what was supposed to be a placeholder blog is now permanent as, alas! it seems as though mine original blogs will never be returning from the skeleton war.
: ̗̀➛ the tea here
acaademicqueer | hobbyistauthor -> academic-clown -> aamputation
Shang Qinghua spends months (honestly, it feels more like years) wading through filth, both literal and figurative, in search of a ghost.
He prides himself on many things. His resourcefulness, for example. His adaptability. His ability to flatter anyone from the Sect Master to the tea shop owner’s dog. But today, he outdoes even himself. He squeezed every source in his spy network until they squeaked. He bribed innkeepers, plied drunk merchants with too much wine, and sweet-talked courtesans until his jaw hurt. He trawled through market stalls, back alleys, and half-burned library records. If he has to listen to one more suspicious merchant grumble about how “that eccentric scholar bought up every scrap of vellum within three counties,” he is going to gnaw his own arm off like the pitiful hamster he is. He risked exposure, risked censure, risked getting his skinny little neck wrung by Mobei-jun—his ideal man, terrifying in the flesh—for being too distracted with side projects.
And all for what?
For him.
Peerless Cucumber.
His oldest nemesis. His most loyal reader. His favorite anti-fan.
And now—now!—
(His heart pounds in his throat. His palms are slick. Shang Qinghua tugs his sleeves straight and forces his spine upright.)
He stands before the teahouse where, according to three separate accounts and one very resentful innkeeper, the mysterious author of the Compendium of Beasts vol. 1 is currently residing. He takes a deep breath, trying and failing to calm his nerves.
This is it. He is about to meet Peerless Cucumber.
Shang Qinghua’s chest tightens just thinking about it. The sting of those reviews—merciless, cutting, too sharp to laugh off—still lives in the marrow of his bones. But what people never understood is that he hadn’t hated Cucumber-bro. Oh, no. That bastard was his lifeline. His rock. His invisible frenemy, always there to hold him accountable and remind him he wasn’t just vomiting words into the void. Even when Cucumber ripped his chapters to shreds, the guy cared. He stayed.
When the Compendium of Beasts vol. 1 first appeared on his radar, it was the tone that gave it away. Those scathing little footnotes, that encyclopedic nitpicking, that faint stench of self-righteousness wrapped in actual knowledge… there is only one person in the entire multi-universe that could have written it.
Cucumber-bro. Alive. Here. In this madhouse of a world.
So if Shang Qinghua has to crawl through every muddy ditch in the empire to track him down, he will. And now, after burning through half his savings and most of his patience, he stands outside a shabby teahouse on the edge of a dusty market town, heart hammering like he is about to confess to a crime.
He pushes his way inside, and there, seated in the shadowed corner, is a man.
This ever-elusive man hunches over a pot of tea, looking for all the world like a scholar who has wandered off the page of a painting, with ink stains on his fingers and a stubborn crease between his brows. His robes are plain but well-made—clean but not rich—with sleeves tied back from his wrists. His expression carries the faint pinched severity of a man who has spent far too long glaring at text until the characters blur together; not the type to draw attention—unless one notices the fine-boned features, the sharp mouth, the familiar profile that makes Shang Qinghua’s jaw go slack.
He freezes mid-step.
…What the actual hell.
That face—delicate, pale, sharp-browed, eyes cool as jade. He looks just like Shen Qingqiu. No. Not exactly. Softer, smaller, the sharpness tempered. Like a cousin, or a reflection in water. But enough resemblance that Shang Qinghua wants to laugh until he cries. Instead, he bites his fist to keep from wheezing out loud, desperately stifling the cackle that threatens to burst out.
Of course. Of course. Peerless Cucumber, the guy who spent an entire month-long arc screaming for Shen Qingqiu’s castration, now has to wear his face. What cosmic irony!
And unfair, too. Cucumber-bro is even prettier than the original goods.
Shang Qinghua swallows down his laughter and jealousy alike. Focus. He hasn’t come here to gawk—well, not only to gawk. He has come here to secure a friend—or at least an ally.
He schools his expression, squares his shoulders, and marches over.
“Wu-shi?” he ventures. His voice cracks halfway through, and he winces. He coughs and tries again. “Ah, Wu Huang-shi?”
The man looks up from his work slowly, eyes narrowing from behind small, round spectacles. His gaze slides over Shang Qinghua like a blade over silk; weighing, measuring, finding him lacking.
“Yes?”
Shang Qinghua’s throat goes dry. Up close, the resemblance is even worse. Like Shen Qingqiu with the bite taken out, all prettiness left behind. Of course Cucumber-bro transmigrates looking like this. Of course.
He forces a smile that probably looks like a grimace. “I’ve, ah, long admired your work. The Compendium of Beasts?”
One fine brow arches. “Admired it enough to track this humble one to such an out-of-the-way hovel?”
Shang Qinghua nearly chokes. “No! I mean yes! I mean—” he drops into a bow so fast he nearly brains himself on the table. “An Ding Peak Lord, Shang Qinghua, presents himself!”
Shen Yuan’s brow arches higher. So this is Shang Qinghua? He knows the name, of course. Who doesn’t? The ratty Peak Lord of An Ding, infamous for weaseling and wheedling, whispered to be as slippery as oil. Unbeknownst to all and sundry, only Shen Yuan is aware that the man is a traitor to his sect, a selfish thigh-hugger of Mobei-jun, Luo Binghe’s future right-hand-man, destined to die by the same hand he now serves.
And now this oily snake is bowing before him like a supplicant.
“This one isn’t aware he has become acquainted with Shang-fengzhu,” Shen Yuan says coolly, disdain coloring his tone.
The silence stretches. Shen Yuan sips his tea with exaggerated calm. Shang Qinghua fidgets like a child caught sneaking sweets.
Something about this man feels… different. When reading about Shang Qinghua in PIDW, what sparse information there is always paints him as a sleazy snake-oil salesman—the type to get in close only to stab you in the back when your usefulness runs out; a greedy and self-serving coward. The human disaster standing by his table is decidedly not falling in line with the description he remembers.
Hey, Didi?
《 Yes, [Host]? 》
Are you able to check to see if there has been any change to the storyline regarding the side character Shang Qinghua?
Shen Yuan shuts his eyes, acting with his whole ass like he’s simply sipping his tea as he listens to Didi work, waiting anxiously for the results.
《 SEARCHING … 》
《 SEARCHING … 》
《 SEARCH COMPLETE. 》
《 Answering [Host], there are no modifications found to the [Proud Immortal Demon Way] storyline involving [Sect Traitor: AN DING PEAK LORD SHANG QINGHUA] 》
Satisfied with Didi’s answer, Shen Yuan finally sets the cup down.
“Out with it,” he bites out, shooting the iciest look he can at the bizarre man standing at his table. “Surely Shang-fengzhu didn’t track this humble Shi across half the continent to bask in his mere presence?” The tone is saccharine, laced with mocking venom in hopes of insulting the guy to drive him away.
Please leave, you traitorous snake!
He expects excuses, double-speak, some sort of sales-pitch that will leave him feeling dirty and vile. Instead, Shang Qinghua’s head pops up, eyes shining with something unsettlingly close to… joy?
Shen Yuan nearly knocks over his teacup. “…Excuse me?”
Shang Qinghua claps both hands over his mouth, eyes wide, the very picture of a full-cheeked hamster.
But it’s too late. The words are out.
Cucumber-bro.
Which is not how anyone in this world should be using his pen name.
Shen Yuan’s fingers tighten around the porcelain. He schools his expression into icy neutrality, but his mind spins. Who is this clown? How does he—?
Unless. Unless he isn’t the only one.
Transmigrator.
Shang Qinghua fidgets under his sharpening stare, sweat dripping down his temple—the very picture of a nervous prey animal, nothing at all like the poisonous snake he’s described to be in PIDW. “Ah, what I mean is—Wu Huang-shi! Wu-shi! Of course. Of course that’s who you are, heh, heh…”
But the damage is done. The slip is too modern, too specific. No local would address him that way.
Shen Yuan leans forward, voice low, dangerous. He reaches for his fan, subtle in his movements. “Who are you, really?”
Shang Qinghua gives a nervous laugh, scratching at his cheek. “Ahaha, funny story—well, not funny, tragic, really. You see, I wrote this little novel once…”
Shen Yuan knocks over his mostly-empty teacup, tipping to hit the table with a sharp clack.
Wrote.
This fool just said ‘wrote’.
Realization dawns with all the force of a thunderclap.
“You’re telling me,” Shen Yuan says, each word ground between his teeth, “that you’re Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky?”
Shang Qinghua flinches away instantly, throwing up his hands in surrender, like a shield. “Please don’t kill me!”
Shen Yuan pinches the bridge of his nose, inhales slowly, and reminds himself that murder in public is frowned upon.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.
Airplane, scourge of Zhongdian literature.
Airplane, whose prose had driven him to tears of both fury and despair.
Airplane, the author of Proud Immortal Demon Way, the trashy stallion novel that had ruined his life.
Standing right here.
“I should have known,” Shen Yuan says flatly. “Only you would make a world so inconsistent it needs transmigrators to come in and fix it to make sense.”
Shang Qinghua flinches. “Aiya, Cucumber-bro, don’t be so harsh—!”
“Don’t call me that.”
“But you are!” Shang Qinghua presses, eyes wide, desperate, a little manic. “Who else could roast my plot holes so passionately, line by line? Who else would dedicate thousands of words to proving my protagonist’s cultivation method was basically shitty Naruto fanfiction? Who else—”
“Stop talking before I remember public murder is an option.” Frowned upon, he adds silently, but still an option.
The rodent man snaps his mouth shut, shifting from foot to foot, wringing his hands. “I, ah, always meant to thank you, you know. For your… loyalty. Even when you were threatening to burn my hard drive. You stayed. No one else did.”
Shen Yuan gives him a long, withering look. “That’s because I was too stubborn to quit reading your trainwreck.”
Shang Qinghua’s shoulders droop like a scolded child’s. “…Still counts.”
The silence stretches. Shen Yuan rights his teacup, cleans his spill, and pours a refill. It’s rude not to offer the other man a seat, much less so to offer him a drink but quite frankly he doesn’t give enough of a shit about polite customs if it means having to deal with fucking Airplane (bane of his existence) for longer than necessary. He sips his fresh tea with exaggerated calm as his uninvited guest shifts again where he stands, clearly itching to fill the quiet.
Finally, Shen Yuan has had enough. “Either talk or fuck off, I have better things to do than entertain a useless shadow.”
Shang Qinghua winces. “Right, right. It’s just…” He lets out a whining sigh. “Look—you’re the only familiar thing I’ve found in this nightmare of a world. Everyone else wants to stab me, or use me, or both. You—” He spreads his arms helplessly. “You’re Cucumber-bro! My longest frenemy!”
Shen Yuan blinks before leaning back in his seat, arms folding across his chest in incredulity. “You’re asking me to be your ally?”
Shang Qinghua nods furiously, clasping his hands beneath his chin and pouting. “Yes. Please. Pretty please. With a spiritual peach on top.”
Shen Yuan stares, his lip curling in distaste. “You do realize what an untrustworthy, rat-faced schemer you look like right now, yeah?”
Shang Qinghua nods again, leaning closer over the table, eyes wide and earnest. “Of course! That’s my whole brand! But that’s why you should trust me. Because you know exactly what I am.”
…He has a point. Unfortunately.
Shen Yuan scrubs a hand over his face, leaving his glasses askew on his nose. “Unbelievable. My choices are: ally with canon-fodder destined to die in the most embarrassing way possible, or let him cling to me like a barnacle anyway.”
Shang Qinghua perks up. “So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a begrudging ‘maybe’.”
Which, of course, the annoying rodent immediately takes as a victory. His grin lights up like a child given candy. “Knew it! I knew Cucumber-bro couldn’t resist me!”
Shen Yuan groans. “If you call me that one more time, I will test how far a body can fly when kicked off a balcony.”
The author waves him off, utterly unbothered. “En, en, you can kick me later. For now, drinks are on me! To our glorious reunion!”
The teahouse isn’t empty by any means, but Shang Qinghua treats it like his private stage. He drags a chair over with all the confidence of a man who has already decided rejection is impossible, and plops down across from Shen Yuan, whose face—the one that looks unnervingly like Shen Qingqiu’s gentler cousin—remains cool and unreadable. Inside, however, he is cussing the man who was once Airplane out with a fervor that could frighten gods.
“Order whatever you like,” Shang Qinghua says magnanimously, waving over the serving girl. “On me. No, no, don’t look so suspicious. You’re the first familiar person from our hometown I’ve found in this crazy world, Cucu—ah, Wu-shi. Treating you is only proper.”
Shen Yuan gives him a long, withering stare. “You really think slapping a different honorific on it is fooling anyone? Also, hometown?”
“Worth a try,” Shang Qinghua mutters, “and yeah, ‘cause y’know… modern China?”
Shen Yuan snorts at the pitiful logic, and the two lapse into reminiscing about what they miss since transmigrating to a place without internet or aircon, not realizing they slip into a mix of modern Mandarin and English as they do so. The other patrons pay them no mind, either presuming the strange duo—one wearing silk brocade, the other simple linen—are speaking in code or some foreign tongue.
When the girl returns with a pot of wine and some side dishes, Shang Qinghua cuts himself off mid-sentence to pour eagerly, hands shaking just slightly. It isn’t just the alcohol; it’s nerves, relief, and the surreal thrill of seeing his beloved anti-fan alive, embodied, and glaring at him across the table.
“So,” Shen Yuan says at last, tone deceptively mild. “You wrote Proud Immortal Demon Way.”
Shang Qinghua’s whole body twitches. “A- Aiya, don’t say it like that! It sounds like you want me to confess to committing murder!”
“It was a crime.” Shen Yuan leans forward, voice low and sharp. “A crime against literature.”
Shang Qinghua makes a strangled noise. “I- I worked so hard on it! Day and night, with only instant noodles for comfort!”
“You should’ve worked on your grammar.”
“Ouch!” Shang Qinghua clutches his chest like he’s been stabbed. “Still roasting me after all these years! Truly, you haven’t changed a bit!”
Shen Yuan’s lips twitch, but he forces the expression back into disdain. “And you’ve changed? You’re exactly what I pictured: oily, desperate, and ready to sell out your own sect for a free meal.”
“Hey now!” Shang Qinghua protests. “That’s not fair—” He pauses. “…Okay, that’s partly fair. But!” He jabs his chopsticks toward Shen Yuan. “You should be thanking me, you know. If not for my hard work, your precious Luo Binghe wouldn’t even exist.”
Shen Yuan goes very still. His eyes narrow. “… Are you holding the protagonist’s existence over my head like a threat?”
Shang Qinghua blinks. “Yeah, so? Why not? It’s a good threat, even if I can’t act on it! You’re still obsessed with my son, aren’t you?”
Shen Yuan nearly topples the table lunging across it, hand clamping over Shang Qinghua’s mouth. “Shut. Up.”
The other patrons glance over, alarmed, before deciding it isn’t worth the trouble.
Shang Qinghua, muffled under that hand, makes pitiful hamster noises. When Shen Yuan finally releases him, he flops dramatically against the table. “Scary, scary! Who knew my anti-fan was so defensive! Ay, Cucumber-bro, your tsundere is showing—”
The teacup hits him in the forehead before he finishes the sentence.
“Ow!”
Shen Yuan sips from the wine jug directly, ignoring him. “If you’re going to cling to me, at least do it quietly. I already have one disaster protagonist to consider while I try to fix this disaster novel. I don’t need a rat-faced Peak Lord hanging off me too.”
“Disaster protagonist? Disaster novel?” Shang Qinghua wails. “Have you been trying to change the plot? Don’t tell me you don’t have a System!”
Shen Yuan just blinks. “Of course I do. Didi is very helpful and lets me do whatever I want so long as the outcome has potential to benefit the story or better the plot.”
Shang Qinghua leans back in his chair, whining. “No fair! My System is such a stick-in-the-mud! I have to stick to the plot line, but thankfully nothing’s really started yet.”
“It hasn’t? That’s a relief.”
The other transmigrator across the table pauses, leaning forward with a gasp. “Don’t tell me you’ve been trying to suss out where in Luo Binghe’s timeline we are this whole time?”
Shen Yuan only glares, even as Shang Qinghua’s face curls into a shit-eating grin.
“Oho, is it because you want to save your precious little meow-meow xiao Bing from the mean-and-nasty scum villain Shen Qingqiu—” Shang Qinghua pauses, snorting “—wait, bro, I gotta tell you… you look exactly like him. Which is weird but also hilarious since you were yowling for the guy’s dick to be chopped off for like, months—”
The jug slams onto the table. “Finish that sentence and I will test public murder laws.”
Shang Qinghua flaps his hands, squeaking. “Okay, okay, not another word! But anyway… admit it—you missed having me around to spar with. Eh? Admit it, Cucumber-bro. You’d be so bored without me.”
Shen Yuan glares. Shang Qinghua beams. Shen Yuan’s silence is telling. He looks away, jaw tight, ears faintly red.
And just like that, the hamster scurries his way under his skin.
The former author grins like the cat who stole the cream. “Knew it. Just like old times. You bitch and scold, I whine and act pitiful, everyone’s happy.”
“Happy?” Shen Yuan repeats with a scoff.
Shang Qinghua ignores him, raising his cup high. “To reunion! To surviving this trash novel together!”
Reluctantly, Shen Yuan clinks his cup against his.
And for the first time in years—across worlds, across bodies, across an ocean of misunderstandings—Airplane and Cucumber drink together.
[1st] | [9th] < > [11th]
shout out to adornedwithlight for the reblog banner
That’s the first thing I write down, because if I don’t put it in ink it might stay in my bloodstream instead.
Field Notes — 08:13 / North breakwater / Red bloom anomaly
• Water temperature: too warm for this latitude
• Salinity: normal
• Color: carmine sheen present beneath surface reflection
• Odor: metallic, algae-sweet, rot-sweet
• Drones: three, high altitude. (Civilian? Government? I can’t tell.)
• Subjective: heartbeat synchronization when skin contact made.
I scratch out subjective twice. I circle it. I hate that word. It’s how you get dismissed in grant meetings. It’s how you become the weird researcher with the “feelings” about plankton. I’m here for a red tide bloom. That’s it. Harmful algal bloom, neurotoxins, fish killers. A clean, boring, funding-friendly problem.
My boots crunch on sand that looks damp but doesn’t behave damp. It gives beneath my weight like a bruise. The air is humid, salted, and heavy with that faint copper bite you get near old shipwrecks or—if you’re me—near your own bitten nails when you forget to stop.
The first drone winks as it turns into the sun and I tell myself it's the media.
The second drone dips lower than it should, so I tell myself it belongs to a hobbyist.
The third stays still—perfectly still—far out over the water, and this time I tell myself I’m inventing patterns because I didn’t sleep.
That’s always the first defense: I’m tired. I’m stressed. I’m overreacting. I’ve built a life out of that sentence.
The tide is low. The rocks are exposed, black and wet, slick with seaweed and the kind of barnacles that cut you if you forget how thin skin is. I kneel anyway. There is a familiar ache in my joints—hypermobile, my doctor says, like that makes it sound less like my body is built out of polite lies. My notebook rests on my thigh, my pen’s cap between my teeth. I don’t—won't—look up at the drones again. I don’t want to know I’m being watched.
The water is wrong in small ways first. The ripples don’t radiate from the usual points. The surface film of red algae doesn’t drift with wind; it hesitates, as if waiting for permission. A gull lands near the waterline, takes one step, and then—without sound—turns away. I extend my gloved hand toward the foam, and my heart stutters.
Not mine, only… not mine? A second rhythm answers under the surf, deeper and slower, as if the ocean has been pretending not to have a body.
I freeze with my hand suspended over the water. It’s absurd. It is, scientifically, absurd. My tongue sticks to my teeth. I swallow, and the taste is salt and iron.
“Okay,” I whisper, because if I say anything louder it becomes real. “Okay. That’s… that’s—” My voice catches.
I’m alone, there’s no reason to stutter but my traitorous mouth does it anyway, a reflex in the face of uncertainty.
I make myself touch the water. The cold should bite through the glove. It doesn’t. Instead, there is a pressure—like being pressed into by something vast and patient. A throb travels up my wrist, up my forearm, into my elbow, into my teeth.
In—out. I breathe. My pulse accelerates.
The ocean answers.
The red algae shivers, not with wind, but with what can only be some form of recognition. A thin filament of darker red—almost black—threads through the bloom like a vein. My stomach drops so hard it feels like the world tilts with it.
“No.” The word escapes me. “No, that’s not—”
I lift my hand and… the filament follows. Not physically, not with a current. It’s almost as though it leans toward me, like I’m something it wants to be near. I jerk back and nearly fall. Sand gives like wet paper. My notebook slips, the corner biting into my palm. The sting is sharp and grounding.
Blood beads and the ocean’s pulse surges in response; the vein-dark thread in the bloom flares like it smelled my cut.
A laugh bursts out of me—too loud, too brittle, wrong in the empty air. I clamp a hand over my mouth immediately, cheeks burning with a ridiculous, schoolgirl embarrassment at my own fear.
Above me, the still drone adjusts by a single degree, and that single horrifying moment is when the water goes still. Still, not calm or peaceful, but still the way a protagonist in a horror movie’s held breath while hiding from the monster is still.
Fish float up in a slow, obedient line. Not dead—some of them still twitch, gills working, eyes blank with panic. A bright silver mackerel breaks the surface, flops once as though it’s fighting some invisible pull, and then freezes as if pinned.
… pinned by what?
My skin prickles. Every hair along my arms stands. The salt air feels suddenly thin, as if the atmosphere has stepped away. I stand too fast and my knees pop. My vision narrows at the edges.
I hear footsteps on the sand behind me but I don’t turn, because not only is that the one thing I’ve learned not to do from horror films, but also because it would either prove that my lack of sleep has finally tipped over into auditory hallucination territory or… confirm I’m not alone, which would mean I’m right to be afraid.
A voice, low and wet with imitation warmth, says, “Evelyn Shimizu.” No one uses my full name unless they’re reading it off a file.
It’s a stupid choice, but… I turn.
There are four of them at the edge of the breakwater path, half-hidden by the concrete supports, dressed like locals if locals all dressed the same. Hooded jackets, work boots, hands in pockets. As if the identical nondescript outfits weren’t eerie enough, their faces are too blank to be normal in any sense of the word. One of them holds a length of red cord looped around his fingers. The cord is damp, and it glistens, almost like—no. Like wet twine… like nothing.
The man smiles.
“Mythology researcher,” he says. “Here to examine unexplained coastal anomalies. We’ve been… following your work.”
“Th-that’s…” I swallow, tasting copper again. “That’s flattering, but—um. I don’t—” I take a step back. The sand grips my heel like it doesn’t want to let me go.
The second man speaks without moving his lips much. “Come with us.”
My hands tighten around my notebook. It’s absurd to cling to paper like it’s armor, but it’s the only thing I have that still feels like me.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, “No. I’m not— I’m not going anywhere with— with strangers.”
A third voice, female, patient, says, “Not strangers. Devotees,” and then she says the phrase that turns my blood to ice.
“Carmine Vessel.”
My mouth goes dry. My mind scrambles for reference points. A cult? A coastal cult? I’ve written about sea worship and red-tide myths, about drowned crowns and blood currents in folklore, but—
Vessel is a word that belongs to bodies.
The red cord shifts in the first man’s hands like it’s alive.
I take another step back and my boot hits a rock and I stumble, my clumsy feet betraying me in my moment of fear. My notebook flies out of my grip, pages fanning open like a wounded bird. My palm stings where it hit the notebook earlier and blood, again, wells along scrapes left behind by the sharp edge of paper.
The woman’s eyes flick to my hand and disturbingly I watch her pupils dilate. “Careful,” she murmurs nonsensically. “She’s awake.”
“I don’t–,” I blurt, because denial is my oldest survival technique. “Obviously I’m awake, but–I’m not what you think I am. I- I’m not an- anything. I’m a— I’m a minor anomaly on your radar at best. I don’t— I don’t have—”
I gesture, uselessly, at the ocean, at the dead fish, at the eerie stillness. I cannot say magic out loud, my mouth refuses to verbalize something so absurd. (Even though I know magic is real, but I cannot be sure that these people know for certain either. We who are other have a duty to make sure that those who are unaware of the other parts of the world remain that way.)
The first man moves. Fast. The red cord lashes out, aiming for my wrist like a noose and I jerk away on instinct, knowing that if they manage to get me bound something terrible is going to happen. My fear triggers something in my gut and the storm drain beside the breakwater—one of those concrete mouths that leads down from the road—gurgles. For what must only be a second but feels like an eternity, nothing happens except that I feel vaguely like I’m going to throw up but then—
Water explodes upward.
It’s not a spray but thin and vicious like a whip. It snaps around the man’s arm with a wet crack and yanks him sideways. He hits the sand hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Both I and my culty would-be-kidnappers freeze. Well, me most of all, because I didn’t do that, at least I— I don’t think I did?
(Magic isn’t like that. Magic is incantation, magic is arrays and talismans, magic is more than just emotion and will. My family is well versed in it and when I was adopted they taught me well, despite my inadequacies.)
A second whip of water rises from the drain, curls, and hovers like a serpent, trembling with contained force.
The woman’s face lights with reverence. “Oh,” she whispers. “Oh, she is.”
Panic slams into me so fast my vision goes white at the edges.
This is not happening. This is a hallucination. This is stress. This is my body betraying me.
A hand clamps around my upper arm from behind—cool, careful, impossibly strong. I scream and twist, elbowing backward and jerky meager attempt at assault hits nothing merely solid, it hits a chest that feels like stone covered in fabric.
A voice murmurs low against my ear—male, smooth, bored in the way predators are bored—says, “If you keep flailing, waif, you’ll drown yourself.”
Waif. The word should be insulting and it lands like a label pressed onto my skin as I turn my head enough to see him.
Tall—too tall to be human without looking like a stretched-out mistake. Dark skin like shadow with bruise undertones with hair midnight-blue, appearing disheveled in a way that’s almost purposeful. A long scarf coils loose around his neck and shoulders like an afterthought, reminding me of the half-capes belonging to royalty in those stupid Webtoons I read when I need an escape. Burnished gold eyes, slit like a cat’s, regard the scene as if he’s walked into a tedious argument at a party.
His mouth curves, but it’s not a smile. Goosebumps immediately rise along the back of my neck. It’s a warning.
The cultists step back as one. The woman’s reverence snaps into fear. “Oathbreaker,” she hisses, like a curse. “Final—”
He doesn’t even seem to acknowledge her, instead keeping that inhuman gaze on the red cord in that first man’s hand, and then he moves.
It is not a fight… no, that would be poetic, or romantic. This is decidedly neither of those things. This is a massacre.
One moment the man with the cord is standing; the next, he is on his knees, and something wet hits the sand. There is a sound like fruit splitting under pressure and the pungent scent of iron blooms into the air.
My stomach heaves.
I catch a glimpse—only a glimpse—of the man’s face in the moment before it goes slack, and my mind refuses to keep the image. It slides away like water off oil.
The tall stranger wipes his fingers on the cultist’s jacket with faint disgust, and then he is back beside me, his large hand wrapped around my upper arm like a vice. I freeze like a prey animal.
He studies me then. Not my face or my expression, no, his burning eyes drop to my lower back as if he can see through layers of wool, cotton, and denim. That gaze hooks into the base of my spine where my birthmark lives—strangely sigil-shaped, something my adoptive mother once called “a lucky scar” with too-bright eyes. My skin burns there suddenly, like the mark heard him looking, which is patently absurd.
His head tilts, “Of course,” he says quietly, as if something he suspected has just confirmed itself.
I yank my arm out of his grip and anger flashes—hot and sharp—through the fear, filling me with unearned bravery. “Don’t— don’t touch me,” my voice snaps at him, higher than I want it to be. “Who are you? What the hell is—”
The water continues to whip around us, as though it is responding to my rising pulse. The tall stranger’s eyes flick to it, amused.
“You’re asking questions,” he says, “as if you’re entitled to answers.”
My cheeks flush with humiliation at how easily he shrinks me with one sentence. I clench my jaw. “I am entitled to answers if people are trying to abduct me.”
He considers me with that long, appraising stare that feels like being weighed and found… entertaining. Then he says, very softly, as if tasting the word—
“Carmine.”
My birthmark pulses so hard it’s as though I can feel it in my teeth.
“I don’t know what that means,” I say, and I hate the wobble in my voice.
He leans closer. His body temperature is wrong—cooler than the air, like shade in a heatwave.
“You should not be awake yet,” he murmurs.
And then the still drone above the water dips lower, as if it’s trying to listen.
Qi Qingqi rarely takes her disciples down the mountain. Most market towns near Cang Qiong hold little of worth beyond dust, cheap incense, and merchants eager to overcharge. Still, sect duty requires her to investigate disturbances when the local magistrate cries “spirits,” so here she is: the Xian Shu Peak Lord, with half a dozen sharp-eyed disciples fanning behind her like a veil of silk. It is not difficult. A clutch of hungry minor ghosts, the kind too stupid to realize they have strayed too near cultivator lands. The sweep is quick, clean, done in less than half a day. Her disciples look to her now, hoping for reward.
“Two hours,” Qi Qingqi says at last. “Buy your sweets and trinkets. Return to the square on time.”
They bow, relief glittering bright on their faces. She dismisses them with a flick of her sleeve, remaining behind.
Qi Qingqi is not the type to waste time in idle places. When she is sent to oversee a cleansing mission in a market town halfway down the mountain pass, she fulfills her duty swiftly: drives out the lesser spirits, calms the frightened villagers, and leaves instructions with the local magistrate. Her disciples perform well; they are alert, precise, obedient, and she rewards them with a rare afternoon to enjoy the stalls before their return to the sect. She herself prefers efficiency.
Qi Qingqi trusts her instincts. They make her a cultivator worthy of Xian Shu Peak, keep her disciples alive when missions grow complicated, and preserve the balance between justice and compassion. The quiet respite after a well-completed mission leaves her with the undeniable urge to walk the marketplace. It has become a habit, nothing more. Assessing the strength of a town by its trade, noting the price of dried herbs, weighing how sturdy the knives on the stalls are. A Peak Lord must remain alert, even at rest. She walks the length of the marketplace once, gauging its heartbeat. Common herbs and silks, cheap incense, once-decorative blades dulled by too many years of use. A town that clings to life at the edge of wilderness. Nothing worth noting.
It is in one such sweep of the square that she sees him.
There—sitting cross-legged on the steps of a tea house, brush in hand, hair loose around his face—sits Shen Qingqiu.
For an instant, her entire body goes still.
Her pulse jolts, sharp and unpleasant. What business does that man have here, scribbling notes like a scholar while his disciples rot under his neglect?
Her steps slow before she can stop herself, eyes locking on this unwanted presence.
His is a face she knows, and one she despises: pale skin, arched brows, the faintest smirk curved like an insult across the lips even when he isn’t speaking. She has endured years watching that face across sect meetings, years seeing it disappear; hidden behind a fan as Shen Qingqiu preens, sharp-tongued and slippery. She has watched that face speak poison to Zhangmen-shixong, watched it dismiss her shizi with barely concealed disdain.
At first she wonders why Shen Qingqiu has deigned to come down the mountain himself; her entire body tenses, ready to unsheathe her tongue as sharply as her sword.
But then he looks up, blinking at her in surprise, and the illusion breaks.
This isn’t Shen Qingqiu.
The resemblance is uncanny, however. There’s the same sharp jawline, same curve of brow… but his eyes are wrong. That man’s eyes are dark, cold, gleaming with concealed contempt. This man’s eyes are startlingly green, unguarded, and far too open. No icy disdain in their depths, no careful contempt, no mask of cultivated superiority. No fan in his hand, no silken robes. Instead, plain scholar’s garb and only plain surprise and a jarring warmth in his gaze.
The man blinks owlishly, adjusting the odd round spectacles perched on his nose. “Ah! Apologies, Daozhang, this humble one isn’t in the way, is he?” he says, moving to stand with the brush still clutched in his hand.
Qi Qingqi’s fingers twitch on her sleeve. The voice isn’t the same, either. Softer, lacking the habitual edge. But the resemblance is close enough to stir her blood cold.
“No,” she says curtly. She should keep walking. She should turn and leave him to his business. But she finds her feet betraying her, grounding her where she stands. Instead, Qi Qingqi stills, measuring him with an expressionless gaze. “You… What's your name?”
The man scrambles upright, brushing dust from his plain scholar’s robes. Idly, she notes he is shorter than Shen Qingqiu by at least a cun. “This solitary cultivator presents himself to Daozhang. This humble one’s family name is Shen, given name Yuan. This one was granted no courtesy name.” He gives a half-bow, more rustic-scholar than sect-trained cultivator in posture.
Her jaw tightens.
Shen.
Of course.
The sour taste in her mouth intensifies. She long ago ceased believing in coincidence. She studies him openly, letting silence stretch until he shifts under her gaze. He looks too soft, too unguarded, but the bone structure, the tilt of his mouth—it is all there, infuriatingly familiar.
“You resemble someone,” she says at last, each syllable clipped, like a blade tapped against stone.
He laughs, a nervous sound. “Ah, this one gets that a lot. It seems this one’s face isn’t unique. Might this humble one ask—someone Daozhang knows?”
Qi Qingqi’s expression cools further, though inside her chest something twists. Someone I know? Someone I can never forget, cannot avoid, no matter how I might wish it. No matter how I wish otherwise.
Her jaw tightens and she says, flatly, “Cang Qiong’s Shen Qingqiu.”
The name lands like a thrown dagger’s blade point. His smile falters, his shoulders stiffen, and yet… he does not flinch away. He nods once, soberly. “I see.”
The silence grows sharp again, filled with the crowd’s chatter, the clatter of vendors. Her disciples linger at the edge of the square, casting puzzled looks in her direction, but none dare intrude while her attention is fixed on a stranger. She should leave now. She should dismiss him as coincidence, as an echo best ignored. But Shen Yuan’s gaze lingers—uncertain, almost hopeful, as though he expects her to say more. As though he wants her opinion of Shen Qingqiu.
She nearly scoffs aloud.
Instead, Qi Qingqi asks bluntly, “Is there a relation?”
“No,” he says quickly, perhaps too quickly, shaking his head. Then, softer, with a wry little grimace, “Not that this one knows of.”
Qi Qingqi folds her arms, sleeves falling in crisp lines. She has never trusted Shen Qingqiu, never forgiven the way he wields his position like a weapon while others bent under the weight. She does not like the resemblance this Shen Yuan has to such a man. She does not like that Shen Yuan speaks politely, earnestly, as though his face is not a cruel reminder of years of cutting words and sly glances across Zhangmen-shixong’s table. Seeing this softer double unsettles her in a way she cannot name; it only deepens the old wound and serves as a reminder that perhaps he could have been different, had his choices diverged.
But she cannot afford indulgent thoughts.
“You should take care,” Qi Qingqi says at last, her tone clipped. “There are places where wearing his face would bring you no kindness.”
To her surprise, Shen Yuan does not bristle. His gaze (so bright, too unguarded) meets hers steadily, and then slowly, he nods. “Thank you for the warning.”
The sincerity in his tone is worse than mockery; disarming in a way that irritates her more than arrogance ever could. He means it. She can see it in the way his hands still, in the way his gaze softens with gratitude rather than offense. Qi Qingqi turns sharply, her sleeves snapping with the action. She will not linger. Not here, not in front of this stranger with a familiar face and unfamiliar eyes.
And yet, as she rejoins her disciples, her thoughts linger against her will. She begins to step away, fully intending to leave, but then he speaks again, hesitant.
“Forgive this one’s impertinence, Fengzhu—”
The title halts her. She looks back sharply, irritation flickering. “You know who I am?”
“Xian Shu Peak’s Qi Qingqi,” he says, as if reciting plain facts. “Qi-fengzhu carries herself exactly as described. Qi-fengzhu’s reputation precedes her.” His tone carries no flattery, no tremor of fear. Simply observation. “And her disciples,” he nods toward the cluster of young women waiting obediently nearby, “walk like a silk screen in formation.”
Praise so straightforward should not matter. She should dismiss it as flattery. And yet… there is no calculation in his tone, only plain observation.
Qi Qingqi’s brows arch, though her face remains composed. “If you know who I am, then you know I have no time for idle chatter.”
“This humble one wouldn’t dare waste it.” He lifts his hands, palms open in a strangely disarming gesture. “But… this one wonders if he might trouble Qi-fengzhu with a suggestion.”
Her expression cools further, lips thinning. “A suggestion?”
“For Qi-fengzhu’s disciples,” he says quickly, then hesitates, glancing aside. “Forgive this one, that sounds presumptuous. But this one noticed during Xian Shu’s sweep earlier; they handled the minor spirits well, very decisively. Except when the lead spirit split. There was a moment’s pause before they adjusted formation. Only a heartbeat, but—”
Her gaze sharpens. Few outside Xian Shu Peak even notice such details.
He presses on awkwardly: “If Qi-fengzhu placed the second-spear disciple half a step wider, they’d cover the angle without needing Qi-fengzhu’s signal. It’s only a small adjustment, but… it might save time if something nastier ever tried the same trick.”
Qi Qingqi’s eyes narrow. She remembers the instant exactly. She had not thought anyone else was watching close enough to catch it.
“Do you presume to lecture me on formation drills?”
Shen Yuan’s ink-stained hands flail, his expression clearly horrified. “No! Absolutely not. Only– I– this humble one has seen that tactic before. In other regions. This one merely thought… it might be worth considering.”
She studies him in silence. Then, sharply: “What regions?”
He freezes, caught. But then words tumble out with quick sincerity, his formality all but disappearing in his urgency: “The southern marches. It’s a trick swamp-wraiths use when they split off shadow-clones. You press a line too close together, the illusions scatter them. If your flanks are open—well, you know better than me.”
Her eyes flick across his face, searching for the telltale signs of a liar. Nothing. Only nervous honesty.
“And if,” she says slowly, “the enemy is not a wraith but a demon beast? Say, a Ghostwhisper Basilisk Hydra.”
He hesitates only long enough for a breath, his eyes sparkling as something seems to ignite within him, his words bursting forth rapid-fire. “The same spacing works, but… I’d swap who carries fire talismans. You’d want them central, not on the edges. Otherwise you risk—” He bites his lip, grimacing. “Apologies, th- this one is talking too much.”
Her gaze sharpens further. “No. Continue.” Her tone brooks no argument.
She watches as the gangly scholar shifts in place before gathering himself. “…risk the Hydra splitting the line and your fire being wasted on only one head. Better to force most of them into the choke.”
Qi Qingqi’s lips curve upwards, faint and cold. “You have no training. Yet you speak as though you’ve run these drills yourself.”
He shakes his head quickly. “Never once. I- this one is not nearly as skilled as Qi-fengzhu nor her disciples with a sword, lacking formal teachings. But… this humble one reads. He watches. And this one always remembers.”
Plain words, but steady. No boast, no apology.
She tilts her head, silk sleeve brushing the air like the wing of a crane. “Then tell me, Shen-sanxiu. If you were to train my disciples, what lesson would you begin with?”
He blinks, startled. “Train? I- this humble one would never presume–!”
“Answer,” she says, voice soft as the draw of steel yet hard as diamond.
He swallows, then speaks haltingly: “Not- not sword drills. They already know those better than anyone. I’d… I’d start with how to read the enemy. How to- to see the first mistake, the first tell. A formation’s only as good as the eyes behind it.”
A faint tremor passes through her chest, so quick she almost misses it.
“You are not a disciple of Cang Qiong,” she says coldly, fighting to bury her confused curiosity beneath the ice. “Why share such—” she practically spits the word, “advice? For what purpose?”
Shen Yuan meets her suspicion without flinching, the sheer conviction in his words nearly causing her to miss his sudden drop of formal language. “Because people die when they don’t know what they face. If this—if I can help save even one life—then… then sharing what I know is worth something.”
Too guileless. Too earnest. The words twist like a thorn under her ribs.
She should cut the encounter short. She should warn him to keep far from the sect, far from Shen Qingqiu, far from resemblance that can only spell trouble.
She says nothing. Turns sharply on her heel. Silks whisper as she walks away, her disciples falling into step behind her, her thoughts betraying her.
Behind her, the strange unbound cultivator Shen Yuan lets out a small breath of relief.
Later, when her disciples reassemble, she casts a sharp eye down their formation. Half a step wider, she thinks, that soft voice ringing clear as bells in her mind. And though she never admits it aloud, she makes the change.
By nightfall, Qi Qingqi tells herself Shen Yuan is irrelevant. A passing resemblance, a soft-spoken scholar with more luck than sense.
But in the dark, she finds herself unsettled.
If Shen Qingqiu had once—just once—spoken with eyes that clear, with words that simple, perhaps she might not despise the sight of his face so completely.
Perhaps she might have believed he had any heart left to show.
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He Ling Town is noisy, ordinary, and blessedly unremarkable. Yue Qingyuan has told himself that chaos is why he came—because the quietude of Qiong Ding Peak presses too heavily on his chest, and a Sect Leader cannot always breathe beneath so much silence.
Here, the cries of vendors and the clatter of carts dull memories. Or… that’s the idea, anyway.
He is just passing the tea stalls when he spots him. At first, Yue Qingyuan is convinced that his mind is playing tricks.
A man seated at a low wooden table, ink brush steady in hand, hair cropped short against custom. Round spectacles glinting in the sun. His face—
Yue Qingyuan stops mid-step. His pulse slams against his ribs.
It can’t be.
His throat tightens, his steps falter. His heart stops, then lurches.
Every line, every angle—too familiar. His mind supplies the name before he can stop it: A-Jiu.
It’s A-Jiu.
But not. Not his A-Jiu. Not the cold-eyed, scornful master of Qing Jing Peak who flayed Yue Qingyuan alive with every glance, met every word with contempt. Not the boy he had left behind, shackled and bleeding and abandoned to slavers, who had survived only by hardening into something bitter and sharp. The boy whom he had returned too late to save. That boy had survived by hardening into something sharp enough to cut the hand that once held his own.
This man’s mouth curves faintly as he sketches. His brow is unknotted, his air unguarded. The resemblance is cruel.
Before he can stop himself, Yue Qingyuan whispers, “...A-Jiu?”
The man’s head lifts, startled green eyes catching the light. So alike—down to the timbre of his breath—but lacking the familiar chill. They hold no blade, no disdain—only confusion, polite and cautious.
“I- This humble one begs Esteemed Master’s pardon?” he asks.
Yue Qingyuan pulls his composure tight around him like armor, forcing his breathing steady. His hands curl in his sleeves, unseen. “Forgive me. You… resemble someone I once knew.”
The man dips his head politely, a ghost of a smile tugging at oh-so-familiar lips. “This one is Shen Yuan, a wandering cultivator. Sect Leader Yue, I presume?”
The name strikes true like a blade. Shen. That name, always. Yue Qingyuan smiles faintly, because a Sect Leader must, though his chest aches fiercely. “Even in plain robes, am I so easily recognized?”
“You carry yourself like someone the world watches,” Shen Yuan replies with a wry little shrug. “This one only guessed.”
“What are you writing?” Yue Qingyuan asks, almost pleading, desperate to change the subject.
Shen Yuan hesitates, then turns the page he’s working on outward: it’s a Qilin, rendered with reverence and exquisite detail. Notes fill the margins in quick, precise script. It reminds him of A-Jiu’s initial passion when he’d joined Cang Qiong, but the memory is bittersweet and acrid on his tongue.
“A bestiary,” Shen Yuan admits. “Beasts, their habits. Nothing of consequence, they’re merely idle scribbles, although this one is very close to having something substantial enough to publish.”
Yue Qingyuan’s breath catches at the gentleness this familiar stranger exudes. The thought of Shen Jiu’s face—his A-Jiu’s face—ever softening with such affection is too much to take. His A-Jiu has been forced to wield his own brush like a blade, every word edged with scorn. And here… here, that same face dreams of documenting wonders. To Yue Qingyuan, it is everything. His A-Jiu’s face—gentled by a world that has not broken him—bent toward wonder instead of survival.
“You have talent,” Yue Qingyuan says quietly, the conviction heavy in his chest. His hand hovers, aching to touch the page, the curve of the brushstroke—but he pulls back before shadowing the ink. “The world should not lose this. Not again.”
Shen Yuan blinks at the weight of the words.
“Again?” he asks, bafflement in his tone.
Yue Qingyuan freezes before smoothing his expression, his voice flat. “A slip of the tongue.”
The familiar stranger tilts his head, suspicion flickering, then lets it pass.
And Yue Qingyuan—Sect Leader, savior of thousands, failure of one—stands there, gut twisting with the cruel wish to believe. If only… if only he might have this man, with that face, that smile, and tell himself fate and fortune bestowed upon him a second opportunity.
But he has no right. His A-Jiu still lives, only an arm’s reach yet impossibly far. Alive, and locked behind walls Yue Qingyuan himself had built through absence and self-imposed guilt. He has no right to imagine otherwise.
He straightens, forcing calm back onto his face as he inclines his head. He keeps his voice calm though his heart burns. “If you remain in these parts, Cultivator Shen, know that Cang Qiong’s gates are not barred against you, should you ever need shelter.”
Shen Yuan bows lightly, a cautious smile tugging at his lips. “This Shen thanks Sect Leader for his generosity.”
Yue Qingyuan leaves with slow, deliberate steps, the sway of the market crowd swallowing him whole. He does not look back.
But long after, he carries the ghost of green eyes and the aching, unbearable truth: the heavens have shown him what might have been… and then placed it forever out of reach.
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IT’S NOT FUNNY IT’S VERY LOGICAL THAT HE WOULD HAVE ADJUSTED TO LIVING LIFE WHILE HE WAS IN SPACE BECAUSE IT’S DIFFERENT FROM EARTH BUT I CAN’T FUCKING BREATHE
bastard sounds great in an irish accent. if an irish person calls you a 'daft bastard' it just feels right
the welsh have the monopoly on things ending in hell. fuckin hell and bloody hell hit different in a welsh accent. its like music to my ears
the scots have piss and shite for sure. "its pishin it doon out there" "this is a load of shite" absolute poetry
if i may speak for the english i think we do penis related words very well. dickhead, knobhead, bellend, etc.
and for all the shit we give them, you gotta admit that no one can deliver a 'goddamn' quite like an american. theres a certain weight to it that you just cant achieve in other accents. when an american says goddamn you know shit just got real
dededos
turnnoffyourmind
kianamaiart
snowghoul
