Swap au where Shen Yuan wakes up as recent runaway Shen Jiu just a few days before the disciple selection- according to his brand new life companion and master, System.
Shen Yuan has his freak out, System forces him to comply with plot points, and eventually he ends up at the mountain, digging holes.
He's nervous. He's terrified. He's also super, super excited to meet his favorite protagonist, Qing Jing Peak's Master, Luo Binghe; and when Luo Binghe calls on him, and they meet eyes, Shen Yuan realizes one very important thing.
The book did *not* do his protagonist justice. Not one bit. His new shizun is *so fucking cool.*
He's taken to the peak. The tea ceremony happens, and the entire time, Shen Yuan does his best to hide the stars that must be in his eyes. His favorite protagonist! Is not his Shizun!!
But Binghe, from the moment the tea ceremony started, has been nothing but cold to him. Not in a "we're strangers" way, but in a way that felt almost...hostile.
Shen Yuan's so nervous that sweat runs down his back, but the entire acceptance ceremony goes off without a hitch, so...maybe he imagined it?
It was not imagined. A few days later, Shen Yuan finds himself in the exact same position Cannon Luo Binghe: in a woodshed, hated by everyone.
He has no idea what he did wrong. Doesn't understand why this is happening. Did he offend the protagonist in some way? Was the tea *that* bad??
In the end, with System wholey unhelpful, Shen Yuan has nothing to go on but a tentative theory that, well, plot is going to plot, and no matter what he does, it won't change a thing for Shen Jiu's Fate.
Shen Yuan goes into a bit of a depression after that. Just a bit. But it's fine! So what if he doesn't show up for class anymore? So what if he doesn't even try to sneak food? The woodshed is nice. It's dark, it's private (for the most part), and no one bothers him (unless it's to punish him). All he has to do is be seen keeping up with chores every so often, let the bullies beat him up, and then he can blissfully hide away in his 5☆ accommodations without issue!
Except someone does notice. Eventually. It takes a little while since he often takes missions off peak, but one day on his way back to the bamboo house, Binghe sees his newest Disciple struggling to lift an axe.
Something about the image strikes him as odd, but he dismisses it quickly and goes about his day, thinking that a ten year old fresh off the streets would, of course, be struggling to lift something so heavy.
He receives notice later that that same Disciple hasn't been showing up to class. That odd strike of wrongness hits him again, but he smothers it under minor offense and schedules to have a *talk* with his newest disciple before the end of the week.
Something catches his attention only a day later. A conversation between a small group of disciples traveling between classes. At first he isn't sure what it was, but then he hears it.
His newest disciple is being...starved. Abused. Forced to perform manual labor until collapse, then framed and beaten as punishment for minor infractions that he never even did.
Binghe is horrified. He memorizes these disciples' faces and then rushes to the dorms as quickly as he can without appearing to be running, the entire time thinking back to the last time he saw his disciple and cursing himself to not noticing the obvious. What kind of Shizun was he? Was he so far removed from his past that he couldn't recognize all the signs?!
Once he reaches the dorms, he grabs a disciple and orders them to bring out their newest shidi (What was his name? Shen-? Shen *what?*).
He expects easy obedience. Instead, he's met with hesitance. Shifty eyes. He makes his order again, perhaps a bit too harshly, and is given a nervous statement, "Shidi isn't here."
But that was ridiculous. This disciple hadn't even checked. How would they know he wasn't there?
A thought strikes him, and he enters the dorm himself, dragging the disciple behind him. He glances around, and sure enough, his newest little disciple isn't here, but this doesn't surprise him now. No, it's only validating the theory forming in his head.
"Which bed belongs to your Shidi?"
The boys in the room all go silent. The one under his hand looks as if Binghe had come to personally cut his head off.
"...none of them, shizun."
"Then," He just barely keeps from hissing. "Where. Has your *ten year old shidi*. Been *sleeping.*"
The disciple under his hand is near tears. "Please forgive us, Shizun! We thought he'd offended you in some way, so we were trying to drive him out. But he just wouldn't go!"
Offended me? He wonders. As he rushes off again, those two words keep appearing. He knows he'd been a bit quiet and absent with his newest disciple, but for his other disciples to see that and decide to do something like *this?*
The horror begins to hit him as the woodshed appears in the distance. His peak was sheltered. Nearly all of the children here came from decent backgrounds. They did not know what life on the streets is like; the feeling of slowly withering away, of bruises that never stopped aching, and injuries that never healed quite right. Sheltered. His peak was sheltered.
He'd never realized that was a problem 'til now.
Disciple Shen is not in the woodshed, but it's obvious he'd been sleeping there. Luo Binghe forces himself to take a good look, then turns on a heel and starts searching the surrounding forest.
He finds him eventually at a creek's edge, two full buckets held in hands gaunt and boney. The poor boy is struggling to lift them, arms shaking, breath unsteady. His little face is pale and hollow. His eyes...Luo Binghe remembered them to be shy but bright, full of awe and admiration and green like the bamboo around them.
They're dark now. Grey and starless.
Qing Jing Peak had done that to him.
*Luo Binghe* had done that to him.
The Peak Lord feels shame well up inside, but he pushes it aside and calls out.
Disciple Shen responds instantly. Freezing. Those eyes come up and...he's glad to see that empty stare go, but the caution and anxiety spear through his heart. Binghe had never wanted a child under his care to ever fear him. It seemed, through his own foolishness, he'd achieved just that.
It will not stay that way. He vows it.
