuan takes his meaning immediately. "I do not know if this will be sufficient-" he moves his hands to the buttons of his top and begins undoing them, exposing skin glistening with arousal and exertion that Shen Qingqiu wants to lick, "-but if it would help..."
He trails off and stares as Shen Qingqiu finishes unbuttoning his own top and lets it hang from his hand, fighting not to curl inward in the moonlight. He is proud of his body - how he has carefully sculpted and maintained it to look the way he wishes - but it has never been a pride meant for the eyes of others, and here is Yue Qingyuan, seeing him: the rapid rise and fall of his chest, his nipples drawing tight in the cool night air, the hollow of his belly.
"Here," Shen Qingqiu says, and steps aside to a softer spot of earth, carpeted with moss, before spreading his undone clothing wide. "Yours, too."
Yue Qingyuan swallows, his dark gaze darting from Shen Qingqiu's face to his throat to his belly and back again, his hands trembling faintly as he forces them into motion to finish undressing. At last, he tugs off his top and hands it to Shen Qingqiu, who takes it with half a mind, all of him fixed on Yue Qingyuan.
He is broad, densely packed with muscle, his chest and forearms scattered with dark hair, another trail leading from beneath his navel down into the waistband of his trousers, where something rigid and wanting thrusts against the cloth.
Not looking away, Shen Qingqiu drops the other top besides his own, then sits down and back, tugging off his slippers and setting them aside.
"Qingqiu," says Yue Qingyuan, hoarse, wanting, as Shen Qingqiu slides his thumbs beneath the waistband of his trousers and underwear and pushes them unceremoniously down his legs. "Please let me-"
His words die into a growl as Shen Qingqiu's cock springs free of the confining pressure. It beats damp and hot against Shen Qingqiu's belly before standing tall, and it is all Shen Qingqiu can do to entwine his hands in the cloth beneath him and remain still. Half of him demands he shield himself, grab his shoes and run; the other half, which is rapidly increasing in strength, demands he turn over onto hands and knees, arch his back, and whine in temptation and plea for Yue Qingyuan to cover him.
"Well?" He intends it to be a snap, but it comes out far too breathy and desirous, and Yue Qingyuan hears it. Hears it and responds by stripping his own trousers and underwear off, leaving Shen Qingqiu to stare.
Even when it comes to his pillar, Yue Qingyuan outstrips the rest, and a part of Shen Qingqiu quails even as the rest of him demands to be fucked and filled with that length immediately.
And yet still - still - Yue Qingyuan restrains himself. He does not lunge on top of Shen Qingqiu to press him down into the earth and take him; he does not lull him into easy compliance with overwhelming pheromones and honeyed commands; instead he lowers himself to one knee, as if to be on Shen Qingqiu's level, and says, low, aching with honesty,
"May this unworthy one be permitted to enter Jiu-er's nest?"
Shen Qingqiu swallows. Licks his lips, his cock bobbing when the motion draws Yue Qingyuan's attention to his mouth, kiss-bruised and wanting. Sweat drips from his temples, down the back of his neck, and every part of him aches to be touched and held and filled, and Yue Qingyuan has been so powerful and yet so kind -
"Qing-er may," he says, and the bright smile that breaks across Yue Qingyuan's face is enough to outshine any sun. He moves, slow enough to not startle but inexorable, irresistible, and presses Shen Qingqiu down across the silk, parting his thighs with his waist.
Shen Qingqiu reaches for him, hands entwining in all that glorious dark hair, and tugs him down into a kiss.
--
Something breaks far off: a tearing and snapping, like damp wood crunching beneath a heavy footfall. A rustling, growing louder with every step.
Shen Qingqiu rises slowly to consciousness, as if swimming up through something warm and golden and honey-sweet: his body sore but satisfied, something else throbbing and pulsing on the slope of his neck. A warm morning breeze slides over him, flirting with the heavy weight of an arm draped over his waist.
A scent on the breeze: mingled bamboo and herbs, smoke and ink, entwined in a strange harmony.
Voices, growing louder, their indistinct calls finally solidifying into words -
Shen Qingqiu's eyes shoot open just as Yue Qingyuan, growling, rolls on top of him to shield him with his body and snarls at the approaching crowd.
Shen Qingqiu glances down at himself enough to confirm that he's decent - wearing Yue Qingyuan's clothes, dirty and ragged as they are - and to confirm that Yue Qingyuan is very much not, his broad form bare as the day he was born. But before he can say anything, smack at Yue Qingyuan's chest to try and get his attention and hurry him into something approaching modesty, a cheer goes up.
"Congratulations on your nuptials, daozangs!" cries the mayor.
Shen Qingqiu tilts his head back and squints at the upside-down crowd, all dressed in their best, some bearing instruments, others banners done in absolutely appalling calligraphy. Their music is just as appalling, discordant and out of tune, and they play it with far too much excitement and volume for their mediocre skill. It barely drowns out the chorus of other congratulations on their... wedding...
Shen Qingqiu tilts his head back down to meet Yue Qingyuan's gaze. His companion looks an odd mix of proud and alarmed as he returns Shen Qingqiu's stare, his teeth faintly marked with the stain of Shen Qingqiu's blood from the bite throbbing on his neck.
Well. It was not a wholly unexpected outcome, and Yue Qingyuan has been, if nothing else, honorable, reluctant to overstep boundaries, and he treated Shen Qingqiu with such gentleness and carefulness that Shen Qingqiu had hardly known what to do with himself.
"You can stop growling, Qing-er," Shen Qingqiu says, and Yue Qingyuan does, blinking at him. "Cover yourself, please. I would not have those tittering omegas looking upon what does not belong to them." He glances aside meaningfully at where the same crowd of omegas that had watched Yue Qingyuan depart into the woods now watch him with even greater avarice. A sneer curls his lips as he adds, "Hurry."
"As my omega wishes," Yue Qingyuan says, and reaches aside to gather the tattered remnants of cloth without exposing Shen Qingqiu as much as possible. He ties it around his waist, enough to cover what most needs covering, and the omegas in the crowd sigh in disappointment.
The mayor and town council watch with polite impatience, two of them even armed with dragon and phoenix candles. As Yue Qingyuan sits back and offers a hand to assist Shen Qingqiu up, one of them even whispers to another about his gallantry in a way that, were Shen Qingqiu not pleasantly exhausted, would see him torn apart by Shen Qingqiu's tongue.
Shen Qingqiu stands, all-too-aware of Yue Qingyuan crowding in behind him, one muscular arm enfolding itself around his waist, and says, flat,
"The murderer was an unquiet ghost: an alpha that died without an omega and did not have its spirit propitiated. Yue-shixong and I have exorcised it thoroughly; it will not return to trouble your ceremonies again."
This inspires even greater tumult. Several of the townspeople turn and embrace each other with tears running down their faces; the mayor clasps his hands and bows; the instruments start up a particularly horrid segment of tune; other townspeople invite them to a feast; and Shen Qingqiu leans back into Yue Qingyuan and mutters, not for the first time,
"I am going to kill them."
"Now, now," Yue Qingyuan chides, bending to press a kiss to Shen Qingqiu's cheek that mollifies him and leaves him smug at the despairing omegas in the crowd, "let them have their celebrations." His arm tightens about Shen Qingqiu's waist as he says, low,
"After all, I have certainly been given much to celebrate myself."
"Sap," Shen Qingqiu says, the usual venom in his voice leavened by the stirrings of affection. There is still much to be discussed between him and Yue Qingyuan: old hurts to be uncovered and drained, agreements to be formed about how they will rule their respective peaks, and the like. "Possession of this one is nothing to celebrate."
"On the contrary," Yue Qingyuan counters, low, warm voice making Shen Qingqiu shiver despite himself, "the gift of Jiu-er's trust, even if for a night, is treasure enough for ages."
Shen Qingqiu bites back his smile. "I suppose we must attend these villagers' feast?" he asks.
"Indeed," says Yue Qingyuan, his embrace all-encompassing, and for the first time in years -
Shen Qingqiu finds himself looking forward to what the day will bring.