Chapter Text
written for Chewing; why didnt anyone question why YQY was wrecking himself trying to cultivate so fast?
“Foolish.” Wen MingQiu intones, glancing at the sealed entrance of the cultivation cave into which Taishi MingYuan’s rising star has been placed for his own good. The stone is thick but Gu MingFan can still heal the wretched mourning screams as Yue Qi tried to drag himself bodily out of the cave only for their Sect Leader to bodily throw him back in before sealing the cave closed.
“He was warned,” Gu MingFan yawns, wondering if there will ever be a day again when he does not want to sleep the moment he steps foot out into the sun. Time marches on even for immortals even if Cultivation stills the decline of one’s body and invigorates the spirit. It is not just himself but his fellow Peak Lords, Wen MingQiu included. You couldn’t get him to shut up once. Now they measure his words by the month and he fears that they will soon measure his words by the seasons.
He swears when he went to see Si MingHuan about organising a trip to a distant medicine growing peak, the light did not bounce off his pale skin but went through it.
“Repeatedly. He ignored and kept cultivating even when he was told not to, and now he suffers for i-OW WHY DID YOU HIT ME?!”
Wen MingQiu just rolls his lips in a sneer, revealing the cracked canine tooth he has never fixed with his cultivation no matter how much Gu MingFan has prodded him over the years, “where is Zangmen-shixiong?”
“Here,” their sect leader is coming down the path from a higher cave, perhaps checking in on Guo MingQi who entered into secluded cultivation seven years ago and has not emerged since. The light through the sparse trees lining the path cast all sorts of shapes on their sect leader’s totally white hair. The complete loss of pigmentation in their sect leaders body does not seem to be harming him apart from making him vulnerable to the sun but it still makes Gu MingFan uneasy; the cause is still unknown“what is it Wen-sh-was that necessary Wen-Shidi?”
Wen MingQiu just shakes out his hand and raps his fingers lightly on the seal of the cave “Why is he desperate?”
“Ambition has-,” Taishi MingYuan begins and is immediately interrupted by Wen MingQiu’s breaking of his quota for the past six months.
“No don’t be stupid. He’s desperate not ambitious,” and then Wen MingQiu slams the pommel of his sword against the seal of the cave and walks over their sect master’s work into the wretched sounds of a soul seemingly sobbing itself to death.
Yue Qi immediately tries to escape, crawling on bloodied hands with his bruised face contorted in a crazed rictus. Wen MingQiu simply sits on him and frowns at the blood and the dents all over the stone of the cultivation cave around them, before frowning at Gu MingFan.
Gu MingFan in turn frowns at Taishi MingYuan, feeling a shaking starting deep within him to be so surrounded by this… animalistic grief. This is not only the expression of a Qi deviation but a highly disordered and distressed mind. Qi deviation is mere rage and targeting of anything near enough to hurt. It does not turn on itself like this.
“Ah’Qi,” Taishi MingYuan sighs, kneeling with a faint tightening in his eyes to indicate his distress, his bone pale hands cupping Yue Qi’s disordered one, “this is enough. You will die of this Qi deviation otherwise.”
Yue Qi’s lips are split and chewed until they covered in a thick crush of blood. They are still moving though. The same two noises over and over again.
“-ao -iu -ao -iu -ao -iu -ao -iu …”
“What does that mean?” Wen MingQiu asks while Gu MingFan wets a cloth and tries to loosen the crust of blood without making the damage worse.
“He is currently insensible with a Qi- Wen-Shidi your grandfather might have thought it a thing to beat you with his cane but you cannot do the same with your sword.”
“I’m tired,” Wen MingQiu declares, “and I have used up a lot of energy thinking about your disciple when you should have Taishi-Zangmen-Shixiong. Your Yue Qi is from humble beginnings, and he’s ambitious enough to make the trek all the way from wherever he is spawned. He does not cry no matter how hard his training and he toes the line of our sect rules with terrifying precision save for this one thing so uncharacteristically reckless for such tight self control. He acts like something is chasing him through his progession or if he is chasing something.”
“He is so young that he is unlikely to be given many benefits no matter how high his cultivation advances, he simply wont have the stature for it for many more years,” this morning as Gu MingFan dressed himself he realised that his skin had gained a papery quality across the backs of his hands. There are none of the spots he dimly recalls the elders of his long-disappeared village having, but the texture is very much the same. Then he came out here to check upon a Qi deviated child and did not think much more beyond the basic requirements. Then he dozed. Thinking is so hard. Just listening to Wen MingQiu is exhausting. He must have Mu FengZhi make him some invigorating tea when he returns to the Medicine Hall.
And check his kidney yang. And then go check Wen MingQiu’s as well.
And Taishi MingYuan if they can find him after this.
Yue Qi is breathing so slowly that Gu MingFan is becoming worried. “Shixiong perhaps you should lift up and let him breathe a little.”
“Hah, he’s gathering his strength for another escape attempt. This Teacher sees right through him even if his own Teacher does not,” Wen MingQiu raps his knuckles against Yue Qi’s forehead, “if you have the energy for this then use that energy to find your words and tell me the source of your Qi deviation.”
Yue Qi blinks too slowly and his eyes flicker with too much intelligence for a Qi deviation.
His words begin as a mumble but they are cultivators and their senses are keener than mortals. Yue Qi’s scrambled words from his mutilated mouth are of a treasured little brother stolen because of Yue Qi, hurt because of Yue Qi, condemned because of Yue-
“That’s enough,” Wen MingQiu unsheaths his shining sword with the most unfortunate name and uses it as a crutch to get up, “if it is your fault he was captured it is your fault but anything that happened afterwards is most assuredly the fault of the ones doing it.”
“I agree,” Taishi MingYuan presses one hand to Yue Qi’s back as Wen MingQiu rises, holding him in place, “my disciple I have failed you and I must apologise- Wen-Shidi do not kick me.”
“Where,” Wen MingQiu ignores Taishi MingYuan and Gu MingFan is brought back to their disciple era, when these two bickered and fought and were petty at one another and Wen MingQiu, not yet named such, had such ambition to succeed as the next Bai Zhan Peak Lord before all that old news happened, “did you come from again Ah’Qi? The same town as the Qiu Clan?”
“Shidi do not attack a clan because of one slave,” Taishi MingYuan presses, “we have the gold to buy him out.”
“You had better keep up with me then,” Wen MingQiu’s great sword hums in the light from the cave entrance, “you know old age is making me forgetful.”
~
The Gods descend from the mountains one miserable day amongst many. Shen Jiu is summonsed to the Masters study, the clean robes the Momo who comes for him forces him into sticking to the open wheals all over his back and thighs. There sitting in the light of the picture window is a man amongst men. He is everything that Shen Jiu covets and will never be. Acid licks up his spine from his stomach, as he prostrates himself before a beatific Gentleman who sits with perfect posture and looks at him with eyes that glow with knowledge so intensely that the dark irises are a night sky.
“This is him?” sonorous as a bell in a temple, the gentleman inclines his head, causing his hair to glide over his robes of a crisp turquoise silk threaded with a heavy silver embroidery of rising mists. The hem is before Shen Jiu’s nose where he is prostrate and more than that he can see the edge of a pure white second layer, and the tips of ink black hair where it falls in a perfect cascade from a mutton-fat jade crown over robes.
He wants it. How he wants it. To be a man who can wear a pure white second layer and not care about the stains. He wants to wear colours even the Little Miss can’t afford. He wants hair that is thick and healthy and grown out to a length that means this man can’t possibly do any menial physical work. His hair would get caught in anything.
“This is our Xiao Jiu,” the Master’s voice makes Shen Jiu want to vomit, “but as I said he has become very dear to us. We love him so dearly that we wish to adopt him as our son.”
When was this? When was fucking this? He didn’t think that happened last night when Eldest Little Master was beating him with his new horse whip!
The Gentleman laughs.
It is deep and invites you to laugh with it. Curiosity takes the place of covetous envy. Shen Jiu knows this sort of laugh. He’s heard it so many times, hanging around the entrances of brothels to follow rich men home and bother them with such a fuss that they paid him to go away before their household woke up.
“You are a good liar,” the Gentleman says, “but I have it on good authority from this little one’s older brother that you not only have him illegally as your slave but that your treatment of him wouldn’t keep a dog alive.”
Qi’ge.
Something that has been tying itself into a cramp in his chest relaxes in a rush of relief so overwhelming that his vision dims at the edges.
Qi’ge!
“Wen MingQiu,” another voice sighs and Shen Jiu nearly leaps out of his skin. He did not see the other Gentleman. How could one miss this other Gentleman?! He is whiter than snow from head to toe! But Shen Jiu swears there was only Master and the first Gentleman.
“Enough,” says the first Gentleman, “I listen to this man and I remember why I should have ruled Bai Zhan peak instead of Qing Jing.” He stands waves the drooping hem of his long sleeves and the back of the Master’s study blows open with a roar of crumbling masonry and shattering tiles. Shen Jiu thinks he hears the Master scream but he’s too busy having his waist grabbed and being tossed uncomfortably over a shoulder, face first into those robes he admired which smell so good his eyes cross together.
Then they are up. They are away. Flying even. It feels like flying.