narra

He's an amazing healer that has appointments booked out for months if not years, and public opinion of his services is sky high. A kind, attentive young man who's knowledgeable, with a healer's surety and gentleman's poise? What's not to love? And the perks of your incurable ailments never bothering you again after a session where it feels like you ascended to heaven yourself?

All this to say, Luo Binghe who gets to help people, find a place in the world, and perhaps comes into knowledge of his heritage a gentler way. Perhaps Mu Qingfang figuring it out and breaking the news, or Luo Binghe finding a half-demon half-human patient himself and discovering the signs of such a blood.

And then the fun part where you insert (heh) any other beloved svsss character into his loving care for any number of reason

SQQ: qi deviations, easily.

MQF hands him a date for an appointment and threatens to take away Shang Qinghua's stash of rare hallucinogenic herbs to make him take away QJP funding.

LQG? Deadly, deadly, sweaty sex pollen. Classic.

YQY: Easy. Complications from the whole Xuan Su business. Mu Qingfang decides to fight one big sword with another and transfers YQY's care to Cang Qiong's best.

SY, even though SQQ has already been covered, easy. System shenanigans, maybe he's trying to avoid the protagonist's sight so as not to die as a pathetic male side character! The protagonist halo keeps LBH from ever needing a healer who wasn't a beautiful nurse wife anyway, and maybe the protagonist would have some sort of scruple over killing a medic? So SY joins a program to study in one of Qian Cao's wards!

The Qing Jing Peak Lord.

I climb the western tower in silence, the moon like a sickle.

Clear autumn is locked in the deep courtyard, where a wutong tree stands lonely.

Sorrowful parting has cut, but not severed our ties; my mind is still wild.

Separation is just like a taste in head and heart.

however, why don't we ever see more aus where it's the last thing your soulmate ever says to you written on your body?

He doesn't hunt demonic cultivators for sport, and his temper is still fiery, if not more stable.

he doesn't remember why it would be different though.

He doesn't remember summers on lotus pier, the wild antics of a beloved Da-shixiong, or the tinkling laughter of a beloved A-jie. He has a nephew, who he cares for, but he has no memories to offer of a mother long passed.

He offers incense in the family shrine, but the feelings of grief and bitterness at the names of his parents don't come.

Glided tablets are the only concept of father and mother he knows.

His strength as a sect leader is still overpowering, and without sentiment to still his hand his dealings with his late sister's marital sect are more harsh, accepting no less than what is fair.

A man returns from the dead, an apparition of war he only knows from whispers, rumors, and the records of recent history, but Jiang Cheng feels no connection. it simply was not his issue. the Yiling Patriarch had not been part of Yunmeng Jiang for many years, and return from the grave would not change that.

The most interest Jiang Cheng had the in the matter was his nephew's in involvement. a few trusted minders were sent, and he kept a finger on the political pulse of the matter.

That was until he met the Yiling Patriarch in person. And he felt, familiar.

Sorrow, joy, pain, resentment, love.

That was until he began to recall flashes of a home he had only known through records. That was before he looked at names like Jiang Yanli and ached.

That was before he learned of an insurmountable debt.

yue qingyuan who doesn't remember the lingxi caves or anything beforehand. he wakes up to pain, unfamiliar faces that call themselves his martial family. they are kind to him, and certain faces twist in pity (and what he eventually recognizes as guilt) when they look at him.

he dreams.

all unfamiliar scenes, city streets from the perspective of the dirt and those among it, when all he had seen is the sprawling mass from above, soaring high among the whiteness of clouds.

he dreams of caves, of dampness and inhuman agony, of hearing the echoes of his own tortures bouncing back to him.

yue qingyuan does not know weakness. he experiences the shadow of it in his slumber, but it is as unfamiliar as the faces that his mind brings to the fore.

he understands what happened to him. his Shizun had sat him down and explained the folly that led him to the man he was today. the man he has come to respect had apologized for his own part in allowing his disciple to come to such a great price of folly out of desperation.

yue qingyuan knows that there was someone he wanted here at the sect with him, and logically he understood the price previous Yue Qingyuan was willing to pay. but that does not mean he feels any connection to it now.

out of respect for the sacrifices of his previous self, he does look. all he finds is ashes, and he lights incense for the lost and fallen.

he returns to the sect, and his life is what it always has been. he is Yue Qingyuan, heir to the sect leader, Head Disciple of Qiong Ding, the Xuan Su Sword, and his duty is to lead.

yet still, he dreams. in vivid colors, of a life alien to himself.

his deepest mind subjects him to a young face with large dark eyes, sparkling with an inner fire, caught to light like flint struck. a distant voice and a near warmth that called him "gege."

it is a type of love, a fierceness deep within that Yue Qingyuan understands to be the truth of his being. a family member. one that is now lost to him. he grieves memory, he grieves life.

he does not feel as if he has lost a piece of himself, like he did when Lao-shimei was lost, but he knows he should. And that is a special grief unto itself. that he could not understand the loss in the way it deserves.

and then, one day, a head disciple is chosen for Qing Jing. He's excited, this person is meant to be his second, and Yue Qingyuan looks forward to meeting them, to leading the sect together. of having someone who understands the weight of leadership alongside him. he harbors a secret desire that maybe they could even commiserate over such burdens.

Shen Qingqiu is not exactly what he expected from a Qing Jing head disciple, but Yue Qingyuan finds himself liking the man nonetheless. he's strong, possessive of the sect in the same way Yue Qingyuan was more privately, and his wickedly sharp intellect was a pleasure to watch. his issues with liu-shidi were understandable considering their opposing natures, but Yue Qingyuan saw how they would still work together for the strength of the sect.

Already he imagined late nights and sharp remarks made behind closed doors between peers, a confidence shared only by leaders of the foremost sect.

this all was shattered like cheap porcelain when he was shoved into a back garden, and Shen Qingqiu hissed a "what is wrong with you?! is this you merely shaking the abhorrent mud off your fine boots or do you truly not remember?!"

surely, if zhangmen-shixiong killed someone they deserved it. so, as good shidimen they all individually decide to help yqy cover up the murder without mentioning it to yqy himself. this leads to three different corpses being found, at least seven motives to kill, four murderers that miraculously showed up and and are caricatures of evil, two lovers that claim yqy was with them specifically the night of the murder, eight different 'eyewitnesses', and all the peak Lord unanimously arguing for yqy's innocence even though none of the evidence pointed to him (or anywhere really) anyway.

yqy isn't sure if he should feel concerned all his martial siblings felt the need to assert his innocence, or touched that they believed so ardently in said innocence.