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Chapter Text

            Life on Qing Jing Peak wasn’t so bad.

            The food was good. The shade was nice. There was, often, music. There was no shortage of people to spar with, especially since word seemed to have spread rapidly among the disciples that Liu Qingge was here; those looking to spar knew where to find him and frequently did. Shen Qingqiu had even found him a reasonable space to train where he wouldn’t be uprooting trees and smashing architecturally-significant buildings.

            But it wasn’t Bai Zhan Peak. It wasn't full of noisy clamour; instead there were frequent, cavernous silences whenever Liu Qingge was out and about. Shen Qingqiu’s disciples had always been peculiar, especially that Ming Fan, but now all of them seemed to stare at him everywhere he went.

            It became much, much worse if Shen Qingqiu was with him.

            “Is this normal?” Liu Qingge asked him one day, scowling out at a small legion of faces whose attention was fixed on him.

            “Not especially, no,” Shen Qingqiu said from behind his fan. “Maybe they want to spar? You’ve taught them to be too violent, Liu Qingge, and now you can deal with the consequences.”

            This did not feel like the attention of disciples looking to test themselves in combat. He was more than familiar with that particular shade of intensity. He couldn’t say what this did feel like, but it unsettled him. They seemed to be waiting for him to do something, and he didn’t have the first idea what.

            There were other difficulties, too.

            Liu Qingge was not used to sleeping in a house with another person in it. He hadn’t been since he’d been a disciple. Once or twice at an inn was one thing, but passing every night like this was an unexpected struggle. At night Qing Jing Peak was quiet, apart from the wind through the trees—and the soft, even sound of Shen Qingqiu breathing as he slept.

            Somehow Liu Qingge had never really considered before that Shen Qingqiu…slept.

            Every night.

            Lying down.

            With his hair loose.

            This troubled Liu Qingge unaccountably.

            So, most nights, after the peak had fallen silent, he slipped out of that strangely lived-in bamboo house to train. It was easier when he returned exhausted—he could sleep through the bare end of the night and wake up better-rested than if he’d lain still all through the darkness listening to Shen Qingqiu’s small sounds.

            Tonight was cool and breezy, and the moon was high. Liu Qingge waited as always for Shen Qingqiu to settle down and the peak to fall quiet, and then he saw himself out. He walked through the forest until he reached the narrow, flat stretch of the peak that Shen Qingqiu had allocated as his sparring grounds. It had been a generous gesture, to prevent him from needing to spend all his time in transit between peaks. Liu Qingge had not even asked; Shen Qingqiu had simply offered—and this without having personal knowledge of the destruction Liu Qingge’s training might wreak on his peak.

            Tonight as he moved through the familiar blade drills Liu Qingge thought about the other Shen Qingqiu’s annoyance, that day when Liu Qingge had unleashed all the disciples upon one another. The way irritation had quickly turned into ill-concealed enthusiasm. The way he’d thrown himself into the training so gamely.

            It had been a small, quiet life for a cultivator, but Shen Qingqiu had seemed so happy in it. There had to be some way to return him to it, without flinging this Shen Qingqiu away into whatever chaos the System prepared for him.

            If there wasn’t a way, he would make one. Every movement he made, every sweep of his arm and arc scuffed into the ground by his boot, sent the tassel tied to his belt swaying. Pale silver threads of moonlight rippled along it.

            And of course along Cheng Luan—and the blade of another sword, which came swooping towards him while his back was turned.

            He swiped it aside easily, barely even having to shift his intended course to do so. The sword flung aside and buried its point in the dirt, near the edge of a sharp drop-off. Liu Qingge cast a critical glance towards the nearest of the swaying bamboo.

            “I thought I’d see if the element of surprise helped at all,” said the familiar figure standing there between the two tallest trees. “Surprise! It doesn’t.”

            Liu Qingge snorted and pulled Xiu Ya out of the earth. Its handle was still warm from Shen Qingqiu’s palm; he wondered how long Shen Qingqiu had stood there, trying to pick the best moment to launch his attack.

            “You should be sleeping.”

            “So should you.” He approached, and accepted Xiu Ya back from Liu Qingge. “We haven’t sparred since you’ve come to stay here.”

            Liu Qingge’s eyebrows rose fractionally.

            “Is that a challenge?”

            “Maybe.” The moonlight fell clear on Shen Qingqiu’s face; Liu Qingge could see that same spark of enthusiasm dancing in these eyes that he’d learned to recognize in the other Shen Qingqiu’s. “We’ve been fighting on your terrain all this time, Liu-shidi—you’ve had me at a disadvantage.”

            The idea that Liu Qingge had only won because of some advantage of terrain was patent nonsense, and he was more than willing to prove it—particularly if Shen Qingqiu was actually going to initiate this match. It was unusual enough for this person to advocate any kind of work that of course Liu Qingge was interested.

            So they fought, darting around tall trunks of bamboo which Liu Qingge spent conscious effort on not damaging. Shen Qingqiu indeed seemed more confident here, but he still was no immediate threat for victory. Eventually Liu Qingge succeeded in pushing him back until the heel of his boot tipped over one of the mountain’s ledges. Shen Qingqiu somehow found the breath to sigh.

            “Trust you to find a cliff, Liu-shidi.”

            That was all he had time to say; Liu Qingge kept pushing, kept threading attacks here, here, here. Finally Shen Qingqiu made an exasperated sound and hopped backwards. Liu Qingge’s heart lurched, and he threw himself forward to catch him, but Shen Qingqiu pulled his hand back out of reach and dropped—all of a few metres, onto a narrow ledge below. He landed quite crisply and tidily, not in danger at all.

            Liu Qingge jumped down after him. Shen Qingqiu was grinning; he didn’t seem to notice how unusually heavily Liu Qingge landed.

            “You like cliffs so much I thought you’d be happier here!” he said.

            Liu Qingge just scowled. Shen Qingqiu couldn’t just do that—pull back like that, let himself fall. He didn’t know what great chasm had shuddered open in Liu Qingge’s chest—the one that always did, when he thought of Shen Qingqiu falling. The whole point of sparring on the cliffs of Bai Zhan Peak was to teach this ridiculous Peak Lord how not to fall off of things. How not to get himself killed.

            That frustration needed an outlet, and there was only one that Liu Qingge had ever really learned how to access.

            So, he lunged.

            It didn’t happen because it was dark, with the narrow ledge of rock lit only by the moon; it didn’t happen because the ground was unfamiliar.

            It happened because Shen Qingqiu was too busy smiling daffily to move out of the way of the attack. Liu Qingge redirected his momentum slightly off to one side—Cheng Luan’s point pierced harmlessly through the wind—but he suddenly found Shen Qingqiu’s face within perhaps an inch from his own, silvery and soft under the moonlight.

            Liu Qingge had never heard the phrase ‘short-circuit’ before, but in that moment he experienced one. His hands and feet chose independently to move in all different directions and at all different speeds, and one lucky leg propelled him directly out over the cliff’s edge.

            He was too disoriented to know where Cheng Luan had wound up. Just as he was beginning to drop and pull himself together to call it, the situation degraded even further.

            “Oop—shit—”

            A shadow darted after him, misjudged the distance, and tumbled into his arms with a thump.

            So ended all thought of Cheng Luan, and all thought whatsoever. Liu Qingge reverted to instinct. He clamped his arms down over Shen Qingqiu’s back, and they fell.

            It wasn’t a sheer drop, which meant rather than take a pleasantly direct path downward, they bounced and tumbled along a rocky slope and all its attending jabs and jolts. Finally they met a plateau and rolled to a halt.

            For a moment they were a motionless heap, all tangled together; then Shen Qingqiu groaned, softly.

            “Ow, fuck…” He shifted, pressing against and pulling away from various parts of Liu Qingge simultaneously. Liu Qingge’s poor rattled mind was both horrified at the former and despondent about the latter.

            He’d hit the ground hard. It wasn’t anything fatal, but even before he’d fallen there’d been this profound blankness between his ears, in that instant when his face had nearly brushed against Shen Qingqiu’s.

            Maybe it was the lingering effects of the aggregated qi deviations. That had to be it. Some sort of—of unaccounted symptom that the flower couldn’t address.

            Somewhere in the deep dark very nearby, Shen Qingqiu was murmuring to himself.

            “Okay, okay—don’t worry, shidi, I came prepared…”

            There was a faint rustling of fabric as if Shen Qingqiu was rummaging around amongst his own robes. Liu Qingge had just fallen off a mountain and had not gathered all his wits; he couldn’t make sense of what Shen Qingqiu was doing.

            “Here. Open up.”

            Liu Qingge peered through the darkness, and finally made out the long, elegant shape of Shen Qingqiu’s hand, held just before his face.

            Instinctively, Liu Qingge was opposed to commands like ‘open up.’ He did not know what the hell Shen Qingqiu was doing until his eyes finally interpreted a small, pale speck between his fingers. He’d torn a piece off of a flower petal and was holding it out towards Liu Qingge.

            Liu Qingge frowned. What was he even doing with that? Did he just carry it around with him at all times?

            “Would you eat it?! Liu Qingge, you’re having a qi deviation!”

            He was not, but if he opened his mouth to say so he was going to be force-fed some medicine he didn’t need. He didn’t even know what that would do to him.

            All of a sudden Liu Qingge became powerfully aware that he was lying flat on his back on the ground, and that Shen Qingqiu was not leaning over him; he was actually, fully sitting on him.

            Liu Qingge felt like a rock had fallen from the sky and hit him on the head, jellifying all his brains in an instant.

            He opened his mouth to say ‘Get the hell off of me’ or similar, and in so doing gave Shen Qingqiu an opportunity.

            One moment his mouth was full of curse words and aggression, and the next a small shred of a flower petal was crammed into the mix. Shen Qingqiu’s palm was still pressed over his mouth—warm and soft, slightly damp with Liu Qingge’s breath.

            “You have to swallow it, Liu Qingge.”

            For reasons surely having everything to do with his recent spree of qi deviations (and surely having nothing at all to do with Shen Qingqiu’s warm and soft and slightly sticky hand being pressed against his mouth), Liu Qingge did exactly as he was told.

            “Good boy.” Shen Qingqiu patted Liu Qingge’s face.

            Liu Qingge had never been so at a loss.

            Then sense and reason came back to him and he threw himself into a sitting position. The suddenness of it nearly flung Shen Qingqiu clear off of him, but Liu Qingge caught his waist.

            “Why didn’t you pass me energy first?!” he snapped, glaring straight into Shen Qingqiu’s face.

            “Well you know how I love to do things by the book, Liu Qingge,” said a rather startled-looking Shen Qingqiu, “but the poison is acting up.”

            Liu Qingge gave a disgusted grunt—of course it was! All of this could have been avoided if Shen Qingqiu had had spiritual energy to circulate, as he would have seen straight away that Liu Qingge was not having a qi deviation. He placed his hands more firmly on Shen Qingqiu’s back and began passing him spiritual energy.

            “Liu Qingge, is that a good idea right now? You’re recovering.”

            Liu Qingge scowled at him.

            “When has a qi deviation ever gone like that?”

            “Oh. You weren’t having one? So you just fell off the cliff for the fun of it?” Then his expression lit up. “Or did I finally win?”

            Liu Qingge would sooner bash his own head against the rocks until he was unconscious than say that he’d fallen because his face had been too near to Shen Qingqiu’s, so instead he said, “You fell off the cliff too.”

            “But you fell first! So I won!” He tried to point at Liu Qingge victoriously, but as he was still (now that Liu Qingge thought about it) sitting directly on Liu Qingge’s lap (Liu Qingge immediately tried to stop thinking about it), he had limited room. He wound up poking him hard in the chest. “I beat the fearsome Liu Qingge in a sparring match!!”

            His voice echoed up towards the mouth of the chasm.

            Liu Qingge could not believe this. It was the dead of night; Shen Qingqiu had probably just woken half the sect, crowing like that.

            All he could do was say, grumpily, “Hold still,” and press a little harder on Shen Qingqiu to underscore the point. He was busy; he was passing spiritual energy; everything was normal and Shen Qingqiu needed to be quiet or someone was going to see this disgraceful scene. Liu Qingge was grateful for the darkness down here, for preventing him from seeing it in too much clarity himself.

            He concentrated on the flow of spiritual energy, on smoothing twisted-up meridians, and—with a hero’s effort—not on the warm weight of Shen Qingqiu pressing down on his hips or on the way his hands fit around the curve at the small of Shen Qingqiu’s back.

            Actually, maybe quiet was bad. Maybe talking was better.

            “Where is Cheng Luan?” he said.

            “Ah—I think it fell with you? It should be just—oh, there it is.” He crawled out of Liu Qingge’s increasingly corpse-like grip. Liu Qingge heard the scrape of metal against stone as Shen Qingqiu picked up the blade. At least neither of them had been impaled on it, Liu Qingge supposed. “Right—let’s get out of here, Liu Qingge. This is no place for two Peak Lords.”

            Liu Qingge was in no state to argue, so up they went, back to the ledge. Dawn was a long ways off yet, but the moon was bright, and once they were standing again within reach of its light Shen Qingqiu paused, then seemed to stifle a laugh.

            “Oh. You look a little…mussed.”

            Liu Qingge felt more than a little mussed, so he supposed he was actually doing well.

            “Let’s get back home and fix you up,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Even if anybody believes that I beat you, nobody would believe I did all that, and I don’t want to have to explain this mess to anyone.”

            “I’m fine.”

            “Liu Qingge you have rocks in your face, right now. It’s taking the stone-face thing to a whole new level. If you think my disciples stare at you now, please enjoy stepping outside tomorrow morning looking like that. Come, come. I’ll look after you.”

            He was using that tone he sometimes wielded against Liu Qingge, which seemed to position him as some long-suffering holder of great responsibility and Liu Qingge as some recalcitrant shidi who did not appreciate these magnanimous efforts.

            It…was fine, actually, specifically because it was ridiculous. Shen Qingqiu being ridiculous seemed to be his natural state. Maybe it would have infuriated Liu Qingge once, but now he just liked to watch him going about his normal business.

            So, he let himself be shepherded back to Shen Qingqiu’s bamboo house and made to sit down nicely. Shen Qingqiu made a great production of gathering little bottles and pots of medicine and who knew what else. If Liu Qingge hadn’t known better, he would have thought he’d suffered some calamitous injury, not a few bruises and scrapes.

             But he stayed quiet and watched Shen Qingqiu muddle through, wondering whether he knew what a single one of those bottles actually contained or what the effects might be.

            Finally Shen Qingqiu did what was probably the best thing and retreated from this grand medical display, only to return with a simple bowl of water and a cloth.

            “Rocks in your face can’t be good for you,” he said. “So, let’s get them out first.”

            And so he set to work.

            “You don’t normally seek out sparring matches,” Liu Qingge said, while Shen Qingqiu poked at one of the scrapes with a damp cloth. 

            “I couldn’t sleep. I went to talk to you about strategy things, and you weren’t there. Besides. I resent that Shen Qingqiu 3.0 is better at fighting than I am.”

            “Why resent it? Just get better.”

            “Because you’re my Liu Qingge and it pisses me off that you like him better.” Shen Qingqiu huffed. “There. I said it.” Liu Qingge wasn’t sure whether to dispute the point; he wasn’t even sure whether or not it was true. They were the same person with different experiences. He didn’t see any point picking favourites. “Though…”

            “What.”

            Shen Qingqiu was frowning at a scrape across Liu Qingge’s cheekbone.

            “I’ve been thinking. What if we all have to go back, to fix everything? Back to our first timeline.”

            “Then we’ll go back. This can’t spread.”

            “No. And I’m sure that Luo Binghe will be able to patch things up back there—we should be able to live there again as long as he’s there. It’s just…that might be a bit sad for the other me.”

            “How so?”

            “You’re his Liu Qingge. The only one he’s ever known, right? If the other Liu Qingge from this timeline comes back, he won’t have any memory of being rescued from a qi deviation, or all the sparring and training and whatever else the two of you got up to. Shen Qingqiu 3.0’s good friend will just be some stranger who also vigorously hates his guts.”

            That…was indeed a bit heavy to think about. Just a bit heavy. Liu Qingge had never considered that the other Shen Qingqiu had never known any Liu Qingge but him.

            But still, Shen Qingqiu sad and awkward was better than Shen Qingqiu dead.

            “Luo Binghe is still here,” he said brusquely. “The reasonable one.”

            Shen Qingqiu gave him a look.

            “What’s your point?”

            “He’s here, and belongs here, so the other Shen Qingqiu will be fine.”

            Now Shen Qingqiu looked absolutely flummoxed.

            “But you and Luo Binghe aren’t the same person?? Let me tell you something, Liu Qingge—Shen Qingqiu 3.0 is still me, so I think I can be firm on this. If I got Luo Binghe back safely, but you died, I’d still be upset! I want both of you alive and healthy and happy. And not hating me. If you were as close to Shen Qingqiu 3.0 as you seem to have been, I think he’d probably be, ah—heartbroken?—if he came back here and found that you actively hated him.”

            Liu Qingge reviewed his experiences with a heartbroken Shen Qingqiu, nodded, and then said, “…I’ll have a qi deviation now,” as if announcing he was going to have some tea.

            “Right now? After the last one nearly killed you and did kill your house?”

            “I’ve already taken that medicine. That flower is rare. We shouldn’t waste it.”

            Really he just wanted to see the other Shen Qingqiu. Help him. Make sure he was safe.

            “But Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun aren’t here to help if things get—interesting. Let’s do it in the morning. You stay here in this timeline with me for now. A flower doesn’t matter more than you do, anyway. Flowers grow back. Liu Qingges don’t.”

            “They do if the System wills it.”

            Shen Qingqiu laughed.

            “Yes, Liu Qingge—let’s leave your fate in the hands of the System, noted protector of human life and wellbeing.”

            “You went and got those seeds, too.”

            “Yes. But transferring to that body was a very weird experience which I don’t recommend, and we haven’t planted any Liu-seedlings yet. So let’s not depend on any spare Liu Qingges and instead focus on not needing any spare Liu Qingges. You’re more of a rock-and-stone man anyway. You shouldn’t be a plant.”

            Then Shen Qingqiu froze, his eyes going glassy with thought. Liu Qingge wondered what exactly was going wrong now. Whatever was happening probably wasn’t good if it was making Shen Qingqiu think that hard; the cloth dripped water onto the floor with three steady, gentle thuds.

            Then Shen Qingqiu reached up and smacked Liu Qingge lightly across the forehead, prompting a small shower of tiny pebbles from another scrape, along with a vague twinge of pain.

            “…What,” Liu Qingge said, while Shen Qingqiu slapped his knee.

            “I solved it, I think! The problem of why you could bring back dirt or ash or whatever, but not a leaf, from the dream realm. Maybe you can only bring back things that are part of you!”

            “…Dirt?”

            “Yes! Dirt!” Liu Qingge wasn’t sure whether or not he should be offended. “I mean—dreams are dreams. You’re not thinking consciously in them, and the logic goes strange. But there is some logic to them, usually, isn’t there? So listen. You get into a lot of fights, Liu Qingge—so things like bruises, dust, dirt, and so on, you can believe easily are part of you. They come back with you. But a handful of leaves…? They’re just leaves. They have nothing to do with your self-image, so they stay. Next time try with a rock—I bet you you can bring it back. Ahh, ah, I’m so smart…”   

            One corner of his mouth crooked up as he swept away another few bits of detritus from the scrapes to Liu Qingge’s face. He looked so pleased with himself, and Liu Qingge actually did not have an argument to present. It…sounded plausible enough, anyway. He was willing to try it. He was willing to try anything if it might let him help the other Shen Qingqiu or stop the sky from killing all of them.

            Liu Qingge didn’t notice, and neither did Shen Qingqiu—but outside the window, dimmed by the pale light of the moon but still flickering faintly, was a light that was not a star. 

* * *

            Yue Qingyuan was looking at Liu Qingge as if he’d turned up to perform official sect duties in his underclothes.

            “That,” he said, and stopped. He passed his hand over his forehead, which seemed to restore his composure. “That is a sword tassel, Liu-shidi?”

            “Yes.” Liu Qingge struggled not to move a hand over it protectively, or to tilt himself away to put it out of view. He was standing before his sect leader; he wasn’t going to act like a guilty teenager. 

            “It is not on your sword.”

            “I already have one for Cheng Luan.”

            “And yet you are carrying this one with you.”

            “…Just in case.”

            “Just in case of what?”

            Liu Qingge did not answer, because there was no way to respond that would not end with Yue Qingyuan thinking his shidi was hallucinating wildly.

            He’d meant to be qi deviating right now, but Yue Qingyuan had summoned him to Qiong Ding Peak just when the absurd little team had gathered together on Qing Jing Peak. He’d had no choice but to go along. 

            “I have heard that your house is under construction, as well.”

            “It is.”

            “Why? The original structure was historic.”

            “Faults in the foundation,” Liu Qingge managed. “It wasn’t stable.”

            “I see. You are welcome to stay on Qiong Ding Peak until the reconstruction is complete.”

            “No need.”

            “You have other accommodations, then?”

            “…Qing Jing Peak…”

            There was another brief but expressive silence from Yue Qingyuan, who must have been lamenting every decision he’d ever made that had made him responsible for this sect and the people in it.

            Liu Qingge had not felt this oppressed since he had stood before his parents and had to explain what exactly had happened to a small structure on their estate. (Liu Qingge had inadvertently flattened it with an ill-placed swipe of a sword to a crucial support beam.)

            “…I see.” There seemed to be a different weight on the words that time. “Have you spoken lately to Qi Qingqi?”

            “No.”

            “She is pursuing an astronomical matter. She will be moving out to investigate in a few weeks’ time.” He smiled a little. “I would hate for Liu-shidi to become bored by being trapped at the sect forever. Your recovery is going well?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then you and Qingqiu can join Qi Qingqi in this matter. Consult with her; she can provide you with the details.”

            Liu Qingge assented readily, particularly when he heard that there would be a few days to prepare before departure. That would give him time to have his qi deviation today as planned, recover, and then get on the road to deal with whatever this was.

            He returned to Qing Jing Peak, where the other three were all waiting for him. He flung a brief summary of the meeting at Shen Qingqiu, but didn’t wait around for a question period. First matters first. He owed a certain Shen Qingqiu a visit.

* * *

            The qi deviation this time felt strangely easy—more like slipping under the surface of a calm pool of water than being held beneath the churning weight of the ocean. Maybe that was because he’d eaten some of that flower the night before, but he couldn’t be sure and wasn’t going to waste any energy theorizing.

            Especially when he saw where he was.

            A broad, dark hall, sputtering with firelight. Facing a dark, empty throne.

            He was in the right place, at least. Now he just had to hope he was in the right time.

            The emptiness of the hall disturbed him—it felt like a held breath. Some version of Luo Binghe had always been nearby anytime he’d hopped into another timeline. Liu Qingge felt he had to be close, but could see no sign of him, so he pressed on into the same hall he’d run through on his last visit. It appeared to have returned to something more resembling normal architecture, without the grungy cave-like hall sprouting along its length. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad sign, but pressed on anyway.

            Just as he was wondering whether he needed to start calling out to see if anyone was actually in this vast, echoing palace, someone drew a sharp but muffled breath.

            Not Luo Binghe. He wouldn’t make a scared little noise like that.

            There was only one door in this hall close enough to have been the source of that sound. Liu Qingge fell still, thinking of the best approach, and then on the irresistible impulse to see Shen Qingqiu simply barged through the door.

            See Shen Qingqiu he did, for about half a breath, before that fan slashed across and a tide of spiritual energy nearly sent Liu Qingge tumbling right back out the door again.

            This time he’d been readier for it, but it was such a beautifully-placed attack, hitting him just so to knock his balance askew. Even with all his preparation he still nearly lost his footing. By the time he’d secured it, Shen Qingqiu was disappearing through another door in a flick of green robes and long hair. 

            At least this seemed to be a fairly normal palace room and not some yawning expanse of space—or some shrieking tempest like Liu Qingge had lately visited. Plush furnishings were no matter to him; he ploughed straight through and after Shen Qingqiu’s retreating back.

            As soon as he passed the doorway, he was no longer in a rich palace chamber, but instead rushing through the cool mist of Qing Jing Peak.

            He tried not to let it distract him. Up ahead, Shen Qingqiu tripped and cursed colourfully but kept right on running until he skidded through the door of his bamboo house. He slammed it, and Liu Qingge flung it open just a heartbeat afterwards. He was battered back by another attack, staggered through, and found himself—

            Elsewhere, again. Now in the palace halls, with Shen Qingqiu racing on ahead once again.

            This was not sustainable. Shen Qingqiu was clearly terrified of him. He had to do something Shen Qingqiu would recognize as coming from him and not Luo Binghe’s dream creation.

            He knew exactly what would work; it was just a matter of actually doing it.

            So he opened his mouth and said, as he rammed through another door freshly slammed in his face, “Sh-sh-shshshshhhh—”

            He broke off in pure mortification. This was impossible. It was like demanding that he lay an egg. No matter if he wanted, for some nonsensical reason, to comply with that demand; physiologically it just wasn’t going to happen.

            To Shen Qingqiu of course it would appear that a revenant Liu Qingge was still chasing him, only this time he was hissing like a goose.

            No. He could do this. He now frequently induced qi deviations in order to reach this man; he wasn’t going to fail now just because he couldn’t say one word.

            “Sh-sh-shixiong!”

            He’d managed it at just the right moment. Shen Qingqiu had just passed through another door and had one hand one it, ready to fling it closed behind him. They were facing each other, and Liu Qingge had been gaining ground—he planted one hand on the doorframe. He was close enough to Shen Qingqiu to see the panic in his face freeze, and tremble slightly like a clear pool of water ruffled by a breeze.

            “What?”

            Liu Qingge braced himself against the doorframe, shored up his dignity against the coming assault, and said, “Shen-shixiong. Shen-xiong. Just a simple Shen-xiong.”

            Maybe it was just because he was out of breath, but his voice sounded strange. Sort of…thick, or like it was carrying something heavy.

            They stared at each other for a long moment, Liu Qingge watching first one ripple and then another displace the initial terror on Shen Qingqiu’s face. He wasn’t even sure what he was seeing there now—confusion, relief.

            Maybe something more luminous.

            Maybe joy.

            Then Shen Qingqiu seized the collars of Liu Qingge’s robes and pulled him through the doorway. This time, Liu Qingge was on the right side of the door when Shen Qingqiu slammed it. He had no idea where they were now and did not have a single thought to spare on such peripheral matters. Shen Qingqiu was still gripping the front of his robes like a drowning man clutching a rope.

            “Liu-shidi—how are you here?! You’re supposed to be—the Liu Qingge from here is…”

            Something moved in those wide, familiar eyes, and it was familiar too—but it had no place on this Shen Qingqiu’s face. It looked suspiciously like grief.

            “Dead,” said Liu Qingge. “I’m not. Let’s go.”

            “Right—absolutely right.”

            Liu Qingge looked around, as if one of these doors would neatly deposit him and Shen Qingqiu in a safer timeline. They were back in that endless hallway again, trapped in a facsimile of Huan Hua Palace. At least that meant they had their pick of doorways. Liu Qingge, mistrusting this dream realm down to its fundamentals, decided he didn’t want any of the nearby doors and started moving along the hall. He’d pick one at random, not one that was shoved up in front of his face.

            “So you’re really not a ghost?” Shen Qingqiu whispered, as if worried someone might hear. Why that was a concern only now, Liu Qingge had no idea—they had not precisely been quiet throughout that whole pursuit.

            “Really not a ghost.”

            “What a powerful shidi I must have then, to have found your way here, haha… I think you’ve really worried Luo Binghe, Liu Qingge.”

            “Worried?”

            “He seems more interested in figuring out what you are and how you got in here than in me. I think I’m just…bait, for the time being.” He glanced about nervously. “He wanted to draw you out again.”

            Liu Qingge supposed that meant he could expect a confrontation at some point. That would end the qi deviation and wake him up, so he had to do whatever he was doing before then.

            Shen Qingqiu couldn’t have known about that limitation, but his thoughts seemed to be taking a similar course anyway.

            “How do we get me out of this…situation?” 

            Liu Qingge felt that what he was avoiding naming was the idea of timelines. This Shen Qingqiu did not know that Liu Qingge knew anything about all that.

            “…”

            “…Liu-shidi there must be some sort of plan.”

            “…I’m gathering information. How long has it been since you last saw me here?”

            Shen Qingqiu blinked.

            “What do you mean how long? You were just here. How long has it been for you?”

            “Weeks, since you left.” Since I watched you fall down and die, again. "Days since I was last here." 

            Shen Qingqiu looked bewildered.

            “Really?? It’s only been—well, this is a dream, so I don’t know how long. But I don’t think it’s been longer than one night.” He stopped walking suddenly. “Wait. If it’s been that long then aren’t I rotting away? Can I even go back? Am I just dead there?”

            “No. There’s…another one.”

            Liu Qingge had not wanted to get into another round of the explanation game, and this time he didn’t even have the other Shen Qingqiu to take the brunt of the talking.

            “Another what?”

            “Another Shen Qingqiu.”

            “You mean the awful shithead who tortured Luo Binghe?? Liu Qingge, smother him.”

            Shen Qingqiu was clearly forgetting himself here—all but announcing that he’d transmigrated—but Liu Qingge supposed he could understand.

            “…not him. You. Another you, from farther ahead in your life.” He glanced about. But it wasn’t really this life, anymore. The Shen Qingqiu from his timeline had never lived through all this.

            Then he saw something that gave him pause.

            Liu Qingge had by no means memorized Shen Qingqiu’s outfits—frankly all those green robes looked the same to him—but something seemed off about this one’s appearance.

            Then he realized: it was the sword tassel dangling innocuously from Xiu Ya’s handle. It was the wrong colour, or at least it was a different colour from the one Liu Qingge had grown accustomed to seeing there.

            His hand moved instinctively to his belt, and he found that cool silvery tassel hanging there.

            He’d brought it all this way; it would be a waste not to make use of it. He unknotted it from his belt and held it out towards Shen Qingqiu.

            “Take this.”

            “What?” Liu Qingge shoved it nearly right into his hands. “Is this a sword tassel? Liu Qingge I already have one?? And this is a dream anyway???”

            “Just take it. Protective talisman.”

            Shen Qingqiu was just staring at him. He opened his mouth to speak, but someone else spoke first.

            “What exactly is this?” said a cold, lazy voice. “You really are eager, aren’t you? Well, you’re in luck. I have time today to play with you.”

            Luo Binghe had appeared a short ways along the hall; his eyes were fixed on Liu Qingge with the sort of attention cats reserved for cornered mice.

            Much though Liu Qingge wanted to grind this particular Luo Binghe’s face into every crevice on these floors, if they fought, he would be flung out of this qi deviation. That would leave this Shen Qingqiu stranded here no better than he’d started. Liu Qingge still didn't know how to help him, but he hadn't had enough time to figure out a way. There had to be a way, and if there wasn't, he'd make one. 

           Liu Qingge seized Shen Qingqiu’s wrist with one hand and threw open the nearest door with the other. He flung it closed again—catching just one glimpse of a faintly-smiling and particularly pasty Luo Binghe—and kept on moving through this new space. It was Bai Zhan Peak—a lucky turn for once. His house was even still standing.

            “Why is this here?” he asked as he trudged onward, towing Shen Qingqiu towards his house. He had no goal to race towards; he was only trying to buy some time while he figured out a strategy.

            “This? Bai Zhan Peak?” Shen Qingqiu looked around at the little crowds of faceless disciples sparring away with each other. “From what I can tell, some of the rooms in the dream realm come from Luo Binghe, and some of them come from us. This one must be yours, or mine.”

            “Yours,” Liu Qingge said, fixing his eyes to the doorway of his still-intact house. If his imagination had been conjuring this place, that house would be a heap of splinters.

            “Ahem,” Shen Qingqiu said. “I—hm. Alright then. Can we stop for a moment? If Luo Binghe is chasing us he’s going to catch up one way or another anyway, and I need to do something with this before I lose it. It seems like it’s important.”

            Liu Qingge glanced back and saw that Shen Qingqiu was gesturing with the sword tassel. Liu Qingge stopped, and Shen Qingqiu made a helpless gesture with his free hand.

            “Is there some special way it has to go on in order to work whatever protective charm it has in place?”

            Liu Qingge truly had no idea. He really should have asked Liu Mingyan.

            “Just put it on normally,” he said. Both he and Shen Qingqiu stared for a moment at the innocent Xiu Ya.

            “You know I’ve never tied one of these before…?” Shen Qingqiu muttered under his breath embarrassedly as he began to pick at the knot of the sword tassel already embellishing his sword. He succeeded in loosening it and pulling that sword tassel away, but had nowhere to put it down and was just standing there ridiculously holding two.

            Liu Qingge gave a short sigh and took the tassels. He stuffed the old one into his sleeve and began trying to fix the new one to Xiu Ya's handle himself.  

            “Yes.”

            Shen Qingqiu blinked at him.

            “Wait, really?”

            “The other you told me.”

            Shen Qingqiu blinked even more forcefully.

            “He told you everything?”

            “As far as I know.”

            “That lowlife! Why don’t I get to tell you anything? Ahhh, wait, wait, I can tell you my name!”

            Liu Qingge shook his head the slightest bit as he continued to struggle with the knot.

            “Shen Yuan,” he said quietly. It was the first time he’d ever said it aloud. Shen Qingqiu stiffened for a moment.

            “He really couldn’t leave me with a single shred, could he? Who does he think he is?? You’re the Liu Qingge from my timeline!”

            “…”

            “…”

            “…”

            “…Are you not?”

            “…”

            “You’re not! What the fuck!!”

            “I’m from his timeline. I dropped into yours.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me that you’d travelled through time?!”

            Liu Qingge bristled.

            “Why didn’t you tell me that you’d come from outside this world?!”

            “Because I—” All that fury he’d gathered up wilted. “…didn’t…think to?” 

            “Hmph.”

           Shen Qingqiu jabbed him in the shoulder. 

            “Listen, you. There is no way you would have believed me if I’d told you.”

            “I knew something had changed. In the other timeline I even told you so, and you still didn’t say it. And I tried to tell you, on Bai Zhan Peak, but the System wouldn’t let me. So.”

            “So.” Shen Qingqiu cleared his throat. “Well.” He looked down towards his waist. “You are taking a very long time, Liu Qingge.”

            “I don’t normally do this at this angle,” he said. It was a thin enough excuse. He seemed to have lost all say over his fingers. Shen Qingqiu was too close to him. It was fogging up his thoughts, though at least they weren’t near any precipices this time.

            There was quiet for a moment.

            “It's just that I thought you were my Liu Qingge,” Shen Qingqiu said finally, and a little bleakly.

            “I am.”

            It was another of those terrible pronouncements, but today Liu Qingge wasn’t in the mood to step back from it. His fingers had finally found their way. He pulled the knot tight, and then looked at Shen Qingqiu. He was really quite amazingly close, and his natural thought-damping effects were in full effect, but Liu Qingge pushed through it at least long enough to make an observation.

            “Your eyes are red.”

            Shen Qingqiu glared at him.

            “I have allergies.”

            “What?”

            “Seasonal allergies! The—pollen makes my eyes itch.”

            “In the dream realm.”

            “Yes.”

            “The pollen.”

            “Mhm. Now, you’re finished there, aren’t you?” He withdrew, and Liu Qingge let him; the soft strands of the tassel slipped through his fingers and fell to rest near Shen Qingqiu’s hip. “Let’s keep moving. This Binghe is a little too interested in you.”

            “Better me than you.”

            “Hahah! Yes, I feel the same way! But still, let’s not—let him actually get you. Go, go. Let’s go.”

            Liu Qingge let himself be shooed towards the house. The first door opened without incident, but when they passed through one of the interior doorways they found themselves back in that hallway.

            “Where to, shidi?” Shen Qingqiu asked in a low voice, as they both looked around. Apart form the odd guttering flame in a brazier, there was no movement. No sign of Luo Binghe. Liu Qingge’s intuition told him he was not far off; he wondered whether he had been watching that whole conversation just now.

            “Pick a door,” he said.

            “Right. Okay.”

            Shen Qingqiu took a breath and then trooped along the hall. He passed by three or four doors before stepping through one at random.

            Liu Qingge followed him through, but stopped dead the moment his boots met the floor.  

            There was something wrong with this place.

            There was a strange bluish glow cast over everything, stemming from a slim box resting on a table against the far wall. Liu Qingge’s sharp ears picked up on a low but distinct thrum pulsing through the whole space, and every surface seemed to be covered in something he did not understand.

            He reached out for Shen Qingqiu’s wrist, intending to pull him back out so they could find a less menacing route, but Shen Qingqiu had already rushed forward to stand in the small room’s centre. 

            “Aaaaaaaaah!” He looked around in wonderment. “Look, look look—this is my bedroom! Really my bedroom! Haha!” He flung himself down onto what must have been the bed, and bounced strangely upon it. He burrowed his face into its surface, spreading his arms wide to embrace it. “Ohhhh, my mattress…I missed you most of all…”

            Liu Qingge just stared at him. Not because Shen Qingqiu clearly called this alien room home; not because Liu Qingge was standing in a facsimile of whatever world Shen Qingqiu had come from.

            But because Shen Qingqiu had changed.

            “Shen Qi—Y—xiong,” he managed, feeling suddenly unsure of the very words in his mouth. Shen Qingqiu tilted his face towards him but did not pry himself from the bed; his cheek was smushed, and his hair was mussed and chaotic.

            And short.

            “Hm?” Shen Qingqiu said. Liu Qingge felt as though he was intruding on some terribly intimate moment, but he didn’t care. He pointed at Shen Qingqiu.

            “You. Changed.”

            Shen Qingqiu pushed himself up off of the mattress and looked down at himself.

            “Oh, shit. I did.” His eyes slowly widened as he looked himself over—staring at his tight-fitting sleeves, lifting one hand to touch the shortness of his hair. “I’d forgotten how much lighter it was…”

            Even his face was different, though not completely unrecognizable. Liu Qingge felt sure he had seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t place it—and then Shen Qingqiu beamed at him and he forgot what he was trying to think about.

            That smile was the exact fucking same even on a different face, and it still obliterated any rational thought in Liu Qingge’s head.

            “This is me, Liu Qingge! The other me never showed you this, right? Ha!” He spread his arms again to display himself in all his strangely-dressed, slightly-recognizable bizarreness, but looked exactly like he was asking for a hug. “So, what do you think?”

            Liu Qingge did not think anything. He just stared while Shen Qingqiu stood up off of the bed and looked around the room smugly.

            He…had shrunk. He was by no means tiny, but the top of his head came up to maybe Liu Qingge’s nose. Liu Qingge had always been taller, but not by this much. His fingers twitched with the sudden inexplicable urge to pick him up.

            How much easier would all these rescues be, with a smaller Shen Qingqiu? He must weigh less. Easier to hoist out of danger.

            Though, the reach of his arms would be reduced, too, and he might not have the same power when sparring. Difficult to choose…

            At least Shen Qingqiu did not seem intent on actually getting an answer to the question he’d just asked. He hurried over to the glowing box with its eerie blue light.

            “Look! This is the book!” He jabbed his finger at the shining surface. The room was mostly dark except for the box, and Liu Qingge had to squint against the glare. That bright plane was covered with tiny characters, but his eyes were not adjusted enough to the light for him to read them. “This is the book we’re in right now—I was reading it just before, ahem.”

            Liu Qingge, who had been leaning down to try to read the words, glanced at him. Shen Qingqiu gave him a somewhat sheepish look.

            “Before I died, the first time,” he finished. “You’ll be pleased to know I left it a bad review, ah.” He pulled away and looked around the room again with an air of satisfaction. “Nice to see this place again. Never thought I would.” Then he paused, and Liu Qingge wondered whether he was about to lament leaving his original life. Instead he said, “It’s, ah. A bit of a mess. Embarrassing, haha…” He felt around his clothes, as if he'd misplaced something, then seemed to conclude he wouldn't find it and clapped his hands briskly. “Well! That was fun but let’s get out of there before you see anything humiliating! Let’s go, let’s go!”

            He bustled Liu Qingge out of the room, shoving him along with two hands on his back.

            As soon as they found themselves in that hallway again, both men visibly relaxed. Shen Qingqiu had regained his hair, his height, his robes—and his fan, which was fluttering away in front of his face while he feigned nonchalance.

            “You choose next,” he said, with the old airy graciousness that meant he was hiding in his role as a Peak Lord.

            Fine; let him hide. That had been awkward anyway. Liu Qingge strode down the hall and, at random, selected another door. Shen Qingqiu hurried through first, and Liu Qingge followed.

            And fell.

            Straight downwards.

            He landed with a graceless thump and was brought immediately back to the recent tumble he had taken with the other Shen Qingqiu. This at least was a shorter distance. His forehead, his knees, and his palms met something hard and flat, but beneath the rest of him was something softer.

            Warmer.

            Liu Qingge lifted his head and found himself staring into the wide, startled eyes of Shen Qingqiu. He knew these eyes well, but he had never seen them from so close before. Their noses actually grazed one another.

            He began to look down, to try to get some sense of where they were and what was going on, but Shen Qingqiu squawked, “Wait!”

            Liu Qingge did not know what to do but freeze in place.

            “Eyes! Up! Here! Liu Qingge!”

            He sounded so urgent that Liu Qingge could not help but to obey. He met eyes again with Shen Qingqiu, while his peripheral vision began to fill in certain details.

            For instance, the lack of the expected green of Shen Qingqiu’s beneath him.

            Instead, there seemed to be…

            …something more the colour of Shen Qingqiu’s face.

            The colour of flesh.

            Shen Qingqiu’s hair was loose—all of it spread out freely around him on the surface of what Liu Qingge was fast realizing was the bed he was lying on.

            With Liu Qingge on top of him. The robes turned out to be there, but at least several layers of them were flung open. 

            Shen Qingqiu’s face was fast changing colour. Soon enough he was brilliant scarlet.

            “Eyes—eyes over there, actually,” he said with somewhat strained firmness, and Liu Qingge dutifully looked off towards the side. For one blank moment he simply ran a physical inventory. The first order of business was determining that he was also mostly…unclothed.

            The second order of business was ascertaining, without looking, that he and Shen Qingqiu—while stacked awkwardly atop one another—were not actually

joined

and, once that had been confirmed, he could resume something resembling rational thought.

            Just another room. That was all. Just another one of these cursed rooms in Luo Binghe’s dream realm. This one apparently constructed to punish them both severely.

            “We weren’t—” Liu Qingge returned his attention to Shen Qingqiu, who had clapped both his hands over his face. “Last time I was here, we weren’t—ah—we both had all our clothes???”

            “You were here before?” Liu Qingge asked, because he had to ask something to keep himself from any kind of situational awareness. This whole room seemed to be strangely hazy, and too warm, and perfumed, and he did not want to think about any single part of it.

            Particularly the parts of himself that were currently pressed up against Shen Qingqiu. There was fabric between them somewhere, but it was better if he didn't look down and critically, vitally important that he not feel too much. 

            “Once,” Shen Qingqiu said, muffled through his hands. “Running away from Binghe…not long before you got here, and there was a you here but he was just…from my head, I think, and he had all his clothes on and it wasn’t like this oh fuck…”

            Alright.

            That seemed to mean something, but right now Liu Qingge did not have the capacity to interpret dream-realm metaphysics.

            What he had here was a Shen Qingqiu in distress. That was blessedly familiar. He knew what to do with that. 

            “Let’s go,” he said to Shen Qingqiu, who nodded frantically.

            And that was all he needed. Liu Qingge jammed his hands under Shen Qingqiu’s back, scooped him up (Shen Qingqiu made some sort of chicken-like ‘bk-bk-bk-bk’ noise at the contact), and ran for it. For all the noise he made, Shen Qingqiu clamped onto Liu Qingge like a cat to a tree. Liu Qingge stumbled over strewn cushions and bottles and cups of wine but did not stop until he had barged straight through the door and felt, once again, the weight of his robes around his shoulders.

            Something sharp was poking him in the face, too. He had never thought he would feel so much affection for Shen Qingqiu's hair ornaments. If those were back, the situation was remedied. 

            Liu Qingge needed a moment. He just needed a moment. He tipped slightly against one of the dark walls of the palace and tried to catch his breath.  

            “Some protective talisman,” said Shen Qingqiu’s muffled voice against his shoulder. Liu Qingge gave him an uneasy pat on the back—relieved to find fabric and not bare skin beneath his palm—and then set him down.

            “You’re not hurt,” he said, without being quite willing to look directly at Shen Qingqiu to make sure. His heart was still dancing an unsteady rhythm, like a drunk at a festival.

           Unsteady and wrongfooted and—unconcerned. Uninhibited. 

            “It really wasn’t like that before,” Shen Qingqiu muttered. He was reaching up to fuss with his hair—pawing at ornaments and setting them askew.

            “Then what was it like?”

            “……………………………………………….PG-13.”

            Liu Qingge tipped his head slightly.

            “I don’t know terms for your world.”

            “I mean we just—! Had our clothes on, alright! Not every revelation has to be so revelatory, is what I am saying, Liu Qingge!”

            “Revelatory of what?”

            Shen Qingqiu glared at him, pointed one finger, opened his mouth, and closed it again.

            “Nothing. But that scene only got filthy when you walked into it, you know? What do you have going on in your head, shidi? We need to find you a nice girl. A nice girl. Haha.” He cleared his throat again. “Ah—have you ever actually met a nice girl, Liu-shidi?”

            “Explain ‘nice.’”

            “I mean…one you’d like to be with?”

            “No.” He didn't even need to think about it. 

            “Oh.”

            “So am I to understand,” said a third voice, “that you are a ghost, or something else? You’re not quite the gruesome, vengeful spirit I expected.”

            Both of them turned. Luo Binghe was standing just a few paces down the hallway, looking on with something too keen to be interest—it was hunger.

            “You seem awfully friendly with Shen Qingqiu, shishu,” Luo Binghe went on, while Shen Qingqiu slid neatly behind Liu Qingge and Liu Qingge took half a step forward. Luo Binghe’s eyes moved briefly to the door they had just exited from, and a slight, mocking smile twisted his mouth. “Should I assume that you died in a lover’s quarrel, then, Liu Qingge? You’re awfully forgiving, if so—”

            Liu Qingge was lunging before he’d had time to string a thought together. Those words had stabbed something in him that he had not been prepared to guard, and—being a simple man—his response was to try to stab back.

            Luo Binghe easily leaned out of the way of Cheng Luan’s point, and swivelled to face Liu Qingge’s follow-up attack. His hands didn’t even move towards Xin Mo’s hilt at his waist as he evaded that second strike. They remained behind his back, and his dark, glittering eyes remained on Liu Qingge.

            “The story gets sorrier every moment… Imagine the fuss this will cause at Cang Qiong Mountain.” Even as he spoke, the floor was tilting under Liu Qingge’s boots, tipping him this way and then that, making it impossible for him to find his footing to launch a proper attack. He and Luo Binghe whirled around each other, but he couldn’t land a hit, and Luo Binghe wasn’t trying to. “The great Liu Qingge, brought low not by a qi deviation but by the seductions of his fellow Peak Lord—ugh.”

            That hadn’t been an expression of disgust, but one of surprise or pain. He turned, slowly. Shen Qingqiu had manoeuvred behind him, and stood now with Xiu Ya drawn and his fan raised. It must have been the latter he’d used for that attack, and quite the gentle tap, too, compared to what he normally flung at Liu Qingge. It seemed that even this Shen Qingqiu, dealing with even this Luo Binghe, went too easy. All he’d done was draw attention to himself.

            “Such a kind and fair-handed Shizun, as always,” Luo Binghe said, with no appreciation for how much more seriously Shen Qingqiu could have attacked him. He moved towards the clearly terrified Shen Qingqiu—but Liu Qingge lunged again at his back, and he was not as ‘kind and fair-handed’ as his shixiong. Cheng Luan would have pierced straight through Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge would not have felt the slightest shred of guilt—

            But he stopped, with the point of his blade hovering a hair’s width away from sinking into flesh.

            Not Luo Binghe’s flesh. Luo Binghe had dragged Shen Qingqiu around and in front of him in the half-moment it had taken Liu Qingge to lunge; his long fingers rested like pale spider legs across Shen Qingqiu’s throat. Cheng Luan’s tip rested just beneath Shen Qingqiu’s collarbone.

            “Sorry, shidi,” Shen Qingqiu said quietly, and maybe a bit embarrassedly. “I know we agreed it was better if it was you, but…” He spread his hands helplessly. “I couldn’t help it.”

            Liu Qingge couldn’t move forward without cutting straight through Shen Qingqiu, but neither could he move back—a wall had sprung up against his shoulder blades.

            Besides. Even if he’d had the space to withdraw, he wasn’t about to lower Cheng Luan and concede—not with Luo Binghe putting his hands on Shen Qingqiu.

            “Fascinating that he works as bait, but not in the way I expected,” Luo Binghe said. He was watching Liu Qingge intently. His fingers tightened a little on Shen Qingqiu’s throat. He need not hold a blade to his jugular, given his strength—he could kill him with half a motion.

            Liu Qingge’s grip tightened on Cheng Luan, but he held still.

            Luo Binghe gave a low, thoughtful him.

            “I think I understand. Tell me what you are and how you came to be here, and I’ll let you have what’s left when I’ve finished with him. Some sort of fixated ghost, or whatever you are, should not be able to get in here. Tell me, and maybe I’ll even let you have some time alone with him before I get started.”

            Here was something Liu Qingge was not going to do: discourse about time travel and multiple branching timelines with this disgusting thing.

            Here was something else Liu Qingge was not going to do: a single thing this Luo Binghe wanted him to.

            He dropped Cheng Luan and lunged bare-handed, driving his fist towards Luo Binghe’s face. Luo Binghe dragged Shen Qingqiu into the path of the strike, but Liu Qingge had been ready for that, and arced another blow up towards where Shen Qingqiu had been. For a few moments there was a total absence of thought—everything was action, a flurry of punches and strikes which Luo Binghe could not simply evade, this time. He had to deflect and return them; Liu Qingge gave him no choice.

            Just as Shen Qingqiu was ducking out of this maelstrom and Liu Qingge was trying to pull him behind him, the floor bucked. This time, Liu Qingge wasn’t the only one who stumbled, and neither was Shen Qingqiu.

            Luo Binghe did, too. He staggered against the wall, bracing himself with one forearm. He didn’t demand, ‘What was that?!’, but he didn’t need to—the question was plain in the scowl on his face. All that ire was pointed squarely at Liu Qingge, who was fastening a grip on Shen Qingqiu in preparation for whatever came next.

            Then the ground heaved again, sending them all stumbling into each other.

            “You,” Luo Binghe said, somehow condensing more venom into that single syllable than in everything else he’d said so far. One of his own walls had fallen in on him. Luo Binghe shoved the wall back and it followed his movement, only to lurch back towards him again and force him to catch it. Luo Binghe no longer looked coldly disaffected. He looked openly furious. He flung the wall away a gain and lunged towards Liu Qingge, only for the floor to tremble and burst open, sending him trotting backwards. A howling, screeching void had opened the hallway beneath them. Liu Qingge had nowhere to retreat to, thanks to the wall Luo Binghe had earlier conjured at his back; he and Shen Qingqiu both flattened themselves against it as more and more of the floor tiles shuddered and dropped away into the flickering maelstrom below. Cheng Luan went tumbling away with them.

            The very air seemed to be shaking now.

            “WHAT—?!” Shen Qingqiu said; even though he was clutching onto Liu Qingge, screaming almost right into his ear, Liu Qingge could barely hear him. “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!”

            “Don’t fall in,” Liu Qingge said. The next sound Shen Qingqiu made he heard quite clearly; it was an almost hysterical laugh.

            “No shit, shidi!”

            Liu Qingge had no sword to fight his way out with or to escape on, he had his arms full of shixiong, and the screaming sky had just come for a personal visit. This was not his worst experience with a qi deviation so far, but it was coming awfully close.

            To top it all off, across the gash of shrieking fury that had just opened up in the dream realm, Luo Binghe was looking at Liu Qingge with murder on his face. He tried once, twice, thrice, to regain control over his dream realm—attempting to call the fallen tiles back up, tearing walls down to fill the gap, stretching the remaining floor tiles over it—but nothing worked. More and more of the dream realm just shuddered and crumbled into the ever-yawning tear.  

            Liu Qingge steadily watched the cracks crawling through the stone of the hallway. All he needed was some space to open up into another, more stable part of the dream realm, and he’d be able to get them away from this—but the floor was coming apart faster than the walls were, and it would only be moments before it fell away altogether and dropped him and Shen Qingqiu both straight into this chasm.

            Fine. There was still one way out. Straight ahead.

            He clamped Shen Qingqiu against his side with one arm secured about his waist. Through some acrobatics of his eyebrows, Shen Qingqiu expressed something to the effect of, “?!?!”

            “Don’t—be afraid,” Liu Qingge said—not because it would really make a difference to what was about to happen, but because he still just fundamentally disliked the notion of Shen Qingqiu being frightened. He’d promised this one everything would be alright right before the System had opened up and swallowed him.

            He’d do better this time.

            Liu Qingge pressed himself back against the wall as far as he could go, made sure his grip on Shen Qingqiu was secure, and then bolted forward and leapt.  

            For once, Liu Qingge’s luck was good.

            His boots landed firmly on the still-stable tiles at the far side of the chasm, and Luo Binghe was too busy trying to shore up his dream realm to even slap him down into the gap.

            He did notice his two captives escaping, however.

            “It’s mine!” Luo Binghe roared after Liu Qingge’s back. Liu Qingge didn’t turn—getting Shen Qingqiu away from that tear in the world was everything. “This place is mine! You have no right—”

            “We’re not the ones doing this!” Shen Qingqiu hollered back over Liu Qingge’s shoulder. “Binghe, just—leave it, get away from there—”

            “Stop helping him,” Liu Qingge said as he raced along the hallway. Cracks chased them along the walls, and pebbles tumbled from the ceiling. He had no idea where he was going to go—just that the farther he could get away from the actual breach, the better.

            Then there was a brilliant pain through his chest, and Liu Qingge stumbled. A blade protruded from between two of his ribs, having run him through from back to front.

            Xin Mo. Awfully reckless of Luo Binghe to just throw it around like that, especially in the middle of a crisis, but it had worked.

            “Wha—aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Shen Qingqiu said as they both teetered to a halt. Liu Qingge sank groundward. He couldn’t help it, but he also didn’t try. There was no point, and there was something else he could do. The rubble bit into his palms, and he didn’t care. “Oh—shit, oh fuck—!”

            Shen Qingqiu seized Liu Qingge’s arm and began to drag him forward, but there was really just no way. Luo Binghe caught them up in a matter of a few long, thunderous strides.

            “Get. Out,” he said as he bore down on them. “Wake up. Get out of here—”

            He reached down towards them. The feeling of Shen Qingqiu trying frantically to drag him forward was the last thing Liu Qingge knew.

* * *

            Liu Qingge came around slowly, and the first thought in his head was certainty that Shen Qingqiu had disappeared. His grip was gone from Liu Qingge’s arm. It was not a surprise, really—he hadn’t expected to bring him with him. Maybe he’d just hoped.

            But at least Luo Binghe had bigger problems to worry about right now than Shen Qingqiu. Maybe that would buy him some time.

            “He was there,” said Liu Qingge, once he’d confirmed he was in his peaceful, non-collapsing, non-Luo-Binghe-infested room on Qing Jing Peak.

            “Who?” Shen Qingqiu asked. For a moment it confused Liu Qingge, as he spoke from the other side of him from which the other Shen Qingqiu had so recently vanished. He appeared to have been reading before Liu Qingge woke up; Liu Qingge wondered how long he had been down for.

            He sat up.

            “You. The other one, from this body.”

            He gestured at Shen Qingqiu—had to stop short of touching him, and just barely managed it at the last moment. The other one had been so real. Liu Qingge had felt him.

            “You’re sure it wasn’t one of Luo Binghe’s dream creations?”

            Liu Qingge shook his head.

            “It was him.”

            Shen Qingqiu set aside his book.

            “Was he still…intact?”

            “Yes. It hasn’t been long for him.”

            “Good.”

            “And the dream realm opened up. This time a hole in the ground.”

            Shen Qingqiu’s head clunked forward slightly.

            “…Less good.”

            “Mm. But.” He held out his hand, and Shen Qingqiu leaned forward to see what rested in his palm.

            It was a small, dark rock—a piece of rubble from the dream-woven halls of Huan Hua Palace.

            Shen Qingqiu stared at the jagged pebble for a moment in wide-eyed silence, and then reached up and very solemnly slapped Liu Qingge’s shoulder. Then he did it again, with somewhat more vigour, and a third time, until finally he was doing it almost nonstop.

            “Liu Qingge brought a rock!!” he said, while Liu Qingge’s shoulder steadily went numb from the badgering. “Liu Qingge brought back a rock!!!”

            Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun, who must have been waiting around in the next room, arrived.

            “Not just some dust this time?” Shang Qinghua asked.

            “No!! A whole entire rock!”

            It was more of a shard of a tile, but Liu Qingge decided to let that pass. Shen Qingqiu swiped the rock from his palm and presented it with great ceremony to Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun, as if it were some sort of enchanted artefact and not, simply, a little bit of a rock Liu Qingge had scooped up in his last moments in the qi deviation.

            “Which means,” said Shen Qingqiu, “we can move things through. And also it means I was right.”

            “About what?” Shang Qinghua asked, as he squinted at the rock.

            “That Liu-shidi can only bring through things which line up with his self-image—and there we have it. He can bring back rocks, but not leaves.” He’d stopped smacking Liu Qingge when the others had come in, but went and added a few more, as if for good luck. “Rock-steady Liu Qingge does it again!”

            He was filled head to foot with glee and was making no move whatsoever to contain it. It was almost infectious, even—Liu Qingge, too, was feeling rather good after that escapade. He’d seen the other Shen Qingqiu. Explained some things, even. And proved he could bring things through timelines, even if he hadn’t been able to bring Shen Qingqiu himself.

            He’d even given him the—

            —the—

            Liu Qingge looked down.

            The sword-tassel was no longer fixed to his belt. His heart gave a little leap, but he pushed it back down. He wasn’t sure yet.

            “This qi deviation,” he said. “Was it violent?”

            “Not very, no,” Shen Qingqiu said.

            “No struggle?”

            “Not much. I dealt with you just fine. Why?”

            Liu Qingge made a vague noise, unwilling to explain about the second sword tassel. The two Shen Qingqius seemed nonsensically envious of one another, and he didn’t want to worsen it.

            Besides, he still wasn’t quite willing to let himself believe it.

            He excused himself from Shen Qingqiu’s jubilation as soon as he could, and went for a walk. It was no aimless wander. He went back to the place where he and Shen Qingqiu had sparred the night before; he looked around the ledge, and then ventured down into the chasm itself. He could see, plainly, where he and Shen Qingqiu had fallen. There was no sign of a mislaid sword tassel.

            If it wasn’t here, and it hadn’t been lost in the struggle while he’d had his qi deviation…

            …then maybe the other Shen Qingqiu had kept it, even when they’d both left the dream realm.

            His whole body seemed to faintly hum with that realization.

            It was only a maybe, but to Liu Qingge, after everything that had been going on, a maybe was an awful lot.

* * *

            At about the same time Liu Qingge awoke in Shen Qingqiu’s house, two other people awoke, too, in a different timeline.

            Luo Binghe was the first to get his bearings.

            His eyelids parted on the cold grey light of dawn, and the sounds of the disciples of Huan Hua Palace beginning their morning duties. Luo Binghe rose as well, and dressed himself slowly. Nobody knocked on his door to rouse him, or berated him for sleeping late. Nobody dared, even though he had not yet seized control of this sect. He had the favour of the Old Palace Master, and of the Young Palace Mistress. He had nothing to fear by taking his time. 

            He had not been able to mend that tear in his dream realm no matter what he’d tried. Meng Mo had been no help either. His two guests had looked more alarmed by it than he had, so they didn’t seem to have caused it willingly—but the same night he had an uninvited guest, his dream world was strangely broken for the first time. This did not seem coincidental.

            Revenge on Shen Qingqiu was important; that hatred still boiled and seethed in him and always would. But there was another feeling laid over all that right now, and one he had not felt since he’d clawed his way out of the Endless Abyss.

            It was unease—a lack of control, a lack of certainty. It almost approached fear.

            His fingertip moved to the handle of Xin Mo, hanging quiet for the moment at his waist.

            Shen Qingqiu would keep. Perhaps the only thing Luo Binghe would trust that man to do was preserve his own pathetic life. But this other matter… This was more urgent. 

* * *

            In the same timeline as Luo Binghe, but a different place—and in the same place as Liu Qingge, but in a different timeline—Shen Qingqiu woke up, too.

            A Shen Qingqiu, at least. Just one of who knew how many—he very certainly did not, and did not want to think about it even in the dim murk of the morning.

            “Qingqiu!” someone exclaimed in relief, from near to his bed. Yue Qingyuan, with worry scrawled clearly over his features. No doubt Shen Qingqiu had hit the floor with all his usual grace and decorum when Luo Binghe had summoned him into the dream realm. He must have scared his sect leader halfway to death, but Shen Qingqiu didn’t have time right now.

            “Zhangmen-shixiong,” he said, wavering upright on his bed and looking around. Everything looked to be in order—no screeching crevices into the raging abyss here!—so he breathed a short sigh of relief. He left his mouth on auto-pilot to deal with Yue Qingyuan while he tried to get his bearings. This was dangerous, he knew, but his behaviour since arriving in this timeline the morning before had been so erratic—and his capture by Luo Binghe was so imminent—that it scarcely seemed to matter anymore.

            But maybe…not so imminent as it had seemed over the last few days.

            As soon as he possibly could, he put Qing Jing Peak behind him and hustled his dream-disoriented ass on over to Bai Zhan Peak.

            The disciples there, or those who were awake at this hour and raring to beat blood and bile out of one another, glared at him as he passed but made no move to stop him. This was not the first time lately they had seen a stray Shen Qingqiu wandering by towards the familiar house tucked against the cliffside.

            Nobody stirred inside as he approached; no lanternlight warmed the windowsill. Shen Qingqiu opened the door and found the place just as sombre and silent as it had been the last time he’d visited.

            This had been the first place he’d run to when he’d woken up on Qing Jing Peak the day before. He’d wanted answers about what had happened at Jue Di Gorge—needed to hear what had happened to Luo Binghe from someone familiar and not from some random disciple. He’d needed to tell Liu Qingge about that awful screaming in his head.

            He’d needed, generally, to see Liu Qingge.

            But no.

            Like hell he would admit to the Liu Qingge in that dream realm that his eyes weren’t really red because of allergies. Like hell he would admit that on his very first day in this disorienting hell of a timeline, the very first thing he’d tried to do was find the world’s best and most dependable shidi—only to be looked at as if he’d lost his mind and informed that that best and most dependable Liu Qingge had been dead more than five years.

            Like hell he would admit that this news had flattened him like an elephant dropped from orbit, or that he’d locked himself in his bamboo house and cried the ugly, helpless, snot-laced tears of a toddler lost at the market.

            Liu Qingge did not need to know that; these were things which Shen Qingqiu had already quietly locked up in a shame-filled box in his mind that was never going to see the light of day again.

            Only, he did have to pull it out now to stuff several other incidents into it, including significant chunks of whatever the fuck had just happened in that dream realm. He swore that when he had first tumbled into that hazy, pinkish room, while he had found a Liu Qingge there that must have been the product of—yes—his own imagination, and while yes that dream-created Liu Qingge had seized him and mashed their faces together, everyone had been perfectly clothed, thank you very much. Things had only gotten really out of hand when he’d returned there with the real Liu Qingge.

            (For a given value of ‘real,’ anyway.)

           In little more than a day, Liu Qingge had gone from promising Shen Qingqiu that everything would be alright, to dead, to a vengeful ghost, to a dream-creation intent on kissing him senseless, to—calling him Shen-xiong and trying to rescue him. Shen Qingqiu did not understand most of what was going on now, but he knew that Liu Qingge had come to save him and would do it again as soon as he could. 

           It was all a bit too much. 

            Standing here in this abandoned, dusty house he felt that same awful, undignified burning feeling in his nose that he'd felt the last time he'd stood here, and the same pressure building up in his chest.

            Which was perfectly ridiculous. He knew now that Liu Qingge, or at least his Liu Qingge (the other Shen Qingqiu could fight him), was still alive.

            Still, even one dead Liu Qingge was a corpse too many. 

            He’d spent nearly every day in this world with Liu Qingge—not as the fearsome stalwart protector the other Shen Qingqiu had known him as, but of course this Shen Qingqiu did not even know how to make that comparison. He didn’t know how many times Liu Qingge had arrived in a blaze of violence to try to protect that other him. He didn’t know all that he had done or all that he would do to keep him safe.

            What he knew was that Liu Qingge had been the primary structuring part of the world ever since the spirit caves, far more reliable than the System or the mountain or fucking gravity itself. Even those days when he’d been out on assignments, Shen Qingqiu had been thinking about him—impossible not to when he’d passed those days on Bai Zhan Peak, carrying on its Peak Lord’s duties. 

            “Qingqiu?” asked a somewhat tentative voice. He turned. Yue Qingyuan had followed him to the doorway and was looking at him with open concern, as if afraid he’d make another dive for the floorboards.

            And who knew; maybe he would. Shen Qingqiu had very little control over anything that would happen to him. The past day had underscored that for him beautifully. 

            Shen Qingqiu, who would profoundly resent being referred to as Shen Qingqiu 3.0 and who Liu Qingge wisely had not addressed as such, pressed his hands into fists at his sides. He looked down at Xiu Ya, from which dangled that protective talisman of Liu Qingge’s. He didn’t know how that had worked—how that could possibly still be with him now that he’d exited the dream realm—but it was his proof.

            Liu Qingge was alive; Liu Qingge was fighting.

            Fortunately, Shen Qingqiu had learned from Liu Qingge how to fight, too.

            “Requesting Zhangmen-shixiong’s permission to be ridiculous,” he said slowly. Yue Qingyuan, looking a bit helpless, made a permissive gesture. “Let me train Liu-shidi’s juniors.”

            Yue Qingyuan’s eyebrows rose so high they threatened his hairline.

            “Train? Liu-shidi’s…?” He looked like he couldn’t decide which part of this request was more indicative that Shen Qingqiu was in the throes some sort of medical crisis.

            “Yes.”

            “Qingqiu, I think…” He didn’t say, ‘I think they will eat you alive like a flood of piranhas,’ but it was scrawled quite plainly across his face.

            “They definitely hate me,” Shen Qingqiu said. And of course they’re right to! he added privately. He couldn’t remember all the plot threads of this godforsaken book or what happened exactly when, but it did not seem that Luo Binghe had yet revealed that his dear Shizun had murdered Liu Qingge. Even so, Liu Qingge’s juniors no doubt knew enough about their deceased Peak Lord, and respected him enough, to hate Shen Qingqiu’s guts on his behalf. “And that’s perfect.” He thought of Liu Qingge, making himself the obstacle for all those disciples—making himself their opponent and antagonist. They had flung themselves into their attacks with fervour.

            Imagine how much more enthusiastic they’d be if they really hated their adversary.

            Shen Qingqiu had practically been custom-made for this role! The world’s finest, smarmiest, cruellest punching bag—come everyone and take a swing, for the good of the sect! Sharpen your blades on the most deserving of whetstones! 

            The more he thought about it the more excited he became—even if it was the frantic, panicky sort of excitement of finding your only hope of survival. Your only path above the spike pit.

            “My disciple Luo Binghe is not dead, and he is both world-endingly powerful and absolutely furious, and he is going to attack us here. If we want to be able to stop him the whole sect will need to pull together.”

            Yue Qingyuan proved he had more strength than Shen Qingqiu had ever possessed by not stopping him there and demanding an explanation. He just looked at Shen Qingqiu quietly a moment and then said, “And you want them to pull together by…”

            “Attacking me,” Shen Qingqiu said stoutly. “Sparring.”

            “Shidi, I think you will be killed.”

            “I will not!” His cultivation may have been levelled down several times by this transmigration, but he still remembered how to fight. He’d learned from the best!

            And, that aside, none of these disciples had trained as extensively or as hard as they would have, in his own timeline.

            And, the sneakier and more devious part of him noted, I already know all their weaknesses. He’d helped train them, after all.

            “Send them at me, shixiong,” Shen Qingqiu said. “We have to get stronger to protect the sect, and we don’t have long. I’m going to start on Qing Jing Peak.”

            He hurried off, straight past a baffled Yue Qingyuan.

            A defence of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect without Liu Qingge there to lead it was a fundamentally doomed venture. To Shen Qingqiu’s mind, that man had held up this whole mountain on his shoulders. But Shen Qingqiu had spent too many years sparring with Liu Qingge. Some of his determination to protect this place seemed to have rubbed off on him.

            With any luck, Luo Binghe would be distracted by Liu Qingge’s incursions into his dream realm; with any luck, maybe he’d bought Shen Qingqiu and the sect some time.

* * *

            The next day, after Liu Qingge had had some rest, Shen Qingqiu dragged him to see Qi Qingqi and find out more about this assignment. Liu Qingge had said it was something to do with astronomers and expressed no further interest in the details—he seemed to see it primarily as an obstacle between him and another qi deviation.

            Shen Qingqiu saw the assignment more or less the same way, but to him, such an obstacle was welcome. Liu Qingge was making splendid progress—A work all around, very outstanding, a joy to have in class—but Shen Qingqiu still held at the back of his mind the memory of Liu Qingge smashing his own house in a screaming fury. He wasn’t going to order any more of that particular dish if he could help it.

            So he hauled Liu Qingge’s grumbling ass to Xian Shu Peak and reported to Qi Qingqi’s home.

            Qi Qingqi, forever admirably straightforward, scarcely greeted them.

            “There is a problem with the sky,” she said bluntly, while Shen Qingqiu was still settling in. Shen Qingqiu froze, and then stared at her.

            “There’s a what with the what?”

            Liu Qingge sprang to his feet after only having just sat down.

            “We’re going.”

            “Yes, Liu Qingge,” Qi Qingqi said flatly. “That’s the point.” She redirected her attention to Shen Qingqiu. “There’s a new light in the sky we can’t account for. Mingyan spotted it.”

            “Ning Yingying spotted it first,” Liu Mingyan said softly from next to her shizun. She sounded a little subdued.

            “There you have it. All the sect unity you could ask for, Liu Qingge. Cross-Peak solidarity. We are going to go investigate. We've been granted authority to treat this as a major priority. It might threaten the sect, or the whole realm.”

            Once Qi Qingqi had imparted the details of what they were doing and where they were going, Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge left. They walked in absolute silence for a short while, and were well onto the rainbow bridge before Shen Qingqiu said, “Well, Liu-shidi, I guess all good things come to an end.”

            Liu Qingge gave him a distinctly unfriendly look.

            “What?”

            “The world. Or, this version of it, anyway. It’s ending too!”

            “It won’t.”

            “In all these other timelines you’ve visited, have you seen any indication of how to stop it?”

            Liu Qingge’s stony silence was answer enough. They walked on in uneasy quiet for a while, Shen Qingqiu wrestling down the urge to start laughing hysterically every time he looked at the sky. For a while there he’d nearly let himself think that things might be straightforward! That the world might not rip itself to pieces just to spite him!

            Fuck but it was frustrating for everything to unravel as soon as he looked at it. It was beginning to get really, genuinely tedious.       

            “You stay at the sect,” Liu Qingge said at last, and Shen Qingqiu really did laugh.

            “Like I’m going to hurl myself into the void on purpose?”

            “The void chases you.”

            “I think we’re developing a case that it’s chasing you.” Liu Qingge just grunted. “Hey.” Liu Qingge flicked a look at him but said nothing. “Hey, Liu Qingge.” Shen Qingqiu stopped walking, and to his slight amazement, Liu Qingge did not keep trudging right along the bridge and towards home. He stopped, too, and turned to face Shen Qingqiu. It was quiet on the bridge, for the moment; they were suspended between peaks, with only the wind to eavesdrop, so Shen Qingqiu could speak freely. “The sky’s opening up again. The world’s ending. You’re the hero on duty. Could we get an inspirational speech? You know—to show us your determination, prove the strength of your heart, etc. etc.?”

            Liu Qingge just looked at him, and continued looking at him, for such a long time that Shen Qingqiu became ill at ease. He was rattled by this apocalyptic business—call him silly, but seeing the sky wrench itself apart once had been more than enough for him—and was genuinely looking for a nice, soothing heroic speech right now. Instead he was getting a world-class stare-down.

            “Why would it be me?” Liu Qingge said finally, which somewhat took Shen Qingqiu aback.

            “Why wouldn’t it be?” Then he understood. “Luo Binghe is still in the Endless Abyss, after all.”

            He thought something changed in Liu Qingge’s expression then, but couldn’t have said what.

            “Not him.” Liu Qingge turned and started walking again. “You.”

            “Me?” Shen Qingqiu felt as if Liu Qingge had just thumped him in the chest. He scrambled to catch up. “What, me? What sky can I hold up? You’ve seen me in action many times, Liu Qingge—I’m just a humble Shen.”

            Liu Qingge just gave him a brief, inscrutable look and then turned his attention forward again.

            “The sky won’t fall. We won’t let it.”

            It was not as lengthy a speech as Shen Qingqiu had hoped for or was used to from his days as a reader, but it did the job. Shen Qingqiu felt quite mighty and buttressed already; he could practically hear the background music swelling louder.

            “Right. So, let’s go stop it. However we do that. We’ll get moving faster if we argue less, right? So let’s just go. I promise not to fling myself into the sky.”

* * *

            Shen Qingqiu would have liked it if his first post-death vacation had not entailed travelling towards the probable end of the world, but he was getting to travel again, so he knew to shut his mouth and keep his complaints corked up.

            Fortunately, Qi Qingqi and Liu Qingge were both straightforward people, and they didn’t spend a lot of time dithering before they set out. A carriage was procured, Shen Qingqiu’s seat was claimed, and Qi Qingqi’s preliminary complaints about Shen Qingqiu were formally filed with the appropriate authorities. Then they were on their way.

            “I cannot believe we have a carriage,” Qi Qingqi said, glowering around at the thing as if it had offended her on a deep personal level.

            “You don’t have to use it,” Shen Qingqiu said. He was somewhat torn between wanting the whole thing to himself so he could lounge more conveniently, and wanting the company.

            “Of course I do—to make sure you aren’t napping in here while the rest of us ride.”

            “Why shouldn’t I nap? I’m injured, you know.”

            She gave him a look brimming with ridicule.

            “So terribly injured you beat Liu Qingge in a sparring match?”

            Inexplicably, Shen Qingqiu felt his face get hot.

            “Where did you hear that?”

            “I heard it in my home, in the middle of the night, when I was startled out of sleep by your shrieking about it for all the sect to hear.” Shen Qingqiu didn’t know why he felt so out of sorts about that revelation—somehow that had felt private.

            In fact, that had been private!

            Who the hell was Qi Qingqi to eavesdrop on his—shrieking, in the middle of the night, for all the sect to hear?

            “Well. Of course he let you win,” Qi Qingqi went on while Shen Qingqiu fumbled for his fan. He stopped what he was doing to glare at her.

            “He did not!”

            “He did. You could never beat him otherwise. Not if you ascended to the heavens.”

            “I beat him fair and square, and—” The thought lurched to a halt. “Why would he let me win?”

            This time the look she gave him held less disdain, but more puzzlement.   

            And something suspiciously like…pity.

            “If you don’t know then you’re the only person in the sect who doesn’t, Shen Qingqiu.”

            Some innate instinct in Shen Qingqiu told him that it was better, right now, if he did not demand to know what she meant.

* * *

            Liu Qingge was maybe slightly too calm.

            The sky was opening, and for reasons indecipherable Shen Qingqiu was moving towards it rather than away, and…

            …he was calm. He felt, for the first time since he’d died—for the first time since Maigu Ridge, even—some semblance of peace that lasted longer than a sparring match or a cultivation session. He rode alongside the carriage with Liu Mingyan for days. Yes, when they stopped in the evenings he found himself staying outside, keeping his eyes up on the small, bright tear in the sky.

            Yes, he knew this might end with world-ending cataclysm.

            But until they got there, he felt strangely freed.

            One evening, when the shadows were growing long, they found themselves too far from any towns or inns where they might pass the night. They found a stand of trees which would provide them more cover than on most stretches of the road. It was sheltered here, and quiet, and as safe as they could probably get out here on the road. 

            Still, Liu Qingge took a quick walk through the woods to check for any bandits or spirits or other potential problems. He found a gently-flowing stream and swaying trees, but nothing more.

            The ground was coated here and there in thick moss, which was slightly springy underfoot. As he tested his weight on it and felt it push up against his boot, Liu Qingge found himself thinking about the other Shen Qingqiu throwing himself down onto his bizarrely bouncy bed from his original world. He’d looked so ridiculous—wildly different from his normal bearing in this world, or at least his normal bearing when anyone but Liu Qingge might see him.

            Absurd person.           

            He wondered whether it would be possible to make a bed like that here; no doubt this Shen Qingqiu would be just as overjoyed. Surely moss would not be good for the purpose, but maybe there was something.

            “Brother?”

             He looked around. Liu Mingyan had followed him to patrol, and was looking at him with great vigilance, as if she had just seen a ghost pass behind him.

            “You’re…smiling,” she said.

            It was instinctive to deny it, but Liu Qingge found that she was right.

            “Mn.” He glanced around. “There isn’t anything here. We can stay.” He strode past her, making back for the road.

            “Did he say yes?”

            Liu Qingge paused and looked back at her. He could see now that she had been speaking to him all this while in a language he hadn’t been understanding, but he could catch bits and pieces of it today. A few crucial bits of context had fallen into place for him, between that tumble off the cliff and that tumble in the dream realm.

            “I haven’t asked,” he said, and kept walking. Liu Mingyan caught him up.

            “Why not?”

            He didn’t know how to express it. As Shen Qingqiu had said, that palace in the dream realm contained rooms whose contents were shaped by their inhabitants. That was why Bai Zhan Peak and Qing Jing Peak appeared, and why Shen Qingqiu’s room from his first life could materialize even though Luo Binghe had never seen it. They fashioned some of the rooms themselves, based on their own experiences. Their own feelings.

            So that one certain room—the room where Liu Qingge had learned, abruptly, what the skin along Shen Qingqiu’s sides and back felt like, and how he looked when he was flustered speechless, and how exactly it would be, to have those long legs wrapped around his waist.

            That room.

            That room had been built from materials he and Shen Qingqiu had brought with them.

            This should have shocked him more than it did. That he hadn’t connected together all his thoughts and feelings about Shen Qingqiu before now had been some part genuine foolishness, but some part willful, stolid refusal to try. Shen Qingqiu had been, for most of Liu Qingge’s first life, someone he despised. Someone loathsome and conniving and corrupt. To have had his life saved by such a person—and, more horrifyingly, to have developed warm and protective feelings for him—had been unacceptable.

            So, he’d trampled those feelings mercilessly. The only way he’d allowed them to manifest was in protecting Shen Qingqiu’s life, as needed. It had been purely a transactional matter—returning a life for a life.

            (It was supposed to have been purely transactional, but Liu Qingge had as yet found no way to account for the way the wind played through Shen Qingqiu’s hair, or the way he kept throwing himself on the mercy of demons for the sake of the sect, or especially the way he laughed.)

            Shen Qingqiu had saved his life during his first qi deviation. There had been nothing objectionable about returning that. It had been an acceptable release for unacceptable feelings.

            If chasing after him, swooping in to rescue him, fighting to bring his body back to the sect, and so on had happened to ease a mounting pressure in Liu Qingge’s chest…that was merely convenient coincidence.

            But if the Shen Qingqiu who had saved him from that first qi deviation was not in fact his lifelong rival. If he was someone else, who had never had that cruel or manipulative streak, who had done his best to protect the sect, who had sacrificed himself repeatedly to save the world and laughed at and sparred with and passed so much of his time with Liu Qingge, then that was a different matter altogether.

            And if, when Shen Qingqiu had fled into that particular room in the dream palace all on his own, a Liu Qingge had materialized—

            If some part of those events had still played out when the real Liu Qingge hadn’t been there to shape the dream space, then—

            Well, then.     

            Then some part of that dream had come from Shen Qingqiu’s head, not from his own.

            Then maybe the unacceptable and the impossible was both acceptable and possible.

            But only maybe. And in the meanwhile he was caught in this staggering moment of disorientation, like he’d been wandering surefooted and secure after dark over a familiar landscape, only for daylight to tear through and show him the terrain had changed.

            Or rather, that it had never been what he’d thought in the first place.

            “There’s a hole in the sky,” he said at length. Right now, one Shen Qingqiu was grieving a misplaced Luo Binghe, and the other one was in the clutches of an all-too-lively Luo Binghe. The System had who knew what in store for them when it returned.

            And the sky might start screaming any moment.

            This was not the time for Liu Qingge to coddle his feelings.

            As he walked back to the carriage and caught sight of Shen Qingqiu through the window, it crossed his mind that the first time he’d happened into that particular dream palace, he’d found the other Shen Qingqiu—Shen-xiong—in his home on Bai Zhan Peak.

           Liu Qingge had not been in that room yet to shape that place. Shen-xiong had built it all on his own, as a place to hide.

            A place he felt safe.

            He opened the door to the carriage.

            “It’s clear,” he said. Shen Qingqiu blinked at him.

            “Liu-shidi, you look…a little strange.”

            “Strange how?”

            “Maybe…like you’re in a good mood?”

            He looked genuinely wary, as if considering throwing himself out the carriage window should the need arise.

            Liu Qingge felt the corners of his mouth twitch but managed to press down any discernible expression. Maybe he had just tumbled from one impossibility to another; maybe none of this resolved anything. But turning his face away from the impossible and pretending he couldn’t see it had not suited him, and certainly it had not served him. Maybe he couldn’t win, but he could face this.

            The important thing was to fix the sky, and to see his two Shen Qingqius safe.

            But after that…

            After that he did not know, but that didn’t matter. He’d been hopeless for Shen Qingqiu for a long, long time now, whether or not he’d admitted it to himself. Now, maybe he didn’t have to be.

* * *

            Liu Mingyan’s head ached. It grew worse with every step her horse took. At first she’d taken it for some sort of silly homesickness—aversion to being away from the sect, after the way her last outing had ended.

            But as they traveled she grew more and more certain that it was not what she was moving away from, but what she was moving toward, that was causing this building pain in her skull. She habitually looked skyward, her eyes seeking the strange light up there the way her tongue might poke at a small discomfort of the mouth.

            Every time she found it, there was a little jolt of discomfort. She didn’t know why she kept doing it—just that she felt she should.

            She hadn’t mentioned it to Qi Qingqi, or to Liu Qingge. The former would insist she go back to the sect, or stay behind when they reached the mountain.

            The latter…

            …Well, she wasn’t sure what he would do and did not want to find out. She’d disgraced herself at the Immortal Alliance Conference. He’d had to rescue her—and worse, he’d had to carry her while he rescued others. She couldn’t even imagine Liu Qingge ever being in such a state.

            So, no. She wasn’t going to embarrass them both a second time.

            She was fine; she was fine. She just needed to solve whatever this problem was with the sky, and then everything would be fine.

            Surely it couldn’t be so difficult.   

* * *

            That strange light in the sky didn’t seem to grow any larger as they moved, but one day they met the foot of a mountain and Qi Qingqi announced they had arrived. They left the carriage in a town in the foothills, and then travelled up the winding mountain paths by foot. They need not reach the peak; the astronomers had identified a platform on the mountain as a likely spot to observe the situation.

            By the time they reached it, Shen Qingqiu was transparently depending on his acting abilities to remain pristine and unbothered. The expression was more or less right, but his hands kept hovering awkwardly by his waist, as if he was trying to decide between gripping Xiu Ya or his fan.

            Liu Qingge glanced skyward. The stargazers had been right. If they moved just a short way along this broad platform of stone, they would find that tiny tear in the world right over their heads. The sky was still light, so the gash was difficult to see—it might have blended right in had it not been a little paler than the blue around it, and flickering rapidly.

            “Maybe we should observe it first,” Shen Qingqiu said, when Qi Qingqi mentioned moving closer. Everyone turned to look at him. “We don’t know what it might be,” Shen Qingqiu added, in a respectable tone. “Or how dangerous it may prove.”

            Liu Qingge made a sound of agreement, which earned him an incredulous look from Qi Qingqi.

            “Since when were you ever so cautious?”

            Since I watched the sky open up, he thought.

            “I’ll go up and take a look,” he said.

            Shen Qingqiu actually laughed aloud, but there was a loud, discordant note of strain in it.

            “Take a look? Why?”

            “Because it’s what we’re here to do,” Qi Qingqi said, giving him a good thorough stare-down. “I’m not opposed to doing some observation first, but Liu Qingge is the natural candidate to go up. I just—” She broke off, frowning, and looked around. “Mingyan?”

            Liu Mingyan had been right at her elbow, but now she was gone. Liu Qingge looked around too, and found that his sister had proceeded along the platform. Her head was tilted upward; her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her face at all, but something about her gait seemed strange. Ponderous.

            “Mingyan?” Qi Qingqi called, louder this time, but Liu Mingyan didn’t turn.

            “That’s…it. It’s why my head…”

            Whatever she’d planned to say was lost to a shuddering, air-rending shriek. In the same moment, Liu Qingge’s eyes went up to the tiny point of light in the sky, and his legs started carrying him at a dead sprint towards his sister. Even in his peripheral vision he could see that she’d hunched and brought her hands up to her ears, but what filled his central focus stole his attention away from that.

            The tear in the sky, so tiny just a moment ago, was growing larger.

            He expected it to rip wide like the jaws of some tremendous beast, howling all the way, but instead of that a dark shape blotted it out for a moment, and then fell through.

            Not just a shape, but a person. Somebody had fallen out of that hole in the sky, limp as a doll. Liu Qingge drew Cheng Luan and flung it ahead of him. Once his feet met its blade, he flew up towards that plummeting person. If they were some hapless citizen, he had better catch them before they hit the ground. If they were an enemy of some sort, he’d rather deal with them up there than let them land on his sister.

            His readiness for either scenario didn’t prepare him for what he saw when he was nearly level with the person. He lunged forward, nearly throwing himself off of Cheng Luan’s blade in his haste to catch her. She thudded into his arms with a faint grunt.

            He stared down at her.

            It was Liu Mingyan, bloodied and badly hurt; her robes were soaked here and crusted there with blood. Disoriented, he looked back down to the ground—but there she was, standing solidly on two feet, looking up in confusion.

            This was another Liu Mingyan, then, but they weren’t in any dream realm. There were two of her here in reality, in the physical world.

            And this one was dying.

            It was just simply too much blood. These were mortal wounds.

            The sky was still screaming, and he scarcely noticed. Cheng Luan, seemingly of its own volition, had him circling lower and lower just to get away from the shrieking. At last it deposited him on the platform below, where Qi Qingqi, Shen Qingqiu, and Liu Mingyan were all waiting for them.        

            Staring at them.

            “That’s—” Qi Qingqi began, and then stopped, staring between the two Liu Mingyans in silence.

            “Shizun,” croaked the one in Liu Qingge’s arms. Blood was soaking through the veil over her face, causing it to adhere to her features. “No success…can’t hurt it by cutting it, I don’t…”

            For a moment Qi Qingqi appeared to be baffled beyond speech.

            Then, it seemed her instinct as a Shizun took over.

            “That’s alright, Mingyan,” she said. “You did very well.”

            “There was no way, nothing to even…pass a sword through…” Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, and as they wobbled away from her Shizun, they found Liu Qingge’s face.

            Then she reared back, or she tried. Her eyes went wide, with terror or shock or both.

            “Brother…? But you’re—you died, you—!”

            Suddenly, the unhurt Liu Mingyan reached out and touched the hand of her counterpart, as if doubting that she was real and solid. The injured Liu Mingyan turned to a lump of ice right there in Liu Qingge’s grip. That lasted just long enough for Shen Qingqiu to say, “Um—?!”

            Then there was another shriek, this one far, far closer at hand. It came from Liu Mingyan—from both of them at once, asynchronous and discordant.

            Liu Qingge’s knees buckled slightly, and he staggered as the weight in his arms shifted—increased—then overbalanced. He toppled onto one knee.

            His arms were empty. The Liu Mingyan who had fallen from the sky had disappeared, and the one who had been standing next to him had crumpled onto the stone, clutching at her stomach. Her robes, formerly a model of cleanliness and precision, were fast reddening with flowing blood.

            “Shizun—” she said, and collapsed completely.