An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mòběi-jūn/Shàng Qīnghuá
Characters: Mòběi-jūn, Shàng Qīnghuá
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Dragon Shang Qinghua, Human Mobei Jun, First Meetings, MoShang Week 2020
Summary: Disgraced noble Mobei Jun is dedicated to restoring his family’s name. Desperate and out of options, he travels to the edge of the kingdom and gambles on a ridiculous local legend: a dragon living in a nameless mountain, guarding its horde of untold treasures.
aka Meet-cute in a mountain cave.
In the most remote region of the kingdom, there stood a lone mountain wreathed in mist and ominously dark. At its base were a smattering of inhabitants - nothing grander than a town and mostly small villages.
These people had lived so far the rest of the world, developing their own traditions and history, passed down through the generations without fail. One prominent legend told of an ancient beast which called the nameless mountain home. It’s said that no mortal was brave enough to claim this territory for thousands of years. Or even dare to decide on a name for a place that did not belong to them.
So the Nameless Mountain it remained.
Mobei Jun, disgraced son of a long since deceased and equally disgraced noble, listened to the men in the inn speak of these tales in hushed tones. He’d scoffed at their cowardice, as though this supposedly fearsome beast could detect slight whispers from so far away.
After a bit of drink, the bravest among them revealed the ever present terror watching over their lives was really a dragon. How it slept on a bed of glimmering silver, dotted with luminous pearls the size of a man’s fist and pieces of jade so pure and pale they outshone any fair beauty in the kingdom. Its treasures were bountiful and rare, likely not seen by the outside world in numerous centuries.
An exaggeration at best. At worst a complete fabrication. But Mobei Jun had very little to lose. If he wanted to restore his family’s good name and reverse their fortunes, it’d be worth the risk. He hadn’t succeeded in any other venture, chased here to the edge of the world by his uncle’s thugs.
Questioning further, he learned the mountain was treacherous and not a soul alive had stepped past the base in recent memory. Of course there were scores of cautionary tales meant to frighten children into behaving: disobedient young boys traversing up a forgotten path and never seen again. Or older, more gruesome warnings of whole villages razed to the ground for trespassing in the dragon’s territory.
Mobei Jun finished his drink, turned in for the night, and set out to travel up this looming, silent giant at first light.
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