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“Qi-ge! Wake up!”
Yue Qi groans, the note of panic in Shen Jiu's voice sends his heart racing and he struggles to get up quickly even though his limbs are heavy and his head is spinning. Panic meant something bad, and something bad meant they had to run. He can feel Shen Jiu's fingers plucking at his clothes, taking hold of the skin of his upper arm between skinny fingers and twisting hard. He winces and opens his eyes, blinking against the sunlight and Shen Jiu's face looking down on him slackens in relief.
“What’s happened?” Yue Qi asks, already pushing himself up to look around. His clothes shift strangely on his body, and he looks down to find that he’s swamped in cloth, finer than some of the more expensive robes he’d seen on the Qiu. It’s so soft he can’t help but run his fingers over it. He takes another look at Shen Jiu only to find that he’s wrapped in an oversized inner shirt that reaches to his knees, a bright green sash wound several times round his waist holding it closed. The cloth is still of better quality than anything they’ve ever worn.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think we’re meant to be here. Qi-ge, get up, quick, we have to get out of here,” Shen Jiu whispers, then pulls all of the brocade off Yue Qi’s shoulders, hastily pulling Yue Qi to his feet. Yue Qi wriggles out of the robes and the belt, flushing when the pants drop with them though it’s certainly nothing Shen Jiu hasn’t seen. Shen Jiu wrestles the sash from the tangle of clothes and presses one end into Yue Qi’s hand, winding the other around his waist and letting Yue Qi tie it together in a messy knot.
Yue Qi feels a curl of embarrassment when he realises the shirt sits mid thigh. He’s too old to be running around half-naked, but it can’t be helped. He tugs self-consciously at the hem before Shen Jiu takes his hand.
“Leave it, it’s fine. Let’s go out the window,” he says and starts to move toward it before there’s a knock on the door and it swings open, letting in a young man dressed in a cultivation sect uniform.
“Shizun, the tea and snacks you reque-- what are you doing here?” At his shout, Shen Jiu jumped and grabbed the closest thing he could find -- a fan -- and threw it at him. The teenager deflected it but upended the tray he was carrying in the process, and it fell to the ground with a great crash. Yue Qi pulled at Shen Jiu and lifted him by the waist, practically throwing him out the window with a rush of adrenaline and scrambled to follow him.
But he was out of luck; a cultivator’s skill -- even one that didn’t look that old -- was still much better than a street rat’s and he was grabbed by the back of his shirt and hauled back in. Yue Qi did the next best thing and quickly dropped to his knees, almost slamming his forehead to the floor, immediately begging forgiveness. He could only hope that Shen Jiu had had the good sense to run.
Except that was too much to ask for because the next moment, the young man cursed, and Shen Jiu’s snarls joined the fray. Yue Qi looked up to see Shen Jiu being picked up like a sack of potatoes, screeching like a banshee and the cultivator had an angry welt on the side of his head that was bleeding.
They were in so much trouble.
~
“So you were attacked. By these boys. And your Shizun and Peak Lord Shen were nowhere to be seen?” Qi Qingqi looked skeptically between Qiong Ding Peak’s head disciple and the two scrawny children kowtowing on the floor. Zhang Fei looked like he had chewed on a bittergourd, but nodded while he pressed a wad of cloth against his brow. A Qian Cao disciple had already looked at the wound and given him some ointment. The bite he’d sustained did not break his skin, but there were still teeth marks. Grabbing the smaller child had been like picking up an angry cat, all claws and teeth.
Qi Qingqi sighed, and looked at the children, who were still trembling on the floor of the main hall. There was no way they could have crawled up the mountain range and snuck into the study of one of the most eminent cultivators on the continent, but the only other option didn’t really bear consideration. She turned around as she heard the other peak lords arrive.
“What’s this I hear about… ah.” Mu Qingfang stared for a moment at the culprits before hurrying over and bidding them to get up, asking one of his disciples to fetch some uniforms for them. “Qi-shimei, you could have at least given them clothes,” he admonished, and Qi Qingqi bristled.
“That was not my first concern! This master was worried there had been a breach in our defences,” she sniffed. The other peak lords glanced at the children dubiously, but wisely refrained from commenting.
“You brought us here to look at children. I thought there were intruders?” Liu Qingge asked, looking like he’d completely lost interest once he realised there wasn’t something to hit.
“There are. They’re the intruders. They were found in Zhangmen-shixiong’s study, where disciple Zhang swears he left him and Shen-shixiong mere moments before,” she explains, her eyebrows raising meaningfully. All the peak lords raise their eyebrows in reply, except for Liu Qingge, who seems more disappointed.
Mu Qingfang leans forward with his best bedside manner to ask them for their names.
“Yue Qi,” the older boy replies, but the younger boy is mulish and turns away from Mu Qingfang towards Yue Qi. Eyebrows continue to climb towards hairlines. Yue Qi hesitates a moment, before moving closer to him and tucking him close, as if to hide him behind himself. “This one is Shen Jiu, please, please, immortal masters, forgive us, we have no idea how we got here, Xiao Jiu was only trying to protect me, he meant no harm!” Yue Qi begs, and bows his head deeply. By now, said immortal masters’ eyebrows are in danger of crawling off their faces entirely.
Mu Qingfang lowers his eyebrows to a more reasonable height and hurries to assure Yue Qi, “It’s alright, it must have been frightening waking up somewhere you aren’t familiar with. May I ask what you remember before this? Were you with your families?” Yue Qi looks unsure for a moment, looking down at Shen Jiu.
Their eyes meet and some message must have been passed, because Yue Qi turns to Mu Qingfang and replies: “Our parents have died and we are orphaned, we live on the streets.” It sounds strangely rehearsed, and Yue Qi’s eyes are carefully blank. Qi Qingqi catches Shen Jiu shifting, his eyes flashing helplessly at Yue Qi’s face before he pushes his face into Yue Qi’s shoulder and begins sniffling wetly.
“That explains a lot,” Wei Qingwei says faintly. Qi Qingqi agrees.
~
Mu Qingfang had allowed them to stay on Qian Cao peak at the healing halls, where they could be monitored while they were searching for a solution. The peak lords were in agreement that since they were already distraught, it didn’t seem prudent to tell them the true nature of their predicament. They seemed to settle quite quickly to their new surroundings, even if they were constantly wary. The first time the boys were brought a warm meal, they looked up at Mu Qingfang then at each other, unwilling to touch it even though he could hear their stomachs growling from where he sat. When he told them kindly that it was for them and they should eat it before it got cold, Shen Jiu set into it ravenously, barely seeming to see what it was he put into his mouth, his eyes instead trained on every person in the room. Yue Qi followed more sedately, thanking Mu Qingfang before reminding Shen Jiu to eat slowly otherwise he’d choke.
That first meal was a loss, as Shen Jiu noisily lost it into a basin half an hour later, staring distraught and teary-eyed at the mess he’d made. Yue Qi pulled Shen Jiu away from it, his own face a bit pale, coaxing him to rinse his mouth out, then drink the tea a disciple passed him. Mu Qingfang made sure to only serve them light foods after that, which were handled much better. Shen Jiu didn’t seem happy with the size of the portion he’d been given for their next meal, but didn’t complain when Mu Qingfang said it would only be until his stomach could take it.
Shen Jiu as a small, underfed child was barely reminiscent of Shen Qingqiu grown, who wore a graceful, scholarly air and was conversant in all manner of things when he deigned to share his thoughts. Though when Mu Qingfang cared to think back far enough to when Shen Jiu had first entered Cang Qiong Mountain sect, his mannerisms were still there. His pointed face was frequently sullen and uninviting of conversation, but as a young child it was merely concerning instead of off-putting. The biggest difference was that he clung to Yue Qi incessantly, instead of ignoring his existence outside of professional matters.
It was late in the evening when he overheard their whispered conversation, as he was about to drop into the healing halls to check in on them. Shen Jiu’s voice was animated and lively, a huge difference from how he was in front of others.
“Qi-ge, I can’t believe we’re here, in an actual righteous cultivator’s sect. Do you think they would take us as disciples?”
“I don’t know… Maybe. Xiao Jiu has the talent for it, I’m sure if you show them your skills they will let you in.”
“Qi-ge better do his best too. We can’t go back to that master, we have to stay here.”
“Xiao Jiu, I’m not sure… If you get in, then it’s fine, I’ll figure something out.”
“No! Qi-ge has to stay with me, it’s no good back there. It will be fine. Just, just don’t tell them that we’re slaves. Stick to the story, don’t meet their eyes, your face is terrible. I’ll do the crying for the both of us, and they’ll have to let us stay, even if we’re not disciples. They’re righteous cultivators after all.”
Mu Qingfang could hear the thread of anxiety that wavered in Shen Jiu’s voice underneath the false bravado. He never intended to find out so much about his martial brothers’ backgrounds, but he could understand a little bit why they had both been so tight-lipped about where they came from.
He interrupted their whispered conversation by knocking on the door before entering. Shen Jiu had turned quiet and watchful again, but they were both seated on the same bed. Yue Qi, once again, had angled his body as if to hide Shen Jiu behind him. It was still the same sentiment he expressed when he was grown, only in different ways. Mu Qingfang, like the others, had thought it was all one-sided, such terrible and pointless favouritism, but seen in the weak glow of lamplight with the whispered conversation still ringing in his ears… he remembered how Shen Qingqiu was impeccable in his duties as second to the Sect Leader. Perhaps it was not so one-sided after all.
“This master just wished to try something. If you would allow me?” Mu Qingfang sits on the bed with them, and reaches out to take Yue Qi’s wrist. He sends a pulse of qi into Yue Qi’s pathways and barely gets the hint of the return before Yue Qi gasps and flinches. In the blink of an eye Shen Jiu has leaped into action, crawling over Yue Qi and pushing Mu Qingfang away, snarling at him like a wild child.
“Let go of him!”
It happens too quickly, before Mu Qingfang can pull away, Shen Jiu has sunk his teeth into his hand and he lets go at the shock of pain.
“Xiao Jiu, no! It’s fine, I was just shocked, stop biting him, I’m so sorry Master Mu,” Yue Qi is frantic, hauling Shen Jiu off of Mu Qingfang. Shen Jiu squirms around to look at Yue Qi, his tone indignant.
“He was hurting you!”
“No, no, I promise, it just felt weird,” Yue Qi insists. Mu Qingfang wipes away the blood welling from the teeth marks and clears his throat in embarrassment.
“It was my fault, I should have explained myself. I’m just testing your spiritual network to see if you have the potential for cultivation. I apologise for startling you, it shouldn’t hurt.” Shen Jiu stares at Mu Qingfang a moment, at a loss for words.
“See, Xiao Jiu, it really didn’t hurt. Now apologise to Master Mu,” Yue Qi nudges at Shen Jiu, who looks at Mu Qingfang with cautious fear in his eyes, but bows his head to apologise. Mu Qingfang accepts his apology as gracefully as he can, then requests to be allowed to check both of them properly.
They submit to his investigation readily, and when he is done, they both lean forward expectantly. Mu Qingfang smiles reassuringly, though something niggles at the back of his mind.
“Both of you have great potential. I will talk to the other Peak Lords about it, you should be able to stay for the time being, at least until the official entrance test.” Yue Qi’s eyes are shining when he looks down at Shen Jiu happily, but the younger boy just smiles tentatively back. Shen Jiu looks nervously at Mu Qingfang, then kowtows on the surface of the bed, apologising again to Mu Qingfang for biting him, refusing to raise his head until Mu Qingfang accepts his apology and tells him to get up.
When the healer left the healing halls that night, his heart was burdened. Shen Jiu’s spirit root was brimming with potential, on par with and possibly outstripping Yue Qi’s. But the Shen Qingqiu he knew had a flawed cultivation base, had difficulty forming his golden core, and was prone to qi deviation.
Truly, the world was unkind, he thought as he made his way back to his quarters, the curve of Shen Jiu’s small smile still lingering in his thoughts.
~
Some careful investigation revealed that Yue Qingyuan had received a strange token and a request for some help identifying it from one of the smaller sects. Whatever it was that he had done with it while Shen Qingqiu had been visiting had activated it. As Shen Qingqiu was usually the one they went to when it came to esoteric information, the solution was delayed as they had to recruit the Qing Jing Peak disciples into scouring the libraries for any trace of information which might usually be found lingering in Shen Qingqiu’s memory.
It seemed that all they had to do was wait. The effects were temporary and it appeared that some people liked to use it for entertainment, or the fulfilment of some deep wish to return to their younger, happier days.
Though for the former Sect Leader and Peak Lord, one wasn’t quite sure whether they’d really want to return to such a bleak childhood.
In any case, both of them were installed ‘officially’ as guest disciples of their former peaks and left under the charge of their terrified head disciples who were sworn to secrecy. They were to be treated as such, and allowed to learn the basics of cultivation, since there didn’t seem to be much else they could do with them until they turned back. The stunned looks on their faces when he had informed them of the decision had been heartbreaking, but even more so when he had told them they would be on different peaks.
Shen Jiu looked like he wanted to protest, but he pressed his lips in a thin line, bowed deeply and thanked Mu Qingfang politely. Ning Yingying came to take him away, chattering cheerfully about Qing Jing peak, but all the while he kept looking back at Yue Qi, who also looked nervous. Zhang Fei bowed stiffly to Mu Qingfang and requested that Yue Qi follow him. Yue Qi quickly thanked Mu Qingfang for his care again, before trailing behind Zhang Fei.
Now they just had to wait and hope the sect didn’t fall apart under Wei Qingwei’s lead.