Chapter Text
As a child, his sister seemed incomprehensible to him.
His jiejie was considerably older than he was, so he did not notice how frail and small she really was, for him, a little demon thrown by their parents into her care — she was his whole family, his whole world; and, oh, his sister was clever. His jiejie was fussy, but gentler than all the demons he had met before and since, including their parents; she spoke with such speed, as if she were trying to outrun time, running from shadows, trying to give him as much as possible in the crumbs of time they had together; she laughed a lot, more than a demon should, more than an uncrowned princess of the Demon Realm should, more softly, caressingly or loudly, than cruelly and bloodthirstily. His jiejie was the one who gave him love (the notion of it, the opportunity to experience it) for people, for others, for something more than mere duty.
"Love is a choice", she whispers to him as he falls asleep in her tender arms, lulled to sleep by one of the thousands of unimaginable stories that lived in her head; later, he would think his sister should have written books like people.
His jiejie walks around in red and black, showing plenty of skin, which is rather inherent in southern lands that don't belong to them (he will take these lands for himself when he is older, for her; not that by then there would have been anyone who would have dared to look at his sister with anything less than respect). His jiejie wears many fine gold bracelets and earrings and hairpins, smiling at him every time he pulls on one of her silks, too enchanted by the way the light of the fire dances in her jewelry, she smiles down on him, always lifting him into her arms, never saying no. His jiejie raises him so spoiled that he might be ashamed if he were familiar with the feeling — not when she was ripped from his arms, not when a cage was closed around his sister's neck with their parents' pitch, not when his sister should be who they saw her as.
Their parents were too consumed by their prejudices and their arrogance; they told him that their blood should remain pure; they told him that his sister should be his wife, and he was too young to understand any of this.
Perhaps if it had been what his sister wanted, he would have agreed; but he also saw what the same marriage had done to their parents; they didn't want to be like them.
So later, decades later (what might have been three years for a man), his sister returns for him; she finds herself below him when he catches her, wounded, in bloody robes, smelling of death, sour decay, and a heavy premonition of the storm; she smiles at him as if she never left, placidly running her cold fingers along his cheek and wailing as he grew.
His jiejie killed their parents.
For herself, for him, for both of them.
It cost her a lot of strength, too much, their parents being two Heavenly Demons, he can't imagine how many tricks, cunning and years of planning it took for his sister to embody it. His sister also falls into a deep sleep, and all he can do as a good didi is to usurp power and kill every dissenter who dares challenge it because of his age. (If this were a human world, he'd be fourteen, too young for something like that, and his defenseless sister might be twenty-eight, old enough to be Empress, but too soft-hearted for all those bastards whose heads he put on spires like garden decor.)
Time passed mercilessly, years flowed into decades, his jiejie quietly slept, untouched and unfading, paler than he had ever seen her (he had always been fascinated by her unevenly tanned skin, so unbecoming of any demon of royal blood); he received a new name, Tianlang-jun, when he captured more of the South and forced the North to bow, and his sister was not there when this happened.
Tianlang-jun also understood why his jie was always called Xiao Huo (he did not understand this, being a child for whom his older sister was the most important and the greatest being in his eyes), because she was indeed a tiny woman, but full of energy with a mischievous glint in her red eyes.
She returned to him as she always does, suddenly and without informing anyone, climbing out of bed, slipping out the door in weak and small steps to frighten some servant half to death, asking: where is her didi, and threatening not to divulge to the whole palace that she is awake. His sister simply comes in during a military meeting with the few of his generals he trusts, listening to them half-heartedly to say:
"If I haven't slept through the changing landscape of the Gu Mountains, you'll lead everyone into a trap in the underground swamps".
Did he say that his jiejie was infinitely extraordinary?
Well, he'll say it again.
Hupo-lang was the temporary head of a small serpent tribe while his brother was doing whatever-he-didn't-do-it, hidden by the thousands of seals of their ancestors, were invaded.
He expected the worst: detection, invasion, assassination, war and slaughter (his san-ge always said he was overdramatic, and er-jie crestfallen that he wished for invasion because their gated community was unbearably boring) — he hadn't expected a miniature woman in the dust, with leaves and branches stuck in her frizzy, curly and parched hair, who also violently stepped on her heel and broke one of the ancient seals from the strongest demons, as if it were nothing.
The woman raises her red eyes at him, they light up with something between childlike glee and admiration as she is beside him faster than he can see, her scarlet Heavenly Demon mark burning, and he can feel the power behind it, Hupo-lang preparing for his death without the possibility of battle, to be honest.
He is looked down upon, pressing his hand against her soft chest, and before his mind can process the moment, he hears:
"I adore snakes", sounds like a confession, the most outrageous he's ever heard, "and I've been looking for you for so long!" she jumps up, and his hand is between... between... his mind refuses to work. This shameless woman's face appears unbearably close that he can see his own reflection in her dilated pupils. "Please tell me, do you have unmarried men? Or women? I don't care, I just want to have a hot night before my possessive didi finds me!"
Hupo-lang should have said 'yes, we have unmarried and unmarried demons in the community', or 'please leave our territory and forget your way here', or 'come out and go in through the main entrance with all the procedures', but instead he was able to speak, snapping into the childish hiss that he should have grown out of:
"I'm not bus-s-s-sy?"
Hupo-lang can't understand why it sounded like a question, but the next thing he knew — his sisters were organizing his wedding.
His first memory was not of his father or mother, but of his jiujiu holding him in one hand while the other crushed the skull of a too foolish or desperate mercenary sent by the East to cause them trouble and grief, displeasing the rule of the Demon Realm Emperor. Of course, he knew nothing of this at the time; he knew only that the man with the red eyes and soft hair was his uncle, and that he protected and loved him by default. It was as if his uncle had always been there to take care of him.
Back then A-Zhu didn't know about his parents, who didn't remain in his memory, but he knew his jiujiu, and that was enough for him.
And his jiujiu loved his mother so comprehensively and deeply that A-Zhu could only love her as well, knowing nothing about her except the stories of his jiujiu, which he himself considered mundane. A-Zhu agreed with his uncle, though he had never truly understood this devotion to a woman who had appeared decades before only to give his uncle — his son, and had also dissolved into his travels. A-Zhu knew that his mother was free spirit, according to his jiujiu; a soul that should not be chained (and then his uncle's eyes become distant, seeing only something that only he can); he also knows that his father follows his mother, unable to leave her, whatever that means, but his Juju looks unhappy whenever he talks about it.
A-Zhu meets his mother when he is fifty-seven, and jiujiu has only hired trusted and proven teachers to teach him how to write.
His mother is small compared to his jiujiu, she has a frail build and scandalously short hair that barely covers her neck but is as airy as his jiujiu, she also has red eyes and a red mark on her forehead, she has exposed skin from her shoulders to her feet, with tissues in the slits on her legs, with tan stripes here and there, looking like an absolute stranger, with ugly scars around her neck wrapped like a hoop, but that is not what fascinates him in the first place.
It was laugh.
Loud, raunchy and sincere.
Not like the laughter of the women he had seen, more like the girls his age he had met in the Sha clan when his jiujiu took him with him.
Behind his mother stands a man who can't take his eyes off her, with golden eyes and green scales on his skin just like his own — A-Zhu realizes that it's his father. His mother smiles, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, and A-Zhu notices that his jiujiu can't take her eyes off either. But that's okay, A-Zhu also doesn't think he's capable of looking at anything but his mother at this moment.
But then his mother notices him, her eyes light up, and before he can greet her, he is already in the air, stretched toward the sky, toward the sun, in her arms, and her wide smile is presented to him, and there is even more tenderness in her eyes than his jiujiu, which A-Zhu did not think possible.
"My treasure has grown so!" she says, as if she had never left, and A-Zhu is pressed against her chest, warm and soft; so similar and dissimilar to jiujiu, it's just ridiculous. His fussy mother's hand is in his smooth hair, the same as his father's than the other two Heavenly Demons; his mother's voice sinks into his ears as he watches the gold earrings sway lazily; his mother's love penetrates him as easily as if he had known her all his life, and he feels a strange alien sneer as he notices the envious looks of his father and his uncle.
It seems to her that this is not her place.
It seems to her she knows everything and knows nothing.
It seems to her that the world belongs to her and that she shouldn't be here.
It seems to her she has taken someone else's place, that she is not who she is supposed to be, that she is impersonating someone else.
It seems to her that her name doesn't belong to her, that she should be different, that she shouldn't act the way she wants, that she has a role and tasks to fulfill.
It seems to her that the demons she knows, her family, her beloved men, must exist without her; so she runs away: from her adoring brother, from her beloved son, from her devoted husband.
It seems to her she must run-run-run, looking for someone, looking for something she sees in the names of rivers and mountains and the world of men; she runs and falls and falls and falls; she hides from herself and her thoughts, never feeling the freedom she craves; she finds the sword, dark and alluring — familiar one when her husband, always so desperately in love with her for some unknown reason, catches up with her; and the sword takes it from her.
When she dies, at the hands of her husband, from the sword that clouded his mind, she asks not to blame him, though she knows her heartbroken husband cannot keep that promise, then, almost in the dark, knowing almost nothing except that Xin Mo (how does she know that name?) is absorbing her powers, she suddenly realizes that she has never been a whole person.
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————— Ctrl+C Ctrl+V —————
When Luo Binghe first met his Shang-shishu, he thought he was strange.
There was something about him.
And that something scratched his skull from the inside, always telling him something and not specifying anything; there was something in the nervousness, the hurriedness, the nervous laughter and the endless fatigue; there was something that slid through the years as his shizun became kinder, and with it, life became more pleasant, and Luo Binghe brushed it aside with the skills he had learned on the streets. He could not admit that there was something that attracted him to Shang-shishu: in the weakest, most inconspicuous, quietest of all the lords of the peaks, but there was... something that made Luo Binghe's head turn away even from his delightful shizun to catch the figure of his shishu with his gaze.
Meng Mo, being rather useless on the subject, vaguely said that if his shishu were a demon, it would be a desire for his blood — longing that was never his, but still exists with those with whom he can share blood. (Which also didn't make sense, since all known Heavenly Demons are dead, and his shishu is definitely human.) So Luo Binghe ignores it, even as he gets the stray thought out of nowhere that his shishu would do well in gold as he catches the unsolicited tan lines on his neck.
Luo Binghe rejects all this, believing that if he has some bored Heavenly Demon in his family just for his shishu, then let him come and get it, damn it.
Zhuzhi-lang, turned into an ugly snake and stuck with no way to get his jiujiu out from under the thrice-cursed mountain, thinks he is going mad when he hears the familiar nervous laughter.
That laughter is inappropriate, full of panic, and belongs definitely to a man, but Zhuzhi-lang can't stop himself from reaching out to meet it.
There are three cultivators in the cave, two men in yellow and one in green; they are all perfectionists — and therefore enemies; so he lurks in the dark, listening to their conversations and watching their every move.
One of the Huan Hua Palace men, and only pure willpower prevents him from throwing himself on someone else's back and biting his neck; the other two wear the same Cang Qiong mark in the embroidery on their belts, more distinct and commanding, so the two lords of spades; the odds are not entirely in his favor, to be honest (he hates the fact that his Heavenly Demon blood has been sealed, leaving only his father's legacy and utter helplessness; jiujiu has never blamed him for this, and it only increases his guilt more).
Zhuzhi-lang was an experienced warrior, a spy, and a general of his junshang, but he cannot help but be distracted by the Lord of the Peak Tsang Qiong in yellow, who talks more and faster than all three of them combined, who waves his arms and changes his facial expressions with enviable speed, who has no shame in pleading in humiliation or asking him to leave and leave this matter in the experienced hands of the other two (for a moment he thinks he hears his mother sulking at his jiujiu, asking him to cancel the escort for an easy walk, belittling herself as if she were a maid rather than the Emperor's sister, knowing that his uncle would break like a dry twig if she ended up on the floor).
Then he realizes that people want what he wants, then he attacks people, then they decide to spare him at the mercy of the man in green hiding behind the fan; people leave, but the man in yellow — Shang-shidi, as Master Shen called him — stays for a while, looking at him... looking... he looks at him like...
It looks so much like his mother that Zhuzhi-lang is afraid to move.
The man smiles at him, and the yellow robes remind him of gold as the man takes a seat in front of him, reaching out to him but stopping, as if remembering something.
"I'm sorry", he smiled again, quick, apologetic, coming in like the wind in the heat, "I just really like snakes, and I just... never mind! Sorry, that's stupid, and extremely rude of me, sorry", Zhuzhi-lang remembers how much his mother used to apologize to all the strangers she met when she felt uncomfortable; he remembers how jiujiu looked at those poor ambassadors that the poor people almost passed out from junshang's pressure; "I shouldn't even be here, or stay with you and talk, but you just are so..." the man's eyes light up with something frightening, so-so familiar, just like his mother's when she was brought luscious snacks from the human world, just like his jiujiu's when he found the new nightmarish yellow book, "...magnificent".
The man finishes on an exhale, barely audible, and Zhuzhi-lang is glad for the first time that his jiujiu isn't around — he feels his uncle couldn't handle it; Zhuzhi-lang doesn't even think he can handle it himself; he's still afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to blink.
"Sorry-sorry, that came out too weird, huh?" the man waves his hands again and nearly falls backwards, so he straightens awkwardly; another awkward smile, a little longer, and Zhuzhi-lang thinks he might make some horrifying sound on the verge of a sob if this man just keeps. "Anyway, it's none of my business, and I can't explain, but, like, gods!" the man quickly leans toward him, saying as quietly as he can, "just know that these plants are no good for Heavenly Demons, you'll have to bathe them in the Divine Waters at the very edge of the South in the Demon Realm if you want that to work", and then the man runs away with incredible agility and speed.
Zhuzhi-lang stays where he is, not moving, still not breathing, until his snake body aches.
He thinks he has found something more than he ever hoped for.
Honestly, Tianlang-jun is full of very and very many feelings.
Above all — hatred. His desire for revenge, fueled by betrayal, is so deep that no amount of years could erase it. Second, he might call — disappointment. Extremely broad and voluminous, any sympathy he might have felt for people was overshadowed by the strength with which he was despised simply by his existence (the jiejie would be saddened by his thoughts, for she had originally given him a reason to love people). But even underneath all of his feelings there is a bit of unease. For his family, and for them alone, for his nephew, the only one he has left.
Zhuzhi-lang comes with body for him, a story about a few self-improvements, but most of all, the crazy idea that jiejie is back. Tianlang-jun does not laugh, only because he is frightened by Zhuzhi-lang's confidence, with eyes as bright as his sister's, albeit the color of this-male, and with timid, so faint-faint, smile. He does not think his nephew realizes that he smiled for the first time in century, without exaggeration.
It had been one hundred and ninety-eight years since his sister's death.
Tianlang-jun would never deceive himself with such a thing as hope, but his nephew, his A-Zhu, might have fallen for some sect bastard, just as his sister loved to trust people, just as he himself had fallen in love with a human woman.
"Don't worry, A-Zhu," he can't remember the last time he called him that, judging by the way his nephew blinks perplexedly; he shows a little more tenderness, mimicking his jiejie, wrapping his new clean hands around someone else's gaunt cheeks; he tries to smile, but it is nowhere near as soft as he would like, "I will take care of it all".
He's had enough, he'll personally tear apart the man who dared to cheat his only family.
It's strange, but sometimes, very-very rarely and barely admitting it to himself, he feels like he must be somewhere.
In the beginning he thought this place should be his world; then he thought this place should be his role as Shang Qinghua, the traitor and bastard he had created with his own hands; then he thought this place should be the Northern Demon Realm — he was wrong. Nothing inside him responded to this strange aching feeling of emptiness. It was as if he'd forgotten something important, but he wouldn't remember it until it crashed into him, as it always did.
Later, also through years, sweat, blood, and sleepless nights with papers, he met his protagonist, his mental son, Luo Binghe: his hair was curlier than he thought, and his eyes were so far black, not red, not to mention the lack of a mark on his forehead, and his face was definitely something to look at, even if the child was only thirteen when they first crossed paths.
And then Shang Qinghua thought that that feeling of emptiness required not a place, but someone.
Again, Shang Qinghua could not imagine who it might be about, so with the professionalism of a millennial, he ignored it until his problem hit him in the face.
And fate loves him so much that he doesn't forget his mistakes after a few more years.
Surely you can't blame him that this punch in the face was a whole, living and frozen like a statue, former Demon Emperor in his sect, in his house, in his room? Shang Qinghua almost gave his soul to System right then and there, the papers in his hands flying in all directions when he just spotted this outrageously-unequally-handsome man, dammit, Luo Binghe got the best of both parents, didn't he? His heart raced as he searched for some words, biting his tongue at the System notice that almost took his life in earnest:
[Synchronization...]
Shang Qinghua ignored it, despite the many profanities in his head, because, ah, did he say there was Heavenly Demon in his room? No? Well, he'll say it again!
"H-Hello", his stuttering doesn't help matters at all, but, gods, hey, he's not ready for this, he can't even summon his king, because as much as he loves Mobei-jun, he knows that Tianlang-jun is an entirely different level of boss (he doesn't think even Luo Binghe can handle him, so he didn't introduce such a monster into the plot), "y-you're doing okay? Not that we've met or anything, just, uh, glad to see you're okay. I know you, yeah, who wouldn't? Only ignorant idiots would not know the Demon Emperor's past— I mean, I don't mean that there's been a new one over the years, the political arena in the Demon Realm is such a hellboat that no one wants that crown for nothing, not that I, a human, could know anything about demon culture, it's just different rumors reaching even us and—"
[Synchronization 13%...]
Shang Qinghua talks and talks and talks, and no one stops him; Tianlang-jun stands in all his mighty splendor at his window, leaning against the window sill, not once moving or even blinking — which only makes him more nervous, his palms sweating, he smiles automatically and also reflexively presses that awkward smile. Shang Qinghua takes a breath, breathing too loudly for his ears, and the demon doesn't even budge; he lets out some undignified chuckle, even his king is easier to read than Tianlang-jun (he can't remember writing him so inexpressive; on the contrary, this man must be unbearably lively and energetic; does being under a mountain change his personality so much?). Shang Qinghua takes a few more irregular breaths, examining his intruder and possible executioner, the kinship with Luo Binghe strikingly obvious, but if he looks closely, he notices a sharper jaw line, higher cheekbones, more intense red eyes.
Eyes that don't take their eyes off him.
[Synchronization 34%...]
"Are you..." and Shang Qinghua forces himself to dryly swallow, "...okay?"
And he gets question for question.
"How old are you", it doesn't even sound like a question, more like a demand, more like a statement in the space between them. Shang Qinghua stumbles mentally, tilting his head to the side and holding back the impulse to ruffle his hair nervously, especially when those red eyes follow his caught movement. And he has abruptly forgotten his age.
Shang Qinghua desperately tries to remember how old he is in this world.
[Synchronization 56%...]
"Um, well... sixty-two?" he's not sure, because he stopped counting when his job increased exponentially a couple of decades ago.
His answer for some reason does not please the past (current?) Demon Emperor, if Shang Qinghua is brave enough, he would say that it upsets the man.
[Synchronization 68%...]
"I could have done it much earlier", and it sounds like a snarl, angry and mournful, heavy and strained.
[Synchronization 73%...]
He doesn't have to ask, but he takes his chances nonetheless.
[Synchronization 81%...]
"Do — what?"
[Synchronization 88%...]
Shang Qinghua takes a step back when, in less than a fraction of an instant, Tianlang-jun is in front of him.
[Synchronization 92%...]
"Take you home, of course", pronounces Tianlang-jun, as if it were natural, as if it were the most normal thing that happens in the universe, as if there were not a speck of madness here.
[Synchronization 98%...]
Shang Qinghua feels someone else's and hot hands on his shoulders as he is pulled closer, into an embrace — it smells like medicinal herbs, paper and ashes.
Oh, right.
[Synchronization complete].
That's what his didi always smelled like.
————— Ctrl+C Ctrl+V —————
Shang Qinghua sleeps and dreams.
In these dreams there are beautiful men: which is nothing unusual, all the men of his world are extraordinarily beautiful; but these men are different; they are close to him, even if he does not understand why.
At first it is boy, even boyish child, with an energy that knows no sunset, with a laugh that knows no silence, with timid hands that tug at his clothes, asking for attention with the feeling of a small child, and with red eyes that he knows, that he has known forever, that he has given to another person. This boy grows into a young man, no less adorable, tall and with terror written on his face as he falls, and the young man catches him with trembling hands; Shang Qinghua does not want to see the fear of this child, whose cheeks have not yet shed the softness of childhood; he touches another's face, barely-barely, his blood disfiguring the face he loves, he wants to apologize for it, but darkness creeps up on him and whispers graces him to rest, so he only notes: you have grown so. The next time, the young man has gone from being a boy to a man with a majestic jaw line and a heavy gaze; formidable, regal and lonely — Shang Qinghua wants to embrace this man.
And he embraced, and was not let go for so long that the sun came and went twice, and the man wept and wept, as if he were not the dangerous Emperor of the Demon Realm without pity and mercy, in his thin and white hands.
Then another man comes in his dreams, without the leads of his childhood and youth, though Shang Qinghua suspected that the third man of his dreams might be him. This man has amber-yellow eyes and green-colored scales instead of skin; this man — is everything and more than Shang Qinghua could have hoped to find. This man is impassive in face, but extremely expressive in the emotions that seep through his eyes; Shang Qinghua does not think he is describing such a character, but he already loves him because he is committed with even more vividness than the first man. Shang Qinghua doesn't think he deserves such an unquestioning following (worship, — if he doesn't lie to himself), but this man with the snakeskin whispers to him about how wonderful he himself is for some reason, and Shang Qinghua feels his ears burning. (Then the first man appears to stand between them, taking him along the wide, high-ceilinged corridors and drawing him into a conversation about personnel management, and Shang Qinghua takes the bait, rolling up his sleeves, exposing more of his irregularly tanned skin and forcing some poor guy with scrolls to stumble, and disappearing to do his job).
And last there is the boy. A boy with the first man's delightful cheeks and the second man's enchanting eyes; a boy with a timid smile and humble actions; a boy he would put in the place of the sun, displaced for lack of use. Shan Qinghua can't help but love this child, as if he was written to love him.
And Shang Qinghua cannot help but love all of them, and this love is so different from anything he has felt before; it is even more intense than his feeling for this world, created by his hands; even more profound than for his king.
To each of these men he must know.
Shang Qinghua thinks he owes it to himself to know them: the boy-young-man with scarlet eyes and curly hair, the man with skin in scales and hissing snake laughter, the boy who has absorbed the best of the first two.
His heart breaks with longing for them.
His mind burns, trying to remember their names before he wakes up.
His mark forehead is tormented by a sharp pain, his breathing is labored, his weak legs fail to hold as he falls through sleep.
The dreams begin and do not end.
He — is writer with bones bulging with malnutrition and red-dyed hair, with dry skin and lips cracking with dehydration, with an emptiness within himself and the aimlessness of his life as he creates a world of black characters on a white screen.
He — is demon with feminine proportions and super strength, with a scarlet mark in the middle of his forehead and the same eyes, with walls around him, a gilded cage, and parents even crappier than he already experienced.
He — is cultivator, the lord of the peak Cang Qiong sect, with a weak heart, with no choice in his life, with eternal doom over his head, with the memory of his life as a writer and the pain with tears of sorrow for a life he did not live.
Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky; Xiao Huo; Shang Qinghua.
He — is all three.
And he feels like his head is going to split into a million pieces as he keeps falling.
Until he is caught.
He opens his eyes, smeared with red, viscous and sticky, as nausea clings to him with the claws of death, and the boy, young man, man his didi looks at him, just as frightened, maybe even more terrified than he was then, centuries ago.
This time he can't raise his hand, but he smiles, and, gods, her his didi has grown again? His face is not as flawless as he remembers, but still perfect. His little brother has always been perfect, such an objective opinion doesn't change years later.
Shang Qinghua wants to make fun of this, his didi, his precious little treasure — is Tianlang-jun, the father of his main character, his son? Shang Qinghua feels the coldness of his king's seal on his side, he hears it crack in his brother's hands because he could not restrain a shudder from the ice, even through his clothes; oh, his king will be so angry with him for this (he remembers how his king threw it to him, nearly ripping his eye socket open, when he reported that this seal would tell his king if he were dying). Shang Qinghua is very sparingly aware that his didi tells him something when he tastes blood on his tongue; he thinks of how it has come to this, and recalls Zhuzhi-lang, the serpent demon he wrote of his unspoken love of serpents as a child, of his son.
And, gods, his son grew up to be so outstanding.
This is something that strikes his pride above all else.
"A-Zhu is so big already..." he notices at the last moment, glowing with joy as consciousness slips away from him and his didi looks so confused and desperate that he wants to wake up immediately.
But he can't.
Lord Peak An Ding, Shang Qinghua, was taken from under his nose.
More precisely: kidnapped.
It was so ugly brazen and disturbing that it didn't even make sense. Liu Qingge noticed it first with an accident where he wanted to bring Shang Qinghua to spar (more training), masking his desire to get his shixiong out of the stuffy office into the fresh air before he finally soaked himself there. He smelled it faster than he saw it — smell of blood.
Liu Qingge began to move faster when he heard someone else's voice and felt the demonic qi.
"—you can't leave me, not now—" if he had been more attentive, he could have recognized the notes of panic in his voice; instead, all Liu Qingge could feel was rage.
He broke down the front door of his shixiong's house, even though he had promised not to do it again, only to freeze for a second. He knows him; he knows this demon; he saw him two decades ago in a battle for which he still does not think he would have been an equal, a battle that took all four sects and involved so many dead.
Tianlang-jun, the demon that has caused nightmares for hundreds of spellcasters, the same monster that holds his shixiong and... smears his blood all over his shixiong's face. Liu Qingge freezes for the most embarrassing second of his life, which costs him the demon notices him, intercepts Shang Qinghua so quickly that he barely has time to draw his sword to rush after them.
Everything else — is screams, chases, a few explosions, some carnage, a lot of black frustration, and realizing that his shixiong is unconscious in the middle of it.
Liu Qingge, the god of war from Bai Zhan Peak was not enough to catch the Demon Emperor returning from oblivion; zhangmen-shixiong is not reported quickly enough to appear before the Heavenly Demon is gone and lost; Shen-shixiong is too, looking something in between incomprehension, indignation, and fear.
(Maybe if he looked back in his memories, he would notice the tenderness in the way his shixiong the demon pressed against his own chest, instead of leaving at least one hand free; maybe he would notice the growl from the demon, deep and primal, fierce and protective; maybe he would notice that the demon sought to hide from them, not to sow destruction.)
The Peak Lord's disappearance and the notification of Tianlang-jun's rebirth are also not something they can or have the right to hide from the other sects.
In any case, Liu Qingge sets out on a long trail, barely staying so that Mu-shidi can stitch up his flogged useless body and Shen-shixiong can ask too many questions.
The Peerless Cucumber, aka Shen Yuan, aka Shen Qingqiu, was far from well.
He was terrified.
For starters, his only (however unfortunate) friend has been kidnapped by a demon, the System knows for what purpose (knows and is suspiciously silent when he squints in her direction). Moreover, as he learned at the hastily assembled meeting of the Peak Lords in Mu Qingfang's infirmary, he was abducted by Heavenly Demon that had apparently been sealed about twenty years ago. Just how old was Luo Binghe; Shen Yuan might have appreciated the intriguing plot progression of the protagonist's backstory, if not for the fact that this is now his life. And, what-what, zhangmen-shixiong, did I hear correctly? You mean to tell me that at the same time Tianlang-jun kidnapped, allegedly abused, and did, gods know what to another cultist from another equally important sect who was not the last? You can say that again, because this shidi's rich imagination for catastrophes has yet to taste out of its comatose state. Ah, that woman, as described by Qi-shimei, looks one and the same as my precious apprentice, thank you, everyone. Now this master is in a fucking panic, thank you.
Shen Qingqiu stares fiercely at the System, which does nothing useful except hangs an empty loading wheel window, and he mentally writes her the worst review in the book of complaints — oddly enough, his way of de-stressing this time does not help.
Not the tea, not the Mu-shidi infusions, not the days of planning that followed, when Liu-shidi, being foolish and noble, rushed forward like a bloodhound.
Shen Qingqiu had broken about five fans in those three days alone, not knowing what awaited him next, not even knowing how the plot would go.
Suddenly, Shen Qingqiu realized that he was alone again.
And when he looked around, he found neither Luo Binghe nor Shang Qinghua in his house, where he had seen them often enough to stop imagining the bamboo walls without them.
And if he knew his apprentice was coming for his life, Shang Qinghua.. Airplane might have been gone forever.
(It seems to him that the last thing he talked to him about was what crappy names and names he gave the plants.
This is neither comforting nor satisfying.)
The chaos that followed the theft of their shizun (and it was theft, you can never change their minds) at An Ding's peak was more static and controlled than many thought.
For one thing, their peak was the only one with three official head students to divide their duties and not make any one person carry an impossible mountain; second, as the students themselves discovered... they were ready.
It took them a week from the time of the theft to realize that their shizun had prepared them. Taught them everything they needed to know, told them things they shouldn't have said until one of them would be Lord of the Peak, showed them secrets they probably weren't supposed to see. But their shizun was always ahead of time, knowing the future ahead of time without ever admitting it.
All the inner disciples at An Ding Peak knew or suspected that their shizun had either a gift or a curse; the way he knew things no one else knew; the way he predicted events with too much accuracy; the way he looked at you like he knew what was in your head.
Their shizun was frightening in its omniscience, if they would be frank. But he also never used it for evil. Their shizun was too often in the right place at the right time to resolve disputes, conflicts, and problems before they began, drawing them into conversations with the grace of a theater actor, knowing all your interests and antipathies; their shizun instituted so many safety techniques, including annual inspections on Qian Cao, and there was no medicine that their shizun could not get, no matter how rare or even mythical it was.
Their shizun was too expensive to even realize it, loving to overreact, therefore teaching their main students everything so that they could function without it for years, if not decades.
It didn't matter to An Ding's disciples, because their worst fear came true: their enemy found gold in their sect, and took it away, nearly destroying the entire work mechanism — but they keep working, because their shizun would be upset if all his work collapsed when he turned away.
So An Ding's disciples cry, wipe away their tears, and go on working, knowing that the shizun would be proud of them, that they try to remain steadfast.
But, unlike their all-forgiving shizun, they are angry.
Have you heard?
They say that the Demon Emperor, Tianlang-jun returned from the grave to take revenge on the righteous cultivators.
They say he took one of the peak lords of the Cang Qiong sect because they can barely function without him.
They say the demon brutally tortured and killed him.
They say he was taken hostage, for useful information.
They say that the Demon Emperor fell in love with a man at first sight.
Have you heard?
It seems that their Emperor has returned and brought Xiao Huo, his uncrowned Empress.
It seems that the people want to take their lord's heart again.
It seems a war is beginning.
Have you heard?
Snowstorms are raging in the North.