Chapter Text
Maiden-Hearted Luo Binghe ૮ ⚆ﻌ⚆ა⸝⸝♡ [Shizun?!]
vs.
The Ferocity of Demonic Courting Rituals ( ◡̀ _ ◡́ ) ᕤ [Submit, bitch!]
☁️ 🫳🏻
🫴🏻 🌧️
Luo Binghe lounges upon his throne, and watches his right-hand man beat up the pathetic little hamster of a man he keeps around for… something.
Sex, right?
It has to be sex.
Luo Binghe has lived long enough to know that people are fucking weird when it comes to sex. He hadn’t had to walk three steps in the Endless Abyss of all places for there to be yet another scantily clad demon woman throwing her big-bosomed self right at his face (and other parts of his anatomy).
The look on their faces when they found out that they had nothing on offer that he could ever want was always so gratifying to the part of his heart ever yearning for his master’s touch. (The part of his heart he is talking about is, in fact, the whole thing.)
The only soft things in this world that it yearns for are Shen Qingqiu’s smile, head pats in bouncing curls, and gentle hands that pinch rather than strike. The rest of the things it wants are all hard: angles of a sculpted chest he has seen bare only once, the sharpness of the teeth that ate his pastries with abandon… the hardness of a man—of his shizun—at the height of passion (that he has never known even once in his life).
Human women are no better than demonic ones in this regard.
He only has to inhale in Huan Hua Palace for a deluge of unwanted meimeis to come rushing out of somewhere just to try to drape themselves all over him. If they knew the depraved kinds of things he wants his master to do to him, they would surely be so disgusted, they’d never desire to touch him at all.
He wants to tell them.
The part of him that is all demon wants to stake his claim for all to see. It wants to announce to the entire world that his body belongs to one man, and only that man can ever bring him over the cusp of pleasure.
He’s so tired of all this pretending, of having to ‘play nice’ with these losers. If he didn’t have to ensure his place at Huan Hua in order to one day be with Shizun, he would do it. He would watch their faces fall with vicious glee in his heart.
‘The only person who will ever know me intimately is my shizun!’ he would shout, proud and bold, a smirk turning up one side of his mouth, hoping the whole world might hear.
So, in his own way, even Luo Binghe can be fucking weird about sex. It just doesn’t feel weird because it’s about Shen Qingqiu, the only attractive person in this entire world.
He supposes everyone is like that to some extent. Even his shizun, who had visited brothels all throughout Luo Binghe’s discipleship until he’d turned fourteen, and then suddenly stopped. Part of Luo Binghe clambers with the need to assert that the reason for the change was himself. That Shizun had taken notice of him. Seen something he wanted for himself in him. Something he couldn’t get in a brothel, or from a woman—not from anyone else.
On a whim, Luo Binghe points at Mobei-Jun’s pet. “Bring him here,” he commands.
Mobei-Jun’s fist bunches in Shang Qinghua’s collar, and he drags him, bent almost double, in front of Luo Binghe.
The miserable little man squeaks, dropping to his knees. “Jun… Junshang?”
“Tell me about Shizun.”
“Ah, what does Junshang wish to know?” Shang Qinghua asks, looking up at Luo Binghe through his eyelashes.
“Has he visited any brothels during my absence from the sect?”
Shang Qinghua stares at him with such intensity Luo Binghe is on the verge of considering it rude, then his shishu seems to remember himself, blinking, and curling in on himself until he looks more hamster than man. “No, Junshang. Shen-shixiong has not visited any brothels since his qi deviation all those years ago.”
Luo Binghe doesn’t even want to admit to himself how much he needed that to be the case. How much his entire sense of self had hinged on the right answer to that question.
“And Without-a-Cure?”
Another thing Luo Binghe has learnt since leaving the safety of his shizun’s company is what people look like when they’re thinking about lying to him.
What a curious thing for Shang Qinghua to want to conceal from him.
Luo Binghe leans forward on his throne.
“Let me warn you,” he says, before Shang Qinghua can make the mistake of following through on it. “Think only of yourself, and the things I will do to you if you lie to me.”
The man’s eyes blow wide. Mobei-Jun at his side doesn’t move at all, but Luo Binghe knows what that man looks like when he’s tense.
Oblivious, Shang Qinghua noisily clears his throat. “Without-a-Cure has been… ah, miraculously cured?”
Luo Binghe raises an eyebrow. “Are you asking me?”
“No.” The hamster shakes his head, eyes falling to his own lap. “No, Junshang.”
“Go on.”
“Ah… that is, Without-a-Cure very recently stopped being a problem for Shen-shixiong.”
“How can that be?” Luo Binghe reaches forward, and grabs Shang Qinghua by the front of his robes. The man yelps, and cowers in Luo Binghe’s grip. “How was he cured?! Tell me!”
“I don’t know, Junshang!”
“How can you not know? Isn’t Shizun your shixiong?! Aren’t you all one big family?!” Isn’t that always what it was like when Luo Binghe was a member of the sect? Everyone always in his shizun’s business. Liu Qingge always sniffing around. Yue Qingyuan always desperate to be near him, something miserable buried deep behind that placid smile.
It can’t have changed so much just because Luo Binghe isn’t there.
His grip tightens.
“Junshang, please!”
“You’re lying to me! Why are you lying to me?! Tell me the cure for Without-a-Cure!”
“I’ll tell you! Yes, I’ll tell you. Please!”
Letting go of him, Shang Qinghua slides to the floor in a boneless puddle. Mobei-Jun toes him so hard any human would think it a true kick, but it gets Shang Qinghua back on his knees, and clear on what he must do.
He kneels there, wringing his hands in his lap. “Junshang, the only known cure for Without-a-Cure is… dual cultivation with a heavenly demon.”
The whole world goes white.
Perhaps Shang Qinghua says more. Perhaps Mobei-Jun beats him into a bloody pulp. Perhaps Shizun shows up wearing a single layer, dancing. Luo Binghe would not be able to notice.
His hearing feels like the static of a lightning storm.
His breathing feels—
He’s not breathing.
He’s the cure. Luo Binghe is the cure, and he always has been. He could have healed his shizun the day it happened!
But he’s too late.
Someone else—some other heavenly demon—dared to touch what’s his! Some asshole stole from him the pleasure of curing the curse he had laid upon his shizun all those years ago through his own ineptitude.
It takes many minutes—many minutes of Shang Qinghua shaking, of Mobei-Jun kicking—for Luo Binghe to come back to himself enough to be aware of his surroundings. To be able to speak. To process.
He clears his throat because it feels as though he hasn’t spoken in his entire life. That no words before this have ever mattered.
“What other heavenly demons are there?” he asks, voice surprisingly emotionless for all that it wants to crack on every word. “I thought I was the last.”
Shang Qinghua’s head ducks even further. “Answering Junshang, I—I know of only one. The heavenly demon, Tianlang-Jun, who would appear to be, given the timing… ah, Junshang’s father.”
“My father,” Luo Binghe repeats dumbly. “I don’t have a father. I only have Shizun.”
In the space left by such a declaration, Shang Qinghua trembles. Full body shivers taking over his whole being.
Luo Binghe leans further forward.
“Are you saying that Shizun and my… father…?” He has to stop, the words too absurd. “Are you suggesting that he cured Shizun?”
“This lowly one would never dare to suggest such a thing,” Shang Qinghua claims, belying the fact that he just had. “I don’t know, Junshang! I really don’t. Shen-shixiong wouldn’t tell me something like that. All I know is that Tianlang-Jun is supposed to be buried under a mountain.”
Luo Binghe considers, and then flicks his hand. Mobei-Jun, understanding, drags his little creature away.
It’s true, he really can’t see Shen Qingqiu telling Shang Qinghua of all people that he had… had dual-cultivated with anyone, let alone a heavenly demon long thought buried.
“Did Shizun know?” he asks.
Mobei-Jun pauses just short of dragging Shang Qinghua through the doorway to the throne room.
“Did Shizun know the cure?”
In Mobei-Jun’s grip, Shang Qinghua trembles. “Yes, Junshang.”
Luo Binghe doesn’t know when he is asking about. When he was a young disciple, and Shen Qingqiu was newly afflicted by Without-a-Cure? When he was seventeen years old, and teetering on the edge of the abyss? Or when he was already long thought dead?
Did Shizun really send him to hell for being a heavenly demon, and then invite another one into bed to cure himself?
Luo Binghe nods. Just once. Mobei-Jun continues dragging.
Alone, Luo Binghe stares at the splendour of a hall that means nothing without Shizun’s eyes on it, and he wonders.
Is it possible that the peak lords all knew the only cure for Without-a-Cure back when he was still in the sect? Did they simply never consider such a thing a viable cure?
Of course, he knows that human cultivators would never consider dual cultivation with any demon, let alone that one, to be a cure at all. So perhaps they had just discounted it out of hand without ever mentioning it out loud.
But, if so, then how could Shizun be cured now? And why, after everything he’d said to Luo Binghe on the edge of the abyss, had he gone back on that with the first other heavenly demon to come along?
Luo Binghe shakes his head. The armrests of his throne creak under the pressure of his hands. Xin Mo shudders at his waist, ready for blood.
The blood of a heavenly demon—his father—and one who has touched Shizun at that… that is a prize worth having.
(Somewhere, stuck under a mountain, Tianlang-Jun shudders without knowing why.)
☁️ 🫳🏻
🫴🏻 🌧️
“Mobei,” Luo Binghe says, watching as the man chases Shang Qinghua around again. “What are you doing to your pet now?”
Mobei-Jun’s expression doesn’t change—that is to say, his lack of expression doesn’t become any more expressive—but there’s something about the coldness of his eyes that warms up at the mention of Shang Qinghua, and his associated beatings.
“Waiting,” he says.
“For what?”
“The next step.”
And that is how Luo Binghe finds out the intricacies of demon courting rituals.
Not from a caring father as he grows to be both a good half-demon and a skilful half-human cultivator—no, Luo Binghe was raised by Shen Qingqiu’s gentle hands. And so he is a little more than twenty years old when he finds out the things a father should teach him about how to approach his chosen one from a demon viewpoint:
- One of the parties shows interest in the other (perhaps through a beating, though not necessarily).
- The one being pursued issues a challenge—be good enough for me or fuck off.
- The pursuer must prove themself, rising to their chosen one’s expectations, and only in victory can the two come together as a couple.
Interesting.
Luo Binghe isn’t sure how to feel about the fact that Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua are perpetually stuck in the phase between the first and second steps.
Shang Qinghua, also having been raised a human cultivator like his once martial nephew, doesn’t understand Mobei-Jun’s interest.
And Mobei-Jun, having been raised a full demon, doesn’t understand why Shang Qinghua won’t issue a challenge. He thinks the man just needs to be beaten a few more times before he realises Mobei-Jun is serious about him.
Luo Binghe’s first thought is vague humour. Something in the realm of: ‘Look at these two who can’t even sort themselves out enough to be speaking the same language. Mobei-Jun thinks Shang Qinhua is playing hard to get. Shang Qinghua thinks Mobei-Jun wants him dead. What idiots!’
But he can’t help but feel like some part of this is echoing his own situation with Shen Qingqiu rather ominously.
Shizun had misunderstood him on the edge of the abyss, at the Immortal Alliance Conference, thinking him someone who could commit atrocities just because of his heavenly demon blood. Shizun had loved him so gently before that moment. So Luo Binghe can’t help but feel, given the opportunity to understand and be understood, that Shizun could come to love him again.
For this reason, he points at Mobei-Jun’s creature. “He thinks you’re trying to kill him.”
Shang Qinghua squawks, and puts his hands up as though to deny it. Mobei-Jun’s expression doesn’t change, but his fist unclenches, and he turns to look at Shang Qinghua.
Whether they sort themselves out or not after that, Luo Binghe doesn’t want to know. He’s done all he intends to, dismissing them with the wave of a hand.
The whole thing brings something to mind though.
Demon courting rituals are necessarily different from human ones. The same way that demons and humans are necessarily different in many ways.
Someone brought up by one of these groups will not automatically understand the ways of the other.
Shizun was raised a human cultivator. More than that, he had studied hard, and had emulated all his teachings better than any of his peers in order to become the second ranked peak lord of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. His indoctrination against demons is long-ingrained.
Even if that’s true, Luo Binghe is hopeful that so long as he can show Shen Qingqiu that he is good, his shizun will come to see the truth of it for himself. For a cultivator, Shizun had been surprisingly lenient towards (non-heavenly) demons. It’s only a matter of time and exposure to make that true for heavenly demons as well.
Xin Mo grumbles at his hip, unhappy with his desire for a peaceful resolution to this misunderstanding. He tamps down on it.
“I am the master,” Luo Binghe says, “and you will obey.”
The things Xin Mo wants him to do are not going to lead him to Shizun.