Chapter Text
Shen Qingqiu had… changed, ever since he awoke from his fever.
Change was the polite way to put it. Mu Qingfang called it the leftover haziness of Qi deviation. Yue Qingyuan called it a slight shift-- that was, when he didn’t ignore the odd behavior entirely.
People like QI Qingqi and Liu Qingge called it fucking weird.
Really fucking weird.
Shen Qingqiu was talking to himself again.
Mumuring words to himself, then writing something down and reading what he wrote, then talking to himself again. His words were low, gentler in tone than they had ever been before the fever. His writing, however, was as precise as ever.
Qi Qingqi took a long sip of tea to partially disguise her wandering eyes as she slyly tried to glance over at what her shixiong wrote. She caught a few words-- System, combined, a wealth of curse words scattered here and there, and so on.
When Shen Qingqiu caught her looking, his face at first looked amiable and surprised-- the eternal defensive look in his eye gone for a fraction of a second. He almost seemed younger, like a different person.
Then that look changed into a grimace and a furrowed brow as he covered his paper and switched hands to write his characters with. His tone shifted back to the normal hiss she was used to, the one he used behind closed doors when he was not so worried about his image.
“A problem, Shimei?” He asked, though to call it asking would do the commanding tone of his words a disservice.
“None at all, Shixiong. Just admiring your calligraphy as always.” She set her teacup down and traced the rim of it with her finger, smiling ever-so-slightly as she spoke. A cold smile. A smile that said, “I’m onto you and your little schemes.”
He wore his hair differently today, she noted. Gentler sweeping loops of hair looping back into his bun, softening his features, as opposed to the harsh half-buns he usually pulled that only allowed for the slightest wisps of hair to frame his face.
Yet another point of notice. Shen Qingqiu, as far as she was concerned, had no imagination whatsoever. His hair stayed in the same style day after day, year after year, as if no one had ever taught him to style it differently.
And so suddenly he decides to change?
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes narrowed. He clapped the book he had been writing on shut with finality and stood jerkily from the table, his sweeping robes only barely managing to cover the slight unsteadiness of his steps, as if he were walking with legs he had yet to get used to.
Luo Binghe wanted to cry.
Luo Binghe wanted to smile.
Luo Binghe wanted to curl in on himself and die.
And if he didn’t die right now, lord knows Shen Qingqiu was going to beat him with a rod and hang him up in a woodshed tonight.
Something unimaginable had just happened.
But before that, some context was needed.
After failing to properly show Shen Qingqiu sufficient mastery of basic cultivation technique, a simple sharpening of rusty metal in a sharp blade, Shen Qingqiu had been furious. He had demanded Binghe to cut himself his own rod from the bamboo with which he would be given ten lashes for shirking on his lessons.
Binghe wanted to disagree, he wanted to say that he had been trying very hard, but that the manual just made no sense! Not only was he barely literate, though slowly improving thanks to the help of Ning Yingying, but the parts of the manual he could read were simply gibberish! He was almost sure that the characters it was written in weren’t Chinese!
But he didn’t. Because disagreeing with Shizun would earn him ten more lashes, and then he would cry, and then he would get ten more lashes for crying.
So Luo Binghe went out to the bamboo forest and cut a young piece of bamboo, wincing as he sawed away at the thick greenery and braced himself for another night of being unable to sleep on his back.
He brought the switch to Shen Qingqiu, who stood at the edge of the forest. He kneeled down, raising the bamboo above his head in offering.
Shen Qingqiu reached down to take it, and then--
And then Luo Binghe heard a sharp smack. The sound of skin on skin, the sound of someone striking another-- and yet Binghe felt no pain.
He looked up in surprise.
He looked up in surprise at Shen Qingqiu , who had a notably large and very red hand mark against his cheek. Said Shen Qingqiu stared down at his hand with obvious anguish across his features.
A reddened palm. A reddened cheek. Trembling shoulders, and a palm which twisted into a tight fist, nails biting into his skin until blood began to trickle downward, dripping onto the loose soil below him.
Slowly, reluctantly, a hand inched toward his sleeve. Shen Qingqiu raised his fist and sweeping green sleeves to reach into it, pulling out a green piece of fake jade with a worn red cord.
He dropped it on the ground in front of Binghe. Binghe scrambled dropping the bamboo in his haste to grab at the necklace and clutch it tight to his chest. He had thought it was gone forever.
And yet--
He looked up once more, only to see his Shizun angrily walking away, viciously muttering to himself.
Ah. Perhaps there would be no punishment today.
Liu Qingge didn’t mean to Qi deviate alone in a cave.
To be fair, who does. Probably only Sehn Qingqiu, if he were to be honest-- Qingqiu treated Qi deviations like a fun hobby of his, trying to sabotage the body gifted to him just as much as he tried to sabotage those around him.
So he staggered through the Lixuan Cave, glowing red eyes catching on every glowing crystal that stuck out from the wall, pouncing on every drop that fell from the stalactites on the ceiling.
He was angry. So angry.
And he wanted to fight.
“...-ngge?” The word barely made it into the fog of his mind, the translation afterward coming even slower.
“...-viation. How do we--”
Two voices, similar but distinctly different.
Prey.
“--him alone! Our own qi is unsteady enough, how can we--”
“...--will die! ...--You’ll be blamed! We’ll be blamed!”
To his left. That’s where it was coming from.
The last shout echoed through the caves, rebounding off the walls and through the passage. Liu Qingge staggered to the wall, using it to support himself as he staggered toward the sound, toward the people who shouted at each other.
He made it to the entrance. He stopped.
His mind wasn’t working properly, but even so he could still do simple math. There had been two voices echoing down the cave.
But there was only one person in the room.
Shen Qingqiu stood in the center under the arching ceiling, the ghostly purple lights of crystals illuminating him and casting an eerie glow. One hand was one the sword, one on a fan.
Two people. One person.
Qingge shook his head. Who cared.
Who even fucking cared.
He raced forward, a bellow tearing its way through his throat, his once-beautiful face marred by the sheer fury in his features.
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes widened. He froze.
Liu Qingge tackled him.