#kamaetewrites

regardless, this shows that sqq does favor nyy in tangible ways and she isn't projecting the relationship. however, sqq does Not reciprocate or provide for nyy in typically paternal fashion. for example, the system says that it is in character for sqq to stay inside instead of accompany nyy to the market enough so it makes him tell her to ask literally anyone else (including lbh who he doesnt trust or see as competant) to walk around town while a murderer of young girls is on the loose.

i love interpeting this as some kind of terrible codependancy where sqq is using nyy to mirror and fix or overcome his past traumas by projecting qht upon her and replacing qjl as himself. now he holds all the power. and nyy imprinted on him, feeling the closest to him compared to her shixiong, as well as herself being likely isolated by sqq's favor, which leaves him as her closest relationship prior to lbh.

the thing with children is that, even for adults it's very hard to reconcile a person being nice to you, and then being mean to someone else. so for nyy whose whole safety system is sqq, and whose closest relationship was with sqq before lbh, it's no wonder she has a terrible time believing that lbh's treatment is cruel and unusual. besides the genre conventions of the premise and corporeal punishment perhaps (not confirmed) being accepted, nyy's own experiences help blind her to the reality of lbh's circumstances. because sqq treats her fairly, and she sees lbh failing at cultivating, being late to class (bc of extra chores or whatever), and she doesn't always see first hand him being punished or bullied, she automatically assumes the treatment lbh recieves at sqq's hands is deserved. this is compounded by lbh literally telling her to her face that sqq and his shixiongs are doing him a kindness aklsjfslka when she DOES try to help him

(obviously not his fault, her help often gets him into more trouble that she isnt there to see but it does help keep her believing the narrative that it's lbh's fault for making sqq mad or disappointed to the point of punishment.)

so we have nyy who things sqq isnt doing anything bad to lbh except that sometimes it makes her sad when lbh is hurt. we have lbh who turns to nyy for comfort even though that comfort often returns to him worse later. and sqq who is purpetuating cycles.

i also think, it would be very interesting if, to add to the weird ambiguous nature of sqq's and nyy's relationship, would be if sqq used her to help regulate his own emotions. i believe in the novel mf informs nyy when lbh gets punished by sqq (i am not sure if that's something im making up, sorry i dont have access to the novels rn) but regardless, i like to think it's because sqq is repeating behaviors he learned in the past, specifically, finding a calm in a girl nearby after letting himself go off on lbh for whatever reason. i like this reading for several reasons. the first: it adds another layer onto nyy and sqq's relationship that continues to make it suspicious and odd to outside viewers. the second: it reinforces nyy's believe in sqq's perspective of the narrative because she'd see sqq's aftermath before lbhs (due to cultivation and lbh's nature, giving him time to recover before nyy sees him). and third: it creates an unstable surface for nyy to stand upon.

sqq is her safety net but she is not unaware that he has lines that can be crossed that result in punishment. being a girl and sqq's favorite shields her from having to excel in swordsmanship and cultivation, but it can't shield her from everything and her closest friend being lbh who she knows is working hard but still gets punished all the time has to instil some sort of uncertainty upon her that if she steps wrong sqq may turn on her. she IS unaware that she could never cross sqq's line though, what with being a girl and sqq not believing that women have agency or are, like. people.

(RE sqq's benign misogyny: i believe that just doesn't. see women as fully realised complex human beings. i think his past as a slave really imprinted him the helplessness that girls are subjected to and even (to his perspective) foster. like? the girls he grew up with were taken advantage of, and then qht was so naive that she couldnt comprehend that sj's life might actually be a little bit bad when she wasn't looking. i think women, to him, are creatures to be pitied that cant actually harm him. he doesnt, as far as i remember, ever blame qht for her participation in his trauma. nor blame nyy for her participation in his trial whether her accusations were true or not. if he blames anyone it is the men he sees as manipulating them when he cannot be that man himself. so, there's that)

and then. the lingxi caves and the demon invasion arc. sqq murders liu qingge and fails to murder lbh. (allegedly)

i think it is heavily implied in the novel if not outright stated that the invasion arc was the turning point in lbh's views on sqq. previous to this he was holding onto the belief that he was doing something wrong and if he was just good enough sqq would praise him. that his shixiongs were mean but he'd become stronger for it. but after winning an impossible duel and his peers on the sect praising him, but sqq still hating him finally proves to him that sqq hates him and nothing can change that. that all this time sqq had just been cruel to him for no reason. (also, meng mo's influence upon him cementing that truth to him)

and on top of this we and liu mingyan, who sees lbh win and sqq's disdain of him and then finds out her only remaining family has been murdered in a cave by someone who should have been able to be trusted. AND. then watch as that murderer is pardoned by everyone.

so i think this is the point lmy starts hanging out with lbh and nyy. lmy and lbh bonding over sqq being a pos and lqg's murder and how unjust cang qiong is. i think it is possibly lmy that helps lbh see that it's not just sqq that's rotten, that the entire sect is aiding and abetting him. when sy wakes up in sqq's body and asks where lbh is yqy already knows sqq had him strung up in the shed. why? bc yqy was the one to find them and didnt do any thing about lbh? or someone reported that sqq qi deviated while punishing lbh and made the conscious decision not to tell anyone to let lbh down? whatever way it's obvious yqy has deferred to his shidi's decisions on his peak and seeings as yqy also did not pursue sqq for lqg's murder lmy would have reason to dislike him just as much as lbh, and perhaps help lbh see the dissonance between sect leader and his favoritism

so nyy's best friend lbh is now friends with a cooler, older girl who keeps talking shit about sqq. and i think, nyy could respond one of two ways. 1) distance herself from lbh and lmy and cling to sqq even harder. or 2) start becoming a little rebellious. lmy, raised on a peak of women for women who already is suspicious of and hates sqq, whose own brother talked about sqq's presence at brothels, would obviously be concerned about nyy's closeness with sqq. i think, either out of genuine worry and comeraderie or calculation, she could start pressing on nyy's relationship with sqq, with lbh helping

the thing is, i think both lbh and lmy could have genuine worry for nyy but i also think theyre both absolutely capable of manipulating nyy as well. just depends on the story youd like to tell. they both can be true at once, even.

anyways, nyy is jealous and in a precarious position, wants to keep her place as lbh's best friend and maybe be cool in her shimei's eyes as well, so i think it is very very plausible that she lets them talk her into also being a bit worried about her relationship with sqq. she's already living with the uncertainty of knowing sqq can be cruel, and now her two closest peers being suspicious of him all coalescing into unstable footing for nyy

THEN we have the immortal alliance conference and lbh's presumed death.

five years where nyy has to wonder if sqq killed her best friend and lmy is there to tell her, well. he killed my brother and hated lbh who would have stopped him? c:

five years of nyy wrestling with her grief as sqq spits on lbh's memory and lmy is there to comfort and grieve with her and protect her from sqq.

and then lbh comes back and nyy and lmy are there to be his inside sources at cqms (besides sqh who is. you know, another thing this isnt about him)

lbh comes back and can tell nyy to her face that sqq tried to murder him, that means of course he murdered liu qingge and this just. has to recontextualise everything for nyy. (at this point, lbh has also canonically dragged nyy into his dreams so, there is a fun additional element where lbh could have influence nyy's perception and memories through that)

by the time qiu haitang is added, and lmy and lbh can build an entire trial around her story, nyy is in the perfect place to join that testimony. she cannot refuse that lbh was mistreated, that lmy's quest for revenge is unfounded, she no longer can hide behind her doubts. :3 and qht, she's an older nyy isn't she? she was the innocent young lady who's entire world was turned upside down by sqq. she knows what nyy is feeling, her grief, the inability to believe sqq is capable of something like this! but he is! and she's there to help her.

so nyy, filled with guilt and not able to 100% trust her own memories, and still filled with a childish sense of justice… that's how she decides to testify against a man who has shaped her childhood regardless of whether he was, personally, intentionally, abusive of her. (though i do think even at his most charitable he was neglectful of her needs)

and i'm so ENCHANTED by the idea that she does this to help her friends lbh and lmy, and this stranger who she comes to know qht, get justice and then is shocked and horrified and betrayed when this leads to the razing of cqms, that this leads to sqq's prolongued and disproportionate torture. and i am ENCHANTED by the concept that she still loves lbh and cant blame him bc he's earnest and open and she remembers him as this sweet boy who came to her to hide from bullies and she still cannot rectify that a person can be two things at once, or, that she cant overcompensate for the difference bc look at what happened to sqq when she did that so she still loves him and closes her eyes to all his faults. he's kind to her.

this may be. my own bias but i like to think she blames lmy because everything was fine before she started hanging out with lbh and talking about how sqq killed her brother! maybe, if she hadn't convinced lbh that sqq hated him, lbh would have been a better disciple and sqq would never have tried to kill him and they could all be a happy family on qing jing peak. :)

and that's how nyy and lmy nasty hatefuck

"Would never host a breeding pair of—" here Shen Qingqiu's cold eyes rake over the flushed edges of Liu Qingge's gill covers, "—flathead gill worms?"

"There's not a breeding pair!" Liu Qingge defends himself. For all his pride, he'd rather swim off the edge of the trench and sink into the black depths before opening his school up to such a risky situation. He'd managed to claw the other one out before the pair had burrowed deep enough into his gills that he couldn't get a good enough angle, and he'd delighted in shredding the thing. "I already removed one."

"Then you got the wrong one! This inflamed I should think the thing has already laid it's insidious spawn and you're just an ink sack waiting to burst on all of us."

Liu Qingge hisses again, under Shen Qingqiu's furious face, but he can't help the twist of shame in his gut pinning his fins against the edges of his face. "It's not that—I have been taking care of it!" Shen Qingqiu scoffs in disbelief and Liu Qingge raises his voice. "I have! I've been packing my gills to suffocate it out. That's why they're irritated."

When Shen Qingqiu doesn't reply he forces himself to take a cycle of water through the gills at his neck. Small as they are, it's not very satisfying and the drag of water puts a pressure on them they weren't necessarily built to handle on their own, but the worm had settled in his fourth gill, so this is what he has to work with.

"If it weren't gone by the time Yue Qingyuan returned I would have gone to Mu Qingfang."

Shen Qingqiu lashes his tail at that, angrily churning the water beneath them. He turns with it, swimming a short distance away before coming back in an agitated circle of movement. "How did you even pick them up, they're only in—"

Shen Qingqiu falls silent and Liu Qingge represses the urge to laugh. He bares his teeth in a half smile, half snarl instead. "The western ship wreck?" He says, like he's offering the information Shen Qingqiu might have forgotten. As if Shen Qingqiu had forgotten exactly where he'd assigned Liu Qingge to patrol the moment Yue Qingyuan and his entourage had left Cang Qiong's reef boundary.

If Liu Qingge had been able to go with the traditional three-pod team one of the others might have been able to spot the danger in Liu Qingge's blind spot while he'd been focused on fighting off the juvenile colossal squid. If not that, they'd have been able to grab the offending little worms before they'd gotten all the way under his operculum. Shen Qingqiu had held back no theatrics when he pressed that the school was just so short finned with Yue Qingyuan away.

"I truly have erred," Liu Qingge says, lofty. "Thanking Shen Qingqiu for correcting me, I should have reported to Mu Qingfang immediately. With Shen Qingqiu's permission I will correct that now."

He doesn't actually make a move, though the way Shen Qingqiu's tail twitches as if to block his way makes him grin, fangs glinting. Shen Qingqiu glares and pulls back from his threatening curl; message well enough recieved. If Liu Qingge had gone to Mu Qingfang, Mu Qingfang would have asked what Liu Qingge was doing in the shipwreck alone and Shen Qingqiu's abuse of power would have gotten back to Yue Qingyuan.

Yue Qingyuan wouldn't do anything drastic about it, of course, nothing more than a scolding at least. But Shen Qingqiu's thin face could barely handle that, it seemed.

"What are you using?" Shen Qingqiu asks, breaking the tense quiet between them.

"Salt." The thick kind from the dead basin, the saltwater so dense there you could cup it in your palm, so toxic that fish who swam unthinking through it fell dead before reaching a tail length in. It burns the delicate edges of skin around his claws let alone his gills, but diluted enough he would live through it and the worm wouldn't.

Shen Qingqiu moves in again, sharp, and Liu Qingge does jerk back this time, swirling a burst of bubbles between them with the fast movement of his tail.

"Let me look. Leaving salt burns is just as bad." He glares at Liu Qingge, his dark hair framing his face making the jet chips of his eyes seem bigger. The little shining crown of shells and scales he wears glitters.

"Hah," Liu Qingge scoffs, then pauses under Shen Qingqiu's sustained glare. "As if I'd let you so near!" he says, his arm automatically moving to shield his gills.

"Mm," Shen Qingqiu's eyes go half-lidded, condescending in their relaxation. "Of course, if the War God is afraid of this scholar I will be more than happy to let you rot here by yourself."

The worm takes that moment to wriggle, the hard edges of its segmented body clipping the thin filaments of his gills. He makes a face that must be interesting because Shen Qingqiu loses his perpetual sneer in favor of a calculating focus. Shen Qingqiu sweeps the coil of his dark tail behind Liu Qingge, the movement buffering them closer with the water displacement.

"Let me look." Shen Qingqiu demands again, voice even and cool.

He doesn't look concerned, nothing like the professional consideration Mu Qingfang displays when Liu Qingge swims up to him with another injury, and nothing at all like the gentle empathy Yue Qingyuan sometimes casts his way when he decides debriefing is more important than visiting the healing beds. But he also doesn't have the sneaky, scummy cast to his face that normally rests there.

Shen Qingqiu looks even keeled, composed. The model of a senior who can be turned to when someone more specialized isn't available. Shen Qingqiu has never been someone Liu Qingge particularly trusts, is not even at the bottom of his list of people he would let close to him for help, but Shen Qingqiu is part of Cang Qiong's school.

He lifts his arm away from his gills.

Shen Qingqiu comes closer slowly, the stalking movement not at all helping Liu Qingge's nerves, but he can at least acknowledge that something quicker would be worse. Shen Qingqiu first rests the pad of his fingers against the inflamed edge of Liu Qingge's gill flap, making a face at the grit of the salt sticking to them.  His fingers are cold against Liu Qingge's skin, even more so than the ambient temperature of the ocean.

It could be just Shen Qingqiu's nature, he does run cooler than most of the other reef mers, but Liu Qingge has traded enough wrestling blows with him to catch the difference. Liu Qingge is running hotter than normal, his innate defense against illnesses jacking up his core temperature. He hadn't noticed.

"Messy," Shen Qingqiu chides under his breath as he brushes the clinging granules of salt away from his gills. "Open up, let me see."

Liu Qingge swallows before relaxing his tense muscles, letting his gills open and cycle fresh water. The cloud of denser salt water he'd been holding in seeps out and falls between the two of them.  Shen Qingqiu makes a noise just this side of neutral.

He lets himself drift lower, Liu Qingge guesses to get a better look, sinking in a parallel to the salt water. Liu Qingge tracks his slow descent.

Shen Qingqiu stares, his tail coiled around them both, his hand framing the open gill slit. His hair billows in the water, the loose tie it is bound with doing nothing to keep it contained. The silky black cloud of hair obscures Liu Qingge's view, his eyes catching on the sparkling, vain crown decorating Shen Qingqiu's head, following the delicate waving hair, glancing along the dark patterned coils of Shen Qingqiu's tail.

He feels warmer, noticing these things. Not for the first time, but the first time in a long, long while. Since Yue Qingyuan first brought the eel to Cang Qiong, probably. Before Shen Qingqiu opened his mouth and spit venom enough to distract from his long, shiny hair and his smooth flank.

It'd been so easy, at first, to understand Yue Qingyuan's bias. Shen Qingqiu had hovered at Yue Qingyuan's side, a portrait of striking contrast, a study of shell white and ink black and jade. His fins had been—still are, where they are covered by layers of diaphanous billowing material—tattered but far from weak the angle he'd held them at fanned the frayed edges like a crown themselves.

A threat, an invitation.

Too bad his temperament turned out to be so rotten, then, lashing out at even Yue Qingyuan. Spitting vitriol against any percieved slight and clawing desperately in even the most benign of spars.

Shen Qingqiu taps his finger idly as he observes.

Liu Qingge can't see, but his hand must be covering most of his side; Shen Qingqiu's finger is so close to his third gill which carries the reminder of what letting Shen Qingqiu under his guard can do. 

"You've burned yourself already." Shen Qingqiu finally says. "You'll recover but less so the longer you keep filling yourself with this concentration of salt."

Liu Qingge huffs. "Any less and it won't work."

"It's almost as if salt baths aren't the recommended procedure any more for a reason."

"Do you want me to go to Mu Qingfang or not."

The grip on Liu Qingge's side tightens as Shen Qingqiu looks up and glares at him. There's the lightest of sneers on his face, annoyance at the question. The lift of his lip shows a wicked curved fang. His mouth is only a few handspans away from Liu Qingge's gills.

Likely, Shen Qingqiu won't bite him.

Liu Qingge has been bitten by those teeth before, the long, needle like fangs sharp and piercing. They're meant for gripping onto wriggling prey as he slinks back into hiding, afterall. Nothing at all like Liu Qingge's own set of teeth, knife like, for wounding and tearing.

Shen Qingqiu has even drawn blood from Liu Qingge's gills before, getting his venomous claws under his third gill flap and tearing. He can feel it like a phantom now: the cruel edge of nail slicing through the flesh at his side.

Shen Qingqiu tilts his head at whatever he sees in Liu Qingge's face, furrowing his brow by the smallest of degrees. Liu Qingge blinks.

"Brute." Shen Qingqiu spits, rolling his eyes. He sways away from Liu Qingge, that intimate hand span opening up between them.

Liu Qingge bristles, but without knowing what he'd done this time to set Shen Qingqiu off, refrains from returning the insult.

"Well?" He demands instead. "What has looking got you?" His tail lashes at the water and he crosses his arms. The cool water replacing Shen Qingqiu's body sends a shiver through him that he resolutely ignores. Shen Qingqiu needs to offer a solution or go away and let Liu Qingge take care of it. At this rate, Liu Qingge is going to be quarantined for an entire moon cycle, riding through the parasite shed and his budding fever.

Shen Qingqiu sways in the water, the disconetent mou on his face shading towards disgusted as he observes Liu Qingge. He wants to bristle under the weight of that stare; he knows that Shen Qingqiu is looking at him and dissatisfied with what he sees.

He isn't self conscious, nor particularly vain, but he supposes it's easy to be that way when everyone around finds you handsome enough. All the mer in the reef eyeing the length and shine of his tail don't affect him as much as Shen Qingqiu deliberately scanning him head to fluke and then finding him wanting.

Him!

As if Shen Qingqiu has anything to brag about! His hair is long and smooth, waving like kelp in the loosely bound style he prefers to make himself look larger, but that's because the vain man spends half his day preening and grooming like a flirting lionfish! The long, muscled form of his tail he keeps curled up unless threatened, the dappled patterned fading away into the reef's shadows. He distracts from his scars and torn fins with layers of gauzy material, woven and beaded netting, prized scales from trophy hunts, like he's ashamed of the proof of his survival.

Liu Qingge tilts his chin up, his facial fins spreading arrogantly, and meets Shen Qingqiu's gaze with his own glare.

Shen Qingqiu turns calculating.

"I'll remove it."

Liu Qingge's fins flare up all at once, his tail even curling in warning. "Hah?" The exclamation is more out of disbelief than anything else.

"Are you a guppy now? Do you need me to rephrase for your jellyfish brain?"

"If it's that bad I will just go to Mu Qingfang!" Mu Qingfang has only ever snapped his teeth in warning, never actually bitten Liu Qingge. Looking was one thing, Shen Qingqiu can't actually think Liu Qingge would let him—

"I'm sure Mu Qingfang will love you showing up with salt burns and a parasite days after you should have. Forget the healing beds, he'll seal you up in the sea dragon cave himself. At least I'll have some peace and quiet then."

Liu Qingge should call Shen Qingqiu's bluff.

Liu Qingge should have bent his head and gone to Mu Qingfang first thing, but getting caught unaware by worms of all things... well. He'd thought he could take care of it on his own, the puckering little scratches the squid had left on him more than enough to distract anyone from noticing anything else. Whatever embarrassment he'd felt then is compacted doubly so now,

Being sealed up in the Sea Dragon cave for quarantine and spiritual healing this late into everything meant he'd still be shut away when Yue Qingyuan returned. Shen Qingqiu shouldn't have withheld a proper pod formation from Liu Qingge, but the blame for this would rest squarely on Liu Qingge regardless. First of all, there's little guarantee he'd have even taken a pod in the first place. He likes patrolling alone. Second, it was his decision to hide his affliction and try to take care of it himself.

There's always the possibility the worms had a chance to spawn and he's a been a potential swimming vector for infection for as long as he's been back at the reef.

Shen Qingqiu hums, a patronizing little sound as Liu Qingge wilts under the guilt.

"You aren't going back to the reef until it's gone." Shen Qingqiu declares. "Either let me take it out now or wait for me to send Mu Qingfang here."

Liu Qingge's fins twitches. "Did it spawn?"

Shen Qingqiu draws out the silence before he responds, probably enjoying Liu Qingge's blanching face. He finally clicks his tongue. "I didn't see anything like that. Still, the risk is too high without being sure."

Liu Qingge fights his instinct to curl and instead straightens out the length of his body. "Fine." He grits out, turning his head to glare into the distance.

"Fine, what?"

He hisses and clenches his fist in affront. Like Shen Qingqiu doesn't know!

"Really, Liu Qingge expects me to assume and then get accused later of malicious intent?" Shen Qingqiu pitches his voice higher than normal, like he's explaining a complex problem to one of the fry he teaches. "I won't go near you unless you ask."

It's Liu Qingge's turn to flick his tail and vent his irritation by swimming in tight circle. Shen Qingqiu watches him cooly as he laps around again, and again. It doesn't do anything but make his gills itch more at the exertion.

He finally slows in front of Shen Qingqiu, who raises a thin eyebrow in an expectant arch.

"Fine! Shen Qingqiu! Help me get it out!" He demands in a burst of bubbles.

"Of course," Shen Qingqiu says, magnanimous. He stays still, though, and it's a long, awkward moment before Liu Qingge realises that he's waiting for Liu Qingge.

"You! I already said to help! Come here!" His face feels far too warm for this and he closes his eyes to block Shen Qingqiu's smug face from his vision.

With his eyes closed he feels it more keenly as Shen Qingqiu draws closer, the currents shifting with the bulk of his body. He tries bearing it for as long as he can, but flicks his eyes open when Shen Qingqiu gets within a tail length.

"Move," Shen Qingqiu abandons his wordier inclination when he finally gets close enough to touch. He bats at Liu Qingge's arm so that he lifts it away from his gills before holding his hand out lengthwise against Liu Qingge's side.

"What..." he says before trailing off, because with the dark flash of Shen Qingqiu's eyes Liu Qingge suddenly understands.

Measuring.

Shen Qingqiu's hands are not a significantly different size than Liu Qingge's own. In fact, they're more slender, the joints in them fine and well shaped. But held against him like this they look twice their actual size. When Shen Qingqiu stretches out his fingers, Liu Qingge's muscle flinches where they graze against his skin.

"Hold still," Shen Qingqiu orders, "And hold these wider." Liu Qingge does, struck with the thought of the spur at Shen Qingqiu's wrist catching on the lip of his operculum. He stretches the barrel of his chest, flexing open his gills to their limit, but furrows his brows as he watches the black claws of Shen Qingqiu's hand.

"Your venom," the words fall out of his mouth softer than he intends them to be.

"Mm." Shen Qingqiu looks at his claws.

It's his spurs that are venomous, not his claws or his fangs, but Shen Qingqiu habitually spreads the viscous oil along his nails and lips. It's an irritant at that level more than dangerous, but Liu Qingge isn't keen to have any more of Shen Qingqiu inside him than necessary.

Shen Qingqiu delicately brings his claws to his mouth and laps around the hardened black tips of them. Liu Qingge's own mouth drops open as Shen Qingqiu licks the venom from his nails, wiping them clean with flashes of surprisingly pink tongue. He watches as Shen Qingqiu swallows and studies his hand before he looks back up.

His sneer resettles when he sees Liu Qingge's face. "This? Really?" He asks, condescension dripping through his words.

"What." Liu Qingge bites back. He jerks his head, "Stop—" showing off? Liu Qingge ignores the buzzing heat under his skin, the fever no doubt clouding his brain, "Just get on with it."

"You were the one so concerned," Shen Qingqiu says, but he does slip his hand back to Liu Qingge's side. He sinks down so that he's eye level with Liu Qingge's open gill flaps, studying them with the same intensity as before. His splays one hand underneath Liu Qingge's bottom most gill, the other hand against his side, thumb resting against his third gill.

His hair again wafts around him, veiling Shen Qingqiu's sharp expression from Liu Qingge. He looks up and away, at the dancing lights up at surface.

"Hmm, what's this?" Shen Qingqiu's thumb has found the edge of the scar there, the one that should have healed clean but clotted because of Shen Qingqiu's poison. It is slim enough to be nearly invisible from an appropriate distance. Shen Qingqiu is not at an appropriate distance. Liu Qingge feels him slot the tip of his claw at the edge of the scar, feels him follow it down its path across Liu Qingge's skin to where it slips inside him.

"Shen Qingqiu!" He forces out between his grit teeth. He's holding himself so tense now that his tail is twitching with it. His hands flex where he has them raised, hovering over Shen Qingqiu's head. Shen Qingqiu doesn't even acknowledge him, just hooks his thumb under Liu Qingge's gill flap without preamble, making the same tugging motion he'd done to make the damn scar in the first place.

"Shen—" his words break off into a warning hiss as he jerks backwards. He pushes Shen Qingqiu automatically, one hand knocking at his face and the other at his shoulder to create distance.

"Don't move!" Shen Qingqiu orders, his tail curling ominous behind Liu Qingge's back, boxing him in, and his other hand digging in to hold on. His claws aren't especially gentle with it, five points pricking into Liu Qingge's skin enough to draw a bead of blood each. The thumb hooked under his gill flattens enough to avoid tearing at least, and Liu Qingge steadies himself.

As soon as he stops pushing Shen Qingqiu backs away, contrary as always. His lips are pulled back in a snarl and he fusses at the mess Liu Qingge had made of his hair.

"Brute," he condemns.

"Don't just stick your hand in!" Liu Qingge cries, full of offense.

"And how am I supposed to get that worm out without sticking my hand in?" Shen Qingqiu blows a frustrated stream of bubbles, a shockingly childish move for him.

Liu Qingge forces a cycle of water through his gills to calm down. This time able to draw in water from his neck and pass it down to flush out at his sides. He can feel the foreign parasite sway inside him with the water's movement. It scuttles. Liu Qingge bites his lip.

"I— Try again." He demands. "I won't move this time."

Shen Qingqiu scoffs and tosses his hair. "You're not worth this much trouble. Getting Mu Qingfang involved would be less tiresome."

That doesn’t—Liu Qingge does not feel any way about that. His stomach does not swoop. It's nothing different then Shen Qingqiu's usual shameless critiques, his hypocritical insults. Just because Liu Qingge is feverish and had let Shen Qingqiu get under his guard—

"You already said you'd help!" He works on not curling in on himself, instead shifting uncomfortably as his gills flex. The flathead gill worm—if that's what it was—seems to spread out as his gills relax to a natural position. Without its partner and with the repeated dosing of salt it's been acting more agitated, writhing through his gill structure in increasingly distracting ways.

"I said I wouldn't be accused of something malicious later. I'm not letting Yue Qingyuan or Mu Qingfang accuse me of ambushing you just because you can't stay still and get clawed up!"

"I'll tell them—"

"That I was only helping? You'd get us both checked for brain worms. You'd be better off letting them believe whatever they came up with, like you usually do."

He clenches his jaw as Shen Qingqiu's tail curls over itself, agitated and jumpy. Shen Qingqiu isn't wrong, if Liu Qingge jumped to his defense the entire reef would think he was posessed. In his defense, Shen Qingqiu is usually in the wrong and with Yue Qingyuan unwilling to put any pressure on him, Liu Qingge was one of the only ones who would call him out, for whatever little good that did.

"I won't move." He repeats instead.

"Tch." Shen Qingqiu turns his back.

But he stays, so be doesn't really want to leave Liu Qingge to Mu Qingfang's care. Or at least, he doesn't want to deal with the messy fallout that would cause more than he doesn't want to deal with Liu Qingge. Does he want to be coaxed? Liu Qingge is bad at negotiating.

He swims in a crescent around Shen Qingqiu so they face each other again. He can't think of anything to say except to repeat himself so he does again.

"Yes, you clearly did so well the first time."

"Then what do you want me to do?" He asks. "You'd just startled me. I won't be caught unprepared again."

"I'm not letting your hands anywhere near me." Shen Qingqiu says. Hippocritical, considering that Liu Qingge wasnt the one to scratch anyone, but this means Shen Qingqiu will try again. So Liu Qingge nods.

He raises his hands, but Shen Qingqiu shakes his head sharply. "No, behind your back."

"Fine." He hesitates though, before folding his dorsal fin down and clasping his arms behind him. Without the large fin catching the current he sinks in the water. His small anterior fins flap, useless in trying to tread the waters.

Before he can give up and break position to rebalance himself or sink much further, Shen Qingqiu curls his tail under Liu Qingge, stopping him.

"Better," Shen Qingqiu says, curling around him. Liu Qingge follows his movements as far as he can, before Shen Qingqiu slips behind him.

"Hey—"

"This is a better angle," Shen Qingqiu says, "And I don't trust you to keep your hands to yourself. Stay still."

Liu Qingge subsides as Shen Qingqiu hooks his chin over his shoulder. His tail loops around Liu Qingge, curling tight in a way uniquely suited to his eel body. The thick flex of muscle stabilizes him, but it also makes his heart beat faster, the threat of letting an ambush predator so close, to sneak up behind him, hanging palpable in the water.

Then Shen Qingqiu wraps his arms around Liu Qingge's sides, his fingers encouraging the gill flap to lift open more, holding it out just a bit further than it's supposed to go.

"Ah—" he cuts himself off, unsure of what he was going to say. Stop? Of course not, he needs that worm out even by Shen Qingqiu's hand. Be careful? Shen Qingqiu would either be careful or not, any platitude Liu Qingge gives is less than useless and more likely to turn Shen Qingqiu sharp.

"Quiet," Shen Qingqiu says anyways, "Don't distract me."

Liu Qingge focuses on being still and not the cool fan of water against his skin where Shen Qingqiu's gills work.

There's a pause and then, "Brace yourself, if you must." Before clever fingers slip under his inflamed operculum and slide two, three knuckles inside with a smooth motion. He flinches, reflex, but throttles any further motion. His hands clench into fists behind his back, something Shen Qingqiu can surely feel, plastered to him as he is.

Shen Qingqiu doesn't give Liu Qingge any more mercy than that first brief warning. He stretches his fingers, feeling the structure of the gills settled inside Liu Qingge, curling them to get a feel for the space. They're cold against the heated flush of his skin. He crooks his fingers through the fine filaments of Liu Qingge's gill structure and he itches, the prodding of Shen Qingqiu's fingers leaving a trail of hypersensitive tingling.

He twitches, his gill flaps trying to flinch closed. It's almost ticklish, the way Shen Qingqiu combs his claws through the thin strings of his gills. The hand Shen Qingqiu is using to hold him open pinches at him, and Shen Qingqiu makes a warning noise in his throat.

It vibrates through the water and settles somewhere in Liu Qingge's spine, and he stills.

"Sorry," he breathes and forces himself to pull his shoulders back. It draws him like a bow, arching so that his gills are forced to flare open a bit more. "I'm staying still."

At this, Shen Qingqiu stops his own movements, going eerily quiet and still behind him.

Liu Qingge belatedly remembers he'd been ask to be quiet and frowns. A questioning noise slips out from the back of his throat before he cuts himself off. When Shen Qingqiu still doesn't restart, he casts a  strained look out of the corner of his eye.

He can't see much, just his own chest and Shen Qingqiu's pale arms against him, and the ink black of Shen Qingqiu's hair unfurling around them.

He resists squirming.

Is he still doing something wrong? He can't be, Shen Qingqiu delights in correcting him with the most venomous of words at the smallest provocation. He wouldn't just let Liu Qingge flounder when he could instead verbally flay into him. He bites his lip, just to bleed off the unusual anxious energy and instead let's himself sink into his body the way he does before hunts.

He knows what he needs to do: stay still, be quiet. He's already let Shen Qingqiu this far, questioning it at this point is a little too late for use.

It's the correct choice because Shen Qingqiu starts moving again. He doesn't acknowledge Liu Qingge, which is right of him. He is focusing on something.

Shen Qingqiu pushes his hand deeper into Liu Qingge, until his fingers are fully sheathed in Liu Qingge's gill cavity. The meat of his palm stretches the mouth around it, and he knocks into the gill arches when he moves.  He isn't particularly gentle about it, caring little about Liu Qingge's comfort as he flexes and reaches further.

He spreads his fingers out, pushing the curved back of his claws into the inflamed walls of Liu Qingge's irritated cavity. It burns, both the stretch at Shen Qingqiu's palm and the insistent prod of his fingers. Liu Qingge draws water in, flushing it through his gills trying to cool the heated flesh. Instead the water streams around Shen Qingqiu's fingers, whirling into little eddies, curling back through his gills and tangling his filaments.

"Do that again," Shen Qingqiu says, voice cold. "Keep up a steady flow; it will encourage the worm out."

He does, gulping the water and pushing it through in repeated cycles, each new rush rippling inside of him, dashing off Shen Qingqiu's hand and tearing through the sensitive, fevered and salt burned flesh. His throat clicks with it, the feeling of churning inside him, like a basin being worn deeper with every tide. Shen Qingqiu grunts by his ear, an annoyed noise as he sharply jerks his fingers but catches nothing.

He pulls out in a swift long motion, leaving Liu Qingge feeling hollowed, scooped out in the wake of Shen Qingqiu's hand. He makes an involuntary noise as his gill flap tries to close. Shen Qingqiu keeps it held open, peeling it back even more.

"Ah—Shen—" he starts but Shen Qingqiu cuts him off.

"Brace, Liu Qingge. I need to reach deeper." His voice is still passive, aloof even. Liu Qingge feels almost dizzy, the influx of oxygen from the rapid cycling through his gills making him heady. He can feel, in a distant kind of way, the flathead worm curling inside him.  The lip of his gill feels puffy and tight, still burning from the salt water treatment and where it rubbed tight against Shen Qingqiu's hand.

Deeper? There couldn't be much room left in the space inside him.

Shen Qingqiu plunges his hand back between the splayed lips of Liu Qingge's gill slit catching again at the thickest part of his palm. It feels like he tries to flatten his hand out to narrow it, but his fingers knock hard into the gill arches inside, jostling straight through Liu Qingge, shuddering up his spine and sending a prickling tingle through his scalp.

His breath catches and he clacks his teeth, choking on a noise. He doesn't quite choke up on the full body flinch, jolting Shen Qingqiu against him again. The fat stretch of Shen Qingqiu's palm at his gill, Shen Qingqiu's fingers twitching in surprise at his sudden movement, the uncomfortable sway of the worm deeper inside him, Liu Qingge jerks, caught on the hook of Shen Qingqiu's hand.

His body slips out of his control, wriggling to pull away, the overwhelming glut of sensation inside him shoving him out of his senses. He thinks he's making noise—embarrassing to be be whining so close to Shen Qingqiu—but he's barely cognizant of it as he flicks his tail and tries to spread his fins.

Weight envelops him, almost suffocating, as he writhes and jerks. He'd closed his eyes at some point in his tossing, trying to cut off at least one overwhelmed sense.  Gradually the weight increases and he becomes aware of his heaving gills, struggling to keep up with his breath. He swallows, deliberately slows his breathing, let's his awareness rise back up.

The weight is Shen Qingqiu bearing down on him in all ways: his arms locked tight, his tail coiled in several loops, his chin digging into Liu Qingge's shoulder. His hand is curled into a tight fist, stretching Liu Qingge's gill painfully. But his claws are tucked neatly away from Liu Qingge's delicate viscera.

His heart still pounds but he can hear a rattling growl over it. Beside him. The deep rumble from Shen Qingqiu's chest is mostly vibration in the water, with just enough sibilant hiss to prick at Liu Qingge's skin.

"You'll stay still, will you?"

Something plunges to the pit of Liu Qingge's stomach at Shen Qingqiu's tone. "I—"

"You can't stay quiet, either?" Liu Qinnge snaps his jaw shut hard enough the clack is audible in the water.

Liu Qingge isn't a fresh faced fry, to quail under Shen Qingqiu's disappointment, but it chokes him anyway. Shen Qingqiu's fist tight against his opening and the suffocating press of his tail coiled around him have Liu Qingge desperate. What for he isn't quite sure but it has him biting his tongue.

He leans back in Shen Qingqiu's grip, displaying the long line of his neck by dropping his head against Shen Qingqiu's shoulder. It's to accomodate the backwards arch he needs to flex open his gills just that bit more, lacking the privilege to use his hands to pry himself open more effectively. Failing to stay still or keep quiet, the least he can offer is stretching himself out and open for Shen Qingqiu. To make it easy for him.

He strains as he tenses his operculum, holding it splayed and curled open. He leverages himself against the loop of Shen Qingqiu's tail, even, to push the barrel of his torso up into Shen Qingqiu's hand.

He stays resolutely quiet.

Shen Qingqiu stops growling at least.

He turns his face towards the column of Liu Qingge's throat, nose brushing against his facial fin. It's an awkward position, but Liu Qingge tries shifting it out of Shen Qingqiu's way, holding it pinned back and lifted.

There's absolutely no reason to give Shen Qingqiu this much leave, this close to his neck. The worm won't migrate to the smaller gill cavity there and letting Shen Qingqiu so close is an actively bad idea.

Liu Qingge tilts his head anyways.

If Shen Qingqiu bites it's the least admonishment he'd deserve.

Shen Qingqiu clicks his tongue, hooking his chin back over Liu Qingge's shoulder.  He uncurls the fist he'd made, pressing inexorably forward. Then he rocks his hand back, letting Liu Qingge's gill tug with the motion. He keeps his fingers lax and his wrist stiff as he pushes and pulls his hand like waves lapping at the shoreline. With each withdrawal Liu Qingge feels his gill stretching a little more, and with each press in, Shen Qingqiu's hand advances.

Liu Qingge bows back more, trying to help, trying to ease the pressure of Shen Qingqiu plugging him so full, when finally something gives and Shen Qingqiu's hand slips past the ring of Liu Qingge's gill, burying itself fully inside Liu Qingge's thoracic cage.

Liu Qingge gasps.

Each breath feels shorted now, trying to work past the mass of Shen Qingqiu's hand. He recalls Shen Qingqiu telling him to brace. Deeper? Still? Any deeper and Shen Qingqiu will be reaching into his throat. Any deeper and he will be holding Liu Qingge's rapidly beating heart in his palm.

His hand is so big. And cool: a block of ice inside him, right at his core. His hand is intrusive, making the gill arches bend to accomdate it's heavy presence. His nails are so sharp, Liu Qingge can almost feel them tickling at the individual lamellae lining each filament. Evened bent as far back as he is, his operculum half shutters, tensing against Shen Qingqiu's blessedly slim wrist. It reminds him of the spur there, at the joint.

Sharp and actually dangerous, in the real way Shen Qingqiu's threat displays often lack, the venomous spine at his wrist rubs at Liu Qingge's skin. Shen Qingqiu really can't go any further or he'll tear Liu Qingge on the way out.

"What now?" Shen Qingqiu asks, and Liu Qingge realises he's made a noise so indescribable he is just going to forget that it came out of him.

He doubts Shen Qingqiu actually wants an answer, and even if he does, Liu Qingge is not going to attempt to articulate the thoughts swimming in his head. He doesn't even understand fully himself. It's just the cool threat of Shen Qingqiu, his teeth so close to his neck, the venom so close to his gills, the long coil of his tail wrapped tight around him.

Shen Qingqiu doesn't push for an answer. No longer needing to hold Liu Qingge open, his free hand hooks around Liu Qingge's collar. Some tension eases out of Liu Qingge. Shen Qingqiu can pull him back, now, if he untenses from his bowed posture.

"Cycle again," Shen Qingqiu commands.

Liu Qingge does so, switching from passively letting water through his gills to sucking it down and forcing it through his system. It feels like breathing around a rock. He does it again.

Shen Qingqiu hums lightly as the water buffets against his hand. It is settled in the open cavity of Liu Qingge's gills like it's made a home there. Like Shen Qingqiu has remolded the very shape of Liu Qingge to fit inside of him. Shen Qingqiu doesn't move his hand, not even a twitch, and at once Liu Qingge is grateful and longing.

If Shen Qingqiu had kept rocking his hand in that rhythmic undulation he'd used to get inside, surely Liu Qingge wouldn't have been able to withstand it. Even the water rushing through his gills teeters on the edge of too much. It would surely feels as though Shen Qingqiu were punching through him. But his tail tenses and relaxes in an echo of that same rhythm, held tight as it is by Shen Qingqiu.

It presses his scales against the smoothe hide of Shen Qingqiu's porous skin. It is almost the same motion as breathing, an imitation of the swelling waves. A heartbeat, between them.

"If you come," Shen Qingqiu says, startling Liu Qingge, "Do not come on me."

His voice is as cool and distant as ever, the perpetual shade of disgust veneering it. Liu Qingge lifts his head to glance down, sees Shen Qingqiu buried to his wrist inside him, and groans, closing his eyes. Shen Qingqiu scoffs at him.

His arm slides away from Liu Qingge's neck, slipping down the length of his body, past his chest, past his gills, down below—

Liu Qingge opens his eyes and jerks his head down sharply.  His claspers are embarrassingly engorged, standing out of the hollow channel they usually rest in. Even the v-shaped slit between his pelvic fins has slid open, winking as he trembles.

Shen Qingqiu's free hand slides right over his slit, his palm catching on its lip enough to make Liu Qingge groan, strangled. Shen Qingqiu grabs the elegantly tapered columns of Liu Qingge's claspers and folds them back along Liu Qingge's body into the hollow they belong. The pressure and slide as Shen Qingqiu tries to fit them flat back against his body has Liu Qingge's vision hazing and his mouth dropping open. He manages a weak twist before Shen Qingqiu's teeth snap at his facial fin.

"No," he says, simply, and Liu Qingge stops again.

Shen Qingqiu holds Liu Qingge's claspers back down and slides the coils of his tail up in a sinuous motion. He slips his hand away, but Liu Qingge is held bound tightly by Shen Qingqiu's thickly muscled tail.

Liu Qingge thinks, if he comes like this there is no way he isn't getting it on Shen Qingqiu.

Liu Qingge focuses on staying as still as he can, but he can feel Shen Qingqiu's pulse through the soft skin of his tail against his own throbbing arousal. Shen Qingqiu keeps shifting as well: a soft flutter of his body length fins to keep them steady, the clench of his muscles to keep his tail wrapped securely around Liu Qingge. It's a different kind of pulsing rhythm, one much more familiar to Liu Qingge's body. It makes his teeth ache.

He wants so much.

He flushes a new cycle of water forcefully through his gill system. Shen Qingqiu had not told him to stop.

Then Shen Qingqiu moves so sharply it really does feel like Liu Qingge is being speared straight through. It punches the voice out of him, leaving him warbling a long, wrecked note as Shen Qingqiu thrusts his hand what can't be more than a knuckles length but feels like the entirety of his arm.

He feels a flood of thick liquid inside of him, a sudden burst of molten heat against the sensitive lining of his gills. Shen Qingqiu's hand is fisted again, grasped tightly around something.

"Ah—" Liu Qingge tries clamping his mouth shut, but the noises escape even through his teeth. Shen Qingqiu has certainly speared something on his sharp claws, but the parasite's writhing death throws only twist itself against Liu Qingge's gills, jolting him with each frantic roll.

"Ah— uhn—" each little noise gets dragged out of him as it's rough carapace catches inside of him. He can't even tell if it's tearing at him, he's so tensed and stretched tight. He eyes sting with heat, the second lid shut tight as he convulsed, scaling up the tiny dying movements inside of him.

"Not a flathead," Shen Qingqiu observes as its twitching gentles. "Lucky. I don't think you could hold still for me to pull it from you slow enough that it didn't break."

There's a moment that Liu Qingge is actually there, with a flathead worm wrapped around Shen Qingqiu's fingers, being drawn segment by segment, achingly slow, from between Liu Qingge's gills. Flatheads tangled themselves in the filaments as well, each fingerwidth hard-won with the tearing pain of separating the worm from his viscera. Trembling to keep holding still, to keep from clamping down tight and snapping the worm. Having to do it all again, the fingers, the stretch, the fist, if he failed.

The very visceral feeling of Shen Qingqiu pulling his hand out of Liu Qingge's gill mouth snaps his attention back. He watches as Shen Qingqiu's wrist withdraws, his fist catching again at the lip of his gill. He can't possibly pull out like that, Liu Qingge thinks, not with how much it took to get it in there. But Shen Qingqiu can't let1 go of the worm either—

Shen Qingqiu's fist tugs at the raw edge of Liu Qingge's gill, stuck and pulling. Tighter and tighter it draws at Liu Qingge, until it feels like Shen Qingqiu is trying to remove his entire thoracic cage with the worm. It so much, pressure, pain, over sensitive fleshed being rubbed, that he's about to make a protest when Shen Qingqiu's needle sharp teeth ghost along his neck.

He gasps, hoarse and raw, and his gill opens just enough with the surprise that Shen Qingqiu's fist pops out. A flood of red murky water follows, presumably from the limp segmented worm in Shen Qingqiu's grip.

It looks, in almost every possible way, like Shen Qingqiu gutted him.

"It's just a rainbow feathered worm." Shen Qingqiu says, holding the long thin body in front of them. Not a gill parasite then, no danger at all to the reef just Liu Qingge's gills.

A flare of qi rises around them and he feels untethered from his own body once more.  Everything fades away except for the light and Luo Binghe's startled face. Shen Qingqiu's soul floats and he goes from looking at the star-lit depths of his disciples eyes (he goes from staring up at their jet-dark coolness) to blinking, disoriented, as the System-induced headache (the hot pulse of pain in his hand and chest) fade away, and the light flares and softens the edges of reality.

He doesn't remember dying, but he feels soul-deep like this is familiar. It's not painful though, not like the seal breaking, wouldn't dying be painful? No, he dismisses the thought, dying doesn't have to be painful. Most things aren't painful, as they're happening actually.

He can accept that, but this still isn't dying. He feels full, overflowing, but alive. Because the seal is broken? Or because his body has been—oh the seal. That rift. The Sy— the fall.

But there's no one standing by the rift's edge except for him. Is he too late? Did he already push him (did he already fall)? He's not dead so that must mean he went through with it (that must mean he stopped).

Where's Binghe? (Where's Shizun?)

He should ask what's going on (he already knows) but when he glances to his peripheral nothing stands out to him.  He raises his hand in an instinctual gesture to summon something but he's distracted by the pink-line on his palm.

It's where Xiu Ya cut him. Them? Him.

Oh. They fused.

They fused!

Oh no, they fused!

A flash of light and their souls rip apart, Shen Qingqiu flinging himself backwards and away from Luo Binghe. Him? Fuse with the protagonist? As if pushing the boy into the Abyss wasn't enough now he's gone and mixed his soul up with Binghe's when even the original Stallion Protagonist had never done that particular dance with anyone.

As if Luo Binghe needs any more reason to peel Shen Qingqiu's limbs from him! Wasn't he the one who speculated about the intimacy of fusing and fusion dances in the forums?! Didn't he say that Luo Binghe refusing to fuse with even any of his many wives symbolized a deep chasm of mistrust and justified fear of vulnerability?

Didn't the forums go ballistic when the Original Scum Villain's scummier past was revealed where that Qiu Haitang sister accused him of force fusing with her brother and using the power to wipe out their entire manor? Did that make him as bad as the original goods?

The moment their souls separate back into two distinct bodies the system's red warning screen comes back to life in the corner of Shen Qingqiu's vision. He's not terribly concerned about that because, after everything, Shen Qingqiu jerking out of Luo Binghe's hold is what sends the boy stumbling off the edge of the rift.

"Shizun!"

"Binghe—" Shen Qingqiu forgets himself and flings himself forward, land on his hands and knees to look into the rift's opening. His hand is outstretched, as if he can do anything in this moment other than watch as Luo Binghe falls.

When Liu Qingge and Yue Qingyuan find him he's still kneeling where the rift pulled itself closed.

----

Yue Qi is the oldest of the kids and the strongest, but he never really feels strong.  Not when Xiao Jiu goes to bed hungry more often then not. Not when Yue Qi gets sick, and Xiao Jiu has to work even harder to cover for both of them.

There is something that does make Yue Qi feel strong, though. Oh, he knows they're not supposed to do it, just like practicing making dancing lights or Xiao Jiu's sharp-tricks. He can't find it in himself to discourage it all too much though.

When he and Xiao Jiu dance together they become closer than anyone could even dream. Together, as one being in mind, spirit, and body, they are strong. Xiao Jiu has always been the one to shore up Yue Qi's weakness but like this it feels as though they have no weaknesses at all.

Where Yue Qi is too trusting, placid, ox-strong and (Xiao Jiu says) too stupid to live, and Xiao Jiu is suspicious, mischievous, cutting and mercurial as one being they are balanced. They are even-keeled, clever, optimistic but not naive.  They're beautiful as well, in their own opinion. Longer, deep hair and pale skin with Xiao Jiu's sharp eyes and Yue Qi's friendly smile.  They also have Yue Qi's eyes, set above Xiao Jiu's, and another set of arms.

If anyone saw them they'd be called a demon and even together they aren't strong enough to fight or fast enough to run...

So they don't stay fused for long.  It's not smart to be caught looking like a demonic freak (Xiao Jiu says) and Yue Qi isn't strong enough to protect them. Not yet. He thinks, if he gets better in his own body, then surely someday they'll be strong enough to run away together.

Someday they can run away together and maybe they can find a place no one will bother them even if they stay fused together. Yue Qi thinks he'd like that; together as one with Xiao Jiu forever.

----

"You know, fusing isn't actually a metaphor for sex." Shang Qinghua says to his black-powder fan, who cracks his fan open in front of his face.

"Everything you wrote was a metaphor for sex."

"Okay!" He says, because. Well. It's not like Cucumber-Bro is wrong. "It's not just a metaphor for sex. If it was just sex, my son would've been fusing with every new sister in his harem. You think I didn't see how many requests I got to write what a Sha Hauling and Luo Binghe fusion would be like?"

"But fusing represents the more vulnerable aspects of sex!  That's why—" Cucumber-Bro starts to say before Shang Qinghua interrupts him.

"It's a metaphor for relationships! Intimacy in relationships!"

"—Ah?" Cucumber-bro shuts his mouth and taps his fan against his lips.

"It can be any type of relationship, not just a sexual or romantic one.  It's just meant to represent vulnerability between individuals expressed in a tangible way and..." Shang Qinghua trails off when he notices Cucumber-bro's eyes narrowing at him.

"Great Master Airplane," he starts, "you never added any of that into your story."

"It was subtext?" He tries.

"I think you just wanted to write a knock off dragon ball gimmick so you had cool villains for Binghe to fight!"

"Well! It's not like anyone wanted to pay for a meta narrative focused on cannon fodder!"

"Why did you abandon all your best ideas!?" Cucumber-Bro wails, throwing his fan at Shang Qinghua's head.

Shang Qinghua catches it this time and grins triumphantly at his friend. Shen Qingqiu makes a frankly hilarious face and dives fist first at Shang Qinghua. 

"Give that back—let me—it's absolutely my right to hit you for every cool plot you abandoned, you hack!"

"No! I saw you in the comments! You think fusing is cool, that means you can't hit me over this one!"

"Can't I?" Shen Qingqiu grapples over the fan with Shang Qinghua.

Their palms slide together and Shang Qinghua laughs, because Cucumber's face looks exceedingly out of character: flushed red and comically angry.  "You can't if you can't catch me!" He sing-songs and tries to slip away.

Shen Qingqiu quickly flips his grip to hold Shang Qinghua's wrist, jerking him closer.  Shang Qinghua reflexively rests his hand on Shen Qingqiu's chest, and when he tries to grab at the fan again Shang Qinghua dances away, spinning out from where Shen Qingqiu still holds his wrist.

He laughs, buoyed with the momentum and when he opens his eyes he sees the fan in his hand.

"Got it!" He says.

His voice sounds different. In fact, his hand also looks different.

Oh, we fused. He—they—think.

A slick curl of nausea rises from the pit of their stomach while the rest of them sparks in confusion.

Nonsensically, their last thought is I'm not even gay? before the fusion destabilizes and Shang Qinghua is stumbling backwards, unbalanced.

Shen Qingqiu looks pale. He's holding the fan, and half his robes are in An Ding colors now. "I—" he says, then takes a step backwards. "I didn't mean to—Sorry."

Then he's gone, fan no doubt in front of his face as he glides out the door. Shang Qinghua finds himself sitting on the floor, blinking in confusion.

He plucks at the collar of his robe, Qing Jing teal.

----

The Abyss is hell. Every day longer that Luo Binghe spends in it is another flood of blood and filth staining him.  It's too late to salvage the bits of Shizun's robes that were mixed together with his after their fusion... separated.  His disciple uniform and Shizun's robes were of similar quality and color so he hadn't even noticed the different embroidery and slight differences in cut until he'd been forced to tear at his clothes for strips.

It's pointless to try and save the pieces of Shizun's wardrobe he found himself carrying but he tries to anyway. If only because each time he sees them he's reminded that Shizun walked away from their fusion wearing the matching pieces from his uniform.

He doesn't know if that means much to Shizun right now. It's possible Shizun had taken the first moment he could to scour every sign of Luo Binghe from his Peak.  Could Luo Binghe even blame him, concealing his heritage from him and hiding in a righteous sect right under their noses.

Shen Qingqiu had tried to push him into the abyss.

But he hadn't, actually, pushed him.  He'd reached out.

They'd fused.

It was confusing, a jumbling mess, but however disoriented and brief they were one in mind and soul.  Luo Binghe had felt, then, the desperate need to know what had happened to his Important Person. It got muddied with Luo Binghe's feelings for his Shizun, he knows, but he remembers feeling fearful, anxious, frustrated.

He remembers feeling like he wouldn't do this, if he had a choice.

For all Luo Binghe knows, Shizun just regretted that his favorite disciple was an irredeemable demon. He was scared, because Luo Binghe was revealed to be a demon, he was anxious because of what that could mean for the sect. Frustrated because Luo Binghe was making things difficult.

But couldn't it also be that Shizun was fearful for Luo Binghe? He was anxious about their fates, frustration coming from the situation? That Shizun didn't want to push Luo Binghe, but felt he had to?

Maybe Luo Binghe can show Shizun that he is more righteous cultivator than he is demon. He'll settle things in the demon realm, learn to conceal his blood, and then when he makes it back to the human realm he'll prove to Shizun that he's good.

It's a slim hope to stake himself on, but Luo Binghe has never given up once yet. He is not about to start.

He forces himself up the obsidian-black stairs to the raised dias in the center of a bone covered field. A sword stands upright in front of him, black and sharp and heavy with intent. His hand itches.

He just needs to get out of the abyss first, and then he'll prove everything to Shizun.

----

Shen Jiu tries to gasp for breath under Qiu Jianluo's hand. He kicks his legs to no avail. Qiu Jianluo just tightens his grip.

"Come on, Xiao Jiu." Shen Jiu has to focus to hear him through the whooshing noise of his own blood in his ears. "Just fuse with me already."

Shen Jiu wants to lick the blood off his split lip and spit in Qiu Jianluo's face.  He wants to claw the man's eyes out.  But across the manor is his new fiancé, sitting in her room with her maids taking down her hair and getting her bed ready for the night.

He's realizing now, after three years, that he absolutely cannot wait any longer.  If Qi-Ge was going to make it back he would have by now, and if Shen Jiu let's himself be married to Qiu Haitang he won't ever be seeing himself leave the Qiu house at all.

He swallows, can't speak past Qiu Jianluo's hand, and tries nodding instead.

"Oh? Have you decided to stop with your tantrum already?"

Shen Jiu could cough blood, he's so mad. He makes himself nod.

Qiu Jianluo pulls back his hand. "Well?" He asks, expectant.

"Fine."

Shen Jiu still remembers what it felt like to fuse with Qi-Ge, years ago now. Even then, with the person he trusted most in this or any other life, he'd felt too much. Too big and to small for his skin. They'd looked like a demon and he knew it was his fault, always needing to look at things for himself, never trusting anyone else's hands but his own. Still, the paranoia softened when he was fused. It gentled into a tame thing that cautioned and warned but never consumed.

Shen Jiu often slept curled up next to Qi-Ge, hand clenched in Qi-Ge's clothes—the better to wake up if something happened to the guileless fool—but sometimes Qi-Ge would shift closer and hug him in their sleep.  Fusing with him felt like being wrapped in that hug.

Shen Jiu was never really conscious, when they fused. When they separated he remembered what they did, what they were thinking, but it wasn't entirely him and it wasn't entirely Qi-Ge. It was them. Together.

Shen Jiu had no intention of knowing what together felt like with Qiu Jianluo.

He could bring his suspicious eyes, and his distrustful hands into something as soft and warm as his fusion with Qi-Ge and they were stronger for it. He's positive, with his experience and his rage fueling him, he can bring his whole mind into whatever paltry form Qiu Jianluo thinks they can take.

When he opens his eyes, taller and stronger, with Qiu Jianluo nowhere in sight, he knows he's right.

The manor burns, and so does every man in that house. Qiu Jianluo does, too, once Shen Jiu lets the fusion go. Not before Shen Jiu pushes him onto his own sword.

(Not before Qiu Haitang sees them—him—hulking and monstrous, as he pulls her out of the burning wreck.)

----

"It's be faster if we fused."

"Are you saying you can't handle it by yourself, shidi?"

Shen Qingqiu's fan waves softly in front of his face.

"I can handle it."

"Of course you can. There's no need to put ourselves out."

Liu Qingge huffs out a breath, mad at himself. His own pride won't let him pretend weakness he doesn't have, so he can't claim to need to fuse. Shen Qingqiu must have been counting on that.

He isn't lying though, it would be faster to fuse. All of Shen Qingqiu's knowledge and cool diplomacy combined with Liu Qingge's might. The den of succubus would stand no chance. They would be in and out before the evening wore down, he's sure.

Just like he's sure that fusion would have streamlined the last handful of missions they've been on together.  For sure, if they'd been fused while facing that Dancing Crystalline Boar Shen Qingqiu's third favorite fan would still be with them.

No matter what Liu Qingge tries, Shen Qingqiu dodges every attempt he makes to ask his shixiong to fuse.  Literally dodging in some cases.  When Liu Qingge suggested they practice fighting fused as part of their sparring sessions, the man had nearly barrell rolled off the mountain.

If his younger self could see him now... he remembers a time he was furious at the prospect of having to fuse with Shen Qingqiu.  He and his Shixiong's relationship was, thankfully, so vitriolic none of their Shizun's attempts towards improving their Sect Sibling relationship ever came close to bearing fruit. Yes, ideally all the Peak Lords would be able to fuse in case needs arose, but Liu Qingge didn't have a problem fusing with any of the other Peak Lords. It was just Shen Qingqiu, the murderous bastard.

That Shen Qingqiu would then save his life... and with a partial fusion even.

He can't remember even most of what happened while he was dying in the Ling Xi caves. What he does recall is hazy with the after effects of qi deviation and confusion.  He holds onto what he remembers with two hands though.

A soft, cooling light and nervous almost bemused thoughts. They couldn't have done a fusion dance, or even any of the ritual martial forms for fusing. He can't imagine with how badly he'd been qi deviating, that he had the coordination or intent to do so.

Still, somehow his soul had called out and Shen Qingqiu's soul had answered. They hadn't fused but they'd mingled well enough in each other that Liu Qingge was pulled out of his qi deviation.

The Shen Qingqiu that Liu Qingge had known—had thought he'd known—up until that point would have sooner killed Liu Qingge himself than open himself up to fusion. At least, that's what Liu Qingge thought.

He'd been wrong.

Oh, he didn't know it at first. He'd wasted his first attempt to fuse with Shen Qingqiu because he wanted the fast and easy way to determine exactly how Shen Qingqiu was planning on playing him. Because Shen Qingqiu must have an angle, and fusing would force him to expose it.

Well, they never fused, but Liu Qingge still realised Shen Qingqiu didn't have an angle. He was just, changed.

Shen Qingqiu hides a smile behind his fan as they approach the Sucubus cave, eyes flashing merrily at Liu Qingge as he says a final joking sentence.

Liu Qingge had once been faced with the prospect of fusing with Shen Qingqiu for duty. Then, because he was dying. Then, as an effort to force the man to be honest for once.

Now, Liu Qingge wants to, with Shen Qingqiu, for no other reason than simply because he, well. He wants to. He wants to be closer to Shen Qingqiu, he wants to show how much he's grown to trust his Shixiong. He wants his Shixiong to trust him.

He thinks they'd be good together. Strong, obviously. But also smart, and quick, clever. Liu Qingge isn't stupid, whatever anyone says, and he doesn't do himself the disservice as to discount his own strengths, but he wants to know what it's like in Shen Qingqiu's head. What it's like to be able to call up words like water from a pitcher, what it's like to be able to smile warmly and speak cleverly.

He wants to share with Shen Qingqiu his side as well. Wants him to feel the power and constancy of Liu Qingge's own strength and will. 

Shen Qingqiu gestures at him, his fan firmly in place between himself and the rest of the world as he steps into the cave.

Liu Qingge, as ever, follows.

----

It happens so quickly, neither of them have a chance to realise it.

It's not a dance, but the honed tempo of two martial gods coming to the same blows day after day after day.

They're just. In synch. Mind, body, souls.

Liu Qingge snarls something about desecration and disrespect.

Luo Binghe sneers something condescending back.

Xin Mo and Cheng Luan cross blades once more.  As repetitive as it is, perhaps it does count as a dance.

And then they are one. Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe no longer existing as separate beings but united into one consciousness.

They cut an impressive figure against the dimming sky, broad shoulders narrowing into a slim waist and dense, inky, feathery hair cascading from a thick ponytail. Their robes are cut in Bai Zhan's severe style but dyed in the demon lord's dark colors.

They have claws, fangs, senses sharpened by nature first before cultivation. This doesn't bother them as much as it should, every hunter needs it's weapons. They feel solid, settled, confident in this body despite their newness. They have a mole, on their finger.

They don't really register this.

There's one thought in their head: Shen Qingqiu.

Everything else is paralyzed.

There's a dual sense inside of them; that they should get to Shen Qingqiu's side immediately, that they shouldn't be near him, that he's in danger, that he's safest where he is.

Over it all is a bone-deep, aching grief. He's gone, he's gone, he's gone and it's all their fault. No matter what they try, they'll always fail when it comes to him, won't they?

They stay there, on their knees, well after the sun sets into the night.

-----

The first time Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe fuse it's ugly and emotional and the fate of the world rests like a cracked egg in their palm.

Shen Qingqiu doesn't know he'd say it's worse then fusing at the moment one is about to push one's disciple into hell though.

Shen Qingqiu much prefers the third time they fused or the fourth, or the fifth.  They honestly spend more time fused than not, though Shen Qingqiu has responsibilities he still needs to take care of that require them to split.

He wonders if it's so terrible, how easily he loses himself in their fusion. Certain member of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect sure act like it's a tragedy.  He's resigned not to care. He loves Luo Binghe: stickiness, partial darkening, and all whether fused or not.

The System is still a problem. When fused it completely blacks out, like a blind spot in his vision. Any train of thought that even runs parallel to it gets forcefully redirected. It makes him feel like a dog being clicker trained, but it isn't thorough enough that Binghe doesn't walk away from their fusions with unvoiced questions that Shen Qingqiu still can't answer.

Despite this, or maybe partially because of it, Shen Qingqiu warms up to fusing with Luo Binghe as a flower warms up to the sun.  It's both him and Binghe, as one. He doesn't have to try and find the face to speak. For one, it seems Binghe's shamelessness melds really well with Shen Qingqiu's unbridled face for criticism so speaking his mind is never an issue. If there is something he gets stuck on, he only needs to meditate on it and let it resolve itself internally. Both Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu will come out understanding the resolution.

This isn't to say Shen Qingqiu prefers being fused. Not at all. What would he do without being able to see Luo Binghe's peerless face? Spending time alone being them is grand, but he also loves spending time together with his Binghe.  He would miss it, if he wasn't able to squish Binghe's cheeks and toothlessly scold his manners.

And how he has to scold Binghe for his manners.

Well, he supposes Liu Qingge does deserve it more often than not. "Luo Binghe is dead." Truly, shidi? The one time in your pristine life you decide to lie and it's when it's liable to send Shen Qingqiu to an early grave?

Between that and "You have me here before you and you're going to choose him?" Shen Qingqiu could think Liu Qingge isn't dealing with his least favorite Shixiong moving off the mountain so well.

As if Shen Qingqiu knows what to do with that!

Of course Shen Qingqiu chose Luo Binghe! The man was all alone, without any support network at all! Liu Qingge is a good, a great friend even, but he isn't alone. He has the sect, his disciples, his sister, and surely the many theoretical sisters who must be throwing themselves at him any time he steps foot off the mountain.

It's not like Shen Qingqiu doesn't visit! He misses Qing Jing Peak, Cang Qiong Mountain, and his shidi, too! He even, in consideration of Liu Qingge’s surprisingly delicate sensibilities, avoids doing business with him while fused. 

As frustrating as Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe can be while in each other's vicinity (tension growing between them thick enough Shen Qingqiu often wants to test it on Xiu Ya's blade, an epic rivalry that never got to bloom in the original storyline, maybe?) it's miles more tolerable than whatever happens while they're fused and Liu Qingge is forced to interact with them.

"Husband!"

"Mm," Shen Qingqiu hums in distraction.

"Husband, stop thinking about Liu Qingge." Luo Bingge pouts, tugging Shen Qingqiu's sleeve.

"Shishu." Shen Qingqiu absently corrects even as he can't help but smile at Luo Binghe's put upon face. "You should show him respect, Binghe."

"Liu-Shishu," Binghe obediently repeats.

"What makes you think I'm thinking about your Shishu?"

"Shizun always looks like he's trying to decide whether or not to let in a stray cat when he thinks about Liu-Shishu. For the record, he shouldn't let the stray cat in. It'll claw the furniture." 

Shen Qingqiu laughs, forgetting for a moment, to hide it behind his fan.  Luo Binghe's eyes sparkle and he swoops in, locking his arms around his husband.

"Even if he does scratch some furniture, won't Binghe just fix it for this master? It shouldn't be so hard, since you have to fix the furniture you break any how."

Luo Binghe pouts and buries his face into Shen Qingqiu's neck.  "If Shizun insists."

Shen Qingqiu brings his hand up to pet at Luo Binghe's fluffy hair. It's thanks to how open they've been together that Shen Qingqiu can catch the undercurrent in Luo Binghe's voice.

"If Binghe doesn't want to entertain Liu-Shidi he doesn't have to." Shen Qingqiu starts. "Binghe and Liu-Shidi did have a... contentious relationship while this master was... gone." Luo Binghe's fingers tighten in Shen Qingqiu's robes and Shen Qingqiu winces but forges on. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable, Binghe. I can have tea with Liu-Shidi at one of the pavilions today, and finish things on Qing Jing Peak quickly."

Luo Binghe is quiet as Shen Qingqiu's words settle over then.  He butts his head closer to Shen Qingqiu's collarbone.

"But Shizun likes Liu-Shishu."

"Yes," Shen Qingqiu concedes, "But that doesn't mean I want you forcing yourself to be uncomfortable for my own sake. I see him at Peak Lord Meetings, we can always catch up then.  This is your home, too, you shouldn't be made uncomfortable in it."

This time the quiet stretches longer.  Shen Qingqiu would be inclined to panic and overthink, but he forces himself to breathe instead. It's Luo Binghe who needs the time to think, to actually sort through his feelings instead of conceding to what he thinks Shen Qingqiu wants.

That's one of those things they meditated on while fused. It was much easier when their desires are actually one, but together they had unpacked the snarl of Luo Binghe's chronic desire to prove himself worthy and fear of failing his Shizun.

Shen Qingqiu had spoken, Liu Binghe had to trust that Shen Qingqiu wasn't lying or couching the truth for his feelings. He wasn't for the record. Shen Qingqiu does like Liu Qingge, he really enjoys spending time with his recalcitrant Shidi, but he can arrange those times around Luo Binghe if he needs to. 

Liu Qingge is always pestering him to tend his Peak Lord duties and do a mission or two. He'd be thrilled if Shen Qingqiu started going on nighthunts again, perhaps while Luo Binghe has to do his Huan Hua Palace Master-ing or his Demon Lord-ing. Definitely, Shen Qingqiu can at least start hosting their little tea parties outside of the Bamboo House if it bothers his husband.

Finally, Luo Binghe inhales deeply and sighs against Shen Qingqiu's skin before his shakes his head.

"There's no need for Shizun to do that. Shishu isn't that bad." He draws back enough to smile, watery eyes striking Shen Qingqiu all over again. "And Shishu would be sad if Shizun distanced himself."

"I'm sure he'd understand."

"Hmm." Luo Binghe doesn't outright contradict Shen Qingqiu, but Shen Qingqiu knows that particular sound is Luo Binghe's Shizun-Thinks-He-Knows-What-Is-Happening-Here-But-It's-Funnier-If-I-Don't-Tell-Him noise.

There's the thud of a foot connecting with the door frame. No guesses as to whom that announced. Shen Qingqiu glances at the door but doesn't move towards it.

Luo Binghe breathes a laughing sigh out. "Shizun, this disciple has already gone through the trouble of making Shishu's favorite."

"Fine, but you'll tell me if you need space."

Luo Binghe smiles at him, pout and tears already a long-distant memory on his face. He moves past Shen Qingqiu to open the door himself.  He's answering Shen Qingqiu, but his eyes are already locked onto Liu Qingge when he says, "Husband takes such good care of me."

"You!" From over Luo Binghe's shoulder, Shen Qingqiu gets to see Liu Qingge’s face flush that particular shade of pink he inevitably turns when in Luo Binghe's radius. "I—I'm on time!" He says, flustered, as he catches sight of Shen Qingqiu.

"No need to defend yourself, Shidi." Shen Qingqiu allows. "You're exactly on time, please come in."

Luo Binghe stretches to lean against the door frame, not moving from Liu Qingge's way.  Shen Qingqiu can't see his face but he doesn't doubt it's expression when he says, "Well, Shishu?"

Liu Qingge huffs, aggrieved, before shouldering his way into the bamboo home. "Welcome back," he says to the air as he crosses the threshold.

Luo Binghe's mouth curls into a smile that he shares with Shen Qingqiu over Liu Qingge's head, and Shen Qingqiu decides that he believes that Luo Binghe, despite their rough history, is as fine with Liu Qingge as he says he is.

"This disciple will go get everything ready."

this is shen jiu, a wizard. who... knows? shen yuan? shen yuan does not know shen jiu. shen jiu does not seem to be worried about that. shen jiu, after making himself QUITE at home in shen yuan's little abode, gang presses shen yuan into a fun little quest. shen yuan is not quite sure how exactly he ends up on the trail towards a mountain to free it from a dragon but he is--in a word--excited.

a dragon? he's only read about them! in two worlds now! and he'll get to see one, and possibly more amazing creatures. he is accompanied by shen jiu of course, snappy and acerbic, stern and moody by turns, but obviously and intimidatingly powerful. he is also accompanied by ming fan, a relatively young dwarf who falls all over himself to impress shen jiu; ning yingying another excitable dwarf happy to be on this quest of some import; yue qi, a solemn but friendly man who falls over himself around shen jiu more than ming fan does; also like three to five more people i cant be bothered to squish in. this isn't about them!

anyways, it turns out that this is the prequel story--shen yuan only finds out when he returns from his adventures with an unbearable amount of treasure, to a shocked shire and an even more shocked shang qinghua who explains that Shen Jiu, whom shen yuan has grown a bit fond of in spite of himself, is actually Shen Qingqiu, the wicked wizard who set Luo Binghe on his path to becoming the dark and gritty protagonist in Proud Immortal Demon Way.

shen yuan boggles. surely not????? shen jiu is prickly, yes, but he didn't seem like the man the book described. shang qinghua shrugs, said this was a light hearted fantasy he wrote when he was younger and more idealistic but it is definitely the Same Dude.

but, shang qinghua says, they obviously aren't following the same plot since Shen Yuan was definitely not in shang qinghua's writing, and several things didn't happen or were changed. in any case, this prequel was decades prior to anything that occurred in the main novel so shen yuan delicately decides he probably doesn't need to worry about it.

he fingers the jade pendant he'd been given on his journey.

the pendant, of course, belongs to Luo Binghe. in Proud Immortal Demon Way Luo Binghe started the novel out as an orphaned halfling, without family or community, and barely the clothes on his back to his name. he struggled to survive on his own, his only treasure the jade pendant he'd always had since he was a baby. he could only imagine that his parents bequeathed it to him before they--died? probably. luo binghe had never known what happened to orphan him so thoroughly.

he'd stumbled into wardship with a powerful wizard who was meant to mentor him, however instead of nurturing luo binghe's relative youth (halflings aged much slower than men, a hearty thirty years was mere teenage years in comparison) he had set jealous eyes on luo binghe and made his life miserable. when he caught sight of luo binghe's pendant, he'd stolen it and with it released the other half of luo binghe's heritage.

su xiyan was a creature much like a hobbit, as these things go, but his father was a powerful demon (dark elf? listen i am not deep in the lotr lore but w/e the hell sauron is haha). the union wasn't meant to be, and when separated, tianlang-jun tried to raze the realms in fury, and almost managed it with his demon sword of power xin mo. however, he was defeated, xin mo shattered, and sealed under a mountain.

luo binghe's heritage was also suppressed. whatever su xiyan carried from her entanglement with tianlang-jun, resentment or pity or fear, she evidently cared enough for her child to try and give him a normal life free of a tainted ancestry. she gave him a pendant and set him adrift on the luo river where his tale of misery began.

when shen qingqiu removed the pendant, in the situation it happened in, luo binghe's powers and heritage manifested. shen qingqiu disavowed his newly unmasked disciple and abandoned him among the shadows of the badlands around mount doom.

embittered and adrift, luo binghe fought through what was tantamount to hell, laid claim on the throne his father left empty, commanded the wayward bands of orcs and goblins and other unsavory creatures, and worked on claiming or conquering all else. the realm of men never showed him any kindness at all, and so he would burn it all to the ground.

what started as a fairly interesting, if dark, coming of age story morphed into a grimdark grapple for power, politics, and sex. shen yuan, who had been charmed by the young luo binghe's enduring effort to find somewhere he belonged, became swept away with the darkened and awakened luo binghe's effort to create somewhere he belonged, without mercy if necessary.

however, somewhere during luo binghe's rise to power more and more of the plot threads were being dropped. luo binghe's cunning coups and strategic battles became more single note. at some point the adversaries became one dimensional, canon fodder. luo binghe's plans came to fruition with barely any struggle. as a power fantasy, shen yuan supposed it was fine-enough. one could, theoretically, turn their brain off and enjoy luo binghe's methodical scouring of the realm, conquering of power, and claiming of women. but everything shen yuan had started reading for, and had stayed for, was stripped away except for the protagonist himself.

in the end, the only place luo binghe could make for himself was a cold, lonely world empty of anyone luo binghe could turn to.

it was, perhaps, no wonder that shen yuan had frothed himself into such apoplectic fury he had died cursing the author's work.

the point is, though, that there was absolutely no way the cute youth shen yuan had encountered in the goblin caves had been luo binghe. the boy hadn't introduced himself, but when shen yuan was fleeing the wrath of the goblin king, the boy had given shen yuan his necklace.

"it will turn you invisible, so it can help you escape." the boy had said.

"what about you?" shen yuan had asked, reluctant to take the boy's only means of defense.

"it's fine!"

"but it's your treasure, isn't it?" shen yuan recalled the hours of commentary he had coaxed out of the boy as he'd been led through the dank tunnels trying to reunite with his wayward band of dwarves and wizards.

"it can help you now, i want you to take it!" the boy's eyes had been starry in the dark.

"but--" shen yuan was forced to hold the pendant as the boy shoved it into his hands. with reluctance, he settled it around his neck. "how will i return it?" he asked instead.

the boy had smiled at him, eyes wet with emotion. "i'm sure we'll meet again, shen yuan from the shire."

"okay then. i'll give it to you next time."

the pendant had turned him invisible and shen yuan was able to escape the goblins, somehow rescue his teammates, sneak into the dragon mountain, steal the treasures he'd been tasked to steal, liberate the mountain he'd been tasked to liberate, and even accomplished his own secret goal: save the dragon.

(you see, shen yuan loves creatures of all sorts, and he'd always sort of been sad when things like dragons had to be killed to save the day. didn't they also deserve to live in peace? so, when a snake like creature conspired with him to help relocate the dragon under the guise of burying it with melted gold, what could shen yuan do but agree? and the plan had worked! the mountain was liberated, the city nearby was freed from constant dragon-induced fear, his traveling companions were happy enough, and the dragon and presumably its snake-friend were safely living somewhere else probably.)

anyways, the boy can't have been luo binghe and the pendant cant be the pendant because the pendant never turned luo binghe invisible in the novels shen yuan read, and luo binghe would have never given it away! he'd reliably become berserk if the pendant had ever been in danger and of course the moment shen qingqiu had stolen it luo binghe had erupted into a coalescing tornado of unleashed power.

that did not happen when the starry-eyed, lonely, somewhat skittish but still kind and receptive young kid had given shen yuan the pendant. therefore, that kid wasn't luo binghe and this pendant is not The Pendant. there are probably a hundred sad orphans and a thousand more magical pendants in the wide million-word history of proud immortal demon way.

so when shang qinghua points at the pendant some years later and starts yelling hysterically, shen yuan has no idea why. shen jiu, who is visiting for shen yuan's birthday celebration, and quite used to shang qinghua's hysterics, offers to look over the pendant. shen yuan lets him, though if shang qinghua was awake he might get scolded for that. yes shen yuan knows shen jiu steals the pendant in the book! but! shang qinghua said it himself: shen yuan has already changed things! probably shen jiu won't steal from shen yuan! they're friends! also, this isn't the pendant so it's all a moot point.

this leaves shen yuan completely open when shen jiu does actually steal the pendant. he whisks it away, barely touching it, folding it into his billowing sleeves, eyes as flinty as shen yuan had ever seen them.

"i need to find out what this is," shen jiu explained, as shen yuan angrily stormed after him on his way out. "it feels-- hungry."

"i--" shen yuan is stopped when shen jiu whirls around and places his hands on shen yuan's shoulders.

"do you not trust me?"

shen yuan thought that was very unfair, as he had just determined to himself to trust that shen jiu wouldn't steal his pendant and the wizard had just gone and done that. but the look in shen jiu's eyes stayed shen yuan's tongue.

"do you think i would just take from you for no reason? have i not labored enough under your ceaseless expectations of me to have earned your trust in this?"

shen yuan carefully breathed out through his nose. "is it not the same question for me?" he asked, "do i not deserve an explanation? must i always sit here in the dark as though even the simplest of truths would make me suspicious of you. do you not trust me to listen?"

shen jiu seemed to struggle.

shang qinghua managed to recover, at this point, and catch up to them. he interjected, for once his tremulous tone evened into a sober enough inflection that even shen jiu listened. "It is exactly what you suspect! we can do whatever tests you need right here, in shen yuan's hearth, you needn't journey with it yourself."

shen jiu's eyes narrowed, and shen yuan cast confused glances at both his friends. even if it was luo binghe's pendant, wasn't it just a seal limiting binghe's power?

"you're not even touching it and can feel it whispering, can't you?" shang qinghua asked.

"what do you know of it?" shen jiu snarled, but his eyes betrayed a sort of fear shen yuan had never seen from his friend before.

"it won't do you any kindness to keep it, whatever you mean."

shen jiu, for a minute, looked as though he would ignore shang qinghua, but in the end the wizard closed his eyes and lifted the handkerchief covered pendant from where he had stashed it.

"it's heavy," shen jiu said, and dropped it into shen yuan's waiting palm.

it turns out the pendant is actually xin mo. "xin mo was actually uh, pretty fucked up? it corrupted tianlang-jun's mind, that's why he tried to destroy everything. su xiyan sealed its power into the pendant, but as luo binghe gets older and his heritage closer to awakening, xin mo grew more powerful." shang qinghua explained once shen jiu left ostensibly to research the predicament they were left in, but more realistically to recover from his brush with xin mo's corruptive influence. at least according to shang qinghua.

"but binghe didn't have the pendant when he started his conquest." shen yuan pointed out.

"no? he didn't need a hell-artifact trying to corrupt him. you read the story bro, his life sucked. he didn't need much of an excuse to get revenge."

"then why the pendant at all? isn't that too confusing? a macguffin you don't even use?"

"that was the point though!" shang qinghua was picking up enthusiasm now. "Luo Binghe had Xin Mo, the same thing that drove his father mad, but Luo Binghe could have resisted that. but being treated the way he was? his master undermining him and, ultimately abandoning him? magical artifacts don't make people into all of that," he said gesturing as if he could encompass all of luo binghe in his hand, "People make people into monsters quite enough on their own."

shen yuan bit his lip. that was, of course, why he'd stuck with reading pidw after all. he couldn't refute shang qinghua's words. watching luo binghe's slow descent into more and more anti-hero grimdarkness was enthralling because of how thouroughly the bright niavety had been beated out of him. shen yuan had wanted luo binghe to get his revenge, to get his power, and to create a place he could call home. he'd had plenty of the first two, but the latter had never come to fruition.

"wait! that was the point?" shen yuan asked, "but you never explained xin mo at all? or all this about the pendant! after shen qingqiu stole it, it might as well have disappeared! even after luo binghe captured him, the pendant wasn't brought up again. i had to bend over backwards to try and gather all of your loose plot threads! half the novel was just him winning another fight or finding another woman!"

"well, i mean, it was supposed to be the point. but ah, well i lost my notes and then--" he made a noise as shen yuan hit him. "But! I tried! Luo Binghe got a sword didn't he? after he captured shen qingqiu? that's xin mo! that's why he does all the fighting and fu-- uh, women. shen qingqiu couldn't destroy the pendant, and breaking it only released its true form. so luo binghe got his father's sword after all and it doesn't matter at all that he could resist it, because he didn't want to."

"why is shen jiu so worried about it anyways? i mean, i didn't feel anything." shen yuan looked skeptically at the drawer they had hidden the pendant.

"uhm, most people can though." shang qinghua said. "that's a lot of why luo binghe's life sucked so much? everytime someone was around him they felt xin mo."

shen yuan frowned, remembering the bright eyed youth from the caves. that had been luo binghe then? with his messy hair and messier clothes and dirt stained hands and feet. shen yuan, breathless from fear and running, had still not been able to resist the urge to wipe at the kid's face with his sleeve. people looked at that and what? felt compelled to be mean?

"most people are petty," shang qinghua said, correctly interpreting shen yuan's furrowing brow, "not everyone can be as peerless as the great peerless cucumber--"

"shut up." shen yuan frowned and crossed his arms. "you didn't answer my question! okay so, it has bad vibes. what about it? it's a pendant? i'm certainly not going to scour the realms. even if i wanted to, i could be squashed like a bug. who cares? why steal it from binghe?"

"because, if someone squashed you like a bug or stole it from binghe then it would eventually find someone who was powerful enough to scour the realms. i mean, even shen qingqiu wasn't immune to it! he thought taking it from binghe was the right choice, because he was worried someone stronger would take it, but obviously it wasn't. even with binghe's heritage being revealed, shen qingqiu ended up fracturing a lot of his connections while he held onto the pendant. he thought he was protecting the realms from it, but really he was just protecting it until binghe picked it up again. he practically laid the ground work for his own imprisonment with that. besides that, there are plenty of people who would think xin mo was a tool they could use for good. and they'd be wrong. so it's best to destroy it."

"but if binghe can resist it, and taking it from him is half of what makes him turn into you know, bing-ge, isn't it best just to give it back?"

shang qinghua boggled. "how did you come to that conclusion?"

"well, it's his treasure, and he wasn't doing anything wrong with it. you said yourself he could resist it! so isn't it best if the protagonist holds onto it? binghe's strong enough no one could take it..." well, besides the time someone had taken it.

a look came over shang qinghua that shen yuan couldn't identify. "i don't know. maybe he had such a tolerance because he built it up while it was in his posession all those years. but you've had it for like ten? twenty? years?"

Shen Yuan frowned. it wasn't that long for a hobbit, but it was incredibly long for the human shen yuan had been once.

"who knows how he'd react to it now! and absolutely no one is going to agree to just give an artifact of ancient evil to some kid no one knows!"

"he'd be almost thirty now, wouldn't he?" shen yuan said, almost without his own will putting together the timeline. in the novel, this is when luo binghe would be meeting shen qingqiu for the first time. thirty was too young for a hobbit to be on his own, never mind that shen yuan had been living by himself in both lives by the time he was 19.

"you are, frankly, impossible." shang qinghua gave up.

shen jiu came back in the middle of the night, as he was prone to doing, and whisks shen yuan and shang qinghua away on a journey to bring the pendant to a meeting of the realms in order to further discuss what to do with it.

"destroy it," shang qinghua murmered.

there were whispers of a dark power coalescing in the north at the bad lands bordering mount doom. orcs and goblins and other sort being organised and turned against the villages and townships close to the border, each raid pushing their powers further out.

"it's too early for binghe yet, isn't it?" shen yuan asked under his breath.

the worst of it. "they know the pendant is in the shire." shen jiu informed shen yuan and shang qinghua in the middle of throwing things into packs for travel.

"what? how?" shang qinghua quailed.

"who knew about the pendant? ming fan? yue qingyuan?" shen jiu asked, at once correctly inferring the only possible time shen yuan might have come across it.

"no--" shen yuan faltered. luo binghe had been the only other one to know, as he'd given it to him. but would luo binghe sell that information to the dark forces rising against them? or was he, indeed, the dark forces themselves?

shen jiu tsked. "it doesn't matter just now. we have to leave."