Chapter Text
His dream is strange. Too vivid and intense, too ridiculous. It is a broken dream in which different events are shown as shards of glass. He fights demons. Then he is imprisoned. And he dies. Not for long. A cave. Calloused hands from the use of the sword transmitting qi to him in an unexpectedly pleasant contact. Poison. An ice demon. Magic seeds. A thousand snakes. Almost the destruction of the world. A mausoleum. Fire.
Shen Qingqiu wakes up with a gasp.
“Shidi?” Yue Qingyuan's familiar but oppressive voice murmurs.
In his confusion, Shen Qingqiu wonders what he is doing at his bedside. But a part of him is not surprised, but is waiting for it: it is true. I've suffered a qi deviation and then... Shen Jiu groans, covering his face with a hand.
The dream is crushing the walls of his skull with the weight of memories.
“Where is Luo Binghe?” He groans.
He notices out of the corner of his eye how Yue Qingyuan makes an awkward face.
"Shidi has collapsed due to the stress of the Alliance Conference. You should rest and not be so hard with..."
Shen Qingqiu is not only in pain and dazed: in his dream, Yue Qingyuan was explaining the truth to him and he cannot remember what he said. Furious, he grits his teeth before rearing his head.
"Call Luo Binghe and leave."
In his dream they...
Shen Qingqiu will only breathe a sigh of relief when he finds out that Luo Binghe is still a harmless teenager.
Not a demon. Not the man he will marry. Just a clumsy brat with an irritating talent.
Half an hour later, Shen Qingqiu has abandoned his tiredness in bed and is now back in his elegant Peak Lord robes with a fan in his hands. He waits and when the door to his bamboo house opens, his heart constricts stupidly. It's just a dream! He scolds himself, but relief spreads through his body as he realizes that Luo Binghe hasn't changed. And then the uncertainty returns because the arrival of his disciples is identical to what he has dreamed.
"You two go." He growls when they still haven't finished entering.
The two boys exchange a confused look despite their previous differences.
"Yes, shizun!" They both murmur at the same time.
Once alone, Shen Qingqiu sits at his desk. As much as he tries to convince himself that it's just an absurd nightmare, that dream is still tangled in his thoughts. It's not even a complete dream and there are a lot of parts he doesn't remember. As if a mist covered it. He is used to stress, bottlenecks, and qi deviations, so he can deduce that this delusion is not caused by any of them. It must be something else.
Although his logic is intense and ruthless, more stubborn than Liu Qingge's determination to fight, Shen Qingqiu is beginning to fear that the dream is actually a prediction.
Shen Qingqiu decides to check if it is true with a simple test. Following the directions of his dream, one day he hides in the bamboo forest. This is ridiculous , he growls as he waits. But a feeling keeps him firm even though no one is there. Until he hears the voices of Luo Binghe (that annoying brat is not only more talented than him, but also the protagonist of his dream) and Ning Yingying (why does his favorite disciple never listens to him and insists on escorting Luo Binghe on his chores?). The conversation is familiar. As if he had already heard it, even if he didn't remember the exact words. Shen Qingqiu is startled, clutching his fan tightly, when a group of disciples led by Ming Fan appears.
His worst fears come true when the teens fight over the fake jade guanyin pendant. Instinctively, Shen Qingqiu slips through the bamboo to catch it. In his hand, the fake jade guanyin pendant awakens new false memories. Shen Qingqiu squeezed it tightly.
Then, he appears in front of his disciples.
"This master is very disappointed." He curses them with a cold voice. "Or should I remind you that this is Qing Jing Peak, the corner of tranquility and the four arts? Perhaps this master should send you to Bai Zhan Peak."
"No, Shizun!"
"Sorry, shizun!"
"But shizun..."
"A-Luo did nothing wrong!"
The disciples protest and complain at the same time. Shen Qingqiu grimaces as their shoutings are giving him a headache. Annoyed, he sends them all for fifty laps around the peak. The fake jade guanyin pendant is still hidden inside his sleeve when Ning Yingying uses the 'favorite disciple' card to beg for justice, but for once he ignores her.
He needs time and silence to meditate.
This is a key tool... He thinks abstractly as he returns to his bamboo house. Then, Shen Qingqiu understands the absurdity of his thoughts.
Although this incident may be a fluke, Shen Qingqiu's suspicions are turning into certainty. And what can I do? Knowledge is power and knowing certain elements of the future will be very beneficial to him. Unfortunately, there are parts of his dream blurred. Like the truth of Yue Qingyuan. Perhaps repeating the same decisions would lead to that end, but... Shen Qingqiu trembles.
Crippling his already crippled cultivation with Without a Cure? Die twice? Sacrifice himself for the disciple he hates? MARRY HIM!?
No, that is impossible. The dream must be a warning. Shen Qingqiu must now build a truly perfect ending with the information he possesses.
He gazes at the fake jade guanyin pendant, thinking of Luo Binghe. His best disciple (it is a fact that he silently and reluctantly acknowledges) is the most unpredictable and dangerous piece. A half-demon obsessed with him. Returning the fake jade guanyin pendant will fuel that insane obsession, but hiding it will fuel a young demon's grudge. Perhaps he could leave it near the woodshed, despite it being an interesting item to trade in the future.
For the time being, Shen Qingqiu will keep it.
In addition to confirming Luo Binghe's demonic parentage, he must also do something about his feelings. That brat , Shen Qingqiu thinks, annoyed. How dare he have such feelings towards his shizun!? It is not a simple dilemma. Demons are unstable and all their emotions are as intense as they are destructive. Their hate is terrifying, their love even more. And in his dream, he has confirmed that Luo Binghe will devour any kind gesture (which is strange, because he doesn't remember ever being kind to him), but will hold a grudge against any injustice. That is more understandable. The two of them have more in common than Shen Qingqiu realized.
What a headache! He laments. To avoid his obsession I must make him consider me indifferent, but if his nature wakes up and he becomes a Demon Lord… Then who will stop him?
Shen Qingqiu takes a piece of paper and decides to sit down and write down everything he remembers about his dream. And devise a plan.