Chapter Text
“I'd advise y'all be careful about inviting the Devil into your backyard 'cause he may just like it and decide to stay.”
Bray Wyatt
It’s so very rare that Shang Qinghua gets the time to think about the Sect. No, that’s not right, exactly. He is always thinking of the Sect, one way or another. But it’s quite rare that he thinks of the Sect as his Sect, his creation.
Tian Gong, his masterpiece.
But anyway, he’s trying really hard to distract himself, so he’s thinking about it right now.
The city at the base, the hub of burgeoning business people and greedy merchants eager to get their hands on Cang Qiong produced goods, is something he frankly never wrote into the novel. He didn’t! Why would he mention this small city at the base of the Peak when he’d rather have Shen Qinqqiu bully a hapless child that would one day reign as a terrifying sort of emperor?
It sounds bad when he puts it that way.
Especially now that he, the virgin wonder, has now raised several children. A dozen or more were directly under his instruction. Even if they were students and not, like, babies.
(Except for Lian Fu, of course.)
But shitty life decisions aside, Shang Qinghua is silent when he and the ghost walk through the town. It’s not a big place, but it is loud. Shang Qinghua can see the ghost out the corner of his eye, and he’s careful not to look directly at her. His heart thuds in anxiety as they get closer and closer to the outskirts, where there are fewer people and the number of buildings thins.
His mouth is as dry as sand. He’d pull out his canteen, except that meant looking away from the end of the main road, and acknowledging-
Acknowledging that-
His fingers tremble slightly, and the ghost abruptly sighs.
“Your anxiety tastes like bitter gourd.” The ghost’s voice, a far cry from the deep voice she uses as his Ayi, is whispery soft yet cutting, like metal wire. It brings him back to that horrifying night, and he shudders.
“I-” He doesn’t know what to say. He is anxious. He is so anxious, and the last time she got close, he relived one of the worst days of his life, and then dealt with variations of his shitty life and all his abandonment issues head-on. He’s breaking out into cold sweat because he is genuinely terrified of this woman.
They reach the end of the town, the last hovel fully out of view when he finally breaks.
“You cracked me open.” His voice is a pained rasp, and his knees are trembling. His face is doing a thing.
He can’t look at her. He can’t look at her with her pale, wraith-like face, can’t look at her silver moon eyes, her red dress or hair. He can’t look at her without screaming. Breathing gets harder as the seconds tick by, and something in him snaps.
“You cracked me open! Broke me!” And this one is a scream, and his lips are curled up in a snarl, and he wants- he wants-
He wants to hurt her. He wants to jab his sword into her neck, gouge her eyes out with her eyes, wants to dance on her corpse. He wants to bury her, wants to cut her open and desecrate everything she values.
He can’t. He cannot. He can’t die, can’t die like this, can’t, can’t-
She’ll kill him, she’ll kill him, and the plot, the plot, his students-
He’s curling up into himself.
“Oh A-hua,” the ghost begins, voice shivery-whispery, pale fingernails gently tugging his chin so he has to look at her, look into her freaky eyes.
Her cruel, unsympathetic eyes.
“Oh A-hua,” she says, voice sharp and lyrical, “you were already cracked open.”
It takes a moment for that to hit, to hit him right there in the chest, and something wet trails over his lips.
Pale, spidery fingers flick a tear off his face with divine precision.
Silver eyes gleam, and for a second, all he sees is her and the darkness around her. The wings and chains and twisted things that made up her, the sharper than normal teeth, the inhuman smile, and aura, glitched in front of him momentarily.
He stops breathing, and his lungs begin to burn. He breathes a small, gasping breath out his mouth, and ignores the tears dripping into the collar of his robes.
“You wanted a teacher, didn’t you? You will certainly learn something. You will be powerful.” The silver eyes are little crescents under her half-lidded eyes, sharp teeth still gleaming.
He doesn’t feel like he’s existing right now.
“But as for staying whole?” And there’s a small shift in her visage, something that distantly resembles sorrow. Like if she was capable of emotion, human emotion, he’d say this is regret. This is a preemptive apology, for the damage she’s going to cause. For the imminent horrors, he will face and come out not-quite-okay.
“Well, that is above this Shizun’s abilities, and yours as well.”
(And what does that even mean, really? That she has no concept of care, or that she’s broken and determined to break him the same way-)
She brushes a finger on his forehead. He tenses.
“You have not realized, yet?” His lips open, just a little, in question.
What now? What bit of news could make this even worse?
“Hm. My student is so observant of everything but himself.” This almost a murmur, and he absolutely wouldn't have heard it if she hadn’t been in his personal space.
She abruptly turns away and begins walking down the road.
He stands there, shock still for a moment, gasping as he begins to breathe again as a person does.
Okay. Okay.
Not now. Can’t begin sobbing incoherently now. Think of how gross it would be.
Later. Later, when he’s alone.
He breathes in, presses his fingernails into his palms until it hurts, until there are welts, and he begins walking after her.
“Where are you heading first?” She calls out from a good distance away. He’s going to have to speed walk to catch up.
“Tàiyáng-lóng,” he says, voice raspy with repressed emotion.
“That city? Then A-hua needs to hurry for this expedition to be successful does he not?” The ghost turns around and gives him a rictus grin. “I will find you at the half-way point.”
Then she vanishes, like an asshole.
Shang Qinghua shoves a fist into his mouth and screams until his throat twinges.
And then he unsheathes his nameless sword, settles himself, and tries to focus on flying instead of dwelling on all his complicated thoughts.