In my opinion, of fucking course it has to be post self-destruction for maximum angst.
To make it worse, I think Luo Binghe should have suspected something to this effect during his time in the Endless Abyss. After all, even though no one has ever ventured into the Endless Abyss and returned to tell the tale, so little is known about it...and yet, Binghe recognizes each and every monster and plant that tries to kill or drug him from Shizun's lessons.
At first he told himself it could just be a coincidence. His shizun is well known for his love of researching dangerous monsters. Maybe he'd compiled everything known to the cultivation world about the Endless Abyss and made theories about what else could live there, making some lucky guesses.
(But then why would he teach it all to Binghe? Why would he drill theory about a place no one returns from into his head? Why did whenever Shizun talked about the Endless Abyss, did he get that cold, distant look in his eye so much like how he looked at Binghe on the precipice?)
It's probably one of the few things keeping Binghe sane down there after Shen Qingqiu pushed him. Because if Shizun somehow knew the whole time that Binghe would end up here, why else would he prepare Binghe so thoroughly if not to see him through to the other side? It's a fragile hope that his beloved shizun didn't throw him away because of his tainted blood, but Luo Binghe has worked with less.
Of course, any thoughts of secret foresight and benevolence is pushed to the back of Binghe's mind once he finds and takes up Xin Mo. That fragile hope he nurtured like a candle flame is drowned out by the roar of his hurt at being cast down here by the man he loves, these feelings magnified by Xin Mo.
Luo Binghe achieves the impossible and escapes the Endless Abyss in the span of a single year. He breaks through into the Demon Realm and sets about bringing its major powers to heel at his feet, particularly the two demon lords that had once attacked him and his Shizun. With that particular matter done with, Luo Binghe turns his attention to the mortal realm and its righteous sects.
He infiltrates Huan Hua, ingratiating himself with ease to its masters and disciples (almost too easily).
And then Jin Lan City happens. He meets Shizun again, sooner than he had planned.
Binghe is overcome with the burning desire to know why his beloved teacher cast him aside, to prove Shen Qingqiu's fears wrong, to recapture the closeness they once shared.
Shen Qingqiu runs. Luo Binghe chases.
After the sowers are rounded up, accusations are thrown at Shen Qingqiu's feet and he surrenders himself to the Water Prison to await trial. Luo Binghe lets it happen. After all, Shizun can't run from him while ensconced in the Water Prison.
Shizun runs. Luo Binghe chases.
But Luo Binghe is at his limit. He falls apart on the rooftops of Hua Yue and thinks "this is it."
Shizun wraps his arms around Binghe like he had when Binghe was small. Of course, Binghe isn't small anymore, but the warmth is the same. The warmth grows to almost unbearable levels as Shen Qingqiu detonates his golden core to correct Binghe's imbalance, after, it fades all too fast.
Everything comes into horrible clarity too late.
Shen Qingqiu falls. Luo Binghe falls with him.
Shizun is gone in all the ways that matter by the time they hit the ground.
Time...gets a little funny for Binghe after that. It passes, but Binghe can only measure it in bowls of congee made and left uneaten, in fights with Liu Qingge, in hours spent pouring his qi into his shizun's corpse to stave off decay.
Somewhere in that time, Binghe must have retrieved the robes Shizun wore upon his capture. They're torn from the Little Palace Mistress's iron whip, crusted in placed with blood, and wrinkled so terribly it makes Binghe's heart break. It won't do. When if Shizun returns, he shouldn't be made to even see his precious robes in such a state.
Washing and mending Shizun's robes is meditative and familiar, though Shizun's scent has long since fled the fibers as surely as his soul fled his body.
Binghe only just remembers to check the sleeves for items that his brilliant if often forgetful Shizun might have stored in them. He finds the usual things. A couple of silk folding fans (Binghe doesn't recognize one of them, but it looks like the kind Liu Qingge would gift his Shizun from time to time. If that fan ends up mysteriously lost, then that's between him and no one else), talisman paper, stale candies he would often hand out to disciples who did well, some ribbons for tying back hair and flowing sleeves, some of those trashy novels Shizun pretended to not be interested in, a few plant clippings that had long gone dry and brittle.
Binghe thinks he gets it all but then his fingers brush against the spine of another book. Worn leather, cracked from constant and demanding use. He pulls it out, curious. It's a notebook.
Part of Binghe yells to put it aside like he never saw it, to not open it and disgrace the sanctity of what must have been his beloved Shizun's private thoughts. But another part of Binghe hungers for the words of his Shizun, even written and years removed from their creation.
He opens the notebook and reads.
And he is reminded of his old theory, that fragile hope that kept him moving as he fought his way out of the belly of hell itself.
Shizun knew. He had always known. About Binghe's heritage. About the disaster that befell that fateful Immortal Alliance Conference. About the Abyss. And Shizun had wracked his beautiful, brilliant, foolish brain to find a way to avoid Binghe's descent. Such thoughts consumed the first quarter of the notebook, characters shaky and frantic in ways Binghe had never seen from his refined, elegant Shizun. He could only read parts of it, the bulk of his Shizun's writing struck through harshly.
On the last page of Shizun's frantic scheming, Binghe catches mention of a "System" that won't allow Shizun to avert this particular event (there's also a lot of foul insults furiously scrawled across that page, some so vile they make Binghe's ears burn despite only reading them).
A note in the margins says "if I can't avoid it, I will prepare him best I can."
After that, the notebook becomes a step-by-step compendium of Shizun's numerous and detailed lessons on the dangers of the Endless Abyss. There's even notes about Xin Mo, which Shizun should by no right know of. But then again, there's a lot of things Shizun shouldn't know but does anyway.
Following this, a lot of the canon stuff happens. Shen Qingqiu revives in his mushroom body, is immediately gets kidnapped and brought to Binghe. Upon reunion, this becomes a System Reveal Fic where Shen Qingqiu sics the Protagonist on The System. Then something something happy ending!
vaporwave
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