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Chapter Text

The beginning of Ashley's second life wasn't the best, turning into a cat aside. But she made do.

Being a quick learner and a shameless person by nature, she used all of her kitten charms to get free food and lodging.

And it worked well for a few years. Although, she was pretty sure normal cats don't stay in their kitten form for so long she wasn't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

After that.. well. She was a human once. Knew how to behave and where to look for food or a warm place to winter over. Knew how to act cute.

Having a system - when not ideal - had a big plus of getting an upgrade for the spoken language. It helped her immensely.

The written part was... well... still a work in progress. Unfortunately there wasn't any written language bundle in the system shop.

It took a long time before she decided to leave the city. But once she got used to traveling she kind of couldn't stop. The motion of carts had a surpassingly soporific effect for something that had no suspension system.

Cang Qiong Mountain was an accident. She had fallen asleep inside a cart and woke up by the virtue of being flung into the air, when someone pulled the bundle she was lying on out.

She scurried away with a yelp, fur up, swerving between the multitude of legs to the accompaniment of yells. Down into the closest bushes and away. Then up, up a tree, hiding in the leaves.

It took a moment to clam down but when she did she stared.

And stared some more.

The tree was tall, growing at the side of a pathway, right by an entrance to a bridge.

A freaking Skittles Rainbow Bridge that glistered in the sun like some kind of fucked up fairytale road. She wondered if she inhaled something strange when she was sleeping. Maybe she should check on what she put her paws on from now on.

She spend almost half a day just looking at the glittering abomination from high up the tree. Waiting for her high to pass.

No luck here.

The bridge was still there the next day and by that time she knew, she was in some freaking cultivation sect and there were departments in it, each located on a respective peak.

Hearing the wonderful, wonderful snippet about a freaking culinary peak she eagerly set about tracking it down.

'Smoked salmon, fried chicken. Here I come!'

And if she sprinted through the bridges, well... It was only so no one realised that they had a cat in the sect. No other reason.

Chapter Text

After almost getting eaten by some big ass beasts. After getting startled out of her fur by a sudden explosions. After she got her nose obliterated by the odor of wine and after she almost became a kebab via a randomly flung sword, she finally, finally found some peace and quiet.

On a bamboo peak.

It didn't even take a week for her to decide that this peak would be the best option out of all of the others.

There was a bunch of impressionable children, most of them ready to pat her or bring her food whenever she liked. And, if she needed some time alone she could always disappear into the forest for a while. There was even a pond with fishes in there!

Also, the youngsters here were amazingly good nurtured: no pulling on her tail or trying to pour water on her. Fighting - outside of the few fistfights she saw - was mostly just going through forms. She just had to keep herself away from the music pavilion and she was all set.

Perfect.

In winter she was smuggled inside to sleep and could cuddle for warm whenever she liked.

She was the best kept secret of the peak's disciples - it took almost a year for Shen Qingqiu to find out about her.

— — — —

"What is the meaning of this?"

She always saw him from afar. And always made sure to avoid his house whenever she went into the forest. Now, standing before A-Ming, and therefore before Ashley - as she was held in the girl's arms - she could look at him more closely.

He had a delicate face, a straight nose, pale green eyes and an aura of nobility mixed with a feral animal. He would look pretty if not for the way his face scrunched in distaste and Ashley felt her fur bristle.

'Excuse me, I'm a very clean and polite cat, thank you very much!'

"Shizun! Ah, this... this is Hui."

"Pets are not allowed on this peak."

"She isn't. I mean. She isn't a pet. I mean. She just showed up last year and she is very friendly. And she comes and goes as she wants. And she likes pats. And. I mean. She..."

The girl held her tighter.

'Omg give this child a break man, she is like, 11 and she looks like she's going to cry any minute.'

"Meow."

Ashley pushed herself up, rubbing her head on the girl's robes. Tail high, she turned her head a little and caught the narrowed eyes of Shen Qingqiu.

'Try and throw me out, I dare you.'

A-Ming lifted her head, jaw clenched and corrected her hold, cheeks rosy pink and gaze ready for a fight.

Ashley regretted not being able to smirk in this body.

Chapter Text

She got kicked out.

Not from the peak - just the girls' quarters.

Not that it was a problem - the weather was warm enough to sleep outside and she always could go to the boys dorm.

She'd just really prefer not to - she was a grown ass woman and the dorms had one communal bedroom with a gaggle of boys, age ranging from 10 to almost 20. Older ones got their own rooms, if they still were on the peak by then. First time one of the disciples took her there for a night she clawed his arms to shreds after getting and eyeful and got herself flung on a naked teenager lap. They took half an hour to coax her from under a bed and she sprinted away the moment someone opened the door. Both of the clawed boys kept a polite distance from her ever since.

The soft footsteps behind her made her ears twitch. She hissed at the hem of a white-green robe that brushed by her side. Shen Qingqiu ignored the angry cat completely. A-Ying, returning from the library, felt a chill on her back and cautiously circled around the sitting feline, the cat's tail slowly thumping the ground, eyes narrowed at the retreating peak lord's back.

— — —

It took a week before she saw the man again but the moment she did, she recalled that he had freaking thrown her out of the dorms and promptly sprinted under his legs.

The undignified stumble wasn't as satisfying as a flat out fall that she hoped for but it was still better than nothing. She strutted away, head and tail held high.

Shen Qingqiu glared at the retreating feline, contemplating the dignity of sending a few qi infused leaves her way.

Chapter Text

'This is ridiculous,' thought Ashley as A-Ming gently set her down outside.

She couldn’t believe it ended up like this.

Apparently, making the prick lord trip was an act of war or something. Now, Shen Qingqiu could be found checking the female dorms almost every night, just to make sure Hui wasn't sleeping there.

Giving a small lick to A-Ming's hand, Ashley watched as the girl turned around and - shoulders slumped - closed the door behind her.

She turned to the man at her side.

Shen Qingqiu, stick up his ass, was still looking at the dorm's entrance. Half of his face was hidden behind a white and black silk fan - it's been like that since he knocked on the door a few minutes ago.

He was frowning.

Ashley thought back to the way A-Ming's eyes glistered in the candle light.

"Grr."

Jade eyes looked down.

'I don't like you man.'

Pounce.

Shen Qingqiu flash stepped away and the sharp claws missed his robes by a paw's width.

— — —

It was a staring match. Light green vs deep amber. Shen Qingqiu felt an oncoming headache.

The gray cat sat primly at HIS desk, tail wrapped around her paws, radiating smugness.

'Say hi bastard,' Ashley thought, keeping her eyes on the prick lord as he slowly made his way inside, eyes narrowed.

She stood up, the movement dragged out, eyes locked with the man in front of her. Then she turned around, jumped up on the windowsill and out the open window.

The human she left in the room, stood frozen for a few long moments, frowning after her. Then, he turned around, leaving the Bamboo House and flying away.

— — —

Shen Qingqiu gritted his teeth, spraying his whole office again with a flea spray - courtesy of the Beasts Peak.

He swore to the heavens, that, if he gets bitten by ONE flea, he will find this cat and hurl it off the peak, no matter how much his disciples would cry afterwards.

Chapter Text

"Pspspspspsps"

If she could, Ashley would have frown at the girl. As her anatomy didn't allow her to, she had to content herself with pulling her ears back and very ostentatiously sitting herself down.

A-Ming shook her hand a little. The slice of salmon dangling between her fingers moved tantalisingly.

"Come on, Hui. Here."

The girl looked tense, gaze drifting to the side.

'A-Ming .. are you playing hooky?'

The fish was fresh and quite fat. Hui devoured it happily. She even let A-Ming pick her up, the girl holding her tightly in her arms and striding towards the dorms.

'Ah, sneaky,' thought Ashley, letting herself be carried inside and down the small corridor.

A-Ming fixed her hold, turning the cat towards her and meeting the amber eyes pleadingly.

Someone opened a door on the right and then quickly closed it behind them.

— — —

Jing Yibo, scrolls pilled hight under his chin, slowly walked towards Shizun's house. Knowing of the everyday spectacle with throwing Hui out the female dorms, he made a quick decision to go around the back of the building. The peak's cat was known to often wait at the front and Jing Yibo preferred to keep as far away from her as possible. There was a narrow path right beside the back wall of the female dorms. He shuffled carefully forward, shoulder almost touching the wooden wall.

Screams from the inside made him stop, head whipping towards the building, brown eyes blown wide. The yells were muffled by the wall, accompanied by even fainter sounds of splashing. Before A-Yibo decided to investigate he heard an equally muffled but clearly recognizable yowl.

He turned back to the path in front of him and resume his trek, strides much quicker and longer than before.

The last thing he wanted was to somehow run into Hui now, when he could clearly hear the cat was in an awful mood.

His arms twinged in a phantom pain.

Poor girls.

— — —

Ashley was NOT amused.

'Traitors! How could you!'

"MEOW!"

"I'm sorry Hui."

"Shizun said this is the only way we'll be allowed to take you inside."

The water was cold and smelled strange. It was also too deep and being pushed inside against one's will was not conductive to Ashley's cooperation!

She made sure to show her displeasure thoroughly.

One of the girls dumped a ladle of water on her head and Hui had a dubious pleasure of having her ears flooded.

"MEOW!!"

— — —

Ren Yifeng looked at the procession of Qing Jing Peak's female disciples, each sporting an impressive collection of claw marks.

"What happened?" he asked, filling the default incident form and mentally recalling which storeroom held the salves he'll need.

"..."

The girls looked at each other, cheeks read. Some wrangled their fingers, others played with the hems of their ruined sleeves. The youngest one was silent, head bowed, legs barely long enough to touch the floor. The robes at her chest and shoulder had a multitude of tears in it.

"A cat," one of them finally said and Ren Yifeng paused.

He looked up, eyes crinkling, a small, polite smile on his lips.

"Sorry, can you repeat that?"

"... A cat, shixiong," Yang Ying said, tucking a damp strand of hair behind her ear.

Her hand was crisscrossed with red lines, dark red beads of dried blood scattered all over it.

Ren Yifeng blinked once, face slacking for a moment. Then, his smile returned, warmer than the previous one, eyes closing into crescents.

"I'm afraid I'll need more details shimei," he said softly.

Inside his mind, Ren Yifeng was giddy with unrestrained glee. It was soooo good he has been chosen into Qian Cao Peak. He loved hearing about all the stupid shit people got themselves into.

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu sighed, the flickering candlelight irritating his eyes. The document in front of him was as interesting as a last year carcass but he needed something to do. Anything to get his mind off his dream and fluctuating Qi.

He rubbed at his eyes and turned to the small floor table behind him, hand reaching for his forgotten tea.

And almost jumped out of his skin, quickly clamping down on his shriek at the sight of a dark creature behind him.

Ashley dipped her paw into a small, elegant cup and slowly brought it back to her lips. The tea has a nice, nutty taste even when cold. She gave her fur one last lick and tilted her head at the growling man, feeling the incoming purr deep in her chest.

"You little..." the man lunged.

With a yelp Ashley twisted to the side and sprinted away.

She laughed and Shen Qingqiu, socketed feet skidding on the wooden floor, growled at the strange chitter.

Chapter Text

Wen Ming was crouching down, hidden in a small bamboo cluster. The 12 years old's eyes were narrowed, body unmoving, gaze on her target. A small, gray cat was crouching by her side, one paw on the girl's foot.

They waited.

The sound of clacking wood, then approaching footsteps, made both the master and the disciple tense.

Ashley felt her tail twitch. She tried to kept it under control but her body felt like a bottle of coke with a mentos inside - and ah, how she missed the bubbles! When the sound of footsteps reached their hiding place and she could see the big - subjective, for her everything was either big, gigantic or enormous - figure of their prey, she pated A-Ming's foot.

Both of them jumped out at the same time: one silent as death, the other with an excited yell.

Lu Shee jumped backward with a high pitched shriek, firewood flying everywhere. He fell on the ground with a thud, rising a cloud of dust in his wake.

Ashley laid down on the patch of grass away from the commotion, all four legs sprawled to the side, felling proud.

'Good girl!'

Her secret disciple lay beside the grumbling boy, laughter steeling her breath and tears streaming down her cheeks.

Chapter Text

Hui knew to keep away from the music pavilion - the first time her ears got attacked by an awful screech was enough for her. But, by now A-Ming should be finishing her guqin lesson and a guqin wasn't an erhu, so she allowed herself to approach.

The sound coming from inside the building was faint - muffled by the walls, not meant for a big audience.

She spied the brightest sunbeam she could find and plopped herself down in the sunshine.

When the door to the classroom slid open and the children tumbled out, she was already cozily warm. She peeled her eyes open, looking for a specific head with two, dark hair buns. A-Ming was walking on the side of a group of girls, smile on her face.

Hui meowed, body limp and not wanting to move anywhere near the cluster of feet.

A-Ming's eyes crinkled at something her friend said. She was whisked away by the small group, Hui’s meow drowned out by the surrounding chatter.

Ashley watched her retreating back, red ribbons swaying in the sun. Miffed at not being heard but still not inclined to move, she lay her head down, eyes closing.

'Oh well, I'll find her later.'

The sun was warm, the children gone, and place quiet, a weak wind, ruffling her fur like a caress.

It wasn't long after the clearing emptied that the sunshine got blocked by a cloud, the warmth disappearing with it and Ashley grumpily scanned the surroundings for a better spot.

She stretched and trotted over to the pavilion and the closest patch of light she saw.

"pling, pling"

Music.

The melody was delicate, notes flowing gracefully, like memories of a sunny morning and a gentle wind.

'So pretty,' Ashley thought sneaking a peak inside.

The classroom was almost empty, a multitude of qins hanging on a wall.

Shen Qingqiu was sitting in front, left hand tapping on the strings, his right flying up and down, plucking the notes gracefully.

Ashley stood there for a while, just appreciating.

Then, she padded forward, paws silent on the wooden floor.

— — —

When it turned out that Zhang Xiubo couldn't come and teach today's guqin lesson it was 10 minutes before it was due to start and Shen Qingqiu was in the middle of writing a report. With no time to find anyone else he resigned himself to teaching, gulping the last of his tea like a shot.

The class consisted of his youngest disciples and, when Zhang Xiubo was a good teacher and his disciples were making a good progress, Shen Qingqiu was accustomed to filling in on an advanced lessons. The children were frustratingly slow, their strength of plucking uneven and each one so focused on their fingers, they totally disregarded the pace.

By the end of the lesson he was in a dire need of some good music to cleanse his ears.

So, after the classroom emptied and he made sure that all of the qins were properly hung on the wall - disciple Pu got a compulsory essay about the correct way of storing a guqin - he sat himself back at the table.

Long fingers automatically positioned themselves on strings, a melody flowing without much thought. It was his go to song when he needed some music without the need to focus on playing. One from his disciple days. One that he practiced so many times he once transitioned to it in the middle of a different song - so stressed he was to preform in front of his Shizun.

Only after the fourth repetition did he realize he had company. He lay his hand on the strings, cutting off the sound and frowned, green eyes scanning the room. The quiet purr was audible now, that he stopped playing.

The cat was curled on the floor, few steps away from him, head on its paws, eyes closed.

As Shen Qingqiu continued to watch, amber eyes opened, immediately zeroing on him. The purr died down.

They watched each other.

Shen Qingqiu didn't have a lot of experience with cats. There was one in the Qiu household, kept mostly to protect the kitchens from mice. And there were street cats, feral things that he had, on a few occasions, fought over a place to hide. None of them behaved like the cat in front of him.

He watched as the feline looked between him and his hands, still laying motionless on the qin's strings.

Then, she let out a quiet meow and Shen Qingqiu started to feel off.

He pursed his lips.

It was just a cat and no matter how strange, he didn't much care as long as it wasn't disturbing him.

He stood up, hanging the qin on the wall and ignoring the grumpy meow behind him, went back to his house.

There was a pile of papers with his name on it.

Chapter Text

Ashley hated rain. Her fur absorbed water like a sponge, leaving her cold and wet for hours.

So, when a gentle drizzle suddenly turned into a freaking storm when she was in the middle of the bamboo forest she started sprinting.

Direction: the female disciples' quarters. She was intent on yowling by the door until someone would let her in and she could be towelled dry and cuddled through the rest of the night.

But by the time she was near the bamboo house the rain got so bad it felt more as if someone followed her with a garden hose. It was hard to see and she could feel a chill seeping into her bones. Out. She wanted out of this downpour, thank you very much!

So, when she noticed an open window she didn't think.

She jumped up, hiding under the tilted oiled paper plane and peered inside.

Dark.

The room was empty, house silent, no light in sight.

Her eyes stopped on a tall bookshelf - its top shelf temptingly empty, safe for two figures.

She jumped down, over the desk, mindful of her dripping fur.

Making sure to not get water on any paper on her way, she climbed to the highest shelf and curled there. She could feel the purr building up at the idea that the guy won't see her here, until she would be able to scare him shitless by jumping at his face in the morning.

— — —

Shen Qingqiu woke up to the sound of rain. The windows in his room were dark, greyish color.

He lay there, using the patter of raindrops of his roof as a meditation chime. At least, until the memory of yesterday night reminded him of the open window in his office.

Yawning, he padded barefoot to his office.

There was no need to rush - he has cleaned his desk before going to sleep and the rain would not be able to reach inside. The only thing that could happen would be a mess of blown away papers but as mentioned, but today he was safe from that.

He patted his desk but as thought, it was dry.

He lighted the candles around his desk, face turning to the side, green eyes squinting from candles' glare.

The basket of papers on the side reminded him of the long list of things that needed to be done today.

Hiding another yawn behind his hand he turned towards his kitchen, intent to begin his day with a warm cup of tea.

Green - gray - green.

He paused.

The cat lay curled on the highest shelf of his bookshelf, in between two jade figures. The fur was still damp, clustered into dark strands.

In the candles' light Shen Qingqiu could see small puddles of water on the floor, leading right to the window.

— — —

Hui woke up to a bird song. The room was bright with candles, windows open, letting in some morning light.

Shen Qingqiu was sitting in front of the desk, eyes on a scroll, hair already up but still only in his inner robe, a light blanket thrown over his shoulders.

A green and white gaiwan by his elbow was uncovered, steam rising slowly in air.

She stretched, tail knocking into one of the figures.

It rattled for a second, making Shen Qingqiu look her way, but quickly settled down.

Hui's nose twitched, sniffing the air.

She knew this smell. She had been literally drowned in it some time ago. The girls were still bringing her salmon pieces in an apology.

The smell seemed to have settled on her fur.

She licked her paw.

Bitter.

'Ugh. Where's the rain where you need it?'

Deciding to rub herself on bamboos outside she carefully jumped down.

Shen Qingqiu watched her came close.

Ashley ignored him, gauging the distance between her and the windowsill.

Shen Qingqiu froze when she jumped right beside his elbow and then quickly launched herself higher.

The cat turned and for a moment theirs eyes met.

Then the peak lord returned his focus to the scroll in his hands, ignoring her completely.

Ashley watched him work for a while, contemplating. Then she turned around and disappeared outside.

Chapter Text

"Leave it here."

Shen Qingqiu waved his hand at the empty space on his desk, green eyes not leaving the document in front of him.

Jing Yibo carefully set the tall stack of papers beside his Shizun.

Then the young man turned around and hightailed away, snatching a paper umbrella on his way out.

After he left, the house became quiet again. A sporadic shuffling of paper the only disruption in the background hum of rain.

Thud.

When Ashley jumped on the windowsill Shen Qingqiu was still behind his desk, reference papers covering most of its surface, brush in hand and writing something down.

The man startled and leaned away, gaze narrowing, hands tightening on the thin, bamboo handle.

Ashley spared him a glance, looked at the bookshelf nearby and down at the multitude of papers and Shen Qingqiu had just enough time to put his brush down and reach forward before she jumped.

"No!" he shouted, pulling the papers towards him and away from the potential disaster of wet fur and sharp claws.

The cat sailed above his hands, feet gracefully touching down on the wooden planks and ran for the highest shelf in the room again.

"..."

Shen Qingqiu froze, blinking at the papers, safe and as dry as the desk itself.

Arms still covering his research, he looked at her.

Jade green met amber.

'Oh, come on! Don't be so surprised. I'm not that bad.'

She plopped herself down between the two jade figures and started to lick the rainwater from her paws.

'I'm a nice nice cat.'

"Meow."

'Admit it.'

The quiet meow seemed to break the peak lord out of his thoughts. He whirled back to his desk, hands moving away from the now creased papers.

"Fuck."

When he covered his reference materials, his sleeves fell over everything on the way. Specifically, the paper that he has just been writing. He gathered his sleeves up, arms held out and away from the rest of his robes. The paper he had spent the last hour writing had been ruined, the last few signs unreadable, ink smudged over a third of the paper.

He glared at it. Then he glared at Hui.

'Don't look at me like that! That was all your doing.'

The cat sniffed and raised its leg. The lick bath was not finished yet.

Chapter Text

'Are you fucking kidding me?'

Ashley sat on A-Ming bed, tail curled around her legs, the tip twitching. She watched Yao Mi enthusiastically wave her whole arm from left to right. A small ball of feathers connected to the end of a stick she held zipping back and forth across the floor.

"Come on Hui! Get it!"

"Maybe you are waving it too fast?"

She moved her gaze from the idiotic performance in front of her to Yang Ying. The girl sat primly on her bed, not far away from them, eyes on a handkerchief in her hands, needle peacefully adding some yellow to one of embroidered ducks there.

"You thinks so?," Yao Mi asked, slowing her expressive waving by a lot.

"My aunt has two cats. You have to start slowly. Tempt them by showing it right in front of their noses. Move it around until they become interested. Skim it across their hands until they want to catch it."

"Ah. I've always seen them run after mice," said Yao Mi head tilting at the older girl. "Usually, the fastest something ran the better." She looked back at Hui and her shoulders slumped. "This doesn't work."

'Don't compare me to a normal cat.'

Ashley huffed, turning around and ignoring the cat wand completely.

She knew pretty well she wasn't normal - past life and the system excluded.

There hasn't been one cat in her life she was able to communicate with. Not outside of "Look at me!" or "Go away!" or "I'm friendly!". It was frustrating. Alienating.

Fucking sucked.

"Maybe we should add a piece of meat at the end," proposed A-Ming and Ashley hid he face under her paws.

'Aaarggg!'

Chapter Text

Qing Jing Peak's disciples turned their heads, eyebrows raised and eyes blinking after their unofficial mascot.

The cat strutted forward, fur gleaming in the sunlight, a bouquet in her mouth bobbing up and down.

Gray eyes were locked on two, dark hair buns, their owner sitting on the grass not far away, hunched over a drawing board.

Dark eyebrows scrunched, the tip of the tongue sticking out - Wen Ming seemed too occupied to notice the approaching feline. So, when the girl suddenly paused and turned to look at her Ashley froze.

Thin, blackened fingers moved a piece of charcoal away from the paper.

"Hui! Pspspsps."

With a mental sigh, the cat padded over to Wen Ming, head high so none of the flowers dragged on the ground.

"Hui!" A-Ming smiled, setting the drawing pad beside her. "So many flowers!" she leaned forward, fingers - the clean ones - reaching behind one furry ear.

Ashley let her, head turning slightly to the side. But not for long. After no more than three scratches, she moved forward, letting the familiar fingers graze her back and placed the bouquet on A-Ming's lap.

"Meow."

"Is this for me?"

"Meow."

Dark eyes sparkled, face splitting in the widest, sunniest smile Ashley has ever seen directed at her.

'Photo! Make a photo! System!'

[The camera feature is unavailable for the user.]

'T.T'

Wen Ming scooped the cat up, putting her down beside the bouquet.

Ashley pushed herself up, paws on the white and green clothed chest and rubbed her face on A-Ming's.

Chapter Text

"Wen-shimei! Have you brushed Hui?"

Wen Ming looked up, hands paused in their weaving, flower stalks held securely between fingers.

The girl leaning down towards her was one of the oldest in A-Ming's drawing class. A tall teenager, nut brown eyes set in a triangular face, milk chocolate hair pulled high into a long ponytail.

"Yes! I mean... this one did!" A-Ming beamed, hands moving the unfinished crown to the side so they could both see the cat below, laying peacefully on her lap.

Hui's fur glistered in the sun, brushed just yesterday, no tangles in sight.

"She looks really good now. Like a proper house cat," the other girl smiled. Her head cocked to the side, the ponytail sliding over a shoulder. "Can you stay like this?" she pointed a stick of a charcoal at A-Ming's lap.

"You want to draw me?!" A-Ming gasped, eyes wide. "I mean... Hui! You want to draw Hui! ...Right?"

"Yes. You heard Shizun: no drawing humans. Can you hold her like that?" she said, throwing her ponytail back over her shoulder. Nut brown eyes rounded, acquiring a puppy like attributes and the girl didn't even have to blink more than once before A-Ming nodded.

"Of course!"

Ashley watched, eyes half closed, as the older girl sat in front of them, the drawing board propped on her knees.

She has never been drawn before. She would have to see the finished drawing later.

— — —

Spine straight, steps slow, gaze forward and fan out. Shen Qingqiu made sure to not hasten his pace. No matter how much he wanted to already be in his house.

When his head disciple came to inform him about the new books delivery, the peak lord almost shot out on his sword towards the library. The rare tome of poetry he requested almost a year ago was in no way advantageous to a cultivator. But it was a real to gods treat to read and the last of the author's tome missing from Shen Qingqiu's collection.

Luckily, Qing Jing Peak was a scholars peak and a tome of poetry - no matter how sappy - could be easily excused.

Because he would sooner let someone gouge his eye out than admit to enjoying such a sappy poetry.

Approaching a gaggle of disciples he slowed his stride even more, fan rising up to the tip of his nose.

It was his youngest pupils. Each with a thin wood board propped on their knees, crowding around someone or something.

The curiosity and nosiness that always got him in trouble when he was a child made him move his feet towards them.

They sat in half a circle around his youngest disciple. Wen Ming looked equal parts self-conscious and bored, her hair buns decorated with small, bright yellow flowers. On her lap sat Hui, the cat's head decorated with her own monstrosity of a flower crown, grass and flowers sticking in every possible direction, one reaching down to lay on a small, pinkish nose.

She looked... almost done with life, the tip of her tail moving erratically, ears twitching.

Amber met jade green.

The cat jumped up and forward, zooming between the disciples on the ground and pretty much hiding behind Shen Qingqiu. He looked down.

"Meow."

'Let's go. You are my shield now.'

The crown somehow did not fall even with the cat head turned up.

The fan touched the tip of Shen Qingqiu's nose.

"Shizun!"

"This disciple greets shizun!"

As the children in front of him scrambled to their feet to greet him, Shen Qingqiu took this time to get a hold of his facial expression before he lowered his fan.

"And what are this disciples doing?"

"We were drawing Hui, shizun," answered one of the boys. "For the nature drawing project."

One of the girls leaned to the side to coo at Hui. The cat turned her head away and started to lick her paw, bottom planted firmly by Shen Qingqiu's feet.

The oldest boy in the group shuffled to the sideHe propped his drawing board on his stomach, bending over it to add some more details to his sketch.

Shen Qingqiu's eyes narrowed and someone elbowed the stupid boy, a charcoal sliding on the page, accompanied with a sharp "Oi!"

Then the boy looked up, caught his shizun’s raised eyebrow and swallowed, drawing board snapping down, spine straightening up.

"This master will made sure to check his disciples work then. Jing Yibo will collect them after dinner."

The children sweat-dropped. A few in the back groaned outloud and Shen Qingqiu had to raise his fan up again just so they won't see his smirk.

Chapter Text

Jing Yibo stood frozen on the spot, a stack of papers held loosely in his arms. He stared unblinkingly at Hui.

The cat was lying on the highest bookshelf, empty, safe for the sprawled out feline, one paw dangling in the air. Amber eyes watched the head disciple, the half wilted flower crown slowly sliding onto her eyes and dropping colorful petals on the floor below.

"Jing Yibo."

"Yes shizun!"

The boy jumped up, spine rod-straight, and almost dropped the papers in the process.

Shen Qingqiu's face was impassive. One hand lay on his lap the other on a thin calligraphy brush, its tip resting on a simple brush rest.

"Put it down here."

"Yes shizun!"

The disciple kneeled beside the desk with a loud thud and, cheeks pink, put the stack of papers in the corner of it.

"Is there anything shizun needs from this disciple?"

"No, go."

"Yes shizun."

The boy bowed and turned to leave, steps slow as he kept shooting glances at Hui. Specifically: at the flowers on her head.

Amber eyes watched him go and then turned to the man below. The Peak Lord had just cleaned the documents he had been working on to the side and reached for the newly brought stack of papers.

'Hey! This looks like...,' thought Ashley as she carefully made her way down.

No seeing anything down on the floor she jumped up on the desk.

Shen Qingqiu frowned down at her and put the papers back down.

"No," he said, hands reaching forward. He caught Hui by the middle and pulled her off the table.

Both of the front paws reached towards the sketches.

"Meow!"

'Let.Me.See.'

Tail wiggling, the moment she was released, Ashley pulled herself up on her hind legs, front paws leaning on the desk as she peered at the drawings.

Shen Qingqiu took the stack back, propping it at an angle so he won't have to bend down too much. One hand pushed Hui away from the desk. A moment later he froze, when the cat sneaked under his elbow, loost the flower crown in the process and crawled on his lap, immediately zeroing in on the sketches.

Ashley nosed the first page, trying unsuccessfully to differentiate its scent from all the other sheets in the stack. No luck. All of them got mixed together. The only thing she was able to single out was Shen Qingqiu's smell, fresh and all around her. She leaned back to get a better view. The sketch was good, the cat proportional even if the head looked a little funny. It seemed that whoever drawn it was much better at drawing flowers, seeing as her flower crown was the most detailed part of the whole picture.

She sat patiently, paws down and ears up, waiting for the next one. The arms on her sides hadn't moved. When nothing happened after a few more breaths, she looked over her shoulder and pawed at the drawing delicately.

"Meow."

Shen Qingqiu was frowning down at her, like at a particularly unclear piece of poetry.

'Don't you understand?'

Pat.

"Meow. Meow."

Pat, pat.

It took some time before the Peak Lord started to move, setting the first sketch to the side. The moment a new one was exposed Hui stopped meowing, settling back on the pale green fabric.

The Bamboo House quieted down.

Chapter Text

It was early morning. The Sun not yet up but the sky already pale, yellowish blue. The Qing Jing peak was quiet, most of humans still asleep, only a rare few out and about, yawns hidden between splayed finders.

Hui strolled slowly, no destination in mind. She spend most of the late night in the forest, watching fireflies and scaring rodents into heart attacks.

The door to the Bamboo House opened with a swish and she paused, ears twitching.

Shen Qingqiu looked as regal as ever, hair half up in a bun, adored with a silver hair-crown. A pale green ribbon fluttered behind him, a bright line in the planes of dark hair.

'Hmmm,' thought Ashley, as instead of going towards a library or flying away on his sword, the peak lord turned towards the bamboo forest, confident strides leading into it.

Stalking mode on, Hui followed.

There was no well-trodden path. Just a faint outline of one, overgrown with this year growth. Ashley watched as with a touch of his hand, young bamboo stalks were burned to ashes or were mowed by a volley of razor sharp leaves.

The action repeated until they got to a small clearing, hidden deep into the bamboo forest, a small hut erected in the middle.

Its walls were sturdy and deep red, symbols craved into the wood and filled with golden paint, roof thick and adored with dragons. The air, still crisp from the night, left a layer of dew on the walls and in the slowly raising Sun it made the hut look freshly painted.

With soft steps, Shen Qingqiu closed the distance to the shrine, hands reaching for the iron rings and pulling the doors open.

Hui silently padded forward, curious.

After a moment of stillness Shen Qingqiu took a step inside and with a swish of robes, kneeled behind a small table.

The inside exchanged most of the reds for deep browns, two tablets in the centre, when in pristine condition, were clearly of different age.

On was pale brown and the name inscribed on it a pale yellow. The other was such a dark brown it looked almost black, the gold on it bright. Both seemed to glitter brightly even in the shadows.

There was a short hiss and a thin plume of smoke raised over Shen Qingqiu's shoulder, the incense sticks following it shortly as the peak lord raised his hands up.

A jasmine aroma hit Hui's nose, strong in the clean morning air.

Shen Qingqiu bowed low towards the floor, the smoke swirling around him, dimming the golds and greying out the rest of colors.

Suddenly feeling like a trespasser Ashley shuffled away from the shrine. She stopped close enough to be able to see the entrance but not in place where she could see inside anymore.

An incense stick time later Shen Qingqiu stood up. The wooden doors squeaked when he closed the shrine up, hand pausing at the handle. Jade green eyes seemed to gaze through the wood, towards something far away.

"Goodbye Shizun," he said.

It felt like an ice-cold wind blowing against her fur.

Amber eyes jumped around the clearing, irises contracted, ears lowered and fur standing on end. Her spine curved unconsciously as her nose twitched.

Nothing.

No strange smell, no signs of an intruder. Just an overwhelming feeling of someone watching.

'System? What is it?'

[Command not recognised.]

'System! There is someone else here! Something else! What is it?'

[The user and the character Shen Qingqiu are the only ones in the clearing.]

Hui felt her spine curve up even more, front legs almost paws the ground.

Obvious to the tension - and whatever the fuck spooked the cat - Shen Qingqiu kept on walking, his figure barely visible behind bamboo stalks.

'W-wait! Wait! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!'

Ashley shot after the immortal, tail and ears tucked firmly against her body.

Chapter Text

"I didn't know you had a cat Xiao Jiu."

"Don't call me like that," snapped Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan watched as the cat paused its lickbath to look at the man beside her.

The Qing Jing Peak’s Lord looked as if he has never raised his voice, sitting primly across from his Sect Leader, hands raising a gaiwan to his lips.

"Shen-shidi," corrected Yue Qingyuan with a patient smile, mentally revising his approach.

The cat moved, stretching its back before slowly padding to the low table. Just to be met with a hand in the face, courtesy of one peak lord, still drinking his tea as if he wasn't keeping an eye on the cat at all.

"Meow."

"No."

Yue Qingyuan watched the interaction fascinated. The cat's head was turned towards Shen Qingqiu, the meow a clear complaint, but otside of keeping his hand in the way the peak lord ignored the feline.

"How old is he?"

"She," corrected Qingqiu, setting his cup down and moving his hand to intercept the cat’s attempt to bypass him.

"Meow!"

"And I don't know: she's a stray."

"Did you find her on a trip to town?"

"Meow!"

Hui jumped over the obstructing hand but was caught with Qingqiu’s quick reflexes and set gently but firmly away from the table. Yue Qingyuan looked down at the small display of sweets he brought and wondered how many sweet points he would get from Xiao Jiu if he gave her a bite.

"I didn't. She just showed up on the peak. Or at least that what my disciples said."

Hui made a wide arc around the table, ending at Qingyuan’s side. Jade green eyes narrowed at the scheming cat.

"Meow."

This sweet, innocent sound and a delicate headbut in his thigh made Yue Qingyuan blink. Keeping his lips from twitching, he reched for a pastry before looking back down at the cat.

Big black irises, surrounded yb the smallest ring of amber were locked on his hand, small body twitching, front paws almost kneading the floor.

Yue Qingyuan looked at Shen Qingqiu, waiting for his shidi’s approval. Jade green met brown.

Seizing the opportunity, Hui struck.

One moemnt she was flattened to the ground, the next she jumped. 

Trajectory: the pastry.

Chomping down on the golden crust, she flew by, a pice of the cake held triumphantly in her mouth.

Plop.

The rest of the pastry crumbled, falling down on the Sect Leader’s lap, leaving in his fingers only a small piece of the crust.

Both men looked down.

A yellow, goey filling looked extra bright on the black fabric: an abbstract painting of a disaster.

Hui ignored both of them, quickly gobbling up her prize, waiting for the half forgotten rush of sweetness.

...

Nothing.

The crust was so neutral in its taste it could as well be a piece of toast bread.

Indignant, she glared at the two men, the rest of the cake forgotten at her feet.

Shen Qingqiu was watching his sect leader over the rim of his cup.

Yue Qingyuan, face a little pink, waved his hands uselessly over the mess on his lap, eyes jumping around the room in hope of finding anything to clean this up.

Ashley contemplated the yellowish blob of filling sticking to his robes.

Maybe that will be sweet?

Chapter Text

Wen Ming eyed her horse from a distance.

Both the cultivator and the animal were evaluating each other and estimating the probability of a good cooperation.

But A-Ming had an ace up her sleeve.

The horse’s ears twitched when she pulled her hand out, fingers gripping it tightly.

“Hey there, Zongse,” she said, moving forward, keeping the carrot between them like one would a shield. “Lets be friends, ok?”

The horse’s nostrils flared, the bribe pausing right under its mouth. Its head turned a little to look at the girl for a moment. Then its black lips moved, taking the carrot right from A-Ming’s hand.

She flinched, fingers retracting but then she relaxed, watching the animal in front of her calmly crunch at the offered vegetable.

“Try touching him Wen-shimei,” called one of the boys, already up on his own horse. “Just keep your hand in his field of view.”

A hand hesitantly moved towards the brown head, settling lightly on the slick fur tight above the dark muzzle.

“Don’t worry. Zongse is very friendly,” said another disciple, this one wearing robes of the Beast Peak. “Although a bribe is always a good approach,” he smiled at her and reached into a small bag at his side. “Here. He likes them even better than carrots.”

A small apple was cherry red in color and A-Ming hadn’t even got the time to reach for it before Zongse moved, almost jostling her to the ground.

The boy laughed brightly, gracefully sidestepping the animal and moved closer to the now spooked girl.

“You see. His favourite,” he winked down at her. “Here. Give me your hand.”

She hesitantly did and he gently turned it palm up, fingers long and warm and rough from calluses. He set the apple down on her hand.

“Now, keep your hand flat so he won’t unwittingly nibble at your fingers. He can take it from a flat surface no problem, you’ll see,”

He laughed again when Zongse pushed at his back, nosing at his shoulder and the side of his head

“There, there you cute, little glutton,” he said, one hand scratching at the horse’s jaw the other stil under A-Ming’s hand, keeping it up.

“Now, just relax. He is a good boy.”

Wen Ming swallowed when the horse immediately moved towards her, black lips slowly closing around the apple before pulling it up and into his mouth.

“See. Easy peasy.”

A-Ming beamed.

—

Yang Ying allowed herself to clench her horse’s reins a little tighter, back straight and expression relaxed as she pulled at it slightly.

Her horse - a tawny stallion with a white colored nose bridge - swished his tail once, but didn’t try to trot again.

The bags on each side of the saddle - rectangular things made from thick, brown leather - were stuffed lightly, most of the important things kept in Ying’s precious qiankun bag, deep inside her sleeve.

“Yang-shijie,” wishpered Wen Ming as she carefully steered her horse to align with Ying’s.

“Wen-shimei,” said Yang Ying, tone and volume conversational. She looked at Shizun’s carriage, not far away from them. “The set off seemed to go without a hitch,” she commented. One hand released the reins to settle gently on a saddle bag behind her thigh.

Inside it, nestled in a soft fabric, Hui slept soundly, lulled to sleep by the horse’s pace.

Chapter Text

‘Fuck’

“Meow!”

‘Help!’

“Meow!”

Maybe trying to change trees in the middle of climbing wasn’t the best idea.

Now, stretched stiffly between two tree trunks, claws imbedded into their bark, Ashley reevaluated her life choices.

Below her people turned their heads at her yells but none of them came to help.

Above her a window opened, the man who looked out of it a fine beauty even with a frown marring his face. Green eyes looked down and around.

“Hui!”

Wen Ming ran out of an inn, face panicked.

‘Here!’

“Meow!”

“Hui!”

The girl stopped under the trees and looked up at the out-of-reach cat.

A-Ming tilted her head, contemplating a good way to climb up there. Or... she looked back towards the inn. Yang-shijie was one of the few on this trip with a spiritual sword. She could fly up there and....

“Wen Ming.”

There was a rustle above her and when she turned back, shizun was already beside her, hair and robes settling down around him as if he just descended from heaven instead of jumping from the first story window. There was a displeased expression on his face as he looked down at his youngest disciple.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said, accenting the last word with a gentle shake of his hand. Hui dangled from side to side, like an overgrown kitten, held by the scruff of her neck.

All things considered it wasn’t the worst way for Shen Qingqiu to find out his disciples packed the peak’s cat for the trip.

Chapter Text

A bag landed on a table with a crunch, multiple sticks sticking out of the opening. The person that put it there - the oldest teen at the table - withdrew his hand, letting the paper bag fall to the side.

“Oh! Tanghulu! Jing-shixiong you’re the best!” someone shouted.

Hands reached forward and Hui watched, from her spot on A-Ming’s lap, as each of them pulled out a skewer. Small, glossy berries reflected lights around them, making the berries even more red .

“Here, Wen-shimei,” Yao Mi said, holding out two glued together tanghulus.

“Thank you!”

A-Ming pulled her skewer with a crack, pieces of coating falling on the floor between the two girls.

“Ahhh.. soo sfeed,” a disciple said, cheeks puffed out.

Hui froze.

“It was soo long since I had a candy” another responded, already done with his.

“Mmmm!” moaned A-Ming above Hui’s head.

Snif, snif.

It smelled like honest to god sugar.

Hui jumped on the table.

Yang Ying reached for the last one and had to hold down the bag to pull it out. There was a rustle of squashed paper and a sound of something cracking before the tanghulu emerged, the top of the stick a sharp point.

Amber eyes focused on the bag.

There was one berry left inside, just waiting for someone to take it.

Hui’s irises blew out into big disks of black.

‘GIMMIE.’

She shot forward.

Rustle. Shuffle.

The bag slid on the wooden surface, Hui’s head deep inside it.

Shen Qingqiu watched his disciples snigger from a nearby table.

The berry, of course, got stuck somewhere between Hui’s eyes and the bottom of the paper-bag.

‘Candy, candy,’ she chanted, head waving to and fro, trying to dislodge the bag.

'Just... get it off,’ she thought. ‘Get if off and I’ll take the candy.’

Shake, step, shake, step.

People watches as the cat slowly inched back, tail waggling.

‘Get.it.off.m...'

Thud.

Shen Qingqiu snorted into his tea.

Hui did fall on her feet even with the bag still stuck on her head.

Above her some disciples guffawed, head thrown back. Some were curled forward with a hand to their lips.

Hui stood where she had fallen, miffed, her nose full with the smell of sugar.

‘Get it offf meeeeee.’

“Meooooooow,” came the whine from the floor.

“Oh Hui... one moment,” said A-Ming wiping tears from her face, as she bent down, pulling the bag off.

“Hahahahahaha!”

Cups clattered when on of the boys started slapping the table.

Hui stared cross-eyed at the hawberry... hanging down from the side of her nose, the sugary coat pulling at the fur there.

She dodged A-Ming’s hand and plopped under an unoccupied table before she got the berry off her.

‘Finally.’

Chomp.

— — —

And that was the day Hui found out she couldn’t taste sweets.

It was also the first time any of them saw a depressed cat.

She sulked all the way back to the Qing Jing Peak - in the carriage this time.

Chapter Text

There were five small containers on a low table, each labeled with elegant squiggles. Next to them was a tea tray with a teapot and two gaiwans.

There were three people inside Shen Qingqiu’s office:

The Qing jing Peak Lord, who sat comfortably on one end of the low table.

Jing Yibo, who, expression serious, kneeled not too far from the other end.

And the newest disciple of Qing Jing, who was kneeling right beside his new shixiong.

The boy was tiny.

“What’s your name?”

The child lowered his head, hands fisting into a plain fabric of his pants.

“Xu Ling... shizun.”

“Xu Ling, prepare tea for this master,” ha said, jade eyes observing. “Green,” he added, when the boy shuffled forward on his knees, head still bowed.

Xu Ling looked around the small table, uncertainty writen across his features. His eyes - gray as stone and enormous in his tiny, thin face - looked from container to container.

With an unsure glance at the man sitting on the other side of the table, he hesitantly reached for the closest tea caddy. The container was opened and its content checked. Xu Ling then closed it and quickly put it back before he reached for another one. The process was repeated two more times before Xu Ling found a green tea. Then, he reached for the teapot, already full but cold, and looked up.

“..Shizun,” he started hesistantly, both hands holding the heavy thing up by its handle.

Whatever else he wanted to say was cut short when Shen Qingqiu raised his hand.

“Put it down,” he said.

When the boy did - almost immediately, even as his face went from confused to apprehensive and scared - the Peak Lord put his hand around its side.

Gray eyes widened as wisps of orange light flew up from the hand, curving in the air before sinking into the teapot.

From its dark spout raised a thin ribbon of steam.

The qi dissapeared and the hand retracted, as pale as before and Xu Ling followed its path for a moment, before just staring open-mouthed at his new shizun.

Swish, click.

“Continue,” Shen Qingqiu said, his fan raised over the bottom part of his face.

Chapter Text

A-Ming was almost half a head taller than her new shidi.

“Don’t worry Xu-shidi! This Wen Ming also came here not knowing how to read. But I’m good now,” she jutted her chin up, shoulders straightening. “I mean, Shizun told me I’m good at it so I can teach you no problem!”

Xu Ling watched her silently, hands fiddling with the strap of his satchel: a new thing in a pale green color, filled with notebooks and writing utensils. Something clinked inside it and he froze, grey eyes snapping down, one hand reaching towards the flap.

Wen Ming caught the hand, smiling.

“Have you seen the Library?”

The boy shook his head slowly.

“It’s amazing! I’ve never seen so many books before.” She pulled him towards the biggest building in sight, radiating excitement. “I’ll show you!”

— — —

Xu Ling stood in the Library’s entrance, mouth hanging open and eyes wide.

The main hall was big, with shelves and shelves and shelves of scrolls and books.

Wen Ming smiled, bouncing a little at A-Ling’s side and tugged at their still connected hands.

“There are even more at the back!”

Xu Ling blinked and looked at her, face flushed pink, eyes sparkling like stars.

“Even more?”

“An!” she nodded. “These ones everyone has access to. For the rest you need to have Shizun’s permission.”

The boy turned back to the hall, eyes running over the bookshelves.

“I’m going to read them all,” he whispered.

Not far from them, at the reception desk, two senior disciples on library rotation exchanged amused looks. One turned away to hide his smile, the other cupped his cheek in his palm and watched as his cute martial siblings rushed towards the bookshelves.

Chapter Text

Hui watched, ears upright as Lu Shee hobbled towards the peak’s cafeteria, crutches sinking into the sail.

Poor boy looked two steps from yeeting them at the ground.

“Lu-shidi, it’s only for two weeks,” Jing Yibo said, watching the smaller boy grit his teeth.

He righted the strap of his shidi’s bag as he slowed his pace again to match the injured boy.

“Jing-shixiong, please stop talking,” Lu Shee whined.

Jing Yibo raised his hand as if he wanted to pat his shidi on a shoulder but then just shook his head.

Hui had no sympathy for Lu Shee. She was present when the boy came back from Wan Jian Peak, was told not to use his sword without supervision and then proceeded to try and fly when left alone for a second.

She was there when he zoomed across the ground, almost skewering her on the way, flew high up and face first into the bamboo forest and got knocked off the sword.

Recalling Shen Qingqiu's face when he had showed up at the commotion, Hui was sure the broken leg was going to be the last of the boy’s problems.

‘But first...’

She moved to sit right in the middle of the entrance to the cafeteria and waited for both of them to notice her.

Jing Yibo was first, slowing to stop with a short “Lu-shidi.”

Lu Shee stopped and looked at her, before leaning on one crutch and waving the other in her face.

“Hui, move.”

Hui stood up.

“Shoo,” the crutch was dangerously close to actually hitting her.

Amber eyes looked down on the immobilised leg and back up at the scowling boy. She made sure to made her gestures as exaggerated as possible.

When even Jing Yibo frowned at her she slowly hobbled away, her front leg bend up at a right angle. After a few steps like this she paused and looked back at the two boys.

Jing Yibo’s face was slack with shock.

Lu Shee was gapping, eyes wide and face reddening slowly.

Hui turned from them and continued to hobble away.

“You... you... You!”

Jing Yibo snorted and then started to apologise when Lu Shee rounded on him.

Hui left the scene with a satisfied, mean purr.

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu sighed, fingers rubbing his temple. He slouched a little over his desk, elbows landing on its surface.

Lately the man looked more and more frazzled which meant he became more and more snappy when interacting with others.

Hui watched him from above her water bowl. It was early evening but the office was already lit with a multitude of candles. Which was strange as with the beggining of autumn and Hui’s continuing occupation of the Peak Lord’s bookshelf the candles had been exchanged for night pearls.

She moved closer to him, eyes on his bent back.

‘Hey System. What’s with him?’

[Command not recognised.]

‘Useless piece of shit.’

<ding!>

[Complaint filed.]

Hui sighed. She sat beside the man’s leg and looked under his elbow to see his face.

His eyes were closed, eyebrows furrowed in pain. He was slowly inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

Hui looked around the room. The candles were burning brightly making it easy to read but if this guy had a headache...

She moved back to the tea table. There were three candles on it. Hui made sure to not jump on them and then proceeded to try to blow them out.

No luck - it seemed she wasn’t able to blow in this body.

‘Oh well...’

Quick and precise, her paw swiped on the closest burning wick, putting the flame out.

‘Ha!’

It was just a few minutes before last candles left were the ones beside the Peak Lord - still massaging his temples, eyes closed.

Hui carefully jumped on the desk, making sure not to destroy any of the papers and sat herself before the last cluster of candles.

Swish

One down - two to go.

Swish

Shen Qingqiu looked up when the light coming through his eyelids dimmed significantly.

Swi...

“What are you doing?!”

The cat was pulled by the scruff of her neck, her paw missing the last candle by millimetres.

Strong hands pushed her on the green-clad lap and pulled the offending leg up, bright green eyes inspecting the sooted toe beans. Taking a handkerchief from somewhere he started to scrub the soot away.

Hui squirmed.

“Stop moving,” Shen Qingqiu snapped.

He pulled closer the last lighted candle and inspected the, now pinkish, beans carefully.

He swiped his thumb on it. Her metacarpal pad was pressed down a little. The finger paused for a moment... and then pushed down gently.

Squish

Squish

Squish, squish

‘Heeeyyyy...’

Hui watched as the man kept on squishing her paw, thumb bouncing up and down on it.

Amber eyes looked at the ceiling.

‘I’ll consider this my rent.’

Chapter Text

Hui kept stealing his pillow.

Shen Qingqiu frowned down at the cat-croissant, already laying on his recently vacated floor pillow.

Half lidded amber eyes watched him - checking the distance between them.

Shen Qingqiu knew that if he came any closer the cat would vacate his sitting cushion. She had learned quickly after the first two times he pushed her off it.

And sure enough, the moment he was a leg-length away the cat slowly uncurled herself and slinked off the pillow.

Shen Qingqiu sat down, ignoring her. He looked out the window when a crisp winter air come from it and caressed his face. He could see snow outside, the white dusting of it covering everything. From the last few days’ experience he knew it’d all thaw soon enough, leaving the ground a soggy, slippery disaster.

He went back to work - he had a peak lords meeting in a shichen.

— — —

Liu Qingge could admit - in the privacy of his own mind - that he did spend much too much time observing his shixiong. In his defence, the Qing Jing Peak Lord had always felt like a threat - especially with all the talk about him that had cropped up along the years. So Liu Qingge had been keeping at least one eye on him.

Like right now.

The meeting had just ended and most was already flying away, save a few that preferred to walk. Liu Qingge stayed behind. His eyes fortified by qi against the sun’s glare he watched Yue-shixiong and Shen Qingqiu talk. Or rather he watched the Sect Leader talk and Shen Qingqiu becoming more and more stiff. The pale, long fingers were slowly tightening their hold on on a beautifully painted fan - a clear indicator of a raising anger.

Then Zhanmeng-shixiong said something and it looked as if the Qing Jing Peak Lord was going to throw the fan at his face.

Instead, the man spun on his heel and strode away. He marched right past Liu Qingge and toward the Rainbow Bridge. His robes - deep, dark green - flowed behind him.

Liu Qingge watched him go, eyes on the angry movement of his hands. The sun was shining right at his least liked shixiong back, glinting off of his silver hair crown, the ends of his inky black hair and off... something.

Liu Qingge frowned, eyes squinting and qi working to sharpen the view.

There, on the dark fabric of Shen Qingqiu’s outer robe, glinting pale silver was... fur?

— — —

Yue Qingyuan felt strange, seeing Liu-shidi looking at Xiao Jiu’s retreating figure.

His shidi’s dark gaze was focused on the green clad back, eyes narrowed and unblinking. He looked as if he was going to pounce at any moment.

Yue Qi flash-stepped to his side, a friendly smile on his face.

“Liu-shidi,” he said, shoulders relaxing when The War God stopped looking at Shen-shidi’s ass and turned to him, “would you like to drink some tea together?”

Chapter Text

Hui didn’t like cold. Her body didn’t keep warmth well and the moment the first snow had fell she knew from experience her fur won’t be enough. Well, maybe enough to survive, but not enough to be comfy!

She became an almost nightly visitor to the female disciples’ quarters again. Mainly to snuggle throughout the night.

She bore the girls tries at getting her to play with the cat wand with a depleting patience.

Most nights were spent first, under A-Ming’s chin, when the girl hid under a blanket to read, and later, curled somewhere around her legs of stomach. Hui just had to be careful not to let the sleeping girl get her sticky hands on her under the threat of getting squeezed like some kind of plushie.

But that for evenings and nights.

Mornings saw the girls going to breakfast and lessons - leaving the quarters became quiet (which was nice) and cold (which was unacceptable).

So Hui trudged with them to get breakfast and then sneaked behind A-Yibo into the Bamboo House.

Shen Qingqiu could be almost always found at his desk by then and Hui often let herself great the man with a short meow and - come colder weather - a little rubbing on his tight. Which sometimes got her a short pat on the back if he was distracted enough.

Somehow the office was always warm, even with an open window. Hui suspected cultivation bullshit as it always get colder when Shen Qingqiu left.

Anyway, by noon, she was always itching to move so she would make a round outside, get her paws absolutely dirty and clean them as best as she could before coming inside again. She wasn’t stupid, A-Ming and the girls would hold her up and clean her paws themselves when she came to them but Shen Qingqiu, she was sure, would take one look at the muddy tracks and kick her out.

‘Or throw me into a bucked of water,’ Hui shuddered.

So she would come back in the evening, clean herself up and then plop herself in any path of sun - the office windows were south-facing so she could often catch some sun-rays there as long as the windows were open.

If Shen Qingqiu was back in the house by then, she could always count on there being a warm pot of tea on the table.

Hui had been caught only once - by Jing Yibo - curling herself around it.

A-Yibo was a good boy - he kept his mouth shut when he saw it.

Shen Qingqiu didn’t found out she was doing it yet. Not that it’d stop her.

His glare hadn’t stopped her for stealing - borrowing! - his sitting pillow each time he so much as stood up to go pee or something! It was fine! He hadn’t done much more than push her off the first few time she let him get close when still on it.

But the pillow was still warm if she flopped on it right away and she did give it back. Although, it was a pity she had to.

One of these days she was going to plop herself into his lap.

Today, she watched the tall, tall stack of papers still sitting on the peak lord’s desk and knew that this will end with an all-nighter. And that means a lot of warm pots of tea and sneak times of toasty pillow napping.

So she waited. Until the pillow lost its warmth. Until A-Yibo came with another papers and closed all the windows. She napped until night came, but Shen Qingqiu wasn’t there when she opened her eyes.

‘Early night?’

He wasn’t in his bedroom either.

It was late - the windows and the door closed .

The bedroom was spacious with a big, canopy bed, a low tea table and a heavy wardrobe.

The bed was empty, the blankets pristine. There were also two pillows on it: one, a short, embroidered thicks noodle pillow and another a low tiger heads jade pillow.

Hui checked the house again.

No one.

Well then.

— — —

Spending the day at the Red Lantern Pavilion helped to sooth his nerves. Much more than a simple meditation. By evening Shen Qingqiu didn’t feel as if he was going to blow up at the first unlucky disciple that crossed his path anymore. The girls were nice, the music was wonderful and the tea was good. He ate two whole thangulu sticks before darkness fell and he remembered about the stack of still ungraded essays on his desk - only halfway done and due tomorrow.

It was a good thing the sky was clear and the moon bright or else flying at night would be akin to asking for a visit to Mu-shidi.

He went to his office first. The cat was nowhere to be seen - probably in the female quarters, like every single night lately. A quick scrub and Shen Qingqiu moved to his bedroom, hair dry but his bathrobe damp and clinging. He didn’t bother with night pearls - the slight glow of the ones in his office and his memory alone was enough. He opened the wardrobe, took the first set of outer robes from the ‘comfy’ shelf, turned and started walking to his bed to get his night robes.

Shrouded in the shadows was a pair of of glowing, orange eyes.

Shen Qingqiu cut off his shriek quickly.

Xiu Ya flashed in the dark.

The blade shot out like an arrow at the bed and the creature bolted off it with a very loud yowl.

It’s this yowl that saved her life.

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes widened and Xiu Ya flared even brighter when its owner tried to stop it. The blade imbedded itself almost to the cross-guard, right beside the centre of the - now visible in the its glow - blanket nest. It missed the fleeing feline by a finger’s width.

Two seconds later, the room was silent, and dark again, only the low light from the corridor illuminating anything.

Shen Qingqiu was standing in the same place he had been when he had sent Xiu Ya flaying - right in the middle of his bedroom, clutching his robe tightly to his chest. He took a few shaky breaths and loosened his fingers, all the good mood from today’s trip gone.

He strode forward and yanked Xiu Ya out. It came out of his bed (and the floor under it) with a crunchy sound, that told Qingqiu he had just cracked either his bed or floorboards even more.

“Hui!”

Where was that cursed cat!

Chapter Text

Hui didn’t get enough time to calm herself down before Shen Qingqiu found her.

The first thing she saw were his shoes and the ends of a green robe. Then knees, hands, a length of dark hair slowly folding onto the floor and finally, a face.

He didn’t look happy with his cheek smushed into the wooden boards and Hui puffed herself up, the arch of her spine almost touching the bottom of the wardrobe.

She tensed, ready to flee at the first glimpse of Xiu Ya.

That it was a hand that reached out towards her and not the sword made it only marginally better.

For Hui.

Swipe

“Hisss!”

‘Keep your hands to yourself or I’ll claw them into confetti!’

Shen Qingqiu retreated his hand - decorated with two angry red lines - with a hiss of his own.

He glared at her, eyes narrowed before he stood up with and angry rumble.

He hadn’t even been back for a sichen and he already almost had a heart attack, put a fucking hole through his bed, nearly killed his cat and now this!

He just wanted to get the idiot cat out from underneath his wardrobe, thank you very much!

It had already taken long enough to find her!

And he hadn’t even touched the papers on his desk since he had came back!

Qi surging through his body he hugged the wardrobe in the middle and heaved it up and away.

Hui just darted under his bed.

— — —

When Jing Yibo came in the morning to serve shizun he found the Peak Lord ready for the day like always.

What wasn’t normal was that he was marking essays on a tea table. In his bedroom.

“Shizun?”

The man paused and immediately raised his brush away from the paper.

Yibo’s gaze followed the red lines on the pale skin as shizun put the brush down and looked up at him.

“Jing Yibo.”

He shuffled forward a small stack of scrolls - todays’ correspondence - in his arms clacking softly as he knelt beside the small table.

“Leave it on the floor.”

Putting the scrolls down beside the table, he caught a movement from the corner of his eye.

Just underneath the primly made bed laid Hui’s water bowl and A-Yibo could see the cat slowly settle herself beside it to drink.

“Jing Yibo.”

He startled.

“Yes shizun!”

Shen Qingqiu passed him a stack of essays.

“The rest are on the desk,” he said, a long, pale finger tapping the top of the stack in A-Yibo’s arms. “Leave it there. The scrolls beside them are for An Ding and to be send immediately. When you finish this, go check Qiong Ding for correspondence again and check their kitchen for a piece of meat. Raw.”

Jing Yibo kept on nodding, accustomed to this kind of orders. Up until the last part. He froze, gapping at his shizun. The glare that he received for it had him bobbing his head up and down so fast he could feel his brain bumping around his skull.

“Yes shizun!”

“Good. Go,” Shen Qingqiu waved his hand in dismissal before he grabbed his brush again and A-Yibo had to stop himself from staring at the pink lines decorating the pale skin.

He could guess just where they came from.

He sent one last glance under the bed and quickly rushed out of the room.

— — —

Hui hadn’t scurried out of the house with A-Yibo only because of the promise of food.

Because it was for her right? Right?

Right! There was no way the prick would eat raw meat.

Soooo!

A Peak-Lord-ordered piece of meat just for her! Yey!

The moment she heard the entrance door opening she was out from under the bed and halfway to the room’s threshold, ears up and nose sniffing.

Shen Qingqiu watched the cat wave around Jing Yibo’s feet with such an enthusiasm she almost tripped him. She kept on standing up on her hind legs and meowing at the clearly uncomfortable teen. When he nodded, Jing Yibo quickly put a small bowl down... as far away from himself as he could reach without moving from his spot.

The fan swished open and hid Shen Qingqiu’s mouth when his head disciple practically flash stepped towards him the moment the cat had moved away from him.

“New correspondence shizun,” he said, kneeling beside him.

If Jing Yibo kept his shizun between himself and Hui on purpose, Shen Qingqiu didn’t call him out on it.

Chapter Text

Hui liked nice things. Soft things. Pretty things. It had been the same when she had been Ashley and it stayed with her in this life.

And Qing Jing was pretty. Lush bamboo. Tasteful wooden buildings, nested gracefully between them. Nice music (from advanced classes) and paintings. Cute children. handsome men and beautiful women.

Or, sometimes, the other way around.

Like Shen Qingqiu. Hui had to say that the man was more pretty than typically handsome, although he certainly didn’t seem frail.

Especially right now.

Hui thought that as the master of the scholars’ peak Shen Qingqiu’s fighting style would be more like an elegant dance compared to the disciples’ moves. She expected that he’d look more like he was dancing. He didn’t. Some movements were almost dance-like, true, but most of them were quick and precise - short charges at invisible opponents and quick pivots.

Xiu Ya was glowing with qi, swishing through the air on its own, sometimes multiplying into a sword rain just to snap back into one body in the next moment.

Hui stiffened watching its bright glow.

After The night on which Hui almost became a kebab, Shen Qingqiu often left his sword sheathed by his desk. As if that was going to scare her away! She wasn’t afraid of no stupid sword!

He let her hiss at it and paw the sheath as much as she wanted, but took it away each time she tried to gnaw on it.

She scoffed. It wasn’t as if she was still mad - she got soo many salmon pieces A-Yibo actually stopped stiffening at her sight.

She kept on trying only because he hadn’t let her.

Amber eyes followed the flash of light - a cool blue lighting, so jarring in the surroundings.

The setting sun painted the whole lake reddish-orange, making the whole scene that much more cool.

Xiu Ya snapped back into Shen Qingqiu’s hand, its glow intensifying for a second before it died down. It disappeared into its sheath and Shen Qingqiu moved towards the shore, his steps not making any ripples.

Hui padded after him, intent on spending the night inside somewhere quiet - the girls had some kind of recital approaching and the whole dormitory was noisy.

— — —

Shen Qingqiu disappeared into a bath and Hui used his absence to curl herself around a pot of tea left on the bedroom table.

The silence was blissful and after the cold outside, the warmth of the teapot was amazing. She closed her eyes, body melting around it.

She was almost asleep when the door to the bathroom opened and soft footsteps padded towards the room. When she peeled one eye open Shen Qingqiu was standing in the bedroom threshold, hair up in a loose bun and a thin bathrobe clinging to his body.

His face was still pink from the bath and his skin glistered in the light of the night pearls. He was frowning at her again.

Hui slowly uncurled herself from around the teapot and sat primly beside it not breaking the eye contact.

Shen Qingqiu sighed before moving towards the wardrobe. One hand pulled a hairstick off and his hair tumbled down.

She watched as he removed one of the comfy robes from a shelf before turning towards the bed. The position left his profile exposed to her.

‘Oh dammmmn.’

The light fabric of the robe was clinging to his still damp body, accentuating the fine curve of his ass.

Hui looked away, ears pulled back.

She hadn’t wanted to get an eyeful. It wasn’t intentional.

But damn if it wasn’t a nice view.

It seems that she was still an ass enthusiast.

She laid down, back to Shen Qingqiu and covered her eyes with a paw.

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu was warm.

But Yue Qingyuan was a freaking furnace.

“What.Are.You.Doing?”

Yue Qingyuan froze, his hand on Hui’s back.

The low purr - interrupted by Shen Qingqiu - was audible again as both men looked at each other silently.

Shen Qingqiu stalked through his office door, a tea tray in his hands and a scowl on his face.

“Xiao J- Shen Shidi,” smiled the Sect Leader.

Clack.

The try slammed on the table, making the two cups and a teapot rattle.

“Stop it.”

“Ah... stop what shidi?”

The fan opened with a swish and jade green eyes glared at Yue Qingyuan over its rim.

Dark eyes looked down.

Hui was curled on the big, warm lap, eyes closed and purring as the man slowly stroked her back.

“You’re enabling her.”

“Shen-shidi, it’s a cat.”

One elegant brow flew up.

“You’re going to teach her to crawl into just anyone's lap.”

“...of course Shen-shidi.” Yue Qingyuan reached down, hands gently grasping the feline in the middle.

‘Nope.’

The cat was silent but Qingyuan had to pause when it turned out she latched onto his robes with her claws.

“Emm...”

Shen Qingqiu snorted, green eyes condemning him already for all the future problems this will cause.

Chapter Text

Meditating was one of the things that Shen Qingqiu should do pretty much daily.

Partly because of his shaky foundation. Mostly, because with a bunch of disciples barely in their double digits it was hard to keep his temper in check.

He didn’t do it as often as he should - which his disciples took the unfortunate burnt of. But he did try to make a habit out of it. It just never stuck. Qingqiu treated it as a chore he couldn’t run away from, seeing that Mu-shidi seemed to somehow know when he slipped. The medicine man would look at him from the other side of the table with a smile that sent shivers down his back.

So Shen Qingqiu meditated.

Today session seemed especially productive. He resurfaced from his meditation with an amazing feeling of calm.

The room was dark, the only light coming from the open windows, courtesy of the full moon and clear night sky. The cold air brushed agains his face and ruffled the lightest outer layer of today’s robes.

He didn’t feel cold - his fire root so strong he always ran a warm. Much warmer than Qi-ge, even when both of them were children. Now, with the snowy period over, Shen Qingqiu could come back to his floaty, light robes than made even Qi Qingqi gnash her teeth. He shifted, ready to uncross his legs and prepare for the night.

There was a cat on his lap.

Correction... there was THE cat on his lap.

His eye twitched.

Hui looked as if she was sleeping, body curled on his thighs, chest falling up and down slowly.

This... has never happened before.

... He was going to kick Qi-ge in a shin.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing Shen Qingqiu did not expect to witness on his peak it was a fleeing chicken.

The animal farm for the whole sect was situated on the Beast Peak and they were famous for their zero waste attitude.

They wouldn’t let one go away with any bird unplucked, because the feathers could be used by others. They lead the biggest inner sect market in animal materials in the sect.

So… back to the chicken. The bird was currently running, panicked, down the main road leading from the Rainbow Bridge.

Shen Qingqiu narrowed his eyes as he watched it get closer and closer to the open door of the Library.

The few disciples present - the senior ones, that didn’t have obligatory lessons at the moment - were watching it baffled OR trying to catch it with their bare hands.

A small, colorful congregation showed up from the direction of the Rainbow Bridge, all of them running towards the chicken.

At least half of them were not disciples anymore.

The Peak Lord pinched the bridge of his nose.

This sect was full of idiots.

One of his senior disciples - Chu Wangji - tripped on an apparently treacherous patch of grass and crashed nose first into the dirt. The scrolls in his hands flew up, spooking the bird even closer to the Library’s doors.

And he was raising at least half of them.

Xiu Ya flashed forward.

— — —

God dammit, but trying to catch this chicken was a bad idea.

The poor bird had been scared enough to fly up and over a fence and then Hui spent much too long trying - unsuccessfully - to herd it back.

The few outraged Beast Peak disciples that tried to catch her weren’t helping!

And then the stupid chicken stepped on the Rainbow Bridge and it was as if someone knocked it unconscious. It toppled over and just keep lying there, on the psychedelic, shimmering surface of something that had no right to exist in such a tangible state.

By then Hui was so pissed at it - and at the disciple that had been chasing them all this time - that she quickly jumped forward and snatched the bird by its neck.

She had been dragging it to the other side of the bridge when the disciple reached her with a curse, already bemoaning the loss of a chicken as if they didn’t have a coop full of them.

Hui was caught by the scruff of her neck. With an outraged hiss she unsheathed her claws and tried to imbed them in the arm holding her. She lost the bird when her claws slid off the sleeve, making her yowl.

The boy just bent down to snatch it from the floor and, cursing her, started walking away from the Beast Peak.

They made such a spectacle - a glaring disciple, with one hand around a limp chicken’s neck and holding an infuriated cat away from his chest with the other - that people stopped when they saw them. A few of them even followed.

The moment they stepped off the bridge and onto Qing Jing they were immediately accosted by a patrolling disciple in green.

Hui ignored all of them, struggling anew, trying and failing to claw through the freaking magical, impenetrable robes.

The boy did not release her… until the chicken woke up.

One second Hui was squirming in his hold, claws sliding on his stupid sleeves, and the next moment the chicken went absolutely crazy.

The boy jumped up with a surprised shout, dropping both her and the flapping bird.

But the time all of the present disciples calmed down and remembered just whose peak they let the chicken loose on, the chicken had already disappeared down the road.

They rushed after it when a scream pierced the air.

Hui speeded up, ears up and eyes sparkling - she wanted to see what kind of destructing power had just been unleashed with her own eyes! She quickly caught up with the group, almost reaching the front when they reached the main clearing in front of the Library…

The bird was laying on its side, its head not too far away, Xiu Ya imbedded in the ground beside it, glowing faint orange.

Hui hid behind the closest skirt.

The Beast Peak’s disciple was at the front of the non-Qing-Jing group and as such was the one that Shen Qingqiu stalked towards, mouth hidden behind his fan and eyes absolutely glacial.

“What.is.the meaning of this?”

Wide, dark eyes glanced at the still glowing sword and the slowly spreading patch of burned grass around it…. and gulped.

— — —

The very next day, the Beast Peak handed in an official petition to bar Hui from the Rainbow Bridge. It sat in the Bamboo House gathering dust for a few weeks, before Wan Qingnian - the Lord of the Beast Peak - asked Shen Qingqiu about it.

“You are free to implement the necessary arrays yourself Wen-shidi.”

Chapter Text

Wen Ming was bent over a worktable, a brush in her hand and her full focus on a lantern in front of her.

The tip of the brush glided over the paper, dark ink seeping into it and completing the last lines of the ’good luck’ symbol.

She straightened back, put her brush down and carefully looked the lantern over. No big mistakes: just a few lines that didn’t look like she wanted them to but that was ok. She put it back down but didn’t stand up to take another one. Her next design was trickier - a complicated floral pattern - and Shizun had told them he would be checking all of their lanterns before they will be allowed to use them for the festival.

The room became livelier, people becoming distracted from their own work and soon A-Ming was surrounded by faint whispers and muffled snickers. Someone giggled.

“Wen-shimei,” she heard behind her, the voice warm with mirth.

A-Ming looked up and her sect sister nodded her head at the floor beside her. He eyes twinkled above a splayed out hand.

A-Ming followed her gaze.

Hui was slowly shuffling towards her, steps slow and uncertain as she could not see the floor at all, what with her head inside a lantern.

They watched her until she finally stopped right beside A-Ming’s seat, amber eyes looking from the top opening.

“Meow.”

A-Ming looked at the plain, unadorned lantern and back at the cat sticking out from it.

Her lips twitched.

— — —

When Shen Qingqiu checked over the lanterns and found several patterned with images of cats and toebeans he only sighed and assessed the quality of the paintings.

Chapter Text

The Qiong Ding main plaza was big enough to fit most of the disciples that had decided to come to the main festival opening.

Hui was nestled securely in a crook of Yang Ying’s elbow, watching A-Ming bouncing beside her, a paper lantern in her hands.

Almost every disciple were holding an unlit lantern, their heads turned towards a platform at the front - waiting for a signal.

Tink, tink, tink.

Amber eyes moved to Yang Ying’s tuanshan, beads of the fan clicking with each slow move of A-Ying’s hand. The fan was as big as A-Ying’s face, richly embroidered and looked heavy with all the beads and teasels dangling from it.

Yang Ying’s face was impassive as if the tuanshan was nothing special and she just picked it on the way to fan herself with it - the air was heavy and humid, clinging to skin and sliding in and out of Hui’s lungs like a syrup.

The Sect Leader said something form his dais, lit up his own lantern and let it flow out of his hands, the present peak lords following his lead.

The plaza brightened as multiple lights flickered into existence and A-Ming furrowed her brows, concentrating on her own lantern. When a small light bloomed inside it, her face broke into a proud grin. She didn’t let it simply fly up, instead, she brought her hands up high and then higher as she got on her tiptoes before she loosened her hold, fingertips sliding off its sides as it rose up into the air.

Hui watched as it joined with the rest of the lanterns, all of them flying higher and higher, their light getting smaller and dimmer the further the wind lead them away. They flew across the sky, like a swarm of fireflies, flying closer and closer to the heavy clouds and the bright, half hidden moon.

Tink, tink, tink went Yang Ying’s tuanshan.

Someone started to play - a zither, notes vibrating through the air.

Chapter Text

All of the junior disciples were rounded up and led to their respective peaks not long after the lanterns’ light had disappeared, leaving a much sparser crowd of seniors and a few hallmasters to enjoy the rest of the night.

Most of the previously present peak lords had gone back with their respective disciples, leaving only Shen Qingqiu, Yue Qingyuan, Qi Qingqi and Wan Qingnian in attendance.

Which meant that the Peak Lords’ platform was almost empty and, as such, mostly calm.

Shen Qingqiu was sipping his tea slowly, watching the preformance below, enjoying Wang Shuhua’s music. She was the best guzheng player on his peak and the pure elegance she emanated when playing was always a treat to watch. It was such a waste that her father was a court magistrate - she will be leaving Cang Qiong to marry in a few months time.

Jade green eyes slid away from her and met Jing Yibo’s eyes. His Head Disciple nodded once, signaling a successful delivery of his juniors back to their dormitories.

Shen Qingqiu dipped his head in acknowledgment and Jing Yibo bowed once and went to one of the tables at the back, away from the main stage but close enough to quickly interfere if needed. Some of the other head disciples were already there…. Shen Qingqiu pushed a bit of qi into his eyes… and yes, there were dices on the table.

He snorted and focused back on the performance in front of him.

Five of Qi-shimei’s girls were dancing to Wang Shuhua’s music, a full circle of audience around them. They had exchanged their customary uniforms for a long sleeved dance robes in similar colors. Their sleeves fluttered around them, glowing from time to time when they pushed qi through the embroidered arrays, leaving colorful impressions in the air, painting flowers and symbols around them.

Qi-shimei was sitting not far from him, eyes on her disciples and a satisfied smile on her face.

Shen Qingqiu remembered her performance, years ago, before the An-generation ascended. He hid a smirk behind a cup of tea - she had been the worst dancer in the group and later, got so rilled up by someone that she stepped on her own sleeve and crashed right into an An Ding disciple, sending both of them to the ground.

The girls finished their dance with the last flick of their sleeves, silk lightly settling around them, like a flower blooming.

And then a thunder rumbled above and the sky cried in awe.

— — —

Hui hid under a table as people ran around, snatching plates and pillows and jumping on their swords to flee from the downpour.

The dancers from before were soaked through, their robes clinging to every curve of their bodies, long sleeves turning into lumpy rags as they quickly secured them into their hands and huddling in the closest pavilion.

The rain subsided quickly but by then the whole plaza was one big puddle. Most of the people flew away on their swords, uncovered and pelted by the rain. Others somehow got their hands on paper umbrellas, some normal, some glowing with qi. Soon only a few people remained, hiding from rain in pavilions.

Hui was happy he had chosen to go on the peak lords platform to get away from the crowds. She had wanted to watch the dancers and most of the seats on the platform were empty. She had chosen one on a side and closest to the edge, and hid herself under it.

She should have chosen better. The platform had no roof and Hui was slowly being surrounded by expanding puddles all around her. She shuffled a little to get away from the approaching water and looked around for a better place to hide.

A pair of light boots stepped into her line of sight and she leant forward, looking up.

Amber met jade green.

Shen Qingqiu was standing beside the low table, a big umbrella above him. The wisteria flowers painted on it were glowing slightly, lighting up his face with a soft bluish glow.

He crooked a finger at her.

“Come.”

No need to repeat that!

She jumped from her hiding place to stand beside him, the first steps ending with small leg shakes after her paws had sunk into a puddle.

The Peak Lord of Qing Jing watched as Hui moved to his other side, using his legs as a rain cover.

“Meow.”

Ready to go!

Shen Qingqiu started walking towards his peak, steps slow and careful of the cat beside him.

Chapter Text

A whisper.

“Hui. Psst. Hui. Get up.”

And then a more desperate.

“Hui!”

“Why is Jing Yibo not seated yet?”

“Shizun! Ah… Emm.”

Shen Qingqiu walked into his office and moved past the tall teen to look at what his head disciple had found so problematic.

‘Of course.’

There were two pillows in front of his desk. The one on the right - plush and green and beautifully embroidered - was Shen Qingqiu’s. The one on the left - a little plainer but still plush - had been prepared for his head disciple to use today.

Hui was curled in the middle of it, a furry, grey ball. Her eyes were closed, chest falling up and down slowly.

Shen Qingqiu watched the cat for a second before looking up at his disciple, an elegant eyebrow raised.

Jing Yibo squirmed beside him.

Sometimes Shen Qingqiu wondered why did he even bother.

“Push her off,” he said and sat himself gracefully down on his unoccupied pillow.

Jing Yibo gulped, forehead glistering with sweat as he stepped closer to the cat.

It will be fine right? He has given her so many fish pieces. She has even let him pet her and there had been no sharp claws near his precious region at all!

A hand reached down.

Dark brown met amber.

“Hisssss.”

Jing Yibo jumped up with a muffled squeak, almost crashing into the tea table behind him.

Shen Qingqiu watched the spectacle from his place beside Hui.

“Is my head disciple going to just stand like that? Or does he want to sit on the floor for the reminder of the night?“

The boy was going to learn how to fill out a new set of documents and the Qing Jing Peak Lord was going to teach him exactly what he would need to look out for.

“Shizun… no. This disciple will…. get Hui… off the pillow,” said the teen, each part of his sentence weaker and weaker.

Hui watched the boy unblinkingly, the tip of her tail waving slowly near her face.

Maybe the boy would have done it if given enough time.

Fortunately for him, Shen Qingqiu was not that patient.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” the man said and reached forward.

A pair of slender hands caught the cat around its middle before lifting her up.

‘Come onnnn!’

Hui hung from his hands like an overcooked, furry noodle, paws and tail dangling in the air.

Shen Qingqiu ignored both the suddenly limp cat and the distinctly whiny sound she made and put her down on the cold, hard floor on his other side.

Jing Yibo pretty much teleported onto the pillow.

Chapter Text

Hui had a guilty pleasure - Shen Qingqiu’s laundry basket.

The man was so clean the robes that landed in it were still smelling of green tea. The clothes were always carefully folded and put inside the basket, looking more like a fresh laundry than a dirty one. They were also supper soft and out of sight in the bathroom corner.

So Hui sometimes sneaked in there, pulled her claws in and jumped into the basked, curling either on top of the pile (if the Peak Lord was away) or burrowing herself under it (if he was home).

Shen Qingqiu had not caught her yet.

— — —

Jing Yibo was the Head Disciple of Qing Jing, a personal disciple of Shen Qingqiu and the - hopefully - future Peak Lord.

But he was also a glorified housemaid - bringing Shizun water, cleaning the Bamboo House and making sure the laundry was back clean and ironed.

He was never gonna tell his martial siblings about that.

Jing Yibo set down a fresh batch of green tea on Shizun’s tea table and quickly (but quietly) moved to the bathroom, where the laundry basket was. He heaved it up and quickly strode outside where he immediately jumped on his sword and shot up.

The washerwoman that Shizun used knew A-Yibo well and dropping the laundry off to her was always done very quickly. But she was also situated at the bottom of Cang Qiong and Jing Yibo had a sword practice in less than an hour.

He was going to be late!

He was flying above Bai Zhan, enjoying the cool bite of the wind, when the laundry started to move.

The next moment a familiar, furry head poked out from under the topmost robe and immediately catapulted itself towards the rim of the basket.

Jing Yibo lost at least a decade of his soon-to-be-immortal life before Hui stopped, claws clamped into the basket’s edge like it was the only thing keeping her alive.

The gray fur - thick and lustrous in the morning sun - puffed up and her ears snapped back to lay against her head.

A-Yibo hadn’t realised he was hovering in the air, hands clamped around the basket…

At least until the yowling started.

Then the panic set in.

“Meooooww!”

“Hui!”

He almost dropped the basket trying to push the cat back inside it. He swiveled down, towards the nearest ground, holding the basket for dear life, face panicked.

“No! Stay! Wait! Hui! Don’t move!” he yelled more and more panicked.

“No!”

“Meooooww!”

He landed on a training ground, almost crash landing right in front of someone training there.

The moment Jing Yibo’s sword touched the ground Hui shot out of the basket with such a shrill yowl it made him jump back with a yell.

Steel glinted in the sun and A-Yibo's eyes widened.

“No! Wait! Liu-shishu!”

Swish!

A sword flew through the air.

Chapter Text

"Hui, please come out."

‘No thanks’

“Pspspspspspsps”

'Fuck you'

The cat kept herself firmly pressed under a bush, fur up and a loud hiss activated each time the Peak Lord of Bai Zhan so much as twitched her way.

"Huiiiiiiiii," whined a flattened to the ground Jing Yibo, cheek smushed into the ground, just so he could peek at her from below the branches.

She would be much more accommodating if the man behind him weren’t holding a sword. The sword. You know. The one that had almost made a shish catbab out of her a few minutes ago?

”Pspspspsps,” A-Yibo tried again, hand outstretched towards her.

He quickly pulled it back with a flinch when she hissed at him, fangs sharp and eyes furious.

He sighed, unsmushing himself from the ground and turning to the man behind him.

"Liu-Shishu. This disciple has a matter of high urgency that needs to be completed,” he said, rubbing the dirt off his cheek. “Can this disciple ask Liu-shishu to make sure Hui gets back to Qing Jing? Shizun is going be so mad."

"The cat.. is it Shen Qingqiu's?"

"Shishu can say that. It's our peak’s cat."

He hefted the laundry basket - thanks the heavens he was going to drop it off to wash because a few of the top garments had fallen to the ground when he moved to stop his least favourite peak lord.

He thought about his guqin, the hight quality instrument that his family had given him after he had became the head disciple. It had had to cost a fortune: the wood, the silk strings! Now it was lying in pieces in the carpentry workroom, waiting for a master luthier to hopefully salvage at least some parts of it and make another one for him.

He-shidi had to held back when he found out what had happened to his guzheng - a priceless family heirloom.

A-Jibo was not going to stop his martial siblings from getting their revenge.

“This disciple's already late. Begging Liu-shishu.”

Dark gray eyes looked down at the hissing bush.

" ... Fine"

— — —

Liu Qingge felt like hitting something. It would be so easy to kill the cat - he had fought so many faster demons, a cat would be no problem. But it was a different beast altogether when he was tasked with catching the animal without hurting it. The chase he had to do was, frankly, embarrassing. He gritted his teeth and flash stepped in front of the cat, hand already outstretched.

Hui just ran between his legs and hid under a bush cluster.

Liu Qingge swinged his sword, trimming the top of the bush.

Hui shot towards the nearest pile of boulders, squeezing herself into a narrow opening between them.

Liu Qingge stopped in front of it and after a second of consideration lowered his sword. Cleaving the stones in half would probably hurt the cat.

With a glance at the sun he jumped on top of them instead, surveying the surroundings so she wouldn’t be able to escape through another exit undetected.

— — —

Hui panted, squished between rocks, gray fur almost black in its shadow.

‘Motherfucker, what a psycho.’

There was no way she was going to let him anywhere near her when he was holding a sword. Or preferably at all. She was pretty sure the guy had no idea how to be delicate.

If cats had multiple lives then she was sure she had lost at least one today with the amount of times the fucking sword suddenly imbedded itself in her way.

‘Just put away this oversized toothpick and let me get my paws on you!’

Amber eyes scanned the narrow exit in front of her.

For the peak of fighters that had no regard for their surroundings the forest looked mostly untouched - tall trees, growing so densely in some places that the lower branches had lost almost all needles.

‘Hmmmm…. Hey System-’

— — —

The cat bolted from under the rocks and scampered up a tree before Liu Qingge even had the time to jump down.

He watched, head tilted up as the feline sat herself down on a branch.

“Meow.”

‘Pspspspspsps.’

The Peak Lord of Bai Zhan, sighed and opened his hand. Cheng Luan fell down slowly to hover around his feet and then rise back up when its master stepped on the blade.

Gray eyes looked up.

Big, almost glowing eyes stared down, thin rings of amber around big round pupils.

Lu Qingge flew closer and reached for the cat.

‘Gotcha!’

Claws out, Hui jumped at his face.

— — —

Shen Qingqiu exited his bathroom in a simple, loose robe, hair tied up in a loose, high bun, face flushed from the warm bath and the anger that was still coursing in his veins.

He had spent the whole night filling out request forms to An Ding. Request forms that would not be necessary if his peak hadn’t gotten raided by Bai Zhan disciples. Again.

The beasts had made a hole in one of the advanced music rooms! Five instruments had been destroyed: one of them an old, antique guzheng!

And now he had to go to the Peak Lords meeting, where he could be sure to meet Liu Qingge, with his infuriating, disrespectful way of standing against absolutely every suggestion Shen Qingqiu was going to make.

There will come a day when the idiot gets injured enough to actually be defendable and that will be the day Qingqiu kicks him off the Rainbow Bridge.

He stormed to his bedroom, quickly putting the rest of the layers, fastening everything tightly like an armor. A quick brush and two jade hairpins later and he was only missing a few papers.

Hui was laying on the windowsill above his desk - now open at all times since the weather had gotten warmer - licking her paw slowly.

When he moved closer he could hear her purring.

— — —

By the time Shen Qingqiu reached the meeting room, most of his fellow Peak Lords were already present.

Like a certain, very unwelcome, shidi of his.

Liu Qingge was sulking in his chair, two angry red lines almost blending in with his flushed cheeks.

Shen Qingqiu stared.

The Bai Zhan Peak Lord noticed him and glowered. The grimace pulled at the lines on his face, breaking the fresh scabs, tiny drops of crimson welling in between cracks.

The Qing Jing Peak Lord sneered behind his fan and moved to sit down in his seat, ignoring the brute.

"What has happened to you, Liu-shixiong?" asked Mu Qingfang from the doorway.

The Peak Lord of Zui Xian smirked from his chair and the War God of Cang Qiong glared angrily at him.

“Yes, Liu-shixiong, do share with us again. What was it?” The man asked, his voice dripping with glee.

Jade green eyes glanced at the almost growling muscle head.

".... a cat," grumbled Liu Qingge.

— — —

Hui opened her eyes when she heard the front door open.

But the light footsteps did not immediately lead to the office like usual.

Raising her head she sniffed the air… and immediately shot up to her feet. She jumped from the floor pillow and trotted down the corridor

Shen Qingqiu emerged from the small kitchen that was more of a glorified cupboard for all things tea related, a small dish in one hand and a satisfied smirk on his lips.

"Meow?"

Pat, pat, pat.

The man paused, green eyes watching as Hui padded towards him. He crouched down when she stopped in front of him.

Clank.

A small, elegant bowl was placed on the floor right in front of Hui.

A small, elegant and full.of.salmon bowl*.*

The chunks inside were fresh, glossy and smelling heavenly. There were so many of them they barely fit into the bowl. Granted, the dish was small… for a human. But for cat like Hui this much salmon was like a full course meal.

‘Is that for me?’

She tilted her head at the crouched man in front of her.

A long, pale finger nudged the bowl closer to her.

'OMG! Bon appetit!'

Gentle fingers sinked softly into the soft fur between a pair of gray ears.

Rub, rub, rub.

"Good beast.”

Chapter Text

A-Ming didn’t know how it had started.

No, scratch that. A-Ming knew exactly how it had started. The thing was she had no idea how it could end like this.

One week she was tutoring her fired up, cute shidi. Next week Hui was always at the table, sneaking under their elbows and sniffing the pages.

And now...

A-Ming was laying down on her stomach, elbows on her bed and Hui curled under her chin. Her blanket was thrown over both her head and the poetry book in her hands, blocking the faint light of a light pearl from disturbing her shijies’ sleep.

She tried to turn a page but stopped when when Hui swatted at her hand - gently.

A-Ming moved her hand back to the edges of the book, one hand the blanket so it wouldn’t cover the text.

A small gray paw reached forward and lightly patted a page.

There was no meowing involved. Instead A-Ming felt the cat push her head up against her chin - like a very soft tap.

The paw retreated and A-Ming looked at the signs that had been covered. She tapped each of them as she whispered their meaning to her totally not normal peak mascot.

Just yesterday, Yao-shijie remarked that she had started to read out loud again. She wanted to set them straight but...

Hui swiped at the edge of the book and Wen Ming meekly turned the page.

... She needed more time to think.

Chapter Text

Apparently, there was going to be a meeting of sects leaders at Cang Qiong. Something about some immortal alliance or some shit.

The kids wouldn’t shut up about it.

Not that Hui wanted them to. Quite the opposite - she was very interested in when and where the party was going to be held.

Fat-cat people gathering means food, right? Good food.

— — —

The meeting was going to start in a few hours and Shen Qingqiu really, really didn’t want to go.

A room full of immortal masters, all of them older by a lot and all of them looking down their noses at the new generation of Cang Qiong.

Sizing them up, looking for weaknesses, offering favours with smiles so fake it was simply insulting.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled.

The meeting hadn't even started yet and he already wanted a break.

Well... he still had a few hours, didn't he? And if he disappeared right now he wouldn’t be bothered by anyone before the whole farce starts.

Not that he was going to leave Qi-ge to deal with them alone!

But he could show up a little late. And maybe, if he went now and relaxed beforehand, he wouldn’t stab anyone with his fan?

He put on his best, most splendid robes, each layer of silk smooth like polished steel. One richly embroidered outer robe and one heavy jinbu made of spirit jade later and he was ready to go.

Tink, tink, tink

“Meow.”

SQQ turned back, one hand on the door and looked down.

Hui was right behind him, tail up and eyes big and round.

Shen Qingqiu watched as she plopped her butt down and pushed her front legs off the floor, stretching herself up and up, until she was standing on her hind legs like a human in a cat's skin.

“Meow.”

‘Come on… I’m irresistible. Take me with you.’

She waved her front paws at him.

Shen Qingqiu blinked.

— — —

Madam Cheng knew to always keep her best room ready whenever a fancy delegation was going to visit Cang Qiong.

Any delegation big enough to not go unnoticed by the gossiping townspeople was sure to bring the Peak Lord of Qing Jing down here.

So when one of the street children ran to her saying that a cultivator was flying down towards here she was sure it was him.

The moment her girls found out there was a war. All of them wanted to be send to serve Master Shen. To spend the night playing pipa and serving tea with someone that wanted only to listen to good music and gossip.

They didn’t have a lot of clients like him - and he was their only regular like that.

She gestured one of her flowers to bring the children to the kitchen and went out to wait for the Immortal Master arrival.

She still remembered the first time she saw him. A boy then, mortal still, short and with a sunburned, sunken face, with knives hidden inside pristine sleeves he had nothing of todays’ elegance. He looked more like a street child on a run, no matter the quality of his robes.

She hadn’t had high hopes for his conduct.

He had proved her so wrong - paid double for the night and hadn’t touched Xiao Hua at all, content to have the girl play him music and serve him tea instead.

Now looking at him - a grown man, still thin but powerful, clothed in robes that had to cost more that her best girls contracts - no one would believe it was the same person.

“Master Shen.” She bowed. “This one welcom-”

“Meow.”

‘Fat-cat people’s food here I come!’

Madam Cheng was a good matron - welcoming every single one of her clients, sharp eyes discreetly scanning for danger - so she had seen the basket when the man had still been up in the air.

She raised her head a little - just so she could see if her ears weren’t playing tricks on her.

Because the sound had clearly came from where Master Shen was standing.

Madam Cheng’s eyes zeroed in on the small, deep basket in the immortal master’s hand, and the furry head that had poked out of it.

“Meow?”

“Shush.” Said the immortal master, gently pushing the cat down before he nodded to the matron.

“This one will be here only for a sichen, two at most.”

“…Of course Master Shen. Please come in.”

Chapter Text

“It’s a pity Master Shen hasn’t brought more hairpins!”

“We can’t use ours - they are not good enough!”

“Ah, but a few more braids would look so good!”

“Master Shen already looks good!”

“So handsome!”

“Like a deity!”

Hui watched the congregation of women sing praises about Shen Qingqiu’s beauty and at the same time playing with him like with a doll.

The complicated artwork of braids they were in the middle of doing required three pairs of hands to be held in place.

Shen Qingqiu, from his place, looked like all was fine with the world, seemingly not carrying in the slightest about the hands in his hair, just conversing peacefully with the youngest worker in the room. The girl - because she clearly wasn’t an adult yet - listened attentively as Shen Qingqiu explained what mistakes she had done when bringing him tea, eyes wide when the list turned out to be long.

A hand landed on Hui’s fur, sliding down her body in a long, heavy caress that made all her nerves tingle. She glanced at the woman beside her, the tip of her tail twitching.

“Ah Xiao Hui is so soft!”

“And so pretty,” a women leaned from behind Shen Qingqiu, sparkling brown eyes zeroing in on the feline. Her hands were holding a bunch of thin braids to the Peak Lord’s head, waiting for the woman beside her to secure them in place with the meager choice of hair accessories she had. “This one has never seen such a cat before.”

“Such a sparking fur! It looks like spun silver!”

“And so thick.”

“Truly, Master Shen’s cat.”

Both the cat and the man puffed up a little.

“If Master Shen is a deity then surely Xiao Hui is a fairy!”

“So graceful - just like her owner!”

Hui shot her a look.

‘Aren’t you laying it on a little thick sister?’

“An immortal and his heavenly familiar,” dreamingly whispered the woman beside her, putting a hand to her chest.

Hui shuddered when the other hand kept on sliding through her fur, the tingling intensifying into an unbearable state.

‘Ok, that’s enough.’

A few more pats and she was going to claw something.

She slinked away and hid back in the basket.

For a moment jade green met amber before Hui turned away and started to lick her side.

The woman had been gentle enough but goddammit was she perfumed.

Chapter Text

"Shizun! Shizun! Help!"

Shen Qingqiu whipped around, brush clattering down. He was out the door in the next moment and almost collided with the kids there.

Yao Mi looked as if someone dragged her face-first through a shrubbery. She was cradling her arms to her chest, both sleeves hanging around them in white-red tatters.

Su Xing stood beside her, half-conscious A-Ming crying on his back and something small held carefully in his arms.

Shen Qingqiu immediately went for the youngest girl's wrist.

She was tired, qi flow quivering, small injuries all over her body, and a few bigger cuts on her back.

"What happened?" the Peak Lord snapped reaching for Yao Mi’s hand.

"We… we went into the forest", A-Mi started, eyes full of tears and voice trembling. "And then a flying monster attacked and… and Hui jumped at it and we ran b-but it chased us and A-Ming fell and the monster dived at her but Hui jumped in and I and I think she clawed its eye off and it flew away and she fell and didn't move and A-Ming couldn't stand and I... I", she sniffed, breathing quickening. Shen Qingqiu cringed away but didn't let go of her wrist, pushing some of his qi to calm her down.

Su Xing shuffled closer and immediately, Shen Qingqiu’s eyes snapped to him.

"This disciple found them at the edge of the eastern forest. Wen-shimei's ankle was swollen and Yao-shimei looked really bad so this one took Wen-shimei and Hui from her and led them here", his voice started to turn panicked. "Shizun, Hui isn't waking up and the blood..."

Green gaze went to the bundle in his arms.

The cat looked awful - patches of fur bloody, deep gashes oozing red.

He didn't think much about it when he reached for the cat’s paw. Maybe it was the momentum. He sure as hell wouldn't know how to interpret any feedback from a cat's body. That is if cats had spiritual veins to give back feedback with.

Image his surprise when said feedback did show up.

By the end of the day he wasn't the only one surprised.

Chapter Text

Hui's mind was molasses.

Slow moving, dark and sweet in a way that made one want to laze around.

So it took her a long time to realize that something wasn’t right.

There was a bind around her chest and a soft mass all around, separating her from the world.

'Ah, A-Ming is so sweet to tuck me in.'

…

‘A-Ming!’

She scrambled up, fighting with the blanket around her, memories of the fight replaying in her head, worry and panic turning her ears down and her fur up.

She wasn't in any place she knew but the smells that assaulted her the moment she got out from beneath the blanket were enough to tell her that this could be a vet. Or a hospital - or whatever it was named here - seeing as the bed was definitely human-sized.

So they got away then.

Her whiskers twitched. Omg, the smell! Even her fur stank of it. She started licking.

For the first few months of her new life, the idea of lick baths had her cringe and gag but after so many years it was a part of everyday life now. Like a perfectly normal scrub. Just with one's tongue.

She still dunked herself in a lake if she was too dirty though.

Especially if she fought some strange creatures. She learned to hightail away from the three-headed abomination of a frog-snake. It tasted revolting.

There were bandages around her midsection and she wanted to tear them off so much. The skin underneath itched.

— — —

When Shen Qingqiu and Wan Qingnian came in later they found the cat under the bed.

The bandages around her were partly shredded and most of the healing paste that had been underneath them was staining the blankets.

Chapter Text

“It’s not a demon,” said Wan Qingnian, hands in his sleeves.

“Are you sure?”

“This one is. It has no demonic core… or any core at all for that matter.”

“Then how does it produce qi?”

“That’s the interesting part - it doesn’t.”

“Wan-shidi,” said Shen Qingqiu, frowning behind his fan, “elaborate. This one clearly got a qi feedback.”

“Shen-shixiong got a qi feedback of his own qi… amplified by the natural energy flowing in the beast’s system.”

“…”

“…”

“Natural energy?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mean to tell,” Qi Qingqi narrowed her eyes, ”that this… cat produces natural energy?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Please elaborate Wan-shixiong,” said Mu Qingfang.

Wan Qingnian put his hands back into his sleeves.

“It doesn’t have any core from what this one can see,” repeated the Best Peak Lord. “Instead, it seems to absorb the energy around it, somehow filtering the impurities out on the way.”

“Filtering? Pure natural energy?” Qi Qingqi’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yes, shijie, this one was also surprised.”

“Wan-shidi,” said the Sect Leader, a neutral smile on his face. “What is Wan-shidi insinuating?”

On his right, Shen Qingqiu pulled his fan up even higher, fingers clenching around the wood.

“This one thinks it is a… divine beast.”

“…”

“…”

“Are you sure it is not a demon?”

“Yes! Liu-shixiong, seriously! Are you doubting my knowledge?!” Wan Qingnian crossed his arms, glaring.

Liu Qingge grunted and looked away.

“Wan-shidi, please understand: it is rather hard to believe,” said the Sect Leader, hands raised placatingly.

“We do have old reports about a divine beast from two generations back. Apparently AnDing Peak Lord had somehow bonded with one.”

“Oh yes, Xiao Bao!”, exclaimed Shang Qinghua, leaning forward. “Shizun has told me about it! His shizun had found this abandoned panda cub and decided to take care of it. Xiao Bao didn’t want to leave him even after he was all grown up. Apparently, the only thing that was able to get him away from him for a while was a jug of qi infused alcohol.“

“This one also remembers something,” nodded the Wan Jian Peak Lord, scratching his chin. “The Peak Lord of AnDing had been banned to come with his familiar to the peak after it got into the sword cave and destroyed a chunk of the wall there.” He turns to Yue Qingyuan “I think it was the same with Qiong Ding and the spirit caves.”

“Shizun never said anything about it” said Yue Qingyuan.

“What are we going to do with it?” asked the Peak Lord of Zui Xian.

“This one would like to observe it-,” started Wan Qingnian.

Green eyes flashed above a fan.

“…but it would be best to do it in familiar surroundings so it stays calm.”

The fan lowered. The green gaze burned Wan Qingnian’s face.

“…This one thinks it would be best to keep it on Qing Jing. I can help to set up the necessary containment arrays.”

“Of course Wan-shidi,” said Shen Qingqiu fanning himself lightly.

Chapter Text

The door opened and Hui hissed in its direction half-heartedly. They had finally removed her bandages but that did not mean she was going to become nice right away.

She was still a prisoner!

Let.Her.Out!

One amber eye opened, glaring at the newcomer.

Shen Qingqiu was standing in the open doorway, his fan nowhere to be seen and a familiar basket in his hand.

Hui shot to her paws.

“Meow!”

‘Get me out of here! I’m booored. I wanna A-Ming! I wanna eat salmon! I wanna scratches!’

“Meow!” she yelled at him, tail swinging madly behind her.

Shen Qingqiu came closer and set the basket down next to her.

Then he picked her up and put her gently inside it.

‘Finally! Freedom!’

Hui curled on the pile of fabrics inside and purred when long fingers patted her slowly.

Chapter Text

It turned out that she had exchanged one prison for another.

At least this one was familiar. And comfy: water and salmon already prepared and the basket left full of soft fabric to curl into.

So Hui was a good prisoner… for the first two hours.

Then she found out that there was no place for her to relieve herself and Shen Qingqiu knew no peace.

“No,” said the Peak Lord when she jumped on a windowsill and pawed at the closed window, meowing.

"No," he said again when she tried to sneak between his legs when he opened the door to get the newest art assignments from Ying Jibo.

“No,” he snapped when he saw her by the front doors again, scratching at the wood and meowing nonstop.

She turned her backside to the door and raised her tail high, looking at him.

'Come one man. Do I have to shit on your floor for you to get it? Let me out!' she meowed at him.

“Stop it!” He growled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Hui cocked her head to one side.

‘Last try and I swear, I’m gonna destroy your window if this won’t work.’

She positioned herself parallel to the doors and meowed. Then, making sure the man was looking at her, she raised the hind leg closest to it.

Jade-green eyes widened. The Peak Lord of Jing Qing flashed to her side, expression panicked.

The door rattled, so hard had it been opened.

The cat flew through the air after the immortal threw her out by the scruff of her neck.

— — —

Shen Qingqiu spent a long time trying to catch her after that.

Chapter Text

Wan Qingnian knocked on the doors to the Bamboo House and put his hands back into his sleeves.

The doors opened, revealing a smaller man, dressed in a flowing green robe, one hand on the door, the other behind his back.

There was a shimmering barrier behind him and Qingnian could see the divine beast sitting on the other side of it, its nose almost to the wall of light.

“Wan-shidi.”

“Shen-shixiong, this one brings the thing we have talked about.” The Lord of Beast Peak pulled a short strip of black ribbon out of his sleeve and presented it to his shixiong. “It’s protected against shredding,” he added when the man was fingering the thin material.

“You put arrays on linen?”

“It still gets dirty shixiong. Linen is easy to wash.”

Shen Qingqiu sniffed but his fingers closed around what could be considered a xianxia magical leash.

“Thanking Wan-shidi.”

“This shidi wonders when can he come to observe the beast?”

But the door was already closing.

“We will talk about it later shidi.”

Wan Qingnian sighed.

— — —

Inside the Bamboo House, jade-green eyes flashed. Shen Qinggiu lifted the ribbon up. His sleeve slid down to the elbow, uncovering a pale, sinewy arm decorated in thin red lines.

Hui watched him from the other side of the barrier surrounding the entrance, eyes narrowed.

“Come here, you beast.”

‘Oh shit!’

Pupils dilated, Hui did one-eighty and scrambled away, clawed paws skidding on the wooden floor.

The barrier flickered and fell.

— — —

Outside the Bamboo House, Wan Qingnian paused in the air. He looked back towards the house, pushing qi into his ears, sharpening his hearing.

“Meow!”

Crash.

The Lord of Beast Peak smirked.

If Shen-shixiong wanted to take care of an animal without any knowledge about how to do so then who was Qingnian to forbid him?

The beast would be fine. It was a divine being in a place with lots of clean qi in the air. And, more importantly, it was a cat - they knew how to take care of themselves.

Time to visit Pei-shidi and bet on how many scratches their shixiong will have at their next meeting.

Chapter Text

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and Shen Qingqiu was peacefully grading his students’ drawings.

Hui was laying on the floor behind him, glaring at the green-clad back and plotting revenge.

The dark ribbon around her neck was untouched even though she had just spent a long time trying to claw it into shreds.

It turned out the ribbon not only didn't let her move more than a specific distance away from the Bamboo House but could also immobilize her. As she had found out not even a minute ago when Shen Qingqiu had had enough of her yowling.

The spell had passed immediately but she had been too shocked - and after that, too pissed - to move.

‘Why have I decided to stay here again?’

Shen Qingqiu looked behind him, green eyes scanning her form - from the tip of her wildly swinging tail to her burning, amber eyes.

— — —

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and Shen Qingqiu was pulling his socks on.

He had to recheck that all the books that Zhao Hua Temple had been allowed to borrow were ready for pick up and that under no circumstances were they given the original manuscripts.

He reached for his shoes and put his foot in.

Squelch

The man froze. A whole body shudder skittered up his spine.

He slowly removed his foot from the shoe.

The white silk sock came out with a yellowish-green stain on the heel, insect legs still attached to the clump of goo.

Amber eyes flashed, unnoticed, from under the bed.

— — —

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and Shen Qingqiu was staring at the scroll on his desk.

He had turned around for a second.

Just to pour himself a cup of tea.

But when he had turned back, the long form for An Ding he had been filling for the last hour had had three freshly stamped, inky paw prints on it.

There was a paw print on the windowsill too and when Shen Qingqiu looked out he could see a few more leading away from the window - wet ink on dry wood.

An elegant eyebrow twitched.

— — —

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and Shen Qingqiu had just finished his bath.

Hair dripping wet and a simple, thin robe on he stepped out from behind a wooden divider and reached for a robe that hanging on its other side.

Pale hands grasped the thick fabric and green eyes looked down.

The man paused.

Hui was laying under the robe, both of her front paws and one of her hind ones were up - claws tangled in the material of Shen Qingqiu’s robe. Her eyes were closed, her head was turned to a side and her chest was raising slowly up and down.

She was sleeping.

The man knelt down, hands reaching towards the cat.

— — —

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and Shen Qingqiu was slowly detangling his damp hair.

Next to him, in a fabric-stuffed basket a gray cat was sleeping peacefully.

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu opened the door to his house and stepped aside to let his guest in.

“She should be in the office,” he said.

His guest was already teary-eyed before coming in so the moment they reached the office they stopped, face contorting and tears pouring down.

“Huiiiiiiii!” cried A-Ming.

Hui's eyes snapped open, head and ears shooting up. She practically teleported from her shelf, skidding on the wooden floor towards the girl in the doorway.

Shen Qingqiu watched his disciple pretty much smother the cat with a hug.

“Shizun, is she really alright now?” sniffed the girl, cuddling Hui to her chest.

The Peak Lord of Qing Jing only nodded and moved around them into his office.

He sat down at his desk and looked back.

Wen Ming was sprawled on the floor, petting the cat on her lap and smiling through tears.

Now, his disciples should be less distracted by Xiao Hui’s health and more concentrated on training.

“Make sure to not loosen the ribbon,” he ordered and turned to his desk.

He had things to do.

Chapter Text

She Qingqiu, his posture perfect and hands graceful, poured from a teapot. Dull, green eyes were watching the small stream of steaming tea fall into an inkstone.

Hui watched from her shelf as the man set the pot down and hid a yawn behind a sleeve.

She was pretty sure he hadn’t been sleeping for the last week, nose deep in papers and the rest of his time spent teaching disciples. Apparently, there was going to be a conference in two years time and Cang Qiong Mountain Sect would be hosting it.

Yue Qingyuan even visited the Bamboo House and said to him to ‘not stress so much about it’.

Not that the man listened.

It was fascinating to watch.

Amber eyes stared unblinkingly when the man dipped his ink brush in the tea-flavored ink before he froze, whole body straightening up and face turning pink.

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu's steps were slow, his back straight and his eyes cold.

No one would be able to tell just how much he wanted to be home at the moment.

His meeting with the Sect Leader was a disaster of apologetic smiles and skipped answers and stumbling on Liu Qingge right after it felt like a personal fuck you from the heavens.

He gritted his teeth behind a beautifully painted fan and fought against the need to curl up here and there. 

His hand tightened around the fan until the wood creaked.

Every disciple that saw him on his way back to Qing Jing, took one look at him and quickly scrambled out of his way.

— — —

Hui was crouching on Shen Qingqiu’s bed, nose-to-nose with the peak lord himself.

Her eyes - big and round, surrounded by thin rings of amber - stared at the man in front of her.

His face was flushed with fever and his breathing labored, the heavy exhales ruffling her whiskers.

Her gaze moved to his chest where both of his hands were clenching tightly onto his robe.

She recalled the moment he came home. The sound of something hitting the floor had made her walk out of the office.

The man hadn’t even looked her way and went straight to his bedroom, leaving an open fan on the floor behind him. He then stumbled to his bed and fell on it, boots still on.

He was deaf to her meows and didn’t respond when she had nudged his forehead with her paw. Didn’t react in any way outside of pulling his knees closer to his chest.

'System?'

[How may this system be of service?]

'What's wrong with him?'

[Character Shen Qingqiu is experiencing a Qi deviation.]

Hui nosed his face again, inhaling the sour smell of sweat.

The man's next breath ended with a whimper.

She hopped over his head, chomped down on the ribbon in his hair and pulled.

Then she was down on the floor and out of the room, the ribbon trailing behind her as she sprinted to the office.

The window there was always kept ajar now and she jumped on the windowsill, the ribbon clenched tightly in her maw. She looked back for a moment, her ears picking up on the quiet, labored breathing inside, before she turned away and sprang outside.

She hit the ground running.

— — —

Shen Qingqiu woke up slowly, body sore in the familiar way of a post-deviation sickness. He felt cold, the only spot of warmth a weight on his chest.

He frowned. That wasn't normal.

Green eyes opened a crack and immediately zeroed in on his chest.

Hui was curled on top of him. Sleeping.

Thin, calloused fingers slowly settled on the soft fur.

Chapter Text

"Don't be a baby," Shen Qingqiu chided, fingers gently applying a new layer of a healing salve.

Hui sneezed, the tip of her tail thumping irritably behind her.

The salve was greenish in color and absolutely stank of herbs. Shen Qingqiu had to resort to wrapping it in a bandage with a smell suppressing seals on top, just so Hui wouldn’t wipe it off on the first surface possible.

Like, for example, his robes.

The cat meowed grumpily between the sneezes but stayed still.

The Peak Lord reached for the special bandages and a spirit stone to charge it.

The first time he had tried to charge the seals by himself Hui clawed his hand and ran away with the bandage in her mouth.

She hid with it under his bed and hissed at him for the next 5 minutes straight.

Before he found his stash of spirit stones she had already wiped almost all of the salve off of her. On his bed’s legs. Which ended with Shen Qingqiu having to crawl under the blasted thing just so he could clean it off.

And Mu-shidi chose that exact moment to come to check up on him, because of course he did.

Shen Qingqiu still has a bump from hitting his head on the bed when he heard the door open.

He sighed and wiped his hand on a prepared towel.

The healing salve was of the highest grade and the wound around Hui's neck was already scabbed over.

Jade green eyes inspected Hui’s neck carefully, recalling the way the cat flinched when he had scratched her there and slinked off of his chest with a painful meow.

Later - after removing the blasted ribbon and sending a disciple to the beast peak for a healing salve - Jing Yibo told him what had happened.

Apparently, Hui had been found at the edge of her leash range, yowling a racket and trying to move forward, a green ribbon in her mouth.

When someone came to check on her, she showed them the ribbon and started to run between them and the bamboo house, meowing all the time.

Mu Qingfang said that when the deviation wasn't life-threatening she had saved him from a lot of unpleasant complications. And then his shidi proceeded to scold him about letting their medics know when one is feeling unwell.

"Shen-shixiong, please. You have no idea how long it took to stabilize you."

Apparently quite long.

And apparently all that time Hui refused to leave his side, meowing each time his state was going to dip.

No one thought to check on her after that.

He tied the edges of the bandage and reached for a ribbon laid down next to him.

The special ribbon had been so bloodied he had sent it back to the Beast Peak. But he hadn’t got a new one.

Which suited him just fine for now.

Long fingers tied the green ribbon around her neck enough times so it would cover the bandage underneath and powered the quickly embroidered sticking charm with the same spirit stone he had used earlier.

Hui sneezed one last time and then removed herself from his lap, settling instead in the corner of the room. A lick bath was in order. She still smelled too strongly of herbs.

Whatever the fuck was in this salve was potent as fuck.

Chapter Text

Thunder rumbled outside, heavy rain hitting the roof of the Bamboo House. The wind pushed at the office windows, blowing the rain at the paper.

Hui was sprawled on the tea table, eyes half open and her tail hanging limply off it.

Amber eyes stared dully at Shen Qingqiu’s back.

The man was bent over his desk, a brush in his hand and eyes focused on yet another scroll from a big,  BIG  basket at his side. He had been like that since A-Yibo came with it in the morning.

The poor teen had been so soaked that Shen Qingqiu didn’t let him more than a foot inside the house.

Good thing? It was quiet and she had food and drink waiting for her here.

Bad thing?

‘Bored.’

She was bored out of her mind already.

She would visit A-Ming but the storm outside was so strong she would probably drown in the mud right outside the window.

She curled her tail around herself until it reached her front paws. The furry tip of it was still swaying, irritating her whiskers and making them twitch.

Twitch, twitch.

‘Boreeed.’

Twitch, twitch.

‘So bored.’

The tip swayed faster and her eyes started to follow its trajectory.

Black pupils grew in size into a circle so big only a thin ring of amber remained visible.

— — —

Normally, Shen Qingqiu did not mind doing paperwork.

But there were days.

He reached for another letter - the basket was still over half full and Shen Qingqiu’s hand was starting to hurt.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

He whipped around, immediately zeroing in on the source of the racket.

An elegant brow went up.

Hui was a grey, circular blur on the floor, chasing her tail in such small circles it looked more like spinning in place. She was trying to pounce on it, mouth open and chomping down on air as her tail just moved away at the last moment.

Shen Qingqiu watched her spin around his office, both eyebrows already up.

When the cat finally stopped - via a face to the wall when her last spin had taken her too close to it - he had to purse his lips together  hard.

Still, a soft snort did slip out.

Chapter Text

It was a stare-down.

Green vs amber.

Both equally narrowed in displeasure.

“Off,” ordered Shen Qingqiu pointing at the floor.

Hui - sitting between his calligraphy brush and a basket full of dealt-with correspondences - glanced at the floor but didn’t move.

Shen Qingqiu had pulled her off his desk five times already and he was not going to do it for the sixth.

He growled and Hui hissed when he unrolled another scroll in front of him.

‘Break time man.’

She swated at his hand when he tried to reach for the brush.

The first time she had done it (claws sheathed) she actually hit him.

Shen Qingqiu has been so surprised, he jumped up and hit himself on the desk. He swore at her, massaging his knees and she watched him, head tilted and eyes narrowed.

He had been working on the absurdly big basket of correspondence since morning. Without breaks. She hadn’t seen him eat at all. He hadn’t even drunk the tea he had made when he had filled her bowls with food and water.

The hand retreated before she was able to score a hit and they glared at each other again.

She hissed.

“Meow.”

‘Break.Time.’

Shen Qingqiu pointed at the floor again.

“Hui. Down,” he hissed.

“Meow!”

She raised her paw threateningly when he moved his hand closer.

— — —

When Jing Yibo came into shizun’s office he blinked at his teacher.

Shen Qingqiu was sitting next to the tea table, legs crossed and eyes closed, an empty cup in front of him.

“Jing Yibo,” the man said calmly.

Green eyes opened slowly and the teen bowed low when they focused on him.

“Yes, Shizun!”

“Take this,” he pointed at an overflowing basket of scrolls on the desk, “and take it to Qiong Ding. It’s intersect correspondence.”

“Yes Shizun,” A-Yibo said and moved to the pile.

He slowly secured the scrolls for transport, careful, so they wouldn't fall down and, heavens forbid, hit Hui.

The cat was sitting close to the basket, almost in the center of the desk, legs underneath her and a smug expression on her face.

Chapter Text

It was a quiet day, the weather calm and the Sun bright, chilly wind dancing through the bamboo leaves, caressing naked cheeks and noses and nibbling at uncovered fingers.

Shen Qingqiu watched his youngest group race each other to the Library, A-Ling at the front and A-Ming far behind, not participating.

She was crouching in front of Hui, small fingers scratching behind grey ears and down a soft neck.

A little qi to his ears and Shen Qingqiu could hear the quiet purr coming from the feline.
Jade green eyes watched, making sure his disciple wouldn’t accidentally loosen the dark ribbon around the cat’s neck.

The new leash from Beast Peak allowed for a much bigger distance from his house, covering a few teaching halls and half of the female dormitory.
The cat still couldn’t get off the peak, or reach the male dormitories nor the Library but she had enough allowance to run around the surrounding forest and seemed content enough with it.

A-Ming leaned back on her heels, hands moving away from the cat and Hui meowed at her, standing up on her hind legs to reach the wind bitten face.

Small, dark nose smushed itself into A-Ming’s cheek and the cat rubbed a side of her face over the reddened skin.

Chapter Text

There were a lot of days in Shen jiu’s life when it seemed the only emotion he was able to feel was anger. White-hot and all-encompassing, burning up all the pain underneath like a conflagration ravaging a dried-up forest. On these days he was a walking fire, volatile and burning everyone that get too close. Even the most perfectly performed songs made him barely satisfied and even the typical quiet of the morning felt oppressing somehow.

On other days Shen Jiu felt nothing.

As if all of him has been drowned or burned to ashes, left with an emotional equivalent of a bare wasteland. On that days even his body felt alien. He would look at his hands and feel like there weren’t his - a strange contraption that he was using, a pupped that he had to control from somewhere outside.

Nothing moved him, his songs a collection of movement he needed to do, his disciples just insignificant faces around - like leaves in the forest.

He felt .. not there - like he was getting lighter than air and would lift any moment and fly off into the sky, nothing keeping him down here.

There was no hunger, no fatigue and no discomfort - not really - just their vague shapes somewhere, muffled by a haze of nothing.

It always led to him overworking himself and overdoing things. It always ended with his mangled core turning into an open sore, the pain the only thing that was able to pierce the nothingness surrounding him.

Each time he felt was like a sudden breath - surprising, invigorating and addicting. He would always chase this pain, look for it until it was firmly with him, weighing him down. Whit his feet firmly on the ground again and his body feeling like his again, he felt alive.

And then he would start to look around and feel: the eyes - his martial siblings' gazes, watching, judging and finding him distasteful. Qi-ge’s polite smile when he did nothing and the pain would self-ignate into shimmering anger, covering all of his hurt and everything would repeat itself over and over again.

Somedays Shen Jiu was just tired of this.

But there were also a lot of days (and She Jiu had to bow to Shizun for being right like always) when he just was. When his feelings were not all-encompassing and didn’t burn him. When what he felt was more of a gentle impression - like watercolors on paper - nothing too strong but everything colorful.

Irritation - and some of his students were particularly gifted in this area.

Warmth, when his disciple smiled at the end of a perfectly played song.

Pride when Jing Yibo stood confident in his dealings with other peaks.

Calm when he played in his home, relaxed and enjoying the music.

Anticipation at a new, interesting poetry book.

Protectiveness when he turned to find Hui curled in her basket, gray chest raising slowly up and down.

Gratefulness when she woke up and came to him to rub herself on his leg.

A pale hand settled into the lush fur, scratching behind one ear gently.

Chapter Text

Soft notes danced inside the Bamboo House, tinkling through the air like delicate raindrops falling on the roof above.

Shen Qingqiu’s fingers danced on the strings, his left hand tapping lines of qi-reinforced silk, the right one plucking at them gracefully.

His jade green eyes were focused on the guqin, his back straight but shoulders relaxed.

Lately - with the approaching winter and Hui spending longer and longer in the house - he had started to play more during his work breaks (work breaks reinforced by Hui herself, the cat bugging him for attention by any means necessary just so he will turn away from the papers for a while).

The sudden free time had him stumped. Sometimes he just sat in silence and drank tea. Sometimes he meditated. And sometimes his fingers itched with a need to move. He embroidered arrays into the cuffs of all his inner robes. He remade Hui’s leash on his own old ribbon - the pale green piece of silk with a blending in stitching wound loosely around the cat’s throat.

One of his more gutsy disciples - and he will find who - had tied another ribbon atop of it, a gossamer-thin length of silk artfully fixed into a big bow.

Hui meowed at him mournfully for an hour after he had removed the thing until he put it back on. She now strutted around his peak like a youngster with a prize, turning slow circles in front of anyone that stopped to look at her.

But there were only so many times he wanted to embroider so he made Jing Yibo haul his paulownia table from the music room to his office. His own, private guqin - an old, pricey not spiritually enhanced thing - found his way on a wall in his office and each time he took it down now Hui immediately jumped down from his desk to be next to him when he played.

At first, she would sit beside him, tail curled around her paws and ears turned towards the guqin.

Nowadays she laid down right away, sprawled on her side next to his knee and he could hear her soft purrs in the quiet moments between notes.

When autumn moved into winter Shen Qingqiu found that he was playing longer and longer, the breaks extending from a few minutes to half an hour. He played songs he hadn’t played in years, learned new ones and sometimes even a flash of inspiration would have him try a totally new collection of notes. There was a piece of paper on his desk, almost full of guqin notation - his own ideas.

He put his palms on the vibrating strings silencing the rest of the notes and sighed. There was a big pile of forms he had to fill in preparation for the future conference that would take him days to do - without breaks.

“Mrrrrrrrrrrrr”

A soft touch on his leg. He looked down.

Amber met green.

Hui was leaning her paws on his tight, gazing up at him with big, round eyes. She glanced back at the guqin meaningfully and then back at him.

“Mrrrrrreow?”

A pause

And then, Shen Qingqiu slowly raised his hands and positioned them again above the strings.

Plik

A slow melody danced in the air.

Chapter Text

“Shizun?” Jing Yibo stood at the entrance to Shizun’s office, eyes uncertain.

The Peak Lord of Qing Jing was sitting cross-legged in front of his guqin, hands on the strings and expression placid but relaxed.

“The small basket is for the meeting,” the man said pointing to his desk and A-Yibo quickly - but silently - moved inside and took the almost full basket off of it before turning back towards his shizun.

Shen Qingqiu has already stood up, Hui in his arms.

The cat was still sleeping and A-Yibo wondered how one was able to pick her up from their lap and not wake her up.

Shen Qingqiu slowly put her into her basket.

Xiu Ya flew to his side silently.

“Come,” he said and walked outside.

Chapter Text

The small pavilion was loud - teenagers laughing and eating.

Hui was purring under A-Ming's experienced hands and listening to the Qing Jing Peak Junior Gossip Club.

“And then Hu-shixiong confessed!”

“Oh heavens!”

“Damn it!”

“What did you do Ling-shijie?”

The girl - the oldest in their group, flicked her hair over a shoulder - uncovering her normally hidden ears and the small, dangling earrings in them - and winked.

“Of course I accepted.”

“I’m so jealous,” said Yao Mi. “Hu-shixiong is handsome,” she sighed and Ling Wangxuan puffed up, getting just the kind of attention she had wanted.

“We’re going to the Moon Festival together. He said there are so many amazing performances and food stalls there.”

“Has Shizun allowed you to go? I thought we can’t leave the mountain without his permission?”

Ling-shijie put a finger to her smiling lips.

“What Shizun doesn’t know won’t hurt him, hm?”

A furry ear twitched.

“Ling-shimei”

“Hu-shixiong”

Hui followed the new couple. She kept her distance, making sure to hide behind bamboo stalks as the pair walked deeper into the peak woods.

She watched them, eyes narrowed, as they strolled around the peak’s lake, talking softly.

Hu-shixiong had both hands clenched together behind his back - the only sign of nerves you could see on him.

Ling-shijie was blushing, eyes sparkling as she smiled up at him and then quickly looked away.

Hui chaperoned them until they came back. She made sure A-Xuan was back in the girls' quarters and shadowed Hu Junde to see if he was going to talk about the date with anyone.

“How was it Junde?”

“Ah,” the young man looked away, eyes gleaming. He smiled - a small, shy stretch of lips. “It went good.”

“Good,” the other boy slapped him on the shoulder and Junde stumbled a little, cheeks pinking. “Told you - you should have done it earlier.”

Hui relaxed and left the two friends to their own gossip.

Maybe she won’t tail them at the festival - the Hu boy seemed ok.

Maybe.

Chapter Text

The Library was quiet, turning of pages and hushed whispers the only sound allowed.

‘Aaaaaaargh!’

Thump!

Xu Ling ignored Hui, too intent on the scroll in front of him but A-Ming paused from watching over his progress to check on her. And blinked.

Hui was sitting in a sphinx pose, face smushed down on the table and tail swiping the wood behind her.

“Hui?”

“Meowowowomeowww,” came the muffled answer.

‘Stupid flying idiot beast, stupid, idiot leash and stupid idiot Qingqiu!’

If not for the best that attacked her kit, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. If not for that she wouldn’t have gotten imprisoned in the Bamboo House and wouldn’t have gotten the stupid magical leash that hadn’t allowed her to go to the library for A-Ling’s reading lessons.

She.was.so.far.behind!

“Hui?”

‘I don’t understand aaaanyyyyythingggg, Why is he such a fast learner!.'

When gentle fingers tried to scratch her ears, she turned away and slinked off the table.

The stupid idiot genius kid ignored her retreat - only A-Ming watched her go, expression confused and hand laying limply in the place Hui had just vacated.

Hui needed some time away from the reminder that she would probably have to wait for another new disciple to take up reading lessons. Some time alone to wallow in self-pity, maybe meow some complaints up to the heavens or something.

And there was just a place on Qing Jing to do it.

A small pond, sequestered away in the middle of the Bamboo forest, mostly forgotten, save for the one group of boys that rarely showed up.

Hui can count on her claws the number of times she saw them there - always after dark, a small bottle of wine chilling in the shallow waters.

It was too early for them to show up.

She meowed a goodbye to A-Ming and trotted towards the exit.

Chapter Text

Hui grumpily plopped herself by the main doors of the library, amber eyes glaring at the grey sky outside.

Disciples ran by her, opening umbrellas or just sprinting through the rain, feet splashing in the puddles.

The tip of the grey tail thumped slowly on the floor right in front of a pair of furry paws.

Most people barely spared her a glance but she had already hissed at two that tried to pet her. She could see another one slowly making her way over here.

She had no mood for this.

Someone stopped right next to her, a pair of high-quality boots and a heavily embroidered robe blocking her from other people's view.

She looked up.

Shen Qingqiu was staring, a closed umbrella held in his hand, eyes unreadable.

And then he sighed, set the umbrella by the wall and crouched down.

Strong, steady hands moved under her and she was scooped up toward a green-clad chest.

She wriggled.

“Stay still,” he said, fixing his hold so he could hold her against him with one hand only.

Then he took the umbrella back with his free hand and with a graceful turn of the wrist opened it above their heads before stepping out into the rain.

The hand holding her was warm adding a note of green tea and ink to the smell of rain.

The sound of rain hitting the paper umbrella drowned out everything but the strong thrum of a heartbeat by her side.

She relaxed, watching the surroundings from a new height.

Chapter Text

The moon was shining, a clean silver circle in the cloudless sky.

Hui watched its reflection in the small pond nestled on Qing Jing, amber eyes roaming around the star freckles around it.

Before getting into this world she had never seen anything like that.

It was just a sky but so clear - much more beautiful than ever the best photos she had seen.

She looked down at the unmoving mirror of water.

In the darkness, her eyes looked orange and her fur seemed almost black but it was her.

Her cat self.

She tried to remember the feeling of having fingers, actual opposable thumbs able to grip something as gently or as tightly as she wanted and came back empty.

She could faintly recall rooms full of people, and beaches with strangers so comfortable in their skin that they wore nothing over it.

She even vaguely remembered her own image - oblong face and pointy, button nose that she had hated as a kid. She remembered strong arms, airbrushed by Sun into golden brown.

She remembered her parents’ faces: tired, smiling, happy, sad, angry, drinking coffee and laughing at some TV shows.

She remembered the apartment she had shared with Jasmine, two besties ready to take over the world but struggling to even do taxes properly.

She remembered her competitions, a silver pole lighted by stage lights. She didn't remember the music well - just a few short parts. The melodies cut off as quickly as they started, the lyrics not there at all or full of missing words.

She pawed at the water, her glowing eyes blurring in the waves.

She liked it here, but… there was no one to talk with, no one that would listen to her and joke with her.

Sometimes she was lonely.

Chapter Text

Hu Junde patted himself one last time and quickly put his hands behind his back, feigning a graceful, but relaxed posture.

And just in time. The person he had been waiting for finally turned the corner and Ling Wangxuan came into view, hair ornaments tinkling with each step.

“Ling-shimei,” he greeted, eyes roaming over the blush on her face, then down for a second to her blue and white hanfu.

“Hu-shixiong.”

The girl bowed slowly, mindful of the hairpins and gave him a shy smile. The single lantern in the empty corner of Qing Jing painted her in warm yellows, making her skin look gold and her eyes glitter.

“Meow.”

Hu Junde looked down - Hui parked herself right in between them, amber eyes too bright in the low light.

“Ah,” Ling Wangxuan crouched down. Pale fingers started scratching the top of the furry head. “Xiao Hui walked with me from the girls’ dormitories. Such a good girl.”

“Mrrrrrr.”

Amber eyes were still zeroed in on Hu Junde, not blinking even when she purred.

Hu Junde felt his back straighten by itself.

There were a lot of rumours about Xiao Hui. Some said she was just a normal cat. Others said she was a demon their Shizun had decided to train against Peak Lord Liu. Apparently, she had already wounded him once.

Most female disciples were sure she was a fairy - a divine being, sent here to protect Qing Jing.

Hu Junde still remembered how she had almost castrated his shixiong.

“Meow.” Hui ducked from under Wangxuan’s fingers and started to trek back the way she came.

Ling-shimei stood up. “Where are we going Hu-shixiong?”

“This one made a reservation at the White Crane-”

Ling-shimei gasped, hand over her mouth. “Oh! Isn’t that the best restaurant in town?”

Hui did 180, ears up, her eyes big black circles.

“Meow?”

Su Daxun stretched his smile wider, feeling like his face was going to crack any minute but knowing from experience that it would be just fine.

“Honored guests! Welcome! Welcome!” He bowed to the pair.

The young man was clearly a cultivator - he had flown down here on a sword. Plus, Su Daxun knew all the Cang Qiong peaks’ robes and the man wore the Qing Jing one.

He wasn’t sure about the other guest. The girl came with the man on his sword and wore a normal dress instead of any of the Cang Qiong’s robes.

Dark eyes slid down to the cat in her arms.

Usually, there was a rather strict no-animals rule but the boy had come a week early to book a table and even if he hadn’t said that he would bring a pet with him he had paid well so-.

“A table for two. One of our best tables! This way! Honoured guests will have a perfect view of the festivities!”

Chapter Text

“This master does not remember giving disciple Ling permission to leave the mountain,” Shen Qingqiu said coldly.

Ling Wangxuan choked on her giggle, hiccuping around it. Hu Junde caught her by her shoulders when she almost startled off his sword. They froze two feet above the ground, three pairs of eyes snapping to the approaching Peak Lord.

“Shizun!” squeaked out the girl, squeezing Hui in stress.

The cat wriggled free from her grasp until she was able to find enough pawhold to jump down.

Green eyes narrowed before raising back up to the floating pair. Shen Qingqiu sopped a few steps away, fan grasped in his hand like a sword.

“Ling Wangxuan.” His voice was like a cloudless winter storm - bright and biting. “From tomorrow until discharged you will be helping Master Fu in the library. Everyday. You will go there straight from your classes and stay there until sundown after which you will go straight to the dormitory. If I find you outside after dark you will get your discipleship revoked.”

The girl whimpered, shoulders hunching.

“Shizun,” said Hu Junde. He helped the girl down from his sword before sheathing it and kneeling in front of the dangerously still man. “This one is to blame. This one has invited Ling-shimei to the festival without asking for Shizun’s permission. This one will take any punishment.”

Hui - who was watching the exchange - looked at Wangxuan at that.

The girl kept quiet, head bowed and shoulders raised.

“Hu Junde.” If Shen Qingqiu’s voice was cold before, now it was downright glacial. “You are forbidden to leave the peak. You are forbidden to use the library. You are forbidden to use your sword.”

The boy flinched but unclasped his sheath and presented it to his Shizun, head held down.

The Peak Lord of Qing Jing took it, hand clenching around the sheath for a long moment before he lowered it to his side.

“Ling Wangxuan - dismissed,” he snapped. “Hu Junde - after me.”

Then he turned on his heel and stalked away.

Chapter Text

‘No!’

“Hissssss”

Hui arched her back higher, fur almost glowing in the dark of the woodshed.

“Get out!” Shen Qingqiu stomped forward, whip clenched in his hand.

‘No!’

She fake-charged, swiping her claws through the air, blocking the peak lord from the boy behind her.

“Hisss!”

Hu Junde shivered, eyes on the ground, back turned to the commotion behind him, twigs and wood chips digging into his knees as he kneeled, waiting for lashes. He glanced back, wide eyes zeroing in on the whip.

“Shizun,” he say.

Hui immediately whirled at him, eyes glowing like kindling for a second.

‘You idiot! Tell him she has told you she asked! Tell the truth you imbecile!’

“Hisss!”

“Silence!” snapped Shen Qingqiu and she did 180 and hissed at him again, fake charging when he took a step forward.

‘Stop it! System! Help me stop them!’

[Command not recognised]

‘Stop them!’

[System can’t stop characters’ actions]

‘Distraction! I need a distraction! Do something to distract them!’

[Initiating a distraction]

Fart

Everyone paused: the cat, eyes wide and shocked, the boy - his head doing almost 180 to look at her over his shoulder. The Peak Lord - jaw slacked and his grip on the whip already loosening.

Fart

Hui slammed her face into the ground, ears folded down.

‘This wasn’t what I had in mind! System! Do something else!’

[Initiating a distraction]

The ceiling caved in.

Chapter Text

Jing Yibo had been a head disciple for a few years already. He knew what he could and couldn’t do in a situation like the one he was in right now.

So he waited on the side of the shed, wringing his hands and trying not to pace. There was a medical bag in his sleeve and when the amount of times he had to use it was less than the amount of fingers on his hand he was pretty sure today he was going to need it.

From what he understood from Ling-shimei, Hu-shidi and her were caught by Shizun after they had sneaked out of the sect on a date.

Very not Hu-shidi’s like but Jing Yibo knew the boy was head over heels for Ling-shimei.

There was an angry meow inside and he tensed when he heard Shizun’s raised voice. He kept himself from pushing qi to his ears, preferring not to hear the whistles of the whip.

Shizun was a good master - he didn’t use physical discipline as often compared to what Jing Yibo had heard from some of the other head disciples. When not all head disciples gossiped about it a lot of them did.

Like Shu-shidi.

The head disciple of Qian Cao was sure his peak was the strictest. When mistakes often cost someone’s health or life there was a heavy price to pay for making any.

Silence

He shuffled forward. Normally, if Shizun took someone to the shed the discipline was exacted swiftly and then Shizun would close himself in his house for the next day not to be disturbed.

The whole shed collapsed and A-Yibo had just enough time to jump aside, almost colliding with his Shizun.

Shen Qingqiu - robes and hair still settling down from the Qi-enhanced movement - let go of Hu Junde’s arm.

The boy smacked the rest of the way down, face pale, his back bare and unwound. He had been dragged out of the shed so suddenly he had had no time to react. His pants had long deep smears of dirt and grass all the length from his knees to his ankles.

Jing Yibo watched as Shizun used his now free hand to secure his hold on Hui - who had been silently dangling by the scruff of her neck from his other hand. One hand went under her hind paws and the other pushed the cat to his chest.

Hui just pulled her claws deep into the beautifully embroidered robes and didn’t move. Her tail curled around her back like a very bushy pine branch.

What the fuck?

‘What the fuck?!! System!’

Hui, held securely in Shen Qingqiu’s arms, gaped at the crumpled shed.

[How may this system be of service?]

‘Did you just destroy the shed?’

[Affirmative]

Amber eyes glanced up and met a pair of narrowed jade green ones before both of them looked back at the shed.

Jing Yibo was helping Hu Junde to put on his robe - both boys keeping their eyes down and trying to not look at either the shed or their Shizun.

“Jing Yibo,” said Shen Qingqiu, eyes on the collapsed shed “Send Hu Ju-”

“-Shizun!”

Ling Wangxuan ran towards them, eyes wide and hair coming undone from today's updo. She threw herself on the floor between him and the boys, ruining the delicate silk layers of her hanfu.

“Shizun, this lowly one has lied! This one has never told Hu-shixiong that Shizun hasn’t allowed me to go down! Begging Shizun to spare Hu Junde! This one can take Hu-shixiong’s punishment!”

Behind her, Jing Yibo was frowning at Ling Wangxuan’s back, Hu Junde watching her with wide eyes.

Hui cocked her head to the side watching the girl dig her forehead into the ground.

‘Is this also your doing, System?’

[Negative. This system can’t control any character’s actions ]

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu stomped into his office, brows furrowed, hands cradling Hui to his chest. He didn’t need a free hand to light up all the light pearls, though; the stones flared to life with a weak wave of Qi.

“Go to the Beast Peak and call for Wan Qingnian. Tell him I want him to examine Xiao Hui.”

“Yes Shizun!”

Jing Yibo bowed low and scampered away leaving the Peak Lord and the cat alone in the Bamboo House.

Shen Qingqiu sat on the pillow by the tea table and set Hui down on his lap.

The cat fur was matted with dust but the parts that got wiped on his robe sparkled like freshly fallen snow in the morning. It reminded him of the deepest parts of the Ling Xi caves where the Qi was so dense it was visible with the naked eye, skidding on the surface of the walls.

Hui’s eyes seemed to almost glow from within like ambers held up against the Sun.

He pulled Qi into his hands, spreading it on top of the skin like protective gloves.

It was a technique used when working with poisons or abrasive substances. When performed correctly it creates an impenetrable layer, protecting from most acids, some poisons and even light physical damage, like clumsy knife pricks… or angry cat scratches.

He had had to check so many books to find it.

Hands protected he pulled Hui back when she tried to get off of his lap and started to carefully check every inch of her stupid, vexing, dusty self.

There were no splinters.

The dust was easily wiped off with a damp cloth.

“Stupid beast,” he mumbled, cleaning the last toe bean.

Hui - belly up on his lap - set him a stink eye.

“Meoow,” came a complaint.

Chapter Text

“Please, come in Shishu. Shizun is in the office”

‘Finally’, thought Wan Qingnian and followed the boy into the Bamboo House.

The office was brightly lit, the windows closed tightly against the morning cold, a warming stone sparkling faintly next to a basket on the floor.

The divine beast was curled inside it, grey fur sparkling as if someone sprinkled her with powdered light pearls.

Her eyes were big and round - circles of black surrounded by rings of faintly glowing amber.

Wan Qingnian’s fingers twitched. Itched.

“Shidi.”

Shen-shixiong was sitting by the small tea table in the middle of the room, eyes following Qingnian’s every move.

“Shen-shixiong.”

Shen-shixiong nodded at his head disciple and the boy - Jing something - left after a quick bow.

“This one heard there was an accident with the divine beast?”

Shen Qingqiu pointed his fan towards the divine beast. “Check her over.”

Qingnian took a slow step towards the basket and when both Hui and Shen-shixiong didn’t tense up at his approach, he took another.

“What has happened?”

Silence. Just bright green eyes watching unblinkingly as he let Hui sniff his fingers.

Qingnian pretended to focus solely on the divine beast.

If Shen Qingqiu had been a beast himself Qingnian would have recommended giving him a lot of space. More space than he could give him at the moment, with both of them in the Bamboo House.

He would have probably vacated the premises already but-

Sparks danced over Qingnian’s fingers when he touched the silvery fur.

So fascinating!

“Shen-shixiong, knowing what has happened would tell this one what to look out for.”

The fan swished open - red begonias looked like splashes of blood on white silk.

If shixiong raised it any higher he wouldn’t be able to see anything.

“Just check her over, shidi.”

Chapter Text

Fire licked the walls all around him, bright and angry, crackling like a hundred snapping whips.

It painted the room blood-red, turned the floor crimson and his hands carmine.

No. It wasn’t only the fire.

There was blood on the walls, on the floor, on the sword in his hand.

Qiu Jianluo stood in the middle of the flames, whip in hand, eyes red with fire. He was smiling - the ever-present curl of his lips ice cold and piercing. Blood dribbled down his chin, falling into an empty hole in his chest.

“Xiao Jiu.”

A pair of green eyes snapped open.

Night.

The faint moonlight was coming in from the closed window - just enough to illuminate a pair of orange eyes right next to his face.

He flinched back.

Thump!

“Oww.”

He massaged the back of his head, scooting away from the wall.

“Meow,” a soft call.

“Little beast,” a whispered answer.

“Meow.”

A sound of moving fabric as the cat padded slowly closer and climbed onto his lap.

Soft pads started to knead his chest and he watched her big, luminescent eyes in the darkness.

Silence.

A sigh.

Long fingers snagged on the oversized bow and slid into the grey fur

The room was quiet, save for soft, controlled breathing, followed shortly by a quiet purr.

Morning came and the light of it illuminated the bedroom of the Bamboo House.

Shen Qingqiu was lying on his side, sleeping calmly, black hair spread behind him like a river of ink.

Hui was curled right under his chin, his soft breathing ruffling her fur and making her ears twitch.

Chapter Text

A comfy couch underneath him, a warm weight in his lap, and pleasant company - Shen Qingqiu could feel the tightness in his neck melt away with each second.

It was high noon. The sun was shining right into the room but dissipating through the thin curtains in the windows, so only the gentlest rays fell onto his skin.

Xiao Yulan’s deft fingers plucked a calm, steady melody on a pipa, and Xiao Ling's gentle hands slid a wooden comb through his hair, working jasmine oil into it.

Under his fingers Hui’s fur was soft and thick.

He threaded through it slowly, feeling the vibrations in the small ribcage. In the quieter moments of Xiao Yulan’s play, he could even hear them.

A breeze came through the open window, and the gossamer-thin wisps of steam from a cup on a table floated towards his face - ghostly caresses of roasted nuts and green tea.

The weight on his lap shifted.

Jade-green eyes watched one silvery paw stretch out for a moment before it flopped bonelessly back down.

He scratched behind a furry ear - the purr rose into a quiet rumble.

Shen Qingqiu smiled - the smallest, softest stretch of lips.

That was, of course, the moment when everything went to shit.

POOF!

The fur under his hand disappeared and a cloud of glittering smoke blew right in his face.

He wrapped an arm around Xiao Ling's waist, and leapt, landing in front of the Xiao Yulan, Xiu Ya already in his hand.

“Oww,” came a small voice.

The smoke cleared, uncovering the source of the voice, and jade-green eyes widened.

On the floor, right in front of the couch, sat a child, long black hair spread around her on the ground, like a spilled starry night, pale skin shimmering with Qi.

There was… a lot of skin.

The child was naked.

She looked up and jade-green eyes met a striking pair of amber ones.

Shen Qingqiu blinked, his voice almost inaudible in the silent room:

“What the fuck?”

Chapter Text

Shen Qingqiu stared.

Hui — it had to be her; his cat had disappeared in a puff of smoke and, in its place, he got that child — looking no more than six, cheeks round and rosy, hair and skin shimmering for a moment before Qi settled back into her body.

She blinked up at him, then down at herself, brought her hands up to her face, and wiggled her finders.

Her lips curved into an ‘o’ shape.

Shen Qingqiu sheathed XiuYa, his eyes not leaving the ca— the child’s small form.

There had been nothing in the old scrolls about divine beasts transforming into children!

“Heavens,” exhaled Xiao Ling from behind him.

“No one is to move,” he ordered and stepped forward.

Hui looked up at him.

He stopped in front of her.

Jade-green met amber.

“Hui?”

Small head tilted, pink lips opened, and—

“Meow?”

Chapter Text

Hui’s face burned.

All she wanted to say was “Yes”! Just “Yes”! A simple, not complicated word!

The young courtesan leaned out from behind Shen Qingqiu and cooed at her!

“Hmph!”

She turned away, intent on curling on the floor and went as far as her elbows hitting the floor before she remembered she wasn’t a cat anymore.

Chapter Text

“Xiao Ling,” said Shen Qingqiu, his hand disappearing into his sleeve. The next moment he was holding a small pouch out to the courtesan. “Bring a full set of child’s clothes.”

“Of course, Master Shen!”

The lady ran out of the room, her hair jewellery jingling behind her.

“Here, Master Shen.” The thickly powdered grandma took off her shawl, the sheer, dark blue fabric swaying in her hands. “Use this in the meantime.”

Shen Qingqiu kneeled in front of Hui and a second later she was cocooned in the thin fabric so many times it became mostly opaque, her cheeks looking even redder against the blue background.

Jade-green eyes stared at her face.

“What’s your name?”

Hui blinked at him.

He wasn’t dumb—had the shock of today made him forget?

“Hui,” she said slowly, carefully pronouncing each sound.

It sounded almost correct.

Chapter Text

Hui toddled, hand in hand with Shen Qingqiu, amber eyes on her feet, and one small hand clutching a fistful of her skirt up from the floor.

Her new dress was sizes too big, the skirt so long and so slick that even after pushing as much as possible under the high belt thingy, the shimmering pink layers continued to slip out.

It required her to watch her feet constantly.

Shen Qingqiu had had to catch her from falling flat on her face so many times that he had just stopped letting go of her hand before they even left the building.

Good thing that, because walking on two legs required a very conscious effort.

It wasn’t too hard, but minding her dress at the same time… she clung to his fingers tighter.

“Do not wriggle, do not look around, hold on tight, and—” Shen Qingqiu stopped his 100th repetition of the Rules of Swordpooling and looked up.

Then he snapped his fan open.

”The heavens hate me,” he said.

Hui had just enough time to see someone in white and blue robes swoop down towards them before she got pulled behind Shen Qingqiu.

She stepped on her skirt again and would have ended up on the ground if not for Shen Qingqiu’s fingers tightly clenched around her own.

Chapter Text

Liu Qingge stashed a bulging bag of spicy jerky into his Qiankun Pouch and stepped on his sword.

A short nod at the seller, and he was gone, flying south.

They had just got a report today about a six-headed dragon in the far south. The beast was reported as enormous and fierce.

The villagers were terrified.

Liu Qingge tingled all over just thinking about it.

Sharp eyes scanned the streets below for any sight of demons brave enough to come right to the foot of Cang Qiong.

He spotted Shen Qingqiu pretty much immediately.

His shixiong emerged from the shadows of what had to be a brothel, dragging a child behind him.

A young child, small head kept down, ribbons and silks bright and cheerful.

Cheng Luan froze midair.

The next moment Shen Qingqiu stopped too. His head snapped up, gaze zeroing in on Liu Qingge and splayed his fan like an Acid Spitting Lizard splays its frill.

The kid - forcefully pulled behind his back - swayed where she stood.

Liu Qingge couldn’t say he had a good opinion about his shixiong. But when the man was untrustworthy and dishonorable Qingge had never thought him to be predatory.

He swooped down, the dragon forgotten.

“Shen.Qing.Qiu!”

The moment he touched down Cheng Luan was already in his hand. "What did you do?"

Shen Qingqiu bristled.

"Not your concern, Liu-shidi.”

The kid leaned out from behind him and would have fallen if not for the tight hold on her hand.

Cheng Luan buzzed in his hand.

“She is drugged,” Liu Qingge said. He reached for her. “Step away.”

But Shen Qingqiu didn’t. Instead, he stepped right in front of him.

Liu Qingge withdrew his hand just in time to evade his fan - though not fast enough to evade the Qi zap from it.

Shen Qingqiu’s voice was a low growl, his eyes poison green.

“Touch her, and you'll lose that hand.”

There was a fan-width of space between them, sparkling with Qi. Liu Qingge felt its bite through his robes.

“Back off, Liu Qingge, or this one swears, you will regret it.”

If, at that moment, anyone looked at the child, they would see a shit-eating smile straight from the deepest level of hell before it disappeared, exchanged for wide, watery eyes and trembling lips.

Shen Qingqiu looked down when he felt a tug at his robe.

Big, amber eyes on the verge of crying were looking up at him, small hands fisted at the silks over his knee.

“Jiujiu?” the beast said.

From the corner of his eyes, he saw Liu Qingge freeze.

The idiot's face went slack, eyes wide, gaze jumping between his and Hui’s face.

He should correct her. Explain what ‘uncle’ meant. Explain the whole situation probably - though the idiot wouldn’t believe him anyway.

Qi-ge would have explained.

He glanced up - Liu Qingge looked like he saw Shang Qinghua dual cultivating at the peak lord meeting table and well…

He wasn’t Qi-ge.

‘Fuck you Liu-shidi.’

“Don’t mind the brute, Xiao Hui. Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Hui looked around with wide eyes. Her brows knitted together, falling lower and lower with each second.

She opened her mouth.

“Where the fuck is the sand?”

“Language,” came an immediate reply.

She looked at Shen Qingqiu and pointed emphatically at the sight before them. “Buuuuuut! A beach without sand is like a tanghulu without sugar—that’s not a tanghulu anymore!”

She looked around again, cheeks puffing out until they resembled two round peaches.

Shen Qingqiu watched her pout. “You asked to see a beach. Not a desert.”

He tightened his hold on her hand when the girl kicked a nearby rock and almost slipped on treacherous pebbles.

Hui pouted even more.

Where was the sand?! The glorious, soft, feet-warming, sneakily-get-into-you-pants sand?! What kind of beach was just a bunch of slippery rocks?

She had spent months whining before Shen Qingqiu finally agreed to take her to see one, only to get this!

Everything looked wrong.

The water wasn’t the right colour — instead of the cerulean from her memories, it was a washed-out sleet blue, like an old, vintage jeans jacket.

The waves kept crashing on the stones, trying to climb towards them but falling, foaming in anger.

Even the sky was depressing — the Sun was hidden by clouds, making the whole place cold and dreary.

Her hazy memories of glorious golden plains, cool wind, and the sea as blue as the sky popped like a bubble, and her earlier excitement wilted like old lettuce.

She stomped her foot.

Fuck this! She was going to have fun! She had worked her ass out getting Jiji to agree to this trip. No way she was going to lose this opportunity!

She wrenched her hand free from Shen Qingqiu’s hold and dashed towards the shore.

“What are you doing?!” came an angry shout behind her.

“Playing!”

That was still a sea. She hadn’t seen a sea in this life before.

Splash — a wave drenched her shoes.

“Hui, no.”

Splash.

“Play with meeeee!” she hollered, eyes fixated on the retreating wave.

She was quite good with her two legs now — fast and nimble — to the annoyance of everyone around her. Still, running on wet stones required focus.

A new wave was coming — bigger than the previous one she had followed down the shore — and it was coming fast.

She turned, intent on sprinting as fast as she could. If she ruined another dress, Shen Qingqiu was going to put her on a sweets ban again.

She slipped on a pebble.

There was a short spike of pain in her ankle, and then she was falling towards the stony ground, a cat-like shriek leaving her mouth.

The next moment a green-clad arm hooked around her waist, halting her fall. She saw the wave crash over Shen Qingqiu’s shoes and soak his robes before there was an even worse pull at her navel when they teleported away.

Hui loathed teleporting… or whatever the fuck they called it here. Shen Qingqiu had told her again and again that it was just a quick movement, but she didn’t care about the particulars. It felt like her stomach lagged behind, like in some cartoon bullshit. It always left her queasy and cranky.

They crashed onto rocks away from the shore, and then, to Hui's absolute shock, Shen Qingqiu shoved her away.

She rolled, the fabric of her dress tearing on the rocks, pebbles digging everywhere, bruising her elbows and hips.

“The fuck!” She jumped to her feet, outrage sky-high, hands curled and ready to scratch. She spun around, hair rising around her as if fighting with gravity and hissed as convincingly as if she was still a cat.

Shen Qingqiu was half lying on the rocks, propped up on his elbows, wide, jade-green eyes staring at his legs.

Or rather, at the place where his legs used to be.

Surrounded by shreds of green silk was a huge, glittering fishtail.

It flapped awkwardly — there was what looked like a shoe sole underneath it.

The sun peaked from behind the clouds its rays hitting Shen Qingqiu like a stage spotlight.

Jade-green scales sparkled in the sunlight like jewels.

Hui stepped closer.

“Jiji—”

“Stay back!”

Shen Qingqiu prodded his tail with his fan, eyebrow ticking faster and faster.

“What the fuck?” he mumbled.

“Language,” singsonged Hui.

Everything went back to normal the moment the tail dried.

Or most things went back to normal — the shredded robes and destroyed shoes stayed as they were — in pieces.

Shen Qingqiu, ass on full display, quickly slapped the gravel off himself while Hui stood nearby, whistling a happy tune.

His qiankun bag always had a spare set of robes (both for himself and for Hui) but shoes were another story.

The nearby villagers were very helpful in procuring for a poor barefooted immortal the best pair of shoes they could find — which, in the middle of nowhere, meant a slightly too big pair of newish straw shoes with curled-up toe caps.

Chapter Text

Yue Qingyuan reached forward, hand curled to knock, when suddenly the doors to the Bamboo House slammed open and a naked child ran outside.

The child—a girl—zoomed past him, leaving wet footprints on the wooden floor, black hair plastered to her back like rivers of ink on marble.

“Get back here!” came a furious yell from the inside.

A second later, Xiao Jiu zoomed past him, his movement hastened with Qi, his robes and face wet, and his sleeves tied up above his elbows. In his hands was a small, colourful robe spread out like a restraint blanket.

He caught the child in it before her bare feet touched the dirt, bundling her in the fabric in a same manner Qingyuan had seen Wan-shidi restrain some of the smaller beasts on his peak.

The child hissed, wriggling inside her binds, small feet kicking in the air as Xiao Jiu stomped back inside.

Yue Qingyuan stood unmoving after the doors slammed shut behind the pair, memories of a similarly ferocious child kicking and wriggling in the exact same manner to get out of a bath replaying in his mind.

He looked back at the door.

The kid didn’t look like Xiao Jiu. Their faces held no connection. Only their hair —the darkest, inky black—and their pale complexion were the same. She was pale, very pale, for a child, but clearly healthy —her body plump and ruddy, with no scars or bruises, as far as Qingyuan had seen—and he had seen practically everything.

Maybe, as Liu-shidi had said, she really was Xiao Jiu’s niece?

Something akin to an Acid-Spitting Lizard awoke in Yue Qingyuan's stomach, wriggling unpleasantly.

Had Xiao Jiu found his family?

When? And why hadn’t he said anything?

No—he did not deserve anything from Xiao Jiu. It was just that he had hoped—

There was an angry yowl from the inside, followed by an equally angry ‘Stay still!’

Yue Qingyuan turned away and left.