Thread by @bingjiuwus

#bingjiu

Luo Binghe had just stepped under the threshold when he heard the sound of clinking porcelain from the kitchen, then the wok sizzling and frying something.

That the kitchen was being used at all this time of day was alarming, and he quickly made his way to the side room with a basket heavy with fresh pork and spices he had just bought from the village market.

And there. Standing in front of the wok with his back turned to Binghe stood a thin and frail figure, a pair of cooking chopsticks in one hand, the other gripping the edge of the brick stove the wok was built into for support... and his walking cane propped up next to the door.

On the working table next to him was a large wooden bowl full of vegetable scraps and eggshells, and next to that three small chipped bowls: one full with brown rice, another with stir-fried cabbage, and an empty one...

that was immediately filled with a scrambled egg and chives mixture. And if Binghe wasn't blind, there was a whole _two_ eggs' worth of sustenance in that bowl.

He just watched as Shen Jiu ladled the fried eggs into the bowl... then the man saw him standing by the door in silence and jolted, sucking in his breath and dropping his ladle in shock.

Binghe burst out laughing.

"You! What's wrong with you!" SJ was bright red as he tried to bend down to get the now-dirty ladle, gripping the edge of the table for support;

it rocked unsteadily on uneven legs and caused the dishes to slide over, and the large bowl full of scraps to tip over entirely onto the floor.

SJ stared in horror at the mess, still half-bent and his pale brow beginning to sweat from exertion.

Binghe put his basket down and walked over to tug him back to full height gently, SJ forced to lean on him on support even as the man glared at him with frustration - and a hint of wetness - in his eyes.

"I thought you were going to be out all day!" was all he could say with that pink flush on his cheeks.

"I know. I'm sorry." Binghe brushed the corner of his eyes and kissed him on the brow. "Go and eat, baobei; I'll clean up the mess."

"You had better," SJ grumbled, gripping onto Binghe's arm tight as he limped towards his small parlour and the dining table, sitting down with a huff.

Binghe went back to the kitchen alone to get SJ's meal - at least he was using lard in his cooking nowadays, he thought - and served him before cleaning up the mess he'd just inadvertently caused.

His baobei had always been a slow eater and the wok was still hot, so after cleaning up - and washing his hands, mind you - Binghe cut off a small piece of the pork he'd bought and minced it fine with pickled chili peppers and green beans and garlic before frying it in lard.

He scooped it up into a large bowl under a bed of more rice, then took it to the parlour where SJ had finished and was idly holding the end of one of his chopsticks in his mouth. "Baobei, eat some more. I know you can't be full already."

"How do you know that?" SJ demanded, but then his gaze fell upon the large bowl full of spicy minced pork and chili and garlic and the heaping amount of rice he never permitted himself to eat, and he swallowed. "We have to save up food for the winter..." he mumbled.

"Yeah? There's more where that came from, I promise," Binghe said, resisting the urge to say what he _actually_ wanted, which was _better to save it up in your hips instead._

SJ had been thin, borderline emaciated when Binghe had first come upon him, but after three years in his care (as Binghe saw it), he no longer looked like he might die of starvation in his sleep,

even if he still regarded the newfound bounty of his kitchen stores like it might disappear any other second, and getting attached to eating three meals a day was a fool's errand.

Maybe it was. The village SJ had lived in all his life had certainly faced its share of lean years and hunger.

SJ had told him once that before he met Binghe, he had been lucky to eat meat once a year, during the annual pig-slaughtering feast the villagers partook in;

his own family had been too beggarly to own a pig of their own, but they could help their neighbours and earn a decent meal, as well as maybe a small share of offal to take home if people were in a generous mood that day.

SJ had been living alone for ten years when Binghe met him, his parents having died when he was only fifteen. They had been poor people, barely even considered farmers since they only had a couple of mu in rough land to spare, and no livestock save for a few chickens.

SJ himself lived on the periphery of the village, practically in the forest; "not to mention this bad leg of mine", he'd told Binghe wryly once, to explain why some enterprising villager hadn't tried to marry him into their family as a son-in-law for the land and free labour.

In short, the man Luo Binghe now lived with was a penniless not-quite-farmer who lived in a rundown house and half a dozen aged hens who barely laid eggs anymore, who practically had a heart attack when Binghe brought home a sack of white rice to eat instead of brown.

His bad leg meant his life was largely contained to his home and the little strip of land he owned just beyond it, and venturing any farther than that was a struggle, even if it was one he endured for rice and salt and a little soy sauce once in a while.

As for how he had managed to survive on his own before Binghe found him, being largely unable to farm or do work on his own outside the house, SJ just shrugged and said, "I teach the kids how to read when they're free, and their families give me what they have left over."

A village as small and far from the imperial capital had no hope of training even a provincial magistrate, but even so, having their children know a few hundred characters would be an immense advantage for those trying to find work in town or the nearest city.

As for how SJ knew how to read, being from such a poor family himself? Well, Binghe wasn't entirely sure. SJ had said something about a wandering scholar staying with his family once, and giving him lessons as thanks, though it sounded fanciful even to him.

But he did know his beloved's most precious treasure: a dozen well-worn books, kept locked up in SJ's treasure chest in his bedroom and only brought out to read when he had the time.

Even in this sparse and modest life, his Shizun was such a brilliant reader, wasn't he?

*

After filling his belly, Binghe brought the basket for SJ to examine. The man's nose flared with excitement and annoyance when he saw the hunk of fatty pork in the basket, even as Binghe pointed out, "You like fat though".

"That's beside the point!" SJ said, cheeks bright red.

Binghe put the pork aside in its banana leaf wrapping and let SJ take out the various spice packets, sniffing each one before moving on.

"You spent too much," he wanted to say, Binghe just knew it. But then, tucked upright to the edge of the basket was a book wrapped in paper.

SJ took it out and unwrapped it carefully - he would use the paper to write later with his charcoal pencil - before his brows rose as he read the front of the book. "What is this...?"

"A story," Binghe said smoothly. "One I thought you might like."

"A story?" SJ said, looking doubtful. All the books in his small collection were either the old classics or dull, didactic stuff about teaching people to read. "What kind of story would _I_ like...?"

"One about a brilliant immortal who lives on a mountain and his journeys," Binghe said. "Very sweet and romantic. You'd enjoy it if you gave it a chance, baobei."

"And what does any of that have to do with _me_...?" SJ exclaimed. Even so, he would never be able to turn a free book down. It wasn't as if he could make his way to a bookseller on his own either.

"Give it a try," Binghe encouraged him. "I'll make dinner, alright? You just sit in bed and read until I call for you..."

"Hmm..." SJ said, peering at him suspiciously, but let Binghe help him up to the nearby luohan bed and sit down there, much more comfortable than a low stool. "If you say so."

"I do." Binghe leaned down to peck him on the brow again, only this time SJ turned his face up and caught him on the mouth.

Binghe blinked at him, astonished, only for a flushing SJ to mutter, "You forgot to kiss me when you came back."

"I did, though...?" he said, stupefied.

"I meant properly." SJ rolled his eyes. "So don't forget next time... or whatever," he mumbled. "Not like it matters."

Oh. _Oh_. Binghe's heart squeezed so tight he thought it might burst. "Of course it does," he said, and leaned in for another kiss.

SJ's eyes were a light brown instead of the impossibly pale jade Binghe once remembered them to be, but the sight of them blown out and hazy with satisfaction made his heart race more than a back palace full of three thousand beauties ever could.

Binghe's gut churned with hunger and longing, to press his large hands around those skinny hips and bury his thumbs into the hollows of his bones; then SJ coughed, looking away, and said, "You have to wait until nighttime."

Oh, right. His beloved was so frightfully proper about these things.

"Okay then," Binghe said, flashing him a smile full of promise. SJ buried his face behind his book and pretended to read, and Binghe went back into the kitchen to make dinner.

And all was well.

*

Once, the Emperor of the Three Realms sat in his study with a soul lamp in front of him, and was at a loss as how to make it work.

It was active; there was a sliver of Shen Qingqiu's soul within the lamp, the essence contained in Xiu Ya's shards before it has escaped the broken sword at last upon its wielder's death.

But it was barely a wisp, a shadow of the sun, and the soul lamp flickered as if in constant danger of blowing out and being vanquished forever.

_It _is_ in danger of that_, Meng Mo groused at the back of his mind. _Just what do you think you're trying to do now...?_

"And what do you mean by that?" Binghe said aloud as he continued to stare at the soul lamp and wispy fragment trapped inside.

_Exactly that. Or do you think people can come out spiritually intact from being torn apart and used as a chew toy for years without end? Not to mention what you did to that Sect Leader he was obsessed with..._

Binghe flushed at the implication. "Shen Qingqiu died." Without his knowing and against his own will, mind you; he would have done anything to stop if had he been in the Water Prison that day. "He should have taken Meng Po's soup like everyone else and moved onto his next life.

What else could happen?"

If Meng Mo had a physical form, he would have let out a dragged out sigh at that moment; his silence in Binghe's mindscape said enough.

Finally, the old demon went: _You think any old soul could survive what you did to it? Why do you think you're only holding a fragment and not the whole thing?_

"I..."

_Don't play dumb, brat. You know well enough what you did caused his soul to shatter. The man doesn't want to be reborn ever again, and if you hadn't caught that fragment left in his sword, it would have dissipated into oblivion like the rest of him._

"No," Binghe said immediately. "That's not allowed." SQQ might have died, but he _would_ reincarnate again, and in the meantime Binghe had plenty of time to pass by until they met each other again. "That's not - not fair."

_Exactly what about this situation is governed by any law or sense of fairness to you?_ Meng Mo snapped. _You got what you wanted, didn't you? Why still cling to him now? He means nothing to you now!_

"Don't be stupid," Binghe said. "He's not allowed to leave me just like that, not without my permission." _Not until even the heavens bend to my will and he bows his head to me at last._ "He thinks he can escape me just like that? No, no, not in a thousand years..."

_Pathetic_, Meng Mo sneered. _You're the Emperor of the Three Realms, you have a harem of three thousand women and millions of loyal and dutiful subjects.

The whole world kneels to you, and yet you've been shut up in your study for a month trying to call back the soul of a man you tore apart and destroyed with your own hands. If you wanted him by your side so badly, did you consider _not_ turning him into a human puppet?_

"And let him get away with what he did to me?" Binghe snarled. "Don't be absurd. The only way I would have let Shen Qingqiu at my side unharmed was if he spent the rest of his life on his knees for me."

_And that would have made you happy?_ Meng Mo asked. _He'd still be alive then._

"Of course not." Binghe rolled his eyes. "You saw him in the Water Prison. Even when I dragged him into filth and cast him down, he would never yield to me, never give me anything.

Even if he knelt for me, I would only have to look down and see the venom he would spit at me with his eyes. I could never break him."

_Until you did._

Yes. After Binghe had cast Xuan Su's shards down in front of the hobbled man, SQQ had become lifeless.

He no longer spat acid at Binghe when he visited him, nor reacted if only to scream. He had... it was...

His thoughts hit an uncomfortable wall there. He didn't want to think that he missed SQQ's reactions... that the man snarling curses at him was better than him not acknowledging Binghe at all.

Nor that killing Yue Qingyuan without a scratch on himself, clever a feat as he had ever performed, had been worth it, if only a few months later SQQ would die as well.

Binghe hadn't even _been_ there. It would have been one thing if it had been in his presence, if his teacher had spat out an insult at him one last time and Binghe been there to watch the light die in his eyes.

No. He had been absent on a royal hunt with his wives and allies, and one of the guards had slept in and forgotten to give the crippled man water for the day... and he simply died in his sleep, and left.

It had been a year since, and Binghe had tried to summon his soul a thousand ways over and been rebuffed every time. If he was sure the man had reincarnated, that would be one thing; he _would_ be able to find him again in due time, and then...

And then what?

Torture him again? What was the point in tormenting someone who wouldn't even remember what he did to Binghe? Oh, he could force a reborn SQQ to remember his past life or simply transplant Binghe's own recollections into his mind, but even so...

Even so. He just wanted the man by his side again, if only to trap him in a cage just like the soul lamp and gaze at him again.

Wasn't that his right? He wouldn't even be cruel to SQQ in his new life so long as the man could behave himself. If he turned out like his old self, then... well. That would bring its own pleasures for Binghe; he had always enjoyed the disciplinary side of things. But if not...

Briefly, he remembered a surreal incident in his younger years, one he had never quite been able to reconcile with the man rotting away in his Water Prison and been forced to put aside for later, consumed by other plans as he was then.

Yes, if a reborn SQQ was softer of heart, more malleable and amenable to Binghe's advances, then it wouldn't be an intolerable situation for either of them, would it?

If SQQ could open his heart to him, would gaze at Binghe with warm and fascinated eyes instead of revulsion, would give him his body and heart and soul...

then Binghe saw no reason not to treat him kindly in turn and give him a little house of his own for comfort and shelter, and visit him on days when he bored of morning court and his wives and children's constant bickering and fights.

His little Qingqiu. Just imagine that.

But none of it was meant to be, because as far as Binghe knew, SQQ's soul hadn't even _tried_ to reincarnate at all.

He had consulted Madame Meiyin a while back and she told him with sombre eyes that his red thread of fate - the one that was gnarled in torturous knots around its frayed soulmate, never to let go - had been set free at last.

_He_ had been set free at last, and he need only walk into the sunny path he had carved for himself and never look back.

But could he?

_Would_ he?

The answer to that was obvious. Binghe picked up the soul lamp and stared at the single helpless wisp inside.

It cowered.

_Look at what you did_, Meng Mo observed. _Even if you manage to find other pieces of his soul again, even if you eventually piece them together, do you think he'll ever be whole again?_

"But I don't need him to be whole again," Binghe said. "I just need him to be mine."

_Then you'll get neither_, the old demon snapped, and didn't speak to him for the rest of the day.

*

"What did you think of the story, baobei?"

"Hm?" SJ blinked with bleary eyes as Binghe gently shook him awake. "Oh, I fell asleep." He yawned, the book lying haphazardly in his lap. "Mm, it was alright. I didn't think too much of it."

"If you say so." Binghe rubbed his temples for him. "But didn't you think the hero was a lot like you?"

"Me?" SJ gaped. "How could an immortal like that ever remind you of me?"

"Well..." Binghe took his hands and began to massage the numbness out of them. "You're both so clever and beautiful. Not to mention stubborn," he added with a grin when SJ rolled his eyes.

"The hero was also proud of doing everything his own way and refusing to compromise, even if it meant he suffered and people judged him as a result. His own sense of justice was more important than being loved by others."

"Again, that has nothing to do with me," SJ said blankly. "I'm just..." He shrugged. "Here."

"Yeah?" Binghe smiled. "I think you would make a great immortal."

"Sure," SJ said dismissively. "If you say so."

"I do," Binghe said. "Now come on; let's eat."

*

Five years passed before the tiny soul fragment in Binghe's soul lamp no longer quaked whenever he came around just to gaze at it,

and another ten before the little wisp would let him hold it in his palm so he could cast the tiniest of spiritual imprints upon it so he could find its like in the world again.

The delicacy required was like sewing clothes for a doll; there was no less work involved, and if he failed there would be no second chance.

And he had already screwed up his first.

The older Binghe grew, the longer the years passed between SQQ's death and now, the more he could admit his obsession towards finding his old teacher again no longer had anything to do with grievances or revenge or even a desire to recapture that first childhood impression

he'd had decades ago. Instead, it became a source of comfortable busywork for him, working away in his study to find how to find the various fragmented pieces of SQQ's soul in the world - those that still existed - and reconnect them to the wisp in the soul lamp.

It gave him something to do beyond manage his subjects' constant petty squabbles and the acrimony between his consorts, kept him from reaching for Xin Mo whenever he was annoyed and succumb to his worst tendencies.

His mind was clear, and he was at peace as he strived for his ultimate goal.

Fifty years after SQQ died, Binghe found his first reincarnation - at least, the first one strong enough to tug at the fragment in his lamp, yearning for reconnection.

But by the time he'd reached the boy's home, he had already died of a fever three days ago.

The soul in that child's body was his, that was for sure; the lamp wouldn't tug so longingly in his direction if not so. But the parents - and imagine that, SQQ had _parents_ - were hardly even grieving.

They were exhausted, yes, by their son's passing, but in their worn out faces was also relief.

He had been a dumb child, they said, hardly able to speak nor walk despite there not being anything physically wrong with him.

He didn't like darkness and he didn't like light, and he would always scream when men were in his presence, even his father.

Lucky he had a heap of older sisters who took care of them, and he was even docile when they were around, but as they married away as they grew older, he himself grew more lifeless and dull until he would just sit in a chair and stare out the window with a blank stare.

He had been thirteen when he died, after his last sister had married out of the family and there seemed to be nothing left to tether him left to the world.

And he'd been named Jiu, for he was the ninth born child. Their only son a wastrel, who had given his parents nothing in the way of filiality in the few years he'd been alive. Now one of the girls would have to move back home with her husband, what a shame, and...

Only a few years ago, Binghe would have severed the parents' heads from their necks for how they spoke about their late son to a stranger, even the Emperor; Xin Mo certainly begged for it.

Instead, he simply told them their son's body was important to him, and paid them a hundred taels for the honour. They kowtowed to him and thanked him with tears in his eyes, and Binghe carried the dead boy with him then and there.

_Was that me?_ he asked Meng Mo later. _Did I do that to him?_

The demon sneered. _Do you not enjoy the fact that you've scarred your old teacher for multiple lifetimes? Face it; every reincarnation of his you'll run into from now on is going to be like that child or worse.

In fact, it's a miracle he was even allowed to live that long as he was._

_That wasn't fair though_, Binghe thought, and was reckoned with Meng Mo's cold laughter in response.

_Get used to it. It's the least you deserve._

*

Sometimes Binghe thought he was going insane.

Two hundred years, a lonely and abandoned back palace, a shattered sword cast into a volcano in the Abyss, a bamboo garden full of reburied bodies, and a full soul lamp pulsing with togetherness, whole for the first time in centuries, and _alive_ again.

_And now Binghe would have to let him go if he ever wanted to see him again?_

_You have all of him now_, Meng Mo told him on one lonely, moonlit night out in the garden. _There's no part of him left in the world to reincarnate without your knowing.

The only thing left is to release his _actually_ whole soul into the world, and let the heavens do as they may._

Binghe couldn't even imagine letting him go. The soul lamp had become his steady heart in a world otherwise teeming with chaos and distraction and heartbreak.

Yingying had left him a hundred years ago, when she realised he no longer loved her; and even before that, Liu Mingyan had set forth to find her old teacher again and never looked back.

The rewards of the harem no longer held promise even for his most ferocious wives, not when even if they became the Empress, Binghe would give them only a halfhearted glance before returning to his study, the glowing white soul within almost keen with pleasure to see him again.

It had been so long for both of them, yes. And Binghe might still be SQQ's jailer, but he liked to think... he wanted to believe...

_Shizun, after hundreds of years together, do you think you and I could even be friends?_

He had found dozens upon dozens of SQQ's reincarnations over the centuries and buried them all in his bamboo garden, gave them the dignity of a proper burial and the funeral rites they never would have had otherwise.

They had almost all died before he managed to find them, but once or twice Binghe caught them before they died - and no matter whether Shizun had been born a man or woman, loved or ostracised, sickly or in good health, he always bore such a proud look, as if to say:

_do you think you really have the right to look upon me?_

He had spent a blissful three months with Shizun's last reincarnation, the fifth son of a wandering herder.

This life, for SQQ, was almost perfect; he was loved and with a large family, and he knew his way around his family's yaks and horses. He could even sing, and performed for Binghe around the campfire with his siblings clapping around him.

But he was seventeen, and by the time Binghe had found him and stayed with his family to help with the birthing season, he was already coughing blood half the time and talking about what he wanted to become in his next life.

_I am going to be an eagle_, he announced one evening at the campfire, when they were all having dinner together. _And fly and fly and fly around the world and never land once._

_And why not?_ Binghe had asked him, amused. _Just what are you flying so long and far for?_

SJ had cast his gaze down then, pale cheeks feverish with heat. _I don't know_, he mumbled, more bashful. _But it must be to find something important to me. I think I've always been looking for someone. I just haven't met them yet. And maybe in my next life I will._

He had been looking at Binghe when he did, with dark and misty eyes. And Binghe hadn't known what to tell him then, save that he felt the same way.

(His family gave him a sky burial, after he passed. For once Binghe couldn't bear to take his body from them, but neither could he stomach what would become of Shizun after.

He collected the last soul fragment before the body was even cold, then ran. Ran, before he could do something he would forever regret.)

_I think I've always been looking for someone. I just haven't met them yet. And maybe in my next life I will.

And maybe in my next life I will.

And maybe in my next life I will..._

Let go. Let go. If you love him, you have to let go.

And after two hundred and fifty years since he had begun, Luo Binghe opened Shen Qingqiu's soul lamp, and closed his eyes so he wouldn't know where it went, wouldn't try to track it down before its time...

And would accept, if this time, if Shizun never wanted to see him again.

*

"Sometimes I wonder what I did to find someone like you."

It was long after dark, and they were in bed, satisfied both with dinner and what had come after. SJ's head was pillowed against Binghe's shoulder, the latter near falling asleep when he heard his beloved speak.

"What you did?" Binghe croaked. "Why would you have to do anything at all?"

"Don't play stupid." SJ pinched him on the arm. "Look at me. I'm so... ordinary. Less than, even. A cripple who can't even farm, who knows only how to read ten books and who's never even left his village... no one ever even looked at me before you came around. But somehow..."

"But somehow," Binghe repeated. "You gave me a chance, A'Jiu. That's more than enough."

"It is?" SJ said in disbelief. "That was enough for you?"

"Yes." Binghe gathered him up close and kissed him on the brow. "Trust me; it really was."

"Well..." The man yawned, struggling to stay awake. "I must have really impressed you when we first met each other, then."

"Mm." Binghe smiled. "It was love at first sight."

(So it was.)

END