Thread by @bingjiuwus

#shenjiu, all x Jiu dynamics (or gen, if you prefer) hahaha...

*

Qi Qinggi seldom went down the mountain on her own.

Firstly, because Xian Shu had everything a cultivator could need, and secondly, when a cultivator was from Xian Shu _everyone_ paid attention, for good or bad.

https://twitter.com/V6Hiroshi4ever/status/1571750246115581952

Mostly for bad. Cultivators from other sects couldn't help but ask inappropriate questions about what life in Xian Shu was Really Like, and while most mortals had the sense to leave her be, aware she was far more than they could handle, sometimes a callous young lord would

challenge her, unable to believe a woman of her stature really existed, but more importantly, _dared_ to exist in a world full of wives and concubines who spent their entire lives buried in the boudoir and the inner courtyard...

And speaking of one such callous lord...

Her lip crooked as she spotted Shen Qingqiu - in disguise, but who could forget _those_ green eyes and that slim figure - walk into the Red Warm Pavilion in clear daylight. After Liu Qingge had told him off months ago she'd thought he would be sensible enough to avoid visiting

the brothel, especially if he still wanted to make Peak Lord. But even LQG and Yue-shixiong's disapproval clearly hadn't worked.

QQQ didn't care if SJ was her shixiong, and by right she ought to defer to him. That way lie only peril and danger, especially from a whoremonger.

And if worst came to worst, she was physically stronger than him, she knew _that_. She and LQG had wrestled each other plenty of times before and she occasionally come out on top, and SJ had _never_ beaten LQG in a fight before...

She turned heel and marched right into the brothel, ignoring the shock and protests of the perfumed women around her as she followed SJ's trail throughout the dizzying array of hallways and rooms upon rooms.

At last he stopped his relentless pace, taking something out from his

sleeve before heading into one last room. QQQ picked up her pace, determined to catch him before he could disgrace himself and the sect any further, slamming the room's doors open -

- only to hear a child squealing, "Jiujiu!" and a tiny lump barrelling itself into SJ's stomach.

He took the pummelling without missing a beat, bending down to pick up the child by the arms. "Xiaoyu," he said. "That's not how you greet someone."

The little girl he was holding up burst out laughing. "But jiujiu," she said, "I missed you!"

"I missed you too," SJ said,

faint smile on his face. He then carefully turned to QQQ with Xiaoyu clinging to him and said, "And what do we have here?"

What.

QQQ didn't know how to respond. SJ had a niece? Who called him jiujiu? A niece he just happened to meet in a fucking brothel of all places?

She didn't believe it. She opened her mouth -

"A fairy!" Xiaoyu shouted. "Jiujiu, a fairy's here!"

SJ snorted into the girl's hair, bouncing her on his hip. "That's right," he drawled. "A fairy came down from Xian Shu Mountain just for Xiaoyu's big birthday. Rumours have it,

too, that if you ask very nicely, the fairy will do a ribbon dance for you. What do you say?"

"What," said QQQ. "No, I won't."

But the little girl turned huge black eyes on her with a gasp, and said, "Please, miss fairy? Please, please? Xiaoyu is turning three today!"

"That's right," SJ said, daring QQQ to duck out of the situation and embarrass herself. "Xiaoyu _is_ turning three."

Fuck. Fuck. Motherfucker -

*

So as it turned out, the little girl Xiaoyu _was_ indeed turning three, and she was holding her birthday here

in one of the brothel's backrooms because she was the daughter of a former prostitute, a woman who had retired and now lived nearly. All the "pretty jiejies", as Xiaoyu called them, dropped in on them and cooed over her and brought gifts - they couldn't stay long, still having

clients to attend to. But Xiaoyu revelled in the attention nonetheless, and meanwhile SJ and QQQ kept her company the whole time, with tea and snacks and her newfound gifts.

For _hours_.

QQQ never interacted much with children; even the youngest girls in Xian Shu spent years

in their own secluded cluster before joining the greater peak when they were old enough. She was exhausted after half a shichen of demonstrating her ribbon dance over and over and OVER again, all while patiently answering the girl's many questions.

Eventually SJ said, "Xiaoyu, the fairy jiejie's worked very hard today. Maybe you should say thank you?"

"Oh!" The girl scrambled out of his lap, where he had been weaving her hair into tiny braids for the past quarter-shichen. "Thank you, jiejie," she said solemnly, before

taking a bow. "I've never met a fairy before. My a'niang will be so excited!!"

"I - it's no problem," QQQ said awkwardly. "I'm glad I could make your birthday a little more interesting."

"It was the best," Xiaoyu told her with shining eyes.

*

Long after the girl had fallen asleep and her mother, a middle-aged woman, returned to collect her - looking at QQQ with surprise - before thanking SJ in a hushed voice before they embraced and the woman left with her daughter in tow, SJ cleared his throat.

"Did shimei get what she wanted today?"

QQQ had forgotten her original purpose after a mere minor ke in Xiaoyu's presence, too frazzled by the need to entertain the girl over everything else. She rubbed her temples, tempted to flop onto the cushions and sleep already.

"Is she actually your niece?" she asked finally.

SJ gave her a cool look. "Her mother _is_ my jiejie, if that's what you're asking."

QQQ said nothing. The last thing she expected her haughty, arrogant but secretly perverse shixiong to be was a bonafide sweet talker;

Xiaoyu clearly adored him, as did all the women who visited them throughout the day, including Xiaoyu's mother. Only, it was far less the manner of a client with his favourite girls, and more, well, a young man with his older aunts and sisters...

There really wasn't a point to asking further. QQQ hadn't been made Head Disciple of Xian Shu by strangling the competition. It was obvious SJ and the women were attached to each other by means beyond patronage. But then -

"If shimei would keep what she saw today to herself," SJ said carefully. "I would be grateful."

QQQ stared, disbelieving. "You'd rather everyone believe you were a whoremonger?"

"People can believe what they like, based on what they see and nothing else," SJ said.

"It's far better for people to think the only connection I have to the women here are because I pay to lie with them, and nothing else."

"And do you?" QQQ asked. "Lie with them?"

SJ tapped his finger on a table, taking a while before he answered. "Because I respect shimei,"

he said, "and I understand her concern, I will be truthful. I have only ever come here for talk and affection. That's all."

"Oh." She thought about when LQG and YQY had dragged him out of the brothel, how her shidi had gone on and on about how SJ had been half-naked in bed...

"But then, why wouldn't you..."

SJ's mouth twitched. "Is there ever a good reason to go to a brothel?" he asked dryly. "Ever a reason you'd feel comfortable sharing?"

"I - I would never." To both versions of that question.

"Exactly." SJ looked away. "We should both head back."

QQQ said nothing on the way back to CQ, save giving SJ an awkward wave when they split directions, him to Qing Jing, her to Xian Shu. He gave her a nod back before leaving.

And really, that was where sleeping dogs should lie. And she _was_ going to keep his secret.

But she wouldn't feel good if she allowed the rumours about SJ being a whoremonger continue, even if she couldn't reveal the truth to anyone herself.

Something would have to change...

*

To be a cultivator was to be righteous. Liu Qingge knew those words intimately; he had been bathed in them since infancy. Slay demons, save people, cultivate oneself to immortality - or perish.

Some cultivators, he thought sorely, would be better off perishing than ever coming

close to immortality, to godhood. But that thought in and of itself was a heart demon he would have to wrestle with - beat down, until it could bother him no more.

Or he could stalk Shen Qingqiu on his day off, that too.

For some reason, QQQ had started treating him

differently. Before, they used to commiserate about him together, but now she would just cross her arms and sigh when LQG went off about his disrespectful behaviour. "Maybe he's _not_ being disrespectful," she would say. "Maybe we're just reading too much into it?"

Right. Because LQG had definitely made up the last time he had just glanced in SJ's direction and the man rolled his eyes exaggeratedly before walking off the opposite way. _That_ he was definitely reading too much into...!

Nope. SJ had hoodwinked their shimei somehow, and LQG was going to figure it _how_.

Now, if only the man would do something devious already...!

He had just spent the whole morning. Shopping! Browsing this-and-that stall for books or jewellery or more fans (as if he NEEDED any)

and meandering throughout the market without end as if he'd never seen one before?! LQG was dying of boredom.

(Could he just head straight back to Bai Zhan and beat up on his shidis for a change? Yes. Would that be half a challenge as it was tracking SJ throughout the city? Not even close.)

LQG almost gave up on trying to find dirt on SJ - he bought no suspicious powders or potions,

unfortunately, when there was a scream and a ripple in the crowded market.

"Thief!" a well-dressed woman cried out. "A thief just stole all my money!"

And already a dozen paces in front of her, a skinny little brat darting through the crowd before he disappeared in between

the stalls and alleyways - and both SJ and LQG on his heel.

Truth be told, LQG could have flash-stepped in a heartbeat and grabbed the runt, but he wanted to see what SJ would do first when confronted with a petty criminal. It was clear as day his shixiong was from a wealthy

family, the kind where the servants never dared look their masters in the eye. LQG had seen the way he spoke and held himself manifest in a thousand rotten young masters before, each more crooked than the last.

Stealing was stealing; LQG wouldn't shed tears if a grown thief was beaten for the trouble. But there was a reason cultivators seldom interfered with mortals, and the thief was clearly a starved brat; with SJ's temper, who knew if the kid would make it out alive...

Shit.

SJ had already tried to kill LQG before and failed by the skin of his teeth, there was no way the kid would survive. LQG would just have to stop him immediately and -

"Hey, idiot," SJ was saying to the little thief, having backed the boy into a corner, "who told you to steal

from a rich woman like her? Wasn't it obvious she would freak out - and the guards _notice_ - or are you just so empty-headed you don't know how to pick your targets?"

"What?" the little thief gaped. "You're not mad?"

_What_, LQG thought blankly as he melted into the shadows

to observe. SJ wasn't... mad the kid was stealing? But more about how poor of a job he'd done?

"Mad?" SJ crossed his arms, tapping a finger against one forearm. "I'm furious. You're all skin and bones, so you can't have just gotten on the streets recently. And yet you know

nothing about how to survive - "

"Of course I don't!" the little thief burst out suddenly. "I'm fucking starving, and my gege just left me suddenly... he always did the dirty work, and I just waited for him in the corners..." His lip trembled. "I'm so hungry all the time, gege.

You have no idea. And now I'm gonna die cuz I got caught..."

"You're not going to die," SJ said. "Stop that. I'll give you money."

"Wha - "

"But first, give back the woman's pouch."

The thief hesitated. SJ glared at him, holding one hand out, before the kid handed over

an embroidered money pouch. In turn, SJ tossed him a string of copper coins.

"What," the kid protested. "I bet the pouch is full of silver."

"And no one in this town will believe a dirty rat like you just so happens to carry unbroken silver around all the time," SJ sneered.

"A few wen or more? Far more likely. Take your lumps and be grateful I don't report you to the magistrate. That woman is probably important, too..."

The kid tucked the coins into his lapel before looking up at SJ curiously. "Why _don't_ you turn me in, gege?"

LQG wanted to know that too.

"Because depending on who that woman is, you might be flogged," SJ said. "Or have your hand cut off, or anything else the magistrate can think of to make you go away. It's not like you matter to them."

"Hey!" the thief protested.

"Well?" said SJ. "Do you? The way you act makes me believe you don't believe it either. You'll be dead in a month if you keep acting so reckless."

"But," the boy clutched at his own robes, lost for words. "My gege's gone. I lost my usual spot without him and now I don't have

anywhere to go. None of the other kids like me, they won't help me. And I can't live off this money forever..."

"Mm."

LQG wondered how SJ could remain so detached in front of the kid's clear anguish. He would - he'd find a place for him, he decided.

SJ might think his string of coins (not even a hundred wen) and tough love might be all the remedy the thief needed, but it was clear he'd soon be in the same spot as before.

He stepped forward to make an offer -

"If I help you," SJ said. "Will you promise not to steal again?"

"Huh?" the kid said.

(Huh, LQG thought.)

"I know a place that might need a courier for small things," SJ said. "Someone quick and light like you. But if you keep up your bad habits a broken back is the last thing you'll have to worry about. Understand?"

"Yes," the kid squeaked

though it was clear he didn't understand at all.

SJ rubbed at his eyes. "Room and board," he said. "A clean set of clothes, and food every day, even if it's plain. No stipend at first, not until they can trust you, but you can keep tips if you earn them. It's better than

anything you'll find on the street. But you have to work hard and stay sharp, understood?"

"Yes!" the kid squeaked. "Yes, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll be great. Just - where is it?"

And SJ told him.

The Red Warm Pavilion. The fucking brothel LQG kept seeing him at, despite

his best efforts. And now this kid's future employer. Honestly, how the hell...

... could he even say anything against it? The boy was just going to run petty errands the way SJ said it. And LQG would have offered him work on the Liu estate, with much of the same stipulations.

Indeed, a noble estate would be far more scrupulous and cold of eye towards a thief, even a child, than a brothel might, and far less forgiving.

So LQG said nothing, just watched as SJ returned the money to the rich woman from before and feigned that he'd punished the brat

thoroughly, implying he'd used a secret cultivator's technique that made her blanch and look suitably impressed at the same time...

... and then he watched him take the kid through the narrow back streets of the city to the Pavilion, where they both disappeared inside for some

time before SJ exited alone, and it was already late evening.

SJ didn't head back to CQ though, instead just leaning against the back door of the Pavilion before cracking his knuckles.

"Had enough, Liu-shidi?" he drawled. "Seeing as you've been stalking me all day."

LQG flash-stepped into his presence, unsurprised he'd been caught - but still unable to put together the canny yet generous person he'd seen the whole day with the cold, murderous bastard he knew to be his shixiong.

"Shen Qingqiu," he said, "I..."

"I don't care," SJ said. "You leave that kid alone and neither of us ever bring this up again. That's final."

"You sounded like you knew what you were doing back there," LQG blurted out.

SJ smiled rigidly. "Obviously. Since I don't spend all my time with my head in the clouds

like some people - "

"Not like that," LQG said, frustrated he couldn't get it across. "I mean, helping the kid. That was good of you."

"Good of me..." SJ echoed, before turning away to snort. "How generous of you."

"I thought you were going to hurt him," LQG said. "That's why I stayed so long. To watch." He felt embarrassed admitting this somehow. As if it had been just that...

SJ studied him. "And you don't care that he was stealing? Really?"

"Obviously he shouldn't steal," LQG said. "But he said it himself; he's a poor brat on the streets with no one to take care of him. I would have helped him, if you hadn't."

"Oh," said SJ dully. "So it's just a matter of me having gotten there first?"

LQG shook his head. "Wouldn't have gotten through to him like you did. You got the woman's money back too, and made sure she wouldn't go after the kid again. Smart."

"Smart." SJ scoffed. "Who am I even talking to right now... whatever. I'm leaving."

"Shixiong," LQG called out.

SJ almost stumbled forward before hurrying his pace. "Not listening to this!" he yelled as he practically ran out of the alley and back to CQ.

And if LQG took the long way around so he could mull over the day's events, then... well, he had a lot to think about.

*

Yue Qingyuan carried two secrets he would never share with anyone for the rest of his life.

The first being his connection with Xuan Su, his time in the Lingxi Caves, and everything associated with that - including his alienation from SJ and his inability to tell him the truth.

Secondly, that since he had been able to go down the mountain as a disciple he would disguise himself and look after the local street children however he could, even if only to pass onto them a few coins or precious bites of food or medicine.

It was a bit like when he was Yue Qi again, young and overwhelmed with the responsibility of looking after the others while being a slave himself. Only, YQ had often spent months scraping together a few wen together that didn't end up going to the traffickers

as their daily "tribute", wen that went into buying Xiao Jiu a stick of candy or a hot meat bun to fill his tummy - YQY, now that he had survived every gauntlet his Shizun had thrown at him and would one day become Sect Leader, had access to the Sect's treasury for whatever whim

or indulgence he wanted, whether that be fine robes, brushes or inkstones, books or paintings, or so on. Mostly YQY lived a minimalist lifestyle; he didn't need much, and really, the only person he would partake indulgences in for turned the other way and stalked off as soon

as they always saw each other. So YQY saved his allowance most of the time, and when he finally had a spare bit of time he would dress down and exchange his silver for copper, and see what the kids needed, just like before.

He didn't have to pick and choose who got fed this time because he had enough money for everyone, but unfortunately YQY had to keep his presence a secret lest he attract attention. And that had been a bitter pill to swallow, that despite Cang Qiong's wealth and splendour,

there were still starving kids on the streets below its pristine mountains, for whom a cultivator was as lofty a figure of imagination was it was going to bed in a warm place for the night.

He would be Sect Leader one day, and things would change. One day...

Only, he hadn't seen little Hu'er lately. YQY had heard his gege had disappeared one day - sometimes street kids just _did_ that, and you prayed it was because they'd found a better place than because they were stolen, or worse - and no one had seen him around recently either.

Hu'er was only ten, too, and small - he had always clung to his gege's side, and waited for him patiently in a hidey-hole otherwise - patient in a way Xiao Jiu never was, always clinging to Qi-ge's ratty sleeve and begging to be taken along for a street patrol when YQY wanted

nothing more than to hide him away and never have him come to terms with the fact YQ was doing the traffickers' dirty work for them by keeping an eye on all the kids to make sure they never ran off. XJ had always been innocent, in a way SJ wasn't now - always convinced his Qi-ge

was just a naive dummy who needed to be looked after, like YQ had truly forgotten his own portion when divvying up food and that as why XJ had to demand an extra-large portion so they could share, and he feed Qi-ge personally so no one could steal a bite.

Truly, his little nine was the best in the world.

Forget it. XJ was dead now. And so YQY just focused on watching the kids eat the fresh meat buns and youtiao he'd bought and tried to listen in for any gossip about where Hu'er might have gone when there was a ruckus in the back.

"Hu'er's here!" a little girl cried out, dropping her half-eaten bun before she picked it back up and wiped the dirt off in a hurry. "Where have you been, you prick! You scared us!"

She punched the boy on the arm, who yelped, before he accepted the half-eaten bun she gave him.

YQY watched them, pleased to see the boy clean and dressed in a pair of neat brown robes; his face looked a little fuller, too. "Hu'er," he said quietly, stepping over to hand the kids more food on the way, "are you working for someone now? We've all missed you."

"Oh!" Hu'er looked up at him. "It's you, da-ge. Yeah, I work for a place now. They feed me and I have a bunk to sleep in. It's nice..."

"Where!" the girl said. "Take us with you!"

"I can't!" Hu'er yelped. "A gege gave me the job, just for me! If you idiots just barge over

you'll ruin everything for me! It's my secret job, none of you can have it!"

The kids started haranguing Hu'er about his mysterious job that would would let some random brat off the street work errands for food and shelter and even clothing - how suspicious, wasn't he sure he wasn't gonna get kidnapped so they could eat him!! - but he insisted it was

like, a real place too.

"Fine!" Hu'er turned red when he'd had enough. 'It's at the - um, the Red Warm Pavilion! I work there, okay!!"

YQY's smile dimmed. There was only one person he knew who went there, and well... he knew street kids couldn't be picky, but if Hu'er ever ran

into _him_ there, would he just brush him off...

"Eeew!" some of the kids said. "You work fore a whorehouse!"

"Shut up! The jiejies are really nice and they like me!" Hu'er balled his hands up into fists, embarrassed. "It's far better than just begging for money on the street

like you do!"

"Hey now," YQY said, before tempers could flare any further. "Hu'er, your job sounds really wonderful. I'm sure the jiejies like you a lot. Everyone here works hard too, we don't have to fight about it..."

"But it's not fair," the little girl said. "I want food

and a bunk and jiejies to call me pretty every day. Why do you get that job and we don't..."

"Because gege likes me, and he doesn't like you," Hu'er stuck his tongue out. "Also I'm quick and I can listen to instructions, and I'll never have to steal again just to survive - "

"Your gege sounds wonderful," YQY assured him. "Is he around? Can we see him?"

The boy hesitated. "Why? Do you want to take my job from me?"

YQY almost burst out laughing. "No, no. I just want to make sure Hu'er's being taken care of. That's all."

"Uhmm..." The boy scuffed his shoe on the ground. "You can come, da-ge. No one else."

"Not fair!"

"I want to meet gege too!"

"Yeah, I bet he'll like me way more!"

"Shut up!" Hu'er yelled. "It's me and da-ge or it's nobody!!"

"We'll see you all later," YQY said, and

hurried along before the kids could bombard them further. It took a while before they were left on their own, Hu'er marching to the Red Warm Pavilion('s backstreet) as if he owned the place.

"Gege really is nice," he said to YQY. "He acts mean, but I can tell he's good inside.

You have to believe me, da-ge..."

"Of course I do," YQY said. "He helped you, how could he not be nice?"

"Thanks," Hu'er said, grinning at last. "I bet you two would really get along!"

And then he opened up the Pavilion's back door, taking YQY inside. "Gege, I brought a friend

who wants to see you!"

- only for YQY to stare into the dumbfounded gaze of SJ as he was halfway through sipping a cup of tea.

"Gege, meet Qi da-ge!" Hu'er said excitedly. "He visits us and gives us food when he can. And da-ge, gege's the one who gave me the job here!"

"Qi da-ge," SJ echoed, lowering his cup of tea. "Is that so?"

"Mm," said YQY. Because finding out Hu'er's gege was SJ of all people, who had vouched for the boy to get a job at the same brothel he spent half his nights at - what else could he say?

"Da-ge's been helping us for _years_," Hu'er said.

"Isn't that sweet." SJ gave him a tight smile. "Hu'er, I think some of the jiejies want you to take their orders for the perfume shop for them. Can you do that now?"

"Of course, gege!" Hu'er saluted them both before bouncing off to somewhere else.

And before YQY could do anything else -

"Qi da-ge," SJ murmured. "Sit down."

YQY sat down.
*

"So," SJ said, rubbing the inside lip of his tea cup. "I didn't know the future Sect Leader liked

playing tourist among the bottom feeders. You give the kids food, hm? They must really be grateful for that."

"Shidi," YQY said. "I didn't come here to fight."

"And here I thought you'd forgotten all about the gutter rat you used to be."

SJ stared at him with large unblinking eyes, pale as jade and just as unfeeling. "It must be strange, going back to your old roots. Only, it must feel like wearing a costume to you nowadays, no?"

YQY stared back. He was flawed in a thousand ways, he knew that perfectly well,

but that didn't mean he had to take _everything_ lying down.

"Yes, it does," he said bitterly. "So what? Are you proud of what you've become as well?"

"I," said SJ, "live a perfectly wholesome, unobjectionable existence on my lonesome. I have no complaints.

"Well."

His lip curled. "Save where you're concerned. But go on, Qi da-ge. You give these kids a hot meal once every three months, and then you go back to Qiong Diong to do... what, exactly. Feel good about yourself? Like you've made a difference in the world?"

As if it hadn't meant the world to YQ to see XJ fed and full, if only for a whole afternoon.

"Yes," said YQY. "I do what I can."

"You're the future Sect Leader," SJ snarled. "I don't believe you _can't do more._"

"You think I don't want to?" YQY snapped back. "Everyone else

on Cang Qiong still thinks I'm the Seventh Prince under a false name; only Shizun knows the truth of my past. And you'd be a fool to think he wouldn't use it against me if he knew I was doing this when I can. He's _always_ wanted me to climb out of the gutter and forget

where I came from, forget _you_ - " he broke off.

SJ's mouth parted in silence.

"I do what I can, yes," YQY said. "Even if it's not enough, because I'm not strong enough yet to defy my elders. I'm sorry it's not enough for you, shidi, but it'll have to be, until I can change

the rules myself and do it openly. That's how it is."

"... that's how it is," SJ echoed. "Look at you talk. You almost..." He turned his face away, blinking furiously.

YQY sighed. "I'm glad," he said finally, "Hu'er found a friend in you. He's never gotten along with the other

kids. But he has a good heart nonetheless, and he seems to like it here. Thank you."

"It's nothing." SJ wet his lips. "He was going to get himself killed, the way he was acting. I just..."

"It was kind of you," YQY said.

"Yes. Because I was so focused on earning merits that day - " SJ cleared his throat. "I - "

"I'll go." YQY got up. "It's clear I'm upsetting you. And I should get back to the kids. Do what I can, while I still can."

And still pray it was enough, even while knowing it would never be.

"Wait," SJ said. "Yue-shixiong - "

*

YQY was conscious of SJ following him the way back to the kids' corner, though he kept his eyes firmly forward, even when SJ stepped out of the shadows and dared to be

acknowledged.

YQY greeted the kids again, and passed out some copper for food for them to buy the evening, when he'd have to head back. Some of the kids ran off to buy food immediately, but others yet dawdled, clinging to his arms and asking for stories, for attention and a

pat on the head. It was hard to ignore SJ watching him just a dozen paces away, but YQY didn't want to argue with him any longer.

So he didn't, and stayed there until the sun was about to go down and the kids all ran off to their respective hidey-holes for the night.

And still...

"Qi da-ge," SJ said.

YQY had been about to make his way back. He stiffened. "Yes?"

"I..." His shidi crossed his arms self-protectively, looking everywhere but at him. "I thought you didn't care anymore."

YQY wanted to cry. "I don't know what you mean by that."

"About the people we used to be." SJ looked uncertain, in the sunset haze casting his cold features in a gentle light. "About everyone left behind."

YQY shook his head. "Never."

"But - "

"Yue. Qing. Yuan," he said. "Do you know what that name means?"

"Clear origin," SJ said.

YQY grinned crookedly. "Shizun gave me that name, the day I cleared my heart demons and he could call me his head disciple at last. He was so proud of me that day, you see, proud that I'd put my past behind, put _you_ behind..."

SJ took a step forward. "You didn't forget about me."

"Never," YQY said. "Never, ever, not in a thousand years. How could I? How could I have survived in that hellhole if I wasn't thinking about you, every moment of every day? I thought about you, I thought about you so much

I didn't know if anything else existed. It was you or Xuan Su, and I made sure it was you. I promise, I really tried..."

"Qi-ge." Sj's voice began to waver. "What are you talking about, what about Xuan Su... where _were_ you - "

"I'm not enough," YQY said. "You're right; I never have been. But Xiao Jiu, what the fuck else am I supposed to do?" SJ had come close enough to touch now, and YQY grabbed for him, held onto his slender shoulders and felt the fine bones of his body for the first time in years.

"I couldn't just roll over and die," he whispered into SJ's neck. "Not while you were with the Qius. I made a promise, I promised I would come back for you, and I tried - I tried so much..."

"I - I know you did," SJ said, blinking upward into the sky with glossy eyes. "I just wanted you to tell me. To let me know you hadn't forgotten me. So everything I suffered there wasn't for nothing - I didn't wait three years for Qi-ge in that hellhole for nothing."

"Never," said YQY, clutching him so tight he could feel SJ's heart in his own. "Xiao Jiu is my whole reason for being; I have nothing else, want no one else..."

SJ made a wretched sound in his throat and flung his arms around him. "You fucking idiot," he gasped with tears in his eyes. "You monster, you broke my heart and made me think you didn't love me anymore..."

YQY smothered wet, hideous kisses into his hair, his brow and tear-stricken cheeks. "I love you," he whispered. "I've always loved you."

"Well, I hate your fucking guts," SJ said, but he couldn't stop crying for all the gold in the world.

And now that YQY knew what such words meant, such tears meant - he didn't mind the sharpness, the sting.

After so many years, it felt like coming home.

*

Shen Jiu was a firm believer in helping yourself above all else.

It was how he had survived three years in the Qiu Manor, one with Wu Yanzi, and the rest on Cang Qiong by himself. No one had ever helped him, and he would repay them the same favour when it was time. Do unto others as they would do unto you...

It was how he survived.

So watching a rabbit pathetically snuffle its life away in a hunter's trap should have left him unmoved. The animal wasn't even trying to live, just panting and scuffing its paws against the dirt ineffectively. SJ had been watching for more than a quarter-shichen to see if it

would get itself out of its jam, only to be more disgusted with each minute the rabbit just whined for someone else, anyone else, to come save it.

Such a useless animal was good only for its pelt; after the torment it had worked itself into, its meat would probably taste like misery and poison.

_So you're determined to be as useless to others as you are to yourself_, SJ thought grimly as he stalked over.

It would be all too easy to kill it, crush its small skull and leave its corpse for the crows. Instead he pressed the rabbit's body down flat with one hand and gingerly dismantled the hunter's trap with the other and some judicious use of qi.

"There," he said, when the rabbit

was freed but continued just laying on the ground and panting weakly. "Go off and die now."

Of course the useless creature kept giving him sad mopey eyes, until SJ had to cough up his personal stash of medicine and rub ointment into its fur after he'd cleaned the blood away.

"Look at you," he glowered. "I wouldn't sell this medicine to an emperor, and you're getting it for free. And for what? You'll be killed by a hawk tomorrow, three days from now if you're lucky."

He shook his head and went back to setting up camp, returning every so often to see

if the rabbit had died of a heart attack in the meantime. Somehow it stayed the course, and even accepted the handful of berries he fed it throughout the evening and night.

"You better be gone when I wake up," said SJ, settling into his bedroll for the night.

He fell asleep not long after, and the rabbit slowly shuffled over, licking his face on the cheek and rubbing its face against his. It stared at him with gentle black eyes once, twice - and then it gave a small chuff of acknowledgement in his direction.

And then it jumped back, good as new again - and then it jumped into the air into the trees, from branch to branch, higher and higher - and then it kicked its hind legs out one last time - and sailed, high as can be, for its home on the moon.

And Shen Jiu slept on, exhausted and unaware the moon rabbit had noticed a strange texture on the young man's soul, one that threatened and twisted everything that came into conflict with it in the worst way possible. As he grew older the greater that texture would spike

and twist until it surrounded his soul entirely and let not a single prism of light outward. Indeed, the texture was quietly suffocating him...

Well, no more. As thanks for saving it, the moon rabbit tore the texture off SJ's soul and let it breathe properly.

Now it would be able to see, and be seen in turn...

It was a small act of kindness, to repay another. That was all as far as the moon rabbit was concerned.

And for SJ, well, he didn't know anything at all. Only that since that day he'd met QQQ at the Red Warm Pavilion,

things just seemed... calmer at CQ when he was around. One day he was invited to a tea and poetry session at Xian Shu Peak. The next, LQG actually told off his shidis in front of SJ and vowed never to make trouble for him again.

And now... well, he had Qi-ge.

Life nowadays felt like he was moving through a dream; it just all went so smoothly, so easily SJ was afraid he would wake up one day and be as miserable as he used to be. But no matter how much he tested himself for possession or his food for any hallucinations it might have

induced in him, the truth was... he was doing just fine now.

After a lifetime of treading mud, it felt like he could finally walk, and run, and fly.

So he did.

END

(I meant this to be a lot more light-hearted and goofy, but eh, things happen haha 😅 anyway, the moon rabbit SJ saved basically took off his "villain halo" from PIDW that makes people interpret his actions in the worst light possible; without it, people can actually interact

with him normally without hate goggles in the way!! He doesn't get so much a female protag halo as an acknowledgement that SJ's always been doing nice things in the background, but he would never ADMIT them so people have to find out the hard way, haha.

Thanks for reading!!)