Chapter Text
They’re halfway back to the private complex when the perimeter alert chimes. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t even look up from the sheaf of papers in his hands at the driver’s small cough.
“Boss, Ming Fan says there’s been an alert on the southwest road again. Would you like him to send someone out?”
Shen Qingqiu flips through another few papers, considering. “No. It’s on the way, so I’ll check myself.”
It’s the fourth time this month, anyway, and the thirty-second in the time since Shen Qingqiu had acquired the complex to which they’re headed. If it’s something serious, that would be a first.
Still, there’s no harm in checking, even though he’s so tired that he wants to fall into bed and sleep for a year. Yes, there are discreet surveillance cameras monitoring the road, but it’s a backroad used so infrequently that there are only a few lamps spread out at intervals along the packed dirt, so it’s better to check in person, just in case.
The other man glances at Shen Qingqiu in the rearview mirror. “Respectfully, sir, are you sure? Considering all the recent events, I cannot advise that you go out of your way, particularly so late at night…”
Shen Qingqiu sets his papers down, meeting the other man’s eyes in the mirror. “Mr. Chu, how likely is it that I, a high-level cultivator, am at a high risk on in a sparsely populated area outside the city, on an unpaved back road to a property that’s not even in my name?” He sits back, ignoring the dull ache at his temples. “Besides, there’s another car right behind us. Even in the very unlikely event that it’s something dangerous, the six of us should be able to handle it.”
Mr. Chu’s hands tighten on the wheel. “Understood, Mr. Shen.”
After a moment, Shen Qingqiu sighs. “Do you really believe this is going to be something more serious than old furniture or assorted trash?“
“At two in the morning, sir?” Mr. Chu shakes his head. “I admit, it’s very unlikely a threat, probably an abandoned animal again.” He shrugs lightly, eyes on the road. “My money’s on a dog. Might be a little more complicated if it’s agitated, but not harder to handle than the others. If it’s not just another dump, I’ll call Gongyi Xiao to handle it. You know the drill, boss.”
A dog? Well, it wouldn’t be the first. Unfortunately. Likely enough to actually bet money on.
Sometimes Shen Qingqiu really has to wonder what’s wrong with people.
He hums, finally slipping the papers into a folder by his side and massaging his temple with his fingertips.
He was getting nowhere with those documents anyway. Unless something big happens, he’s trapped—and even if something does happen, it likely won’t be in his best interest. It never is.
Perhaps this brief distraction is for the best.
The next six minutes are quiet, other than the quiet rumble of tires over dirt. Finally, the car halts under one of the few lamps set up along the road.
“I don’t see anything just yet, boss,” Mr. Chu says, peering out the windshield. “Are you sure you want to step out?”
Shen Qingqiu sighs. “It should be quick, Mr. Chu.”
Even as he says it, a disconcerting prickle runs down his spine. It’s hard to pin down the exact feeling, perhaps some cultivator’s sixth sense, but Shen Qingqiu knows. Something is different about this time.
The other man doesn’t look convinced, but he gets out, opening the door for Shen Qingqiu as the car behind them stops.
As soon as the door opens, Shen Qingqiu stiffens, shoulders straightening. With a quiet click, his spiritual weapon slides into his palm, a soft white glow radiating off the rare, silvery metal that currently holds the shape of a deceptively slender baton.
“Something’s not right.”
He can smell it, literally—an iron tang in the air.
The scent of blood is never a good sign.
Raising his voice only enough for it to carry to the others, Shen Qingqiu nods to the men stepping out of the other car. “All of you—form a perimeter. If anyone else is here, I want them taken down immediately. Non-lethal is preferable.”
Cold green eyes sweep across their surroundings, along the edge of the lamplight. Something is very, very different this time.
And, when his gaze falls on a shallow gouge in the ground at the edge of the light, he begins to understand just how different.
Xiu Ya brightens as Shen Qingqiu releases it, hovering above his upturned palm in the center of a diamond-shaped array, and behind him, Mr. Chu draws in a sharp breath, rattling off a few more hushed orders to the rest of the team as they start to spread out silently into the dark.
Dry leaves crunch as Shen Qingqiu strides over to the side of the road, Xiu Ya’s now radiant glow revealing a body just beyond the lamplight, face-down on the dirt with a pool of blood smeared along the trail where the man must have been dragging himself towards the light.
A quick scan of the newly illuminated treeline reveals nothing just yet, no obvious signs that anyone else was still there and no underbrush to give an attacker cover. They must have simply dumped their victim here, still half-alive, like he was nothing more than trash.
Nudging a foot under the man’s shoulder, Shen Qingqiu carefully flips him over.
He’s deathly pale from blood loss, eyes closed and one side of his face coated in blood and dirt, but Shen Qingqiu (or more precisely, the man currently known as such), recognizes him instantly.
Standing over the motionless body of the man fated to turn his life into a living hell, there’s only really one thing to say.
“Well, this certainly isn’t a dog.”
Perhaps a little context would be helpful at this junction. Shen Yuan, currently known as Shen Qingqiu, sure would have appreciated some of that context when he woke up from a routine, entirely ordinary nap and found himself, dazed and head throbbing with pain, on the edge of a vast, imposing precipice, ghostly green fire dancing along the horizon line—but no, that would have been too simple, too easy, too gentle of an introduction to his new life (okay, so he may be just a little bit bitter).
All he had actually gotten was what most closely resembled a glowing pop-up screen in the middle of his field of vision, flashing [System malfunction. Please wait.] over and over again. When he’d looked down, aware of the weight in his hand but not knowing what it was, he had caught his first glimpse of Xiu Ya’s true form, a long, slender blade that glowed a pale gray contrasted against splashes of crimson along the sharp edge that were definitely not just part of the sword’s design.
And when he breathed in, Shen Yuan had almost fallen to his knees at the onslaught of sensation as the scent of his surroundings had flooded him—smoke that burned in his lungs, something sweet and cloying that made his head spin, and the metallic sharpness of blood that almost made his eyes water because it was all too strong, too much for him to process. Even the sword in his hand had felt too rough against his skin, too heavy in his palm, like every cell was screaming feedback to his brain all at once. Beyond it, every blade of grass, crushed and smeared with red, came into sharp focus, every pebble and tattered leaf and clump of ash vying for his attention. The distant rumble of what must have been thunder crashed in his ears like an explosion.
His stomach roiled and he staggered, gaze sweeping wildly around his surroundings. Perhaps, if he hadn’t been so terrified, it might have filled him with awe at its broken beauty—a massive tear in the earth where level ground gave way to a sheer cliff spreading out in front of him, set with an imposing line of massive, free-standing stone pillars that towered over the landscape to either side along the precipice, a hazy sunset dying the sky crimson above them.
It had just made him feel incredibly small.
Ding!
[Welcome to the System! Due to a technical error, processing times may be longer than expected. Please wait.]
What else am I supposed to do?! Shen Yuan had wanted to scream, if only the nausea had waned enough to make opening his mouth not seem like a horrendous idea. What the fuck is going on??
To which he had gotten absolutely nothing in reply. Setting an example early, he would later joke, but in the moment it had only made his panic spike.
Shen Yuan had had plenty of nightmares in his time, because really, he had quite the imagination whirring along in the back of his brain doing generally unhelpful things, but he had never had a nightmare this clear or this…lucid, and he had never experienced hallucinations like this. None of his medications were supposed to have side effects this serious.
However, the only reasonable assumption had to be that this was a product of his imagination, not a real scenario playing out around him. The reasonable assumption had to be that the heavy footfalls behind him were auditory hallucinations. The reasonable assumption had to be that the massive bear-like creature rearing on its hind paws, eight red eyes zeroed in on him as he turned on autopilot, couldn’t possibly be real.
Because it couldn’t be real, right? That would be—
Shen Yuan would have died then and there, overwhelmed, lost, and alone in a world that he hadn’t immediately recognized, if his body had not remembered what his mind did not. In the span of a second, the weapon in his hand had flared a bright white, his wrist flicking it up and across in a movement that felt as natural as walking, and the beast’s severed head had thudded to the ground at Shen Yuan’s feet, all eight eyes staring blankly into space.
And Shen Yuan could do nothing but stare back, fear and confusion blending into an ache that felt as though it would split his skull open.
Because that was the corpse of an Eastern Spider Bear, and those massive pillars were the Righteous Barrier Columns, and he was standing there on the edge of the Endless Abyss in green and white cultivator’s robes holding a sword that had already been stained with blood, and that meant that he was—
Ding!
[User role bound: Shen Qingqiu. Calculating plot route—] a loud, electronic thunk. [Error. Error. Error. “You Can You Up, No Can No BB” route pack installation unsuccessful. Beginning reroute: actions bound. Confirming personality pack…downloading bound plotline…downloading dialogue packs…downloading action packs.]
A new wave of pain in his head had sent Shen Yuan lurching forward, gasping.
Ding!
[Reroute complete! Please prepare to fulfill “Scum_Villain_Shen_Qingqiu” role. “Scum_Villain_Shen_Qingqiu” will be monitored to ensure canon compliance. Warning! Non-cooperative actions will result in Punishment Sequences. Limited appeal processes may become available for plot enrichment, but character consistency and plotline faithfulness are paramount for user success. A full terms of service tab will be available on your home page. Please acknowledge.]
“No,” Shen Yuan had whispered, dread washing over him like he’d been thrown into the arctic ocean. “No, what do you mean canon compliance? Doesn’t that mean I—?”
[Please acknowledge.]
“If I follow canon, Shen Qingqiu is going to—I’m going to—!”
[Please acknowledge.]
Shen Yuan had stepped back, glancing wildly around at the chaos surrounding him, but neither the smoke billowing in the distance nor the chasm yawning behind him could stop that neon panel from blinking red in front of him.
[Please acknowledge.]
Xiu Ya flicked through the floating panel to no effect; running was useless. It was all in his head. Literally.
Shen Yuan had found himself in some very, very deep shit. (Granted, he hadn’t known just how deep it was until later on. But from the moment he woke up in a new body, it was much too late.)
[Please acknowledge.]
“I—I acknowledge,” he had said, realization making his voice flatten out, almost as robotic as the System itself.
Ding!
[Welcome, new user! Bound plot path active. Stand by for instructions.]
Of course, since Shen Yuan hadn’t really been in the physical or psychological shape to “stand,” he had promptly collapsed into unconsciousness as his body gave out.
It had all been rather embarrassing, to be honest. Particularly when he woke up to Yue Qingyuan—the Yue Qingyuan, the doomed, saintly, confirmation-he-was-living-in-PIDW Yue Qingyuan—worried sick at his bedside and a stack of paperwork a mile high (he’s joking except he isn’t) right next to the sect leader waiting for Shen Qingqiu’s attention.
Which had been fine, mostly, until the first multiple choice dialogue pop-up had appeared in the middle of his vision. And then, well. The three years after that had really ruined RPGs for him.
It was that OOC restriction that really did him in. No OOC meant no running for the hills and definitely no trying to persuade the protagonist that Shen Qingqiu was actually not Shen Jiu (not that Luo Binghe would have believed that story anyway)—and not even any begging for his life. Which, granted, Shen Yuan wouldn’t have been able to stomach easily, but hey, protecting his thin face couldn’t compare to protecting his…physical wholeness.
Plus, it meant he had to be mean. Cruel, to be more accurate, if in a carefully veiled way. It’s quite hard to make genuine allies when you generally act like a condescending asshole at the best of times.
So, his one lucky break—or rather his second, to be fair—had been actually lifting the OOC restriction, which in itself was practically a miracle. It only took a few years and a horribly embarrassing incident to do so! Sure, it had been an awful, painful experience, but it had loosened up, well, everything.
Except for the inexorable pull of the plot, of course.
The long and short of this whole digression is that he’s stuck. Badly. Which is unfortunate, because none of his efforts to secure an escape from the original Shen Qingqiu’s fate have panned out. Yet, at least. His remaining options are…drastic.
The stakes? Well, only getting torn limb from limb and spending the rest of his miserable life in a windowless dungeon, of course! Or going into…storage. Both uniquely unpleasant options. If Shen Yuan can’t find a way out within a year, he’s a goner.
Either he manages to fake his own death, or he faces the vengeance of a very, very powerful and very, very angry man. No wiggle room, no in-betweens, no second chances.
Just great.
This is all a very roundabout way of saying that, face to face with what might very well be a dying Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan has a choice to make, and as usual, he has two very shitty options: kill Luo Binghe here on the side of the road to protect himself, or save Luo Binghe’s life and risk falling prey to the original Shen Qingqiu’s fate.
As if he isn’t fully aware of this, a neon green pop-up appears at the top of his field of vision.
[Reminder: excessively OOC actions will result in accrual of Punishment Sequences or temporary override, if minimum consistency is not met.]
He mentally slaps the [OK] button. Yes, he knows, the original goods would probably give Luo Binghe an extra kick for good measure, but can’t he at least think about it for a half second in peace??
(He decidedly ignores the other, smaller red box in the upper left corner of his mental screen, the number two inside it blinking steadily at him.)
Staring down at that bloodstained face, Shen Yuan grits his teeth and presses two fingers against Luo Binghe’s neck—and feels a weak pulse under his fingertips. It’s barely more than a flutter, but it’s there.
Luo Binghe’s chest is still motionless. He may have a pulse, but if he doesn’t start breathing soon, he’s going to…to die.
Fuck, with the amount of blood soaking the earth behind him, Luo Binghe might die regardless.
The protagonist isn’t supposed to die. After years of struggling to survive, after torture and suffering and dragging himself up the food chain to become a powerful figure in both the cultivation and demonic spheres, wrapped in plot armor that means he can still get back up no matter how hard he’s knocked down—this isn’t supposed to be possible.
Not after all that pain and effort. Right?
“Boss.”
Shen Yuan startles at Mr. Chu’s prompting voice, fingers still pressed to Luo Binghe’s throat.
He could kill the man right here, right now. He would be safe. His employees would be safe. And Shen Yuan has never even talked to the man who’s supposed to expose Shen Qingqiu’s past misdeeds and take charge of the brutal punishment. He’s only read about the protagonist in a book—Luo Binghe was never supposed to be real. Shen Yuan isn’t exactly emotionally attached to this man anymore—the opposite, really.
Shen Yuan should kill him. He has every incentive; it would be the smart thing to do. He doesn’t have the same stake in Luo Binghe’s life that he has in Luo Binghe’s death.
Xiu Ya thrums as it falls back into his hand, the baton melting into a dagger with barely more than a thought. The main advantage of a spiritual weapon so closely bonded to the wielder is, of course, the melding of cultivator and weapon that makes such a perfect execution of will as easy as lowering the blade to Luo Binghe’s neck.
It would be oh so easy. Xiu Ya is sharp enough to shear through Luo Binghe’s chest, making quick work of his heart and lungs with the right amount of force.
It makes even quicker work of the man’s shirt, ripping all the way from collar to hem in one quick movement without so much as scratching the skin beneath.
“Mr. Chu, contact Qing Jing Medical, then start applying pressure,” Shen Yuan snaps out, pushing the shirt aside to take stock of Luo Binghe’s injuries without waiting for confirmation.
There’s a mess of bruises and cuts along his chest and collarbone, although it doesn’t look bad enough to have punctured or deflated a lung, plus a long scrape down the front of his chest, but the worst of it has to be the four or five stab wounds clustered on the right side of the man’s abdomen, still bleeding sluggishly.
He shouldn’t still be bleeding. Luo Binghe’s Heavenly Demon heritage gives him much more control over his body than even an experienced cultivator, so he should have been able to close the wounds if he was conscious enough to drag himself as far as he had.
There’s something very, very wrong here.
Taking a steadying breath, Shen Yuan kneels next to Luo Binghe. Layering his hands over Luo Binghe’s sternum, the transmigrator sends up a mental prayer to whatever beneficent, decidedly non-System deity might be out there, and begins compressions.
Thank fuck CPR was part of Shen Qingqiu’s regular corporate training.
Of course, that moment of relief doesn’t last long.
[Warning! Warning! Warning! Extreme OOC detected!]
Shut up, he thinks, half prayer and half curse.
Across from him, Mr. Chu is speaking rapidly into his earpiece and peeling a patch of hemostatic gauze from its packaging. The sterile white quickly blossoms with red, pressed down over the stab wounds under Mr. Chu’s broad palms, but Shen Yuan knows that it may not be enough. Luo Binghe’s chest still won’t rise, and when Shen Yuan pauses for a moment to hold a finger under his nose, there’s nothing. Only a new dribble of blood at the corner of Luo Binghe’s mouth indicates he’s still, at least theoretically, breathing.
Shen Yuan would really rather avoid giving breaths, but if Luo Binghe doesn’t start breathing soon, he’s going to die. Not to mention that that kind of contact might help transfer more qi into Luo Binghe faster and more efficiently. If he’s going to survive the night, he’ll need it.
Fuck, Shen Yuan thinks to himself, and tilts Luo Binghe’s head back.
The seal is imperfect at first, but the second attempt is better, a spark of qi jolting from Shen Yuan to Luo Binghe that must do something because the half-demon’s chest rattles in a shallow inhale. Encouraged, Shen Yuan leans down again, pushing more of his spiritual energy towards the other man.
His chest rises a fraction, and Shen Yuan internally fist pumps. But it’s not over yet, so the transmigrator focuses on his hands, circulating his qi and letting his power flood towards the point of contact to seep into Luo Binghe’s chest with every compression. He can feel the other man’s body accept it, but there’s something off about this too: the half-demon’s qi is…stagnant. Opening a connection between them like this should be like dipping his hands into a riptide, not—this.
Which means that when Shen Yuan bends down to give the next breath, he pushes a little harder against the resistance in Luo Binghe’s meridians, sending a more powerful spark of energy towards him.
With a rasping breath, Luo Binghe’s eyes ease open.
“What…”
“Luo Binghe,” Shen Yuan says, yanking his hands away from the other man’s head like he’s been burned. The half-demon’s head turns slightly to look at him, eyelids fluttering as if it’s hard to keep them open.
“What’s happening?” The words slur together, and Shen Yuan warily leans over him again, holding Luo Binghe’s eye open to check.
There are few signs of injury on his face beyond a split lip and bruised cheekbone, but Shen Yuan can tell that something is seriously wrong—Luo Binghe’s eyes are too glassy, pupils blown wide even in Xiu Ya’s bright light, the capillaries around his eyes too dark, more black than blue-green against almost gray skin. He doesn’t even react to Shen Yuan’s touch.
“You’re injured. I am…providing emergency medical assistance.” Which is a woefully incomplete assessment that skips over a whole lot of context and background, sure, but Luo Binghe is obviously not lucid enough to question his omissions.
“Oh, thanks,” Luo Binghe says, or at least, that’s what Shen Yuan thinks he says, because the syllables all run together like he’s drunk.
Or in shock. Fuck, he probably is.
Shen Yuan takes advantage of Luo Binghe’s complete and unnerving lack of response to his ex-teacher’s presence to press the back of his hand to the other man’s forehead. It’s too cold, clammy with sweat.
“May I circulate your qi?” It’s standard procedure to ask, not only so the patient is aware of what’s going on and doesn’t accidentally injure a first responder, but also to ensure that they’re staying awake.
Seconds tick past. No response. Shen Yuan’s heart is racing in his chest.
“Luo Binghe!” He snaps.
The protagonist’s head lolls towards him. “That’s me,” he rasps. His eyes still don’t focus.
Shen Yuan spares a glance at the half-demon’s stomach. Mr. Chu has a second gauze pad pressed over the first one, but Luo Binghe has already started to bleed through it.
He’s lost so much blood already. He’s not reacting to any of this properly—he hadn’t even blinked at Shen Qingqiu’s presence.
What the fuck happened to him?
And if he dies—
Fuck it. Luo Binghe better not try to kill him.
“This may sting.”
This time Shen Yuan places his hands on Luo Binghe’s sternum and abdomen, right next to the gauze pads, his own qi tingling as he shoves it towards the blockages in Luo Binghe’s meridians. If he can just dislodge the problem somehow…
He doesn’t expect the scream, or the seizing that accompanies it.
But Mr. Chu is there to hold Luo Binghe’s torso down when he starts trembling violently, eyes rolling back in his head. The horrible, agonized cry ripped from his throat almost makes Shen Yuan shudder, afraid that he’ll truly harm Luo Binghe if he keeps going but also terrified that if he stops, the other man really will die.
No. Not terrified. Just anxious, that’s all. There’s a whole lot of politics riding on this man’s survival, even if it’ll all backfire spectacularly on Shen Qingqiu around a year from now.
But Shen Yuan doesn’t stop the flow of energy, pushing and pushing and pushing until something finally gives.
Luo Binghe goes limp again, breathing raggedly. Shen Yuan can feel his qi circulating; it’s still too slow, but at least it’s flowing. Whatever energy blockage had been there has at least been breached, if not fully cleared yet.
Shen Yuan places two fingers on Luo Binghe’s wrist, concentrating closely on the slow, irregular trickle of the other man’s qi. His spiritual energy seems stable, if weak, but there’s something missing. Almost as though…
It hits him like a brick to the chest: he can’t feel a single drop of demonic energy.
A chill drips down Shen Yuan’s spine like melting snow. With no demonic energy, it’s no surprise that Luo Binghe hasn’t healed himself—his blood parasites have been rendered inert, reliant on that energy to function properly. Even if he had completely depleted his accessible stores in a fight, there should still be some dregs of power marking him as a demon, no easier separated from him than the genetic code that curled his dark hair.
And yet.
Whoever did this to him really knew what they were doing.
Shen Yuan swallows.
“How’s the bleeding?”
Mr. Chu grimaces slightly. “Controlled, for now. He can still move his limbs somewhat, so I don’t think he sustained a severe spinal injury. Looks like his only serious wounds are these. They’re pretty severe, but he could still be able to make it.”
He pauses, listening to chatter over his earpiece. “Medical is almost here. Where would you like him taken, boss?”
Ordinarily, Shen Yuan would dismiss something like this to one of the local hospitals. An injury in Qing Jing would be addressed to a Qian Cao ward for Mu Qingfang’s small army of doctors and medical students to handle. But unfortunately, this is far from a minor injury or some innocent bystander he’d found after a hit and run. This is Luo Binghe, already a major piece of the fragile jenga tower that is the cultivation world despite his relatively recent rise to prominence (at least in the public eye, anyway). And although he’s already made a great many allies, there are too many people ambitious enough, spiteful enough, or simply stupid enough to jump at the chance to dispose of a rogue power like Luo Binghe. It would be much too easy for someone to bribe the right person or even sneak in themselves to finish the half-demon off.
For all the hundreds of thousands of words written to describe dozens of stunning women and horribly implausible sex scenes, Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had somehow managed to leave out any of the descriptions and names of such important side characters as physicians (apart from Mu Qingfang), whether positively or negatively disposed towards the protagonist.
Which means that Shen Yuan might entrust Luo Binghe’s life to one of his enemies without even knowing it.
Not to mention that if word got out that Shen Qingqiu was the one to find Luo Binghe, particularly a half-dead Luo Binghe, people would talk, and Cang Qiong is in a difficult position as it is when it comes to Qing Jing Division. Better, safer, that no one knows.
Keep your enemies closer, as the saying goes.
“The compound,” Shen Yuan says evenly. “Instruct Doctor Yang to prepare for a level four patient.” He looks up, scanning the woods once more. “And have Gongyi Xiao examine the security footage and prepare a report when I—”
Shen Yuan’s head snaps back down when he feels a clumsy touch on his knee.
“What?” He says curtly, all too conscious of his reactions now that Luo Binghe is awake, even if he’s not completely lucid.
“Am I…” Luo Binghe’s eyelids flutter, irises taking entirely too long to lock onto Shen Yuan. “Am I going to be okay?”
What kind of question is that? He’s already vulnerable, almost definitely drugged, and defenseless against a man he only knows as his former abuser (even if that man himself has metaphorically vacated the premises).
“Medical is arriving soon,” Shen Yuan says shortly. In fact, he can hear the crunch of tires over gravel down the road in the direction of the compound, so the paramedics in his employ should be at Luo Binghe’s side within a minute. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t survive.”
The hand on his knee wavers, and Shen Yuan does nothing to keep it there when it slips.
“Will you…stay?”
What else would he do? …okay, the original Shen Qingqiu would just throw him to someone else, if he even bothered to help in the first place. Luo Binghe must be really delirious to be asking something that ridiculous.
But still.
“Yes.” Shen Yuan hesitates, trying his hardest not to think about the pop-up at the corner of his eye. “I’ll ensure your safety.”
If he just pretends that he doesn’t see the number tick up to four, it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist. Luo Binghe is the priority, however idiotic Shen Yuan is to be doing all this.
“Okay.” Luo Binghe’s mouth curls into a wide, adorable foolish smile. “I trust you.”
Shen Yuan blinks, recoiling. “What?” The fuck??
“If you’ve already done all this for a stranger, then I…I have a feeling that you’re going to…take care of me. So I—trust you.”
A—a stranger—take care?? TRUST?!
…has the blood loss made him completely lose his mind?!
When Shen Yuan meets Mr. Chu’s gaze over Luo Binghe’s body, the other man looks just as bewildered.
“Mr. Luo,” the head of security says, sounding carefully calm, “what’s the last thing you remember?”
Luo Binghe makes a failed effort to turn his head towards Mr. Chu. “I…” Dull confusion blossoms on his face, followed by disbelief, then rapidly sharpening panic. “I don’t know.”
Well. That’s not good.
“Luo Binghe.” Shen Yuan leans down, nudging the half-demon’s face back to a neutral position—probably too late. “What year is it?”
Luo Binghe squints, but he gives the correct year. Identifies that Shen Yuan is holding up two fingers in front of him. Even solves a double-digit multiplication problem surprisingly quickly.
But can’t remember Shen Qingqiu, or his time at Cang Qiong, or what he’s been doing or where he’s been for the past several years.
Not a great sign.
Watching the paramedics readying Luo Binghe for the trip to the compound’s emergency ward, Shen Yuan makes an attempt to evaluate the situation. The men who had searched the area had come up with nothing—no one had stayed behind to make sure they had finished the job, so whoever it was must have been confident in the damage they’d done. But who could possibly have gotten close enough to Luo Binghe to drug him, kidnap him, and dump him on a back road more than ten miles out of the city? Could one of the many women Luo Binghe hooked up with have turned on him? And what kind of drug could they have used to strip the protagonist, supposedly untouchable Luo Binghe, of his impenetrable plot armor enough that his qi wouldn’t circulate, his demonic energy was completely gone, his wounds wouldn’t close, and he couldn’t even remember major events from his own life? Luo Binghe’s Heavenly Demon heritage should have been able to protect him from something that serious.
Shen Yuan has a feeling that this has something to do with the series of…unfortunate incidents plaguing the cultivation world of late, and if it does, this doesn’t bode very well for its other, plot-armor-less citizens.
If this group is getting confident enough to go after Luo Binghe, who else might they target?
Even worse, when none of his men had found anything nearby, that included spiritual weapons. If Xin Mo is in the wrong hands…
As if Shen Yuan doesn’t already have enough shit to deal with.
In the backseat of his car again, Shen Yuan dials. The call picks up on the third ring.
“Shang Qinghua,” he says with the closest approximation of urgency that Shen Qingqiu’s vocal cords are capable of. “We have another problem.”