Thread by @bingjiuwus

#liujiu

Fate always had a way of making it known to Shen Jiu that he wasn't wanted.

https://twitter.com/bingjiuwus/status/1642365954578587648

It had been a month since his fateful reunion with Yue Qi - Yue Qingyuan now.

After the youth's fervent, delusional promises of _come with me to Cang Qiong, you'll be in Qing Jing, you can be a Head Disciple too, I just know it, Xiao Jiu's always been so clever_, it had fallen apart in a matter of seconds.

In that crowded and illustrious tent full of Cang Qiong's Peak Lords relaxing while outside their disciples fought off monsters and worse, YQY dared barge in to beg his Shizun's permission to take SJ into the sect.

He'd praised his cleverness, his ingenuity and skill, lying through his fucking teeth that _anyone_ would be lucky to have SJ as a disciple.

And for a moment, a small, elegant woman in green robes who SJ now knew as the Qing Jing Peak Lord had tilted her head towards him, seemingly taking an interest in him just like YQY said she would -

And then a gruff, deep voice said, "Sure, I'll take him," and SJ looked up in dismay and horror into the dark-eyed gaze of a massive seven-foot-tall swordsman with a faded scar on his face from eye to lip.

The Bai Zhan Peak Lord, Xu Ningchen.

And SJ's new teacher.

*

Life on Bai Zhan Peak was SJ's nightmare come to fruition, the parts he'd despised most in his life come back to haunt him over and over again.

A peak full of chaotic, noisy men who lived only to fight and destroy, and didn't seem to care whether the ones they were hurting were their enemies or their own sectmates, so long as they'd been entertained by the outcome.

A peak full of barbarians who hardly seemed to know how to read, or line up properly during mealtimes, or not use up all the hot water for themselves when bathing, or, or, or...

The only good thing you could say about BZ was that you could do things in your own time. The classes were loosely structured and everyone was expected to be self-motivated and pursue their goals and desires without external motivation or praise.

It was how, after SJ had gotten a rough and rudimentary welcome to the peak, he too, had been left alone to do as he wanted.

And so. He mostly studied, spending hours in the surprisingly vast but underused central library.

As the warriors' peak BZ held thousands of books and scrolls on everything there was to know not only about fighting and martial and cultivation techniques, but military strategy, history, and previous BZ PLs' recollections from famous battles they'd participated in (and won).

It was an astonishing look into a world of knowledge SJ had never known existed, and he often spent shichen soaking up what he'd learned, whether it be some obscure technique invented by a now long-forgotten sect and more...

Of course, none of his hard-earned and well-vaunted knowledge was doing him any good at the moment.

When SJ wasn't attending his few mandatory classes or reading in the library, he would study from his cultivation manual and practice on his own, in a quiet part of the peak far from the main stomping grounds.

This tiny clearing in an otherwise wild forest where SJ meditated and practiced his newfound orthodox cultivation was perhaps the only place on BZ where he felt any true semblance of peace.

If only he was any fucking _good_ though.

SJ didn't understand what he was doing wrong.

He'd read the manual front to back over and over again. He was doing exactly what it told him to, and yet he was developing his cultivation at a snail's pace and just feeling sore and miserable at the end of the day for his effort.

He'd wondered briefly if he'd been given a dud manual, either by mistake or by spite, but alas, it couldn't be that simple.

The shixiong in charge of new disciples hadn't so much given SJ his manual as just lazily shooed him in the direction of a bookshelf, and let SJ pick his own.

Maybe... maybe in the end, he was just fucking mediocre like always.

Tears stung at his eyes as he lowered his stance after another useless practice session on his own. He hadn't cried in years, and never when Wu Yanzi had delighted in teaching SJ his savagery, daring his little disciple to blink. SJ never had, and lived for it.

But this... he didn't know if he could do this anymore. Living on a peak full of men and boys who were just barely more than animals. Having to push and shove his way to the front of the line during mealtimes like he was a beggar again, or walk away with a bowl full of nothing.

And he hadn't slept in the dormitory once.

As a new outer disciple, SJ hadn't been allowed the privilege of his own personal room; he'd been assigned a bunk in a large room he shared with nine other boys.

At night, they slept jowl to jowl, their bedding all next to each other. There was no privacy, no personal space, not even a partition for modesty.

SJ had spent only his first night in that room, where he'd been wide awake and white-knuckled the entire time, ready to gut anyone who dared intrude into his space, or worse.

The morning after, he'd gathered his few belongings in a rucksack and searched for somewhere - anywhere on BZ where he could find shelter. The peak was on an entire fucking mountain, surely there would be _something_.

As it turns out there were. But SJ hadn't had the luxury of stumbling in on a now-ascended cultivator's abandoned cottage; god forbid he be lucky for once.

Instead, he'd found a cave.

It wasn't an uncommon thing for BZ cultivators, when heading into seclusion, to quite literally dig their way into the mountain and create a little hidey-hole for themselves while they meditated.

SJ had happened in on one such former hole, a small dingy cave just big enough to keep out the rain and give him a decent vantage if anyone tried sneaking up on him. In his cave he ate and washed up and slept, and it sufficed.

A small, bitter part of him wondered if YQY had ever been reduced to living in a cave during his training.

Head Disciple Yue was a lofty being nowadays, who always wore impeccably black robes with silver embroidery, and carried a sword so storied and famous apparently there had been an earthquake on Wan Jian when he drew it for the first time.

Lucky him. SJ didn't think he would ever get a spiritual sword. At his rate of progress, he'd be demoted to stair sweep in a year's time. He'd be lucky if he was even allowed to look YQY in the eye anymore after that.

Forget it. He couldn't train anymore, he was so tired.

He might as well head to the dining hall early and see if he could get some food before the meal bell rang and chaos ensued.

Even if there was only vegetable buns and soup available, at least he'd get to eat his fill. And if he helped clean up the tables, the aunties might give him a roasted sweet potato to take back with him -

"Why'd you stop? You were doing fine."

SJ froze, then turned, slowly, to see a thin pale youth staring at him from a dozen feet away, his arms loosely crossed and one foot restlessly tapping against the ground.

_His_ robes were immaculately white, whereas after a month SJ's were already a dingy grey, no matter how many times he scrubbed them clean in the river.

A fellow disciple, then, and one he didn't recognise nor give a damn about. SJ snorted. "Mind your own business."

"Tch." The boy scowled. "You only got halfway through the warming exercises and you're already giving up? Why even bother being here then?"

Ordinarily, SJ would have just given the mouthy brat the finger and stalked off to lick his wounded ego in private. But he'd been wound up tight and frustrated and miserable for a month now.

He'd gotten no further in his cultivation than what he'd started with when he showed up; he didn't know any of his fellow disciples' names, nor did he want to get caught up in their destructive ideas of camaraderie.

Not to mention he slept in a fucking cave every night.

And the boy having cracked the dam that had been SJ's well of pent-up emotions since he'd come to Cang Qiong, since he'd met YQY again - the dam cracked.

"I DON'T KNOW!" SJ yelled, and the boy winced and took a step back in alarm. "I don't know why nothing is working, why everything keeps going fucking wrong! I've been practicing for hours every day and my cultivation hasn't gone anywhere!

I'm doing exactly what my manual tells me to and all it's gone has made me feel like shit! I don't KNOW what I'm doing wrong, and I'm sick and tired of it." He closed his eyes and sagged, drained both physically and mentally after his outburst.

"So fuck off already if you just came here to point and laugh."

The boy stared at him in a flabbergasted shock after that verbal rampage, his pale mouth open in a small o. Maybe he'd run off in tears - he looked like the type - or he'd snitch for some god knows why reason and get SJ kicked out of BZ.

It wasn't as if he'd ever belonged anywhere to begin with, so why not? Who even gave a damn anymore.

Finally, the boy bit his lip and said, "Show me your manual."

If SJ had any more spite left in him he would have chucked the book right at the boy. Instead, he just pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it over.

The boy flipped through the book, skimming through it quickly. "Everything checks out," he said, then raised a brow. "Show me your forms."

Unbelievable. For some reason though, SJ felt his body draw back into a training stance as he went through all the forms in the manual, even if he felt the same as always, just drained and exhausted.

He didn't feel anything in his meridians, he didn't feel his potential golden core developing...

He just felt like giving up.

The boy watched him intently the whole way through, eyes sharp but his expression otherwise emotionless.

When SJ was finally done though, the boy frowned. "I don't get it. Your stances are actually pretty decent. But nothing's happening."

"Thank you!" SJ cried out in relief despite himself. "I've done this a thousand times and it's never worked out - it _cannot_ just be me, it just can't."

"Hmm," the boy said. He flipped through the manual again, then his brows furrowed, as if he was mediating on something.

"What? What?" Despite his fatigue, SJ was desperate for an answer - something, _anything_. "Do you have anything?"

"Maybe," the boy said, and gave him back his manual. SJ shoved it back into his pocket, and the boy added: "I'm going to do some forms. You, follow me."

As if SJ hadn't just wrung himself twice dry just to demonstrate for this no-name brat. "Yes, Your Majesty," he sneered, but got into stance yet again, this time keeping his gaze firmly on the boy as he began to move and speak at the same time:

"Forget your manual. Instead, when you do _this_, try to expand qi from within your dantian..."

*

Half a shichen later SJ was breathless and lying on the ground with not an ounce of energy left in him - but he was _alive._

"How?" he croaked. "How did you know?"

A single strand of hair had fallen down the boy's ponytail, but he remained otherwise free of dirt and sweat as ever. "I had an idea," he said bluntly.

"Your forms were fine and you were doing everything the manual said, but you still weren't getting any results."

"Okay," SJ said hollowly. He already knew that.

"All of Bai Zhan's manuals are for physical cultivators," the boy said. "But you're a spiritual cultivator. These techniques just aren't designed for you and your body. That's why you weren't getting any results."

"And?" SJ wanted to laugh at the presumptuousness of the statement. "How the hell do you know I'm a spiritual cultivator? I don't even have a core yet - "

"Believe me or not," the boy said dismissively, crossing his arms again. "It's no skin off my back. But if you want to get anywhere, you'll get a manual that suits you. Otherwise nothing's going to change."

He was already turning heel to walk away. It took every ounce of strength SJ had left in his body to will himself back to his feet and cry out: "Wait!"

The boy stopped.

"... thank you," SJ muttered. "For. Helping me. I appreciate it - "

The boy scoffed. "If you want to thank me, show me your results in three months. Otherwise, I don't need it."

And then he just... walked off back into the forest, and left SJ slack-jawed in disbelief and growing outrage at how casually his hard-earned praise and gratefulness had been dismissed just like that.

_This little shit,_ he fumed, _as if I couldn't stomp you any day of the week I wanted._

Whatever, he thought as he gathered his things to go wash up in the river before getting some food. It wasn't as if they'd even gotten each other's names.

What was the odd they would even run into each other again?

Yeah, not a chance.

*

Three months later, SJ - much to his aggravation - was dragged into his first practice match by a shixiong who'd noticed his shocking rate of improvement since he'd gotten a new manual.

"Come on, shidi, just try your luck," the man cajoled, clapping SJ on the shoulder as he sent him towards the dirt ring in the centre of BZ's practice fields.

"Don't touch me," SJ snapped and stalked towards his opponent. Forget it. He might as well fight against actual people instead of just his practice dummies once in a while...

He realised, of course, that he'd been set up the moment he lifted his eyes to see the pale youth from months before.

The boy stared at SJ, seemingly emotionless as ever. But it was his shixiongs' hooting and hollering that set SJ's teeth on edge, especially when they called out their names and SJ got to know the name of his opponent and one-time teacher for once and for all:

Liu Mingjin, current frontrunner for the future successor of Bai Zhan Peak. Presently all of fourteen years old, and half a head shorter than SJ at the moment.

Fucking hell.

SJ was going to fight his battle with the child prodigy standing across the ring from him.

He was going to fight him and _win_, and then he was going to murder every single person on Bai Zhan Peak and grind their bones into dust.

And then the match began.

END

(just something for this AU since I had so much fun thinking about it haha. Teen disciple sweethearts liujiu!! Of course they're both babies at the moment and have no clue what's going on.

Might write a part 2 if I feel like it and have the time, but enjoy this for now!)

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