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Luo Binghe wakes when Liu Qingge leaves. He stays perfectly still as Liu Qingge’s lips press against his knuckles. His skin tingles where Liu Qingge’s gaze rests against him. Several minutes pass before the man stands and walks away. He lingers, tidying things, pacing before he finally passes by the water curtain. 

Luo Binghe doesn’t move for a long time. He could pretend he’s trying to sleep. He wants to let himself believe it. 

He listens to the running water, to the drip of the cavern and the flicker of the torches. The emptiness of the prison echoes through his thoughts. Liu Qingge has dealt with everything with surprising nonchalance. Oh, Luo Binghe put him to sleep in the dangerous abyss? No problem! Just don’t do it again. The demon realm bows more and more at Luo Binghe’s feet? Good! Luo Binghe should work hard at his big plans. Luo Binghe cannot see the correct way to punish a mass murderer and objectively cruel person? That’s fine! Everyone is complicated.

That Liu Qingge could see all of these problems and somehow… He kissed Luo Binghe first. The hair products, the food, the furniture. The sparring. All of it is overwhelming. More than Luo Binghe ever expected from his shishu. And still, he hopes for more. A hunger aches inside him that started in the abyss and has never been satisfied. Even now it claws at his bones and stomach and chest, eats his thoughts alive until he finds his hand sliding down to rest against his thigh. 

By now, Liu Qingge should be back in his room. Does he regret what happened? Does he not? Is he going over all the ways things have changed? Or is he replaying the way Luo Binghe’s skin gave beneath his hands, or tasted in his mouth? His pulse speeds remembering, the warmth of Liu Qingge’s body on his a ghost of sensation over his torso. He pressed his hand against the bruised ring where Liu Qingge’s teeth bit into his shoulder. The sharp pain draws a gasp from him, his other palm running along his thigh. Sparks and heat prickle through his blood, stirring him to half-hardness as he imagines and remembers the ways Liu Qingge touched him. 

One day Liu Qingge will command him where to put his mouth, how fast, how hard. Luo Binghe listens to that sharp tone, those discerning grey eyes watching where he wraps his hand around himself. It doesn’t take long, his blood already hot from the newness of Liu Qingge’s body on his. He almost feels ashamed–the instinct in him to chafe at the want in his own blood reels forward quick and strong. Liu Qingge’s own declaration pushes the instinct away.

How can he be ashamed when Liu Qingge isn’t?

He dozes until morning, until his water prison parts and breakfast enters the water curtain. Gongyi Xiao delivers it himself this morning. Not the person Luo Binghe expects, but when he moves to the table to accept the bowl of rice and varied side dishes, he can’t help but smile. Liu Qingge has left his book behind. The tome is so large it takes up a large portion of the table. The gold lettering lights like fire in the torchlight. 

Gongyi puts down his breakfast, but doesn’t leave. The disciple looks nervous–shifting from foot to foot, glancing around the room like something he expected is not there.

“Speak up, before you ruin my appetite.” Luo Binghe lifts a bite of food to his mouth, bland and saltless. 

“Where is Master Liu?”

The food turns to ash against his tongue. He forces himself to swallow. “He should be in his rooms.”

“We thought…” Gongyi Xiao clears his throat before continuing. “He did not leave last night, so we thought he… stayed.”

Luo Binghe pushes the table and the food away. “He left late last night. Are you saying he never returned?”

“I’ll go look for him. Maybe he sent word? Did he say anything?”
Luo Binghe glares at Gongyi Xiao witheringly. “If he had, would I be surprised?”

He forces down the panic scraping against the cage of his ribs. None of it shows on his face. None of his doubt, either. The fear, all of it, is shoved away for later. He doesn’t have time for it now. Liu Qingge left. He either left or was taken. 

Gongyi Xiao disappears back on the other side of the water curtain. He’s competent. Luo Binghe won’t need to explain all the steps in detail of how to search for Liu Qingge. Luo Binghe regrets dozing, regrets not being able to follow. He sits down now and closes his eyes, tries to dream. 

If Liu Qingge didn’t leave willingly, would he know to dream for Luo Binghe? Would he know to wait for him to find him? Does he expect Luo Binghe to try?

Liu Qingge searched for him for three years. The weight of that is a gift Luo Binghe intends to carry forever. He closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep. 

The dreamscape yawns on endlessly, empty. Luo Binghe searches the blackness for a spark of consciousness. Nothing, no one. As far as he can reach.

He wakes to Gongyi Xiao pacing around his prison. There is no Liu Qingge by his side. Based on the intensity of the muttering Luo Binghe can hear, the man left no communication either. Luo Binghe glances down at the book, Feathered and Taloned, and picks it up. A quick flip through pages only reveals a note written in Liu Qingge’s sister’s hand. Be safe. Love you. 

Liu Qingge was rarely safe. It was kind of her to wish it for him, regardless. Luo Binghe had not expected his time here would be what would bring disappointment to Liu Mingyan. 

“I’ll need parchment and a brush. A spare disciple.” Luo Binghe pauses and considers. He has avoided the sword for months, but he’ll need it now. “Xin Mo.” 

Gongyi doesn’t ask why or what he plans to do. “Should I send word to Cang Qiong?”

“Don’t worry,” Luo Binghe smiles, and Gongyi Xiao steps back. “I will be in touch.”

He can’t risk reaching out to anyone until he knows what’s happening. Only one person has any motive to interfere with the trial directly. Shen Qingqiu may have his reasons for what he did in the past–reasons Luo Binghe is more than certain Yue Qingyuan is aware of–but to interfere here would be only in self-interest. Luo Binghe came to terms with his own secrets coming to light well before he asked for all of this. Shen Qingqiu may not be as willing. 

Either way, the easiest way to determine if Shen Qingqiu is responsible is to ask the man directly. 

Gongyi Xiao returns, chatting easily with a disciple who glares at Luo Binghe’s table and uneaten breakfast. It takes him several moments–far too long–to notice he doesn’t see anyone in the small prison. By the time he turns his head to look, the bottom of Luo Binghe’s palm connects with the base of his skull. 

“Was that really necessary?”

“Did you want to be stuck here?” 

“Oh.” Gongyi Xiao helps him drag the disciple to the center of the prison. It doesn’t matter, they could drop him at the door, but Luo Binghe likes the picture the man makes tied up and left at the table. 

Xin Mo waits for him outside. The screaming reverberates as soon as he wraps his hand around the hilt. It doesn’t stop, voices crying out in an angry, desperate wave battering against his skull. A second passes before he forces himself to move. He leaves a note–he will accept the consequences of his departure if and only if Liu Qingge is safe. If not, then they should have been more careful with their Peak Lord. If not, then he will not be on trial at all. No one will be left to judge him.

He swings Xin Mo and jumps into the room on the other side. Shang Qinghua shouts when he lands, and shouts some more when he’s dragged into another portal. 

Liu Qingge’s rooms on Cang Qiong are empty. His peak is full of disciples and field dummies and wooden swords, but no Peak Lord glaring over everything. Luo Binghe hates the bit of relief that flutters through his heart. He squashes it beneath the rage that rips through Xin Mo. What, does he want Liu Qingge to be in danger? Is that really preferable to being unwanted? Luo Binghe snarls at his own selfishness and yanks Shang Qinghua behind him. 

“Where else should I check?”

“Why are you asking me?”

They sit in silence, a stand off where Shang Qinghua pretends like he doesn’t somehow know everything about everything and Luo Binghe refuses to acknowledge that he thinks he does. Luo Binghe’s fist clenches around Xin Mo’s hilt. Shang Qinghua catches the movement, shuffles back a few steps. 

“We could check the Lingxi Caves. Though,” Shang Qinghua shrugs. “I doubt he’d go back there for no reason. Uh. Are you sure he left? It doesn’t seem like him.”

“If I was sure, I wouldn’t be investigating.” 

Shang Qinghua annoys him to no end. Something about the man–the way he avoids definitive answers, the way he watches Luo Binghe, the way he pretends, grates over him like blades scraping against each other. 

He checks the Lingxi Caves. Unsurprisingly, nothing. “Tell me what Shen Qingqiu has been doing. Where has he been since last night?”

Shang Qinghua seems genuinely surprised at this question. “How am I supposed to know? I don’t keep constant watch on all the peaks. You’d be better off asking–”

“If you tell me to ask Yue Qingyuan I will find a way to search for Liu Qingge on my own while you eat Xin Mo.” Why anyone has faith in that man is beyond Luo Binghe. Sure, he’s done plenty for the sect. But he had handed over Luo Binghe, however hesitant, to be abused. Luo Binghe still remembers the meeting he’d had with Yue Qingyuan before he’d gone to Shen Qingqiu’s Peak. Tea, a nice meal, and a single request. 

Luo Binghe, don’t push yourself. Keep your head down. That bland voice, that flat smile. Shen Qingqiu can be an easy master, if you don’t push too hard.

As if Luo Binghe could ever have been plain and boring enough to escape Shen Qingqiu’s ire once he caught his notice. As if Luo Binghe–his potential, his future, his power–were just necessary sacrifices on the altar Yue Qingyuan had built to his Xiao Jiu. Luo Binghe would not ask the man for help with his dying breath. 

“Right. I get it.” Shang Qinghua looks like he does get it, which baffles Luo Binghe as much as everything else about the man. “Then, are we going to search Qing Jing Peak?” 

He doesn’t bother to answer. Of course they are. Why else would he bother asking about Shen Qingqiu otherwise? 

Qing Jing Peak looks nothing like he expects. The woodshed leans in the same place, the disciples practice in the same courtyard. Everyone glares at him, just as he thought they would. But aside from the constant pulse of Xin Mo in his hand, he feels nothing. The memories here, the abuse he suffered, may as well have happened to someone else. Had five years made the difference? 

Ning Yingying, old ally, glowers at him in the Bamboo House. He’d never seen the inside of this house. When Shen Qingqiu had invited others in or needed errands run, he had never been allowed. Of course, he had been the nasty one who couldn’t soil the others with his presence. But Ning Yingying had not acted like that, so why now?

“Something’s happened?” He asks. Her suspicion doesn’t melt right away, but she does soften. “Tell me.”

“Don’t you know?” Her arms cross, her chin jutting out. Her bottom lip trembles. “What, your trial wasn’t coming along fast enough?”

Luo Binghe connects the dots, understanding all at once. “He’s gone, too. You think I took him.”

“Didn’t you?” 

“No. How can he answer for what he did in front of everyone if he's not in front of everyone,” he tries not to speak to her like she’s an idiot. She’s not, simply upset and frustrated, just like him. “What evidence do you have?” 

“I–”

He doesn’t wait for her to finish. The Bamboo House is neat–all of the scrolls are stacked, the rooms are all in order. A single line of red, thin enough Luo Binghe can barely run a finger through it, leads from the room to the door. 

“This is it. This is the only evidence.” Ning Yingying frowns. “Shizun didn’t appear this morning for his duties.”

The idea of going on a rescue mission for Shen Qingqiu feels like a cruel joke played on him by the universe. If Liu Qingge isn’t at the end of all of this, ready for him… 

“It just so happens he’s not the only one gone.” Luo Binghe closes his eyes and turns away from Ning Yingying. Shang Qinghua has that awful look on his face, like he wants to swallow his tongue before Luo Binghe asks him anything. “I’ll bring him back. Don’t say anything to anyone.”

Ning Yingying’s attitude all but fully disappears at the promise. “Thank you! I knew you couldn’t–”

“Don’t ruin it,” he bites, grimacing when she grins like she has some idea. The wrong one. “I have my own reasons. Don’t start making stuff up in your head.”

He won’t mention Liu-shishu to her, won’t admit to someone in Shen Qingqiu’s house that the man has any sway over him, that he and Liu Qingge may mean something to each other. He hasn’t forgotten the insinuations Shen Qingqiu had made in Jin Lan City. There is a cost in acknowledgement that he won’t promise in Liu Qingge’s stead. 

He waits until they’re off peak to grab Shang Qinghua by the scruff of his shirt and yank him up to eye level. “Explain.”

“Why do you always–”

“Because you do.” Luo Binghe catches himself grinding his teeth. “You always know more than you should, and you always make the same face when you do. Like when you told me about that stupid lotus, or all those times you’d grab me from sweeping duty to have another birds and bees talk, or when you’d show up and feed me even though I hadn’t told anyone I hadn’t been eating. Not to mention the monsters and plants and demons you know about.”

He makes sure to stress the word demons, allowing his implication to seep fully into Shang Qinghua’s head before he drops the man. 

“I mean, any number of demons could have left a blood trail like that. Shen Qingqiu isn’t exactly short on enemies, and Liu-shidi is far too good at killing demons to rule out this being a really big coincidence.”

“I could kill you, you know.”

“Aha!” Shang Qinghua’s grin does not match the wide panic in his eyes. “To be honest, I don’t know how much I really know any more! Nothing is happening like I… expected…”

Luo Binghe resists the urge to hit him on the head, hard. His hand actually does form the fist, hovering overhead, but he decides against it. “What did you expect?”

“A lot! You, uh. Had a lot of reasons to be angry. Your revenge could have been anything! You’re so calm!” Despite Luo Binghe’s unexpected calm, Shang Qinghua cowers down, hands up over his head. “You could have killed him or tortured him if you wanted but instead you’re… well, you were in prison.”

He doesn’t have time. He doesn’t have time for Shang Qinghua’s cowardly antics or to stumble around searching for clues. He needs answers. He needs to hunt down the person responsible and let Xin Mo feast on them. His patience thins, wavering against the mounting problems. It won’t take Huan Hua Palace long to discover he’s missing. He has a little time as the Palace Master tries to save his own reputation and hunt him down on his own. Eventually, though, Cang Qiong will know he’s gone, will know Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu are missing, and there will be problems on top of his problems. 

“You have until sundown to help me figure out where he’s gone.” Luo Binghe cuts open one last portal with Xin Mo. The sword already grows too loud. Months without using it has worn down his resistance to the thing. It’s already giving him a headache. “If not, then you best hope that ice demon you hug the thighs of comes to save you.”

“You–you wouldn’t kill your dear father would you?”

Luo Binghe doesn’t justify that with a response. They tumble through the portal into the demon realm, into Luo Binghe’s little hovel of a base. It’s still fairly new–Sha Hualing and her band of rogues had started to carve the place into something resembling a palace, but it was all bones right now. He would have to fill it himself, plucking advisors and crafters to make something imposing enough he wouldn’t need to defend it too much. The few demons who are lingering near the entrance scatter when he glares at them. He grabs one and waits until its scrawny legs stop circling. 

“Find me Sha Hualing. Tell her to bring two of her closest to assist.” Two should be enough to run down information without spreading his intentions all over the demon realm. One thing he has yet to get used to after his myriad forms of isolation is how quickly news spreads when he doesn’t want it to. 

“Is Sha Hualing doing well?” Shang Qinghua shrinks down into his robes. “Last I saw her she was uh, posing as a disciple? That seems very. Not her style.”

“She hated it.” Luo Binghe waits. The demon doesn’t take long to deliver his message and Sha Hualing doesn’t take long to reappear. She’s back in her usual attire, with her hair in several tiny braids that shimmer with golden beads and jingle with attached bells.

“Looking extra handsome today, boss,” she flutters her lashes and rests her chin on her caged fingers. “Do something to your hair?”

He hates that she flirts with him. She does too–he’s seen her make faces when she thinks he’s stopped looking at him. She’ll stop eventually. He hasn’t yet been able to convince her that he’s not more or less likely to turn on her if she succeeds in seducing him. The idea is so laughably outside of the realms of possibility that it holds no bearing on his judgement of her. 

“You recall the cultivator who we met at the inn in Jin Lan? The one who came in with Gongyi Xiao?” The question pulls her back to business. She glances behind him at Shang Qinghua–who is desperately trying to cover his face. One brow quirked, she nods. 

“Good. I’m trying to find him–”

“Wasn’t he–”

“Don’t ask questions that are obviously answered by the situation.” If Liu Qingge was still in Huan Hua Palace, Luo Binghe wouldn’t be looking for him.

“You sure he didn’t just run off, boss?” Sha Hualing stretches, all of her gauzy layers shifting and falling into new, more revealing places. “He’s a cultivator. Maybe he just got bored sitting around.”

Luo Binghe stares at her and waits. After her joke–because it has to be a joke, she can’t seriously expect him to consider this–doesn’t land, she hums a bit, scratches her nose, and then rolls her hand as if waiting for him to continue.

“Right. I’m looking for him and Shen Qingqiu. Any sign of either of them and you reach out.”

The idea had been hers, actually, when he’d first stumbled across her after the abyss. It had taken several weeks to implement, but once he had he’d been forced to admit it was useful. A tiny tattoo, just a dot, on the inner part of his wrist. Most of the time it isn’t visible, just empty skin, but if either of them need to contact the other, the tattoo will appear in vibrant red, a pinprick of heat and color that alerts the other. 

“Will do,” she crosses her arms, grins, turns, then circles back around. “Can I ask his sister?”

“You know Liu Mingyan?” Luo Binghe knows they faced off once, but he hadn’t thought they’d been in touch since then. “As long as she stays quiet.”

Liu Mingyan, from what he remembers of her, outshines most of the peak in cunning and resourcefulness. With Liu Qingge in danger, she may be useful. And discreet, if Sha Hualing doesn’t scare her too badly. He considers who he’s sending. 

“Sha Hualing.”

She stops at the doorway. “Hm?”

“You’re not allowed to hurt her. Or make her fear for her brother’s life.”

“Right.” The jaunty bounce to Sha Hualing’s steps disappears. 

“You know.” Shang Qinghua taps his chin with his knuckle. “I never considered what it would be like if you two didn’t hit it off right away.”

Luo Binghe grimaces before grabbing Shang Qinghua’s collar again. They have a lot to do and very little time. “You’ll have to forgive me, Shang-shibo. I simply don’t believe you’ll stay put otherwise.”

Shang Qinghua goes into a room with a very short, very exhausted goat-ish looking demon. His chin hairs wobble as he chews, aggressively, on a plate of leafy green food. Shang Qinghua and the goat man exchange glances. Shang Qinghua gives sort of a pained grimace, and then they ignore each other. 

“If you think of anything, shout. I won’t be far.”

Several hours have passed since he last checked. If Liu Qingge has managed to find a way to sleep, he may be able to show him where he is. And if not him… Luo Binghe hasn’t gone into Shen Qingqiu’s dreamscape since he was a disciple on Qing Jing Peak and Meng Mo hadn’t yet taught him how to reign in his ability to slip through dream barriers. It used to be too easy and he’d find himself weaving in and out of the Qing Jing disciples’, and yes, even their Peak Lord’s, dreams. Most of them had been harmless and boring, but even back then Shen Qingqiu’s dreams had been full of blood and anger. 

He manages to slip into sleep shortly after he enters his room. Xin Mo rests against the wall, unsealed in case he has to leave in a hurry. The sword’s presence always makes the dreamscape less stable, too loud with detail and color and sound. 

The dreamscape is not empty this time. There are hints of something–something dark and red, soft and lush, flickering in and out of the dreamscape. Occurring beside it, as if layered over the same reality, is a damp chill, a slow tightening of scales. Luo Binghe separates them, pushing them away from each other so he can examine each one carefully. 

Liu Qingge is in a dream within a dream. Luo Binghe wanders towards the soft layer–a red comforter lays over a bed, silk beneath Luo Binghe’s hand. He can feel Liu Qingge’s pulse, a slow, thick thing. Whoever has drugged him has given him a dangerous dose. His heartbeat sinks into the bed, bleeding out all that silken scarlet, exhaustion leaving all his muscles lax and loose. Luo Binghe tries to will the mind closer. If he could just get Liu Qingge to speak with him… But nothing happens. 

The other dream proves just as fruitless. The scales tighten, dig in, until the dream flickers out in pain. Luo Binghe abruptly stops trying to connect, pulls away until the dreams settle down again. 

What could they possibly be using to keep Liu Qingge under? His shishu would never sleep that deeply naturally; especially not in any kind of precarious situation.

He reluctantly searches for another dreamer. Another consciousness laps at the edges of the first one. He’s not as familiar with this dreamer, not as trusted in this scape. Shen Qingqiu, for reasons unknown, appears lucid. He is sipping his tea in his blurry non-surroundings, gazing at nothing and saying nothing.

Eventually, Luo Binghe approaches. He could hide himself, disguise himself as someone else. He knows very little about what would bring Shen Qingqiu ease. Would Yue Qingyuan? Would Ning Yingying and the other disciples he seemed fond of? Would he see through them instantly, recognizing Luo Binghe by some marker that set him apart as vermin?

“You were taken.” Luo Binghe says to his Shizun. Shen Qingqiu does not turn to him. “I can find you and rescue you.”

“Why would you do that?” Shen Qingqiu doesn’t even seem surprised that he’s here. Does he dream of Luo Binghe often? “You expect me to believe you will do what he wouldn’t?”

Luo Binghe frowns. He doesn’t know who Shen Qingqiu is talking about. Doesn’t care, really.

“Liu Qingge was taken, too.” Luo Binghe keeps his voice carefully neutral. The implication carries anyway–if Liu Qingge wasn’t in danger, Shen Qingqiu could rot. “It is imperative he returns to his duties. I will save you, and then we will save him.”

“Ask anyone, they’ll tell you we don’t like each other.” Despite this, Shen Qingqiu relaxes.

“I don’t care.” Luo Binghe’s head may split open with all of this noise. The shadows in Shen Qingqiu’s dreamscape don’t rest. They shift over themselves, inching closer in the dark. “Tell me where you are and who took you. I don’t even have to rescue you. I’ll rescue my shishu, and then I’ll send someone back.”

“She already knows I’m here.” Shen Qingqiu finishes his tea. Luo Binghe abruptly refills it. Shen Qingqiu can’t leave yet. “I should have known she’d find me and do something like this. That family has always been a noose around my neck.”

“Qiu Hiatang?” Luo Binghe hadn’t even considered her involvement. Why take Liu Qingge? The methods seem unlike her, vicious and methodical at once.

“Yes. She’s here, you know. Waiting for all of this to come down on your head. She’s quite the planner now.” 

Luo Binghe laughs. He can leave. If Shen Qingqiu is with Qiu Hiatang, then Luo Binghe will find her before sundown. “Anything else I should know?”

Shen Qingqiu picks up his newly filled tea cup and swirls it in his hand. He doesn’t drink it, only turns it over and over in his fingertips. “The demon emperor is here. He’s going to kill me, and then he’s going to kill Liu Qingge. And then, he’s going after the rest of them. All of us, actually, who call ourselves cultivators.”

Demon… emperor. He’d heard of the man, though the stories were distant and unreliable. Luo Binghe doesn’t think Liu Qingge could have met him. From his understanding, the demon emperor lived deep enough in the demon realm, far enough from all humans, that all of the human realm had forgotten about him. Of course, if anyone could have found and angered a demon emperor, it’s the two cultivators Luo Binghe’s trying to find now.

“Why would he go after Liu-shishu?” Luo Binghe should have already left. Shouldn’t have let the secondhand threat distract him. 

“Oh, I heard him saying,” Shen Qingqiu smiles his gleeful, arrogant smile. “Liu Qingge is here specifically as a present to you. He wants to impress his son with his best catch before destroying the humans who killed his human wife. You see, Luo Binghe. Your demon blood is sinful.”

The dream ends abruptly, the fire burning through the dreamscape forcing Shen Qingqiu to cower. Luo Binghe doesn’t realize why fire had come so easily to the dream until after he’s back. The empty room’s shadows shift and slide, Shen Qingqiu’s dreamscape lingering for longer than dreams usually do, before Luo Binghe is able to shake it off. Xin Mo drinks up the unease. He hates that sword. Hates how useful the blade makes itself.

When he goes to check on Shang Qinghua, the room is cold and the goat demon is gone. Shang Qinghua has a book he didn’t have before and he’s making faces at the pages. When he notices Luo Binghe, he shoves the book behind his back with red cheeks. 

“Ready?”

“What?” 

“Tell me, does Mobei know the current demon emperor?” Luo Binghe studies the changes in Shang Qinghua’s face. Red cheeks drain to pallid white, fingertips trembling in the low light of the room. “I assume he visited. Did you think I wouldn’t notice the chill in the room? Or the scent of your room on his robes when he returns from the peaks?”

“Ha!” Shang Qinghua’s pale face goes splotchy with color, torn between embarrassed and horrified. “He–well he’s a sleepy guy, you know?!”

“Calm down. I don’t care.” Luo Binghe narrows his eyes. “In fact, I think it’s a good thing. If they give Liu Qingge trouble for accepting me as a disciple after everything is done, I’ll just use you to distract them. Who cares if Liu Qingge’s got a half demon on his peak when one of their full humans has been conspiring against them?”

Shang Qinghua’s mouth drops open, but Luo Binghe holds up a hand to stop him. “Don’t argue. Answer my question.”

“He probably doesn’t, but.” Shang Qinghua flinches, as if he really doesn’t want to get the Northern demon involved. “He probably can find information much faster than either of us.”

Luo Binghe narrows his eyes and moves to sit beside Shang Qinghua. He’s not wrong–Luo Binghe’s connections are still new, “Then call him. Obviously, you can communicate over distance. He just left. Call him back.”

Shang Qinghua takes several minutes to do anything, but when he does it’s with an embarrassed glance at Luo Binghe. “My King?”

Despite the hesitation in Shang Qinghua’s voice, the room cools almost immediately. The black portal splits the stone ground. Luo Binghe watches Mobei emerge, then frown when the ice demon notices him. 

“Hello, Mobei. I see you’ve been keeping secrets.” Luo Binghe really doesn’t care. This secret isn’t one that he expects to hurt him. “We’re too busy to deal with that right now. We’ll discuss it later.”

Mobei accepts the statement with the same wordlessness he accepts everything. Usually Mobei doesn’t speak at all unless he’s angry. Luckily, his anger has rarely ever been directed at Luo Binghe. The ice demon’s claw does close over Shang Qinghua’s shoulder, however. Protective. Their relationship is one to keep in mind in the future. 

He’s aware he’s setting himself up for exactly the same assessment by asking Mobei for this next favor, but he is willing to deal with that. “I need information on the current demon emperor. What do you know about him?”

“He’s been acting through subordinates for nearly 20 years.” Mobei’s voice is deep and slow. “His most well known subordinate is a snake called Zhuzhi-lang. Even so, almost no one knows what this subordinate looks like.”

“Ask around, get whatever information you can.” Luo Binghe rubs his temples. “I’ll be back in an hour.” 

He spends that hour trying to glean what information he can get from the dreamscape. Liu Qingge’s dreamscape is still split in half. Luo Binghe brushes against it, tries to pull Liu Qingge closer again, but before he can make even a bit of progress, the dreamscape disappears. Liu Qingge is awake, wherever he is “Uh,” a knock interrupts his brooding. “We–Mobei found some information we think Luo Binghe’d find useful?” 

Luo Binghe climbs to his feet, forgoing Xin Mo where it sits. “Go ahead.” 

Mobei glares at Shang Qinghua’s exaggerated worry. “He has an underground palace. He hasn’t left it since his wife died. When someone checked, he wasn’t there. It’s been empty for a long time.” 

Luo Binghe ignores Shizun's voice in his head, reminding him of the very nature of his birth, how this was all his fault. “Fine. Finding him shouldn’t be a problem. How has he managed to retain power? What kind of leverage can I use against him? I am going into a fight and I don’t go in unprepared.” Anymore, he adds, silently. There was no need to rely on brute strength alone any more. He can adapt, now. 

Qiu Hiatang had–quite willingly–taken some of his blood when he’d first agreed to work with her, before she fell apart on an unhinged plan. He had never removed it. She should be a beacon for him, wherever she is, announcing his enemy’s location. As long as the captor didn’t know if Luo Binghe’s abilities there would be no reason to separate her.

An idea occurs to him, then, that stops his pacing. He knows the answer, he thinks. Shen Qingqiu’s words had that horrible ring of truth, the tone that says he knows what he’s saying with complete certainty. Still, if anyone can confirm it for him, he feels like his horrible prophetic shibo can.  “What kind of demon is he?”

Shang Qinghua flinches. “Ah, well, he’s very powerful. Probably, barring you, probably the most powerful demon in the realm?”

“Yes, I figured someone brave enough to label himself a demon emperor was powerful.” Luo Binghe waits for Shang Qinghua to answer his question. 

“He’s a heavenly demon.” Mobei, not Shang Qinghua, answers him instead. “Like yourself.”

“And those are common?” He picks at his nails, keeping his eyes lowered. An anxious energy stirs in his chest but he does not let it show. “What a coincidence, two heavenly demons with a grudge against cultivators.”

“Well…” Shang Qinghua clears his throat. “Probably not.”

“Hm.” Luo Binghe doesn’t want to hear more, doesn’t want to question–again–how Shang Qinghua knows so many things and seems to be compelled to tell them. “You can explain on the way. Let’s go.”

Thankfully, with Mobei here, he doesn’t have to use Xin Mo. He seals the sword, wrapping it in the shroud and beads, and ties it to his back. The screams are muffled, less distracting. He should throw this sword back into the abyss when he gets the chance. Let it go back to the hole where it glutted itself, where it starved in its own aftermath until Luo Binghe stumbled upon it.

They make it as far as an inn in the center of the demon realm before Luo Binghe catches the first thread of his blood calling back to him. It’s different–amplified where it should have dulled over time, but unmistakably his blood. Knowing what he does about the demon he’s about to encounter, this only makes him more cautious.

The further from the borderlands they get, the more wild the landscape becomes. Trees layered with green vines, moss hanging from overhead branches, earth that swallows their steps and closes around their boots. Luo Binghe doesn’t like it–the untouchedness of it. It reminds him of the abyss, empty in a deeply dead way. Unlike the abyss, where the hollow silence left the place thin and papery even as it was inescapable, this place grows heavier with every step forward. Luo Bingh feels like he’s trying to breathe in soup. 

Shang Qinghua and Mobei are quiet, uncertain. Anxiety rolls off them like waves. “Luo Binghe, do you know where we’re going?”

“Mm.” He figured it out shortly after they’d landed. “Why here, though?”

“We probably–I don’t think he’ll let us in.” 

“Then go find some other way to help.” Luo Binghe scowls. “Make yourself useful, somehow. You keep calling yourself my dad. Act like it.”

Mobei makes a distressed sound, eyes flitting from Luo Binghe to Shang Qinghua with confusion. “What?”

Luo Binghe doesn’t bother explaining it. Let the stupid little rat man explain his weird quirk to someone for once. He certainly has never explained himself to Luo Binghe. 

“Uh, I’ll…” Shang Qinghua nods, then shakes head, before finally scrunching his face and stomping his foot. His cheeks are bright when he finally declares, “I’ll figure out some way to help! I screwed the whole plot up, I’ll fix it!”

It is uncommonly determined and brave of him to say. Some of Luo Binghe’s irritation towards the strange gremlin man softens, but not much. Mobei takes them away, though to where, Luo Binghe isn’t sure. Supposedly, Mobei will go into the crypts himself, eventually. Once his father dies, once he inherits his throne and kingdom and destroys his scheming uncle. He’d explained once, when Luo Binghe had first met him and needed to know why he shouldn’t just kill Mobei now and take the north for himself. 

The Mausoleum juts up from black soil, labyrinthine and haunting. He’d expected disrepair, dullness and dust and outdated ironwork. He’s never seen the mausoleum before, of course. No demons make their way to their holiest gravesite on a casual day trip. He realizes now that his expectations had relied far too heavily on human graveyards and customs, where the dead are largely forgotten once they disappear beneath the dirt. The fortress before him–the array he can feel bruising his spiritual energy–all speaks to near worship of the passed rulers. 

The door towers over him, carved with beasts and monsters converging on each other in the seam where a manticore’s placid face holds a knocker in its three rows of teeth. A locked door seems superfluous with the array and overall miasma of the grounds, but Luo Binghe wraps his hand around the ring regardless. The knock echoes ahead, as if the oversized building holds nothing at all but air. The door creaks open, and Luo Binghe makes his way inside. As expected, the entryway precedes several branching hallways and rooms that hold nothing of interest. 

The first floor passes easily. Treasures abound, but none of them are Liu Qingge or Shen Qingqiu. He still may not save Shen Qingqiu. He could send someone else back. His Shizun–arrogant, cruel, spiteful–would never thank him for his service. He’d spend all that effort and get nothing for it. Shen Qingqiu would still call him a sinner, an unseemly blemish on Cang Qiong Sect for him having been housed there at all. 

He follows the light thrumming of his blood. She’s at the top floor. Her presence is muted. She’s still alive, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she was knocked out or nearly dead. Does the Palace Master know what his adopted little girl is up to? Does he care? Luo Binghe’s never been able to untangle the strange adoration the man has for Qiu Hiatang. Kindly adoration as much as aloof inattention. 

The door at the top of the next floor houses a statue of a woman, body posed in a beautiful dance, her expression serene, smiling. Fabric drapes over her body, caressing the curve of her hips, the fall of her shoulders. Sapphires inlaid in her eyes sparkle in torchlight. He passes her by, pushing open the heavy door with one hand. The room before him is filled to bursting with old treasures. Swords that would make a cultivator drool. Sashes and armor that could protect a demon through every war for the rest of his life. Chalices, robes, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, crowns. Luo Binghe pays them no mind. 

There is no treasure that could distract him. Liu Qingge’s weak pulse flutters against his consciousness, a memory of the suppressed dreamscape he can’t shake. Qiu Hiatang is not in this room. Shen Qingqiu is not in this room. Liu Qingge is not here. Answers to questions he’s never bothered asking–a single uncertainty he’s never really considered–wait ahead.

Behind a throne with another statue, this one glaring down at the room with unrivaled fury, waits another door. Luo Binghe places his hand against it to open it and staggers beneath the weight of Xin Mo’s excitement. Rage boils to life in the blade, burning under Luo Binghe’s skin. 

The floor beneath him is painted with the same woman’s face as the one from the throne, relaxed and still smiling, eyes closed. Arranged around her, sticking from her cheeks and forehead and chin like needles, are snake-like demons, their bulbous eyes following Luo Binghe when he steps into the room. 

“Hello,” he says. They sway with his steps. “How sweet of you to greet me. Would any of you mind explaining what I’m doing here?” 

The man closest to him opens his wide-jawed mouth to reveal an empty space where his tongue should be. So, no talking today. How unfortunate. The woman on the floor is clearly a trap–and their arrangement is likely meant to prevent him from solving it. Not a problem.

He bounces off each of their heads, making sure that his boots dig into every sensitive place they can reach–teeth break against his heel, flat slit noses crunch beneath his weight. By the time he makes it to the other side the men are all but melted in columns of magma flowing down from the ceiling. Luo Binghe’s skin crawls. The deaths were too clean, Xin Mo laments. Barely any blood, not even your doing.  

“That was rather unkind of you,” a voice hisses up from the dark. “They were only doing what I asked.” 

“I think the one who cut their tongues is the one who was unkind.” Luo Binghe searches the dark. Aside from the voice he can hear… shuffling? “If they had answered my question, I may not have needed to use them that way.”

“Insult and then injury.” The silvery words are closer than before. Luo Binghe stands still, ears open to the darkness, while whoever it is approaches. “Junshang will be pleased with your methods.”

“I don’t see why I care what he’ll be pleased with.” Luo Binghe closes his fist at his sides. “If he wanted to meet, he could have just asked. Who would I be to refuse a meeting with an emperor after all my efforts?”

“The Emperor.” The man finally emerges from the dark. His hair falls in dark sheets against his shoulders, green slit eyes bordered by green scales. A live snake twines itself around his arm. “You and that man are both so rude with your careless words.” 

“I’m here, now. Don’t you want to take me to meet him?” 

“I fear I’m only here to check on your progress. These things can’t be rushed.” The man turns over the arm with the snake on it, soothing down the reptilian head with his fingertips. “My name is Zhuzhi-lang. I wish you the best of luck, Luo Binghe. Junshang will be terribly disappointed if you die too soon.”

Luo Binghe swings his leg out in a single, powerful kick, only to meet air. Zhuzhi-lang has disappeared, but he did not leave Luo Binghe alone. The shuffling sound takes shape ahead of him, lit by a pale green flame emanating from a previously unlit torch. Luo Binghe curses and the light flares again. 

The corpses move faster once the light is lit. A dozen holes where eyes should be sag on their faces, beady and black knots inside them jerking to attention whenever Luo Binghe tries to dodge from sight. He steps too late once and gets a nasty slash across his arm for his negligence. Nails–too many of them, jagged and sharp like broken, rusted metal–swing in his direction. He watches as the blind corpse licks the blood from his fingertips. 

Luo Binghe’s mind snaps back into his calm, the annoyance from before disappearing as quickly as it came. He waits until the blind corpse starts to move again and moves his blood through the creature’s still wet throat. The head severs cleanly from the body, falling to the ground with a wet splat. The body it was connected to slumps, still, and Luo Binghe laughs. 

The blind corpses are dealt with in no time, and all he has to show for it are a few scratches on his arms and chest. His body aches, but nothing too serious. The blood the blind corpses were after has already started healing the cuts they left behind. No doubt some kind of poison tipped their claws, but whatever it is doesn’t seem particularly effective against him. 

The next woman’s statue is broken. Her face is missing, her arms fallen off. Luo Binghe won’t be getting much from her about the room, like he had for the other two. When he sent a searching ripple of qi through the room ahead, he found it was occupied. Zhuzhi-lang again? Or some other demon to fight? The thinnest hope that it’s Liu Qingge kicks up like an animal, knocking his breath out until his arms tremble. 

He opens the door. Unlike the others, this one is cracked and riddled with holes. It all but crumbles at his touch. The inside is mostly empty. At first Luo Binghe struggles to find the woman’s face that’s been in all the other rooms. Not until he looks up does he see her, her eyes scrunched in despair, her mouth open in a silent cry. Delight, fury, sorrow. A complete set, then. 

There’s no way to avoid sorrow. He steps into the room and she begins to weep. The tears are fat and thick, plopping onto the stone ground. A man is tied in the center of the room, face down, black hair spilling over the ground. One of the tears lands directly on him. Soon, the tears are joined by water pouring from the room. How poetic, Luo Binghe thinks. 

“A water prison for you, too, it seems.”

The restrained man makes a vaguely displeased noise. Luo Binghe makes his way to the man–slowly. Oh, he realizes, the floor here dips down a little. The water is already an inch deep from that single teardrop. The water from the rest of the room seeps down to this lowered center, soaking the room with its salty, sweet scent. He had expected the tears to be some kind of poison or acid. This is much more interesting. A slow drowning in shallow water, watching the end climb closer and closer. 

“Would you like for me to send for someone else?” The man doesn’t answer. His hair drags into the water, tips wet. He struggles weakly against the immortal binding cables wrapped around his arms. “Who should I ask to come for you?”

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t answer. Luo Binghe leans over and plucks at the cables. Shen Qingqiu grunts when his shoulders pull back, too tight and too far. Luo Binghe lets go right before he can hear the pop. Just when Shen Qingqiu relaxes, mouth spitting out the rising water, Luo Binghe picks him up. His Shizun is only a foot or so from the ground. He drinks in the air, lips twisted back to reveal his blunted fangs with a snarl. The fear Luo Binghe can taste rolling off the man is almost intoxicating. 

He deserves that fear, this time. Never before has he been a threat to this terror from his youth, but right now he could let Shen Qingqiu–Shen Jiu–die. He wouldn’t feel bad about it. He allows himself a moment to imagine walking out from this room with no shadow, no cursing, hissing alley cat of a man. 

He drops Shen Qingqiu to his knees. The man spits at him. Luo Binghe ignores him. “The room of sorrows. Which one of them put you in here? My father, or your fiancée?”

“She’s not my fiancée.” 

“Her, then. Why sorrow instead of fury?” He doesn’t pretend to understand how their relationship–or lack of it–works. “What desperation drove her to deal with a demon king?”

“You think you’re above it?” Shen Qingqiu, at Luo Binghe’s mercy, smirks. “You’ll make a deal with him. And when you do, Cang Qiong won’t even bother with a trial.”

Luo Binghe picks Shen Qingqiu up, twisting the ropes so they dig into those pale arms, and slams him back into the stone with enough force that the pool he’d laid in cracks. The man goes limp in his hand. “Should have learned to keep your mouth closed.”

He drags him out from the room, which is rapidly filling up with water. The door likely would have sealed shut in the past, forcing the water to rise and fill to the ceiling. Now, the room is too old. The door into the room was broken and worn and the door leading out of it fares even less well. Shen Qingqui drapes awkwardly over his back, hair trailing against the floor behind him. 

He really is a menace. Luo Binghe should have left him there. He doesn’t know why he didn’t. Doesn’t know why looking at Shen Qingqiu’s snarling, nasty face brings to mind that boy in Qiu Hiatang’s memories, covered in bruises, drowning in hope for escape, painted over with blood. Luo Binghe can’t separate the two of them. Fear has ruled Shen Qingqiu’s life at least for as long as Qiu Hiatang has known him. Luo Binghe doesn’t want to be the same. He doesn’t want to fear Shen Qingqiu, doesn’t want that fear to control him even in his own revenge.

“You’re doing well,” Zhuzhi-lang’s voice appears ahead of him. Damned snake, always close, never very helpful. “Better than expected, even.”

“Couldn’t have done it without your Junshang.” Luo Binghe waves over the mostly healed scratches on his arms. 

“He’s excited to meet you, truly. He even has a gift,” Zhuzhi-lang smiles, and it’s bafflingly sincere. “You’ll be happy with it, I think.”

“I may have been more open to gifts a decade or two ago.” Luo Binghe crosses his arms. It’s the closest he’s come to admitting that this man is probably actually his father. “Besides, his generosity seems to go so freely. This man wasn’t a gift for me, was he?”

The blood he put in Qiu Hiatang is near. Zhuzhi-lang looks at Shen Qingqiu on Luo Binghe’s shoulder.

“No. She was very insistent. She said she knew everything about you and could hand you over to him if he did just one thing for her.”

“He didn’t need to do it.” A man who called himself the Demon Emperor did not, in fact, need a middle man. So why? “What did he want with her?”

“She is a key to his revenge, you are the key to hers,” Zhuzhi-lang gestures towards Shen Qingqiu, “He has no reason to leave him until the end. Bringing him here was just as easy.”

“And Liu Qingge?”

Zhuzhi-lang looks a little embarrassed at the name. “Junshang is a fan of human stories. He’s admired your Liu Qingge for a long time now for his detailed manuals. Did you know Liu Qingge’s name appears in many human novels? He was very surprised to see you and him were close. And the stories–they did not help.”

“Stories?” Luo Binghe’s eyes narrow. 

“He knows all of them, sadly.” Zhuzhi-lang’s luminous eyes are downcasts, glum. Even his shoulder droops like a child rejected at the playground. “They’re his favorites. I’ve told him it’s weird, but he doesn’t listen to me.”

Luo Binghe, begrudgingly, finds himself liking this stupid snake who stole his Qingge. “Is Liu Qingge safe?”

Zhuzhi-lang thins his mouth and slithers away before Luo Binghe can catch him. He’d have been able to stop him if he didn’t have this sack of potatoes dragging him down. 

Luo Binghe sets the man down. Considers leaving him. He’s not in any danger. Right now. What is Qiu Hiatang’s plan, anyway? 

“Leave me,” Shen Qingqiu coughs. The words are thick–nasally. Did Luo Binghe break his nose when he dropped him? “Leave me, and Yue Qingyuan will have the peak lords hunt you down.”

“Will he?” Luo Binghe feigns looking around. “Where is he then? You’ve been missing for almost a full day. Do you think he’d find you in time to know I had anything to do with it? Do you think he’d figure everything out, or just blame this Junshang?”

“Does it matter?” Shen Qingqiu laughs. “Isn’t he just like you?”

Luo Binghe doesn’t respond. 

The labyrinth continues. Luo Binghe fights off a small pack of rodent demons, their teeth flashing and snapping at the empty space where Luo Binghe’s arms and robes had been when he dodges. Shen Qingqiu, useless without his spiritual power or his arms, just waits for Luo Binghe to drag him to the next section.

By the time he reaches the room where Qiu Hiatang is waiting, his stamina flags. Exhaustion creeps into his arms and legs. When he lifts Shen Qingqiu he grunts, carrying the man over the stairs and to the highest point of the mausoleum. The walls are lined with coffins, overrun with vines and moss. Small white bundles of fluff drift ahead of them. Luo Binghe uses Shen Qingqiu to test the strange seeds. The seeds touch Shen Qingqiu’s skin and stick. 

“Tell me how that goes,” Luo Binghe tugs his robes down over his arm, up around his neck. “Whatever happens, I can probably fix it.”

Qiu Hiatang sleeps at the head of the main room. The coffins are all stone, carved and beautiful as a final resting place. Demons always have been ostentatious. Powerful ones most of all. Luo Binghe can’t even blame them. After all he’s been through and dealt with, what would it be like to be mourned in a place like this?

Luo Binghe stares below. The rest of the mausoleum is hidden beneath stone and dirt, but Luo Binghe can still see it stretching out in twisted hallways, trapped rooms, treasures for no one. To be mourned here would be lonely. An eternity of no one. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine Bai Zhan Peak. He can’t–he hadn’t seen it often, only when they needed to train together, or the other disciples were too lazy to make deliveries. Instead he imagines Liu Qingge, in the abyss. In a city on the verge of plague. In the water prison. All places made pleasant only by Liu Qingge’s determination.

“Where is he?” 

The man lifts one arm, then a second, pulling himself up like the dead from a shallow grave. He’s rather exactly what Luo Binghe would have expected his demonic father to look like. Like looking in a mirror, but to the left. The man is thinner, taller, sharper in his features. Not the same, but close enough that Luo Binghe can’t deny the evidence. 

“He’s with me, of course. Never seen a man sleep so soundly and still look so miserable.” The man chuckles, then sighs. “Woke him up to get him settled in and he cursed the whole time. Man after my own heart.”

Luo Binghe frowns, brow creasing. The rows between the coffins are clean, covered only in those thin, wispy vines. No lumps the size of a human body break the lines of the floor. Remembering the face on the ceiling, Luo Binghe looks up, just to be sure. If he’s not visible then the only place Liu Qingge could be is… 

Shen Qingqiu shrieks. The fluff that landed on his arm has been joined by several others, and they’re sprouting. Luo Binghe has been lucky so far. They keep getting caught in his hair, over his robes, and then tumbling away. They don’t stick to anything but skin, where roots are already digging beneath Shen Qingqiu’s pale arm. Zhuzhi-lang makes a distressed sort of noise, slit nostrils flaring as he picks up a loose stone. Several moments later and the stone glows red with heat, passing over the new sprouts until they shrink and shrivel away. 

Luo Binghe ignores the commotion. The coffins are covered in heavy, gilded lids. Gripping them is next to impossible and without his demonic strength he wouldn’t be able to make the damned things budge, much less lift them away. 

There are dozens of coffins lined up in this room. They are arranged imperfectly, each one filled with bones polished clean and jeweled head-dresses. Some of the demonic ruler’s fangs are emphasized and encased in gold, some of their horns are encrusted and painted. Every skeleton is wearing silk white robes, their bodies neatly folded with their hands over their heart. Some of them have weapons, some instruments. One has a fan, his head-dress simple and silver, his robes embroidered with monsters. A guqin rests beside him. None of the skeletons belong to Liu Qingge. Relief and frustration build together inside Luo Binghe as each coffin proves to be not the one he’s looking for and Liu Qingge remains alive and unharmed in his mind. 

Qiu Hiatang still isn’t awake. Her chest rises and falls in even, slow breaths, her head lolled over on her shoulder. 

“Where is he?” There are still at least twenty coffins to go. He’s torn through them, his already exhausted arms shaking with each push. “Tell me where he is or I’ll rip you apart.”
The threat makes Xin Mo thrum to life behind him, even through the seal and the beads. The swords screams are quieter, but not subdued completely. Whatever smothers its power can’t smother its bloodlust. Luo Binghe’s hand aches with the need to wrap around its hilt and end this problem once and for all. Why should he give a shit if this man is his father? Why should he care at all about someone like this? 

“You’re not even going to ask my name?” The man pouts and Luo Binghe’s hand twitches at his side. “I forbade Zhuzhi-lang from telling you, but he tells me just now that you didn’t even ask.” 

“Fuck you,” Luo Binghe’s carefully currated calm breaks as yet another coffin doesn’t hold the man he’s looking for. “Where is he?”

“At least show some interest, I did go through all of this just to save you.” The man’s red eyes bare down on him, intense despite the joking inflection all of his words insist on. “Do you really want to be there when the whole place burns?”

Luo Binghe stops uselessly pushing against the lid of another, even more ornate coffin. “What place? Where?”

“Oh, all of them.” The man smiles, and it’s so stupidly bright. Why does he sound like that right now? “I like most humans, really. Their stories are far better than any that our demons come up with. They’re such romantics. Like you. I guess you got that from your mother. And me, of course, but mostly her.” 

“Where is he?”

“Asking the same thing over and over,” the man frowns at him, eyes narrowing. “Show some of the cleverness she’s known for. You look so much like her, but you seem to be less clever by half.” 

Luo Binghe tackles the man to the ground. He doesn’t care about being clever–being clever had gotten him here and he’s done. He just wants… he doesn’t care. “Give him back.”

The man’s arm comes off in Luo Binghe’s hand. While shrieking at the shock of it, Luo Binghe still manages to land a blow against the man’s head–a feat that would be hilarious in any other circumstance, since the hit lands with the man’s own hand slapping his face. Fury steals the humor from it, however, as Luo Binghe raises the severed hand over his head.

“Oh. Sorry about that,” Zhuzhi-lang hurries forward and takes the hand from Luo Binghe on a backswing. “It happens sometimes. He’s not quite. Used to this body. Or maybe the body isn’t used to him.”

None of this makes sense. Finally, unable to hold it back any more, Luo Binghe asks, “Who are you? What are you doing?”

The man grins and he looks absurdly happy. “I heard that one–” he points to Shen Qingqiu, who is growing another set of vines on his cheek. Zhuzhi-lang’s red stone lies abandoned where the snake had hurried to take care of his master’s arm. “Threw you into the abyss. And I heard his lover let him do it, and much more.” 

“I don’t care,” Luo Binghe spits, and Shen Qingqiu snorts behind him. The man will learn how to shut his mouth one day, if Luo Binghe has to sew it shut himself. “He did that, but the one you’re hiding–he tried to save me. Protected me. Now, give him back.”

“Bargain for him.” The man’s grin fades, his young, immortal face aging with the somber expression. “What are you willing to trade for the life of this human?”

“Show him first.”

“I want you to think,” the man pushes him off, his newly reattached arm surprisingly sturdy for having been flopping around less than a minute ago. “I want you to put the pieces together, to see what I hid and figure. it. out.”  

Luo Binghe sneers down at his father, at the stupid man literally falling apart below him. Then, with all of the willpower he’s built up over the last three years–the willpower that made him a hero in the smaller villages instead of running back to Cang Qiong, that made him smile in Huan Hua Palace despite Qiu Hiatang, that made him save Shen Qingqiu–he shoves the beast that is his mind back into a cage and holds it there. The fangs of his fear snap at his fingers, threaten to maim him, and he wrestles it down into submission.

He closes his eyes. He’s down to so few coffins, now. The rulers are decked out, head to toe, in finery, but none of the coffins have any signs of being emptied. Luo Binghe had figured wherever Liu Qingge slept, he slept beside a corpse. The idea rattles the cage inside him, lifts his lip in another snarl. He can hear the man laughing beside him, a soft chuckle that echoes in the oversized space. 

Suddenly, Luo Binghe knows where Liu Qingge is. The coffin he’s resting in was occupied, but isn’t any longer. If none of the other lids or coffins look to have been disturbed, then the only one he could sleep in is… 

“What’s your name?” Luo Binghe makes his way to the coffin at the head of the mausoleum. The one the man had pulled himself from. Had he really been brave enough–foolish enough–to lay himself beside Liu Qingge?

“Tianlang-jun.” His father’s mirth is palpable. He thinks he’s won. He thinks Luo Binghe will give him what he wants now. Maybe he’s right. Maybe he can read the desperation on Luo Binghe like a wolf can smell a bleeding deer. 

Maybe Luo Binghe will kill him, instead. What use is a bargain with a dead man?

Liu Qingge doesn’t move when Luo Binghe climbs into the coffin above him. His lashes hover over the bruise of fatigue under his eyes. His hair, usually so silken and clean and soft, is tangled with leaves and moss and dirt. Luo Binghe takes a moment to clear some of the debris out. He pulls Liu Qingge to his chest, searches out the heartbeat that should answer his, but the pulse is too slow. 

“Take it out.” Luo Binghe doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look away from his thumb brushing over the clear, tanned skin of Liu Qingge’s cheek. “Give him back and take out your blood.”

“You recognized it so fast!” Tianlang-jun laughs, closer now, his hand ruffling Luo Binghe’s hair like he’s some sort of rapscallion kid being rebellious. “Good job. But if you want it removed, you’ll have to do it yourself. Once I put blood in, I don’t take it back.”

“Take it out.” Luo Binghe pushes the thought of it out from his mind. How easy it would be to bite his thumb, drip his blood into Liu Qingge’s unconscious mouth, clean out the foreign mites. He’d remove his blood afterward. He would. 

Tianlang-jun hums, his fingers tightening on top of Luo Binghe’s hair, yanking back so Luo Binghe is forced to look into his eyes. “No. Tell me what you’d give me for him. Tell me what he’s worth.”

“What do you want?” Luo Binghe only has a few territories right now. All of his power rests on promises relying on promises. That the north will be his when it's at its most powerful, that Sha Hualing will rule the southern border with an iron will, and that iron will bends only for him. That all the places in between–the crow demons who already offer him gifts, the ram-headed demons who supply his growing army with food from their fields–that all of these places will remain loyal. What does he even have to offer an emperor? A father who couldn’t bother to find him for decades?

“I want everything. I want Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. I want Huan Hua Palace–the Palace Master and his daughter–to burn to the ground. To burn further, to rip that water prison from its chains and drop it into the lake and watch it become nothing.” Tianlang-jun’s ruby eyes narrow to slits, his hand drifting down to grab Luo Binghe’s chin and pinch until it bruises. “I want my wife back. Can they give me my wife back? Can you?”

Luo Binghe’s stomach goes cold. “You’re just like him,” he points towards Shen Qingqiu, who Zhuzhi-lang has subdued with two heated rocks, now. “Afraid of the past, afraid of moving out of it. I don’t care about your grudge, or her grudge, or his grudge. I don’t care that you all expect me to hate what you hate and fear what you fear. Give him back, and I’ll leave, and you can do whatever the fuck you want.”

“I don’t think you want to make that deal.” Tianlang-jun doesn’t seem insulted by Luo Binghe’s outburst. In fact, he seems quite at ease with the accusation. As if he already knows. As if he has the secret piece to break everything. “But I’ll accept it. I give you him, and you give up everything else. You let me do whatever I want.”

Luo Binghe frowns. Obviously, Tianlang-jun intends to do something to the sects. Would Liu Qingge be okay if Luo Binghe doesn’t fight for them? “I can only promise I won’t interfere directly. I won’t keep your plans from him and I won’t keep them from protecting themselves.”

“I do require one more thing from you, actually.” Tianlang-jun’s nail runs along the sword at Luo Binghe’s back, snagging on the beads. 

“Xin Mo would drive you mad in a week.”

“I don’t need it that long.” 

Luo Binghe lifts Liu Qingge. The angle is awkward. The tall man’s weight pulls Luo Binghe forward awkwardly. “Wake him up. Take out the blood.”

Zhuzhi-lang’s eyes flit to where Luo Binghe struggles to shift Liu Qingge onto his back. “Master L–”

“Hush now, Zhuzhi-lang.” Tianlang-jun lifts his hand and the snake goes quiet once more, concentrating instead on catching new vine growths. Shen Qingqiu has started pulling the plants out by the roots with his bare hands. 

“I will wake him up first. Ask him a few questions.” Tianlang-jun swirls his finger in a stirring motion, his fangs flashing as he chuckles. “The blood will make him tell the truth. It’s so much harder to lie like this, you know.”

Luo Binghe bites his tongue. He won’t beg for the man to let Liu Qingge go. He’s already agreed to do it. If he doesn’t, then Luo Binghe will kill him. The blood won’t matter if his father is dead. 

Liu Qingge groans against his neck. Luo Binghe’s arm tightens around him, his hand moving to rub comfort into Liu Qingge’s chilled arm. The body beside him shifts, head lifting to search the surroundings blearily. When Liu Qingge sees Tianlang-jun, an angry rumble escapes between his teeth, a growl of tired rage. 

“You’re finally awake! You slept so long, poor Luo Binghe was practically sick with worry,” Tianlang-jun clicks his tongue. He positively bounces as he makes his way to the side of the coffin Liu Qingge leans on. “We have so many questions for you, Liu Qingge.”

Liu Qingge doesn’t respond, but his glare lets everyone know that this is not by choice. 

“First, I’ll give my son a chance to ask questions,” Tianlang-jun offers his hand to Luo Binghe, a symbolic passing of the torch. 

Liu Qingge calms, turns towards Luo Binghe, and waits. He doesn’t seem at all afraid of what Luo Binghe may ask. And oh, he does have questions. The temptation is there–so many things he wants to know.

Are you sure you won’t change your mind? Are you sure you want me, want all of this mess? 

Why did you search for me?

Aren’t you afraid? Don’t you see all the dirt and blood and awful? 

Aren’t you angry at me for betraying you, over and over? The dreams, the abyss, hiding from you, kissing you, wanting you? 

Why did you save me? 

Instead, Luo Binghe bites his lip to keep the questions from spilling out. He may ask Liu Qingge these questions, one day, but it won’t be under these conditions. It won’t be with Liu QIngge at some other demon’s mercy. 

“No?” His father sighs, an exasperated and fond sound that Luo Binghe hates for how familiar it is. How many times had he sighed exactly like that? “Well, I’ll ask, then. Are you ready, Liu Qingge? If you pull any tricks, my blood mites will tear your insides apart.”

Liu Qingge’s brows draw in, his mouth tugging down in a frown. Regardless, he nods, slow and deliberate, watching Luo Binghe the entire time. 

“Tell me, Liu Qingge. Does Luo Binghe scare you?”

Liu Qingge’s slate grey eyes go wide, his face pale as his mouth moves, “Yes.”

The word, three letters, punches the air from Luo Binghe’s lungs. “Shishu?”

“Hm. Has he betrayed your trust?”

Pain breaks Liu Qingge’s mouth open on a gasp, blood seeping between his clenched teeth. “Yes.” 

Liu Qingge struggles for a moment, as if he wants to say more, as if he wants to explain, but the more he tries, the more red drips from his chin. He grabs hold of Luo Binghe’s hand, his usually warm grip cold in the chill of the mausoleum. Luo Binghe’s whispered I’m sorry is silenced with Lliu Qingge’s palm, hair swinging as he shakes his head. 

“Are you going to fulfill all your promises to him, give him everything he wants, stay with him forever and always like a little fairy-tale carved out just for you?”

Liu Qingge coughs blood and it stains the front of Luo Binghe’s robe. “I want… I want to try.”

Luo Binghe’s limbs tingle, his face cold like all the air has left him at once. “You what?”

“I want to try,” Liu Qingge doubles over, falls to his knees. There’s not a lot of space. He almost knocks Luo Binghe over. Would have, if not for the hand squeezing tight to his. “I want to try to make him happy.”

Tianlang-jun laughs. “And what about his plans to take over the demon world, hm?” 

Zhuzhi-lang tugs Shen Qingqiu back. 

“Are you going to stand beside him, then? Going to be a pretty little empress and watch him tell demons exactly how many humans are the right amount to hunt and eat? Will you sit by and let him choose which lands are safe and which ones have to fall?”

“No.” Liu Qingge’s answers rasp, his throat raw. “He wouldn’t–”

“He won’t have a choice,” Tianlang-jun has moved closer now, his hand threading through Liu Qingge’s head, pulling him back so he can’t hide–until he’s looking Luo Binghe in the eyes. “Tell him. Tell him what you’re afraid of, tell him how stupid he is for staying–”

“I’m afraid of you,” Liu Qingge wheezes, his lips and throat and chest soaked with blood. “I’m afraid of wanting you, of making a mistake and it hurts. I don’t—I’ve never–”

Tianlang-jun’s hand drops, his expression suddenly tired. “Stop blabbering. Just tell him the truth. You’re a human, a cultivator, a monster who fears everything else and pins it up in your rooms like trophies.”

“I love you,” Liu Qingge’s eyes squeeze shut, like he can’t stand to see Luo Binghe as he says it. “If you… If you leave, if you decide you don’t want… If I can’t make you happy, it’ll hurt. I’ve never tried before. To do this.”

Every word escapes like it burns, each syllable wrapped in barbed wire that draws more and more blood. Luo Binghe doesn’t know what to think about it, about this sort of painful confession. 

Liu Qingge reaches for Luo Binghe until his hands cup Luo Binghe’s face. Luo Binghe allows himself to be pulled forward. The touch on his cheek, the movement of his feet, the others watching. They all feel far away, as if Luo Binghe isn’t here at all. As if this is some dream that’s gotten away from him, some reality that doesn’t belong in this place. Still, when Liu Qingge speaks, the words cut through the fog with all the ferocity of Cheng Luan’s blade. 

“I’m afraid to be the thing that hurts you,” Liu Qingge presses his lips against the side of Luo Binghe’s mouth. He tastes sweet, like minerals and salt. “I haven’t protected you, I haven’t kept you safe. I’m afraid I won’t be able to bring you back.”

Liu Qingge screams as the blood inside him tries to tear him apart. Luo Binghe doesn’t realize he’s done it–his teeth break the skin on his lip. He thinks he’s apologizing, he doesn’t know for sure. His fingers press against the blood on his chin. This is what Tianlang-jun wanted, he knows. It doesn’t matter. Liu Qingge’s lips are soft and wet when Luo Binghe presses his fingers into them. He doesn’t need much blood. Just enough to stop this.

Liu Qingge collapses almost immediately into Luo Binghe’s arms. 

“You should have just removed it,” Luo Binghe wipes Liu Qingge’s face with his robe. 

“But I didn’t,” Tianlang-jun stands beside Qiu Hiatang. “So now you can leave. I didn’t keep my word, don’t worry about yours.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Shen Qingqiu snaps, “he can’t just let you leave.”

Zhuzhi-lang, somehow, manages to get Shen Qingqiu to shut up by stuffing his mouth with snakes. Luo Binghe begrudgingly shoots him a thankful look. The mausoleum shakes, trembles beneath their feet.

Something, somewhere, breaks. Luo BInghe can feel the space around them breathe with new air. 

“I didn’t say you could go.” Tianlang-jun tips his head towards Shen Qingqiu, and this smile holds none of the joy–faked or otherwise–of his earlier smiles towards Luo Binghe. Malice, simple and pure, twists through his expression. “You, my dear friend, are promised to someone else. And she is the bait for the biggest fish.”

Luo Binghe wants to leave. His arms burn and he needs to remove the blood from Liu Qingge, now, before the insecure, selfish part of him tries to convince him to keep it there for a while. Already the thoughts have started– what if he goes missing again? What if Tianlang-jun changes his mind?  

But what’s the point if he goes back and there’s nothing to go back to? Liu Qingge wants to make him happy. He’d said that, despite Tianlang-jun’s blood trying to tear him apart, despite everything. How can he allow his father’s stupid plan to go through, now?

“What is your plan?” 

Qiu Hiatang wakes up in time to hear him ask his question. Panic, immediate and powerful, cuts across her face. “Why is he so bloody? What happened? You said you just wanted to talk to him–he’s supposed to–”

“Yes, yes.” Tianlang waves his hand and Qiu Hiatang sits. “My son was supposed to go back, safe and sound, while Shen Qingqiu stayed behind. Were you going to stumble back to your sect later, all traumatized and beaten up, and point an accusing finger at my son? Or were you just going to let them make their connections once you revealed who was holding you?”

Qiu Hiatang’s lips tremble, but she doesn’t deny the plan. It’s not even a bad one. Almost certainly Luo Binghe would have been blamed for Shen Qingqiu’s disappearance when his trial was upcoming and the grudge between them was well known. Everyone knew he’d been banished, knew he was building power in the demon realm. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that he’d gotten in touch with his estranged father. If she was an entirely different person with an entirely different skillset, the plan would have been brilliant. As it is, she’s out of her depth. 

Luo Binghe closes his eyes. Nausea rolls through him. “What are you planning to do? Burn down Cang Qiong? All the sects”

“I’ll let three of them go, if you give me one.” Tianlang-jun readjusts his robes, smooths down his hair. “Liu Qingge has earned Cang Qiong Sect a reprieve–undeserved by the others, but I owe you the chance to uncover his failures yourself.” 

“Why?” 

Qiu Hiatange shivers at the front of the mausoleum. Whatever Tianlang-jun is doing, she knows. And she knows why. Yet, when Luo Binghe goes to move his blood in her, to test to see if she can be moved to him despite her fear, his blood is gone. He can’t sense it, can’t feel it. His father removed it–she’d been a trap all along. 

“You are my son. I knew her plans, but I didn’t expect there to be anything left to hold you responsible. I didn’t want you to die.” Tianlang says it in the same way someone might say they saved an extra dessert for him at dinner, or they had an extra umbrella he could use. “She, on the other hand. The Palace Master will come for her, will look me in my eyes, and he will tell me why he killed my wife. And then I will tell him I will spare him, and her, if he can bring her back to me.”

“The soul array.” Shen Qingqiu’s managed to spit out the snakes. Zhuzhi-lang looks even more depressed as the man seems determined to speak. If Luo Binghe didn’t know better, wasn’t aware that Shen Qingqiu was an unlikable little slime, he’d think Zhuzhi-lang did like the man. Was trying to protect him, even. “You’re going to have him try to use the soul array.”

“Yes.” Tianlang-jun squints back at Shen Qingqiu. “You’re awfully smart. And mouthy.”

“It won’t work. She’s been dead too long.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Tianlang-jun snorts. “Don’t explain my own plan to me.”

Luo Binghe doesn’t need the explanation. When they aren’t able to bring her back–aren’t able to even try–the array will have a backlash. Their souls will be swallowed up by it, leaving them shallow and empty. A shell to be used however Tianlang-jun wishes. 

The mausoleum shakes again. Shadows move below them, blurred and unseen even as the walls and barriers separating them fall to pieces. Luo Binghe clutches Liu QIngge closer. Waits. Tianlang-jun doesn’t seem bothered by the new wreckage. 

“Would you really want to look like the man you hate?” Luo Binghe frowns, hugs Liu Qingge closer to him. “What did he do? Let her die? Did he fight her?”

“He locked her up in the same prison he put you in,” the same easy tone, the same voice that could easily be discussing dinner, describes to him and Qiu Hiatang the crimes of the man they’d allowed to house them. “He tortured her. Fed her poison to kill her baby.”

Luo Binghe supposes he should feel something, since clearly this baby is him. But this is a story. He isn’t part of it. His mother saved him from the streets, a fisherman saved him before that. There is no Luo Binghe in the story of this woman in Huan Hua Palace. He looks to Qiu Hiatang and knows, unfortunately, that she cannot be punished for this crime she was adopted into. 

“I’m going to bring them together. They hate demons so much, let them hate them up close. Let them hate them openly, when the demons are there to breathe down their backs. Let them answer for the crimes they’ve committed, in the open, with the rest of humankind clapping along merrily. All I need is your sword, and it will be so easy.”

“What if…” Luo Binghe’s sword wails on his back as he moves it, brings it around to his front. “What if I give you this later?” 

Shen Qingqiu scoffs. Even Zhuzhi-lang looks at him askance, as if he’s grown several heads. “Later?”

“Yes.” Luo Binghe unwinds the beads and lets them fall. As suspected, Xin Mo is quieter here. The arrays and protections are too powerful for even this demonic sword. Even after all the damage. “I’ll remove the blood, get cleaned up, maybe find some solution for that strange body of yours. Then I’ll bring the sword back later. We’ll discuss, then, whether you should destroy the sects.”

Luo Binghe doesn’t believe for a moment that his father can destroy only one, even if he wanted. Something about the way Xin Mo hums in his hands, ready and willing to be handed over, thrumming with excitement, tells him that his father’s plans would end more than the sects. Would the village his mother raised him in be saved? Would the towns at the edge of the demon realm where families of more people with kids like him be spared? Would he get to live on Bai Zhan Peak, get to even see what it was like there before having to establish his kingdom, if his father followed through?

“You think you can change my mind?” Tianlang-jun laughs, like he’s been laughing this whole time, all of the weight of the world balancing somewhere else. Balancing on a cliff over his head, threatening to fall down over him. Luo Binghe realizes, suddenly, that he’s been standing under his own cliff. But all of those problems are always falling, all of those fears are always there, even if he doesn’t look at them. Even if he keeps himself in perfect control so he can’t act on them.

“I don’t want to change your mind,” Luo Binghe slides his hand down Liu Qingge’s arm until he curls his fingers closed in his hand. “I want to wait until later, and then I want to tell you a story. If you want the sword then, I’ll give it to you. If not, you can always do it some other time.”

It’s a risk. It’s an out. An excuse for Tianlang to let go of the burning rope in his hands and cling on to something safer. Luo Binghe has to hope, maybe stupidly, that Tianlang-jun isn’t a foolish man. Or maybe he has to hope that he is. That his father is as foolish and as clever as him. 

“You got this idea from a story, didn’t you?” 

“I don’t lie,” which is, itself, a lie. Luo Binghe would never give him this sword. But he knows his father knows that. “You can either take my deal, or I’ll leave right now with Xin Mo and you’ll never see it again.”

He allows the implication to hang there. 

“Fine.” Tianlang-jun raises his eyebrow. “You really are like her, you know. She played the same game when we first met. I’d love to kill you now, she said, but I’ll have to do it tomorrow.”

“I’m not her.” He doesn’t know her. Doesn’t even know her name. 

“I know.” Tianlang sighs. “You’ll have to find a suitable vessel. This body won’t survive much longer here. Probably prioritize that first.”

“Mm.” He’s already re-wrapping Xin Mo. Exposing it this long was a mistake–the sword can feel the promise of Tianlang’s desire to break and rend and destroy and it hungers for a want like that. “If I can.”

“I will kill the Palace Master.”

“That’s fine,” Luo Binghe shrugs. He doesn’t know the man well, and doesn't owe him much. In fact, Luo Binghe’s work before he asked for the trial was part of how Huan Hua Palace had begun to repair its reputation. “I don’t care. But not her. She’s…”

He almost says innocent, then remembers Shen Qingqiu sitting in the room. His Shizun would probably disagree with the assessment. “She’s not guilty for whatever happened to your wife.”

“I’ll have to teach you before you can rule with any power. This is a pathetic waste of your resources. So many enemies gathered together in one convenient place.” His father sighs. “Such a powerful sword, yet you don’t draw it.” 

“I have other swords. Better ones,” he forces himself to smile. “I can bring some next time. And some of them are almost here.”

His father doesn’t respond. The silence grows awkward. There’s no way Luo Binghe can carry Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu and Qiu Hiatang down to the entrance of the mausoleum. Xin Mo won’t work. Even if Mobei arrives soon, he wouldn’t be able to teleport. Luo Binghe is tired.

A knock.

A knock at the door to the uppermost level of the mausoleum. The sound is absurd. 

“Oh, please come in!” Tianlang-jun, once more, sounds delighted. Ecstatic. “I’ve never had visitors here before. Not live ones, anyway.”

The surprise on Shang Qinghua’s face when the door swings open is only matched by the surprise Luo Binghe is certain is on his. Mobei stands beside him, along with several demons. They shouldn’t be here. Behind him Luo Binghe can see the green glow of the last breath lights, can hear the shuffling of blind corpses and clashing of swords. Sha Hualing’s voice rings out, loud, as well as the singing of her blades. A joyous laugh breaks the silence.

“Hello, Sire.” Shang Qinghua bows, which seems to amuse Tianlang-jun in a new way. “Long… long time no see, ha.”

“You are strangely exactly the same as the last time I saw you, little scribe.” Tianlang-jun crosses his arms, puffing his chest out. “Those books you traded me were excellent, by the way.”

Luo Binghe has never been more confused, grateful, and annoyed with Shang Qinghua as he is in exactly this moment. “Shang-shibo. Explain.”

“That’s no way to speak with your elders!” Tianlang grins and winks and overall acts ridiculous. “He’s been keeping an eye on you for ages. I asked him to, of course, and he agreed so fast! I assume he was really taken with you after you appeared on the mountains.”

“You knew where I was?” His father makes no sense. He’s too tired to figure it out right now.

“Of course! This little scribe found me, however. And brought me the stuff for this body. He’ll probably be able to help you figure me out a new one. This one is quite… uncomfortable.”

“I found him half dead a while ago. Zhuzhi-lang was trying to help him, but he wasn’t doing well either, so I thought. I’d help.” Shang Qinghua swallows, hands turning over themselves. “I… He’s the emperor, you know. The current one, I guess, and. Well. If you’re going to be emperor, you want someone to teach you the ropes, right?” 

Mobei scowls beside him. He’s so exhausted the image is almost funny. 

“What about the sects?”

“I told them Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu were investigating for the trial. Yue Qingyuan took… more convincing, but eventually he came around.”

“And Qiu Hiatang?”

“I didn’t bother. The Palace Master hasn’t sent word to anyone about your disappearance and I don’t even know if…”

If he’s noticed she’s missing goes carefully unsaid, but Luo Binghe can tell she understands anyway by the clenching of her fist. 

“If I send him to you, will you be satisfied?”

“For a while,” Tianlang-jun holds out his hand. The agreement is made. 

And they leave. Easy. Luo Binghe almost collapses outside the door to the mausoleum and Xin Mo tries to eat through the seal to cut into his back, but it’s all so easy. They get to the mountains. To Qing Jing Peak. To Bai Zhan. Liu Qingge rests in Mu Qingfang’s office and when he wakes, everything is over. 

Shen Qingqiu, with much convincing from Liu Qingge and some unsubtle blackmail from Luo Binghe, insists to Yue Qingyuan that they can hold the trial right away. And then, as expected, Liu Qingge cuts through the entire thing with a declaration that Luo Binghe is under the protection of the Bai Zhan Peak. Everything wraps up so easy, Luo Binghe can’t believe it. Shang Qinghua watches him in the trial, watches him after everything is over, watches him when he makes his way to his new rooms. 

For once, when Shang Qinghua shows up and hugs him, a little too cold, a little out of it from some demon poison or goo or whatever he got into this time, when he calls Luo Binghe his son, some part of him believes that for whatever reason, Shang-shibo really does mean it. That it’s terrifying, and lucky, and horrible, but it’s also true. 

##

“None of you make any sense,” Liu Qingge scowls, his arms crossed even as he makes the trek with Luo Binghe. The Underground Palace is deep in the demon realm, which is fine with him. And fine with Liu Qingge, if the man would stop scowling long enough to be honest.

The notebook Luo Binghe brought with him is already half full of new monster illustrations. Many of the monsters are ones they’ve faced before, but no one has ever recorded them. Whenever they draw one and Luo Binghe offers suggestions for what to write, Liu Qingge stares at him. Half the time the illustrations take ages to complete because they get distracted. Liu Qingge says it doesn’t matter–they won’t run out of monsters to dissect and break down.

“It’s a problem with most manuals,” Liu Qingge explains to him, flipping through a very pretty leatherbound book, much smaller than Feathered and Taloned, but just as nice. “They get caught up in the fun of it, but forget the practical purpose of a manual. If the book skips all the boring monsters, it also skips the ones most people are likely to come across.”

The first entry into their book had been a speedy lizard twice as long as a man. It was dull and green, half covered in algae from its long stasis in the water, but when it grabbed hold of Luo Binghe’s leg, it dragged him under the swampy water in seconds. Only when Yang Yixuan had yanked its head back and Liu Qingge had bound its legs was Luo Binghe able to slow its thrashing long enough to blast a hole through its head deep and big enough to kill it. 

Liu Qingge had been very careful about dissecting that one. Every bit of information they gathered, he said, was information someone else hadn’t bothered with.

So, most of the illustrations in his manual aren’t pretty. No jewel colored scales or magma coated hooves. Just plain, dangerous, angry monsters and how to defeat them. How to break them down, how to use their parts. Yang Yixuan learned with enthusiasm, mostly from Luo Binghe. During dissections, he mostly drew the sketches. 

Yang Yixuan, however, is not on this trip. He never goes so far as to enter the demon realm himself. Liu Qingge still restricts him to the places where the boundaries are thin between the human realm and demon realm. 

“Your father told you about this place?” Liu Qingge plucks at his robes, settles them into place against his wrists, over his chest, settles it better onto his shoulders. A nervous shifting that Luo Binghe recognizes. 

“Hm.” Luo Binghe considers. Liu Qingge suspects Shang Qinghua as much as Luo Binghe always has. It’s been difficult to explain what the change is. How Luo Binghe knows things are supposed to be different. How he knows, like a mouse knows the paw that lets it free belongs to the lion, that Shang Qinghua is responsible for them being like this now.

“You keep doing that.”

Luo Binghe stops, turning to Liu Qingge and grinning at him. He doesn’t know when it started, the dazed look Liu Qingge gets whenever Luo Binghe smiles at him without restraint. He likes it. Wants to see the way Liu Qingge’s cheeks turn that particular shade of pink over and over again. 

“I do?” Luo Binghe pulls Liu Qingge towards him. Kisses him, delights in the way Liu Qingge gasps immediately, as if taken by surprise every time. “Keep doing what?”

Liu Qingge doesn’t respond, lids lowered to watch Luo Binghe’s mouth. Eventually, he leans down for another, lips capturing Luo Binghe’s with gentle, easy kisses until Luo Binghe’s arms wrap around his neck. They’re not exactly in a safe position. The woods are deep and quiet, but they are also crawling with monsters. Luo Binghe holds onto that thought, allowing himself to melt into Liu Qingge’s embrace until the man’s arms wrap around his hips, pull him forward. 

“Don’t be coy,” Liu Qingge finally says into his hair, mumbling as he tries to push Luo Binghe to talk. “You keep doing that noise, instead of answering.”

“Some things are hard to explain,” Luo Binghe steps away, pulls Liu Qingge with him. “Sometimes you just have to see it.”

They arrive at the Underground Palace hours after dark. The torches are lit even as the grounds are empty. There are, of course, servants who keep the place running and looking nice. Luo Binghe is glad not to see them, not to have to feel the pressure of introductions as he tries to sneak through the night into the room he wants to show off.

His father, it turns out, wants to retire one day. Both of them do. And when they do… Shang Qinghua’s already settled his palace in the North. Tianlang-jun, apparently, intends to return here. But for now, he can’t bear the emptiness. So this palace, for now, is for Luo Binghe. The gift he’d told Zhuzhi-lang about was apparently not Liu Qingge.

“I’ll stay on Bai Zhan, of course.” Luo Binghe tugs Liu Qingge’s hand until they pass through a courtyard, into an indoor garden. Tianlang-Jun, despite having lived in a palace underground, loves the outdoors. Loves exploring. He’d had this room built, he told Luo Binghe, just to see the stars at night, on a lake all his own. For now, he’s travelling. Zhuzhi-lang is less than enthused, but follows nonetheless.

An array reflects the outside sky overhead, leaving the room feeling endless. Stars descend to the lake beneath them, to the boat Luo Binghe has pushed into the water. Liu Qingge climbed on behind him, no hesitation. 

“What do you mean? Of course you will.”

“I mean,” Luo Binghe pulls Liu Qingge’s hands to his lips, presses a kiss to each knuckle. Affection wasn’t easy, at first. He hadn’t known his shishu was so afraid, so many worries left locked away so he could be happy. So either of them could be happy. It’s a habit they’re both trying to break. “I would need to stay here sometimes. But my home is Bai Zhan.”

“A palace kitchen suits you more than the oven in my cottage.” Liu Qingge frowns. “And there’s nothing like this on Bai Zhan.”

The mountain is beautiful in its own right, Luo Binghe knows. Liu Qingge knows it too. But that insecurity in Liu Qingge insists, Luo Binghe knows. That he’s not enough. That Luo Binghe deserves more. So strange that his strong shishu, determined to protect him, determined to make him happy, could be so vulnerable beneath all his scowling.

“Hm,” Luo Binghe kisses Liu Qingge’s neck, the thundering pulse at the curve of his neck. “It’s true, your kitchen is small. You almost always need to go shopping.”

“You need to stop cooking feasts every day.” Liu Qingge grunts, hands tightening on Luo Binghe’s sides. “I’m gaining weight.”

“Liu-shishu looks good like this.” Luo Binghe leaves a mark in the center of Liu Qingge’s throat, impossible to hide. “His disciple only wants to spoil him since he’s so hard on himself on his own.”

Luo Binghe had his suspicions confirmed quickly when he’d started doing hunts with Liu Qingge. The man did barely eat when he was away from his mountain, and almost exclusively campfire roasted monster meat. Luo Binghe is surprised he hadn’t keeled over already. Luo Binghe shows his appreciation for the soft bit of fat covering Liu Qingge’s muscles, caressing the curve of his hip, the firmness of his chest. He climbs into the man’s lap. The boat is still, no matter how much they move, and Luo Binghe is grateful for whatever enchantment covers the wood.

“You spoil me too much. I have a reputation.”

“Mm.” Luo Binghe nods, seriously. “I understand. I’ll stop, shishu.”

Liu Qingge scoffs, tugging on Luo Binghe’s hair to pull him up. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Ok,” Luo Binghe grins. “I take it back.”

“Ridiculous.” Liu Qingge nips at Luo Binghe’s ear, wraps his arm around Luo Binghe’s waist until they press, chest to chest, Luo Binghe’s thighs squeezing Liu Qingge’s hips. 

“Yes, I know.” Luo Binghe laughs. Liu Qingge chases his mouth with his own. Luo Binghe dodges, determined to explain the trip. “When this Palace is mine, shishu, I want to share it with you. I want you to help me fix it, like you want.”

“You what?”

“Of course, you’ll have to be given a title.” Luo Binghe barrels on, ignoring the red on Liu Qingge’s cheeks. “Does Emperor’s Consort suit you? Or something else? We could call you first wife.”

“W–” Liu Qingge pulls Luo Binghe’s hair back. “What do you mean wife?”

“We can call you husband, if you prefer.” Luo Binghe shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter. As if he’s not teasing Liu Qingge mercilessly. “Though, I think Sha Hualing has already told everyone we’re married. She calls you wife all the time.” 

Liu Qingge groans, but the outline of his smile blooms against Luo Binghe’s cheek. “Fine. We’ll have to correct them. To husband.” 

“So fast!” Luo Binghe laughs, and the boat, enchanted as it is, rocks beneath them when Liu Qingge tackles him over. “Are you going to ruin me before the wedding?”

“Yes,” Liu Qingge devours him, open mouthed kisses interspersed with bites until he’s fumbled off Luo Binghe’s robes. “At least a few times more.”

“Hm,” Luo Binghe sighs, warm and fond and safe. “Tell me again, then. If you’re going to ruin me.” 

“I love you,” Liu Qingge doesn’t struggle. The words drop easy, breathless and sweet. 

“Tell me again.”

“I love you.” 

Their vacation lasts long enough for them to fill the monster manual. It doesn’t take as long as Luo Binghe would like, but returning to Bai Zhan Peak brings its own kind of comfort.

There are no dilapidated woodsheds to haunt him with afternoons spent staring at the cobwebs, searching for words amidst the dust. Liu Qingge only has to threaten the disciples once with extra drills to dry up all the nasty glares and grumbles. The mountain, strict and controlled and brimming with Liu Qingge’s power, is home. So is the Underground Palace. So is Luo Binghe’s little Palace where he meets Shang Qinghua and the others, still in the process of being built. 

The abyss could be home, he thinks, if Liu Qingge decided one day to conquer it with him.

“What sappy thoughts are you thinking,” Liu Qingge throws his arm over his eyes, blocking out the sun. “The other disciples are going to think you’re going soft.”

“Oh, I doubt it.” Luo Binghe swings Zhu Xin. The sword is blessedly silent. “I could always challenge them all again, if they have concerns.”

The questions about Luo Binghe’s status as both Liu Qingge’s lover and his head disciple had lasted all of a week. Luo Binghe had beaten every challenger until they all fell silent. Not a single member of Bai Zhan questions their shishu’s choices any more. Yang Yixuan makes sure to beat back any who try, before their big heads can get them in trouble. 

“Tell me a story, shishu,” Luo Binghe settles into his first stance. Liu Qingge doesn’t put on the show any more–if his disciples can’t learn from watching him, then they need to practice more anyway. Luo Binghe still enjoys it, though. He likes preening in front of them, showing off what power he’s managed to gather in his frame. 

“I’m not good at stories.” Liu Qingge scowls. His sister was right, he has no mind for making things up. 

“Humor me.”

The first strike draws the attention of the nearby wandering disciples. They don’t spar in the open nearly enough. Of course, if they sparred on Bai Zhan as often as they liked, the mountain wouldn’t survive. Liu Qingge humphs, blocking with his mind half on something else.

“We’ll get a dog.” Liu Qingge says, suddenly, throwing back Luo Binghe’s sword. “We’ll name him Maximus. He’ll stay at the palace, and wait for us to come home when you have to deal with demon business.”

Luo Binghe grins. He’s not surprised Liu Qingge remembers the name of the dog from all those years ago. “And? What about when we’re not home?”

Liu Qingge grimaces, but continues on. “He’ll keep your father company. We’ll teach him to corral the man out of trouble.”

“Impossible.” Luo Binghe’s strike breaks a tree behind his shishu, splitting the bark and branches. Some of the disciples jump out of the way. “But a nice thought.”

Liu Qingge scoffs. “It’s a story. It doesn’t have to be possible.”

And they trade stories as often as they trade blows. A story between them, a future. Luo Binghe has never been so certain this is the story where he belongs.