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Shen Qingqiu had a lot of ideas—and a lot of fears—about what the System might have meant when it dropped him into this dumb novel and said it was granting his wish to make sense of the novel's stupid self-contradictory lore.
There was no possible way that he could reconcile all of it, so it must have had something specific in mind. Surely? It had to be something to do with the villain, since otherwise why would the System make him the most inconvenient character it possibly could have picked?
It hadn't stuck around to explain more. Which was entirely unfair! Weren't Systems supposed to stay around to support their transmigrators? Sure, he had read the book, but there was a massive difference between having read a fictional account of a thing and actually interacting with that thing in person!
His angry thoughts never received any answer, so Shen Qingqiu settled for sulking. Even after he was more or less sure that he could simply avert his death entirely by not being absolutely horrible to the protagonist, since it wasn't like anything was going to force him to be an abusive master or to toss a teenager into an abyss.
His initial instinct was to rush out and fix that whole mess immediately, but he paused on the doorstep. If he did something too out of character, would they think he was possessed?
Was he possessed?
If he acted out of character, would he be part of the contradictory lore that he was supposed to eradicate? Was the System setting him up to shift the plot and then die? That would be an easy way to get an AU started if the System was an absolute bastard about it.
If the other peak lords decided he was possessed and came to check, and Wei Qingwei's sword unsheathed around Luo Binghe….
That was best not considered.
Shen Qingqiu resolved to act as icy as possible to try to stay in character. And he needed to do it without screwing himself by sticking to the main plot. He needed the 'no plot, no blackening, look at the cute white lotus' outcome, thanks. Luo Binghe was a great character and the only good thing about that book, but Shen Qingqiu was more attached to his limbs than to Luo Binghe's character arc.
How would a villain accidentally help the protagonist?
It turned out the best way to help Luo Binghe was to simply pretend like he'd totally forgotten he didn't like him and then get mad about bullying. He felt a little bit bad for Ming Fan, who had gotten the brunt of it and was now terrified that Shen Qingqiu might actually banish him to An Ding if he 'allowed bullying to continue,' but technically Shen Qingqiu was saving Ming Fan from a horrible death, so he only felt a little bad.
The end result was Luo Binghe back in clean robes with a working manual and no longer being locked out of the disciple dormitories. Shen Qingqiu was fairly sure he'd managed to stay in character and not have any focus on Luo Binghe that might bring plot down on their heads. With luck, other than his suddenly not hating Luo Binghe in specific, no one had noticed any change.
It would be easier to pretend to be an asshole if the people he was supposed to be the worst to didn't keep showing up. It was canon, established and consistent canon, that Shen Qingqiu couldn't go five sentences while talking to Yue Qingyuan.
That was hard to keep up when you weren't actually a scum villain!
So far he'd mostly managed it, but he was constantly stressed that he was going to fail and turn into some contradiction and have the plot go, 'Gotcha,' and monkey’s paw him. 'Look at how much more consistent it is!' it would say while murdering him and solving absolutely none of the lore he had actually complained about.
On the bright side, being upset about that did make it much easier to be mean to Yue Qingyuan, who was currently standing in his house for the second time that day.
He was looking at the side room, which Shen Qingqiu had only just found hidden behind a bookshelf. It was empty and dusty, so he'd set the disciples to cleaning it.
They'd been really happy about that. Probably too happy? Shen Qingqiu had tried to pretend that he hadn't seen Luo Binghe in the mix of cheerful little disciples running around after dust bunnies, but the lunch he'd eaten had definitely been prepared by the protagonist, and the little white lotus had almost run into a wall when Shen Qingqiu had complimented it.
There was nothing in canon that said Shen Qingqiu didn't like good food, so he wasn't being self-contradictory! Technically, he couldn't have known which disciple made it!
Yue Qingyuan was looking at that room now with an odd look on his face. "I'm glad to see you've come around," he said pensively after several moments of silence.
Come around? What come around? It was a room! Shen Qingqiu couldn't remember anything about a specific room in canon so—eh, it was probably something to do with whatever enmity was between them. Maybe Yue Qingyuan had complimented the view from that room once, and Shen Qingqiu had decided that meant it had to be closed off forever so no one could ever see the view? That seemed in character.
"How this master arranges his house is none of Zhangmen-shixiong's concern," he answered, hiding behind his fan and trying to look mean. They were already at four sentences, counting greetings!
Yue Qingyuan frowned at him, which was promising.
After several beats of silence, the sect master shook his head. "I see. I'll leave Shen-shidi to his devices then."
And then he left.
Success! Five sentences! Shen Qingqiu was nailing this consistency!
Unfortunately, now he had to figure out why the damn room had been hidden.
He was halfway through making a list of every room-based hint he could remember, most of them completely irrelevant, when he received another unexpected visitor.
He...didn't know who this character was?
The man just barged right into his house, very rudely. He was wearing what Shen Qingqiu was fairly sure matched the descriptions of Bai Zhan robes, so that could explain the rudeness, but not the audacity.
Shen Qingqiu flicked his fan up to hide half his face as he studied the intruder. Since when did Bai Zhan have anyone this pretty? That was—surely any man that looked like this would have at least gotten a name in the novel, so why could Shen Qingqiu not remember a single thing about him? This didn't look like a generic Bai Zhan warrior, even accounting for not all of them being able to measure up to their no doubt hulking peak lord.
Maybe he had misremembered which robes went to which peak. Maybe Airplane had messed up the references everyone went off of, and this man was actually from some softer peak where everyone recited poetry under trees. That seemed like the sort of place that would be filled with pretty cultivators, and of course Airplane wouldn't have bothered to mention anything about it in a harem novel.
"What do you think you're playing at?" the side character demanded, glaring at the mystery room.
Note to self: do not uncover and clean mystery rooms until you know why they're mysteries.
Shen Qingqiu kept his face blank behind his fan. "Clearly no one has ever taught you manners if you think that's an appropriate way to start a conversation after having not so much as knocked."
The side character glared at him, and Shen Qingqiu tried harder to place him. He had a sword, which was a good bet. It looked like—
No, that couldn't be.
That couldn't be—
Shen Qingqiu ran over every description of Cheng Luan in his head. There had been many. It had come up frequently when Liu Mingyan was involved in a plot, which was far more often than the average harem member, and was emphasized as being a unique sword.
….
What sort of shitty author took a character like Liu Qingge and made him into someone this pretty, and then didn't even mention it on page! Shen Qingqiu glanced back at Liu Qingge's face, and was almost startled when he realized how intensely the other man was glaring at him.
Right, staring at his sword had probably seemed a bit like a challenge.
Well—t should! Not that he wanted to fight Liu Qingge. There were few things he wanted less than to fight Liu Qingge! But one of those things he wanted less was getting into a contradiction that spiraled into some sort of death, so worst case scenario, getting his ass kicked by Liu Qingge for being nasty seemed like the lesser evil.
This whole existence was exhausting.
Liu Qingge thankfully didn't seem inclined to beat him up right at that moment. "Leave me out of whatever games you're planning," Liu Qingge snapped.
"Well, I would, but you seem to have invited yourself in. You're welcome to invite yourself out." Shen Qingqiu waved his fan towards the door.
Liu Qingge looked angry for a moment and then seemed to hesitate, looking at Shen Qingqiu more closely.
Shen Qingqiu hid behind his fan again. Had he not been mean enough? He was trying! He had the sarcasm meter fully up! If compared to absolutely any normal person, he could win a 'who is more vindictive and sarcastic' competition with ease. It wasn't his fault the System had thrown him into the role of the only character in this entire disaster who exceeded that!
He was going to spend an eternity being angry at transmigrators who got a helpful system to keep them from making deadly mistakes, instead of an asshole system who abandoned them with cryptic hints.
Liu Qingge hadn't taken the opportunity to leave and instead was standing there with his arms folded, studying Shen Qingqiu like he had just realized something.
Silently.
It was really awkward.
"I assume you left the door open because you weren't planning to stay long," Shen Qingqiu snarked. In any other situation he'd be jumping on the opportunity to smooth things over between himself and the other peak lord, but with the uncertainty of what 'lore contradictions' meant he just couldn't risk it. As long as he didn't throw Luo Binghe into the Abyss, all he had to do was stay in character. Or at least gradually stop being such an asshole. It was all about the long game now.
After an increasingly awkward silence, Liu Qingge let out an annoyed sound, turned around, and went right out the door.
Without closing it behind him.
Rude.
Once he was done internally bitching about that, Shen Qingqiu went back to investigating the mystery room. Surely there was some hint about why it kept weirding out other peak lords.
It was...a nice room. A copy of his own bedroom, really. That was odd, since usually he'd expect the main bedroom to be the largest rather than one of two identical rooms. Shen Qingqiu had thought maybe it was some sort of guest room. Or maybe whoever had built it had a spouse. Airplane had established the idea of separate rooms for spouses fairly often, usually with entirely separate courtyards. None of the harem's courtyards had been as grand as Luo Binghe's, obviously, but maybe whoever had built the house had been married to someone of equal rank, like another peak lord or—
Shen Qingqiu stopped, breathing out harshly.
No.
Absolutely not.
Several hours of cursing into a pillow later, Shen Qingqiu came to the horrifying conclusion that he had somehow gotten stuck in the absolute stupidest version of this novel.
The System had to have been laughing its mechanical face off as it left him! Fix lore contradictions indeed! One sentence. One sentence in a throwaway chapter where Airplane had taken a rare moment to try to bind his lore together after a different throwaway sentence in the chapter before about how even cultivators weren't truly respected as adults until they were married.
It was stupid and needless and exactly like half of Airplane's attempts at cultural worldbuilding. Shen Qingqiu had written a scathing review pointing out that it made absolutely zero sense and contradicted the entire plotline of the enmity between the two peak lords, because surely it would have at least been mentioned if they were married! He had then promptly forgotten about the entire thing, because the next chapter contained even more egregious errors that had to be called out.
If this bit of lore was true, then Yue Qingyuan was married to Shang Qinghua of all people, and that was about the only matchup he could think of that was possibly worse than pairing Shen Qingqiu with Liu Qingge.
Supposedly it was tradition for the ascending peak lords to marry off their disciples in pairs that complemented each other's strengths, and some genius had decided that marrying two disciples that already hated each other would help solve that somehow.
Somewhere, he knew the System that had abandoned him here was laughing at him. What had he ever done to deserve this? He couldn't be married to a man, he'd have to—to—
Well, actually he'd have to do nothing.
He'd have to block up that room again and avoid Liu Qingge as much as possible. Which was exactly what the original Shen Qingqiu had done.
Decided, Shen Qingqiu shoved off of his bed and stalked back out of his room, only to be met with the surprised faces of half a dozen disciples that had been very quietly decorating.
They had done a really good job, and he suddenly felt a bit bad. He couldn't just tell them to undo all of it and close the room back up!
It would fit the mean persona he was supposed to be putting off if he did, but—
Except, he didn't have to! He didn't have to act in character! Well, he probably should, at least enough to avoid looking possessed, but he'd found the catch, and the catch was that he'd been dropped into the shittiest most half-assed arranged marriage lore-drop he had ever read! Shen Qingqiu could be nice to his disciples and make the protagonist like him and do basically whatever he wanted as long as he didn't seem like an entirely new person.
Shen Qingqiu was originally going to turn over a new leaf starting right now.
After several moments of silence, during which the disciples had looked increasingly nervous, he said, "One of you go to An Ding and tell them I need that bed removed and some new bookshelves delivered. Maybe another desk."
Luo Binghe took off out the door as though Shen Qingqiu had given him the order directly. The rest of the disciples milled around for a little and then set to stripping down the bed and removing some of the decorations that would logically be in the way of new bookshelves.
They all looked somewhere between sad and affronted.
They probably all thought he had reconciled with Liu Qingge and were upset that he'd messed it up again. Sorry, disciples! It wasn't happening!
No wonder Liu Qingge had accused him of playing games.
The disciples seemed to get over their disappointment quickly. Within the next few days he had his furniture, the room was decorated, and a quick round of headpats had them all back to normal.
Apparently children in this setting were easy to please. He had a whole field of white lotuses who just needed the tiniest bits of praise to bloom. Even the older disciples seemed to shine at the slightest approval.
He tried to keep it in check. The original goods surely hadn't been the type to praise anyone, so Shen Qingqiu suddenly flinging out praise would seem odd.
If Luo Binghe got extra headpats, then he was sure nobody would notice. And if they did, well, long term it was for the good of the peak and therefore he had no reason to stop.
The next time Yue Qingyuan visited, Shen Qingqiu had been in his new library, at his new desk, pretending to write notes on a bestiary while actually going through a cultivation manual to try and figure out some way to actually get control over his new powers.
Once again, he was jealous of the hypothetical version of him that had a system to help with these things!
Or maybe it was lucky. Surely the System that tossed him cryptically into an arranged marriage situation as a joke wouldn't be the sort to be especially helpful.
He'd just have to figure it out himself.
Or rather, he'd have to gamble on the one idea he had and hope that Yue Qingyuan went along with it, which meant breaking the five line rule. It wasn't like Yue Qingyuan would notice, since the five line thing was mostly meta. All he had to do was keep the conversation going until Yue Qingyuan asked after his health again, which surely wouldn't be more than ten lines into the conversation considering how often the question had been within the first five, and he'd have his opening.
It would have worked perfectly, except Yue Qingyuan did notice somehow. The sixth line of the conversation came and went without disaster, and something shifted slightly in Yue Qingyuan's expression.
It was too late to abort!
Shen Qingqiu hid behind his fan, mentally searching for something nasty to say just in case he needed to.
Yue Qingyuan glanced at the doorway of Shen Qingqiu's new library. "Shidi has been redecorating."
Well, that gave him ammo. Mentally tossing an apology to Liu Qingge, who really didn't deserve this shade, he adopted a just slightly disdainful expression. "Why not? Liu Qingge is never going to be using it."
Yue Qingyuan's expression lightened slightly for some reason. Shen Qingqiu wasn't good at reading these people yet, but surely Yue Qingyuan should have been upset that his married shidi still got along so poorly?
"Are you feeling better then?" Yue Qingyuan asked him, seeming to relax.
Bingo, that was the opening that he had been waiting for. Even better, it was less stressed than that question usually seemed to be. "Yes, but I want to spend some time in seclusion in Ling Xi caves to stabilize my cultivation."
When he had planned the conversation, he had assumed that boldly stating what he wanted was the best way to go about it, but oddly enough Yue Qingyuan's expression seemed to go strange for a moment. "If Shidi feels that's necessary, then of course he can have access to the caves," Yue Qingyuan answered slowly as if he was turning the idea over even as he spoke.
"Then I'll want to go immediately." Best to get his cultivation settled quickly, before he exposed himself as a fraud!
"Did you not want to—" Yue Qingyuan cut himself off, looking pensieve. His eyes flickered over to the library again. "No matter."
"What?" Shen Qingqiu asked, frowning at him. Something to do with Liu Qingge?
"It's nothing," Yue Qingyuan said serenely. "Allow this shixiong to deal with it."
Shen Qingqiu's eyes narrowed. Now that he knew it was safe to be on friendly terms with people, it was tempting to just go along with whatever Yue Qingyuan said. The sect leader was every bit the big brother and probably would simply take care of whatever it was. But Shen Qingqiu had enough pitfalls to deal with already from not knowing things. What if he hadn't remembered that single dumb line about Shen Qingqiu being married to Liu Qingge? What if someone had found out he didn't know because he didn't know. This could be the same!
"If it involves Qing Jing…" he started carefully, hoping that Yue Qingyuan would finish the thought with whatever Shen Qingqiu was supposed to know.
Yue Qingyuan's eyes shifted slightly to the side, but when he looked back at Shen Qingqiu's face, he had the same ever reliable smile as ever. "Given that Shidi will be in seclusion, I think it's best not to go ahead with that joint mission with Bai Zhan."
Shen Qingqiu froze. What joint mission? Wasn't that usually a thing for head disciples? Was Ming Fan meant to run about with some Bai Zhan bully?
Or was that yet another shift in the setting due to this stupid lore point he was supposed to be resolving? It would make a certain amount of sense if peak lords who were married were supposed to carry out tasks together. In a completely objective sense, he could see why that should work well. His Qing Jing could do the research and investigation, then unleash the Bai Zhan muscles.
Unfortunately, even without a vindictive peak lord on Qing Jing, the Bai Zhan disciples were still terrible bullies.
"That would be best," he agreed reluctantly. "But if the matter is pressing—"
Yue Qingyuan seemed somehow both more worried and more certain all at the same time. "I'll send the Bai Zhan disciples on their own." Shen Qingqiu almost answered, but Yue Qingyuan pressed on before he could even get out a word. "They could do with some practice at finesse, and your cultivation is more important."
Well, he could hardly argue with that.
Despite having pushed for Shen Qingqiu to go into seclusion immediately, Yue Qingyuan was oddly stressed as he ushered Shen Qingqiu into the caves. For a long moment, Shen Qingqiu almost thought that Yue Qingyuan was going to follow him in, but thankfully that didn't happen.
He wanted a nice, peaceful seclusion. Plenty of time to meditate and focus and hopefully get over the issues he had been having with his cultivation before anyone else had a chance to notice.
He did not get his nice peaceful seclusion.
What he got was a short stint of meditation, which he was rudely shaken out of by the sound of some sort of turmoil, and, eventually, after a great deal of panic, Liu Qingge practically in his lap.
The Bai Zhan peak lord wasn't trying to stab him anymore, though, which was most definitely an improvement.
If Shen Qingqiu had felt a bit awesome, managing to take down Liu Qingge, he kept it in. Any self congratulations would sound like gloating, which wasn't what he wanted at all. Ideally he could have used this as an opportunity to mend things.
He almost did, but the words caught in his throat as he suddenly realized that this was his husband he was tending to. Husband. A husband he did not want a normal husband relationship with! He needed to somehow smooth things over without changing their relationship!
Shen Qingqiu had no idea how to do that.
So he kept his mouth shut as Liu Qingge frowned up at him with an increasingly complicated expression.
"You really have nothing to say?" Liu Qingge demanded after several minutes of silence and a large amount of spiritual energy transferred.
Shen Qingqiu wasn't sure if Liu Qingge hadn't been able to speak before or if he had been trying to keep quiet as much as Shen Qingqiu was. "I'm focused on trying to calm sh—to calm your qi deviation," he barely caught himself from calling the other man shidi, suddenly not sure if that was the right form of address at all considering they were married. And he certainly wasn't calling him husband! What were the manners here? "Why would I be talking?"
Liu Qingge frowned at him, still glaring but...less than before? And he didn't protest again, so Shen Qingqiu decided to count that as a win.
The rest of his seclusion went uneventfully. Fruitfully, even!
The events afterwards, not so much.
Shen Qingqiu didn't consider that there would be ramifications from falling into Liu Qingge's arms after being poisoned, barely managing coherent sentences.
Once he woke up, in his own bed, it was Yue Qingyuan and Mu Qingfang that greeted him. Mu Qingfang made him drink a tea that was meant to help him sleep as they stabilized his qi, and, given the explanation he'd been given, he didn't think anything of it when Liu Qingge was there to help cleanse his meridians.
He didn't even worry too much after that, when Liu Qingge was the only one there and seemed to be there immediately on his waking. It didn't even occur to Shen Qingqiu to worry about it until he woke up in the middle of the night, feeling less like death warmed over and more like he wanted a snack. At about the point he determined that he did, indeed, have to actually get out of bed if he wanted food, a dark shape appeared in his open doorway.
For half a moment, Shen Qingqiu couldn't do anything but panic because there was someone in his house. Then he remembered that he had literal actual magic and he flung an arm out to send a blast of qi at the intruder.
The darkened form jumped out of the way, and by the time Shen Qingqiu was processing the half-illuminated face that had been revealed by the blast, Liu Qingge was waving a hand to light up the candles in the room.
Shen Qingqiu squinted at the sudden light, trying to calm down. His heart was still convinced there was danger. "What are you doing in my house!"
Liu Qingge gave him an odd look, as though the answer should have been obvious. "Someone had to look after you."
"I have disciples for that!" Shen Qingqiu pressed a hand against his chest, glaring.
"Your disciples can't clear your meridians." Liu Qingge looked oddly unruffled despite having just been attacked. He didn't even seem annoyed? If anything, he kept his movements strangely slow and open as he moved further into the room.
"I shouldn't need that to be done overnight," Shen Qingqiu complained. "Where are you even sleeping? There isn't a bed in that room anymore."
"I mostly meditate," Liu Qingge told him, which seemed like the absolute most boring answer possible. "Let me check your meridians."
"They're fine. I just threw a bunch of qi across the house—did you see what it hit?" He realized, belatedly, that he had probably hit something
"No." Liu Qingge held out a hand and looked pointedly at Shen Qingqiu. "It isn't on fire; you can deal with it later."
Shen Qingqiu huffed, then reluctantly held out his wrist.
It was absolutely unnecessary, but the fuss of meridian cleansing did at least give Shen Qingqiu time to catch his breath and calm down a little bit. Unfortunately that meant he was becoming more and more aware of Liu Qingge's hand softly holding his wrist.
Not that he cared about that!
The whole process took long enough that Shen Qingqiu almost didn't notice as Liu Qingge tapered off the stream of qi. For several moments Liu Qingge just stood there, holding Shen Qingqiu's wrist and looking at him oddly, until Shen Qingqiu quickly pulled his arm back.
"See? It was fine," he said, trying to regain some dignity.
"Why are you up in the middle of the night, then?"
"Because I've been sleeping for days? I was just going to get a snack," Shen Qingqiu complained.
"What do you want?" Liu Qingge asked, half turning like he was going to go get it himself, which was—that was not allowed.
"A snack!" Shen Qingqiu started to get out of his bed and then stopped when Liu Qingge decided to move even closer and make it impossible to get up without some sort of awkwardness.
"You said that, what type."
"The type that I get up and get myself."
Liu Qingge frowned at him. "I'll get it. What type?"
Shen Qingqiu let out a frustrated huff. "The type that's easy to get. Just let me do it, I'm not going to eat it in bed anyways."
"Why not?"
"It—" He caught himself before he said something about it attracting bugs. There were talismans against that. Also cleaning spells on the bedding. "It's just not the done thing."
Liu Qingge rolled his eyes. "Stay here."
When Liu Qingge brought him back some candy, Shen Qingqiu ate it grumpily, not even offering to share.
In the morning he was awakened by the sound of his disciples fussing. It took him several moments to remember the blast of qi and the likely source of the issue.
It wasn't until he was stepping out into the main room that it occurred to him that his door being open probably wasn't enough of an excuse to not be fully dressed.
Too late!
He frowned at the gaggle of disciples who were arguing with Liu Qingge in the main room. It looked as though the blast had mostly missed anything important, but it had definitely left an impression on the wall.
Luo Binghe was the first one to notice him. "Shizun!"
And then that started up a whole cry, and a bunch of children who technically should be too old for this sort of a fuss. Luo Binghe looked close to tears, and it took Shen Qingqiu a bit to realize that he was probably blaming himself for the poisoning.
That was silly, really. Obviously the one to blame for the poisoning was the dead asshole who brought poisoned armor. Maybe Sha Hualing. But certainly not Luo Binghe.
It was hard to actually get that across, though, with a whole half dozen worried disciples and Liu Qingge looking on in bemusement.
He finally sent them off, and when he went back towards his room Liu Qingge made to follow.
"I'm going to get dressed," Shen Qingqiu said, sternly.
Liu Qingge shrugged, and Shen Qingqiu realized belatedly that it probably wouldn't be that out of line for Liu Qingge to try to help with that. It might not be out of line at all. They were married. He kept forgetting. He needed to not keep forgetting. He panicked and shut the door in Liu Qingge's face. Then glared at it as he heard Liu Qingge laugh outside it.
"Let me know if you need any help." Liu Qingge sounded amused, so Shen Qingqiu resolved to not even answer.
He was fully capable of getting on his clothes.
If he ended up getting frustrated with the ties about halfway through and taking a nap instead, that was his own prerogative.
Liu Qingge had an unspoken 'I told you so' on his face later when he pushed open the door holding a platter of food, and Shen Qingqiu very nearly threw a pillow at him.
The next night, the dream demon decided to show himself, and Shen Qingqiu woke up in enough of a panic that he completely forgot about his house guest until Liu Qingge appeared in his doorway again.
"Hey," Liu Qingge said, apparently having learned his lesson about silently looming from the last time. Before Shen Qingqiu could even gather himself enough to answer, Liu Qingge was crossing the room, sitting on his bed, and gently pulling his hand away from where it was tangled in his hair. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Shen Qingqiu couldn't see the expression on Liu Qingge's face in the dark, but the other man at least did him the favor of not replying and just sent a soothing stream of qi into his wrist instead.
They settled into a sort of normal. No matter how much Shen Qingqiu insisted that Liu Qingge had his own home to go back to, Liu Qingge refused to vacate Shen Qingqiu's. After a week of arguments, Shen Qingqiu gave up.
Liu Qingge kept meditating in the library that used to be Liu Qingge's dust filled room. Shen Qingqiu's disciples seemed unsure of how to deal with that, but Shen Qingqiu refused to encourage this encroachment into his space, so it stayed a library and Liu Qingge kept meditating on the ground.
He'd get over it. Once everyone stopped acting like Shen Qingqiu was an invalid, Liu Qingge would surely go back to his own peak and they'd only see each other for the once monthly occasion to cleanse Shen Qingqiu's meridians.
Liu Qingge sometimes went back to his peak while Shen Qingqiu was doing actual work during the day, and after a while he started going out on day trips and bringing back dead animals like some sort of demented cat, but for some reason he never actually moved out.
Shen Qingqiu maintained that it would happen eventually and did his best to ignore the current status of living with his husband.
What did happen was that one day Liu Qingge let him know that he'd be leaving for a longer time, probably a week.
Which was great! Perfect! Shen Qingqiu would finally have his space to himself!
Before he left, Liu Qingge grasped both his shoulders, looking at him seriously, and for a moment Shen Qingqiu was frozen with the thought that Liu Qingge was about to kiss him.
Which he definitely didn't want!
At all!
Then Liu Qingge leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to the center of Shen Qingqiu's forehead.
Shen Qingqiu pulled up his fan, embarrassed.
Of course Liu Qingge hadn't been about to actually kiss him. That was—that was ridiculous. Why had he even considered that.
Liu Qingge looked amused, and Shen Qingqiu glared at him over his fan.
"Try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone," Liu Qingge said, smiling just slightly.
"What trouble?" Shen Qingqiu demanded. "You're the one more likely to get in trouble." He waved his fan at him. "Go, leave. 'Stay out of trouble,' really, where does that even come from? How about you try not to get eaten by whatever needlessly large thing you're off to pick a fight with!"
Several hours after Liu Qingge had left, Shen Qingqiu decided that he had probably embarrassed himself by being a bit too flustered over a forehead kiss, and resolved to actually maintain some poise next time.
Trying to think of how differently to deal with it just made him get flustered again, so he dealt with it by not thinking about it. Surely it would never happen again, and if it did, he'd be able to react more maturely.
When Liu Qingge had been gone for several days, Shen Qingqiu found himself missing him and immediately resolved to find something else to do.
He was not allowed to miss his technically-husband!
Especially since Liu Qingge would definitely get tired of this soon. He didn't even have a bed in Shen Qingqiu's house anymore! Surely no one would continue living like that past the point where it seemed necessary.
Yue Qingyuan, thankfully, provided a distraction.
Not on purpose, Shen Qingqiu was sure, but when the sect leader mentioned that a city was requesting assistance with similar issues as those that had been reported in the last mission they'd talked about, Shen Qingqiu immediately zeroed in on it. "I should take my disciples to go deal with the situation."
Yue Qingyuan hesitated, clearly not thrilled about that prospect. "Bai Zhan was able to handle it fine last time. Wouldn't it make more sense to send them again?"
"No," Shen Qingqiu said stubbornly, having read over the poor excuses for reports from last time to make sure he didn't miss anything essential. "It's a training mission. They trained before, my disciples will train now." He narrowed his eyes. "Unless you're suggesting that my disciples can't deal with it?"
What he was suggesting, both of them knew, was that he didn't want Shen Qingqiu leaving so soon after being poisoned.
Shen Qingqiu really did not care.
He got his way.
When they reached the town, Shen Qingqiu did the bare minimum of listening to the rich old man who had asked for assistance, set his disciples to run around in pairs investigating, and promptly went out himself.
Would it have technically been more proper for him to wait in and mediate or something? Yes. Did he care? No. This was his first demon hunt, and while he had to pretend not to be excited, he certainly wasn't going to miss it!
The demon found him before he found it, which Shen Qingqiu discovered by waking up half-naked in a deserted courtyard. One of the shopkeepers he'd bought a fan from earlier that day was very badly hiding her identity under a veil.
Or rather the identity of the skin she was wearing.
"I had a good thing going!" she ranted at him. "And your husband wrecked it! So now I'll take your skin, get in close, and wreck him. Let's see how arrogant those cultivators are when they can't trust their own!"
Shen Qingqiu rather thought that she had an unrealistic vision of what being in a sect was like considering how much the original goods had fought with Liu Qingge. "Contrary to what you appear to think, I don't actually keep track of every fight Liu Qingge gets into."
He tried not to eye the walls of the courtyard too much, trying to figure out a good way out of this. Shen Qingqiu was bound with immortal binding cable to block his qi, so no luck there, and he couldn't see any obvious quick way out.
That was...not great.
Hopefully, Luo Binghe's protagonist halo would activate somehow, and he'd come running in to provide a distraction so that Shen Qingqiu could get away. If he didn't….
If Shen Qingqiu died here he was going to be so incredibly annoyed. Of all the dumb things, would he really get taken out on his first mission away from the sect? So far he was zero for two on not ending up unconscious during conflicts!
"It wasn't Liu Qingge," the demon sneered. "It was the disciples that you sent to wreck my good thing in Shuang Hu!"
"Are you saying," Shen Qingqiu asked, "that you're the same demon?"
"Of course I'm the same demon! Did you think some mere disciples could take me out!"
He absolutely thought that some disciples should be able to take out this sort of low level boss, but given that he was currently tied up and helpless, it was probably better to let the demon be prideful than to insult it. He paused for a second, trying to figure out the best thing to say to get it in full on bragging mode, when the whole thing became moot because Liu Qingge came bounding over the wall.
The Bai Zhan peak lord looked windswept and majestically enraged despite the fact that he'd sent the demon flying dead in about half a second flat.
It was really very unfair considering Shen Qingqiu was currently trussed up half naked on the floor.
"Are you alright?" Liu Qingge demanded, striding towards him and kneeling down, then hesitating slightly before he touched him.
"I'm tied up, what do you think," Shen Qingqiu snapped, then immediately relented when Liu Qingge suddenly looked worried. "I'm fine. How are you even here? Weren't you…?"
"In the area." Liu Qingge finished for him. "Zhangmen-shixiong sent word that you were going on a mission, and when I got there, your disciples said you never returned. It wasn't too hard to find you after that."
"Well—" It was very tempting to insist that he would have figured it out, but Shen Qingqiu throttled down his pride. "I suppose I owe you thanks. I am fine, though."
"Except for that poison acting up." Liu Qingge countered. "You shouldn't have gone off alone."
That wasn't at all what had happened, but Shen Qingqiu wasn't about to admit that a weak demon completely got the drop on him so he changed the subject instead. "Are you really going to leave me on the floor?"
Liu Qingge's eyes flicked down to Shen Qingqiu's chest, and then he looked quickly away, ears going red.
Wait.
Was the man who had been trying to insist on helping Shen Qingqiu get dressed for weeks embarrassed because he didn't have a shirt on?
Had he been bluffing?
Shen Qingqiu huffed. "Untie me." At least this was one thing that modern sensibilities could help him on! He still had pants and boots on; he would wear less than that at the beach. Not that he'd really been the sort to go swimming much, but he could have been and he wouldn't have been embarrassed at all to be seen in a bathing suit.
Of course, the problem with that was that there was a difference between being around people who weren't exactly paying attention to him while half naked and being touched by someone who was paying a great deal of attention to him. The moment Liu Qingge pulled him up onto his knees and gently started undoing the rope, fingers barely skimming his skin as they slid along it, he realized his mistake.
By the time Liu Qingge got him untied, they were both red-faced and not looking at each other.
Shen Qingqiu went to stand up, but Liu Qingge immediately grabbed at his wrist.
"That can wait," he insisted.
"No it can't," Liu Qingge argued, grip solid on Shen Qingqiu's wrist. And then he pulled him down. Shen Qingqiu would have liked to think that normally he could have resisted just fine, but being tied up for who knew how many hours had thrown his balance off enough that he immediately went tumbling into Liu Qingge's lap.
Liu Qingge wrapped an arm around his waist to keep him from jumping right back up again, and started channeling qi into his meridians.
"I'm fine," Shen Qingqiu insisted, mentally railing because two seconds ago Liu Qingge had been blushing about untying him, and now this! This had to be worse.
Liu Qingge didn't even bother to answer, instead just stubbornly focusing on Shen Qingqiu's meridians. In other circumstances, Shen Qingqiu might have admitted that he felt a little bit better and that was maybe evidence that while he hadn't had the poison act up yet, it might have been impending.
In these circumstances he was too busy convincing himself that he absolutely did not have any issue at all with Liu Qingge's breath brushing past his ear or the feel of Liu Qingge's silk robes against his bare skin or the fact that Shen Qingqiu was sitting on him.
No issue. None. At all.
An eternity later, Liu Qingge finally let him up.
And then he immediately started taking off his outer robe, which caught Shen Qingqiu enough by surprise that he couldn't think what to say until Liu Qingge was tossing the robe at him.
Oh.
Oh. Obviously.
Because—because Shen Qingqiu's robes were nowhere to be seen. He quickly shrugged into Liu Qingge's outer robe, ignoring how it was a bit too big on him, and picked up Xiu Ya.
His fan was missing as well, and he was unreasonably annoyed about it.
He had just enough time to feel like he'd regained some dignity before Liu Qingge ruined all that by picking him up and jumping on his sword, taking to the air.
"Really," he complained. "I have my own sword! I can take myself."
"You were just knocked out by poison and a demon. I'm getting you back to Mu Qingfang immediately," Liu Qingge argued.
"I'm not leaving my disciples! They're children."
"They've been fine all night. They can wait a bit for someone to come fetch them."
"They don't even know I'm alright!"
"They knew I was looking for you," Liu Qingge answered, as though that actually solved the issue.
Shen Qingqiu made a frustrated sound, kicking at him, and then resigned himself to several hours of complaining since Liu Qingge was already well beyond the city borders and didn't look like he was about to stop anytime soon.
If he accidentally dozed off at some point, he was going to blame the poison.
Liu Qingge had insisted on carrying him all the way into his house, dumped him on his bed, and by the time Shen Qingqiu had decided that going to sleep actually sounded like a good idea (instead of getting dressed properly) and that Liu Qingge would just have to live without his outer robe for a while longer, Liu Qingge had returned back with Mu Qingfang.
"I sent some Qiong Ding disciples to escort yours back," Liu Qingge said once Mu Qingfang had left.
Shen Qingqiu frowned. That was unorthodox, but probably a good choice, if not one he would have expected Liu Qingge to make.
As though reading his thoughts Liu Qingge elaborated. "I would have sent Bai Zhan, but they're busy."
"Busy?"
Something strangely like guilt passed over Liu Qingge's face. "They let a demon go and didn't even know it. So they're busy."
Shen Qingqiu frowned at him. "I'm sure the demon was very convincing—"
"Not an excuse."
Shen Qingqiu weighed how much he wanted to keep the Bai Zhan disciples out of trouble, found that amount to be absolutely not at all, and shrugged.
Liu Qingge didn't seem to be put off by his indifference. Instead he sat down on the bed, reaching out to take Shen Qingqiu's hand and looking at him seriously enough that it made Shen Qingqiu nervous. "Next time, don't go out on a mission by yourself."
Technically, he had a whole gaggle of disciples with him, but he knew that wouldn't count. "I can handle myself."
"You can, but you don't have to," Liu Qingge argued, with an easy sincerity that made Shen Qingqiu's breath catch in his throat. "It's safer if you're working with other people."
"You don't."
"I'm offering."
Shen Qingqiu stared at him, surprised. Wasn't that an awful lot, from the peak lord who was known for going off and doing his own thing?
Liu Qingge squeezed his hand slightly and then leaned towards him. Before Shen Qingqiu could really predict the movement, Liu Qingge was kissing him. It was quick and chaste, and Shen Qingqiu's blood was pounding in his ears so loudly that he wasn't sure he would ever not hear it.
"I do care about you," Liu Qingge said, rubbing his thumb across the back of Shen Qingqiu's hand.
Then he let go, getting up from the bed.
Shen Qingqiu reached out and grabbed his sleeve before he could think better of it. "It's late. Just stay," he muttered. "There's not even a bed in there."
It was Liu Qingge's turn to stare.
Shen Qingqiu immediately regretted it. First kiss one second and then immediately inviting him into bed? Husband or not, that was clearly too much! "Never mind."
Liu Qingge shook his head. "I'll stay."
"You don't have to!" Shen Qingqiu protested, then shut up as Liu Qingge sat down on the edge of the bed and started pulling his boots off.
"You really don't listen to anything I say," Liu Qingge complained, reaching up to unceremoniously undo his ponytail. It was unexpected enough that Shen Qingqiu really didn't have time to react when Liu Qingge started climbing into his bed, because his brain was stuck on Liu Qingge with no outer robe and no boots and his hair all loose.
By the time he caught up, it was too late to protest more.
Apparently it was a 'go to bed in your clothes' sort of day, but considering that Shen Qingqiu had already decided to go to sleep wearing Liu Qingge's outer robe, it was probably silly to complain about it.
"What don't I listen to?" he demanded instead, disgruntled.
Liu Qingge just let out half a laugh, waving out the lights.
"You don't have to put me to bed immediately."
"Yes I do. If I don't, you'll read a book even though you should be sleeping." Liu Qingge pulled Shen Qingqiu close to him, entirely ruining Shen Qingqiu's half-formed idea of sharing the bed without actually touching.
It was fairly comfortable, Shen Qingqiu decided. Except for trying not to get flustered over being cuddled up to Liu Qingge. He was...he was going to need some time to get used to that!
Shen Qingqiu did, surprisingly, want to.
Maybe this wasn't the worst bit of lore to get stuck in.