Work Text:
Who wants to be a protagonist? Naive, masochistic, self-important idiots, that's who!
Maybe he’d been an idiot who liked the idea when it was never more than a hypothetical, like waking up one day as a movie star or astronaut or Olympian, being able to reap the benefits without actually having to put in the time or effort to accomplish it.
But if Morpheus ever actually showed up on his doorstep to offer him a choice, he’d be taking the blue pill every time.
Protagonists aren’t allowed to be happy. Happy is boring, trauma is character-building, and conflict is entertainment. Protagonists aren’t allowed peace. The end of every adventure just means it’s time for the next to start—The readers are getting impatient!
Background characters’ lives may not be interesting enough to follow around, but that just means their lives belong to themselves alone.
And when terrible, plot-driving events sweep up the pitiful, faceless masses in their wake, protagonists may be guaranteed to survive, but that just means they have no exit strategy. Protagonists must live, which means they must suffer.
Shang Qinghua was just supposed to be a scum traitor, a one-note henchman who played a small role early on in the story only to be summarily killed off-screen and then never mentioned again.
Once his speaking role ended, the System didn’t care what he did. It certainly didn’t care enough to ensure he actually died—he would have to put more effort into faking his death for Mobei-Jun than for the System! It would probably be satisfied if he just started a rumor of his death to some servant who didn’t recognize him before walking away with a bindle over his shoulder, so long as he stayed out of Luo Binghe’s way in the future.
Which is why he cursed his eye.
Shang Qinghua, here and now, had heterochromia—one brown eye, and one a shocking, vivid blue.
It was striking, it was memorable, it was a protagonist trait if he ever saw one—and he didn’t write it that way! The character Shang Qinghua was supposed to be generically handsome, as befitting a peak lord, but nothing more! And as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, he’d certainly been about as average as they came in the looks department.
It was hard to blend into the background when one of your eyes practically glowed like the beacon on a police car in a sea of browns and blacks.
His eye was so ostentatious and frankly unsettling in appearance that it was also the reason why Du Qingguang, peak lord of An Jing Peak, was convinced he was a demonic infiltrator.
Du Qingguang believed, and was not quiet in stating, that Shang Qinghua’s single blue eye was the outward sign of a pact the An Ding peak lord had made with a demon. If eyes are the windows to the soul, then the startling glacial blue was the signal flame of his soul’s corruption.
It was absolutely ridiculous—Shang Jian (as he’d been called then, before receiving his courtesy name) had been born with it, and many on the peaks who had entered the sect at the same time as him could attest to the fact that he arrived with it at age ten!
Cang Qiong Mountain Sect prided themselves on their lofty superiority of educated progressiveness—they knew better than provincial, superstitious villagers who wholeheartedly believed mental unwellness was caused by possession by malevolent spirits (which was only sometimes the case) and who declared unusual birthmarks to be witchmarks, driving their bearers away with stones and flames.
It was true, though, that he started wearing an eyepatch to cover the eye soon after the disastrous supply run from which he was the only An Ding disciple sent to return alive. Best not to tempt fate any further.
Because his king was just as liable to stubbornly jump to conclusions as Du Qingguang, apparently—and spared him his life that day in exchange for his servitude only because the demon prince saw the blue eye, the color of his own demonic House, as an auspicious omen.
So yes, Shang Qinghua had made a deal with a demon. It was just vaguely infuriating to be accused of something so utterly moronic because of something he had been (re)born with and had no control over, and have it be true (not that he would ever admit it), and then on top of that, to have the eye pointed to as the outcome when it was the cause of the whole mess (not that he could ever explain)!
What it all came down to, was that Du Qingguang hated him, and made no secret of questioning his loyalty and the privileges allowed him at every opportunity, ignoring Qi Qingqi’s scoffs and Wei Qingwei’s bemused curiosity, and pouncing on Shen Qingqiu’s malicious egging on and Liu Qingge’s righteous dogpiling to combat Yue Qingyuan’s tired chiding.
It was exhausting, trying to actually find time and ways to pass along information to his king under these conditions, but Du Qingguang’s open suspicion was a blade that cut both ways, as to an extent, he could get away with even some actions that would otherwise be questionable to even the most naive of his shixiongs and shimeis by claiming they were false accusations levied by a shidi who had always had it out for him because one of the An Ding disciples killed that fateful day was Du Qingguang’s favorite cousin. And these lies lobbed back his way only made the An Jing peak lord even more fervent to catch the sect’s traitorous rat with its paw in the trap.
And perhaps he was too tired, in his body and his head, or maybe the aggravation of Du Qingguang’s eyes constantly burning into him was like a blister that finally popped, or maybe he had simply gotten too complacent—If you’ve grown used to a dog’s bark, you may no longer expect the bite. But whatever the case, and he would look back on that moment many times in later years with regret and self-recrimination, Shang Qinghua did something he shouldn’t have done.
He looked Du Qingguang dead in the eye over the heads of their martial brothers and sisters, and smirked, as he silently mouthed the words, “no one will ever believe you,” then immediately pretended to cry and faint, his usual routine, at the resulting explosion.
An Jing, the lowest of the peaks, was sometimes called the garden peak or the reception peak, because while Qiong Ding, the highest of the peaks, was technically the diplomacy peak as it was the domain of the sect leader, An Jing was where other sects were hosted.
When you have guests over, after all, they may be welcomed into your parlor but not the inner, private chambers; and so it was with Cang Qiong. Yue Qingyuan met with other sect leaders on An Jing, guest disciples from other peaks studied in the dorms and halls on An Jing, merchants and workmen came to An Jing to ply their services to the sect, and proceeded no higher.
The weather was lovely and temperate on the low peak, the well-maintained gardens were vast and calming and beautiful, and everyone who arrived left with a positive impression.
But An Jing contrasted with Qiong Ding in one other very important way: Qiong Ding was home to the Ling Xi Caves, the most spiritually dense location on the peaks, where a cultivator in seclusion could receive twice the results in half the time, and whose benefits were so well-known and valuable that only the most senior sect members and most outstanding disciples were allowed to enter, and only with the sect leader himself’s permission.
An Jing’s most deeply held secret was that even the reception peak had areas that guests would never see: its own set of caves that were instead a total qi dead zone, where no spiritual weapons could be called, no spells could be cast, no talismans used, and effects of cultivation on strength and stamina vanished—Cang Qiong’s answer to Huan Hua Palace’s water prison.
But the existence of An Jing’s prisons and its peak lord’s status as warden were known only to the sect leader and his fellow peak lords, and a highly-vetted selection of An Jing disciples who served as guards, and who agreed to have their tongues removed to ensure their silence.
It was one of these guards, who when Shang Qinghua was called to An Jing to mediate with a merchant who claimed to have a contract signed by Shang Qinghua’s own hand when that particular contract for millet had been awarded to another, came up from behind, and in a series of sharp, fast jabs against the pressure points in his neck, shoulders, and lower back, blocked his qi-flow and sent him to the ground in a heap of useless limbs like a cooked noodle.
There was no argument between merchants. No one was waiting for Shang Qinghua’s arrival.
It turns out Du Qingguang was tired of waiting for permission, and would beg forgiveness from Yue Qingyuan once he’d managed to obtain a confession instead.
The caves under An Jing didn’t officially have a name, but Du Qingguang called it his penitentiary. Because the residents would learn to be penitent for their crimes, no matter how long it took. Even if they never saw freedom, at least they would die penitent and their next life would be the better for it.
Shang Qinghua had no idea how many permanent residents there were under the Rock, as he privately thought of it. For the simple reason, he wasn’t supposed to. The Rock operated under the principle of isolation. Secluded cultivation was good for the golden core; secluded meditation, where there was no selfish benefit to the cultivator, was good for the soul. So residents were isolated entirely.
The guards, as previously noted, could not speak. The walls were thick and ceilings low—sound did not echo and no matter how much one were to kick or scream, their neighbor would not hear. His guards would, though, and if he was caught making noise, his rations would be cut in punishment.
And it was so, very, very dark.
The only light he saw was once a day (or at least he thought it was once a day, that’s what Du Qingguang told him) when the warden would visit, guards carrying star-lotus lanterns trailing behind. One of the guards would perform their signature qi-blocking technique while the others held him down, then they would drag a bag over his head and take him somewhere.
It was still in the caves, but it must be close enough to the surface that some heavenly dew or other essence of heaven must find its way into the cracks in the earth still, or else there would be no need to incapacitate him further by physically blocking his meridians to ensure he couldn’t summon any cultivation skill to fight back. It’s not like the guards, all of them built like stone walls, needed the help of physical cultivation to beat the shit out of him.
Du Qingguang would ask questions: who his demonic patron was, what had he done to earn his demon eye and his patron’s favor, what he’d asked for in return, what he’d been doing each and every time Du Qingguang had nearly caught him, what his patron had been doing with the information, what he’d been planning.
Shang Qinghua was ashamed to admit he broke quickly. He’d never liked pain.
And he wasn’t a protagonist. He wasn’t built to endure.
But Du Qingguang was a warden, not a rehabilitator. His job was only to contain, it was Shang Qinghua’s job to rehabilitate himself, Du Qingguang told him, before picking up the zanzhi once again.
Yue Qingyuan came to visit him once, he thinks. He heard his step outside the cell, and knew it wasn’t Du Qingguang. He knew the sound of his step intimately now.
And Yue Qingyuan always had a certain presence when he entered a room.
“Zhangmen-shixiong? Are you there?”
“...”
“I- I didn’t-... you have to let me out, please.”
“...”
“Please…”
He didn’t visit again.
“Call him.”
Shang Qinghua shook in his chains, teeth gritted and face to the floor.
“Call. Him.”
“M-my king,” Shang Qinghua whispered through chattering teeth.
“Louder.”
“My king!” Shang Qinghua screamed, something in his throat tearing at the strain.
A moment passed, and as Du QIngguang was opening his mouth to demand again, a shadowy portal began to open.
A glimpse of the knuckles of a hand, a flash of chest, a sliver of chin and nose—Mobei-Jun was not even fully through the portal before Shang Qinghua began shouting, “It’s a trap!”
But even before the words finished leaving his mouth, an iron spear flew through the air and crashed into the demon’s chest, knocking him back through the other side of the portal.
A heavy chain trailed from the end of the spear and as the An Jing guards began to haul on it, Mobei-Jun emerged into view once again, like a fish on a line. His hands wrapped around the place where the spear pierced him, purplish blood seeping between his fingers, a grunt of pain devolving into a blood-curdling snarl like something produced by a wild animal.
As he stumbled, dragged, further into the room, one foot in and one foot out of the portal, his gaze flickered furiously around the chamber, landing first on the guards, built as large and heavy as he himself, then to Du Qingguang, who was watching on impassively but for a hint of a satisfaction on his lips, and finally on Shang Qinghua, upon the sight of whom Mobei-Jun’s eyes widened in shock.
“My king, I’ve been made; you need to leave. Don’t worry about me; go now, now, now!” Shang Qinghua’s tongue tripped as he raced through his words, trying and failing to throw himself forward—to help, for help, he didn’t know.
Demons are as a race inherently stronger than humans, even without cultivation.
(Although later Shang Qinghua would wonder if the caves would even affect his king at all; if he made a mistake sending him away. If the caves worked the way they did because they were too far removed from any essence of heaven and the earth here was dead…well, however demonic cultivation worked, it didn’t use heavenly essence at all.)
With a roar, Mobei-Jun snapped the end of the spear with its chain clean off, and Shang Qinghua could tell he wanted to do more—summon his thousand ice sword array to take revenge against the cultivators who dared to trap him—but the wound was deeper and more damaging than he could ignore, and instead he stepped back through the still open portal, which closed behind in an instant.
Du Qingguan clicked his tongue in disappointment, then waved the guards to take Shang Qinghua away.
After that, Du Qingguan still visited him “daily”, as he claimed he did with all the Rock’s residents as part of his duties as warden, but he no longer dragged him away for rounds of torture.
Shang Qinghua had nothing more to give up.
Mostly they just talked.
Du Qingguan asked him if he was sorry for what he’d done. Shang Qinghua said he was. And he was. Not because he thought it was necessarily morally wrong, but because look where it had landed him—if he had a chance to do it again, he would have bashed Mobei-Jun’s head in with that rock when they first met like he’d originally intended, pretty face be damned.
In turn, Shang Qinghua shared the visions he had while left alone in the dark—the total sensory deprivation causing vivid hallucinations—glimpses of heaven, and a city entirely of ghosts, their faces hidden behind masks. Du Qingguan would just hum thoughtfully. He didn’t know if the warden considered these a fruitful outcome of his secluded meditation or not.
Du Qingguan would occasionally mention something about the world above—a new crop of guest disciples had arrived (irritation plain in his tone), or that the plum blossoms were blooming beautifully, but Shang Qinghua didn’t know that he trusted these tidbits enough to use for tracking the passage of time. Du Qingguan was aware that he was the sole source of information available to Shang Qinghua, and could easily be lying to him, to mess with his head.
Once, for lack of anything else to offer, and out of desperation, Shang Qinghua tried revealing his status as a transmigrator.
The System didn’t like that.
For the most part, he stared into the nothing and remembered. At the beginning, he’d cursed himself for taunting Du Qingguan, but after a while, he gave up on that. Although he had, by now, lived in this world longer than he ever had in his original, that first life was what he reflected on. Trying to recall every year, every day, every moment, as Luo Haoyu.
When his parents, still together at the time, had held a birthday party for him at the zoo: had he been seven or eight? One of the monkeys had come right up to the glass, pressed its hand against his from the other side, and he’d been awestruck.
His first visit to the coast, trying to remember the exact shade of blue of the water, the overwhelming taste of the salt on his tongue when he accidentally swallowed some as a wave knocked him over.
His first crush: one of the anchors on the evening news. Or had it been the girl who handed out the free samples at the supermarket? The supermarket had been by the old apartment, before Mom was promoted and they moved, so the girl first, then the news anchor, then…oh man, then Guo from the school basketball team. He’d forgotten him entirely until now.
What had he been thinking, writing Proud Immortal Demon Way? So many years of his life… If he could just go back, he’d tell himself… tell himself to go to class more while he was still in university, while he still had the chance to do something else, become someone else. Get a job waiting tables or something to pay rent instead. Hell, get a roommate, a roommate with a lot of rowdy friends who wouldn’t mind one more. Just anything other than letting himself become the heavily isolated, and in retrospect, probably clinically depressed person he’d been.
Halfway through trying to reconstruct the plot of Kung Fu Panda in his head, beat for beat, by memory, he realized Du Qingguan hadn’t come by in… probably more than a day. It was so hard to tell down here, but maybe more than three days.
As he was thinking this, he heard the pad of footsteps outside his cell, and he sat up.
It wasn’t Du Qingguan, and it wasn’t Yue Qingyuan, he didn’t think, but the guards always come in twos or threes.
Whoever this was, they were alone.
A light flared to life—not the glow of a star-lotus lantern but a flame held aloft without fuel, burning away in the palm of this person’s hand without scalding the flesh, and Shang Qinghua had to raise his arm over his face, squinting and tears streaming down his cheeks against the sudden light.
“My general told me I had a shishu sympathetic to demons down here.”
He didn’t recognize the voice, and at first Shang Qinghua was confused, wondering if this person had mistaken him for someone else or was just another hallucination again (although they usually didn’t talk to him) before the meaning of the words penetrated and he went still as a mouse under the eyes of a hawk.
“Let’s make a deal,” Luo Binghe said, spreading his hands, a flame now cupped in each. He lifted the hand holding the blue flame. “I can make your suffering end right now. Painlessly. I promised Mobei-Jun that much for his loyalty.” He tilted his head to the hand cupping the red flame. “Or I can let you out, and you can come see what I’ve set in motion above.” The light of the flames didn’t extend far, but Shang Qinghua could see the flash of his white teeth in the dark as he smiled rather viciously.
“No guarantees of no suffering up there, though. Despite what Mobei-Jun assures me, I don’t think you’ll enjoy it. But so long as you don’t fight me, you’ll live through it.”
The wary shape on the floor shifted forward, lifting its head sharply, and Luo Binghe finally got his first real look of his wayward shishu—and nearly startled back a step, despite himself.
He’d never seen anything like it, that eye, so pale and eerie and unnatural, practically glowing in the light of the flame.
It vanished for a moment into the dark, a long slow blink accompanied by an exhale.
When it opened again—what was it he saw there? Determination? Relief?
Shang Qinghua reached out his hand.