Work Text:
For the past month it has felt like, even with the entire world crumbling apart around him, paperwork is a perpetual shadow fated to loom eternally over Ming Fan’s shoulder. The stack shoved into the corner of his writing desk multiplies no matter how many red-eyed nights he spends pouring over it, and no matter how much he wants to scream, all he really can do is pick up the next report and carry on with his affairs. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, not bothering to look up when someone opens the door to his room.
“Go away,” he says, squinting at the missive he’s been reading for the past hour, “I’m busy.”
But Ning Yingying hasn’t followed an order from Ming Fan since they were children, back when their Shizun was alive and a demon pretended to be their shidi. “You’re sulking,” she remarks plainly. There’s no bite in her voice because it’s not an accusation, just a statement of fact. She slides the door closed behind her and sits on his bed. The candle Ming Fan placed on his windowsill flickers when she walks past it.
Ming Fan’s younger self would have died if he had known that, one day, he and Ning Yingying would be sitting alone unchaperoned in his bedroom. Now it’s such a common occurrence that nobody in Qing Jing Peak blinks twice at the sight of either of the two walking out of each other’s dorms.
“No I’m not,” he says. His voice comes out as haughty, but he’s too preoccupied to be embarrassed of it.
She leans forward. The weak candlelight deepens the settled weariness in her eyes. They are both older now, steeped in their grief, but Ming Fan can’t help but feel a pang in his gut seeing her like this. Ning Yingying had been the most upbeat disciple of Qing Jing Peak. Now he can’t even remember the last time he’s seen her genuinely happy.
“Yes, you are,” she says. “And it’s stupid. We talked about this—you can’t just lock yourself in your room every time you’re upset.”
“Yeah, well.” He sighs harshly. Every part of Ming Fan’s body feels tight, coiled and ready to burst, but somewhere in all this mess he‘s forgotten how to deal with this feeling. Now he’s perpetually stuck at the precipice of snapping, unable to finally fall over the edge and explode. “Forgive me for not taking the news as well as you have.”
He says the word news like it’s an insult. Yue Qingyuan had visited Qing Jing Peak this morning, informing the two of them that the Old Palace Master has gone into seclusion, and Luo Binghe has been announced as the new leader of Huan Hua Palace.
Ming Fan, the most senior disciple of Qing Jing Peak and the person Yue Qingyuan had formally told the news to, said, “What the f—” but caught himself before he blasphemed in front of his sect leader.
Ning Yingying, whose face was wiped free of expression as soon as Luo Binghe’s name was uttered, asked, “Is there anything we can do? Can’t we call for the nullification of his ascension on grounds of his demonic heritage?”
Yue Qingyuan smiled sadly. “The announcement of Luo Binghe’s ascension was decreed by the elder members of Huan Hua Palace. And Cang Qion Mountain has already aired our grievances regarding his background. Right now the only thing we can do is publicly denounce him, but that does not illegitimize his formal rise to sect leader.”
He said it all with a weary finality that spoke of a man who had searched through all options only to find that there was never really any other choice except one.
It all felt so hopeless . Ming Fan clenches his teeth and fights the stinging warmth in his eyes. He tries to go back to his paperwork but can’t.
“I’m not—taking the news well,” Ning Yingying objects. “I’m just as frustrated as you are. But the younger disciples deserve to know. We have to tell them sooner or later.”
“It’s just so unfair,” Ming Fan says dejectedly. He finally turns away from his desk to face her. “After all he’s done, he gets to rise up the ranks of an opposing sect and become its lord? Without consequence?”
Ning Yingying frowns. “Is that what you’re most worried about?” she asked. “I mean, I agree that it’s not ideal, but—”
“‘Not ideal?’” The use of such a flippant phrase nearly makes him stumble out of his seat. “Huan Hua Palace is the secondmost influential sect besides our Cang Qiong Mountain. What the hell do you think he’s going to do with his newfound political power?” Ming Fan continues before Ning Yingying can interject, “Shimei, that demon scum isn’t the shidi you used to coddle when we were children. If he was, then why didn’t he come back to Qing Jing Peak after the Immortal Alliance Conference? Why would he infiltrate a rival sect and do god knows what to become sect leader in a single year?”
“I don’t care what A-Luo does as sect leader,” Ning Yingying tells him. Her mouth thins into a pursed line.
“You’d be shortsighted if you didn’t.”
“You sound jealous.”
Ming Fan sneers. “I’m not jealous,” he says, “I’m just not blind.” The air around them sours into something dense, the way it does before they dive into a fight.
But it’s a futile effort to argue with her. Ning Yingying has been invaluable in keeping Qing Jing Peak from collapsing within itself even before Shizun’s self-destruction. Despite her soft heart and inclination toward the sentimental, she was shown a natural knack for leadership, and has slowly taken on the duties Luo Binghe had once handled and Ming Fan was reluctant to reclaim after his supposed death. By now their method has been well-trodden and established: she assigns tasks and practices to the disciples, and he has taken a more administrative role and collaborates with An Ding Peak on logistical matters.
When Shizun died, it shocked him to find there was little change in their routine. Shizun was permanently debilitated from the events of the Immortal Alliance Conference. By the time he self-destructed, the only roles he had in the management of his Peak were showing face in peak master meetings and nodding along to Ming Fan and Ning Yingying’s reports, given in the offchance Shizun was actually there. Anyone could see that the peerless master of Qing Jing Peak was as lost as an unmoored boat drifting along an endless sea without Luo Binghe constantly hounding for his regard.
Despite the heated words she flung at Luo Binghe in their last encounter, in this, Ning Yingying and Shizun were one in the same. Ning Yingying has always doted on Luo Binghe—she’s been willfully ignorant of any of his faults ever since she first saw him, small and gangly-limbed, digging a hole into the unforgiving earth. She has never seen him for what he truly was, what Ming Fan had known he was from the beginning: a conniving leech who seized whatever he wanted with reckless abandon, taking and taking without a single thought for who he was taking from.
“We can only assume the worst from him,” Ming Fan tells her between gritted teeth. His hands are clenched into fists, and the warmth of the candle on his windowsill has transformed from comforting to stifling. “He is a demon parading as a righteous cultivator. He is the leader of one of the most powerful cultivation sects in the human realm. His inability to control himself led to the death of his own master, who loved him above all else.” That’s a truth Ming Fan, for years, had a hard time swallowing. Now it only makes what ended up happening even more depraved.
“I don’t know what his next move will be,” he says, “but it can’t be good for anybody. It can’t be—”
He stops himself when he sees the expression on Ning Yingying’s face. It’s not angry, an emotion Ming Fan realizes he had wanted to infect her with, if only so they could simmer in their fury together. Only resigned.
She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t care what A-Luo does as sect leader,” Ning Yingying repeats. There’s only the slightest tremble of her lips. “At this point, all I want from A-Luo is for him to return Shizun’s body back to Qing Jing Peak.”
Shizun’s body. Shizun’s body. Shizun’s body, slung over Luo Binghe’s shoulder like a sack of meat, carried off to god knows where despite the endless pleas from the crowd of grieving disciples. It must be festering in some backroom of Luo Binghe’s new sprawling, opulent palace. Rotting, stinking, defiled. Their beloved Shizun, melting into the wood grain of a stranger sect’s floorboards.
Her words are soft when she says, “I can only imagine the turmoil Shizun’s soul must be enduring. He deserves to be interred amongst the past masters of Qing Jing. He deserves to be home.”
As if the strings puppeting their limbs had been cut, they both slump into themselves. Ming Fan loses the will to argue, the flame in his heart replaced with a sinking dread. There was no fighting with Ning Yingying on this, on anything. Not when they were the last two people in each other’s corners.
“He hasn’t even returned the body,” he echoes. His voice cracks and he looks away, ashamed. “Shizun can’t even find peace in death because of that demon scum’s greed.”
Ming Fan recognizes too late how harsh his words have been. His feelings aside—though he can’t even begin to understand why—Ning Yingying still holds a space in her heart for her shidi turned deserter. He has the thought to apologize. But the image of Shizun lying limp in Luo Binghe’s arms freezes his tongue, so instead he closes his eyes hard enough he sees stars.
“Shixiong.” When Ming Fan looks up, he finds Ning Yingying surprisingly dry-eyed. She cried non-stop the week following Shizun’s self-destruction. Right now she has that far-away look she would get while daydreaming during Shizun’s lectures, only now it’s backed with a steeliness that is becoming more at home in her soft features.
He half-expects her to come to Luo Binghe’s defense. But instead she says, “When you and the other shixiongs would beat him extra rough, I would sneak into the woodshed at night and bring him salve for his wounds.” She’s not looking at him anymore, but at his windowsill candle, the wax nearly spent and only the smallest of wicks keeping the flame alive. “Did you know that I did that? That I helped him?”
Looking back, it was obvious; there had been times where, for a child with as little cultivation prowess as he once had, Luo Binghe stepped out of his woodshed too sure-footed for his overnight healing to be natural. “No, I didn’t,” Ming Fan answers. He thinks that perhaps he had been too caught up with the rush of finding the perfect chance to ambush and beat Luo Binghe again to really notice anything outside of his childish desire for attention and praise.
Ning Yingying nods, and for a while they settle into silence. The candle eventually snuffs itself out. Ming Fan’s paperwork is pushed to the side, forgotten. It’s almost supper, he notes. They will soon have to tell the other disciples of Luo Binghe’s rise to power in Huan Hua Palace. Ming Fan dreads to even think of how their faces will look when they come to the understanding that the blight of Qing Jing Peak is now one of the most powerful figures in the cultivation world.
“Do you think A-Luo remembers?” Ning Yingying finally asks. The hope lacing her question is fragile in its misery. “That I helped him? That I—that he was loved?”
Luo Binghe the orphan, the head disciple, the sword mound, the traitor, the demon. It’s near impossible for Ming Fan to fathom that all these staggeringly different identities are the same person. The boy holding back his tears as Shizun dumped cold tea over his head. The youth smirking at Ming Fan over Shizun’s shoulders after diverting their master’s full attention to himself. The name no one could utter when their peak lord drifted too close by, deep in the throes of his mourning.
The beast shrouded in black, claws clutching the immortal corpse of Shen Qingqiu to its chest, red eyes blazing, fangs bared.
“No,” Ming Fan says. “I don’t think he does.”