Thread by @bingjiuwus

#shenjiu, mortal SJ Part III. Depressing thoughts ahead!

When he woke again, it was already night.

Shen Qingqiu stared into the darkness for a long while, his body too stiff and unyielding to want to stretch and unfold itself as it used to.

His body hurt. Everything hurt.

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Eventually he got up, though his vision swam as he stood up on unsteady two feet. His throat was parched, he was starving, and he had neither food nor clean water at hand.

You chose this, SJ told himself as he fumbled into the kitchen, praying - against all odds - that the previous inhabitant had somehow left some kindling and a flint.

(He no longer had the superior eyesight of a cultivator to rely on; he was as half-blind as any other idiot in the dark now, and worse off for it.

The kitchen was as empty as the main room, its only solace that there was still a crusty old wok in the mud stove, and there was a water vat with an intact wooden lid as well.

It had probably been years since they'd both been tended to in any real measure; he'd have to clean both before even trying to use them for their intended purpose.

A headache threatened to crack his skull in half from thirst, and SJ leaned against the wall with his eyes screwed shut before shuffling back into the main room, still aching and hungry and barely able to see in the dark.

What now?

Throughout his aimless wandering the past month, only trekking on foot as far as Cang Qiong as he could manage, he'd spent his last remaining pouch as if gold flowed in rivers and silver was plentiful as rain.

And why not? He'd been hoarding taels and gems and deeds to fertile farming estates from the moment he earned a stipend on Qing Jing Peak and knew he no longer had to depend on a sadistic young nobleman's temper nor the whims of his deranged shifu for his sustenance.

Qing Jing had fed him, clothed him, sheltered him and educated him - and did it all for free. SJ could afford to save up, then, and acquire all kinds of mortal lucre and treasures to ensure he would never starve again.

Well.

If the little beast had any sense in that cotton fluff head of his, he would have left Qing Jing the very night SJ forsake it and lay low until he was of age and able to take advantage of the vast riches SJ had unceremoniously thrown at him without getting scammed or swindled.

(That was what SJ would have done in his place.)

... more likely the idiot had already given all his money to Ning Yingying for safekeeping and she probably lost it while visiting a friend on another peak.

Or perhaps Ming Fan and his lackeys had taken the pouches from LBH and punished him for no doubt "stealing" from Shizun. They certainly did like to treat their youngest shidi's belongings as if they weren't really his.

... as if it was any fault but SJ's own that his Head Disciple had turned out like this. Why blame the student for the master's failing? Did the fish not rot from the head?

Why had he ever thought he could be a teacher at all?

He should have - his heart seized - he should never have gone to Cang Qiong with Yue Qingyuan.

He should have run away that night from the boy-man who wore his Qi-ge's face and become a mountain hermit, or better yet, killed himself to atone for all the people he'd robbed and murdered under Wu Yanzi's approving eye,

in the hope his soul would finally wash out clean after a dozen lifetimes as a worm.

Wasn't that what he deserved, in the end?

Well.

He'd gotten his just desserts one way or another. Liu Qingge lived and Shen Qingqiu would die. The man he'd hated most, the man the heavens doted upon, the man who had everything -

Now he even had what was left of SJ's cultivation, broken and tattered that it was.

And SJ had nothing.

Some people were destined to be phoenixes and dragons, to ascend in glory and drink tea with the Jade Emperor and the Mother of the West. YQY deserved that kind of glorious fate one day; so did LQG, and the rest of their brethren.

And some people, like SJ, were born to be rats, to scurry in the shadows and cracks and feed on the crumbs greater beings left behind.

He'd just... spent a few years under the sun, and become confused by how far his shadow had reached. All that sun, all that glory hadn't made SJ human in the end.

It had just briefly made him forget what he was.

And now he was a rat again, and would soon die as one.

And that was as it should be.

*

There was a basket on his doorstep.

Eventually SJ had opened the cottage door, unable to sleep and still sore and heady from thirst and hunger.

The moon was dim tonight, but even so he saw the basket clear as day, a plain handkerchief covering the contents from being preyed upon by wandering animals and the inevitable encroach of time upon material things.

It was obvious where it came from. Only one person - family - knew who now must live in this ramshackle cottage, who still felt a strange debt to its new owner.

For a moment he thought about kicking the basket away and wasting away of starvation and exposure until he died.

Then he sat down on the bare ground, too famished to even think about carrying the basket inside - and took the handkerchief off.

Inside the basket lay a round package wrapped in paper; SJ unwrapped it to find three fat scallion pancakes within. His stomach groaned at the sight - the smell, the promise of oil and a rich meal.

Even if they must have been cool for shichen now, they were still crispy - not hard - to the touch.

There was also a fat peach in the basket, and a full water gourd. SJ unscrewed the lid and sniffed its contents before he took a sip - tea, long since gone cold.

Scallion pancakes, a peach, tea, and even a handkerchief to wipe his face and hands once he was done eating.

It was - it would be a full meal for anyone. Much less someone like him.

He hadn't eaten with his hands ever since he'd come to Cang Qiong. But SJ tore the scallion pancakes apart with trembling fingers and bit into them, groaning when apart from the crispy exterior, the fragrant green onion and oil and salt, he could taste tiny minced bits of pork.

Unimaginable, gluttonous luxury. No farming family could spare meat easily, much less to a stranger they'd run into only once. And yet -

He should have saved at least one of the pancakes, but SJ ate them all ravenously - and devoured the peach after, licking even his fingers to get at the juice.

And finally, the tea. It was made of poor stuff, watery and dull and no doubt the best that family could afford.

SJ drank it all without breathing in once.

Immediately after his stomach threatened to burst - his meals had dwindled throughout the month until he ate barely once a day, and so much rich food at once was almost enough to make him hurl it all out again.

_Not happening_, SJ thought feverishly, and shut his eyes and _willed_ himself back into stability, until his stomachache passed and his body tentatively settled again.

He was not going to waste this tiny boon while he lived.

No matter what.

*

He ended up sleeping out on the doorstep for the rest of the night. When SJ woke again he was _freezing_, and his body all cramped up and stiff from the sitting position he'd fallen asleep in.

But. It was morning now, and for the first time since he'd left Cang Qiong he felt settled.

It wouldn't last forever. The meal would sustain him for only a couple of shichen more, and he still lacked everything else he needed for sustenance and his paltry survival.

But now he had a basket at hand, and a handkerchief, which now that he could inspect it in daylight, had some rudimentary embroidery of a squiggly flower in the corner, and he had a water gourd to drink from.

And if nothing else, he still had his wits.

It would have to do.

*

Right.

SJ stared at what was left of his last pouch once he'd dumped out the contents. Five silver taels, a handful of broken silver pieces, and a string of a hundred copper wen.

This one pouch had once held ten thousand taels in silver and paper alone, enough to make a handsome dowry even for a princess of the first rank.

But buying out the entirety of the Red Warm Pavilion and settling his jiejies with enough coin to provide for the rest of their natural lives had taken the vast bulk of his money, and after, he'd flung out ingot after ingot for one inconsequential thing after another.

Two taels a night to stay at a good inn and get himself a proper bath and meal and the proprietor to look away from the vagrant he'd taken in no questions asked? Yes. Ten taels to the maid who carried in his bathwater with trembling arms and a limp in her step? Yes.

An ingot to the farmer's family whose robe he stole from their clothing line because he no longer wanted to step inside a shop and be gawked at for the filthy thing he now was? Yes, yes, yes.

It was fine. Xiao Jiu had survived on less. SJ would too, again.

*

He spotted the girl around midday as she trekked up to his cottage, mostly by her panting, and then the swing of her braids as she huffed and puffed her way up.

It must be the girl Hua'er, SJ thought. Apparently she was the one who had found him passed out on the road. And now she'd been saddled with looking after the local invalid too. What a pity.

She could be no more than ten or eleven. Almost as young as Yingying, when she'd first come to the sect, to Qing Jing.

SJ's heart ached at the reminder of his favourite disciple - then he pushed the feeling aside. NYY would be better off without him, though she wouldn't see it that way at first.

Shizun had always spoiled her, doted on her, ensured her chores only extended to library monitor duty and never anything that would get her ribbons askew and break her perfect nails.

... perhaps she would go to Xian Shu, and be among other young women like herself. SJ would like that. Better than returning home and getting married off immediately.

(A small part of him had fancied he would be the one to perform her hairpin ceremony for her, when she was old enough.

He had already begun sketching out what he would give her - an orange blossom flower hairpin, carved from tiny slivers of mutton fat jade so delicate you could see right through them.

And now he would never see her again.)

The child Hua'er skidded to a stop when she saw the empty doorstep, mumbling something under her breath.

"Guniang," SJ called.

"Ah!" she cried out when she finally spotted him through the open window.

For a moment he thought the child would flee back into the forest.

This must be the first time she was seeing him up and standing too. But after her initial shock, Hua'er approached the window hesitantly and said, "Are you the one Nainai said I should bring the food to?"

"Mm." SJ nodded. "Thank you for the food yesterday. It was very good."

"A'Niang made it," Hua'er said. "Da-ge made the tea. I picked the peach from San-bo's tree."

SJ smiled. "It was a wonderful peach."

"Mm." She scuffed her sandal. "Can I have the basket back?"

"Of course." SJ passed it to her through the window, and she exhaled when she looked inside.

"My handkerchief!" Hua'er said happily, picking the little cloth up and cramming it into her pocket for safekeeping.

"Did you make it?" SJ asked.

Hua'er nodded, averting her eyes.

"It's not, um, the best, but I really tried. And A'Niang gave me the last of the yellow thread too..."

"What flower is it?"

"A chry - chrys - a big yellow flower," the girl mumbled.

"A chrysanthemum?" Hua'er nodded again, and SJ smiled. Well, that explained the squiggles.

"Thank you for lending it to me," he said. "I really liked looking at it."

"Me too," the girl said. "Da-ge says it's really ugly, but _he_ can't sew at all, and..."

They spoke for a little longer before Hua'er ran back down the forest and to her family. Whatever debt SJ had shared with her family and vice versa had been repaid.

And now, he thought as he tore his gaze away from the sun-dappled forest outside and back into the empty cottage, there was everything else.

*

There were small mercies in this world.

Such as qiankun pouches. Without his, SJ would have no doubt collapsed on the road again trying to carry back what he'd bought.

(The village was too small to have a real marketplace. But most families had a mattress or kitchen utensil they were willing to spare for a piece of broken silver, and a couple of them, once they even saw SJ stuff what he'd bought into his magical pouch,

asked him to stay for a meal.

He refused every time. He didn't want any connections or obligations between him and the villagers, and he wouldn't be able to give them what they wanted. Let their exchange begin and end in silver, and stay that way.)

It was night again when he returned to the cottage, but now he had a few supplies on hand; bedding, finally, and a bamboo lighter, and some kitchen things so he might be able to boil himself some tea eventually.

One family had even sold him a small sack of brown rice, another a jar of pickled vegetables and a jar of salted eggs.

(Someone had even offered him a basket full of baby chicks for a handful of wen. But SJ could barely take care of himself at present; what could he possibly do with chickens?)

In fact, the only thing he hadn't gotten for himself was a prescription for medicine.

There was no point delaying the inevitable, nor wasting the little money he had left. No amount of mortal medicine could cure SJ's ailments, and as for immortal medicine...

It would be like feeding a jade cabbage to a pig. Forget it.

*

A creaking old luohan bed with a mattress and pillow and blanket. A small table with a chair and a candle for light.

In the kitchen, a stove that boiled water and rice, and a water vat that didn't leak. A bamboo lighter, and a plate and a bowl and a cup.

A decent knife.

A pair of chopsticks, a spoon. A ladle made out of a gourd for scooping water.

A sack of rice, a jar of vegetables, a jar of eggs.

Unimaginable luxury to the boy once known as Xiao Jiu. Excruciating poverty and a fall from grace to Shen Qingqiu.

And now Shen Jiu's reality.

Did he hate how little he'd been reduced to, what little he had to look forward to before he passed this mortal coil and drank Meng Po's soup at last?

No, not at all.

After all, it was still more than he deserved.

END OF PART III

(The ups and downs continue for SJ in this long-delayed update. He's getting settled into his cottagecore life while also making it his self-imposed hospice care 🥲 what a stubborn guy.

SJ: I feel less depressed and suicidal after I've eaten some good food. I even feel a little better and like talking to people!

Also SJ: Anyway, time to continue starving and feel horrible again AS I DESERVE

I promise there's light at the end of this tunnel orz 😭)

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