Thread by @bingjiuwus

#tianjiu

Once, when Shen Jiu had been a boy, he'd fallen in love.

After Wu Yanzi had taken him away from the Qiu Manor in smoke and flames, all hope of a better life had been cruelly extinguished for SJ.

https://twitter.com/vikekeys/status/1630022278229512198

He wasn't being trained to be a cultivator strong enough to find and protect his Qi-ge again. No, he was being trained to be a butcher and a thief, a monster as bad as his beloved "shifu".

SJ had no choice but to follow WYZ's teachings unless he wanted to become one of the man's victims himself.

That didn't mean he enjoyed it. In a desperate bid to forget the atrocities he was committing for the bastard, SJ would smoke and gamble and drink. Anything to forget himself a little.

WYZ liked brothels, often spent his blood-stained coin there when he had some to spare.

SJ liked them too, though not for the same depraved reason. He was fifteen, and a bag of bones besides.

He'd never felt any inkling of physical desire towards anyone, much less the kind jiejies who took pity on him, and played dice and drinking games with him instead of the kind of stuff his shifu was getting up to.

Anything to pass the night and feel like a human being for once, instead of the murdering rat he was in reality.

And then one night, he met Lao Tian.

*

"I win again," SJ said flatly over his cards. "You said you'd improved since the last time but you've gotten even worse, you hack!"

"But A'Jiu," the idiot across the table said with guileless black eyes, "I _did_ get better. Then I, uh, forgot?"

"Useless!" SJ threw the cards at the fool. "And I bet you can't even pay up either!"

"Hey!" Lao Tian ducked his attempt at violence, only to knock himself headfirst into the table.

SJ burst out laughing. "Look at you," he wheezed. "Most people need to get drunk to act this stupid, but you do it sober, and free!"

Lao Tian didn't move.

SJ's laugh drifted off into silence. "Lao Tian?"

One of the jiejies nudged the man on the shoulder, only to turn pale and gasp. "A'Jiu, I think he's..."

SJ's heart thudded. "He - hey, that's not funny," he stammered as he made his way to the other side. "Lao Tian, don't do this to me..."

He grabbed the man by the shoulders and gently turned his face to him, fearing the worst -

Only to see the bastard grinning smugly at him, all while blood trickled down his face.

"A'Jiu!" Lao Tian cooed. "Who knew you were so soft at heart!"

SJ shoved him back down onto the table without hesitation, banging his head against it until this time, Lao Tian really _did_ pass out.

*

Lao Tian was... a vagrant. A drunkard, a fool. A patron of brothels who didn't sleep with the women but enjoyed their company much like SJ, in the form of telling stories and drinking games and playing cards.

Unlike SJ, however, he almost never had any money with him, and the first few times SJ ran into him in a brothel he had the pleasure of watching the man getting kicked out for lack of payment. Once, the madame had even chased him out with a broom!

Despite being short of money, however, the jiejies liked Lao Tian. SJ asked them why, only to get a bemusing answer: he was fun to be around.

The idea that Lao Tian was "fun" for anyone to be around sorely tested SJ's sense of disbelief. After one of his jiejies lamented the man getting kicked out of the brothel one more time, SJ felt curious enough to invite him up to his room to see what the fuss was about.

Unfortunately, all he'd done was unleash the floodgates and made Lao Tian think of him as an, ugh, benefactor whenever he came around to the brothel, for whenever SJ visited his jiejies for some stress relief the pest was sure to be around, and mooching off his bill.

The man had to be some wandering disinherited noble, SJ thought in despair. There was no way anyone could act so oblivious and shameless otherwise!

Lao Tian (and what kind of name was _that_ anyway) looked all of twenty and was impeccably handsome despite the threadbare clothes he wore.

He was comically bad at playing cards and treated every simple story the jiejies told him with baited breath as if he'd never heard it before.

Like SJ said, only someone so stupid could have grown up sheltered. Maybe Lao Tian's parents had finally gotten fed up of their brat and kicked him out. That'd serve him right, ha!

... but the jiejies were right in one thing: he _was_ fun to be around. Sorta, kinda, maybe.

SJ couldn't remember the last time he'd been so entertained, whether it was by slyly offering Lao Tian hair oil in a wine cup and seeing if he'd really drink it (he did! and in one shot too!),

or by making the man lose at cards and walk on his hands or do pushups with jiejies piled all over him as punishment.

He was so dumb, just like a baby lamb. Even Qi-ge had never been so gullible, and yet a grown man like Lao Tian willingly let himself get pushed around by a brat like SJ.

It _was_ fun being around him. And for a while, it helped SJ forget.

*

"You look miserable, A'Jiu."

SJ had been wiping the blood off his face in an alley when a familiar voice crept on him out of nowhere... and walking into dim light, was Lao Tian.

"Piss off," SJ grumbled. He'd never seen the man outside the brothel before, and he wasn't going to start now.

"Hey." The man tilted his face. "How'd you get that on your face? Someone after you?"

SJ sneered. "Wouldn't you like to know. Or do you think I can afford to spend all my nights at brothels because Daddy gave me an allowance? What the fuck do you think?"

"A'Jiu..." Lao Tian approached, and SJ tensed up to fight the man... but he just sighed and took the rag from SJ, and began to dab his face clean in silence.

For reasons he didn't understand himself, SJ let it happen, let the man clean him with the rag, then the edge of his own sleeve.

"Had enough?" SJ snapped, embarrassed, when the man was finally done and stepped back.

Lao Tian smiled, looking almost mature for once. "For now, yes. But A'Jiu - "

"Don't even start." SJ's eyes began to sting. As if he wanted pity from a vagrant! "I don't need it."

"No," Lao Tian agreed. "A'Jiu is strong and clever and brave. He doesn't need anything, much less from me.

"But," he added, "I want to be his friend anyway. Is that alright?"

SJ's throat was swollen up tight. "It's not," he sniffled. "Not right now."

"Okay then." Lao Tian looked wistful. "Then I'll be here when it is."

*

One night WYZ told SJ they'd be leaving town soon. They'd gotten too comfortable as it was, and it was time to move on.

SJ nodded and got ready to pack, trying to ignore the ache in his heart, the thought of leaving behind the few friends he'd made int his town. His jiejies, the dumpling stall vendor, and...

And...

"Going to leave without saying goodbye?"

SJ had walked out of the brothel's back door when he heard Lao Tian and almost jumped out of his skin.

"Fuck off," he snapped. "As if I have time to deal with you right now."

"A'Jiu." Lao Tian hesitated. "Be honest. Do you really want to go with that master of yours?"

"No, of course not." SJ shuddered. "But I have to." Cursed as WYZ's techniques were, as cruel as his teachings were, he was still SJ's only hope of being able to get anywhere in this world and find Qi-ge's body one day.

For better or for worse, he'd still be rotting in the Qiu Manor if WYZ had never given him hope for a better life to begin with, even if he'd crushed it under his own heel after.

"You don't have." Lao Tian stepped up to SJ, took his small hand in his own. "Come with me instead."

"And starve?" SJ said incredulously. "What can you even do except lose at cards?"

"I don't know." The man smiled wryly. "But A'Jiu, it's got to be better than this. You're not happy."

"And you think you can make me happy?" SJ snapped back.

"Yes," Lao Tian said. "Or at least, let me try."

What nonsense. SJ knocked his hands away, shaking his head. "Just forget it," he muttered. "I wasn't made to be happy anyway. I just need to do what I need to do."

"A'Jiu," Lao Tian called out as SJ walked away. "Wait. Wait! Let's see each other again later, alright! Don't let this be the last time we see each other - "

SJ just ran away faster, tears stinging his eyes as he fled the scene. What good had promises about reuniting done him before? If Lao Tian had any sense left he'd go back to his rich family and be a sheltered noble prick all over again.

If SJ had his way, he'd never run into the fool again.

Maybe that way then, the idiot might actually stay safe.

*

SJ couldn't remember the last time someone had entered the Water Prison to see him.

Maybe the beast had finally gotten bored, or forgotten him altogether.

That would indeed be something, after all his years of whinging and whining over things that didn't matter. As if he'd been the only one to suffer, the only one to hurt.

As if he'd been the only one to survive, and be less as a result.

After so much time in the darkness, SJ wondered if he'd gone blind. He could barely feel his own body anymore, not after the beast had repeatedly torn and put him back together anymore.

He could only hear out of one ear now, and his tongue, now that it had been re-fused to the inside of his mouth, felt permanently like mush. He probably couldn't even speak anymore.

This was how he would die, forgotten and alone in the dark. He hoped his corpse would be truly gruesome, to give the beast one last nasty surprise.

And then...

And then SJ would pass onto his next life, and he would...

He would...

He didn't know. He had driven away the only person who had ever loved him, and SJ would never again run into Yue Qingyuan again, he was certain.

Who else was left?

Oh, right. He laughed brokenly as he remembered. That idiot Lao Tian years and years ago, when SJ had still been a dirty rat who spent his share of WYZ's cursed lucre by spending his nights at a brothel with his jiejies and the idiot beggar.

Come with me instead, Lao Tian had said. I can try to make you happy, Lao Tian had said.

SJ should have tried. Even if they'd end up eating roots for food and freeze to death in the winter, he should have tried to be brave and listened to his heart for once.

Maybe then, he'd have been happy, even if only for a heartbeat.

Maybe then.

*

The metal door to his prison creaked open after months of silence.

SJ had no energy left to lift his head, but he fixed his good eye onto the boots of the person walking inside.

"Little beast," he rasped with his unused voice. "Remembered I exist, did you?"

The boots stopped in place.

"I don't care anymore. Just kill me." SJ closed his eyes. "You win, you wretched bastard, and I lost. I've always lost."

He'd lost his title, his position, his reputation and his ssect. He'd lost everyone he cared about and he had nothing left. Just death now, and -

"A'Jiu?"

Before SJ could even register the voice, a pair of hands grasped his gaunt jaw and lifted his face up to look at him.

"Oh," exhaled a voice he hadn't heard in over twenty years. "It can't be. It really is you..."

And gazing down at him, looking no older than the last time they'd seen each other but with grieving eyes as black as the little beast's, was Lao Tian.

"To think I finally found you again," the man whispered. "To think my own son reduced you to this. My poor A'Jiu..."

SJ didn't believe it either. He tipped his head back and laughed, and laughed until he could laugh no more.

Lao Tian had reunited with him. Lao Tian was Luo Binghe's father, and a demon besides.

Lao Tian must be the heavenly demon Tianlang-jun. To think SJ had walked away thinking he was protecting the man from his cursed fate, when for over two decades the demon had been imprisoned under a fucking mountain by Yue Qingyuan of all people!

... to think he was free now, and SJ still imprisoned here.

"Lao Tian," SJ wheezed with the little strength he had left. "If you care... if any part of you still cares about me, kill me now. Let me die tonight. Don't let the little beast have his way instead."

"No," Lao Tian said softly. "I won't, A'Jiu."

And he broke all and every chain binding SJ to his cell, and gathered him up in his arms, and took him away to happiness and freedom.

Just like he'd promised, over twenty years ago.

*

"Master Shen," Zhuzhi-lang pleaded. "Please drink your medicine. It'll heal your ailments, I promise..."

"As if there's any helping the cripple I am," SJ snapped as he tried to hobble away from the snake demon with his cane. "The last 'medicine' you tried to foist on me had a twitching eye in it! It was even looking at me!"

"But the eye is the best part?" ZZL said, confused. "Uncle even bargained with a Ghost King for it. Master Shen - "

Despite the fact that SJ moved at a snail's pace he somehow managed to escape the snake demon's oppressive mothering and hide in a corner in the garden.

Not that demonic gardens had anything in common with their counterparts in the Mortal Realm, but it was the closest thing to nature SJ had found so far in the palace, and he often took refuge in it, even if it meant keeping an eye on any bloodsucking vines in the vicinity.

"Nephew troubling you, my dear?"

SJ had just managed to lower himself to the ground behind a (non-carnivorous) bush to hide from ZZL when an amused voice twinkled over his head, and Lao Tian peered down at him.

SJ was tempted to jab at that smug face with his cane, but he was exhausted after all that effort, and just rolled his eyes. "All he does is nag."

"And for good reason too!" Lao Tian exclaimed as he plopped down on the ground besides SJ. "A'Jiu, you're still not in good health - "

"As if I'll ever be - "

"And if we both want to show my son up, then I want you to look your best, after all. Oh, how upset he was when I stole you away from him - "

SJ reached out to pinch the heavenly demon on the ear. "Forget him," he snapped. As if he even wanted to think about the little beast anymore, much less understand Lao Tian's ire against his own son. Who could even comprehend the minds of demons to begin with?

"Wish granted," Lao Tian said, batting his eyes at SJ, who gagged in disgust. "I'll never talk about him again. What about you, my love? How are you feeling?"

"Your kindhearted nephew's been trying to force-feed me his idea of medicine the whole morning and I haven't seen you in three days, what do you think," SJ snapped.

"Have you forgotten I'm a cripple and it takes me half a shichen just to go from my bedroom to the library? Would it kill you to actually stay in the palace once in a while and spend time with me?"

"Is that - is that what A'Jiu truly wants?" Lao Tian said, looking surprised for once.

"Yes." SJ rolled his eyes. "I know you have your master revenge plan to carry out or whatever, but I'm not going to live forever either. I missed out on two decades I could have spent with you. Don't waste my time while I'm still here to regret coming with you."

"Of course - of course, A'Jiu," Lao Tian said, mollified. "Anything for you. My naughty brat and that old bastard can wait a few more days, anyway."

"Good," SJ sniffed. "Now tell me what you've been up to lately."

"You want to know?" Lao Tian's gaze sparkled. "Where do I even begin - "

"From the beginning," SJ said. "And don't leave anything out. I'll kill you if you do."

"Yes, A'Jiu," Lao Tian said cheerfully, and began.

END

(This didn't have anything to do with the prompt in the end but tianjiu is nice regardless, eh 😆SJ is healing up with TLJ and ZZL's tender loving care, and will live much longer than expected if TLJ has his way.

As for TLJ's eventual revenge plans against Bingge and the OPM... watch out guys lmao. Neither of them are ready imo 💀)