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Yue Qingyuan was handsome, kind, and intelligent, both even tempered and unfailingly courteous, but also commanding and powerful; a figure who inspired awe and respect in equal measure from the Jianghu and civilians alike. To members of his sect, he was a comforting presence. To members of rival sects, an imposing one.
In other words, a perfect sect leader.
No less could be expected from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect: the oldest, largest, and most prestigious cultivation sect in the world. But Yue Qingyuan wasn’t the strongest cultivator among the twelve peaks of his sect.
Liu Qingge was the peak lord of Bai Zhan Peak (known for producing ferocious warriors of unparalleled battle prowess) and the general of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect’s fighting forces. Liu Qingge was widely acknowledged as a new martial god in the making, such that any crack of thunder on a clear day had heads turning towards his peak in question if today…?
But neither was he the strongest cultivator in his sect.
Shang Qinghua was an unassuming man of average height, the peak lord of the logistics peak. He was not soft-spoken, but he also rarely spoke in public, preferring to hold his tongue and nod while keeping his true thoughts to himself.
He was not close to anyone; by choice, it seemed. He was not charming enough to draw others to him, but he wasn’t strange enough to drive them away either, with whispers behind cupped hands.
If you had asked the other disciples of his generation on An Ding Peak what he had been like growing up, they would remember him as someone who was simply there.
He was good looking enough, in a bland sort of way. His clothes were finely made, enough to satisfy the position of peak lord, but the style so generic and unembellished that they said nothing more about him than that he had a bit of wealth or status. Anyone who saw him would say, “Well, surely he’s a lord of some sort, but does anyone know which one?”
Perhaps the most uncanny thing about him was something you would not notice unless you were looking closely (and who would have a reason to?).
The peak lord of An Ding Peak’s hands… there was something strange about them. The fingers were a little too short. He didn’t have fingernails, the digits ending in stubs slightly past the third knuckle (he’d worn the flesh away to the bone, and then the bone itself, tearing at cave walls. His fingers had healed, but they hadn’t grown back).
No one, seeing Shang Qinghua, would guess he was the master of the Xuan Su sword, and the most powerful cultivator in Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, and possibly the entire cultivation world.
++++++++++
The plan had seemed simple. It was a “for want of a nail,” situation, wasn’t it?
If Yue Qingyuan hadn’t tried to take up Xuan Su before he was ready, he would not have qi-deviated, and subsequently been locked away in the Ling Xi caves for a year.
If he was not locked away for so long, he would have made it to the Qiu estate in time to rescue Xiao Jiu.
If Xiao Jiu was rescued by his Qi-Ge in time, he would have not become such a bitter person, and could come to Cang Qiong straight away without first having his cultivation base weakened by that scum rogue cultivator Wu Yanzi’s ruinous tutelage.
If Shen Qingqiu was not a bitter person with ruined cultivation, he would not be so jealous of young Luo Binghe when he arrived at Cang Qiong, and would not torment him out of jealousy.
And if Shen Qingqiu did not torment Luo Binghe when he was a disciple, and if Yue Qingyuan did not simply let it happen out of guilt for having failed to save Shen Qingqiu in the past, Luo Binghe would not have a reason to come back and destroy Cang Qiong Mountain Sect after coming to power as the emperor of the human and demon realms.
So all Shang Qinghua had to do to save this ill-fated world (and most importantly, his own skin, now that he’d transmigrated here) from destruction was stop a young and desperate Yue Qingyuan from trying to force a connection with his future spiritual sword too soon.
Easier said than done.
++++++++++
“Hua-Ge, we were waiting for you,” Yue Qingyuan smiled from where he stood outside the great hall of Qiong Ding Peak, hands folded demurely into his sleeves.
Shang Qinghua cringed as he always did at the name. It was true he was older than Yue Qingyuan, but not by much! What was a year and a handful of months to long-lived cultivators like themselves? And it was just plain wrong for the sect leader to call anyone “Ge!”
He had—politely!—impressed upon Yue Qingyuan over and over again that it was highly inappropriate, but so far the man had stubbornly conceded only as far as calling him “Shidi” when there were others around to hear, and that whole aura of “Are you really going to argue with your Sect Leader over this?” that the man radiated made him sweat too much in anxiety to try to force the issue past that.
Pulling the rank card to force him to let himself be simped over! Yue Qingyuan was truly a menace!
Yue Qingyuan ushered him into the room with a firm hand against the small of his back to his now customary place seated on the sect leader’s left, with Shen Qingqiu at his right. Shang Qinghua’s secretary, following after him just far enough back to be of no use as a human shield, sat down quietly behind him, brush and lapdesk at the ready.
A small bowl of pre-shelled melon seeds already waited at his elbow when Shang Qinghua sat, and he bit back a sigh as he reached for them, feeling the sect leader’s eyes burning a warm spot on the side of his face. The feeling dissipated only once he tossed a handful into his mouth, chewing diligently, and Yue Qingyuan opened the monthly meeting.
++++++++++
Shang Qinghua was the author! Usually in this sort of situation, wasn’t he supposed to be transmigrated as the protagonist? Or at the very least, he would have accepted being a System, so he had some measure of control over what was going on in the world he created.
Instead, he was canon fodder.
But now Shang Qinghua had… well, he wasn’t sure what he’d done, but the consequences were likely… bad. For the plot, most probably, and for him, definitely.
Strictly speaking, Yue Qingyuan, or at least the original goods, was supposed to be the most powerful character in all of Proud Immortal Demon Way.
Airplane had once said as much, off-handedly, in response to some other question in an AMA, and been surprised at the reaction it had caused in the chat. You would think an atomic bomb had gone off, the way those Luo Binghe fanboys had been reacting.
He really had been surprised. It had seemed obvious to him.
Tianlang-Jun had been created as a foe that would be able to grind Luo Binghe’s face into the dirt, kick him down until he couldn’t get up again, shock him into a very real fear for his life. The protagonist’s own, “Luke, I am your father” moment.
And Yue Qingyuan had defeated the demon emperor almost single handedly, when he was still just a disciple, the sect leaders who had been present that day shoving him forward then cowering behind him like he was both the sacrificial lamb and the wall around their city.
But Shang Qinghua supposed that had never made it into the published story, had it?
Even so! The two cultivators had fought several times in the text, and Luo Binghe had never once managed to unequivocally defeat Yue Qingyuan in a one-on-one battle. Instead, it had taken 10,000 poisoned arrows fired from a distance by his minions, shredding the Cang Qiong Sect Leader’s body into pieces no larger than specks of dust, after shattering Yue Qingyuan’s mind with grief (and his will to continue living with it) by sending him the body parts of his beloved Xiao Jiu in a box, to finally get the upper hand and kill him.
It was a cowardly, despicable move, no matter how the fanboys tried to reframe it as badass.
But what made Yue Qingyuan so powerful? He’d always had great natural potential for cultivation, far more than most people could ever hope to achieve even after a lifetime of cultivating, even with access to rare spiritual herbs and power-ups. But it wasn’t potential alone that made him the most powerful character, and kept him in first place in the power rankings despite his relatively early defeat in a story that spanned thousands of pages and a never-ceasing need to up the stakes with more and more powerful foes to face off against.
++++++++++
Shang Qinghua’s blood had been replaced with a raging fire under his skin, while his meridians twisted out of their natural pathways and writhed in his body like snakes.
His every muscle fiber was trying to peel from his bones and jump to attention, while his brain had become a small star at the exact moment of supernova.
He could feel his soul shredding by degrees, one thread at a time splitting at newly formed seams.
If dying by electrocution had been painful, this was a silent, endless scream.
++++++++++
He was told Yue Qingyuan had tried to pay him a visit in the infirmary on Qian Cao after it happened, and been turned away, before Shang Qinghua’s Shifu and Shishu had declared him a lost cause and sealed him off in the caves as a last-ditch effort.
No one had been allowed in after him until they cracked it open a year later, in case he managed to escape before either learning control or starving to death.
It had caused no small amount of friction between Shang Qinghua and other members of the peaks, disciples and masters alike, whose own plans for secluded cultivation had been interrupted or denied as a result.
Not many people knew what had happened. The situation did not reflect well on the sect, so they did their best to sweep it under the rug. Which meant his year imprisoned alone in the dark was viewed by most as an unfairly stolen privilege, rather than what it was.
Yue Qingyuan did visit him in his leisure house, after, when he was recovering. Shang Qinghua doesn’t remember that time all that well, even the first few months after his release, all of it blurry and mixed together into a homogenous mass like porridge in his mind, other than his shixiong asking if he was too hot or too cold, if he wanted another blanket or another cup of calming tea, and repeating over and over again, desperate and calm, voice cracking with emotion and solemn as the grave, that Yue Qingyuan owed him everything, everything, and vowing he would give everything to repay this debt.
++++++++++
Shang Qinghua was not exceptionally talented. He did not train his body or mind more diligently than anyone else in his peer group. So how had he become the strongest cultivator in this world?
His author status didn’t gift him any natural aptitude at (re)birth, and it wasn’t any reward from his stingy system. He was (meant to be) cannon fodder through and through.
The answer was thoroughly unsatisfying; too mundane for one class of fan, and too deus ex machina for the other. He could almost hear their screeching complaints even now.
For someone like Yue Qingyuan, it fit in with his character type and backstory. But for a slimy background guy like Shang Qinghua, it could not even count as “rule of cool” because his own uncoolness dragged down and “wasted” an otherwise awesome sword and powerset with it.
It basically went like this: It may take three strong men to lift a cart off a child, but a desperate mother can do it with one hand, so she can use the other to reach under and pull her child out! This wasn’t something Airplane was pulling out of his ass, either. It existed in his original world, albeit less exaggerated.
The average person instinctively knows the limits of their own body, and can’t go past that point. If a person’s access to their strength is like a tap, then usually it is a carefully controlled trickle.
But in moments of hysterical strength, ordinary humans can turn the tap open to full blast, and pull from their bodies every last ounce of power it has to give. Pretty cool, right? Normally this is something you can’t do on command, but imagine if you could! (Well, in real life, the reason you can’t is because it destroys your body to do it.)
Let’s stretch this analogy further. What happens if the flow is too fast and too strong and too much for the tiny opening in the faucet spout? Well, it shakes itself apart, doesn’t it? And now, there’s simply no way to turn it back off.
You can only wait until the water runs out.
When the original Yue Qingyuan (and now Shang Qinghua) forced his connection with Xuan Su, it caused a qi-deviation irrevocably tying his cultivation not to his spiritual energy, but to his lifeforce.
++++++++++
Yue Qingyuan had noticed Shang Qinghua had difficulty gripping his brush while taking minutes in their monthly meetings, and the very next morning, one of his personal disciples was standing on Shang Qinghua’s doorstep, reporting for duty as the An Ding Peak Lord’s new secretary.
“I don’t understand, Zhangmen-Shixiong,” Shang Qinghua had asked, having taken the Rainbow Bridge to Qiong Ding after a rather confusing but ultimately pointless argument with the disciple that ended in the same place no matter which direction he approached it from. “You want him transferred to An Ding? Liu-shidi is bad enough, but I really don’t want other peaks to make a habit of threatening demotion to An Ding, much less following through!” he’d pleaded.
“Zhen-er is not being punished, Hua-Ge,” Yue Qingyuan had replied placidly, although the corner of his mouth twitched like he was holding back a laugh. “Nor is he being transferred to your care. Zhen-er remains one of my most valued Qiong Ding disciples. He is a very capable and filial young man, which is precisely why I have assigned him to your use.
“He has impeccable penmanship and dictation, and you will find no fault with his skills as a valet. But rest assured, Zhen-er still reports to me.”
Then he let the smile free, soft and pleased.
“I hope he is helpful to you.”
‘Helpful? You’ve just made everything a thousand times more difficult for me, my guy!’ Shang Qinghua thought, ready to pull out his hair. ‘How am I supposed to spy for my King when the Sect Leader’s got a spy on me?! Not! Helpful!’
Biting back swears, he bowed, then bowed again even lower. “Thanking Zhangmen-Shixiong. This is a generous gift! Very! This Shidi will, of course, accept! But I couldn’t possibly keep dear, uh, Chen-er from his friends in his limited free hours! Surely you remember how difficult it is to be a disciple working their way up in the sect? Can’t be filial all the time! Young men need time to be young men! So I will decline on the, uh, valet part.
“Your Shidi really prefers to dress himself! And his privacy! I really value my privacy! So I must insist my leisure house be off-limits to any disciples! But Chang-er can definitely take notes, sure. Duplicates! I definitely need duplicates of the important paperwork. Probably…triplicates… if we’re being honest.”
He trailed off as Yue Qingyuan’s face went stricken, and he stepped closer.
“Of course. Of course, shhhhhhh, your home will remain your own,” he murmured soothingly as he folded his arms around Shang Qinghua, who immediately went stiff at the contact.
But when Yue Qingyuan started to share spiritual energy, calming his uppity meridians, he couldn’t deny it felt good, like a full body massage from the inside out, and relaxed into the embrace.
Fuck, this guy always assumed Shang Qinghua was one minor stressor away from another qi deviation. Airplane should have been more considerate, and given this guy less of a “giving tree” complex, Shang Qinghua thought.
It wasn’t fair he had to feel guilty over making his sect leader feel guilty.
++++++++++
After obsessively stalking his future sect leader to try to guess when he was approaching the breaking point, when he was finally anxious and confident enough to try for a spiritual sword, after skipping class day after day to pace along the sword wall like a caged tiger, diving into bushes to hide whenever someone approached so no one would drag him back to Shifu and cause him to miss Yue Qi, after bodily pushing Yue Qi out of the way once he saw which blade his eyes alighted on, and grabbing the sword for himself, after–
After the–
After, he at least consoled himself it had worked.
Yue Qi had a different sword, a nice, normal and not-deadly sword, that he had bonded with the proper way and mastered at a normal pace, and having proven himself, set off to rescue his Shen Jiu, whom he had succeeded in bringing back.
Shang Qinghua had destroyed his cultivation by turning himself into a WMD and now couldn't even draw his sword to defend himself against small fry (and for him, anything less than a heavenly demon was now small fry), who were still very capable of killing him, so he might as well not have a weapon at all, but he hardly wanted a reason to pull his sword anyway.
Wasn’t that the point of throwing in with Mobei-Jun? That he would have a demon with a scowl that could freeze an inferno solid and sick portal powers to stand between him and other demons who would try to stick him through like a barbecue skewer? (At least until Mobei-Jun decided “loyal service as a spy in exchange for his continued life” wasn’t a good deal anymore.)
But that’s when it started, really.
After Yue Qi had brought Shen Jiu back.
And with the assurance Shen Jiu was now safe, Yue Qi, for some reason, had latched onto Shang Qinghua.
His plan had worked too well. Shen Jiu was still a bitch. He didn’t think any amount of tampering with the plot would change that. But Yue Qi had never abandoned him, his ability to trust had never been shattered, and now 100% of that bitchiness was directed to anyone who had anything less than kind to say about the former street rats shooting up the ranks of Qiong Ding and Qing Jing, rather than his former fellow street rat.
So yeah. Shen Jui didn’t need protection anymore.
That’s when Yue Qi started volunteering to take up any quests Shang Qinghua had been assigned.
(The only mission he could not take from him, was the one he didn’t know about until it was over. Shang Qinghua would not have let him know about it, anyway. As much as Yue Qingyuan had become a monkey on his back, he did not wish him dead, and in this life, with his very normal sword and very normal amount of power to bring to bear, Tianlang-Jun was not an enemy he could escape alive, head disciple of Qiong Ding or not. Shang Qinghua is sure he himself would have been trapped under Bailu Mountain, an acceptable casualty, along with Tianlang-Jun, if Mobei-Jun hadn’t appeared at the last moment only long enough to pull him away and through a portal, hopefully briefly enough to not be identified.)
It’s when Yue Qi started patting the seat beside him at every meeting and every meal, asking him about his classes, his favorite snacks, his favorite books and music.
It’s when he started offering to share spiritual energy with Shang Qinghua to calm his hair-trigger meridians.
That’s when Yue Qingyuan started using his connections and influence to locate and gain access to other spiritually dense locations (even those owned by other sects) where Shang Qinghua could cultivate in seclusion without needing to return to the Ling Xi caves, and offering to guard the entrance himself, no matter how long it took before he came out.
When Yue Qingyuan began approving his every request, cutting through every strip of red tape with his sword, took in his every complaint about this merchant or that sect leader, and committed the grievances and their nature to memory, to later take redress at the most devastating possible moment (No few lives were ruined this way).
It’s when Yue Qingyuan started getting…obsessed.
++++++++++
Shang Qinghua had invited Shen Qingqiu in nervously.
Their relationship was… well, Shen Qingqiu kept the claws sheathed in front of Yue Qingyuan for his Shixiong’s sake, but made no secret otherwise that he thought Shang Qinghua was a pathetic clinger-on he would sooner scrape off the bottom of his boot than spit on if he were on fire.
Shang Qinghua found him terrifying.
Even more so for the way he coldly sat watching him prepare the tea, saying not a word but trembling faintly in rage the whole while.
Shang Qinghua tried to think what he could have done this time. Had he been too accidentally insulting the last time he rejected Yue Qingyuan’s embarrassingly public advances? Qi Qingqi had accused Shang Qinghua of being hot and cold more than once, but honestly it was exhausting how often he needed to push the man away, and Yue Qingyuan definitely got off on being humiliated, which added a whole other element to their interactions that made turning him down even more uncomfortable.
He’d been tired, truly, whatever it was he hadn’t meant to!
Shen Quingqiu let him set the table, and waited until Shang Qinghua was seated and the tea poured before he in one violent movement upended the table sky high, sending crockery flying and tea splattering across the room. While Shang Qinghua was still in shock, the Qing Jing Peak Lord had wasted no time in throwing Shang Qinghua up against the wall, the gleaming edge of Xiu Ya kissing his throat.
“Shixiong!” Shang Qinghua yelped. “Wha– Please! What are you–?”
“I know,” Shen Qingqiu hissed, cutting him off.
“Wh– Know what?” Shang Qinghua quavered, trying not to move a centimeter lest he cut his own throat.
“I know you’ve been consorting with demons, Shang Qinghua,” he spat. “Betraying our sect. Betraying our race! You don’t deserve the Qing name, you foul pathetic worm.”
“I don’t— whatever you think you’ve found—” Shang Qinghua began, gulped and trying to figure out how to talk his way out of this, but Shen Qingqiu just sheathed his sword in disgust, before kicking Shang Qinghua’s legs out from under him so he went crashing to the floor. One hand landed on a shard of ceramic, and he instinctively brought the injured digit up to his mouth.
Shen Qingqiu sneered down at him, lifting one booted foot and pressing it against Shang Qinghua’s face, began applying pressure, like he might try to crush his skull that way.
“You owe your life to Qi-Ge, you miserable beast. Know that’s the only reason I haven’t had you brought forward on charges of treason. It would break his heart to learn what you’ve done, so for now your traitorous hide is safe.
“This is your one and only warning to stop and return to the righteous path. But if I find you’ve continued to spread information to the enemy–” the foot drew back then reconnected with his cheek, shattering some bone in his face and bouncing the back of his skull off the wall hard enough to spark stars behind his eyes.
If he said anything after that, Shang Qinghua’s head was ringing too loud to hear it, but he did hear the door open and then close again.
Fuck.
He stumbled to his private quarters. He needed to speak to Mobei-Jun. His king needed to know they’d been compromised.
He needed to get out of here.
But when he entered the room, it was to the sight of Yue Qingyuan sitting on his bed.
“...How much of that did you hear?”
It wasn’t the first question that came to mind. That was “What the fuck are you doing here?” followed closely by “How the fuck did you get in here?” but this was the most pressing.
Yue Qingyuan smoothed his hand over the sheets on the bed.
“...All of it.”
But before he could begin to hyperventilate, trying to calculate whether it was faster to make for the window or the door, the sect leader was standing, hands wrapped around Shang Qinghua’s wrists like manacles, a thumb soothingly passing over the pulse point again and again.
“Shhh, shhh, Hua-Ge, it’s alright. I knew. I already knew.”
He had to repeat this a few more times before the words made their way past the fog of panic in his mind.
Peering closely, Yue Qingyuan saw the moment Shang Qinghua’s eyes cleared, and he smiled a little sadly.
“I’ve known for a long time.”
Shang Qinghua allowed himself to be led to the bed, where he sat down heavily.
HIs mouth opened to form the words, “How?” or maybe “When?” but Yue Qingyuan cut him off, anticipating the question.
“Your Shixiong is Sect Leader. This one would be a poor sect leader if unable to see what was going on under his own nose,” he said, a little exasperated.
“I… it was never meant to….” Shang Qinghua tried to find words to explain himself, licking his lips nervously and dropping his gaze.
“I only wish you had trusted me with this sooner,” Yue Qingyuan said, that trace of regret now coming through clearer.
Shang Qinghua’s head came back up. He could only gape.
Yue Qingyuan reached up a hand to place against the broken cheekbone, healing it with a little passing of energy.
"This sect leader has been given the lives of his martial family and sect’s disciples into his charge. The rest of the cultivation world is not this one’s responsibility.”
He raised one eyebrow, waiting to see if Shang Qinghua understood him before continuing on.
“So long as Hua-Ge’s actions do not force his Zhangmen-Shixiong to value one obligation over another, then Hua-Ge may do as he pleases.”
Shang Qinghua wondered if he should go to Wan Jian Peak to fetch Hong Jing from the testing station to check if their sect leader was possessed.
“What about Shen-Shixiong,” he eventually mustered. His voice sounded stiff and unnatural to even his own ears.
“Don’t worry about Shen-Shidi. I will speak to him. Make sure he understands that he misheard what he thought he heard, and misunderstood what he thought he saw.”
‘Sounding like a mob boss, bro!’ Shang Qinghua thought.
“Shen-Shixiong is strong willed,” is what he said in rebuttal.
Yue Qingyuan was still holding his hand against Shang Qinghua’s face, and now moved it to tuck a piece of hair back behind his ear, before the hand slid further down and wrapped protectively but firmly around the back of Shang Qinghua’s neck. Yue Qingyuan appeared to be thinking.
“He loves me, and he will do this because I ask it of him,” he eventually said.
‘Even over your own precious Xiao Jiu? This is really too much!’
How much of Yue Qingyuan’s love for Shen Jiu was built on guilt, Shang Qinghua wondered, as he watched, almost like an out-of-body experience, as Yue Qingyuan lifted his bleeding hand with his own free hand and placed his lips against the wound.
He loved him enough to try to go back for him, but he didn’t love him enough to stay in the first place.
‘If he refuses to keep his mouth shut, would you throw even him over for me?’
He hoped he would not have to find out.
Shang Qinghua had spoken with his System at length over many nights. It wasn’t made for conversation, but he had the plot’s timeline and System goals well charted out by this point.
Luo Binghe had to enter the Abyss, no matter what else changed.
The most convenient time to do it was still the Immortal Alliance Conference.
Would Yue Qingyuan still support him when it became apparent Shang Qinghua was creating an opening for the wholesale slaughter of dozens of their disciples, despite what he said?
Seeing the look in the other’s eye, Shang Qinghua rather thought he would.