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Chapter Text

Shen Yuan was sick.

He couldn’t remember how or why he’d gotten sick, and for some reason he felt very much like he shouldn’t be - like he couldn’t afford to be. But that was a familiar enough feeling that he nevertheless accepted it. Both the sense of being sick and the persistent frustration with it. His body was drained, beyond exhausted. He couldn’t quite wake up, and part of him wondered why he was even trying to. The sense of urgency, muted but present, wouldn’t go away even though he couldn't recollect what it was for.

He was warm. The air around him smelled absolutely putrid. His mouth tasted like something had crawled inside of it and died. He wrinkled his nose, but there wasn’t any escaping the permeation of awful atmosphere. Someone was… carrying him? He felt like he was being held, like there was something wrapped tight around his body, and he could hear a frantic thumping as if a giant's heart was racing right next to his ear. There was more sound besides, a murmur as of a familiar voice repeating the same words over and over again.

He liked the voice, though he didn't like how brittle and strained it sounded.

“It’s okay, everything’s okay, everything will be alright, it’s okay, we’ll get out, we’ll get out, it’s okay, everything will be alright…”

The words cracked and broke with emotion. They stumbled in fear.

Shen Yuan didn’t think the speaker really believed what he was saying. But that wasn't very unusual in these sorts of situations either.

~

Ming Fan and his cronies were furious as they chased Shen Yuan all across Qing Jing Peak. Despite their reputation as members of the scholarly peak, these little bullies had never really upheld it themselves, and in the face of a little bullying back they really fell apart. Decorum forgotten, they cursed and called protests, pleading as Shen Yuan made off with his little fox mouth full of their contraband yellow books.

The taste wasn't great, but there was some appeal to being an avatar of vengeance! Pick on Luo Binghe will you? Don't you kids know that's suicide? Here, let this elder teach you that actions have consequences!

Ning Yingying and some of the senior peak disciples watched the ignominious parade with reactions ranging from curiosity to amusement. It really was pitiful that Shen Yuan was outpacing the supposed head disciple and his friends - he was just a little fox! Though he had discovered pretty quickly that he was hard to catch, after he finally ran out of ways to evade notice. Ming Fan himself had tried to catch him on numerous occasions, until it seemed that his sleazy shizun had ordered him to stop for some reason, but Shen Yuan was quick and slippery when he wanted to be. Turned out he could jump very far and run very fast.

The yellow books in his mouth shifted some. He gritted his teeth to try and keep hold, but the wind pushed past and so he ended up ripping through some of the covers and bindings instead. Illicit illustrations went airborne and drifted over to the senior disciples.

Snickering broke out.

Ming Fan was thoroughly red in the face from the combination of exertion and embarrassment.

"We don't know where that lousy fox got them!" he shouted, as if anyone had asked.

From under your beds, Shen Yuan thought back, rolling his eyes. And he wouldn't have bothered if they hadn't pushed it so far with Luo Binghe! Really, throwing a gift from his dead mother around? Beating him up? They'd only stopped when Shen Yuan made them, and then he'd had to climb all the way up a very high tree to retrieve poor Binghe's treasure for him. So this retribution was pretty mild by comparison. It wouldn't even be happening if they found a smarter place to keep their shitty porn!

Inspired by the storm of illustrations, Shen Yuan shook his head and found that he was able to rip even more out. Lewd drawings and poetry billowed away to land at the feet of the hall master and some visiting Xian Shu Peak disciples. Some of Ming Fan's cronies fell back, showing a few glimmers of intelligence as they realized that being caught chasing after Shen Yuan to get the books back was as good as admitting who they belonged to. But they were too slow; the damage had already been done, everyone on the peak seemed to have heard to commotion and come to see.

Well, everyone except...

Shen Yuan's adventure halted as his path was blocked by a pair of legs clad in white pants, adorned with green robes. There was no chance to veer. He had to stop in order to keep from crashing.

Shen Qingqiu sneered down at him with dark, glittering disdain.

"What is going on?"

"Shi-shizun!" Ming Fan blurted. He stopped too, and his remaining cronies crashed into his back with nearly perfect comedic timing. The guilt on all of their faces would have been damning if the situation hadn't already been obvious.

Shen Yuan carefully put the contraband down in front of Shen Qingqiu. He wasn't sure how this would go. Apparently, the peak lord didn't take him for a demonic beast, and hadn't tried to kill him or anything yet. He seemed to be considered some kind of spiritual animal of Qing Jing Peak. He had never read about such a thing, but since his survival was contingent upon it, he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Though he did kind of wish he could throttle Airplane-Shooting-Towards-the-Sky and make him explain why there had been cool spirit animals in his story and he'd never mentioned it.

Oh well.

Sometimes Shen Qingqiu even left out food for him, as if trying to entice Shen Yuan to come closer to his bamboo house. But Shen Yuan didn't trust it. Spiritual beasts had a lot of energy, what if Shen Qingqiu only wanted him to come at a time when there were no witnesses, so he could slaughter him and use his parts for ingredients? That sounded like the kind of scummy thing he'd do.

Today, though, there were plenty of witnesses. So Shen Yuan was only forced to finally abandon his mad dash through the peak. He left the yellow books slaughtered at Shen Qingqiu's feet and zoomed off, going only far enough away to try and be outside any potential blast zone, which mostly involved leaping on top of the roof of the nearby music hall and finding a good place to watch as Ming Fan prostrated himself and Shen Qingqiu sneered at all the porn still wafting in the breeze.

"And who, precisely, has been bringing such filth onto my peak?" Shen Qingqiu demanded, narrowing his eyes at his head disciple.

Ming Fan prostrated himself harder.

"Begging Shizun's forgiveness, it... that, that fox dragged them around, and-"

"And?"

Shen Qingqiu smacked his palm with a closed hand fan, raising an eyebrow.

Ming Fan visibly swallowed.

"It was Luo Binghe!" he then claimed.

All at once, the humour vanished. Shen Yuan's gut sank, and his tails lashed back and forth as he narrowed his eyes at Ming Fan. Ming Fan, who whetted his lips and carried on, having latched onto the usual scapegoat.

"As Shizun knows, that person has been hanging around the Spirit Fox a great deal. It must have been from him that the fox acquired such books. This disciple attempted to stop it from spreading such contraband to unsuited eyes, but failed. Please punish accordingly!"

Ming Fan, you lying little shit! That was absurd! Luo Binghe, own almost a dozen yellow books? That kid didn't even own two entire sets of clothing! Where was he supposed to be acquiring such things? With what money? Furthermore, where would he hide such things? The woodshed, where he was not only forced to sleep, but also to endure punishments? There was nowhere to hide anything in that place, except maybe the wood pile, and the wood pile was used often! Anyone would find anything hidden in there in no time at all, easily!

It ludicrous, absurd, totally unfair and really obviously a lie.

But Ming Fan picked his target well, because faced with the opportunity to actually be a semi-decent authority figure or to persecute a random orphan some more, what would Shen Qingqiu choose?

"I see. And where is that little beast now?" Shen Qingqiu asked, and everyone knew that he wasn't referring to Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan's hackles raised. He dashed back down from the roof, cursing himself.

He should have foreseen this kind of thing happening! No matter how hard he tried to help Luo Binghe, at least half of the time it backfired! Petty revenge wasn't worth watching Shen Qingqiu punish him again, but the truth was, there was very little Shen Yuan could do about it. Even in his weird magic fox body, he wasn't exactly powerful. Definitely not strong enough to go up against a peak lord.

But he could at least try to interfere. So instead of rushing over and biting Shen Qingqiu's ankles (which was what he wanted to do) he set out at a run for the river, where he'd last left Luo Binghe in the midst of doing his laundry. Binghe wasn't still there, but it was quick work to follow the scent he'd left behind and track it down to one of the out buildings behind the performance hall. It was a storage space, rarely used since a miser like Shen Qingqiu wasn't exactly prone to throwing elaborate parties or having a lot of performers on his peak, and so the hall remained quiet and most of the out buildings were locked up and full of dusty instruments and sealed chests of who-knows-what-treasures.

Luo Binghe, of course, never tried to get into any of them or touch anything he wasn't supposed to. He only ever went there to steal a few minutes to himself to cultivate without being harassed. Lately he had been doing so without his shoddy sabotaged manual too, though after Shen Yuan had ripped that thing to shreds, Shen Qingqiu hadn't deigned to replace it with anything else either.

Shen Yuan felt kind of bad about that whole situation. He had tried to plan it out well, to make it clear that Luo Binghe couldn't be blamed for some random wild spirit beast just deciding to turn his manual into a chew toy, hoping that at the least Shen Qingqiu would want to save some face and just give his maligned student a proper replacement. But he had underestimated the weight of Shen Qingqiu's pettiness when compared to his facade of civility, especially when the only witnesses were the man's own pigheaded disciples.

Luo Binghe had been punished for 'letting' his (fake!!!) manual be destroyed, and Shen Yuan had to endure watching the child cry and clumsily attempt to piece the torn pages together with bruised and swollen fingers.

He had been prepared for Luo Binghe to hate him afterwards, but the boy didn't even scold him, or chase him away when Shen Yuan came to the woodshed later and curled up to sleep at his side.

The nights were getting colder. Beggars couldn't be choosers, so even if Luo Binghe gave no sign that he held the incident against Shen Yuan, even if he was that desperate for a little bit of warmth to overlook such disasters, the same couldn't be said for Shen Yuan.

Who now had another case of mangled books and unfair retribution to try and fail to shield his favourite character from.

"Huli?" Luo Binghe greeted, bright and happy as he watched Shen Yuan slip through the ajar door to the out building. Luo Binghe didn't even dare to use the abandon hall, instead he crammed himself into this space with the dusty storage crates, only claiming a spare scrap of floor for himself. When it got especially cold, Luo Binghe sometimes slept here instead of in the woodshed, but he seemed very nervous about it. He never said why, but Shen Yuan imagined that if Shen Qingqiu caught him here, he'd be accused of all manner of black motives. Probably theft or vandalism. After all, this wasn't a space that most of the junior disciples were supposed to freely access, unlike the shed.

Shen Yuan was tempted to close the door and use some of his spiritual energy to seal it shut. If it could have worked out, he would have done it. Let Ming Fan and his cronies search for Luo Binghe until nightfall, then sneak him away before Shen Qingqiu could get his hands on him. But Luo Binghe wouldn't go along. He was doomed to endure abuses on Qing Jing Peak until the plot moved him elsewhere, and so the longer matters were delayed, the harsher the punishment would be.

Shen Yuan tugged Luo Binghe's sleeve and gave him a deeply remorseful, crestfallen look.

The young teenager's brow furrowed. He was clever, of course - he was a natural genius, and his intelligence didn't fail him now. He uncurled from the meditative posture he'd been attempting, and gently patted Shen Yuan's fur.

"What happened this time?" he asked. "Did you get into trouble again?"

Shen Yuan obviously couldn't deny it.

He tugged Luo Binghe's sleeve, and luckily the young man got the picture. With a sigh he scooped Shen Yuan up and cautiously left the building, closing the door and taking care to not be found where he shouldn't have been. At least this much could be accomplished. Shen Yuan wriggled his way up onto Luo Binghe's shoulder and wrapped himself round his neck, digging his claws in just enough to make him difficult to dislodge from the boy's uniform, but without ripping the fabric or scratching his skin. Though he was careful, of course there was the occasional slip up (especially with his back claws, unruly things) but Luo Binghe never seemed to mind.

He headed towards the more active areas of the peak, where people were looking for him. Such a brave kid. But Shen Yuan could feel his nerves and how tense he was when Ming Fan finally found him.

At least with Shen Yuan on his shoulders, Ming Fan did not physically grab at Luo Binghe. He'd learned that lesson well. The head disciple subjected fox and boy alike to a wary glare instead, then scolded Luo Binghe for slacking off before declaring that Shen Qingqiu had sent for him.

Shen Yuan glared right back at him the whole time. It made Ming Fan sweat. No one seemed totally clear on how intelligent the resident Qing Jing Spirit Beast was, but of course Shen Yuan knew full well what lie Ming Fan had told, and to whom, and why, and he put all of this knowledge into his gaze. Ming Fan, despite being a bully, was also still just a teenager. He didn't hold up well under this kind of judgment, and so kept some distance and hunched his shoulders just a little bit as he led Luo Binghe to...

The woodshed.

Where Shen Qingqiu was waiting. With a whip.

As they came into sight,  the villain's gaze lingered on him for a moment. Even the cold neutrality of that face could not completely disguise the resentment there. Shen Yuan's tails lashed in agitation.

Luo Binghe paused partway to the shed, and pulled Shen Yuan off of his shoulders. The boy's handling was firmer than usual, and though Shen Yuan tried not to budge, after a point he had to decide between loosening his grip or ripping Binghe's only uniform. Having already caused enough trouble for one day, in the end, he let himself be put onto the ground.

"Please," Binghe requested, quietly. "Huli, just go for now, alright? It'll be fine."

It would not be.

Shen Yuan knew what kind of punishments that sadistic peak lord administered. He had read about them, yes, but since he'd transmigrated he had also witnessed the aftermath of a few times.

But so far he had never had to witness the punishment itself.

The thought of it made his stomach turn. The truth was, he couldn't really do much. He couldn't stop Shen Qingqiu from doing as he pleased, and might even get killed if he tried it, if he gave the peak lord such justification. And Shen Qingqiu was such a rotten man, Shen Yuan could easily see him hurting a small fluffy animal as an additional layer of punishment to Luo Binghe. After all, what surer sign of villainy was there than a bad guy who kicked puppies? Self-preservation told him that the protagonist would survive and that he had better leave, and just let this recent round of child abuse play itself out.

And he didn't want to watch. Not when there was nothing he could do to stop it.

But he also couldn't leave. It was just... he didn't mean for this...!

"Please," Luo Binghe asked again, and Shen Yuan knew that he wanted him to go, to reduce the number of witnesses to his humiliation.

It's my fault, Shen Yuan despaired, even as he finally turned on his paws and ran away.

He didn't go far. He let Luo Binghe see him dash off, but he doubled back of course, and crouched at the back of the shed. He listened as the whip came up and down, cold and clinical.

Shen Qingqiu never said anything. Never even told Luo Binghe what he was ostensibly being punished for. He didn't dramatically confront him with the tattered yellow books or accuse him of bringing contraband into the sect.

Because he knew. Of course he knew. Luo Binghe had nothing to do with any of it.

But still, the blows rained down.

~

Airplane-Shooting-Towards-the-Sky had never mentioned very much about spiritual beasts in Proud Immortal Demon Way. It was a bit of a glaring omission from a novel that seemed to throw in just about any cultivation trope it pleased, and had a vast and complex lexicon of monsters and demonic beasts frequently cropping up to cause trouble. Shen Yuan had always been a bit more into monsters than animals, and spiritual beasts tended to be more 'boring' in their designs as a general rule, trending towards cosmetically modified animals rather than terrifying chimeras or eldritch abominations, so he handed exactly been disappointed about the matter. Though maybe confused, because why not just throw in yet more cool creatures for the sake of it? Having cultivators ride around in plain horse drawn carriages sucked when there was a ton of precedent in the genre for them to be riding on the backs of giant tigers or huge birds or tortoises instead.

If Shen Yuan could have deduced Airplane-Shooting-Towards-the-Sky's identity and asked him, Airplane would have said that this was because he had actually drafted extensive notes on the topic of spiritual beasts, nearly as complicated as his original outline for the novel itself, before he looked them over and determined that in fact a whole other story could be found in those ideas. He ended up setting them aside, still debating on whether or not to used them for Proud Immortal Demon Way when his machine died and destroyed them along with his original plot outline, and thoroughly killed his motivation to try and recreate all that hard work.

Frantically trying to churn out new chapters for his surprisingly successful novel kept the rest of his mind busy, and, well. The monsters were never something he actually wrote notes for. Initially. He had just thrown them in off the cuff, as it were, scrambling to come up with things that seemed suitably scary for the purposes of a conflict. Monsters were really useful for creating conflict. Plot lagging? Scene dragging on? Narrator struggling not to just keep reiterating the same theme with different phrases eighty times in a row and hope the readers don't notice? Throw in a monster! Suddenly everyone has to fight the venom-spewing... uh... tarantula-mastodon! It was only after he'd already accumulated a menagerie of weird creatures through this carefully refined literary technique that one of his more volatile regular readers suggested publishing a monster manual, compiling the creatures all along with cool illustrations. Airplane had about as much artistic talent as a very earnest preschooler, but in the end he had liked the idea well enough to hire an illustrator, and the monster manual wound up accidentally being one of his best selling tie-in books. Utterly unintended, but he couldn't say he regretted it.

But Airplane wasn't able to plead his case, which of course meant that Shen Yuan was left to fume over all this apparently really cool stuff that he never got to read about, and would have actually liked to read about! Rather than nine million iterations of Luo Binghe pushing down some doe-eyed maiden, couldn't there have been even just one chapter about the ancient spiritual beasts apparently roaming the Tian Gong Mountain Range?

Because as it happened, Shen Yuan was not the only one around.

Which explained why the disciples on Qing Jing Peak were, if not respectful, at least courteous enough to not really harm him. From what he had gathered by listening in on conversations, Qing Jing Peak losing its spirit beast would lose them a lot of face!

Each of the twelve peaks had one, except for the Beast Peak, which had four. Having never read even a word about the Beast Peak in the novel, Shen Yuan was sorely tempted to go visit it, but traveling around an entire mountain range could be easier said than done for a small fox. Whenever he attempted to cross the rainbow bridge, anyone around would insistently shoo him back to Qing Jing Peak. Often while making disparaging comments about him causing 'mischief'.

Shen Yuan resented that. He had never caused an ounce of mischief in either of his lives!

But foxes did have reputations, he supposed, and he could also concede that given some of the most notorious trappings of Proud Immortal Demon's Way, he should probably be glad that he was considered a mischief-maker and not a sexpot intended to transform into a beautiful femme fatale.

Nope, those trappings were for the demon foxes! Shen Yuan was quite simply a fluffy companion animal, and while that had its downsides, he could live with it. If he accumulated enough power he might even gain the ability to grow all gigantic and let Luo Binghe ride around on his back someday, or ferry imperiled wives to safety, or help fight huge monsters. That was something he was willing to invest his hopes in, though more often he found himself also imagining curling a bigger body protectively around poor Binghe whenever he was in trouble. Letting whips and swords break on his fur and snarling at the bullies who dared to attack his precious white lotus!

But anyway, he was ultimately still just a pretty small and not very powerful fox right now, which meant that disciples could successfully shoo him off of bridges or away from gates. That in turn meant that crossing the peaks was something he had to do on foot, through the wilderness, without getting lost or staying gone for long enough that nightfall came and he abandoned Luo Binghe to shivering alone in the dark.

Luckily, Shen Yuan was a fast runner.

Unluckily, he was a shit navigator.

He didn't manage to make his way successfully to the Beast Peak, but after several months of trial and error he got onto Qiong Ding Peak.

Qiong Ding Peak's spiritual beast was a huge sturgeon. Shen Yuan recognized it, sort of, though he would have been hard-pressed to describe how. But as soon as he had made his way to the paved paths and raised architecture of the primary peak, he followed his senses, flitting around the buildings until he had reached a secluded meditation garden with a very large pond and what felt like a massive amount of spiritual energy.

Lingxi Caves ran underneath Qiong Ding Peak, and looking at the spirit sturgeon's pond, Shen Yuan couldn't help but wonder if the waters reached that far down and connected to some underground river. It would explain why this garden in particular was so rich in energy, and also how a fish big enough for several grown men to ride around on was able to endure living in a space that looked to be about the size of a big swimming pool. If it connected to a river complex, then the spirit sturgeon probably only lingered near the surface whenever it felt like doing so.

Shen Yuan clambered over the garden gate and then nimbly jumped down into it, using some nearby ornamental trees to help.

He padded over to go take a closer look.

It really was a gorgeous example of a fish, almost more of a dragon, though there was indeed very little to differentiate it from normal sturgeon except that it had unusually vibrant black and gold scales that gleamed like armour in the water. Shen Yuan tried talking with it, on a hunch that maybe if he thought really loudly the spirit sturgeon would somehow understand - at least, that was something he had read about in other novels, with spiritual beasts communicating to one another. But it didn't work. The spirit sturgeon still seemed interested in him though, and after a while even playfully spat some water into the air like a fountain, and then swam over and stared back at him.

Shen Yuan had a sudden, irresistible urge to touch it. It was just so big and cool! He extended a paw, only gently, but the spirit sturgeon spat another mouthful of water at him in retaliation. It startled him enough that he dashed towards the bushes.

A soft chuckle drew his attention.

Shen Yuan had been so focused on the spirit sturgeon that he had failed to notice a man entering the garden.

The man in question was tall, perhaps a little taller than Shen Qingqiu. He  had broad shoulders and a kind sort of face, and was dressed in elegant robes of black and gold. Shen Yuan had seen plenty of cultivators out and around since he transmigrated, and plenty of fictional characters, but this man stood out to him all the same. Something about him just seemed... nice. Like the kind of person you would, in a moment of dire need, trust to watch your stuff while you ran to vomit in a public bathroom.

Clearly, Shen Yuan had been spotted. But the garden's latest visitor didn't seem anything more than gently amused by it. As Shen Yuan watched, he went and crouched down beside the pond himself, and began scattering food for the gigantic spirit sturgeon.

Which eagerly munched up the pieces before bobbing out of the water and... gently headbutting the cultivator?

Well, the affection was probably not surprising, but the gesture itself was endearingly undignified.

"Are you hungry as well, Master Qing Jing?" the man asked, startling Shen Yuan again.

Who, him?

He wasn't, not particularly. Luo Binghe kept him well fed on stolen kitchen scraps, even if the risk of it always made him worry. But these days he rarely turned down the prospect of food either, and so, after a moment of caution, he wandered back out from the bushes.

The spirit sturgeon was being fed cooked, peeled shrimp. Whole ones, but not terribly large. When Shen Yuan came out, the cultivator laid a handful of them onto a flat stone next to the pond. Shen Yuan glanced at him for a moment, then nudged the shrimp with his nose. They seemed perfectly fine to him, so after a minute, he delicately picked one up and chewed it.

The cultivator's eyes crinkled with happiness.

"Did you come all this way without... Shen-shidi?" he asked.

For a moment Shen Yuan was surprised enough by the use of his own surname that he didn't know how to take such a question. But then he remembered, and one kind of surprise gave way to another.

'Shen-shidi'? The only other Shen of note was Shen Qingqiu, particularly on Qing Jing Peak, so that was probably who this cultivator was referring to. Shen Yuan would sooner drop dead than go anywhere in public with that child abusing scumbag, but that concept was still less surprising than the revelation that, for someone to refer to Shen Qingqiu as shidi, it probably meant... this was the sect leader?

Yue Qingyuan, one of the better side characters to be ruthlessly betrayed by Airplane's shitty writing?

"Is he alright?"

Who?

Shen Qingqiu?

Shen Yuan had no idea how to answer that. Yue Qingyuan seemed genuinely concerned, and didn't strike him as an asshole. In the novel he'd always been described as a pretty cool and interesting person - just one who was inexplicably tolerant of his asshole junior's murdering and scheming. General consensus among readers was that Yue Qingyuan was being blackmailed over something, at least up until Luo Binghe used the sect leader's attachment to draw him into a trap and ignominiously kill him off. Few people would risk death to rescue their blackmailer, though Shen Yuan wouldn't be surprised if Airplane had just thrown that in willy-nilly to write off an unwanted character and get another obstacle out of Luo Binghe's way. The whole arc had just been incredibly lackluster.

Regardless, not knowing how to answer or really take Yue Qingyuan's question, Shen Yuan settled for tilting his head and otherwise not responding. It wasn't as if he could speak anyway.

The sect leader regarded him quietly for a moment, and then - to his surprise - sat down next to the pond. Some of the aura of decorum surrounding him dispersed, leaving behind a man who looked rather sad and tired.

This wasn't an unprecedented development. Shen Yuan had found that a lot of Qing Jing Peak disciples also abandoned their usual pretenses around him, probably because even if he was a spirit beast, he was still perceived as a beast. It was just that usually when such a thing happened, it was because Ming Fan's cronies were dropping their 'refined young cultivators' act to be wretched little bullies.

In this case, however, the atmosphere reminded him more of when his father would sometimes come home from an exhausting day at work. Yue Qingyuan settled onto the ground as if he was perfectly at home with it. He pulled off his boots, then reached up and even took out the small crown and the pins in his hair, and let it down. He was careful as he set the ornament aside, but somehow Shen Yuan got the impression that he was a little tempted to just yeet it into the sturgeon pond instead.

He could sympathize, actually, those hairstyles looked great but also like they might get uncomfortable to wear all day.

Yue Qingyuan slipped his bare feet into the pond in front of him, unbothered about the giant fish that had just hoovered up all the shrimp he'd tossed in it, and let out an exhausted sigh.

"It's been a long day," he murmured to himself.

Tentatively, Shen Yuan moved a little closer.

The sect leader smiled at him and reached over to gently run his fingers through his fur.

He didn't say anything more, though Shen Yuan wouldn't have minded listening in on some details about sect business or even about Yue Qingyuan's personal life. He'd always been among the more interesting side characters, and trying to reconcile some of the plotholes concerning him with the situation of living reality definitely increased his interest as well. But he couldn't exactly prompt a conversation. And anyway, it was not bad to just sit by the sturgeon pond and enjoy the nice weather.

Shen Yuan left when he started to worry about the time. Yue Qingyuan let him go without fuss, only patting him between the ears as a parting farewell.

"Give Shen-shidi my regards, won't you?" he requested.

The parting words left Shen Yuan with even more to think about.

Like... this expectation of the sect leader's somewhat implied that he was supposed to accompany Shen Qingqiu from place to place, sometimes? As the peak lord's companion or something? Logistically he supposed it made some sense, if a peak had a spirit beast and if that beast was mobile enough to go along with the peak lord (unlike the spirit sturgeon, which had obvious travel restrictions) then, in the grand scheme of things, why wouldn't that be the standard?

But Shen Yuan couldn't imagine Shen Qingqiu actually caring for a small fluffy animal. Just look what the man did to the children he was in charge of! Even if Luo Binghe got the worst of it, his erratic favouritism and frequent neglect didn't seem to be doing the other disciples a lot of good either. Particularly since Shen Yuan knew full well how many of them were destined to end up as cannon fodder in Luo Binghe's rise to power, if they didn't end up filling out his harem instead. The only thing he could picture Shen Qingqiu doing to a small, vulnerable animal was either terrorizing or neglecting it.

Though maybe it explained the dishes of food being left out...

By the time Shen Yuan had returned to Qing Jing Peak, he had reconciled himself to the idea that Shen Qingqiu probably performed at least some basic gestures to care for his peak's spirit beast, even if only for the sake of appearances. He still wasn't keen on eating any of the food the man offered or letting himself be alone in a room with him, but it was probably less dangerous than he'd initially worried.

The peak was unusually active for the hour he came back at. Shen Yuan couldn't deduce why, but after a few minutes he decided it probably wasn't anything important, like a plot-scheduled demon attack or Shen Qingqiu deciding to string Luo Binghe up for a public whipping. That, as Shen Yuan recollected, wouldn't happen until shortly before the Immortal Alliance Conference. It wouldn't happen at all if he could prevent it, but he didn't have a lot of faith in his abilities. So far he hadn't been able to do anything to help Luo Binghe.

The boy in question wasn't at the woodshed when Shen Yuan got back, which made him worry a little that maybe the bustle activity was something to do with him. And if so, it would probably be something bad. But he didn't have to go far to find Luo Binghe wandering the nearby forest, cupping his hands and calling for Shen Yuan.

"Huli?!"

Shen Yuan bounded up to him.

Luo Binghe sagged in relief. He reached down and scooped Shen Yuan up, anxiously checking him over.

"Where did you go?!"

In lieu of being able to answer, Shen Yuan cocked his head to indicate confusion.

Sure, he'd gone off for most of the day, but it wasn't uncommon for him to not see Luo Binghe between the hours of dawn and dusk. Binghe was often inundated with busy work and punishments, and otherwise tried to scrape together enough time to attempt cultivating, and Shen Yuan couldn't help much with any of it. So he usually found his own entertainment.

Heaving a wobbly sigh, Luo Binghe tucked him closer into his arms.

"I was worried," he admitted.

Shen Yuan must have just taken longer than usual getting back. It was already dark, he supposed. He tilted his head up and nuzzled Binghe apologetically.

Luo Binghe seemed determined to carry him all the way back to the woodshed. For a moment he paused then, and glanced towards the path that led to the peak's main settlement, the central pavilion, halls, and dormitories. Shen Yuan wondered if he was considering going there, but couldn't fathom why. Luo Binghe had learned by now to avoid most of his fellow disciples, lest he invite an extra workload or some spontaneous persecution onto his head.

Or... was he thinking about Ning Yingying?

Binghe was still young, but perhaps not too young to be tempted by the idea of a nighttime meeting with his pretty, sympathetic Shijie. Shen Yuan didn't recall anything like that happening so early in the novel, but just because it didn't happen wouldn't mean that Luo Binghe never thought about it.

His expression looked very conflicted.

And then after a few minutes he did indeed just go inside the shed, wearing a determined expression, one jaw in his muscle clenched as if bitterly resentful of something. Ah! The poor young protagonist, still too vulnerable at this stage in his story to seize any he wants, only able to suffer hardship and resentment! Shen Yuan leaned up to nuzzle his chin again, and was pleased when some of the tension bled back out of Luo Binghe's shoulders.

"It's alright," he murmured. "They can all just wait. Let's go to sleep, my little fox."

Shen Yuan nodded agreeably, and settled down to curl his tails around Luo Binghe and call it a night.

The next morning there were a lot of dramatics.

Shen Yuan woke up at around the same time as Luo Binghe, as was usual. It was difficult to sleep through someone several times your size getting up and moving around, especially with a fox's sensitive ears to hear everything. Though he still felt sleepy, Shen Yuan had vague notions of going to find a nice napping spot, perhaps one one of the sunny pavilion flagstones, and so he got up and stretched. While Luo Binghe hurried out to get started on his chores, Shen Yuan wandered off on his own. If breakfast was to be had, it wouldn't come until after Luo Binghe had gotten his morning chores underway-

Before he could muddle through more sleepy, early morning thoughts about how the day might go, Shen Yuan found himself beset upon by a gaggle of Qing Jing Peak disciples just outside the dormitories.

"Shixiong! Shixiong, we found him!" they called, clamouring like a raucous flock of geese. Shen Yuan startled as he was surrounded, wondering what the heck was going on.

A hastily-dressed Ming Fan descended upon him.

"You! You little menace! Where did you go yesterday?!" the kid demanded, and Shen Yuan was seriously starting to wonder if he was supposed to be able to speak in fact, with the way people kept talking to him. But no one seemed surprised when he didn't reply, though Shen Yuan was outright shocked when Ming Fan reached down and tried to grab him.

He dashed sideways on reflex, and promptly collided with an older disciple's legs. Ming Fan reached again and this time actually managed to close a hand over his scruff, like someone picking up an unruly kitten.

Shen Yuan let out a displeased sound.

"Shizun was beside himself!" Ming Fan claimed.

Over what? And why was it Shen Yuan's business? He nearly bit Ming Fan, but... well, heinous little bully he might be, but Ming Fan was still just a kid, not much older than Luo Binghe. And though he wasn't handling him with the gentlest of touches, it wasn't painful. Shen Yuan settled for baring his teeth in warning, but rather than taking heed, Ming Fan gave him a reproachful shake.

Alright, now, that was too far!

Shen Yuan was working his way up to a growl when another pair of hands interceded, and he suddenly found himself being squished against another disciple's chest. His fur was ruffled backwards, and he nearly growled anyway, but then he turned his head upwards and took note of a distinctive hairstyle.

Ah.

Ning Yingying?

Oh, wait a minute. If Shen Yuan was fashioning himself to be a companionable spirit beast, then... was this the scene of the kindhearted love interest rescuing the fluffy animal from persecution, and thereby proving her compassionate nature? He wouldn't have thought that Ning Yingying needed more chances to establish that she was a nice girl, but then again, that kind of thing was difficult to overdo!

"Shixiong," she scolded Ming Fan. "Don't handle our peak's sacred spirit so roughly! Poor thing!"

Ming Fan's mouth opened and closed a few times. His cheeks reddened, though whether more from his crush on his shimei or his outrage at being scolded was difficult to say.

"I wasn't being rough!" he protested.

Ning Yingying gave him a reproachful look. Thankfully, she also seemed to realize that her hold on Shen Yuan was a bit awkward, and settled him more comfortably in her grasp. Shen Yuan settled a bit too, permitting himself to be petted - even if she was still doing it backwards, ugh.

To be clear, having his hair pushed the wrong way wasn't always uncomfortable. In his past life and his human body, sometimes it felt good to brush his hair backwards, and the sensation wasn't dissimilar as a fox, even though the hair in this case was fur and was all over him. But it was really easy for it to feel bad, and in this case, it was making his teeth itch. It was a bit challenging not to squirm away, but he didn't want to be an ungrateful beast who bit the hand that fed him. Or in this case, the love interest whose virtues he was supposed to help establish.

He glanced around, hopeful that if this scene was happening that Luo Binghe would be close by and witness it.

Sure enough, he managed to spot Binghe lingering a ways away from the dormitories. The look on his face wasn't happy. Shen Yuan waited to see a flare of gratitude or admiration replace his unhappy frown, but only noticed that the kid was clenching his fists in a white-knuckled grip.

Oh, well. Maybe he'd be overcome by Ning Yingying's virtues when he considered the matter later? After enduring for a few more moments, Shen Yuan figured that he'd done all that he needed to, and finally let himself wriggle his way out of Ning Yingying's grip. Not wanting to cause trouble for Luo Binghe, he set off in the opposite direction from him. Ming Fan and the other disciples called out after him in dismay, and attempted to give chase.

Shen Yuan evaded them pretty easily. Though they were cultivators, they couldn't catch up to a creature as quick and small as he was. He led them on a merry chase around before they finally gave up and let him be.

Over the course of the next few days, Shen Yuan continued his explorations of the mountain range. One would think he'd probably end up on the peaks nearest to Qing Jing, and he mostly did, but it wasn't quite as simple as that. Though one would easily say that, oh, such-and-such a peak was first and so-and-so peak was second and etc, geographically finding routes between the mountains was a bit of a different matter. This was not something Shen Yuan had ever really appreciated about travelling before, having never been able to go on hiking much, and mostly relying on city planning and public transportation lines to get him wherever he needed to be.

The next peak he managed to get to was somehow Wan Jian Peak.

It was a pretty cool place, actually. The central hub of the peak was a large open-air pavilion lined with forges and workshops. Shen Yuan excitedly hoped to glimpse some cool spiritual weapons being made, but to his surprise, most of the projects he saw just seemed like ordinary weapons, tools, and everyday household items. Like horseshoes and cooking pans.

On reflection he supposed it made sense, however. The materials for crafting powerful spiritual tools were ostensibly rare, even if Luo Binghe himself had practically tripped over them every other chapter, and even though such things were valuable there were probably only a limited number of individuals who could commission them. Wealthy sects and emperors and the like. So, Wan Jian's forges obviously made other things, still with excellent skill and craftsmanship, and that was probably also how the disciples honed their abilities and techniques with the forge.

Shen Yuan's appearance on the peak drew some curious looks, but none of it seemed hostile; he was just very firmly shooed away from the forges. He looked around to see if he could find the sword hall, but before he could manage to his sixth sense radar for spiritual beasts went off, and he ended up following that instead.

It led him to a scenic part of the peak surrounded by tall, gnarled trees, and clouded leopard that was very plainly a spirit beast.

Like the sturgeon and like Shen Yuan's own fox body, it was still recognizable for the animal it was, but also noticeably different from a normal leopard. It had multiple tails (three), and the cloud-liked markings on its tawny fur were blue instead of dark brown or black. Its eyes were a vivid cerulean and the patterns around them made it look like it was wearing eyeliner.

It was also huge.

Shen Yuan paused for a moment at the edge of the trees. The spirit leopard noticed him right away, though, and didn't seem to share his reservations. It strolled right over and butted its big head against his comparatively minuscule body, just like a huge house cat saying hello. Shen Yuan nearly toppled over.

So cool!

The spirit leopard then went back to sunbathing/napping, and given its expectant air, Shen Yuan guessed that he was invited to join it. He figured he might as well, it had been a long trip through the mountains trying to figure out how to even get here and he could use a quick rest. The grove that the spirit leopard was in also seemed very nice. Rich in spiritual energy, he supposed. It made his limbs feel pleasantly warm in a way that had nothing to do with the sunlight as he settled down and fell asleep surprisingly quickly, considering he was next to a very large predator that could probably eat him in two bites.

But the spirit leopard did no such thing. It was completely at ease with him. The sturgeon had been too, now that he considered it, so perhaps there was a natural camaraderie between the spirit beasts of the sect?

That was kind of nice!

Trust Airplane-Shooting-Towards-the-Sky to omit it entirely.

From that point, Shen Yuan got a lot better at navigating the mountains, and over the course of a week managed to make his way onto Qian Cao, Bai Zhan, Xian Shu, and An Ding. Of them, Bai Zhan was definitely the worst. As soon as the disciples there spotted him they started chasing him around, giving off the impression of a sports team who had just spotted their rival's mascot. Shen Yuan left again in a hurry, before he managed to track down their spirit beast or spot any sign of it other than the shadow of some massive wings.

Xian Shu Peak wasn't a lot better, though at least when he was spotted there, the atmosphere was less that of a rival sports team and more like a group of schoolgirls spotting a puppy. Shen Yuan might have let them catch him if he had seen Liu Mingyan among their ranks, if only for the chance of meeting one of his favourite of Binghe's future wives, but alas there was no sign of a veil. Just a lot of very talented young ladies who wanted to coo at him. So Shen Yuan gave them some practice at chasing and dodging before he shook them off and started earnestly following the trail of the peak's spirit beast.

Which turned out to be a red panda!

So cute!

But wait, why was even this beast so much bigger than him, huh? Shen Yuan was beginning to feel very self-conscious of his size. Don't tell him he was the smallest of the spiritual beasts?

Xian Shu's red panda was closer to the size of a giant panda. It otherwise looked the most like the normal version of an animal out of the spirit beasts he'd seen up to that point, with nothing to really differentiate it apart from its size. Kind of disappointing, if he was being honest, except that it was still a huge fluffy panda and that made it pretty great no matter what.

Unlike Wan Jian's leopard or Qiong Ding's sturgeon, however, Xian Shu's red panda did not seem particularly interested or welcoming towards Shen Yuan. It regarded him silently for a moment, then huffed and wandered off into the woods it had emerged from. When he moved to follow it shot him an annoyed look, and so, after a few minutes, he internally shrugged and decided to just head back early. He'd seen Xian Shu's spirit beast, and anyway maybe it could tell he was a guy and disapproved of him being in the women's only section? Did that still count for spirit beasts? He wouldn't peek at any of the young ladies, honest!

Qian Cao was one of the easier peaks to get to once he knew the general direction to go in, mostly because there seemed to be a lot of man-made paths and roads that connected to it. Which made sense, given that if anyone was in dire need of getting to another peak, it would probably be the one with all the doctors on it. Many of the paths were overgrown and disused, but still more than wide enough for a little fox to trot along them.

A lot of the disciples on Qian Cao kept trying to sneak up on him, however, and one even chased him onto what seemed to be some kind of scale before Shen Yuan managed to leap back off of it and make an escape. They didn't seem particularly dangerous about it, but he still wasn't interested in being anyone's science experiment! Many of them attempted to lure him with food. Fortunately, he was already wise to that scheme, and didn't fall for it.

Finding Qian Cao's spirit beast took longer than the others, however, because it wasn't outside. He eventually located the gigantic albino serpent lounging in some kind of massive ancient greenhouse. Strange plants, doubtless grown for medical reasons, grew beneath sprawling glass walls and cage-like lanterns. The air tasted like a jungle to him. The spirit serpent was in the middle of the greenhouse, wrapped around a huge tree. None of these things were ever touched upon in the novel, so Shen Yuan had no idea what the fat fruits dangling nearby were, but they certainly looked like the sorts of things that contained tons of spiritual energy, and they felt that way as well.

As for the serpent, whereas most albino snakes he'd seen had yellow, pink, or even orange accents to their coloration, this one was all white and silver. The silver on its scales swirled in elegant symbols rather than splotchy patches. Its eyes were silver, but not the milky quality of blindness. They were sharp and keen as its tongue flicked out of its mouth. Like every other spirit beast, it was really, really big.

Shen Yuan approached cautiously. The snake watched him with narrow eyes, but didn't seem to mind when he settled down near the base of the tree and watched it back.

After a while its body started to move, coils undulating around the tree. As if answering an unknown and unspoken request. The tip of its tail smacked against a branch near Shen Yuan. One of the strange fruits was knocked loose, and tumbled to the ground at his paws.

Upon some careful consideration and investigation, Shen Yuan discovered that the fruit's flesh tasted somewhat like bananas mixed with melon. It wasn't bad at all, and there was something pleasant enough about it that he ate the whole thing to the rind, even though his fox jaws weren't entirely suited to it. Afterwards he felt very refreshed, too!

Qian Cao's serpent had stopped watching him at some point and closed its eyes, as if to sleep. Shen Yuan spent a few more minutes trying to decipher if its markings meant anything, but then he heard the sounds of some disciples moving in the greenhouse, and decided it was time to leave.

All of the sect's great spiritual beasts were giving him something of a height complex. So he was actually very happy to discover An Ding Peak's.

Much like on Qian Cao, An Ding Peak's spirit beast was hanging out indoors when Shen Yuan finally managed to trek his way onto a new peak. He had gone further down the mountain range than usual on this particular venture, only to come out of an overgrown path and some interesting-looking ruins (abandoned from earlier days of the sect?) to find himself faced with a field of enormous melons.

The field was at the base of a wide stone staircase, which climbed its way up past several other smaller, tiered crop fields. It was late autumn, and An Ding's disciples appeared to be busy with a harvest, as well as other kinds of work that were less easy for Shen Yuan to intuit. As he cautiously ascended the steps, it became clear to him that this was the busiest peak he'd been on so far. Possibly the busiest peak there was; whereas most of the others had a certain air like a really exclusive university campus, An Ding Peak felt more like a bustling town. Hardly anyone paid him much mind, though this seemed less because they were indifferent to him, and more because they were too busy to look down at the ground long enough to see him. As Shen Yuan ascended the steps a middle-aged disciple went pelting down them, waving a handful of pages and yelling something about shipment orders. Five other disciples took note and flew into a mess of activity around some warehouses. Up at the top of the stairs a long line of carts were being filled with what seemed to be cargo intended to go across the rainbow bridge between the peaks.

Whereas Wan Jian Peak's central pavilion had been surrounded by workshops, An Ding Peak's was surrounded by warehouses. As Shen Yuan curiously nosed around he discovered sacks of rice, jars of pickles, crates full of disciple uniforms, as well as uncut fabric, stacks of furniture-grade wood, boxes of ink, paper, calligraphy brushes, whetstones, wax, and all other manner of mundane but necessary things.

Given the atmosphere, he was half expecting to discover that An Ding Peak's spirit beast was some gigantic ox who dragged goods off to the twelve corners of the sect. But the spiritual pull he felt didn't lead back towards the crop fields or off across the bridges. Instead it drew him past the warehouses and to the other side of the mountain.

This side of the peak was much more steep, lacking the ground to build out any further pavilions. Instead it was dotted with rows of small houses, some clustered together in threes or fours, others affixed in solitary positions along a narrow path.

He dimly recalled reading something about An Ding Peak's 'leisure houses' from the novel.

His tracking led him to what seemed, at first, like a small cluster of these houses. But as he drew near he realized that the shape of it was different. And unlike the leisure houses, this building did not have any doors.

Instead it had tall archways that led into a... garden? Of sorts?

Shen Yuan proceeded under the nearest arch. His fur tingled for a moment, as if he had passed close to a spiritual device, but when waited nothing seemed to come of it. Inside the sheltered space, someone had arranged several polished flagstones into an artful pattern. The floor was dirt and sand. In the middle of the room was a miniature pagoda, as if someone had built it for a mouse. Sand fell in small, shiny rivers from the roof, probably powered by some kind of array. It didn't seem to do much more than make the space feel fancier, though.

A flash of movement caught the corner of his eye. Shen Yuan looked just in time to see something small and furry rush to hide behind a nearby stone.

He sat back on his hindquarters and waited, trying to figure out what he was looking at. His senses told him that the spirit beast was near, but if that was the case... wouldn't it have to be pretty small?

His patience was rewarded when a tiny creature cautiously emerged from behind the rock.

...OMG!!!

Shen Yuan's eyes grew huge and his tails thumped at his back, as he watched An Ding's spirit beast reveal itself.

A hamster?!

It was indeed!!!

The little golden-brown beast was definitely smaller than him, with its tiny pause, chubby cheeks, and teddy-bear ears. Round black eyes stared back at him. The spirit hamster was mostly tawny in colour, with a darker patch down its back, but had small purple dots above its eyes, on its cheeks, and on its furry little thighs. As it came out of hiding, the sand nearby seemed to move around it, as if being pushed by a light pulse of spiritual energy. It made ripples across the rest of the floor, finally forming a little circle which the spirit hamster sat itself in the middle of.

Shen Yuan really wished he still had hands so he could pet this thing's fuzzy little head!

But he didn't, which seemed to leave them both at something of an impasse. For the first time now, Shen Yuan was the spirit beast who could eat his fellow in two bites, even though he wouldn't.

As if thinking along similar lines, the spirit hamster's itty bitty face scrunched up. It reached its paws up to swipe at it, then made a little grabby motion towards the nearby sand. The ground shifted, and the spirit hamster reached in and pulled out... a small bag?

It rooted around in the bag until it found a melon seed. It stared at Shen Yuan for a moment before stuffing the seed into its face. Then another. Then another. On the fourth melon seed it seemed to consider things again, glancing between the seed and Shen Yuan before cautiously holding it out in offer.

Shen Yuan delicately padded over the shifting dirt floor, and accepted the offering with the gentlest touch of his teeth that he could manage.

The spirit hamster perked up and stuffed another seed into its mouth. Then it returned Shen Yuan's observations with equal curiosity, looking this way and that at him, watching his tails flick and twitching its little ears in return. After a while Shen Yuan got up again and started investigating the - the, what? The spirit hamster's own personal mansion? Actually, it seemed very kind of the An Ding disciples to create such a thing, the only other spirit beast with a comparable setup seemed to be Qiong Ding's sturgeon so far, and a fish required some obvious accommodations...

The spirit hamster got up and followed him, seeming almost nervous any time Shen Yuan went to close to the miniature pagoda, and crashing anxiously against his back legs a few times. Was it afraid he might destroy its little house? When he moved further away it relaxed again. As Shen Yuan tried to figure out where the falling rivers of sand were coming from, the spirit hamster even tentatively placed a paw against his leg, and then tried to climb up.

Intrigued, Shen Yuan lowered himself to make it easier. The spirit hamster made weird little happy squeaks as it successfully go onto his back, and was delighted to sit there while Shen Yuan walked around some more.

Feeling a touch of curiosity and mischief, he headed towards one of the archways. The spirit hamster let out a slight eep, but otherwise offered no protest as Shen Yuan walked through. The feeling of a spiritual device passed over them again, and this time he was able to recognize that it was probably some kind of barrier to keep malicious things, like wild animals, from accidentally wandering into the small spirit beast's domain.

The spirit hamster didn't seem all that disturbed to leave, however, or at least not bothered since it was still on Shen Yuan's back.

Don't worry little bro, Fox-gege's got you!

Shen Yuan took off at a light run. If he could have seen his own back, he would have been able to see a nervous little hamster gradually get more relaxed, and eventually settle in on its haunches with its tiny forelimbs extended, mimicking the classic "I'm king of the world!" pose. But he couldn't, so all he could really tell for certain was that the spirit hamster wasn't trying to get down or bite him.

The trip up and down An Ding Peak had taken a while, however, let alone the trip to reach it, so Shen Yuan only dashed about with a giddy hamster on his back for a little while before returning to the miniature pagoda. The spirit hamster slid off of his back once they were inside again, then gesticulated wildly and adorably with its tiny hands. It dove into the soft ground and disappeared, but just as Shen Yuan was about to take that as his cue to leave, the little guy popped back up again with another tiny sack of melon seeds. It solemnly presented this tiny sack to Shen Yuan, as if to say 'this is the good stuff, thanks for the ride'.

He ended up picked up the bag with his teeth, then gently bopping the spirit hamster with his nose before hurrying back out again.

When he returned to Qing Jing Peak, it was late yet many disciples were still up. Shen Yuan avoided them with practised ease, making his way instead to the woodshed and to Luo Binghe, who was sitting outside of it.

The boy seemed on the verge of scolding him, but blinked in bewilderment when Shen Yuan dropped the small bag of seeds into his hand. Then he gave him a watery sort of look.

"...For me?" he asked.

Shen Yuan nodded.

Ah! Tears?!

Luo Binghe! Please do not cry over such a simple thing! Quick, someone give this child more food!

~

Shen Yuan did not go off to visit the other spirit beasts too often. Mostly because it was always a long trip, and he worried about getting turned around too close to dark and accidentally abandoning Luo Binghe for a night. He worried about not being around in case something happened, as well, but that worry was less logical. Even when he was around, it wasn't like he could do very much to help, and he knew that Luo Binghe would survive this segment of his life. Even if it ground him down and primed him to become a blackened version of himself after he fell into the Endless Abyss - he wouldn't die.

As time passed, that became increasingly cold comfort.

Shen Qingqiu's trajectory of abuse remained right on track. As Luo Binghe got older, his master grew even more ruthless, and his peers even more emboldened in their bullying and mistreatment of him. When the peak lord deigned to take his disciples off of the mountain for a learning experience, Shen Yuan could only watch as Luo Binghe was forced to depart on foot, running the dust of the horses and carriage. When one of Shen Qingqiu's treasures went missing, Shen Yuan could only sit uselessly beside Luo Binghe as he was made to kneel in the snow for three days and nights, and received not even an apology when the item turned up misplaced in one of the archival halls. He could do nothing as Luo Binghe was excluded from lessons on flimsy pretexts, was punished for things like having a disorderly appearance, not knowing material he wasn't being taught, or defending himself against the other disciples' attacks.

Shen Yuan hated every minute of it. He had never before felt so useless, and that was saying something!

It was on a clear morning as he was busy burying one of the discipline whips he'd stolen that he felt something strange, however.

He was on Qiong Ding Peak - the better to keep anyone from Qing Jing discovering where the latest misplaced punishment tool had gone - and at first he wasn't even certain what had captured his attention. He looked up, but there was nothing in the sky. Tilting his head, he found that it was another sense that had picked up on a strong fluctuation. An impression of movement in an unexpected direction.

But what had moved?

A few minutes of careful pondering, and he determined that it was his sense of where Qiong Ding's spiritual beast was located that had shifted.

Usually when he came close enough to detect the spirit sturgeon, it was always in the same general area; the spot where he had first found it, hanging around in the large pool in Qiong Ding's meditation garden. He had started to wonder if the initial impression he'd had, that the pool probably connected to something deeper, was mistaken.

But no, with this, he definitely felt like the large spirit beast was moving around close by. Yet there were no waterways within his sight. The sense was, instead, beneath his paws. And beneath the hole he'd freshly dug. Down, down, down.

Shen Yuan became excited. Was his guess correct? Were there waterways that ran into the Lingxi caves? Was the spirit sturgeon swimming around down there?

So cool!

He wanted to see!

Hastily, he finished covering up the remnants of his crime, and then made an effort to track the spirit sturgeon's passage. It was tricky, since his sense for the other spirit beast wasn't entirely precise and since he was on the mountain while the sturgeon seemed much more to be in the mountain, but this did not deter Shen Yuan. He zipped through the underbrush, light filtering down on him between tangled branches, his paws tracing steps through the wilder portions of the mountain as well as treading across paths and roadways. After a few hours it began to rain. The light spring drizzle felt refreshing after a cold and dry winter, and the sound of the raindrops plinking off of the rooftops of Qiong Ding's various halls and dormitories was like a kind of music. A light mist lifted off of the rainbow bridge. A senior disciple hurried to take some paperwork inside. A martial cultivator on the practice fields began trying to catch raindrops against the blade of his sword. Right when Shen Yuan happened to dash by, she succeeded with a beaming smile on her face.

Eventually Shen Yuan felt some unusually hard earth beneath his paws in one of the wilder places on the peak. He had done enough exploring by then to recognize the signs and sure enough, when he dug down a little bit, he found signs of an ancient path. Neglected and buried beneath untold layers of overgrowth. Even in a world where what seemed old was new, there were still ancient things to be found.

The path seemed to mirror the sense of the sturgeon's progress underground, so Shen Yuan followed it, sticking to the firm-feeling places except when he had to go around some obstacles. Signs of a landslide, and a petrified tree trunk that must have fallen ages ago. Not for the first time, he wondered what catastrophes the sect had had to deal with over the years, to produce so many signs of forgotten-yet-important things. Or was it just that building the rainbow bridge meant that a lot of other pathways were neglected?

But the rainbow bridge only connected the peaks, and many of the forgotten and lost paths that Shen Yuan had happened by seemed to lead to other parts of the peak. Perhaps it was just a necessity of narrative contrivance, that there always needed to be secret routes and lost treasures.

The rain had stopped by the time Shen Yuan reached a cave opening. His tails lashed in excitement. He could feel a lot of spiritual energy coming from this place.

It had to be: Lingxi Caves!

Turning on his paws, he did a little victory dance. Oh yeah, who was a genius? He was a genius!

He went inside. Well, of course he did! Was he going to go to all this effort and then not? The ground at the mouth of the cave was dirty and still had a lot of plants growing around it. Actually, he could have walked right past it if he hadn't been looking for this exact kind of thing, or if the buried road he was following hadn't ended right there, as if it was initially built to lead to this precise point. Past the shade-loving plants were clusters of mushrooms, rooted around a couple of worn statues that looked they'd probably depicted a pair of fish when they were first carved.

He was definitely on the right track!

Further inside, the light dimmed. Shen Yuan happily flicked on his night vision skill. Slimy stone gave way to dry stone, and then to wet stone. Sure enough, the sound of a river reached his ears. He perked up and dared to move a little faster. But the deeper he went, the darker it got, and there were no torches or night pearls to light the way. Just when he began to fear that even his night vision wouldn't be enough, since it seemed like zero sunlight was making it through anywhere, he turned down a narrow tunnel in the cave system and was met by clusters of glowing mushrooms.

Bioluminescence! So cool!!!

Carefully, and very mindful of the frequent 'side-effects' of various plants in this world, Shen Yuan plucked up one of the mushrooms. It wasn't much, but along with his night vision it was enough to serve as a makeshift nightlight. He carried the fungus around in his mouth as he proceeded further and further in, until finally he reached the bank of the cave's river system.

When he arrived, the spirit sturgeon was waiting for him. It was hard to explain, but something about it seemed curious, maybe even a little excited. Though in the dim light of his mushroom, Shen Yuan could admit that it looked more like a terrifying sea serpent than anything. Lurking in the water, slowly moving its body to stop the current from sweeping it away.

It swam closer to the bank.

Shen Yuan was embarrassed to admit how long it took him to figure out that sturgeon was offering him a ride. He thought it was just popping up to say hello! But after the fifth time it meaningfully tilted its body towards him, he thought of the spirit hamster on An Ding Peak, and finally the light of epiphany shone down on him.

The sturgeon's scales were a little slippery from having been in the water, but they weren't slimy. Shen Yuan had gotten better at balancing on weird stuff ever since he started breaking into buildings on Qing Jing Peak. Sometimes he could only leap from a windowsill to an awkwardly stacked pile of books and then ride the whole thing down as it fell out underneath him. Though the spirit sturgeon's back felt more stable than that, the atmosphere was also much spookier.

The sturgeon politely waited until he was stable, and then began to swim down the river again.

At first, there wasn't much to recommend the experience. It was wet and cold and Shen Yuan could not keep his paws or tail tips dry, which he didn't like very much. There also wasn't a lot to see, and his ears only filled with the dull roar of moving water.

But then there began to be more light again. The underground river wound its way through brighter and wider cave systems. The air became increasingly charged with a potent energy that felt amazing and refreshing, and made him think of what it used to be like in his old life when he cooped himself up for days on end only to finally go outside after it had rained. His tails flicked and scattered some water droplets around. In one of the caverns they passed, a senior disciple in Qiong Ding robes paused in his meditation, and rubbed his eyes as he watched them cruise along until they were out of sight.

The sturgeon kept on swimming until they reached an underground lake. Shen Yuan marvelled at the luminous fungi blooming across the walls, and the dark waters that glittered with reflected light, like some field of buried of stars. Crystals grew across the far end of the cavern. The spiritual energy in this place was very strong, but looking around, he couldn't see any easy paths to reach it. Just the water, which felt extremely cold when he put an experimental paw to it.

The sturgeon let him off at the bank near the crystal formations, then disappeared beneath the water. Shen Yuan wasn't worried, however, because he could still sense that it hadn't left. It had simply gone under. Somehow he got the impression that it was eating something. Or perhaps it was cultivating? For a spiritual beast the two were probably close to the same.

Of course, there was no way to see anything down under the dark waters of the underground lake, so Shen Yuan was left to speculation. He settled onto the bank, and after a little while he found himself trying to meditate, too. It was compelling. The surrounding energies felt very nice as they suffused his small form. Gradually he became aware of an ache inside of him. Like an injury or strain he hadn't noticed before, not until the spiritual energy began to soothe it.

Time passed. Eventually the sturgeon surfaced again, and carried Shen Yuan back out of the caves. To his dismay the sky was fully dark  by then, but he felt so nice that he couldn't bring himself to regret it.

He hurried back to Qing Jing peak, only to find Luo Binghe lying huddled outside of the wood shed. Like he'd fallen asleep waiting for him instead of going inside on his own.

Shen Yuan chided himself. At least it wasn't a cold night, though it felt like it could rain again at any moment. He curled up against Luo Binghe and decided to let him rest, to keep a watchful eye on the sky himself as penance, but a moment later Binghe woke up. Then he picked up Shen Yuan and hugged him to his chest.

"What took you so long?" he complained, or at least took on the tone that was as close to complaint as he ever dared to get.

Since he couldn't answer, Shen Yuan gently butted his head up against him as an apology.

Luo Binghe squeezed him just a little bit tighter, and he knew he was forgiven.

~

There was a man in the spirit hamster's enclosure.

Shen Yuan paused, uncertain, after passing through the usual archway on a spontaneous visit.

The man had the ambiguous look of someone who had cultivated to the point where he no longer aged, and reached that point somewhere in his twenties or early thirties, but was probably older than his lack of wrinkles would imply. A senior disciple or hall master, perhaps? He was dressed in the brown and purple robes that denoted An Ding Peak affiliation, though his set seemed a little more personalized that most, with a hat that put Shen Yuan in mind of government officials from period piece dramas, and a relatively nice belt tying together the otherwise innocuous and muted outfit. He was a little on the small side for a man, with inoffensive but forgettable features save perhaps the long scar that ran all the way down the top of one temple, curled across a cheek, and ended at the corner of his chin. As if someone had dragged a blade threateningly down his face at some point in his life. It was distinctive, since most cultivators of a certain level wouldn't have to put up with scars, unless perhaps the wounds had been made with a demonic weapon or special discipline tool designed to ensure scarring.

The man startled when he looked over at Shen Yuan, going tense for a moment. He was situated near the miniature pagoda, which had the top pieces taken off. Shen Yuan tilted his head, noting that the interior of the pagoda actually seemed to be furnished. The man even held a tiny desk set in one hand, and appeared to have been in the process of placing it inside with a pair of long, thing chopsticks.

Setting aside that he was in a magical world from a book, the image wasn't unlike someone's online video of their meticulously cared-for pet enclosure. Looking a little closer even revealed that the pagoda's interior was full of tiny ramps and holes, perfectly sized for a chubby hamster to navigate.

Upon taking in Shen Yuan's actual appearance, the man calmed down He stood up, brushed some sand off of his robes, and then headed towards the nearby archway. He peered out, as if checking to see that no one else was nearby. Then he looked at Shen Yuan.

"Qing Jing," he observed. "Did you come here alone?"

Why was everyone always asking him that?

Shen Yuan nodded, which was at least a form of communication he could manage as a fox. The man's brows furrowed a bit, but after a moment he only shrugged.

"Came to visit the Master of An Ding Peak, did you?"

No, he came to visit the spirit hamster, actually. But wait - was this the An Ding Peak Lord, then? Shen Yuan looked him over again.

In the novel, Shang Qinghua had not been spared much description. He was small, weak, pathetic, and treacherous. There'd been no mention of a cool facial scar, but then again there hadn't been much mention of anything about him at all. He was more of a plot device, a means of gaining insight to the goings-on of the cultivation world while Luo Binghe was busy conquering the demon realms. Why a peak lord would end up spying for the likes of Mobei-Jun or why he would eventually betray Mobei-Jun in return was one of those gaping plotholes that was left unexplained, the character was just summarily killed off once Luo Binghe expanded his conquest towards the cultivation world and the mechanism of a spy was no longer needed.

So was this him, then? The weaselly backstabber who only knew how to grovel and connive?

Before Shen Yuan could contemplate the implications of that any further, he felt familiar little feet grappling against his fur. The spirit hamster scurried up his side and happily ensconced itself in its usual spot on his back.

Shang Qinghua reached a hand out as if nervous that Shen Yuan might turn his head and snap the little hamster up between his jaws. But of course he didn't do that, and after a moment the peak lord aborted the motion, and after a moment more seemed to finally relax. Even let out a soft chuckle.

"Be careful, Master Qing Jing. He's a lazy little fellow, he'll make you carry him everywhere if you let him."

The spirit hamster, unseen by Shen Yuan from his vantage point, nodded as if to say 'yes that's true'.

But to Shen Yuan it was clear that was just the kind of playfully idle talk that people used around their pets. He'd never been able to have any, but he had watched a lot of pet ownership videos in his past life, living vicariously through people who could.

Apparently satisfied that Shen Yuan wasn't going to murder the spirit beast mascot of his peak, Shang Qinghua returned to the miniature pagoda. Which, in truth, was only miniature for a pagoda, and was actually about as tall as the man himself. Shen Yuan followed curiously, and he and the spirit hamster both watched as An Ding's peak lord meticulous furnished what seemed to be the latest in many levels of a veritable hamster paradise.

For a moment, Shen Yuan felt just the tiniest twinge of envy. The spirit hamster had an extensive, safe home all his own, while Shen Yuan only had a woodshed and a boy he couldn't help. Even the treacherous An Ding Peak Lord was a better boss than the scum villain.

But Luo Binghe did his best to look after him - which he shouldn't have even had to do - so Shen Yuan shook it off, and instead focused curiously on what kinds of things were being added to the pagoda.

There was the tiny desk set he had noticed before, along with some colourful soft scraps that were arranged into a little hamster bed, and some bits that looked to be intended as chewing toys. A long rope ran through the entire middle of the pagoda. At first Shen Yuan was confused by it, but then he realized that the hamster could probably use it to climb straight to any floor it liked, even all the way to the as-yet-unfurnished levels waiting at the very top. There were knots tied into the rope at each level.

It was quite peaceful, just sitting and watching Shang Qinghua work. After a while the peak lord began humming. He placed everything with care, and then finally finished the floor off by leaving a small bowl with a few dried berries in it near the rope-elevator. The spirit hamster's nose twitched, head perking up in interest, but Shang Qinghua only chuckled and then began closing the pagoda back up.

"You'll have to go get them, if you want some," he said, reaching over to tentatively pat Shen Yuan's head, and then run a finger between the spirit hamster's fuzzy ears. In response the hamster dashed up his arm and settled at his shoulder, and patted his scarred cheek with one tiny paw.

Shang Qinghua then proceeded to go all around the enclosure, carefully moving the dirt in some places, cleaning up and checking what turned out to be an extensive network of arrays. Shen Yuan had no idea what most of them were supposed to be for, but the spirit hamster carefully looked at them all as well. They were carved into the walls and the floor of the enclosure, masquerading as decorative artwork in some places. Shang Qinghua pulled out a small knife and renewed some carvings here and there, and when he pointed out something in one of the corner arrays, the spirit hamster hurried over and pressed its little paws to it.

Hamster and symbol both briefly glowed. Shen Yuan felt the sudden rush of spiritual energy, doing... something.

Somehow he didn't think that all these arrays were just for making the cool falling sand effect work.

"Thanks, Shifu," Shang Qinghua jokingly said, addressing the spirit hamster as it scurried back over to him, and then dramatically plonked itself down on top of his boot.

At that point, the distant crunch of approaching footsteps made itself known. Shen Yuan possibly heard them first, but a moment later the spirit hamster urgently tapped at Shang Qinghua's boot. Then he seemed to register the sound as well.

At once, the man's demeanour changed completely. His expression closed off, somehow tightening and lightening at the same time. Shen Yuan was abruptly reminded of people who worked in customer service; very stressful customer service, like the complaints department of an electronics boutique for a corrupt tech company that deliberately designed all of their products to break the minute the warranties expired. He tugged on the ends of his sleeves, as if anxious to make certain all of his skin was covered, and became almost eerily still.

By the time a junior An Ding disciple halted at one of the archway's enclosures, it was like a completely different man had come into the space. Shang Qinghua was already waiting to be addressed.

"What is it?" he asked, without preamble.

The disciple bowed.

"Apologies, Shifu. A senior from Bai Zhan Peak has arrived, and is insisting we provide the materials and manpower to repair their peak's damaged hall today. Jiao-shijie attempted to inform him that the mahogany still has not arrived, but he is demanding to speak with you instead."

Shang Qinghua's expression twitched.

"Has he damaged anything?" he asked.

The disciple bowed again.

"A cart was overturned, but it was empty. One of the wheels was twisted."

"Very well. Tell Jiao Su that this master will handle the matter."

The disciple bowed back out. Shang Qinghua carefully dislodge the spirit hamster from his person, and returned it to Shen Yuan's back. Then he nodded towards the fox.

"Thank you for the visit, Master Qing Jing. You will have to forgive me, but duty calls."

His voice sounded completely different when he spoke to spirit beasts than when he spoke to humans. And here Shen Yuan had been wondering if he had the wrong person, with how little he could imagine that man being a double or perhaps triple agent playing two realms against one another. He could see it more when Shang Qinghua actually headed out of the enclosure, though, wearing a noticeably different personality.

Once the peak lord was out of sight, the spirit hamster jumped back down off of Shen Yuan's back, then disappeared inside its pagoda. Doubtless gone to gets its berries and investigate the new furnishings. Shen Yuan left it to that task and headed back to Qing Jing Peak,and the last dregs of envy faded when he was greeted by Luo Binghe and a plate of roasted fish to share.