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Shen Qingqiu caught his fellow transmigrator on the rainbow bridge, moving at a dead run.
“What are you doing? You can’t wear that to the Peak Lord meeting!” he hissed. The Peak Lord of An Ding, that venerable (hah!) and lofty (hah again!) personage, was draped in ill fitting regalia, the thick furs and dark colors of the Northern Desert.
Shang Qinghua gave him a dead-eyed stare. “Bro, I landed thirty seconds ago, ok? I do not have time to dig something out of storage and put on seven layers of xianxia flavored bullshit. Hurry, hurry, I have to be there in time to get a look at the agenda and hand out the notes. I totally forget what the gossip is gonna be about this time. I can’t not know it, imagine letting Qi Qingqi think she has one up on me!”
“You were the one who sent out the agenda, don’t you already know? Or have you forgotten everything you’ve written in this life as well as the last?” Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes – he wasn’t going to break into a run on a summer evening for anything less than a real emergency. If Shang Qinghua felt differently, draped in fur as he was, that was very much his own problem.
“Zhangmen-shixiong sent me the important things last week, I sent the messages out then. It’s been busy since then! I’ve been in the North! Aiyah, it’s fine for Empress Shen, who ignores politics, but some of us keep track of problems in both realms! I was supposed to be here hours ago…” He groaned.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re wearing Mobei-Jun’s robes. Airplane, they aren’t even cut to fit you, they’re falling off. You really can’t go in like that, half the Lords will attack you on sight and the others will never let you hear the end of it...”
No need to point out that he would definitely be one of the ones to bring it up again later. He definitely would, hadn’t his words come true? Hadn’t Shang Qinghua really just wanted to hear an apology and then go back to being lightly struck every day? No matter what he said about going back home, this was the result. His face was swollen and there were still signs of tears in his eyes, it was a shameless picture indeed.
“It wasn’t exactly my idea, bro. Part of the reason I’m late was that somehow silk-devouring tendril beetles invaded the Northern Fortress. Pest control has been a firefight. Literally. And it’s not like ice demons do well with fire, either, I almost didn’t make it at all!”
Shen Qingqiu gave his brother from his old hometown a stern look. “Those were the insects that devoured fibrous material ten thousand times their own mass, then matured into slime covered jellyfish things? Lots of tentacles? I remember them vividly.” The fan was in his hand. Airplane had already suffered many bruises, one or two more would hardly be noticeable now.
“So do I. I literally posted them to see if you’d break a record on your comment streak.” Airplane’s face was glum, despite the fact that they both knew Cucumber had, in fact, done exactly that. A hollow victory, now that pest control was his department. As was sourcing more clothing. In the modern world, department stores existed. In this one… well, capable tailors were busy people, and they had plates. Plates and plates and plates of styles and options, and, for eye-watering amounts of money, they could be expected to rush a delivery. For a Peak Lord, and a consort of the demon realms, such a position and so much money might mean mere months before the new wardrobe arrived.
It wasn’t even like he could sneak in a rush order when things were a little less hectic. Many people assumed that the worst of An Dings many jobs was balancing Sect budgets, but the truth was far more terrible – Qi Qingqi wanted quarterly updates to her wardrobe, and as for the new disciples every year, when no one could say how many would be accepted and what size they’d be-! Add in the constant repairs and need for medicines and talismans to be dragged all over the country to whoever needed whatever on night hunts, and then bringing back whatever materials the Sect needed in each season – there really never was an end to any of it. Every harvest season, Shang Qinghua swore that it was the worst season, every spring, when the many colorful demonic pests he’d written to plague the harem wives thawed to life, he swore it was the worst season, every winter, when books needed to be balanced for the year and new outfits needed to be ordered, definitely the worst, and as for every autumn, getting in supplies for the winter months-! All of them were the worst! Unless it was an Immortal Alliance Conference year, those were the worst. Except for the years leading up to an event of such scale, also the worst! Naturally, he’d get a fitting for himself squeezed in somewhere, but for the foreseeable future he was making do with borrowed cloths and Mobei’s smug raised eyebrow.
Shen Qingqiu was very familiar with the litany of complaints. It didn’t make him sympathetic, any more than the knowledge that Airplanes most egregious sins were being used against him in some karmic justice. “So what, you got wife plotted by your own bullshit? Good, maybe that means Binghe and I won’t be the only ones paying for your sins anymore.”
“They aren’t even native to the North. They like warm weather. All the better for beautiful flowers cavorting among the beautiful flowers…and guess, just guess, who has the only warm room in the entire Northern fortress? The only person there who uses the secret hotsprings that carved the foundation of the fortress out of the permafrost? The rooms that were hit hardest? Bro, I don’t even have a blanket to my name. Of course I’m wearing my Kings clothes, where would you imagine I would dare sleep in that place if not under his protection?”
“So… you just happened to be invaded by harmless, sexy pests that naturally create lube and go for suspension play while eating all your clothes, and the only solution was to crawl into the bed of that Mobei-Jun?”
“I wish it were as hot as you were making it sound, Bro. I really, really do. They’re so hard to catch and kill, and they smell terrible when you light them on fire.”
Shen Qingqiu didn’t think of himself as a bad friend, by any means, he’d done his best to protect his fellow transmigrator when things came to fighting, and even shared many schemes with him, trusting him far beyond anyone else in this world. A few beatings here and there were really to be expected, given their relationship, but it was rare for him to turn his friend aside, unless the circumstances were dire.
This counted as dire.
“Airplane.” he hissed, breaking through the litany of complaints. “Great Master Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky. If Binghe ever, ever, ever finds out about this incident you’ve suffered, I will make certain you remember Mobei-Jun’s breaking your ribs with fondness in your heart. I will make certain Mu Qingfang spends more time saving your skin than he ever has with every other Peak Lord combined, including the Sect Leader and myself. If Mobei-Jun thinks violence is a proposal, then by the end of what I do to you, he will think we are wed. Is that clear?”
“Brooo!” Shang Qinghua whined.
It really couldn’t be helped, however. If Binghe ever discovered that he could ‘accidentally’ destroy so many of Shen Qingqiu’s clothes that it would take months to replace them, and then tearfully coax him into wearing Binghe’s robes the whole time-! Nevermind seeing his Shizun covered in Airplanes bullshit xianxia KY jelly and tied up with shifting, squirming tendrils… too dangerous! Too dangerous by far! His hips, his back, his ass… no, none of him would ever recover! He was going to have to hide more than one of his bestiaries…
The meeting, predictably, was a short one. Nothing stopped a mundane meeting about politics and policies like a new hot peak lord/demon scandal! Shang Qinghua escaped Liu Qingge’s wrath only by telling him that Sha Hualing had been stalking Liu Mingyan’s night hunts, and the uproar that had caused had been enough that even Yue Qingyuan couldn’t restore order.
Still, even a short meeting was enough for Shen Qingqiu to find a little mercy in his heart, As long as Binghe was kept far away from matters involving tendrils, there was no harm in helping Shang Qinghua dig through what little of his wardrobe remained on An Ding. It gave them time for a few drinks and a game or two of weiqi, and to commiserate about their shared woes, well lubricated by a few more drinks.
“Airplane-bro, you really need an intervention. Even if he’s not hitting you anymore, now he’s just destroying your stuff. Even if it was me who told you that you were only waiting to go back to him, you still need to make him see reason if you’re going to stay.”
“Oh? How has making Binghe see reason ever gone for you? And my son has human blood! Besides, this is kind of… we’re compromising, ok?”
“What, like.. he expects you to put up with him trashing your things, but he doesn’t hit you?”
Shang Qinghua rolled his eyes. “Bro, he expects me to retaliate. I really think I’m gonna have to have someone assassinated again...”
There was a beat of silence.
“I’m sorry, what?!”
~*~
So, the thing was, Shang Qinghua had never set out to engage in what amounted to a demonic prank war.
Honestly, he’d pretty much hoped for something a little more domestic? Noodles? A promise that he wasn’t going to be killed? Maybe another raise or a few more minions? Minions were a nice perk! These days, he was pretty confident that they weren’t there to slit his throat if he fucked up!
But Mobei-Jun was a demon. Like, a fully demonic demon. He’d spent a few hours in the human realms as a child, formed definitive opinions, and basically murdered humans on sight ever since, unless they were cultivators and harder to murder, or Shang Qinghua, who was sticky and slippery and really, really, really hard to murder! He took a lot of pride in that, actually.
Oh, Mobei-Jun had mellowed a little since then, now there were a solid half dozen humans he probably wouldn’t even think about killing, most of them An Ding disciples, and probably Shen Qingqiu. And even more that he’d think about killing but probably wouldn’t, like Liu Qingge and the Sect Leader. Shang Qinghua was… well… it was novel to think he was on that list somewhere!
But it didn’t mean they understood eachother.
Well, sometimes they did! Shang Qinghua had written Mobei-Jun, and had lived with his near-constant presence for decades now. He could pretty much read his facial expressions, such as they were! But he’d written an inscrutable, spoiled brat who did what he liked without explanation,and made him a demon, thus neatly ensuring that the various cultural barriers were monumental and would never be explained.
So he was left trying to desperately remember all the random bullshit he’d written a lifetime ago about demon culture, which was really vague unless it was giving a wife exotic flavor or Binghe some nice angst. Other than the palaces that needed conquering and the vaults filled with treasures, and of course dungeon levels like the Holy Mausoleum, he’d been.. really fast and loose with that crap. But Sha Hualing had been super popular, and she was a bully, and obviously wife stealing was a thing, because Linguang-Jun, and demons were generally territorial and possessive and so on…
He’d had to beg Cucumber for specifics, which was humiliating, especially because Binghe was not about to let Shang Qinghua ask Shen Qingqiu for help unsupervised. He’d also had advice, delivered in the lofty tones of a brat who had lived in the demon realm for a whole ten minutes before taking it the hell over, and never being second-guessed no matter how wrong, weird, or human he acted. Shang Qinghua had been dealing with demons and demon politics longer than Binghe had been alive! Plus he’d written all of it to begin with! ‘Push him down and ride him until one or both of you finishes or passes out’ nothing! He very much wanted to live! If anyone was pushing anyone down, it shouldn’t be him!
Cucumber had been much more helpful, as far as actual useful knowledge went, and what it boiled down to was that Mobei-Jun had been claiming Shang Qinghua as his for decades, the recent pay raise and the minions and the letting him lounge around like a trophy wife was, in fact, because he more or less was one. Unofficially. Maybe officially. If he accepted.
Accepting meant pushing back, though. Proving that they were well matched. Showing the court that he was capable in his own right. Surviving a demons affectionate bullying and beatings was all well and good, but Mobei-Jun was a king, and if his consort wasn’t capable of more than mere survival it would cause any number of problems.
He could try to challenge members of the court in combat for the right to rule at Mobei’s side, but he liked his skin intact and his organs where they were. So he had to turn his efforts onto Mobei-Jun himself.
It wasn’t… as much as a disaster as it might have been? He did know a lot about what the original Shang Qinghua had gotten away with before his betrayal was uncovered, and that guy wasn’t getting hand pulled noodles on the regular! Even so, he’d started… small.
By the time Mobei-Jun had noticed, he’d added warming arrays to his own rooms, his working spaces, several hallways, all his blankets and pillows, and, notably, some of Mobei-Juns cloaks and furs that were often left in his quarters for repairs (or because his king still, occasionally, elected to sleep in Shang Qinghua’s bed, glowering at any suggestion that he had his own.) The fluffiest of them were part of his pillow-fort, now, and they were amazingly cozy, and he was actually comfortable in this frigid hellscape, and Mobei’s face when he’d reached for his fanciest hunting cloak and found it stitched over with An Ding’s finest temperature controls was a memory he’d treasure for the rest of his life, now that he knew he had a ‘rest of his life’ to treasure it with. He’d also carved out a secret passage down to the hotsprings below the ice fortress, so by the time a furious (blushing!?) Mobei had caught up with him he’d been snacking on melon seeds and oranges in an improvised steam chamber with heated towels and several really terrible yellow books. (Obviously only the terrible ones were in the hot wet steam room! The good porn was safe and dry under his bed, or mixed in with his office records.)
Unfortunately, he and his king shared a certain set of traits, and one of them was a certain petty vengefulness. He could admit it! He was living in a world where Luo Binghe was the protagonist! The guy who had made being vengeful into an art! And then there was Shen Jiu, who would never wish to look for a first choice if arson and backstabbing were offered as a second choice…
So while it wasn’t unreasonable for him to respond to years of bad flirting moderate beatings by carving out a comfortable space for himself at significant expense, he probably should have seen the inevitable coming for him as soon as he did.
~*~
The conversation started back up only much later in the evening, once Shang Qinghua was insulated not only in his second most formal robes but in several (too many) cups of baijiu. They’d headed back to Qing Jing, both because Shang Qinghua was not interested in being back at work so soon and because Shen Qingqiu was not interested in explaining to Binghe that he’d idly decided to spend the night out drinking with no warning. It was moderately cooler on Qing Jing as well, the bamboo providing shade and the open, flowing architecture providing lots of space for breezes to flow. An Ding had waterfalls and water ways in plenty (for cargo transport), but it also had warehouses and lots of flat, smooth pathways (for the ease of people carrying goods) that absorbed sunlight, lots of construction sites, and much larger groups of people moving together like swarms of ants. An Ding was also noisier, though not by much – a peak full of contemplative musicians sounded nice, but unfortunately the truth was that it was a peak of trainee musicians, all armed with swords. Around exam season, even with Cucumber in charge, tears, music compositions, and arguments were a constant background hum. But no one was going to cause a pair of Peak Lords trouble, so they made their way back to the Bamboo House, only meandering a little.
“Airplane. What do you mean you had someone assassinated?” Shen Qingqiu had a really good face for staring with a raised eyebrow. Top tier design for judgmental looks! Shang Qinghua really was so proud of it. But if you knew that there was a millennial gremlin hiding in there, you could see it in the way his fingers twitched, like he was just DYING inside for a chance to pull up PIDW and scan through it for the relevant plot arc. Not that he needed to! He seemed to have committed the entire og text to his memory! But the little shift of his fingers was there, tightening around a fan or a tea cup or brush. He might have been here decades, but Airplane had been here a lifetime, and he could vouch for the fact that the physical twitch of reaching for a phone was as deeply ingrained as the need for caffeine. Shang Qinghua’s body was a temple (Literally, with the cultivation and all) that had never had anything more caffeinated than organic tea and had eaten clean foods with no processed chemical junk in it’s entire life, but the spirit within it would do things that would make Luo Binghe wince for a cup noodle made entirely of gmo products and sodium. He’d do them twice, enthusiastically, for an energy drink that tasted like someone who had never eaten a mango had been told to produce a mango flavor in a language they didn’t understand.
Right, the question. Huh. Shen Qingqiu was now staring at him with the expression not actually unlike the original goods, very good for suggesting that the recipient of the stare might have permanent brain damage.
“You know, I don’t even remember which of us set that one up. Like, the guy was incompetent and also would have run a minor coup with one of the mid-tier wives, so it wasn’t like he was ever gonna be really loyal, so I might have been the one pushing him into a bigger role to reveal him. But I also kind of feel like Mobei was waiting for really inconvenient times to push me into long ass political meetings just to see if I would loose my shit?” he mused. “I think we both decided on the same guy simultaneously, honestly. But normally once I push a rat into the limelight he handles it! I wrote him as the perfect assassin! It’s honestly like… enrichment for him!”
“...You do realize how fucked up that sounds? You just piss people off enough that they piss off Mobei-Jun and he kills them for you?”
“Yeah, that’s how it’s been for years. What? I’m not that impressive in a fight, most of my cultivation is built around resilience and healing up fast! And I’m a good flier and have lots of arrays and seals down. We can’t all be martial geniuses!”
He didn’t think it would be good for Cucumber’s blood pressure to explain that messy public murder was kind of par for the course in most demon courts, and that directing the bloodshed was much more likely than preventing it. For that matter, Cucumber had been a big fan of Bing-ge in his day, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t read plenty about his husband leaving his throne room a bloody mess, and he didn’t love him any less. On the other hand, Bing-mei hardly killed people in front of Shen Qingqiu. It was probably insecurity, not squeamishness? That maiden heart of his was entirely too sensitive! Cucumber-bro, isn’t this kind of blind spot a little too large? He still does kill people offscreen, you know? Shang Qinghua had not been spared the messy scenes the current flavor of Binghe left in his wake!
Besides, they were in the Bamboo House, now. Binghe was right there, radiating barely constrained menace and drinking vinegar by the gallon. He clearly hadn’t hoped to spend the evening listening to his Shizun drunkenly poking holes in Shang Qinghua’s love life, and he definitely would make another one of those messy scenes out of Shang Qinghua’s insides if Shang Qinghua mentioned any such things.
“But this time he… didn’t kill the guy?” Shen Qingqiu tsked.
“Bastard got away and ended up bleeding in my office all over my shit. I didn’t even have my sword, I had to finish it with a pen knife, so aggravating!” Shang Qinghua flopped his head forward onto the desk. The fact that he’d spent the entire incident shrieking and had promptly passed out after it was over and done with didn’t feel like information Cucumber needed to have.
“Got away from the op demon who can teleport, inside said demons own fortress?”
“That’s what I said, bro!” he cried. “Like I’m all for an equal marriage, but I’m the housework guy and he’s the murder guy, it’s not like he was in my office cleaning up the bloodstains after I did his job!”
Cucumber rubbed at his temples, fighting either a headache or the lingering haze of alcohol. This prompted a frown from Binghe, and a cup of soothing tea and sweets to miraculously appear at his side. “So, if neither of you knows who started that one, and both of you are satisfied with the outcome, why did he escalate?”
“Oh, bro, that was like three rounds ago. Don’t even ask about his sudden need for the fur of a six-tongued carmine fire serpent and seventeen separate cultivars of mock-pillarweed.”
“Pillarweed was a stupid idea anyway.” Cucumber retorted. “Cultivation aid my ass.”
“That’s the point of a suppository, yeah, but the mock species has a slightly different fruiting cycle and is pink with purple veining, not red veining, and it’s not too bad, as far as a power-up goes. But they don’t grow close together well, so they’re hard to farm, not something I can just steal off Qian Cao! Building a greenhouse in the northern desert was a nightmare, and I’m STILL not sure they were all the right kind, and frankly I don’t know if he even knows the difference. Took me weeks to even find the damn things and of course they have really thick taproots and don’t like being transplanted-”
“First of all, since when do you garden, Lord ‘I-don’t-have-time-please-don’t-ask-me-anymore?’ Second, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that you steal valuable miracle cures from Qian Cao for the right price.”
“Mu-shidi knows, but he’s not above bribery, and I know exactly what he has in those storage vaults, and a lot about random bullshit one-in-a-million miracle cures.” Shang Qinghua shrugged. “Even if I make something random up to appease him it’s still probably a thing anyway. Second of all, you literally lived in a body I grew for YEARS-”
“I was unconscious for five of them AND you screwed up the fertilizer and nearly ruined everything, you son of a bitch-”
“I had to speed the natural growth up a lot, ok, not my fault you coddled the protagonist into a whole ass new plotline-”
The thing about that protagonist, though, was that he was very good at lurking. He could be almost entirely unobtrusive if he wanted to be, and even his intervention in the form of tea and snacks was minimal, but he was never out of earshot of his beloved Shizun and he was, still, fundamentally, a bullshit OP demon lord. Even if he was out gathering mushrooms and bamboo for dinner or reading quietly in another room, he was never gone.
He wrapped himself around Shen Qingqiu’s back in a hug at the raised voices, and Shang Qinghua knew exactly why that was. It was so Shang Qinghua could see his expression and his husband could not. Liar! Manipulative! Shen Qingqiu was so tsundere he was touch starved, of course he’d melt immediately in this situation, and ignore the obvious threat to Shang Qinghua’s life!
“Shang-shishu, this one also didn’t know you were such an avid gardener. To think that you knew Shizun’s soul was safe and well all those years-”
He gave a nervous little laugh. “Luo-shizi can’t blame this one for not being sure, after all, it was an unfortunate set of circumstances. Had he woken up promptly as planned of course this one would have spoken up immediately, but the months dragged on with no signs of life, getting your hopes up would have been entirely too cruel.”
“Shang-shishu speaks so differently to Shizun than to this Lord, moreso when he forgets himself.” Binghe frowned. “It’s good that Shizun has a confidant…”
Was it? Was it? Even when Luo Binghe swore he would only ever wish for three days of Shen Qingqiu’s undivided attention, lest his Shizun feel lonely and unhappy, that expression didn’t seem too forgiving! Luo-shizi, let’s leave the past in the past with an ‘all’s well that ends well’, ok? Relying on staying in that tsundere’s good graces for the rest of his immortal life was basically just an extended death flag in the end, wasn’t it?
“But this Lord and his Mobei-Jun need to be able to work with Shang-shishu quite a lot, don’t we? Somehow that’s the state of things both at Cang Qiong and in the Demon Realm. Shang-shishu has worked by Mobei-Jun’s side quite a long time, so these things only just coming to light now is hard to trust. These games feel disruptive to more than one realm, as well. Unless Mobei-Jun has a preference for Shishu’s bolder self?”
Too clever by half! Shang Qinghua groaned. “This one really isn’t sure which he prefers either?” which was probably a total lie, actually, but he didn’t want to think about that too hard. Mobei-Jun hated betrayal, and as a demon the need to be possessive and a bully were kind of a constant. So naturally staying in the habits that had kept him alive for decades was easy and kept him in good graces best. Clearly he favored the deferential and obedient Shang Qinghua! But his king… lately it seemed like he didn’t really seem to hate his original self, either? Even after cursing him with his whole heart and storming away, they’d been reunited, and Mobei-Jun had even offered to be hit in his own turn. “But at this point it’s just gonna escalate until one of us proposes, and frankly I haven’t managed to set either of us up for a wedding with someone else yet, so I’m kind of stuck. It’s probably better to marry him off, then I can pick someone I can steal him from without getting too hurt. But that makes him the bride, which…. Eh, not quite right. But what if I marry someone and he doesn’t come steal me? That would be such a pain.. plus I have to marry someone believable who he’d also be able to kill with no repercussions… don’t need another Linguang-Jun.”
“This Junshang would be able to order Mobei-Jun to wed, of course.” Binghe mused, still giving Shang Qinghua thoughtful, dark looks. “He is my vassal, after all.”
“Oh, see, that would be perfect, we could choose someone you want me to get rid of. Hah, maybe Linguang-Jun himself, if you ordered it it wouldn’t look as weird and then we could finally just be rid of him for good- no wait, it would have to be me marrying Linguang-Jun, I can’t kill him and it’s kind of incest at that point for him-” He’d written worse than cosins into the harem, to be fair, given the Qin sisters and the nun triplets and all, but that very much didn’t change the fact that getting hold of a poison that could kill Linguang-Jun was way too much work! The man was both paranoid and competent, hard to pin down!
“I could just order Mobei to marry you.” Binghe frowned, a little contemplative.
“Hah?” Shang Qinghua blinked. That.. that was his son, so filial! That would be so neat and easy, and he couldn’t be blamed at all! Unless Mobei-Jun didn’t actually want that, and wanted him to do something himself, oh shit, that might actually be really upsetting, to feel like it was just something his Junshang had decided for them… but on the other hand…
“I won’t.” Binghe said, firmly. “Shang-shishu has never been particularly loyal or forthcoming, and this Emperor has already married into Cang Qiong. Mobei should marry elsewhere. In fact, I should probably forbid the match entirely.”
“Binghe, too much.” Shen Qingqiu frowned, clearly internally calculating just how much work Binghe would actually have to do in his own empire if he couldn’t dump it on Mobei-Jun to dump on Shang Qinghua. “Let me deal with how Shang-shidi should have handled the mushroom body for myself and be good.” which would have been really touching if he hadn’t followed it with “So, you’d have told Binghe immediately if I’d woken up? Traitor.”
“You think I brought you Xiu Ya back and told you to just rest your head between those golden thighs because I was invested in your gay awakening, bro? I wanted to live! Binghe was already asking how to romance you by then! Just be glad he listened to me, not my king. If you BOTH had listened to me, you’d have fucked inside the Mausoleum if not sooner, and you could have kept Xin Mo at bay the normal way…”
He chuckled a little at the horrified look that got him. It also got Shen Qingqiu to twist around in his chair and look up at Binghe with a deeply dubious look. “Luo Binghe-” he began.
“Husband, no, I told Mobei-Jun to be quiet immediately, I never once listened to his advice!”
“So you knew it was bad advice, but never corrected it?”
“it was bad advice for Shizun, who wants to be comfortable and spoiled, but who knows what Shang-shishu prefers? They were always together, clearly whatever Mobei-Jun said or did he at least had that person always by his side!”
Hey! I want to be spoiled too… Shang Qinghua sighed deeply in his heart. But in his own way… he was, with his prominent rooms and hot springs and comfortable things. He was.. comfortable. Mobei-Jun really (probably) wasn’t going to kill him. The plot was over. He could… he could even be a little bit of himself sometimes! The System was present but mostly quiet. For the first time in either life, he was.. fine. His best friend might be a huge bitch in the process of feeding him more dog-food then he could handle, but he was actually kind of fine like this!
The realization, and the feeling of it, left him feeling a little drunk. Almost dizzy. Also, he was still pretty drunk. That was almost certainly why the next words popped out of his mouth. “It’s ok even if he won’t give permission now, in three months he’ll be begging on his knees for the right to give this venerable one permission.”
There was a beat of pure, unadulterated silence. Not even the wind dared shift a cloth in the stillness, not even the muffled notes of a guqin or the faint grumbling of the things that now lived in the bamboo.
“Airplane.” Shen Qingqiu hissed, abandoning their usual caution about their names. “Inside thoughts on the outside, ok?!”
But it was too late. Binghe’s smile had fixed on him, and it was no longer menacing or sulky, now it was fascinated and innocent. Much more dangerous, in other words! Don’t try that white lotus act, brat, this Qinghua knows you far too well! “If Shang-shishu thinks he can convince this Junshang so easily, I’ll not only order the marriage, but I’ll pay for it, and I’ll tell Mobei-Jun that you were the one in the shadows forcing my – and therefore his- hand.”
Shang Qinghua’s mouth stretched into a wide, happy grin. That was absolutely better than having someone killed! Much better! Maybe his sin just wanted him out of their hair for a few months, but Shang Qinghua also wanted a few months break, and imagining how that break might go once Mobei-Jun knew he’d blackmailed Luo Binghe and lived! He definitely should ask his Sect Siblings for more beds as wedding gifts, they’d definitely break more than a few…
“That’s not – oh, god. Airplane, Shang-shidi, Bro, why are you grinning? That’s not normal at all, just ask him like a normal person, oh my god-” Shen Qingqiu groaned, blissfully unaware of the fact that he’d just become the star of the show. That was fine! Bro, for a chance this good, Qinghua will make certain you’re compensated very well!
“No, no… that’s good, that’s fine. Three months, right? If it even takes that long, hah. I really can’t loose… look forward to it.” He chirped, wobbling to his feet and still grinning like a demon.
“Shang-shishu is very confident. If he can’t keep his promises, this one will look forward to revisiting his failure to keep this lord informed of his gardening projects.”
Shang Qinghua giggled, because there was nothing to do but dance in the light of his burning bridges. Not even the menace in Binghe’s tone could get through to him now. “This one will be a gardening project too, ok? This shidi will definitely keep his shixiong informed.”
He really was the best friend, he told himself. A lesser man could have just told Luo Binghe aboiut the beetles, and gotten him a few, and that probably would have been that. But that meant loosing Shen Qingqiu’s good graces in the long term, and someday that might remove the only barrier between him and a petulant Luo Binghe. No thanks! But the ultimate truth in this world was that if it was what the protagonist wanted, it would definitely happen. Hadn’t the protagonist’s desire for love summoned to his side his absolute number one fan?! But also, knowing what someone wanted was the key to getting them to also do what you wanted. No one hits a smiling face, right? Right? All Luo Binghe wanted was for Shen Qingqiu to be happy.
Who knew how to make a transmigrated millennial happy better than another transmigrated millennial? It would be expensive as hell, but it could be done. His trade networks were absolutely up to this task. Now that he had time and leeway without fear of the plot bearing down, it was definitely time.
~*~
Sha Hualing stared him down, or tried to, tapping her long, ornately filigreed nails in a light staccato.
“Immortal Master Shang, this Ling-er is stupid and doesn’t understand.” she purred.
“Miss Saintess absolutely does not understand.” he put on his very best mousy squeak. “Isn’t it very clearly laid out here? All in black and white!” And in blood red, granted, now that her nails were leaving faint smears in their wake. It was usually too much to hope for with Sha Hualing that she’d discovered some miracle modern nail polish, yet her nails were always a flawless crimson. Her lips, too. Airplane always hoped really hard that it was historic inaccuracy and generous handwaving of demon anatomy, but his kings black nails never left such marks…
“The numbers are very clear, even to this silly little girl. This Lingling isn’t good with accounts and sums, but three years of salt harvest rights? From all the math this one has managed to do, all that equals is your precious king finally removing your head from your shoulders. Did that Qingfang-gege really say your brains were ok?”
Shang Qinghua spread his hands, waving them. “It’s fine, it’s fine, please never call Mu-shidi that again, he has entirely too many scalpels for that to feel safe, ok? Salt really isn’t that valuable to common demons, is it? So it would have to be a lot to make it worthwhile.”
“As if that rabble determined worth of anything. If anything, the fact that it’s hard to get nice things that aren’t rotten makes it more valuable, and since Lord Luo encourages trade with the human realms such things are useful. Besides, I see favored trade status on northern mining rights as well?”
“Are the Southern clans so in need of steel that this counts as a real incentive?” he blinked.
“Immortal Master Shang knows very well that water sapphires can’t be found in the south, and as for night pearls and spirit stones, the north produces unparalleled quality…”
“Well, we hardly have much else up here, hahahah, plants are hard to come by in a desert..” he pointed out.
“And for these, the North wants… beans?”
“Two specific types, yes.” he nodded. There was no point in pretending he wasn’t eager, being an eager to please little rat was kind of his whole thing!
“They won’t even grow up here. Your greenhouse isn’t going to do much. And for what? As far as poisons go, they’re not worth mentioning, they don’t have any spiritual properties, and the taste is unspeakably bitter.”
He hummed. “It’s for a side project with Shen Qingqiu. I can’t disappoint my shixiong, right? Besides, I’ve already purchased land in the human realms for them to grow in.”
That had taken more research than any other part of this, honestly – mapping his fantasy world to the original one was difficult at best, hardly a one to one project. But he’d been growing melon seeds for a long time now, and may other herbs and plants, both rare and common, he worked with farmers more than any other Peak, and he had, in another life, studied many random things for this world, making soap was only one of many. So he’d taken a week of his precious three months, done some traveling, talked with some people, and stared at maps until his eyes burned, and then circled a tract of land that was probably pretty close to Yunan in the modern age. “Mature specimens as well as cultivars, please, Miss Sha, do let your people know that’s an important clause.”
She hummed. “If it’s so valuable to Peak Lord Shen, this Ling-er should just send them to him herself, since we’ve had trouble working together harmoniously in the past.”
Yeah… every demon with a single braincell in this world knew how to farm favor points from Luo Binghe. Sister, he’s not going to marry you no matter what you do or say, you know? You already have your fathers throne and a nice cushy position as the Saintess of the Western Realms, and enough favor that Luo Binghe didn’t immediately throw you over in favor of giving his father those old territories back, don’t push your luck!”
“If Miss Hualing doesn’t want this deal and knows how to prepare those plants correctly, there’s nothing this Shang-di can do. But it’s nicer if we also keep good relationships going forward.” he nodded. “But, I can offer you one extra concession – if this Shang can have those plants, he’ll teach Ling-er how to use them, so that she can gift them to.. whoever that sword tassel came from.”
There was no need to say more. Liu Mingyan was already an unstoppable force in this world, such a powerup would make her truly peerless. Shang Qinghua, when he’d written her, had found her a little difficult – she was, after all, very unlike him in every way, a cool and flawless, untouchable beauty. Learning about her writing habits – that she took after him more than any others – had made him laugh for days.
They haggled a little more, but it was all performative. In the end, Sha Hualing wasn’t really the one crunching all the numbers and deciding which trades would be valuable. She’d merely noticed that this offer had unusually good terms from someone who rarely offered a tael more than needed to anyone, and had come to see if she could wring anything more from him. Satisfied, she was happy to take her leave.
Getting the plants to him would no doubt take a month or more, unless he hired cultivators to fly them, but that was fine. Once they arrived, the background work of starting a farm and getting regular crops would fall to some of his An Ding disciples and local farmers, leaving him weeks to experiment with roasting and blending. The results didn’t even have to be that good – for even a taste of a mediocre chocolate latte, Cucumber would weep and grovel. As for getting access to more, well… they knew his price for the farm, didn’t they? And then maybe Binghe, with his godlike culinary power, would refine the process into perfection. Maybe add some caramel. Some nuts. Maybe some whipped chocolate filling. Maybe, just maybe, if he himself were to weep and grovel, he might get something not entirely unlike a Snickers bar at his wedding feast.
Lost in such pleasant dreams, he only noticed the sudden drop in temperature at his back after a heavy hand had settled on his shoulders.
“Qinghua.” Mobei-Jun’s voice was always deep enough to make him shiver. Everything about Mobei-Jun made him shiver and stand a little more to attention, this was not news. But there was something nerve wracking and maybe a little fun about this new kind of game. “What are you scheming.”
“Ahahaha, my king, that list is actually really very long…” he shuffled the trade agreements into the pile of papers in front of him, till it blended in with the porn and the dress plates and all the real work he was slacking off from doing, one scrap of evidence of his many wrongdoings lost in a veritable sea of the same. It wasn’t totally safe – one of Mobei-Jun’s more petty and petulant ways of demanding attention was to go through his desk and leave the papers all slightly askew. Shang Qinghua, on a bad day, would yell at him and cry tears of blood, since his filing system was ‘wherever it landed last’ – but it was usually the problem of some lesser clerk to find whatever was missing.
“Qinghua detests the Saintess, yet they were alone together for hours. She also despises weakness and cringing, yet was in a good mood when she left.”
“Hmmm. Am I so weak, my king?” he smiled.
“Qinghua’s strength is for this king.” Mobei-Jun’s snarl showed a little fang, and the hand on his shoulder tightened.
“My king, that hurts.” he sulked, and almost giggled when the hold immediately shifted. He still wasn’t going anywhere, and he couldn’t say he’d actually minded the stronger grip, but there was a heady sort of power in saying ‘no’ and getting away with it. They both knew he could survive far worse, and yet… “Sulking for no reason. Aren’t I back from Cang Qiong early? Aren’t I wearing your cloak again? Is it so bad that the Saintess is in a good mood and won’t disembowel anyone on the way out? It’s not bad for me, cleaning up after her visits is a nightmare-”
“Shut up.” Mobei-Jun grumbled.
“Aiyah, I thought my king wanted to know why? This servant can’t explain and be silent at the same time! Unreasonable!”
He was silenced with a kiss that really was more of a gnaw, Mobei’s long, cool tongue forcing its way into his mouth. His lips were being bitten into ribbons, and the grip on his shoulder was inching steadily closer to his throat, leaving a trail of red marks. One could describe the kiss as punishing, but that didn’t stop Shang Qinghua from immediately pushing the rest of his papers haphazardly farther back so he could lean over the desk a little, his hands making greedy little grabs at the folds of Mobei-Jun’s clothes. From this angle he couldn’t paw at his chest very well, but for being pushed down onto his desk he’d make the tragic, tragic sacrifice of settling for the well toned curve of his kings ass.
...Maybe he would keep a few of the beetles around, actually, safely contained. He could feed them the samples merchants kept sending An Ding, even though it was well known that cultivators clothes couldn’t be made on normal looms, you needed to weave the protective arrays in from the very start. Besides, there were always scraps of fabric around, demons tended towards very violent problem solving and raucous celebrating, mending clothes or discarding bloody scraps was a constant. Maybe if he fed them sugarcane scraps (couldn’t you make cloth out of sugarcane? It was like bamboo, right?) their secretions would even taste sweet… little Airplane would indeed ascend to the heavens!
The kiss tasted a little weird. Copper wasn’t too uncommon a taste, given that the air here was freezing cold and his human lips got dry and split easily, and neither of them minded that. But this was suspiciously floral.
Sometimes, Mobei-Jun would chew a little mint for him, but…. Goddammit. As vulnerable as Binghe was to Shen Qingqiu, Shang Qinghua was equally vulnerable to his own libido! Little Airplane, don’t shoot towards the sky just yet!
Still, he didn’t push Mobei-Jun off until the lack of air got painful. A good kiss and being pushed down by his king was too hard (hah!) to pass up. And those fingers at his throat, pressing down lightly, if he cried, they’d tighten up sweetly until he couldn’t think anymore, but if he pushed them off they’d loosen, giving a heady sense of relief and power. It really was too good.
Mobei kept him pushed down with one hand, lightly reaching past him as he panted to pull the paper free of the pile. His expression changed from lazy and satisfied to a dark frown and a confused hitch of his eyebrow. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Shang Qinghua to actually have been working, hah!
“The terms are too favorable.” he grumbled.
“I know that and so does she, but the rewards will be equally great. My king should go back to what he was doing and not concern himself with it.” Shang Qinghua whimpered. Oh… it was one of those. Why were truth flowers so popular? They barely had a foothold in the original work, it would have made Binghe torturing people with his bloodmites far less satisfying if he could have reasonably popped down to the shop in town and grabbed a flower of spilling guts or whatever. The people who would have needed such a plot contrivance the worst (Shen Qingqiu, in both flavors, and Yue Qingyuan) had never encountered them. But some throwaway references to the innumerable plants at Mu Qingfang’s disposal had alerted his readers to the power of such a plant over a proud, unyielding, tsundere wife, and the tips and subscriptions had been momentous, so he’d compensated by making them yet more of the thousand and one rare and unique plants in this world, needing specially potent demonic blood and qi to activate. Things the protagonist – and Mobei-Jun – had in spades!
“Fuck your mother.” he grumbled, meaning it wholeheartedly. “Which one is it? It’s not the hanahaki knockoff, I’m still breathing, that would probably kill me instantly, all the things I don’t say, hahaha… is it the verity root? The mother-in-laws-tongue? The vine of hearts admission? Is it one of the ones we have to fuck to cure? because if you want to fuck, my king, I’m always there for it, there’s really no need whatsoever to wifeplot me.”
“Snow Lotus of Divine Revelations.” Mobei’s fingers traced the line of his jaw. “I know. Qinghua does not need help in wanting this king. He needs help being truthful.”
“Dammit, how was I supposed to remember that one? Do you know how many pure snow lotus whatever flowers there are in this world? Even if each is a unique thousand year old treasure, there are so many they’re like weeds in the end..”
“This king had ample choices, yes.” Mobei purred.
“Fine, fine. The deepest truth in my heart, is it? Fine. My king is my favorite person, the coolest and most badass, whenever I tired of everything else I would always come back to my king again and again, I wanted you to love loyalty best because no one could ever give you more than I did. Even if I didn’t have looks or strength, my king would still be sure to choose me over anyone else…” He flung an arm dramatically over his face, channeling his very best thin-faced impression. If it happened to look a lot like Cucumber-bro, well… the really important thing was that it got his mouth in contact with his sleeve, which was a qiankun pouch. He could say whatever he liked with a very thick face, that was fine, but he wasn’t actually going to let Mobei-Jun win! He carried lots of antidotes with him in the North, he wasn’t stupid!
He watched Mobei-Jun’s eyes darken with lust and affection – since his expressions were so unchanging, the two looked really similar! They also kind of looked like annoyance, but a wriggle of his hips upwards was definitely tipping the balance in his favor here. It felt really good, too! Mobei-Jun was cool and perfect against his heated skin.
Mobei-Jun bit at his ear lightly, a reward that made him squirm harder. “And the trade agreement?”
“Nope, took the antidote already. Some good things need to be waited for patiently.” Shang Qinghua grinned.
He’d expected a snarl, or even a shake, but what he got was a cold, dark smile. And a sudden loss of contact. His hands were suddenly grabbing at nothing, much less the meat of his kings hips and the shivery smoothness of the silk that was supposed to slide away at his touch. The pressure of the well-toned thigh between his legs was gone, the beautiful hands at his waist and throat, the chill breath at his ear, that his little airplane had been pavlov’d into associating with liftoff cut short, leaving him restlessly grinding on nothing. Across the room, entirely unmoved and calm in a very proper seat, without a single sign of discomfiture, Mobei-Jun nodded. “Qinghua is of course correct. We will resume when he deems we have waited long enough.”
Could he be blamed for wailing unto the heavens? That spoiled, chunni, bratty demon!
~*~
“Bro, I got sexiled for a month for this, you’d better be grateful for even a sip.” Shang Qinghua snapped, storming into the Bamboo House like he was from Bai Zhan. He hadn’t ever imagined even for a moment that Mobei-Jun would actually hold to his words! Shang Qinghua could cling to his thighs as much as he ever did, but the thing between those thighs was sealed away!
Granted, being able to drown his sorrows in secret, experimental batches of chocolate had helped some.
Shen Qingqiu lifted his fan, clearly getting ready to unleash cold words and powerful strikes, but the scent wafting from the carefully sealed jug in Shang Qinghua’s hands stopped his words dead in his throat.
“Airplane, I don’t want to know about your sex life.” he grumbled weakly, unwilling to let go of his entire rant. But his eyes were locked onto that small jar as if he could not let it out of his sight. “Is that…?”
“A chocolate latte with fresh whipped cream and caramel drizzle and chocolate shavings?”
“It’s impossible, you hack, none of these things exist in this word.” Shen Qingqiu’s eyes were watering with the effort of keeping his mouth from watering.
“Oh, like I wrote with any degree of accuracy or in any particular period. It was expensive, though. I’m running my King into a trade deficit for three years over this, just for some coffee and cacao and a few sugarcane and some cows, and Sha Hualing isn’t going to want to let go of these good terms, either, aiyah, it’s going to be so much to juggle… luckily I have coffee to help, now.”
“Coffee you’ll be sharing?” Shen Qingqiu was so quick to think the worst of him! He was entirely correct and accurate, but it was still a little hurtful!
“Bro, you know my price. But I’ll be lenient, my son doesn’t have to beg, and I won’t make him pay for the wedding, either. As long as he asks me kindly and respectfully, as his shishu, if I would accept the hand of his vassal and a protected status in the future, and tells Mobei-Jun what he promised me he would, I’ll consider it even.”
“For a single latte.” Shen Qingqiu scoffed, but he was still drinking the thing down like it was the elixir of the gods. That was foolish, of course, Shang Qinghua was the god and if he had to anoint a chosen elixir it would definitely be some kind of energy drink, but as far as holy sacrament went, downing a latte all in one go was about right.
“For the location of the farm, and half the produce. Don’t scorn it too quickly, Shen-Shixiong, cows means milk cheese and ground beef, I’m only a few months away from cheeseburgers and chocolate milkshakes. Of course, what Binghe could produce with such ingredients doesn’t need to be said.”
He knew the moment he had his victory. Shen Qingqiu sighed deeply, but called out “Luo Binghe, I hope that you can entertain Shang-shidi’s wish for closer diplomatic relationships with our two realms wholeheartedly..” and only managed to sound like it hurt him a little tiny bit! He then turned back to Shang Qinghua. “The roast is far too light.”
“Yeah, well, I kept burning the beans, and it’s not like I had an infinite supply, and I was impatient because I’m not getting laid until Mobei knows what’s going on with the wifetrapping thing. You get what you get, until the fortuneteller sets a date and I have Junshang’s official seal on the scrolls in triplicate.”
Luo Binghe appeared, summoned by the urgency in Shen Qingqiu’s voice. He blinked at the thick, sugary sludge that was all that remained of the drink. “Shizun… likes such things?”
“Binghe, if you can give Shang-shidi your cooperation on this matter, just for tonight, I… we can read any book you like.”
Binghe’s eyes gleamed. “Any book, Shizun?”
“Even if it’s Regret of Chunshan, or even that Song of Bingqiu, this master will allow it. Binghe can choose any scenario he likes.” The fan was up, oh, it was up, covering his entire face, but somehow the heat behind it was so much that Shang Qinghua wanted to bet that fan would burst into flames. Everyone knew that they were breeding up a storm behind closed doors, but how often was Binghe allowed to flaunt it? How often was he permitted to discuss such things in company? The smile on his face was enough to outshine the very stars!
“Shizun, then, this disciple chooses to read the pages of the bestiary that were damaged and lost, lets go dig them up right now…”
Shen Qingqiu’s flush turned immediately to a horrified pallor. “What’s lost is lost, how can they be read? Binghe will have to choose something that is available!”
“Hm, but this disciple studied those texts as a youth here, he is certain he could remember. Perhaps a nighthunt, as a practical lesson, instead of reading out of some dusty book?”
“It’s too late in the year for the creatures Binghe is thinking of to appear, they thrive in springtime.” Shen Qingqiu spat out the fact that he’d memorized a lifetime ago like it burned him. Hahahah, bro, you paid extra for that chapter and a tip, and broke your comment thread records over it, of course you know better than anyone….
“Junshang, that’s really no hindrance, the North was recently infested by several of those insects you recall and some yet survive. If Junshang wishes to vacation in the North to finalize arrangements, it would be mutually beneficial!”
His son really was too much like him in the end, there was no resisting the allure of a deal like this. Those insects had been designed to be Peerless Cucumber’s bane, but in the end, Cucumber-bro himself had also read and thrived on every scene no matter how weird and outlandish, and had found the flavor of them too good to walk away from, no matter how he nagged. Bro, it’s ok! No one needs to know how much fun you’re really having in this world with the protagonist, like your self-insert fan-fiction dreams! And as for himself….
Well.
Night was falling in the North, changing the sky from dark and heavy to blazing with the nigh-eternal aurora. He’d presented the edicts at Luo Binghe’s side, dressed in his second best robes, all seven layers, and a smug grin that he couldn’t control even if it cost him his life, and watched the awe and hunger on Mobei-Jun’s expression. He’d known that even if he never explained why Sha Hualing getting a good salt harvest a month ago meant Junshang was ordering their marriage today, the ban on papapa was at a glorious end.
He’d gotten the pleasure of being entirely correct, and had learned that the real point of xianxia robes, historical accuracy be damned, was the prospect of a hot demon husband slowly peeling him out of them, and then utterly ruining them by not tossing them far enough to the side before making a ruinous mess of him.
He wasn't too worried about it. As soon as the edict reached Cang Qiong, which it would in the morning, he was getting bumped to the head of the line for new robes. Qi Qingqi would wait on an order that included wedding robes.
And for now, he was limp in the afterglow, boneless and unmoving, in his warm room full of soft things, utterly safe and content, with melon seeds in one hand and smut in the other, lazily leering at his king, who had managed to expend even his demonic stamina.
It should have been a perfect happy ending, but he and his king shared similar petty souls, and a couple cups of coffee and a few chocolates was not going to cut the indignity of nearly getting hot desk sex and then being left high and dry for a month. Did his king think the wedding edict was his final blow in this war? Hah! It was a reward, and his king didn’t deserve to have it so easily.
“Qinghua will have to work hard to arrange a suitable wedding.” Mobei-Jun mused. “This king will ensure he has more helpers.”
“No need for that, my king.” he purred. “I already have made the arrangements.”
“What arrangements? There’s no date, yet. Qinghua has spent all of his time playing at gardening.” Mobei-Jun huffed.
Shang Qinghua hummed. Mobei had far fewer complaints about his gardening project now that he’d learned that ‘chocolate’ could be spread onto human and demon skin quite readily. On his icy king, it had been firm candy to bite at, and on him, it had warmed into something quite good to lick. Between that and the beetles sweet flavored lube, Shang Qinghua was lounging now because there was no way he could possibly walk. “My king is right, of course, I have been very busy, but an old friend has agreed to oversee the wedding, since it is an imperial mandate. I told him to spare no expense. Treasury entirely at his disposal.”
Mobei-Jun snorted. “Who? Immortal Master Shen?”
“What? No! No way am I letting Cucumber-bro plan my wedding, he eloped with a half-assed bottle of wine and didn’t tell anyone for months.” he yelped. Besides, Cucumber was going to be his best man, he’d be too busy to do all the running around.
Mobei-Jun frowned. “Then who?”
Shang Qinghua smiled. “Tianlang-Jun.”
Mobei-Jun roared, and he found that, hahaha, yep, look at that, he actually could run away just fine! His insides were a little wrecked and full to bursting, but he’d managed to move with broken limbs before, and it was time to flee!
...He wasn’t going to flee too far, though.
Maybe just to the hotsprings. Or to his desk. Or any of the very convenient shadowy alcoves that were tantalizingly out of casual sight but risked a discovery if things weren’t done discreetly. Or towards the beetle tank – no, Cucumber was using that right now.
Maybe just to their soon to be shared bed. That was nice and close.