Chapter Text
When Shen Yuan crosses the rainbow bridge into Qing Jing Peak after that disastrous meeting, he intends to go straight to his little bamboo house to hide away from the world for a bit. Instead, his feet automatically take him past his home into a clearing hidden away from view. Muscle memory causes him to kneel at the now familiar sword mound of a disciple he had seen not two days ago. The spot he had built the sword mound was a frequently used clearing for the white lotus protagonist. The bamboo trees parted enough for there to be space for Luo Binghe to practice his sword forms, and the canopy of leaves above let through enough dappled light to read or meditate peacefully surrounded by the fresh air of the bamboo grove. Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe had spent many an afternoon in this clearing, and he had thought it to be a good place to rest Zheng Yang; as proof that he hadn’t failed completely in his goal of giving his disciple a better life, and in the hope that Luo Binghe still had some memories of Qing Jing peak that he held as fondly in his heart as his master did. He sat there at the sword mound until the shadows had grown long with the sun in the west. The high cultivation his body carried over allowed him to hear the near silent footfalls behind him. Perhaps it is his smaller, less intimidating form that emboldens Ning Yingying to kneel down next to him, instead of speaking to his back.
“Shizun doesn’t have to wait here anymore, now that we know A-Luo is alive,” Ning Yingying keeps her voice quiet, hands on her knees and her face carefully tilted towards the plaque that Shen Yuan had carved, knowing full well that the person it represented was walking amongst the living.
Still bound to what is becoming Shen Yuan’s least favourite object in both of his lives, he makes this quite clear.
“I’ve known this whole time that Luo Binghe was alive, that doesn’t make the boy I made this plaque for any less out of my reach. You were there at the trial, You know what I did to him. The Luo Binghe you trained with on this peak is as good as dead, and I'm the one who killed him. In fact, the man who walked out of the Endless Abyss would probably like to throw me in there himself at this point.”
Shen Yuan blames the thickness of his voice on the cursed artifact that still hasn’t deigned to remove itself from his person, or even better yet, shatter into a million pieces.
Ning Yingying huffs, “This disciple thinks that Shizun should speak to A-Luo before he decides what he thinks he would or would not do. This one admits that she too thought the worst when he saw A-Luo at another sect, but with what Shizun said had happened, perhaps you two misunderstood each other.”
Something from her speech sticks out to Shen Yuan, “Why do you still call me Shizun, Yingying? I am not the man who chose you, Shen Jiu took you in and brought you up in this peak, not me.”
After Bailu forest, Airplane had cleared the air about Shen Jiu’s unfortunate reputation. Not In great detail, of course. That dubious honour came about during that disastrous trial at Han Hua Palace. Instead he got the broad strokes that painted a complex character with many flaws and motivations, who would rather die scorned and spat on than ever reveal a single weakness. For all the vitriol that Shen Yuan had spouted about the original goods, the singular point of calling him a lecher had been disproven. While Shen Yuan thinks that simply ‘not being a predator’ doesn’t instantly make him the ideal father figure and teacher Ning Yingying, Luo Binghe, and the other disciples of Qing Jing peak deserved, he is more sympathetic to their grief than he would have been. And out of all the disciples who would grieve his loss, aside from Ming Fan, Qing Jing’s only shimei would be first and foremost.
Ning Yingying takes a shaky breath, in and out. “This one is aware that Shizun is not the same man who brought her up. Even before the trial, this one had felt that Shizun was different.”
Before Shen Yuan can interrupt her, she barrels on.
“After the qi deviation, I tried to feel relieved. I thought to myself, ‘isn’t it a good thing that Shizun is finally showing everyone, not just me, how kind he is?’ I wasn’t so stupid to think that A-Luo was treated well, in the past, so to see you treat him well was a relief. But even through that relief I could see that it wasn’t the same. I was the only one who he was ever kind to, so I was the only one who could see that his kindness was different from yours.”
Shen Yuan takes a look in her direction, and he can see Ning Yingying’s knuckles are white where her hands are clenched on her lap.
“Shizun was like a father to me, he chose and taught me from when I was just a little girl. While you might not have raised me, you are still the Shizun who has taught me for the last six years. I can care about the both of you. I can still call you Shizun and miss the Shizun who is gone.”
Ning Yingying’s voice was growing thick and hoarse, and she was trembling with the effort of keeping her composure. Shen Yuan has no love lost for the man, but he does care deeply for this girl who has grown so much in his absence, and he can recognize the tells of a young woman who is holding everything together by a thread.
“Its okay to cry if you miss him, Yingying.”
Ning Yingying’s hands fly up to her eyes, and what Shen Yuan can see of her face is red and twisted up with her grief. Shen Yuan gives her a handkerchief and slowly rubs her back as she cries. Ning Yingying pitches to the side until he has to hold her up with one arm.
“You know, I died too early to have children in my past life, so I don’t know how to be a father. I had a little sister. She was always running around, causing me endless amounts of grief, but I miss her every day.” If Shen Yuan’s arm tightens around Ning Yingying, only she knows.They sit there for a few minutes, until her cries quiet down to sniffles and she wipes her nose. Ning Yingying leaves their bubble first, standing up and brushing dirt and grass from her robes.
[ 100 CC points!]
“Shizun can miss A-Luo too, even if he’s still alive,” she says just before she exits the clearing.
Shen Yuan minimizes the system window and takes Zheng Yang from the sword mound. He brushes dirt off of its sheath and pulls out the blade. Having been reforged, the sword acts like a snapshot frozen in time of its old owner. Shen Yuan can feel its warm, sun-bright energy in his hands. Despite what happened at the Immortal Alliance Conference, the sword greets Shen Yuan with all of the enthusiasm and adoration of a disciple long gone. Shen Yuan knows that the sword spirit isn’t completely sentient as a human is, but he feels something in his stomach turn at the wrongness of Zheng Yang’s energy opening up to him the same way it did before everything went wrong. ‘Shouldn’t you hate me?’ he thinks, ‘you shouldn’t even let me lay a finger on you, let alone unsheathe you like this.’ He slides Zheng Yang back into its sheath before making his way back to the bamboo house, sword in hand. He enters the house quietly, silent footsteps take him to the untouched side room, as if even the floorboards beneath him were unwilling to disturb the empty space. It smells like dust. After he places the sword on the still made bed, he decides to leave the door open to let in some fresh air.
‘System?’ he called in his mind.
[Yes host?]
‘Remove item False Jade Guanyin from my inventory’
[ITEM: False Jade Guanyin loading from inventory! ⟳ Please standby… Progress: 0.01%... Progress: 0.02%... Progress: 0.03%... Progress… ]
He doesn’t know why he expected anything from this stupid fucking computer. He goes into his room to make good on his promise of becoming a blanket burrito.
—
Shen Yuan wakes up in the middle of the night to someone tripping his wards. He leaves his bed slowly and silently makes his way to the door. He can hear quiet footsteps coming closer on the other side. In the blink of an eye, he whips open the door and has Xiu Ya hovering a millimetre away from the intruder’s throat.
“Heyyy Cucumber-bro, or should I say Shen-bro… Man it's kinda weird how we both transmigrated into characters with the same family name we had in the real world isn’t it? Is yours the same character and everything?”
In Shen Yuan’s new (old) body, even Shang Qinghua is taller than him. Stupid xianxia height proportions!
Shen Yuan sighs and pinches his nose. With a flick of his other hand, Xiu Ya flies back to its sheath..
“Not that it’s any of your business but yes it is the same character. Anyway, more importantly, why the fuck didn’t you just knock on the front door like a normal person? I almost skewered you with Xiu Ya!”
Shang Qinghua scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, “Well I heard about the trial, sorry I couldn’t be there by the way, business in the demon realm and our little gardening project, you know how it is. Just wanted to see how you were, and I snuck in just in case you spilled anything about me or my king, can’t be too careful when you’re literally a traitor to the sect haha..”
Of course this hack author was just there to check whether or not Shen Yuan had spilled anything about his ties to the demon realm to his sect siblings. He didn't, for the record, but even if he did, he's under a truth curse! He can’t be held accountable!
Shen Yuan scoffs, “I bet you’re happy it wasn’t you getting shackled to this thing, huh you hack author,”
Shang Qinghua presses his hands together and leans closer to him solemnly, “I say this with all sincerity and sympathy for your plight, yes, I am very happy it was you and not me.”
Shen Yuan rolls his eyes, “You could have at least pretended to deny it you dickhead. But now that you’re here, please tell me why this thing hasn’t fallen off of my wrist yet- this ugly piece of costume jewelry didn't even exist in the original novel.”
Shang Qinghua grimaces in the way that tells Shen Yuan that he’s about to say something that will piss him off. “Well it kinda did in the drafts…” at Shen Yuan’s twitching eyebrow, he continues to explain, “It was supposed to be a side story, where a new prospective wife of Bingge’s is wary of him, and doesn’t believe that he truly wants to marry her and is sleeping with her just to get information. She puts it on him in his sleep, and when he wakes up the shackle helps him reassure her through his honesty and through… the usual means”
Shang Qinghua waves his hand back and forth as if clearing nonexistent smoke, “I scrapped it because I felt that it would have showed wayyyy too much vulnerability on Bingge’s part, considering that the shackle only comes off upon revealing the truth that the victim holds closest to their heart, and the audience wouldn't have wanted to read a Bingge character study of that level so late into the novel”
Shen Yuan cannot believe this man. He is three seconds away from punting him straight into the stratosphere to show him a real fucking airplane shooting through the sky.
“Aside from the fact that I would have liked to read a Bingge character study and see some vulnerability from him at any point of the novel after the abyss, that still doesn’t tell me why the fuck this thing hasn’t fallen off yet, as I have exposed the fucking truth in my heart!” he gestures wildly to his newly narrow shouldered, fine boned, under 170 cm body, “it doesn't get more exposed than this!”
Shang Qinghua winces, “well have you asked the System?”
No, Shen Yuan hasn’t. He refuses to give Shang Qinghua the satisfaction of knowing this though.
‘System!’ he calls in his mind. ‘What is the progress on Identity Unmasked?’
[QUEST: Identity Unmasked is at 80% Progress! Please continue to work hard! ヾ( ˃ᴗ˂ )◞]
Shen Yuan scowls and his face must be turning a spectacular shade of red, because Shang Qinghua immediately asks him what’s wrong.
“This stupid fucking thing has to be broken, it says that the quest’s only eighty percent done!”
He immediately asks the System to pull out any additional stats.
[QUEST: Identity Unmasked will be completed after achieving these objectives:]
[1: collect character closure (CC) points!]
-Yue Qingyuan: Complete!
-Ning Yingying: Complete!
-PROTAGONIST Luo Binghe: Incomplete ( ;´ - `;)
-Shen Yuan: Incomplete ( ;´ - `;)
[2: change character designation!
[ 3: Unlock SECRET ending package! ദ്ദി(｡•̀ ,<)~✩‧₊]
[System wishes User 002 good luck ! *ੈ✩‧₊˚ ]
This only leaves Shen Yuan more confused, “It says that I still need to collect Character Closure points from two more people. The first one is Luo Binghe, what else could he possibly want from me? The second person makes even less sense. It's me. Shen Yuan. Why do I need character closure points and why are they incomplete? What kind of closure would I need for my own damn self?”
Shang Qinghua coughs. “I don’t know man… maybe there’s something you need to admit to yourself? Im just saying this as someone who read your comments from your first life… maybe there’s something there that you need to uncover…” he coughs again, “anyways, the other reason that I’m here is to tell you that I managed to salvage the mushroom bodies from the chemical fertilizer incident. The only setback is that they’ll need to recover for a few more years before they can be usable, so we’ll have to hold on and find ways to stay alive for a little bit longer than we planned.”
Shen Yuan runs a hand through his newly short hair, “You hack fucking author… how the hell are we supposed to stay alive for the next few years if Luo Binghe is out of the abyss already!”
Shang Qinghua rolls his eyes, “well you’re not going to have any problems with staying alive, according to my head disciple who sat in on the meeting earlier today you’re the Peak Lords’ new treasured didi… its me who has to fucking worry so please put in a good word for your Airplane gege, alright?”
Shen Yuan decides that ‘Airplane gege’ has been in his house for far too long,
“Who the fuck is my fucking gege, I’ll kill you!” as Shen Yuan pushes him across his sitting room and out of the window in which he entered, Shang Qinghua keeps speaking to him over his shoulder.
“Alright alright im going! But seriously, if you ever need to talk, your Airplane gege is here for you! You know counting the years I’ve lived in both lives I really am much older and wiser than you, so you can come to me if you’re ever not okay Cucumber didi-”
Shen Yuan slams the window shut in his face and slaps a silencing talisman on the paper of the window screen for good measure. He goes back to bed and tries not to think about what the fuck he needs to do in order to be free from the shackle that refuses to break.
This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!