Work Text:
His death is regret.
There are so many, and it only gets more the longer he wanders, following the living.
He listens more than he ever could; he sees more than he ever wanted; he learns more than he should have known. Other people's secrets, other people's suffering, other people's consequences. So much dirt and just as many unvoiced lost words.
Liu Qingge was never a man of words; Liu Qingge preferred action to talk (didn't this arrogance eventually lead to his death?); Liu Qingge always thought that actions were brighter than speech.
Perhaps it would have made sense if he had thought a little before jumping headlong and swordless into the abyss, — for some reason this judgment sounds strikingly similar to Shen-shixun's voice.
And isn't that why he's here?
Shen Qingqiu, Shen Jiǔ, Shen-shixiong, Lord Peak Qing Jing.
The man he had let down beyond all measure to earn peace after death; the man about whom he was wrong more often than he breathed, and who abandoned attempts to reason with him; the man who tried to save his life despite their enmity and personal animosity. After all, his shixiong was not a dishonorable man. And it was his shixiong who was blamed for his death.
Neither said, nor seen, nor written — but so obvious that his teeth gnashed. Liu Qingge can't decide if he is all stupid or if their bias has trumped the arguments of the autopsy, the secrets his sect leader knows about, and the words of their own shixiong. He is almost certain that even their sect leader believes that Shen-shixiong killed his shidi, judging by this silent reprimand. So much so that his sister, his Liu Mingyan, said that Shen Qingqiu's presence was unwelcome when they buried him. (As if he wasn't part of their sect, as if he had no right to be here when he had done everything he could to help, and—)
It angers, it gnaws at his little soul when he can't even take human form, it presses him because: would he himself believe his shixiong's innocence if it were someone else?
No, of course not. He never trusted Shen Qingqi, never respected him, never would have believed a word he said. And he hates himself for it.
(The truth is that Liu Qingge knows how he died.
And it was not an aberration qi.
Every Bai Zhan Peak Lord, every one who was called the God of War before he ascended to heaven, took an oath. Between his soul, his sword, and his loyalty to the sect.
Protect, don't betray, don't harm.
He wished to kill Shen Qingqiu, wholeheartedly in his madness; and the oath took his life before the deflection of the qi could do so.
The truth is that nothing and no one could have saved him at that moment).
He was attached to everyone in his sect, but he followed his shixiong and learned more about him in a month than he had in all the thirty years they had known each other.
His shixiong was, in fact, a cruel teacher, with something on the verge of hating children, but he also saw how this man wrote individualized study guides for everyone, how this man in his harsh words told the sick wounded to go to the doctors or where to find medicine on their Peak by themselves, how this man spent hours with hall masters, taking apart (and destroying verbally) their scientific works in order to prepare them for publication. His shixiong hated laziness in any form, and, even looking at the apparent familiarity of his female students, he did not forgive idleness even to them (and isn't it strange that, without prying eyes, his shixiong is more like a father to these girls; those damned gossips who talk about his shixiong's depravity can burn in ghost fire). His shixiong is also an incredible workaholic, working so hard that even someone as dead as him wishes he had already drank the soothing tea and set aside his papers (Liu Qingge begins to understand what Shang-shixiong was whining about when he looked into him, one of the few who never looked at anyone with prejudice, and sincerely believed that at this rate and these high stacks one wandering spirit would be more).
But, above all, his shixiong is not as bad a person as he called him in his lifetime.
Liu Qingge saw his shixiong teach literacy to women in the brothel, teach them to write, teach them to play musical instruments. Liu Qingge has seen how his shixiong, still makes concessions to Mu Qingfang when he genuinely cares for someone else's health; and none of them talk about his death, and Liu Qingge is grateful for that; and how his shixiong turns in Shan Qinghua's papers not just on time, but sometimes in advance. The little things in which his shixiong cares for them. (Or rather, those who don't look at him with something between disapproval and contempt; Liu Qingge wonders how many such little things of caring he himself might have missed.)
Liu Qingge also witnessed other people's nightmares and many sleepless nights — there were no screams, only a strangled sigh and a stare into the darkness, as if it could swallow him if he turned away.
Liu Qingge also saw it. The branding. Hieroglyphics of his name burned into the skin of his shixiong, as if he were a thing, not a person.
And the rage so consumed him that he was lost in a whirlwind of other spirits, and could not realize himself for quite some time.
Then came regret. All-encompassing. Inescapable. Crude and bloody black.
If he had been alive, he might have gotten another qi deviation without the greedy caves and broken vows.
He wanted to make things right.
He wanted to be better than he was.
He wanted to apologize without expecting to be forgiven.
And then he heard the call.
Alluring, fierce, and commanding; so loud that it would have erased him from existence if he had refused him, being so weak; and he was promised power.
The call sang of violence and battle, and part of him, always eager to fight, was already given to the blind vows of something far older and more powerful than he knew.
Liu Qingge went after this voice as far away as he had ever gone in his life. Forests replaced several colors, mountains began and ended, deserts came and went, even half the sea and part of the cursed black ocean flew past him. So far away that the gods might have changed.
Liu Qingge heard many things: that there were other kingdoms and worlds, with powers equal, higher or lower than those he himself had met; of the dead men in red and black robes, with crowns on their heads, and of the disasters that they ordained the people.
He knows of the king in red, his city full of night and bright lanterns, where everything you can wish for - and just as easily lose — is put to luck; of the king who has easily unleashed and ended wars for his incomparable god; of the king who is followed by silver butterflies and rain of blood.
He knows of the king in black, his graves, his music and songs that lost children follow; of the king who gives death with a gentle smile to those in need and leaves in ashes those who come for his strength, willing spider lilies to blossom behind his steps; of the king with eyes of fire and a voice that survivors and resurrectors say is like death itself.
He also knows of kings gone, though a millennium has passed since their disappearance, the human fear does not follow the rules of time: of the king in white and the plague that he left others with laughter (they say that the disease still lives, devouring cities in the echo of the ancients' torment), and of the king in black like that who came after him, whose waters hungrier than the fiercest elements of nature (they say that the damned black ocean still yearns for its master).
Liu Qingge knows that these creatures are strong, though he has never met them, not other than in legends.
But the power came from somewhere.
It seems to him, some ghostly part of him whispers it, that these creatures came from here.
(When hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands crawl inside Tonglu Mountain, the doors slam shut.
When the mountain first opened in a millennium, knowing that there is a soul with anger it has not felt in recent centuries, it lures that soul to itself. Anger, zeal, hunger, regret and devotion.
The best qualities of all three that it has created before it.
It laughs about it to its prince, who never appreciated its jokes.
Of course, its bloodlust is not as great as Death Boy's, but it wants to see what this soul will do with all the power it gets.
If it doesn't go insane, obviously).
Time merges as he takes shape and the carnage begins. He slashes, punches, chokes, bites, kicks, laughs, kills. At one point he is so intoxicated by the battle that he almost forgets why he is here. His mind is shaken as he breathes the hot ash and copper of blood; he finds the smell delightful; he thinks he wants more.
Liu Qingge could never back down from a fight. And the battles went on: many, long and with everyone at the same time; without any chance of leaving anyone alive, without having to protect anyone behind his back, without anything to remember when he could kill-kill-kill without leaving anyone behind.
It's great.
Perhaps Shen-shixiong was right — Liu Qingge is a fucking animal.
("Can't you hold your own at all?!" Shen Qingqiu's voice is bright and clear, full of indignation and tension as he dodges his sword as they dance in the caves, between life and death. "Wake up, idiot, I have no desire to deal with your corpse!")
Liu Qingge stumbles, costing him nothing but humiliation and contempt for himself as he stabs a fragment of someone's rib into someone else's eye socket, piercing his skull through.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He's cursed to make the same mistakes forever, right?
To withdraw into himself, into his desires, into his impulses — and forget everything else.
Liu Qingge laughs.
Laughter is vile, filthy, vicious.
He might have frightened the few survivors if they hadn't been as crazy or resourceful enough to hide. Liu Qingge finds each of them. Like a hound rushing after his prey.
He comes out of the Furnace a far cry from what he was dead, let alone alive.
But he remembers what he came here for, leaving years later with flames like stars as the sun meets him with a clear blue sky and kings, in red and black; and Liu Qingge thinks aloof that these men are as alike as only those who share the same blood can be. (And part of his heart pines for his little sister, amidst that dishonor of guilt that consumes this with the hunger of a dying man.)
The king in black twirls black dizi in his hands; his eyes are not really orange, but shimmering from gold to rubies and back again; he is smiled at as the best and most expensive women in brothels might: charmingly, seductively, greetingly, predatory and defiantly. Grave flowers grow under his bare feet, and the air around him is so cold, making no mistake about the nature of death.
The king in red smirks sharply, his silver jingling on his chest and boots in the light touch of the wind; a single golden earring gleams in the glow of the sun, matching nothing in the image, but yielding nothing in wealth and beauty; look him over from head to toe, looking for something, finding nothing and losing interest with dizzying speed, leaving a surplus of politeness behind. Butterflies coo between the three of them, with wings like blades and lightness like the spirits they all are.
He is hailed as another king, covered in blood, ashes, and death, like all of them; the only survivor of the slaughter of thousands of souls; the one who enjoyed the atrocities and reviled himself for it.
"What do you wish for?" asks the king in black, and the smile of the king in red widens inexorably and subtly, warming; Liu Qingge still aloofly gathers that the two are on good terms, judging from the gestures he sees.
Liu Qingge thinks about what he might have said. About how many resentments and regrets torment him; about how much he has messed up and wants to fix; about what he wants to do, who he wants to see, who he wants to yell at, who he wants to protect, who he wants to hit. So much is tearing him apart. However...
Liu Qingge has never been a man of words.
Liu Qingge snorts, baring his fangs, his eyes flickering ghostly white without the haze of blindness, he turns around, heading back home.
(The king in red laughs at this, gently patting the king in black, saying that this is the spark of all the Supreme: not answering the question posed.)
Ten years.
He was gone for eleven years. Thirteen years since his death. Six years since Tsang Qiong lost three Peak Lords.
Liu Qingge returns the way a storm comes: knowing no pity for mere mortals, existing like the natural calamity that he has become. Liu Qingge returns to see destruction, not ashes, but something close to it. Liu Qingge returns to indulge in the same oath he took as Lord Peak Bai Zhan: to protect Cang Qiong, his fighting brothers and sisters, and never back down from it; never betray it.
He does not know who Luo Binghe is, like the Demon Emperor he is called in the stories he has heard on the roads, tearing other people's clothes off the ropes, biting information, and diving into the seas. He vaguely remembers a boy with a burning heart, fit for battle, and a young man in green, looking at his shixiong with hunger as everyone looked away. He bursts in when his sect wants to be set on fire, when zhangmen-shixiong is barely breathing, when Shang-shixiong is standing far away, averting his eyes, when all his shixiong, shidi, shijie and shimei are in total strife, and Shen-shixiong is buried in a palace of flashy gold in prison.
Liu Qingge knows enough to meet the boy-demon's face with his boot, and the crunching of bones has not pleased him in a long time (in the Kiln, the sound has become so naturally background that he could barely distinguish it). The boy, to his credit, comes to his senses quickly, spitting out blood, healing bruises, mending bones with the power of a Heavenly Demon, when red and angry eyes find him, there is also amazement:
"Liu-shishu?"
And it's not the only one:
"Liu Qingge...?"
"Liu-shidi?—"
"...gege?"
In the midst of all the chaos, he finds his little sister, the girl he raised, behind the wrong back, the one he would have liked. She is pale when she sees him, and seems frail, small. But she is also in this boy's colors, and she is there from whom their sect is almost destroyed.
Liu Qingge never looked at his meimei as an enemy, and hoped he would never have to; however, it would hurt less if he were still alive.
"I am disappointed in you", he says, and it sounds like a sentence, judging by the way his sister recoils and her hands tremble finely; he turns away from her as he never did; and looks at the demon who has ruined much in his absence.
Liu Qingge smiles at the cheeky puppy and wonders why exactly death and Kiln have taught him to smile; he wonders what his smile looks like if the demon has gone from disbelief to wariness. Perhaps, as a human, even if immortal, he could not compare with the Heavenly Demon; perhaps one would have to be a god to really challenge such a kind of demon by name; perhaps this is what Calamity is for.
And the dead have no reason to do such things as respite that mortals do, and Luo Binghe is still half human.
It was the best fight of his whole life and death. He almost got carried away again; he's sure his, slipping through the controls, laughter frightened a lot of people; he thinks this battle has been going on for days.
And, well, if the boy hadn't been consumed by that sword, it would have been more interesting.
He seems almost alive when his body is deceptively hot from the battle and laughter flies from his lips, when his white robes are once again hopelessly red, when his wounds heal, when he can only see the mountains of his sect in the distance, leaving them behind, tearing apart all weaker demons with his bare hands, and he wants to kill the boy who can no longer stand up, wants to crush his heart with his heel, and then he hears the flute.
A bleak, bitter and harsh melody.
Trees die from greenery to decay, and spider lilies bloom on fields and rocks.
If Liu Qingge is monster, the Black Flute Melody — is reanimated nightmare in an aura of impenetrable and soundless hopelessness.
"Give it to me", says the king in black, his eyes glowing that same orange; Liu Qingge understands that this is not suggestion, he can even feel the terror of the few survivors who decided and risked watching their fight by going after them; he also knows that the Flute Melody gives him no choice.
But still, this is Liu Qingge's privilege.
"And what will you do with him?" because he doesn't think this boy deserves to die peacefully.
Flute Melody smiles, and that smile is even more distorted than his own — it emanates a deep incorrigible despair and grief.
"Maybe you haven't heard, xiao di", and Liu Qingge's eye twitches, but he is in fact much younger than both kings, "but I pick up all the bad kids so they realize their lives and repent".
He grasps at the wording.
"Are you saying that their lives are a mistake?" humor falls like brittle china, and another Calamity smiles at him, finding it funny.
The Flute Melody comes closer, ьisery clinging to his being as children tug at their mothers' skirts; he smiles as he grabs the demon boy by the scruff of the neck with one hand, and the greedy sword with the other. (Xin Mo shrivels and flickers at the one who lifted him; it is something more resentful and heavy than himself.)
"We will come to visit you", shakes his head at the king in black, and Liu Qingge sees a gold earring identical to the one he saw from the king in red, gold feasting in the darkness of other people's hair and the descending night; Calamity releases his aura and winks at him, walking toward the shadows, "don't miss it, baobei!"
Liu Qingge knows both Calamities for a total of three minutes, and no longer wants anything to do with them.
Liu Qingge temporarily ignores his sect, hoping for Mu-shidi's abilities, and disappears.
Liu Qingge burns down and demolishes the Huanghua Palace like a whirlwind and storm, cutting down not only the walls but whole buildings, fortresses, their entire defenses behind them.
Shen Qingqiu is scarred by many more than he left him (and when he discovers that the demon-boy simply opened his limbs and then put them back on to be ripped off again, makes him so furious that he came to throw the Black Flute Melody fight to take the scum back; then he also learned why this Calamity considers the most dangerous of all that ever existed), when looked at without recognizing him as real or considering him a mind game, Liu Qingge tries to start from the beginning, kneeling down and using words:
"I'm sorry I let you down".
Then he breaks the chains, then he transmits spiritual energy, the most non-toxic energy he has, then he has to prove that he's not fake, then he has to clean up the mess that his fighting brothers and sisters made while he was gone (you were dead, dammit, don't expect us to wait for you to rise from the grave! — Shang Qinghua yelled at him hysterically, which is fair enough), then he would have to face two Calamities, several gods, one Heavenly Emperor, and a cute ghost woman with warm food.
Then people would call it the Storm of White Fire.
(He will also be told that there is someone whom the two Calamities wish to find: someone with a character like ice and a mind like encyclopedias, with words like poison and an attitude toward others that keeps him several hundred li away; someone who is close and distant at once, someone who would not tell anything about himself; someone with not the happiest star to his liking.
Liu Qingge will look away, remembering his shixiong and shrug for all to see.
He doesn't know people like that.
And if he did, he would never give them away again).
They say the Cang Qiong sect has beast.
They say beast lives within their walls, bound to them by oath.
They say he was once a man who sold his soul for powers that even the gods fear.
They say he dressed in white and blue, with eyes like snowy winter winds and a laugh full of boyish youth tinged with cruelty.
They say he was called Storm, because he does not stop in his tracks; he was called White Fire, because wherever he goes, only ashes remain.