Chapter Text
For the first few weeks after his return from the north, Luo Binghe is unable to speak with Zhu Qinglan alone.
His days as a taifu are busier than Luo Binghe expected; for in spite of having four disciples, rather than a peak full of them, Zhu Qinglan’s work lasts from sunup to sundown. In the mornings, he meditates in the Bamboo Palace and supervises the children’s cultivation exercises; and in the afternoon, he instructs them in the scholarly arts. He teaches Suoxin and Changying together, since the girls are the same age and roughly equal in talent—though Suoxin has proved markedly better in arithmetic and the literary arts, while Changying’s potential for cultivation surpasses her older sister’s—and after their daily lessons, he attends to Luo Nianzu, and then to Luo Shunlei.
Afterwards, he and Liu Mingyan give the children a sparring demonstration and guide them through a set of beginners’ sword forms; and though the children’s lessons end there, Zhu Qinglan’s doors remain open to his charges until he retires for the night.
The children linger in the Bamboo Palace for hours Zhu Qinglan dismisses them, unconscious of the fact that any other master would have scolded them to no end for their presumption. More than once, Luo Binghe has entered Zhu Qinglan’s quarters to find him swinging a jumping rope under Suoxin’s little feet, with one hand outstretched to catch her for fear that she might trip over it—or stumbled upon the taifu in the Zhugong’s sunny garden, weaving vines of bittersweet into toy whips for Changying.
At some point, he had even discovered that Luo Nianzu had the makings of an apt herbalist, and put aside a patch of his own garden for Nianzu to grow ginseng and ginger in; and though Shunlei is too young to do much but toddle after his Shizun as he goes about his duties, Zhu Qinglan dotes upon him so dearly that the two of them resemble a spoilt princeling and his concubine-mother rather than a shifu and his disciple.
But Zhu Qinglan pays little attention to Luo Binghe himself, save to greet him when he visits the Bamboo Palace; and on the two days out of every seven that the children are given leave from their studies, Zhu Qinglan either visits Liu Mingyan in the Langong or leaves the fortress hours before dawn, carrying nothing but his sword and a basket of cold food from the kitchens.
In spite of his efforts, Luo Binghe never manages to discover where Zhu Qinglan goes on his rest days.
He nearly put a drop of his blood in Zhu Qinglan’s water bucket once, for doing so would have permitted him to track the man anywhere—or even to trace his corpse, if he were to die with Luo Binghe’s blood still within his body. It had been his right to do so, he thought. The taifu had already entered the harem, and Luo Binghe wished to claim him; and so, he belonged to Luo Binghe just as unequivocally as his wives and children did.
But unlike his wives (and indeed, unlike any woman that Luo Binghe had ever pursued) that other Shen Qingqiu rejected him the moment he discovered that Luo Binghe was not the man he loved—which meant that Zhu Qinglan, who has never loved Luo Binghe in any form, might do worse than reject him if he ever dared to force his suit.
And thus, Luo Binghe can do nothing but watch him as his days at the Heavenly Palace slip by. Sometimes it seems as if he does nothing but watch him, though he finds precious little that goes against his meager knowledge of the man: at least until the Mid-Autumn Festival, when he discovers that Zhu Qinglan and Liu Mingyan are far more than passing acquaintances.
Luo Binghe prepared part of the banquet that night, as he does on most festival days. In spite of their poverty, his mother had always tried to scrape together a good supper for every New Year’s and the Mid-Autumn Festival, and he had resolved to carry forth that effort of his mother’s in whatever small ways he could—and this feast had been wonderful, even by Luo Binghe’s standards. All thirty-seven of his wives attended, along with his children and a handful of the palace staff, including Zhu Qinglan; and after all the osmanthus wine on the table had been drunk, and most of the women had wandered back to their quarters with laughter bubbling on their lips, Zhu Qinglan and Liu Mingyan picked the children up and went quietly back to the inner palace.
“Junshang,” Sha Hualing says, when Luo Binghe half-rises from his chair—for somehow, he has never ceased to be my lord to her, in spite of having been her husband for the past fifteen years. “This wife has missed you sorely these last six weeks, but you cannot visit my chambers tonight.”
Luo Binghe raises an eyebrow. “Very well. But why? You won’t be here for very long, and it’ll be another month before I can join you in the South.”
“I have missed you sorely,” Hualing says again, nudging the blissful lump curled up in her lap, “but I missed Shun’er a great deal more. He’s grown so much since I saw him last.”
“En,” Luo Binghe replies, taken aback. “Now that I think on it, it’s been nearly four months since you spent more than a day with him, so why not stay here for a little while longer? Now that your assignment in the Northern Desert is over, you could even bring him back to the Southern Manor with you.”
“Would you really let me take Shun’er to that pit of snakes? What a good father you are, Junshang!” Sha Hualing snorts. “You might have other children to throw about, my lord, but I only have this one.”
She tosses her head and unfolds her long, silk-swathed limbs like a colt rising from its knees, departing from the feasting hall without a backwards glance. She takes Luo Shunlei with her, for the child had refused to leave his mother’s side that night, even to see his beloved Shizun—and Luo Binghe, left alone, follows Zhu Qinglan back to Liu Mingyan’s quarters.
They do not notice his presence, for his own heavenly blood, combined with the training Meng Mo gave him in the Abyss, permits him to go unseen and unheard by even the most talented cultivators when he wishes. He watches as Liu Mingyan lays Nianzu in his little bed, and tucks Suoxin and Changying into hers; and then she and Zhu Qinglan wander out into the Langong’s garden, and seat themselves in a small pavilion surrounded by weeping willow trees.
“Shall I pour tea?” Liu Mingyan asks, as Luo Binghe conceals himself in the shade of one of the larger willows. “I know you handle your liquor well, but the wine my lord serves on feast days is more potent than most.”
Zhu Qinglan waves a hand in dismissal. “No need.”
The two say nothing more for a little while, and then Zhu Qinglan draws a white fan from the inside of his sleeve and places it against his mouth.
“How are Mu Qingfang and your Shizun faring?” he says quietly. “I remember you telling me that Qi Qingqi was wounded on that last night-hunt, has she—?”
“Shizun is recovering. Mu-shishu said it should be another week or two before she can cultivate as usual again,” Mingyan replies. “And Shishu is well. He and Shizun have been thinking of moving after she heals.”
Zhu Qinglan taps his petal-like lips with his fan. “Mm, I can’t blame him. That area shouldn’t need a cultivator in residence now that the thorn-spitting lizards have been cleared out; and even if Qingfang and your Shizun go east, one of us should be able to intervene in time if anything goes wrong in Luhua Valley.”
Luo Binghe frowns. He had suspected, of course, that Liu Mingyan visited her old Shizun now and then. He did not even mind it, given the fact that Qi Qingqi had never turned a blind eye to Shen Qingqiu’s abuse of his disciples, but he never imagined that she and Mu Qingfang were acquainted with Zhu Qinglan.
He must have known the last generation of Peak Lords before I destroyed Cang Qiong, Luo Binghe thinks uneasily. Zhu Qinglan seems to be fond of the two surviving Peak Lords, at least, so what had he been to the others?
What had Zhu Qinglan been to Shen Qingqiu?
Did he know of Luo Binghe, while the latter was still a battered disciple living on Qing Jing?
But before he can make any sense of this latest revelation—that Zhu Qinglan might have been within Luo Binghe’s reach in his childhood, and been made his long since if he had only known where to look for the man—Zhu Qinglan pats the crown of Liu Mingyan’s head, having spent the last several minutes speaking to her in such low tones that Luo Binghe could hear nothing at all, and clambers to his feet.
“You’re going back already?” she asks, startled. “Why not stay a little longer, gege? Tomorrow is a rest day, and the children will be too tired to come looking for you until after noon.”
Luo Binghe’s heart burns.
To date, he has never entered Liu Mingyan’s chambers save to share meals with her, or to visit Luo Nianzu: for though Mingyan had been the one to initiate their courtship, she had lain down fully-clothed on their bridal bed and put her back to Luo Binghe the very moment their jiaobei jiu was complete.
He never knew what to make of her reluctance, since Liu Mingyan had been in love with him and not the other way around, going so far as to insist that she would die of heartbreak if she could not be his wife; but once they were actually married, she seemed to hear nothing when Luo Binghe complimented her beauty, or hinted that he would like to spend the night in her Langong. She was content for the two of them to live as nothing more than shixiong and shimei, as they might have done if she had been Shen Qingqiu’s disciple instead of Qi Qingqi’s, all those years ago—and after Mingyan rejected his offer of a child, Luo Binghe began to wonder if he had managed to displease her in some way between their betrothal and the night they took their wedding bows.
“I suppose I don’t have to go just yet,” he hears Zhu Qinglan sigh. “Oh, all right. Go make some tea, A-Yan—I’ll wait here.”
At that, the fire in Luo Binghe’s innards rises to his head: for that warm, beguiling voice had never addressed him as anything but your Imperial Majesty, but towards Mingyan, he—
His blood runs cold. Was that why Zhu Qinglan accepted Liu Mingyan’s offer of employment? To carry on an affair with one of Luo Binghe’s most trusted wives, right under his very nose? Perhaps he should have known that Mingyan’s intentions were dishonorable when she allowed Zhu Qinglan to live in the Bamboo Palace, for her quarters are so close to the Zhugong that any midnight meetings would go completely unnoticed; and though losing Liu Mingyan’s affection would be a trivial matter, Luo Binghe cannot for the life of him abide losing Zhu Qinglan.
“I must not lose him. I cannot lose him,” he mutters desperately to himself. He had left the Orchid Palace without knowing it, and stumbled back to his own residence with his hair still green with fallen leaves from the willows in Liu Mingyan’s garden; but then he stops and steadies his breath, and reaches into the shadowy corner of his mind reserved for his old teacher, Meng Mo.
“Find me Zhu Qinglan’s dream-world,” Luo Binghe orders, as the old man’s shadow unravels in his mind’s eye. “I must know—this Shizun is mine, if he—if he has crossed lines with Mingyan, or even dared think of her in such a way, I must know—”
Meng Mo puts his incorporeal hands together and bows.
“As you wish, Junshang,” he replies; and Luo Binghe lapses into a mire of shifting shapes and colors, from which he does not emerge until Meng Mo plucks at a loose thread of his consciousness and tugs him into Zhu Qinglan’s dreamscape.
“The taifu retired nearly three hours after you did,” is all Meng Mo says, when Luo Binghe demands an explanation for his lateness. “I could hardly bring you into his dreamscape before he had fallen asleep, my lord.”
Luo Binge rubs his eyes and looks about him, muttering under his breath. He appears to have landed in the middle of a bookseller’s shop in the human realm, or perhaps a library; the walls of this dream-building are lined with bookshelves, and unbound leaves and half-finished manuscripts lie scattered over every other piece of furniture in the room.
Perhaps a book-binder’s workshop, then, Luo Binghe muses. The place appears to be deserted, save for a small white cat winding around the legs of a nearby table, and Luo Binghe can hear the sounds of a bustling city beyond the open windows.
He steps towards one of the laden shelves, idly running his fingers along the spines of the books. They all seem to be bestiaries, some ancient and some that must have been printed only shortly before this memory took place; and one at least— Beasts of the Mortal and Demonic Realms— is familiar to Luo Binghe, for it was the most-used bestiary in the library on Qing Jing Peak.
Luo Binghe picks it up and turns to the title leaf. This copy is far newer than the one Shen Qingqiu owned, for it had clearly never been opened before, judging by the smoothness of the spine; but Shen Qingqiu’s copy was twice as heavy as this one, containing descriptions of some two thousand beasts instead of one thousand and eighty.
Beasts of the Mortal and Demonic Realms, he reads again, by Immortal Master Zhu Shuchen.
His eyes linger on the six strokes of the zhu in Zhu Shuchen’s name, before falling to the engraving of a six-horned cobra beneath the ornate characters of the title. For a moment, he was certain that he had seen this writing somewhere before—somewhere other than the bestiary he read in snatched moments on Qing Jing.
Laying the book aside, he wanders through the shop like a ghost, hunting for any sign of life. The white cat comes and goes as he looks, taking no notice of Luo Binghe, or of Meng Mo; but at last, he emerges into a room full of half-finished sketches and stacks of clean yellow paper, where he finds a boy of about ten or eleven sitting at a scrubbed wooden table beneath the lone window.
And Luo Binghe’s heart leaps in his breast—for the child’s slight body is draped in robes of spotless white, fit only for a priest or a wandering cultivator, and the eyes beneath the boy’s upswept brows are the eyes of Zhu Qinglan.