Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Xiao Jiu is hungry.

That’s normal. That’s every day. Xiao Jiu doesn’t ever remember being NOT hungry, not really, not even in the dreams. He thinks he must be not hungry sometimes in those dreams, because sometimes he wears beautiful clothing and lives in a beautiful home and he can’t remember feeling his stomach growl and twist and turn over on him, but just because he doesn’t remember being hungry doesn’t mean he remembers being NOT hungry. He hopes he has a dream like that soon. Maybe he’ll see a big feast. He remembers having to see them and not eat them before, but surely when he was bigger and richer he had to have gotten to eat one all by himself. Or with Qi-ge.

He misses Qi-ge. He thinks the dreams have to be real, in some strange way, because Qi-ge has to be real. It would hurt too much if he wasn’t. Xiao Jiu remembers him most of all, and that’s what makes him hurt more than his writhing stomach, more than the bruises, more than anything else.

And this… week? He’s not good at keeping track of days. He thinks it’s a week or maybe two or maybe it was just three days and he’s getting mixed up. Whatever. However long, it’s been bad recently—the dreams, the missing Qi-ge—because he keeps remembering him, over and over.

Qi-ge’s not always in the dreams, but he’s in there a lot. Qi-ge is very important. But every single dream recently, he’s been there, so real it’s like his fingers are still on his skin when he wakes, and Xiao Jiu really really wants him even if he doesn’t even remember what he looks like. It’s just a feeling, more than anything else, but he wants it.

He always, always wants.

It’s early enough that there’s no point in acting yet, in turning on tears and wailing for a meager sum of coin. Xiao Jiu is only out here because last night the dreams had been particularly bad and had woken him up— a blurred sight through the door, words that tasted like ash in his mouth— and since he’s up early anyway, he wants to make sure he gets a good spot.

He jerks in surprise when a coin drops into his bowl.

It clinks, clatters, rolling in the bowl until it rattles to a stop, and he pulls his face out of his folded knees to stare at it, shiny and gold, glistening in the dented little bowl he stole from another boy months ago. Xiao Jiu has never seen anything this color before, not outside of dreams, and his hands come out to snatch it quickly before anyone else can take it.

The coin feels real, feels solid, and Xiao Jiu only manages to tear his gaze away from it because there are boots in front of him. The person who left it is still there.

His gaze trails up, up, and up— tall. He’s tall and beautiful, this man who can only be a cultivator, with a sword strapped to his side as he gazes right back at Xiao Jiu. There’s something… something that makes his teeth ache, something familiar that makes him wonder , something he’s grasping for but can’t quite reach, and maybe the cultivator feels it too because they keep staring at each other. Xiao Jiu can’t read anything in the cultivator’s dark eyes, but there’s something that makes him not want to break the moment, not even to thank the man, so he doesn’t. He clutches the coin to his chest, and he looks.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know enough to name any sects, to identify them, to figure out anything about him. He just watches the man with the dark eyes and the expression that… what? How is he looking at him? Xiao Jiu doesn’t know enough to know that, either.

The man takes a step forward, reaches down, and Xiao Jiu moves.

Scrabbling backwards, feet kicking in the dirt as he forces himself up, up, one hand releasing the coin to shove himself upwards while the other still holds his prize to his chest. There’s no building behind him, no wall to block his way— don’t let yourself get pinned, always have somewhere you can run, always have a way to get away don’t get locked up again never again never again— and the only reason he doesn’t run further is that the man stops and freezes.

His face has changed, is something different now, something that makes his eyes look soft and his body tense and his lips tight. The man unfreezes, except he doesn’t move towards Xiao Jiu. He draws back, taking a few slow steps away, one, two, three, raising his hands and creating more distance between them. His face changes, smooths out, becomes a mask. Xiao Jiu watches every moment.

Neither of them have said a word, and Xiao Jiu feels like if he speaks first, it will start something. He doesn’t know what, can’t quite identify this feeling that… He wishes he had the words for it! The way the man looks at him is not like others have, not in his memory. No one reaches for him. No one looks at him like that. There’s a tension crawling through the air, up the line of his back, sparking in gritted teeth. Everything feels… off. This is not normal.

The air is heavy, and Xiao Jiu is almost choking on it.

Maybe the man feels it, too. Maybe he doesn’t, and it’s all in Xiao Jiu’s head—maybe this is all completely in his head, and he’s dreaming even though they never feel this real, or maybe his dreams have moved into the waking, too, and he’s starting to see things. Whatever may be the truth, the man opens his mouth. “Xiao Jiu,” he says, and Xiao Jiu feels like he’s going to scream.

His heart jumps to his head, every beat a throb in his ears, his forehead, his jaw— a frantic, pounding feeling as he tries to swallow and can’t make his dry throat move. No one should know that name. No one. No one. His mother didn’t call him that, never did, not even when they parted because he scared her, this son who knew things and people and everything he possibly shouldn’t, who could write and read when no one had taught him and—

Xiao Jiu doesn’t care to talk to the other kids on the streets, let alone give them his name when he could just sink his teeth in and make them run away instead, so. So. “How—” His voice goes high, breaks, and he manages to swallow this time. He can’t tell if he’s about to run or about to fall to the ground and he feels like his entire body is shaking, shaking, shaking in time with the pounding of his head. “How do you… know that name?”

The man moves, and Xiao Jiu jerks back as though to run, but the man just gets down on one knee, so that they’re closer to the same height, so that it’s easier for their eyes to meet. “Xiao Jiu,” the man says again, softly. “Xiao Jiu, it’s your Qi-ge.”

It’s almost like a bolt of pain, like a lightning bolt zapped right through him, and Xiao Jiu gasps, trying not to tremble even more as he takes a step back. His eyes dart all over the man, taking in every inch of him. It… makes sense for Qi-ge to be big, if those dreams were real, if they already happened. Xiao Jiu remembers being big, and he’s not now. But Xiao Jiu has always felt—always felt like he would know Qi-ge if he saw him, as if he would know him deep in his bones in his skin in every single piece of him, and he doesn’t… he doesn’t know this Qi-ge. He doesn’t know him.

There’s no way for anyone else to know those names, to know something like that, and still Xiao Jiu needs to prove it. He barely remembers but surely… surely, that’s enough? It chokes him, that desperate hope.

“What color were the flowers where you found me?” Xiao Jiu asks, keeping it vague on purpose. He doesn’t want it to be easy.

“Yellow,” The Man Who Might Be Qi-ge says immediately, and Xiao Jiu has to remember how to breathe.

“What—” His voice cracks, breaks, and he pulls himself together. “What’s my favorite food?”

“You like sweets,” says The Man Who Is Probably Qi-ge, voice soft. “We didn’t get them often, but when we did, I sometimes gave you mine, too.” That’s still true, even now, though he can count on his hands the times he’s had sweets.

Xiao Jiu needs to ask one more question, just one, before he can believe in this, before he can try to trust in this—that it’s real, and that he’s not finally losing it. “Who… who’s my best friend? Not… not including you.” He never called Qi-ge his best friend, not in the dreams he’s dreamt—or, no, the… memories. They have to be memories that he remembers, but he wants to make sure.

The man looks puzzled for a moment, or at least Xiao Jiu thinks he does, before his expression smooths out. “You don’t have one,” says The Man Who Is Definitely Qi-ge, and Xiao Jiu feels his whole self just crumple.

“You’re… you’re real,” Xiao Jiu whispers, entire body turning towards him, a dry sob curling in his throat as he reaches out with one hand and then pulls back, afraid to touch. He takes a tiny step forward. “How?”

Qi-ge’s eyes are fixed on him, like he’s never ever going to look away. “You died,” Qi-ge says, very quietly as well, voice a little hoarse. “You… were born again. I’ve been looking for you.”

He feels hot and cold at the same time, like on the days when he’s had nothing to eat, and Xiao Jiu stares at him, drinking in the sight of Qi-ge, who is real and standing before him and the man he’s been dreaming about his entire life, his Qi-ge . “You’ve… been looking for me?”

Qi-ge nods, and Xiao Jiu sees tears welling in his eyes. “Yes,” he says. “Xiao Jiu, you’re my most important person. How… could I not look for you?”

That’s the breaking point, and Xiao Jiu closes the distance. A few short, stiff steps and then he’s running towards him and Qi-ge is opening his arms and wrapping them around him. It’s a warmth that Xiao Jiu doesn’t remember feeling, not ever, and it’s what he imagines he felt when he was a baby and his mother held him before he showed her how strange he was. One hand scrabbles at Qi-ge’s robes, hooking his fingers into the fabric like they’re claws, and the other still holds his precious coin to his chest.

Qi-ge buries his face in Xiao Jiu’s head, breathing in roughly, his entire body big enough to surround Xiao Jiu and envelope him, to hold him close and let none of the warmth escape, yet still hold him gently, not trapping him. It doesn’t feel like a Qi-ge hug, because Qi-ge is big now and Xiao Jiu isn’t, but it feels so much more real than those hugs in his dreams, feels so much more here and real because it is real and Xiao Jiu’s breath comes quick and shuddering and damp.

He feels like crying don’t cry don’t you dare cry he’s not worth shedding tears over and he can’t help the way the water wells up in his eyes and his vision blurs and he shakes against Qi-ge, gasping for air. “Shh,” Qi-ge murmurs, pressing a kiss to Xiao Jiu’s hair and lingering there. “Can… Qi-ge take you home, Xiao Jiu?” he asks.

Home. Home. He knew that he and Qi-ge must have a home, because he remembers it vaguely from when he’s big, and he remembers Qi-ge being there and he nods, wiping at his eyes and trying not to cry against Qi-ge’s robes. “Okay,” murmurs Qi-ge. “It will just be a moment, okay, Xiao Jiu?”

He doesn’t understand how that was possible, even for Qi-ge, and he’s about to say so, to snap at Qi-ge to use his words in a way that feels so achingly familiar he has to swallow down tears, when Qi-ge pulls back a little. He looks down at him, a strange look in his eyes, and puts one hand on Xiao Jiu’s head.

It’s morning. It’s still early and the shadows from the buildings have barely moved because even though this has felt like forever, it… it was nothing, truly. Xiao Jiu only recently got up and this entire thing has made him wake up way more than he has ever felt in his entire life, because everything he’s ever dreamed of is real and here. He wants to cling to this moment, to make it last forever, feeling lighter and like he can actually breathe and—despite all of that, Xiao Jiu feels tired. He feels so tired and his eyelids flutter and he has just enough in him to scowl at Qi-ge before everything goes black.

When he wakes, it takes Xiao Jiu a few moments to realize where he is. He wakes as if it’s normal, as if he’s just getting up for the day, but… it’s not the floor. It’s a bed, a soft bed, with a soft pillow below his head. He’s smart. He doesn’t jerk up, doesn’t let anyone there (if there is anyone) know that he’s awake, and he scans his memories to try to remember what happened.

Right. There was… Qi-ge was real, Qi-ge came back, and his words before everything disappeared. Qi-ge did something to him, made him… sleep? He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t know why, and it’s frightening. Xiao Jiu knows Qi-ge but he doesn’t. He has dreamt of him his whole life, but not this Qi-ge, not this Qi-ge that is big and somehow knows him even though he’s not big, and he doesn’t know why Qi-ge would do that.

Xiao Jiu listens for breathing, for the sound that there’s anyone else in the room, and he doesn’t hear anything. It doesn’t mean anything, because Qi-ge’s a cultivator, but Xiao Jiu still cracks his eyes open, slowly, slowly, not moving any other part of his body.

He sees no one, from this angle.

Alright. He makes a little groaning noise, a sleep noise he hopes sounds convincing, and he rolls over in the bed so he can face the other side and peek there. Nothing. No one.

With that, Xiao Jiu gives up the pretense, and sits up so that he can scan the room. It looks… unfamiliar. Not that Xiao Jiu has spent time in many rooms, in many buildings, but he hoped it would be something from his dream-memories. Maybe the bamboo house. It’s not.

It’s large and it’s ornate—ridiculously so. Maybe rich people would think it looks nice, Xiao Jiu couldn’t tell you, but the gold on the walls is so extra. The decorations look normal, though, if more expensive than any Xiao Jiu has ever seen in his (current?) life. There’s bookshelves lining the far walls, and what looks like ink and paper(?) set up on a desk, painting supplies… fans. He’s on the bed, there’s a closet, there’s chairs and another table presumably for meals… it’s everything one could need for living, basically, in one room.

It’s in whites and greens and light colors, and Xiao Jiu wrinkles his nose at the clash between that and the gold. Not important right now, though.

The door creaks open, and it’s too quick for Xiao Jiu to pretend he’s still asleep—though not that it would matter, because cultivators—and Qi-ge steps in, holding a tray.

Xiao Jiu’s eyes flick to the tray (tea and… congee?), and then to Qi-ge’s smiling face. “Xiao Jiu,” says Qi-ge, and Xiao Jiu scowls at him.

“You put me to sleep!” he scolds him, resisting the urge to bare his teeth. “And where is this!?” He wants answers and he feels weird about trusting-but-not-trusting this strange Qi-ge.

Qi-ge keeps smiling, though it changes a little. “Sorry, Sh— Xiao Jiu,” he says. “Because you don’t have a golden core, it would have made you sick, traveling here while conscious.” That… hm. He needs more details on that. “And this is where we live.”

Xiao Jiu’s frown gets even bigger. “I don’t remember this place,” he says, as if that really means anything given how patchwork what he knows is. “And what do you mean, we?”

Qi-ge’s expression changes for just a moment, in a way that Xiao Jiu doesn’t recognize, before he’s smiling again. “Will you come eat first?” he asks. “I’ll explain everything, but you must be hungry, Xiao Jiu.”

He… is hungry. And the congee looks good. Xiao Jiu presses his lips together for a moment, staring at it as Qi-ge sets down the tray on the table. He… trusts Qi-ge. And even if this is something strange, if this is somehow not real or a trick or something like that… the food wouldn’t be drugged or poisoned or anything. What would be the point? He wouldn’t be strong enough to stop that Fake-Qi-ge.

So Xiao Jiu nods, slipping off the large bed and stepping over to sit down on one of the little cushions on the floor, right by the table. It smells really good. He reaches for the spoon, and notices that his hands are clean.

On one hand—good. He doesn’t like to be dirty, but it’s hard to get clean on the streets. He’s still wearing his old clothes, which is why he didn’t notice at first, but glancing down shows that his legs are cleaned off, too, and he feels like his face is as well. He can’t feel the dirt on his skin anymore, now that he’s looking for it. Xiao Jiu frowns at Qi-ge. “What did you do?” he demands, holding up his hands and shaking them in Qi-ge’s face for emphasis.

“I wiped you down,” Qi-ge says. “Just what was visible, before I put you in bed.” Xiao Jiu doesn’t get that because obviously his clothes were still dirty so wiping him off wouldn’t stop him from sullying the bed, but maybe grown-up Qi-ge just wanted to clean him.

He… he probably just wanted to fuss. Qi-ge likes to fuss. He feels a pit in his stomach even though Qi-ge is right there, looking at him, because it’s his Qi-ge and yet not his Qi-ge, and Xiao Jiu grabs for the food and shoves a bite of congee in his mouth. His eyes go wide. It’s… it’s really, really good.

Quickly, as if it’s going to disappear, Xiao Jiu takes bite after bite. “Slow down, slow down,” Qi-ge chides softly, and Qi-ge’s always been one to try to savor food but Xiao Jiu remembers it getting stolen before because he tried to do that. You eat it fast, because who knows when you’ll get more. “Xiao Jiu, slow down or you’ll get sick,” Qi-ge says a little more firmly, and reluctantly, he listens.

He leans over his bowl and takes a little longer on his next bite, even though he’s already halfway through the congee, and looks up at Qi-ge. “I’m listening,” he says. “You were going to tell me everything. Tell me.”

Qi-ge’s expression shifts, into something that Xiao Jiu thinks isn’t very happy but he’s not sure in what way yet, but Xiao Jiu watches him. He won’t let this go. “We… managed to escape,” he says, which makes sense with what Xiao Jiu remembers. He remembers being beaten down, crawling like a worm in the dirt (as a slave?)—he remembers being big, rich, in a house of bamboo. “We became cultivators together.”

So his bamboo house was his cultivator house? It feels right. It thrums in him, like a plucked zither, and Xiao Jiu puts down his spoon so he can drink some tea (he’s not sure if he likes it or not…). He watches Qi-ge, who wrestles with his thoughts for a moment before he continues. “We… were living well for a long time, and then, you…”

Xiao Jiu can guess at this point. “I died?”

Qi-ge looks like he wants to cry, and he nods slowly. Xiao Jiu puts down the tea. His hands are shaking a little, even if he already guessed this, even if he already thought it might be like this. It’s very different to think ‘maybe my dreams are memories’, to realize that there must be a different life, a past life, and to see Qi-ge pained by simply remembering what happened. To have a new life, the old one must have ended. Which… “How?” he asks, because he has to.

This one takes Qi-ge a little longer to answer. Xiao Jiu takes another bite. “You… died saving me,” he says, quietly. “I’m sorry—I don’t want to talk about the details.”

That’s fair. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if he wants to hear them, either, and the congee sits in his stomach like a stone. If he had to die some way… he guesses that would be a way he wouldn’t… mind. Especially since Qi-ge was clearly able to find him again.

“So you looked for me?” Qi-ge nods.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s why we don’t live in the same place anymore. I… couldn’t accept your death, and wanted to find you, but the sect didn’t agree. I’m in a new sect now.”

Xiao Jiu wants to ask which sect they left and which one they’re part of now, but he doesn’t know enough about the sects for their names to mean anything to him, even if it’s one of the big ones. He knows nothing. He looks down at the bowl of congee, unfinished, and he pushes it away. Maybe it’s just too much food for him, ‘cause he’s not used to it, or maybe it’s ‘cause of what they’re talking about, but he feels kind of sick. “...You weren’t supposed to find me. The new me.” Is that what he should call himself? He doesn’t know.

Qi-ge reaches over the table and puts a hand on his head, slow enough that Xiao Jiu sees the movement and isn’t startled by it. “I could never abandon you, Xiao Jiu,” he whispers, and Xiao Jiu feels like he’s going to cry but he doesn’t want to again, not this quickly, so he hunches down on himself and rubs at his eyes and tries desperately to breathe. Qi-ge’s hand stays on his head, warm and comforting and he manages to calm himself after a little bit.

“What… what now, then?” Xiao Jiu asks, exhaling. Is he going to just… live with Qi-ge, now? Grow up, get a golden core (again!), join this sect and just remember everything with Qi-ge in dreams he can only half understand? Is that all Qi-ge sought him out for? If Xiao Jiu had been living well, with a family that cared for him, and hadn’t remembered Qi-ge, would Qi-ge have… just left him be? Would he have left him there?

He doesn’t want the answer to that question, so he doesn’t ask.

Qi-ge’s face changes, his entire expression gentling in a way that makes Xiao Jiu want to squirm, and he watches him scoot around the table. He reaches for Xiao Jiu, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted to and his arms wrap around him, warm and enveloping. He slips his hand under Xiao Jiu’s legs to pull him onto his lap, which does surprise him and he jerks a little, but it’s okay. He’s warm, and he has Xiao Jiu, and Xiao Jiu rests his head on Qi-ge’s chest.

He can feel his heartbeat. It’s not familiar, but maybe he’s just making up the fact that heartbeats could be familiar, that you could know someone so well that you had theirs memorized. Qi-ge presses his face into Xiao Jiu’s hair. “You’re so small like this,” he murmurs, and Xiao Jiu scoffs at that.

“Shut up,” he says. “It’s not my fault. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

It’s instinctive, saying such derisive comments, but Qi-ge inhales sharply and when Xiao Jiu looks up, his eyes are damp. Oh.

“Stupid,” he says, and he whacks Qi-ge’s chest, just a little bit. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know enough about what happened to really say anything else, but that’s something he knows. Grass is green, sky is blue, and Qi-ge is stupid. It’s a universal truth of the world.

Qi-ge huffs out a little laugh that seems surprised, maybe, surprised and wet, and his embrace tightens a little before his arms relax. “I think I can help you remember everything,” he says. “But not yet. I need some time to prepare.”

Xiao Jiu frowns at that—not angry, just thinking. “Okay,” he says, because he does really want to remember if he can. He wants to know how their life was, him and Qi-ge, what their former sect was like and how he died, and he also thinks that remembering will help him be a cultivator again. Then he doesn’t have to relearn things all over again.

But first… He looks down at himself. “...I can wash someplace, right? And get new clothes?” Qi-ge better not expect him to run around in these.

He can have a bath . He has his own bathroom, Qi-ge made sure of it, connected right to his room. It’s a real bath, in a real tub, with hot water and soap and Xiao Jiu is thrilled by it. He gets to wash all the dirt away as best as he can and then just get in the water and soak. The water seeps into him, into his skin into his bones, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t think he could ever go without them again . It feels as if he lays here long enough, it can even clean out his insides, clean out that street rat filth forever within him, but that’s just wishful thinking. 

Qi-ge washes his hair. No one has before, not that Xiao Jiu can remember—Qi-ge is gentle, his fingers lightly scratching at Xiao Jiu’s scalp, running through his hair. He ducks under the water to rinse the soap and then Qi-ge moves on to wash his back and that’s when he starts crying. Quietly, as quietly as Qi-ge can, but Xiao Jiu feels the drops hit him and looks back up at him. “Stupid,” he calls him, not sure what else to do. “Qi-ge’s being—stupid.”

They’re tears that make sense, and Xiao Jiu’s already cried too, so he can’t really tell him not to. Well. He could. But that would just be stupid and he’s not the stupid one here. It seems to help, though, because Qi-ge gives him what he thinks is supposed to be a watery smile (it looks terrible) and the tears stop after a little bit.

He stays in the bath way longer than he needs to but Qi-ge doesn’t rush him, not at any point, and he’s all shriveled up and pleased when he finally clambers out. The clothes that Qi-ge brings out are…

The clothes are nice. When he touches the fabric, it feels soft and sturdy, nothing like Xiao Jiu remembers wearing before. But… they’re light yellow, and even though they look beautiful, something feels off. He hesitates before taking them, and either he’s obvious or Qi-ge’s thinking the same thing, because he laughs a little, wetly. “They’re not exactly your color, huh, Xiao Jiu?”

He guesses not, and shakes his head. “If you know that, why are you giving them to me?” he snaps a little.

Qi-ge makes a slight face. “They’re our new sect’s colors,” he says. Okay, but why does he have to wear them? Qi-ge’s not wearing them. He’s wearing red and black robes. It feels right, Qi-ge and black, and he thinks about the memories of turning away from a swirl of black robes as he walks through green grass. Xiao Jiu squints accusingly at Qi-ge’s robes he has on, and he chuckles a little bit.

“You wore beautiful greens and whites, before,” Qi-ge says, and he starts to help Xiao Jiu put on the robes. He’s never worn anything as complicated as this, and he doesn’t remember where to start. “But… if I had you here, and you started wearing them, everyone would know it was you immediately.”

He frowns a bit. “Will the… old sect come after me?” Qi-ge had said that they didn’t want him trying to find Xiao Jiu, but there was a difference between ‘don’t do this you’re not allowed’ and ‘if you find him we will track him down and kill him’.

Qi-ge nods. “So we need to be subtle about your presence here, Xiao Jiu,” he says, and that makes him wonder if maybe that’s why he’s in a room with no windows, if perhaps it’s to stop others from peeking in and seeing him or something else.

He nods a little. “Do I need to have, um… a fake name or something?”

Qi-ge’s eyes crinkle and he pulls Xiao Jiu close, pressing a kiss to his hair so intensely it’s almost hungry, and Xiao Jiu swats at him. “No one else knows this name,” he says. “Only Qi-ge knows it, so it’s okay. And I’ll try to keep you away from other people, anyway.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t really like people, so that’s not a big deal, as long as he’s not trapped in this room (he won’t take that from anyone, not even from Qi-ge, and the thought makes him want to sink his teeth into something). He nods at that, and before they leave the room together, he makes sure to grab his old clothes and pull his golden coin out from them so he can tuck it inside his new robes.

Qi-ge watches him and looks like he’s going to laugh. “I can give you more coins, Xiao Jiu,” he says. “I’ll get you anything you want.”

He huffs at him. “Then give me more already,” he says, and he takes Qi-ge’s hand.

It’s dark outside when they leave the room. He doesn’t mean dark like it’s night—though it is night, he learns when they pass a window later, and Qi-ge how long was he unconscious???— but dark as in dimly lit. It mostly hides the gold, the sheer… rich people-ness of the whole place which is still peeking through in the dim lights, and Xiao Jiu isn’t sure what to think about it.

It’s silent, it’s eerie, and he ends up pressing himself close to Qi-ge.

Qi-ge looks down at him. “Should I carry you, Xiao Jiu?” he asks, and Xiao Jiu scoffs a little.

“Why?” he asks, ignoring how closely they had been walking together. “Do you think I can’t walk on my own?”

He smiles a little. “Maybe,” he says, and he scoops up Xiao Jiu, just like that.

Xiao Jiu squawks and thumps the side of his head since he can reach it from this height. “You—Put me down!”

Qi-ge laughs a little, eyes bright. “I don’t think so.” And he doesn’t.

Huan Hua Palace is where they are, Xiao Jiu learns shortly after. Qi-ge was the Head Disciple—second in charge—but became the ‘Palace Master’ when the previous one disappeared, he says. “Is that a good thing?” Xiao Jiu asks immediately, and Qi-ge looks taken aback by the question.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“You’re in charge now,” Xiao Jiu says. “Did you hate him? Did you get rid of him?” He’d be quite pleased, if so. Good for Qi-ge. “Or do you want him to come back?” Xiao Jiu wouldn’t really understand that if he did, but maybe he was nice? Qi-ge was never really the kind to get rid of people—that was always Xiao Jiu.

He knows this, but couldn’t say why. He just does.

Qi-ge’s eyes narrow and he looks at Xiao Jiu and Xiao Jiu narrows his eyes right back. After a moment, he smiles. It’s a dangerous smile, and it’s a good one. “Maybe I got rid of him,” he says, and he presses another kiss to his hair.

The ‘throne room’ looks interesting—he doesn’t actually know if it’s called that, because Xiao Jiu called it that and it made Qi-ge stifle a laugh and he refuses to say why, and so do the gardens and the training areas. They have their own prison, apparently, but Qi-ge absolutely refuses to take Xiao Jiu there which is honestly pretty disappointing.

The library is big, and Qi-ge looks down at Xiao Jiu proudly when they enter. “You can read any book here you like,” he says.

Xiao Jiu squints at him. “I don’t know if I remember how to read,” he says. No one’s given him a book before, and even if he knows what signs mean, usually, that doesn’t mean he can read a book.

Qi-ge blinks at that. “...We’ll see if you remember,” he says after a moment. “And if you don’t, I can teach you.” He has a weird expression on his face about teaching Xiao Jiu, and he doesn’t know what that’s about so he just yanks on one of Qi-ge’s curls and tells him to go to the next place.

The final place they go is the treasury, which is a big storage room filled with lots of gold and what must be treasures and—and, just, the most shiny things that Xiao Jiu has ever seen in his whole life. He stares, wide-eyed, and then looks up.

“Qi-ge,” he says, shocked. “You’re rich.”

Qi-ge squeezes him a little tighter. “ We’re rich,” he says, “And there’s more than this.”

More? More ??? Xiao Jiu can’t help but scan the entire treasury, and then leans back into Qi-ge, eyes narrowed, thoughtful. “...How many more?”

“Why, does Xiao Jiu have something he wants?” asks Qi-ge, his breath tickling Xiao Jiu’s ear, and he shoves his face away. Even though Xiao Jiu’s hand is covering his mouth, he just talks anyway. “If Xiao Jiu wants something, I’ll buy it for you.”

Xiao Jiu keeps his hand in place, squinting at him in disbelief as Qi-ge’s eyes crinkle in a smile. After a moment, Qi-ge presses his lips to Xiao Jiu’s palm in a light little kiss and Xiao Jiu rolls his eyes, pulling his hand back and smacking Qi-ge on the shoulder. That feels familiar. “I want a coat,” he says. “Like rich people wear. With animal fur in it so it’s nice and warm.”

“I can get you a coat,” says Qi-ge.

He doesn’t know if he’ll get such a stupidly open offer like this again. “And- I want a bunch of stuff from this room. A bunch of money.” Qi-ge agrees. “I want to change that bedroom. Tear off everything from the walls. It’s ugly.” Qi-ge agrees. “I want to change the whole palace. It’s even uglier.” Qi-ge agrees. “I want a biiiiiig gold statue of me right in the gardens.”

Qi-ge agrees, but that’s when he finally smiles and Xiao Jiu hits him again. “I said if you want something, I’ll buy it for you,” he repeats, laughing a little as Xiao Jiu hits him again and again.

“Stupid! Don’t be stupid!” Qi-ge laughs but his eyes are wet and Xiao Jiu ignores it because Qi-ge is such a crybaby. He remembers Qi-ge crying, and he knows Qi-ge was really crying then because Qi-ge couldn’t fake it. But he doesn’t remember Qi-ge crying a lot before, only a little. But this big Qi-ge seems to cry so much.. But then again Xiao Jiu did. Die. Qi-ge gets a break if he’s more of a crybaby now. If that gut feeling is even correct.

(Xiao Jiu really hates not knowing what is real and what is just something he made up in his head. He wants to remember more.)

He squirms out of Qi-ge’s arms and onto the floor. “I really do want a bunch of money,” he says, and Qi-ge gets a little bag from somewhere, embroidered so richly Xiao Jiu feels like it could even buy Qi-ge, and they put a bunch of coins in it. Having this feels… good. Better. He puts it up his sleeve and Qi-ge promises to add pockets to the inside of his robes and that feels even better.

Just in case. Just in case.

Xiao Jiu is feeling tired again now, and he lets Qi-ge pick him back up and they head back to the room. “I just slept for forever,” he complains. “Qi-ge, are you doing this?” He’ll be mad if he is.

“No,” Qi-ge says, which Xiao Jiu isn’t sure he believes. “You’ve just had a lot happen today.” That’s true, though. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know what to think about everything.

He leans his head into Qi-ge’s shoulder and gets carried back to the room. Qi-ge sets him on the floor and says he’ll get his sleeping robes and that just makes Xiao Jiu stare at him. “You have special robes to sleep in?” he asks, disbelieving. That’s such a waste of money.

Qi-ge looks at him, face scrunched up a little bit and Xiao Jiu turns away, feeling his whole face go hot. “Shut up,” he says. He doesn’t want to hear what Qi-ge has to say about that. Qi-ge was like him when they were little before. He… he remembers, he does, them being filthy and grimy and doing their best to muster tears for the clatter of a coin, one pair of everything to just keep you warm and nothing so wasteful as sleeping robes, so why does Qi-ge look at him like that, like what he said is so... 

There’s quiet for a moment, and then Qi-ge doesn’t say anything and just helps Xiao Jiu get sleeping robes on and he relaxes. Xiao Jiu doesn’t like being helped with the robes, but Qi-ge quietly insists, because he’s never worn clothes like this before. He’s right, but he doesn’t like someone else touching him like this, even Qi-ge. It makes him want to yank away.

Qi-ge is quiet and gentle with it, slow and steady, and then Xiao Jiu washes his face and everything and climbs into bed. It’s big. He touches those strange, soft pillows he woke up upon, and frowns, a little uncomfortable with how… nice this is. Qi-ge hovers. “You used those before,” he says. “Do you like them?”

Xiao Jiu touches them again and gives a faint shrug. They’re weird. Everything’s weird.

Qi-ge tucks him into bed and presses a kiss to his forehead, trembling just a little in a way that Xiao Jiu doesn’t get, pulling back and looking at him with an intensity and a sadness that makes his skin crawl. It’s like he thinks Xiao Jiu will disappear if he looks away, like he’ll blink and this will all be a dream, and Xiao Jiu gets that because he feels that way too but. He doesn’t like it. He reaches out and pinches Qi-ge’s cheek. “Good night, ” he says, with emphasis. 

“...Do you want me to stay?” Qi-ge asks after a moment, looking at him, and Xiao Jiu hesitates.

He and Qi-ge slept together. He remembers that, remembers tucking his face into Qi-ge’s chest and curling up so tightly together there was no way one could be taken without waking the other. It was one of the vivid dreams from this past week. He remembers thinking that, and he’s not quite sure why that was such a worry. Maybe Qi-ge wants that again.

It would be nice. Xiao Jiu liked that, once upon a time, and so he would probably like it again. He also feels weird, being left alone in this strange place, even if this strange place is apparently going to be where they live now.

But Qi-ge is big, Qi-ge is an adult, and part of him feels like screaming at the thought of this new Qi-ge in his bed. “...No,” he says. “But…” He frowns a little. “Can anyone else get in here? Does the door lock?”

Qi-ge reaches over and squeezes his hand, apparently unable to go even a minute without touching him. “No one else can come in,” he reassures. “And if you need me, all you need to do is call my name. I’ll hear you.”

Xiao Jiu frowns at him. “How?”

“I’ve set up a special seal,” he says, which means absolutely nothing to Xiao Jiu. “All you need to do is say my name, and I’ll hear you.”

“That’s the only thing you can hear?” Xiao Jiu presses, feeling his throat tighten a little at the thought, leaning forward. “And you can’t see?” If Qi-ge can see, can watch his every movement and-

“I promise,” says Qi-ge, “That’s all I can hear.”

Xiao Jiu looks at Qi-ge for a long moment more, before he swallows sharply, painfully, and settles back into bed. “Okay. That’s… fine, then.” He likes it and he doesn’t like it. He wants Qi-ge close enough to call for and he doesn’t like the idea that Qi-ge can just… do things like that. Xiao Jiu feels small. He feels like nothing.

“You can go now,” he tells him.

“...Good night, Xiao Jiu,” Qi-ge says after a long moment.

“Night,” Xiao Jiu says, and Qi-ge leaves with one last backwards look, long and lingering, before the door closes behind him.

His head is still spinning from everything that’s happened today. Xiao Jiu feels like his body just wants to lay here and do nothing, but his mind feels like it’s so full it almost aches. There’s no way he can fall asleep quickly.

He’s out within minutes. Qi-ge definitely did something.

“Gege! Gege!” Her voice comes, cutting through the pain. It hurts. He hurts. Every part of him hurts and his mouth tastes like copper and he doesn’t feel like he can move.

Master gives him one last kick and then throws something at his face. Wet. A rag. “Clean yourself up,” he spits.

There’s blood on his face, in his mouth, on his hands, so he cleans them up. He needs to be clean. Clean for Her, for the one respite here, and when he’s clean enough for Her then Master lets her in and she skips forward and takes his hands. They’re warm. He looks down at them and she says something to Master and he feels himself frowning.

Xiao Jiu feels himself frowning.

He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this dream and why is he remembering this dream and he looks up and he locks eyes with Master. His gaze sends a chill down Xiao Jiu’s spine. Master- No. Not Master.

Not…

Qiu Jianluo. Qiu Jianluo.

Qiu. Qiu. Qiuqiuqiuqiuqiuqiuqiu-

Qi-ge claims he didn’t do anything in the morning, even though Xiao Jiu really, really thinks he’s lying. He didn’t think Qi-ge was a liar, but he guesses he never remembered anything that showed he was or wasn’t. Xiao Jiu just… felt like that was the case.

The congee tastes good today, too, and Xiao Jiu gets all dressed up for the day and then goes exactly nowhere. He stays in, and Qi-ge stays with him.

“Why aren’t we going outside?” he asks.

“We can in the evening,” says Qi-ge. “I want to make sure you’re safe, first. I’m having everyone in Huan Hua Palace checked over, to make sure there’s no one who will share that you’re here.”

Xiao Jiu frowns down at his bowl. “How long?”

“Just a few days,” Qi-ge promises. Xiao Jiu doesn’t like that answer, and he guesses it shows, because Qi-ge leans in and touches his forehead, sweeping a few strands of hair away. “I promise. Just a few days, and then you can leave whenever you want.”

He exhales. “Alright.”

There’s plenty to do in the room, anyway, and Qi-ge only rarely leaves him. He is the Palace Master, after all, and he’s checking everyone in the palace, so it makes sense. Xiao Jiu doesn’t like it, and it makes him want to grit his teeth or scream or cry or all three but he doesn’t. He doesn’t.

Xiao Jiu starts with the books. He’s aching for the fans, but Qi-ge is right there and he does want to know if he can read, so Xiao Jiu starts with the books. The first one is a bestiary, all about different creatures and monsters and beasts. He flips through the pages, glancing at the pictures – one with a large wolf-like creature. It has scales, but also a mane and a tail, with antlers on its head? A dragon-wolf, the title says, a demonic creature that’s ‘exceptionally rare’ within the human realm, which has different elemental abilities depending on the specific region it’s from, and Xiao Jiu is about to turn the page when Qi-ge speaks. “Xiao Jiu,” he asks, smiling. “You can read?”

He blinks at him, and then blinks down at the book he’s holding. He… just was, wasn’t he? He squints at the words. ‘Dragon-wolves found in the southern region’- and the words blur and his head pounds. “I-” It hurts. It hurts. He puts the book down and presses his hands to his head, pushes hard against his temples and Qi-ge is moving, pulling Xiao Jiu into his arms.

“Sh- Xiao Jiu? Xiao Jiu?” He feels- weird inside, like something’s moving in him and it makes him want to squirm as it crawls up his body and towards his aching head and then the pain is gone, just as quickly as it came. “Xiao Jiu?” Qi-ge asks again, expression tight and eyes wide and voice filled with clear worry.

“What… happened?” Xiao Jiu asks, because Qi-ge would know better than him.

“I’m… not sure,” says Qi-ge, which isn’t a good answer, and Xiao Jiu presses his face into Qi-ge’s shoulder and just lets himself be held for a bit.

“I don’t want to read anymore,” Xiao Jiu says, and they move onto calligraphy. Qi-ge tries to get Xiao Jiu to write a few basic words by just saying them aloud, simple and easy words, but the only thing Xiao Jiu manages to successfully write are ‘seven’ and ‘nine’. They both look at the words, but Xiao Jiu and Qi -ge don’t say anything. They stop trying out words.

Qi-ge picks out a poem for Xiao Jiu to copy, instead. He leaves Xiao Jiu with that, after a few more worried looks and making sure that he’s okay - yes Qi-ge he’s fine go right now or I’ll hit you - heading out to do… Palace Master business. That’s what Qi-ge responds with when asked.

Xiao Jiu presses his lips together and grits his teeth and tries not to throw his brush at Qi-ge for such a terrible, terrible answer.

The calligraphy is hard at first, but it gets easier. He likes the way the poem moves - the way it reads, the way it shifts and flows, but it’s not… It’s not quite…

He could do better, and he grabs more paper to do such. His brush moves quickly, though not neatly, his small fingers clumsy, and he furrows his brow as he tweaks the poem, just a little necessary criticism, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t hear when Qi-ge reenters.

Qi-ge stands over Xiao Jiu and looks down, eyes crinkling and corners of his mouth lifting. “Xiao Jiu,” he says. “You’re doing well. You remember how to-”

He stops talking, but it doesn’t matter, because Xiao Jiu’s head throbs again and he can’t write anymore and he drops the brush, swept up in Qi-ge’s arms as the weird squirmy feeling sweeps through him. He exhales a ragged breath, Qi-ge squeezing him, and the pain stops along with the weird feeling.

“...When I tried really hard to remember things before, it hurt then, too,” says Xiao Jiu. He hadn’t really thought of it as remembering back then, when he was trying to desperately think up every dream of Qi-ge he possibly could, but now he realizes that’s what it was. Trying to draw up old memories.

Qi-ge presses a kiss to his hair. He likes doing that, Xiao Jiu’s noticed. He hasn’t gotten to do it in… however long Xiao Jiu’s been dead, so he understands. “Okay,” he says. “I won’t draw attention to it anymore, Xiao Jiu, I won’t. Maybe we can figure out something else to make you remember…”

He pulls back, looking down at Xiao Jiu with a furrowed brow and worried eyes. “Did you dream at all last night?” he asks.

Xiao Jiu pushes himself off of Qi-ge’s lap and goes to inspect the paintbrushes. “No.”

“Are you-”

“No.” He glares, and then regrets it and turns back away. He feels like he needs to swallow that feeling down, hide it, not let them know don’t let them know - (who is ‘them’? It’s just Qi-ge) - but he can’t make himself do it. It’s hard. It’s hard.

Qi-ge is quiet for a long moment, and Xiao Jiu wants to know what he’s doing with his face, but he can’t look and it’s not like it would mean much to him, anyway. He’s hard to read. “...Do you want to paint, Xiao Jiu?” Qi-ge asks, and Xiao Jiu nods.

His hands shake a bit too much to really do anything, and he ends up abandoning that idea. Qi-ge reads to him instead, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t go and touch the fans.

There are noodles midway through the day, which are very good. In the evening, Qi-ge brings dumplings, and even though he still feels full Xiao Jiu tries to eat them but ends up throwing up everywhere.

It’s horrible. It’s awful and he ends up making a disgusting mess all over his new robes and in his new room and with this new Qi-ge and he cries. The taste is awful in his throat and it’s a burning feeling and his stomach still churns and he can’t even eat food properly-

Qi-ge pulls off his gross robes and then pulls Xiao Jiu onto his lap and rocks him. He’s crying, too, which is stupid because he didn’t throw up, but he rubs Xiao Jiu’s back and it feels better. “Shh, shh,” he says, his hand big and gentle on him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Xiao Jiu, it was too much for you.”

He rocks him and holds him until Xiao Jiu’s crying settles down to little hiccups. Xiao Jiu feels so stupid, crying over something like this, but he feels so bad and he’s been on edge today from… everything, and this was such a waste of food!

Qi-ge gets him a glass of water to wash out the terrible taste and then Xiao Jiu goes in the bath again. It’s not as nice as the first time. He just sniffles in the water and Qi-ge leaves him alone for a little bit because he has to clean up the room. Xiao Jiu ducks his head underwater for as long as he can and comes up with a gasp and when that doesn’t work, he pinches himself hard. Calm down, he tells himself. Get it together. He can’t afford to be like this, and he exhales shakily and presses his face into his hands. The bottoms of his palms push hard against his mouth, fingertips pressing against his forehead, and he swallows down a scream. Stupid. Stupid. Pathetic.

When he’s done cleaning up the room, Qi-ge comes and helps Xiao Jiu finish cleaning off because he’s always cleaning up after Xiao Jiu’s awful, filthy self. Their evening walk is canceled and Xiao Jiu shoos him off because he just wants to go to bed.

Qi-ge insists on him having some tea first, which does make his stomach feel a little bit better, before he finally leaves. Xiao Jiu waits until he’s definitely gone, and then he slips out of bed. He steps over to the fans, and pulls one off of the shelf.

It’s white, with a bamboo pattern on it. Xiao Jiu runs his fingers over it, very gentle, not sure how fragile something like this is. Was this one of his fans from before? Did he use this one?

There’s a mirror in the corner that he’s been avoiding. It makes sense - rich people are full of themselves and like to look at themselves. Xiao Jiu holds the fan in front of his face, because that’s where it feels like it should go, and he takes a deep breath before he looks at himself.

He looks stupid. Foolish. Small.

Xiao Jiu may be clean, but there is no hiding the hollows in his cheeks. The bones in his wrists, the exhaustion in his eyes. His sleeping robes are simple, but they make the wealth of this room contrast even more. He looks like someone has dressed up a street rat like a doll, and is trying to pass it off as a person.

He would never think this street rat in the mirror owns this fan. That it fits. That it works.

It’s like he’s playacting in ill-fitting clothes and memories. Qi-ge may treat him like he’s the real… big Xiao Jiu, but he’s not. He can’t even go a single day without Qi-ge having to clean up after him, fix his stupid mistakes and deal with his awful self. 

Who was he, that Qi-ge would do this for him? Who was he before, that Qi-ge would deal with his current self?

Qiu. It drums like a heartbeat, slow and steady and then faster and faster. Qiu. Qiu. Qiuqiuqiuqiuqiuqiuqiuqiuqiu.

He puts the fan back on the shelf and runs back into bed.

Chapter Text

The next few days are the same, but better. Qi-ge only brings two meals a day, simpler food, and Xiao Jiu both feels full and doesn’t throw up. He doesn’t… like it, though, that he’s asking for less food, and he sits on it for a day and a half before he asks Qi-ge if he can have some snacks in his room. “Just… in case I want something at night,” he says, feeling like Qi-ge can see every single meaning behind it, every single real truth behind that lie.

It should be okay if he does, because Qi-ge would understand, but he still doesn’t want to admit something like that. “I’ll make you some snacks later,” says Qi-ge, and the next morning Xiao Jiu has an assortment of snacks (many he’s never even seen before) in a box that Qi-ge says will keep them preserved.

Xiao Jiu wants to eat them, but he doesn’t. His stomach thinks that’s a bad idea and he doesn’t want that taste in his mouth again. The box is too big to carry, if he has to run for it. Xiao Jiu tries not to think about that. Xiao Jiu tries not to think about why he’s thinking about that.

Calligraphy and reading and painting go better. Qi-ge tries not to say anything about it, anymore, and Xiao Jiu tries not to think about it either (that’s harder). If he can stop thinking about doing it, and just do it, it comes to him. It’s coming to him more and more when he is thinking about it, too; he’s now able to point at certain characters and read them, or write something he’s actively remembering or things like that.

He’s getting better. He’s getting better.

They go for walks in the evening around the gardens, and Xiao Jiu gets to do whatever he wants. Anything. Everything.

He can climb up a tree and perch in the branches, one that’s too small for Qi-ge to climb up on, and holler down at Qi-ge while he has his arms open, forehead all wrinkled up and mouth tight. Xiao Jiu jumps, and Qi-ge catches him.

If he wants, he can stick his feet in the pond. The only reason he can’t go splashing in is because Qi-ge says some parts are too deep and he’d sink entirely underwater, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how to swim so he accepts that. If he wants to pick the flowers, he can. He picks three yellow flowers, like the ones that Qi-ge said he saw when he found Xiao Jiu, back when they were the littlest they could be, and he weaves them into Qi-ge’s hair.

That’s easier than he would’ve thought, cause Qi-ge’s hair has curls now and once Xiao Jiu figures out how to get them in there, curls hold flowers really well, and everything about this makes Qi-ge cry, for some reason. He always cries. Just quiet tears dripping down his face, and Xiao Jiu wipes them away with his sleeve, shaking his head.

“Don’t cry,” he tells him, frowning hard. “I’m right here. Why are you crying? That’s stupid.”

“It’s because you’re here that I’m crying, Xiao Jiu,” says Qi-ge, and Xiao Jiu just huffs again and keeps wiping at his silly, pathetic tears until he stops.

Qi-ge’s hand is big and warm when he leads Xiao Jiu around the garden, when he even lets Xiao Jiu walk, because Qi-ge keeps picking him up like he’s weak and can’t do anything and it makes him frustrated. “I can walk,” he bites out, glaring.

“I know,” Qi-ge says, smiling just a little as his eyes crinkle. “But I’ve never gotten to carry you like this before, Xiao Jiu. You’re so small.”

“Shut up,” Xiao Jiu tells him, kicking him from where he’s perched on his hip, and he doesn’t let Qi-ge carry him again until the next night.

Qi-ge won’t teach him cultivation, when he asks. “You’re too young, Xiao Jiu, and it’s better to focus on remembering right now.” He asks every morning, about Xiao Jiu’s dreams, about if he remembers anything, but Xiao Jiu doesn’t tell him. If the memories had Qi-ge in them, he would say something, because Qi-ge would already know, but he’s not in any of them.

He’s hurt a lot. People like to hurt him in his dreams. Xiao Jiu thinks they only must hurt him because Qi-ge isn’t there, or maybe if Qi-ge was there, they would have hurt him, too. He doesn’t want to talk about it and doesn’t know if Qi-ge already knows, so he doesn’t.

Xiao Jiu would be so mad if he got all his memories back and remembered that he didn’t tell Qi-ge about those things when they were both big, but had already told Qi-ge now. If they’re supposed to be a secret in the past life, they’re going to be a secret in this one, too. He’s still not good at telling what’s really a memory and what’s a dream, either, so he’s not even certain if they are all memories. He might just be having nightmares.

(He hopes they’re just nightmares.)

It’s three days after that first awful day that Qi-ge tells him he doesn’t have to stay in his room the whole time. Xiao Jiu can’t help but straighten up, eager. “Then I want to go out,” he says, instead of asking if Qi-ge means it—you don’t ask things like that, because then it gives them a chance to take it back.

Qi-ge runs a hand over Xiao Jiu’s hair and smiles. “Starting tomorrow,” he says, and Xiao Jiu slumps a little.

He doesn’t actually know if he’ll like it among these people, if he’ll like it among all the Huan Hua Palace disciples, because if they’re all stupid and rich like how the gold makes their sect seem, then he really won’t. Xiao Jiu frowns down at his noodles. “I need a brick, Qi-ge,” he says. “Or something like that. Hard and heavy.” Actually, Qi-ge is rich now. He’s rich now. “Or can I have a knife?”

There’s a pause. “Why do you need a brick or knife?”

Xiao Jiu looks up at him. “In case they’re stupid or mean,” he says easily.

Qi-ge takes a longer pause at that. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how to read Qi-ge when he looks like this, and he says it slowly. “Because if they’re stupid or mean to you, you will hit them with a brick? Or stab them?” Xiao Jiu nods—doesn’t Qi-ge remember him using bricks? “...if anyone is cruel towards you, Xiao Jiu, this di—lord will deal with them.”

Xiao Jiu frowns at him. “How?” He’s not sure he trusts Qi-ge’s judgment in this.

“Does Xiao Jiu want to help decide?” Qi-ge asks, and Xiao Jiu nods. Qi-ge smiles, and it’s a smile that Xiao Jiu likes. It makes him look like he’ll kill if Xiao Jiu tells him to. Maybe he will.

“Yes,” Xiao Jiu says, and he crawls into Qi-ge’s lap, abandoning his noodles. “Can I still have a knife?”

Qi-ge’s smile gets gentler, less deadly. “If you want.” He does very much want. By the end of the day, Qi-ge gives him a very nice looking knife in a little sheath with pretty embroidered patterns  on it. It matches his money pouch actually, so even though it’s… a bit excessive, Xiao Jiu only makes one disparaging remark. 

He very carefully sets out his robes for the next day, new ones with the requested pockets, Qi-ge helps him pick out a pin for his hair, and he hesitates over the fans. Qi-ge watches him very carefully, and Xiao Jiu picks one up with yellow flowers. He looks at the fan, and then at Qi-ge. “Did I use fans before? Was this one of the fans I used?”

“I had a copy made,” Qi-ge says. “I couldn’t get back into our sect to get them, but… you liked that one.”

Xiao Jiu looks down at it, runs his hands over the pattern. Most of the fans seem to be colors that would go with greens and whites and blues, which makes sense, but this one… yellow. “You gave it to me, right?”

Qi-ge blinks at that, like he’s surprised Xiao Jiu made the connection or something. “What makes you say that?”

“The yellow flowers,” he says. “The flowers were yellow where you found me.”

A look that Xiao Jiu can’t read passes through Qi-ge’s eyes, before he pulls Xiao Jiu into him, hugging him. “That’s right,” he says. “I forgot you remembered that.”

Xiao Jiu rolls his eyes, but leans into him. “Stupid. I remember you telling me that. I can’t remember stuff from when I was just a baby.” Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if he was really a baby baby, but he was too little to remember when Qi-ge found him, thrown out by whatever family he had. Qi-ge had been almost as little.

Qi-ge smooths a hand down his back. “Mm. Well, you’re correct. Do you want to use it tomorrow?” He looks down at Xiao Jiu. “You haven’t touched your fans at all.”

He looks away. He doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t like to think about that and why they just… Xiao Jiu swallows. “What was my name when I was big? When… I was grown-up like you?” He knows he wasn’t Xiao Jiu anymore.

There’s a pause. “Shen Qingqiu,” Qi-ge says. Xiao Jiu closes his eyes. Qiu. Qiuqiuqiuqiuqiuqiu. Of course even his name is terrible. It’s like a dagger to his throat, slicing him open and spilling red. His swallow is painful. He hates it, he hates it, but it’s his name, and he wants it so badly.

He wants to ask if Xiao Jiu is like Shen Qingqiu. If every time he tries to act like he knows this Qi-ge, like this is his Qi-ge and he is his Xiao Jiu, it's clear he's putting on a mask, playing a part. He's an imposter. A fake, in ill-fitting robes.

If he’ll look stupid if he uses a fan.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t ask, though, and just sets the fan quietly with his hairpin for tomorrow.

He doesn’t like people looking at him. Xiao Jiu knows he looks fine, but he still feels like everyone is staring—and they are. Qi-ge had helped him that morning, carefully put up his hair and helped him into robes, wiped his face and showed him the best way to hold his fan (he remembered, but sometimes Qi-ge got to be indulged). He looks fine. He had looked in the mirror that morning, and… it had been okay. Not as bad as before, in the dead of night.

But everyone looks at him, and Xiao Jiu presses close to Qi-ge.

“Are you sure they won’t know who I am?” he hisses, looking up at Qi-ge. He doesn’t want to bring the other sect—Cang Qiong, that was what Qi-ge had said they were called—down on their heads, and he feels like he must be so obvious. Must be so visible.

The people they pass look ordinary, as ordinary as cultivators can look, as Qi-ge takes him on a walk through the halls, but Xiao Jiu is realizing how foolish he was. People aren’t mean to him—they don’t dare approach him and Qi-ge, and simply watch and whisper from afar. Even if they were, the knife he has would do absolutely nothing—ordinary or not, they are still cultivators. He was stupid. Foolish.

Qi-ge chuckles a little, resting a hand on Xiao Jiu’s head as they go towards the gardens. “They won’t think that,” Qi-ge promises. “And even if they did, no one here will go tell Cang Qiong. I checked everyone, remember?”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how Qi-ge could possibly check something like that and trust the answers, but the answer is probably some cultivator magic stuff so he simply asks a different question. “If they won’t know who I am, what will they think instead?” he asks, trying to get the urgency across.

He hadn’t realized that answer mattered until he realized that every single person ever would be watching them. Now it matters!

“Hmmm.” Qi-ge thinks, seemingly intentionally drawing it out, and Xiao Jiu whacks his leg with his fan. This just seems to make Qi-ge happier, which is stupid. “They’ll think you’re some kid I kidnapped because you looked like Sh– en Qingqiu,” he says. (He tripped over that name. Why?)

Xiao Jiu eyes him skeptically. “Really?” he asks. “People know that much about me?” He’s not sure how he feels about that. That they would know him, and think that Qi-ge would do that.

“Maybe,” Qi-ge says, cheerful. “Or maybe they’ll think you’re our secret son, or something.”

That makes Xiao Jiu stop in his tracks, and he stares at him. “What?” He feels ill, all of a sudden, and he takes a small step back. Qi-ge turns to look at him, smile fading. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know what’s on his face, but whatever it is, it makes Qi-ge drop to his knees. He reaches out for Xiao Jiu’s shoulders, and Xiao Jiu lets him touch.

“It was just a joke, Xiao Jiu,” Qi-ge says, searching his face with a quiet intensity. “No one will think that. People might wonder, but they’ll have no real answers.”

That’s not the problem here. Well—it’s part of the problem. Xiao Jiu swallows, his mouth dry, and then swallows again. Maybe he shouldn’t have let Qi-ge touch. He wants to pull away. “Were—Were we—” His voice cracks a little bit, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if it’s from nerves or dryness. “Qi-ge and I weren’t married, right?”

He knows you don’t have to be married to have a kid, coming from the distant corner of his mind where he just knows things, but he doesn’t know what better words to use, doesn’t want to dig for them, so he uses that instead.

Qi-ge stills. He goes impossibly still, fingers digging just slightly into Xiao Jiu’s shoulders. “No,” he says, after a long moment. There’s nothing on his face. “We… It wasn’t like that, between us.”

Xiao Jiu lets out a little, shuddering sigh. He doesn’t know… why that matters to him. If he would marry anyone, if he would tie himself to anyone for the rest of his life, of course it would be Qi-ge. But when he thinks of that and he thinks of this Qi-ge, big and looming over him, he-

He doesn’t feel so great. He takes out his fan and he hides his face.

“Okay,” Xiao Jiu says, very quietly. “Let’s keep going, Qi-ge.”

Qi-ge stands up, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t hold his hand this time.

He feels a bit better, once they spend some time outside. Xiao Jiu climbs a tree and sits in it for a bit, away from everyone and everything. He doesn’t really remember doing this in any dreams or memories, and he doesn’t know if that’s just because that’s not important enough to show up there, if he never did because there really weren’t trees like this, or if he was worried about falling out and getting hurt.

Even now, when he feels weird about everything, he knows Qi-ge will catch him.

Xiao Jiu climbs down eventually and they eat lunch together, from a basket that Qi-ge packed. It’s still quiet, until Qi-ge finally speaks. “I’m sorry if I scared you, Xiao Jiu,” he says quietly. His eyes are shining, wet, but he isn’t crying yet. “It truly was simply a joke.”

Steam rises from the noodles in his bowl, and Xiao Jiu watches it rise in the air for a moment before he speaks. “...I wasn’t scared,” he says, even though he was. “It… I didn’t…”

He doesn’t even have the words to say why he didn’t like the thought. Doesn’t like the thought. Xiao Jiu knows whatever reason is probably buried in the dreams and memories he doesn’t want to remember.

Qi-ge sets a gentle hand on his hand, and Xiao Jiu lets him. “Qi-ge is sorry,” he says, softly. “I’ll be more careful.” Xiao Jiu nods, and he scoots so he can lean into him. Qi-ge wraps his arm around him, and it’s okay.

There’s no other disciples out there, and Xiao Jiu wonders at it. Are they all avoiding them? He won’t complain if that’s the case, because he doesn’t really want to see anyone, and it’s nice to be out in the sun. Xiao Jiu lays on the dirt in a patch of sunlight, closing his eyes as he basks in the warmth, uncaring about his clothes getting dirty, while Qi-ge packs up the food Xiao Jiu couldn’t bring himself to eat.

“Did you miss being outside in the daylight?” Qi-ge asks, and Xiao Jiu lets out a little hum that’s a yes. He’s never been inside so much in his entire life. It’s very strange, honestly.

Footsteps pound, and Xiao Jiu cracks open his eyes, turning his head with Qi-ge as they both look at where a disciple runs into the garden. It’s a woman, big, but that doesn’t really mean much ‘cause everyone’s big to Xiao Jiu. She hesitates, glancing between Qi-ge and Xiao Jiu. “My—My lord,” she says, stumbling over her words, uncertain. “It’s, um, it’s—”

“I understand,” says Qi-ge, and he rises to his feet. He glances at Xiao Jiu. “Stay here, alright? Qi-ge will be right back.”

“Okay,” Xiao Jiu says, and has no plans to do that.

He waits for a little bit, of course, to give Qi-ge time, and then he scrambles to his feet and heads for the exit to follow. Whenever Qi-ge left before, Xiao Jiu had just let him—after all, he didn’t want to go wandering around the halls and let disciples see him, some of which could report him to Cang Qiong.

Now, though…

Xiao Jiu darts over, and is about to head into the palace to follow, when he runs into something. He startles and takes a step back. There’s… nothing? He reaches out carefully with one hand, stepping forward, and encounters a wall. It’s not a wall he can see, and it doesn’t feel like a wall normally would, like a wooden or stone wall that holds up a building, but it’s stopping him from leaving. A barrier.

Huh. Qi-ge knew he’d try to follow?

Xiao Jiu huffs and goes to return to his spot in the sunshine, because there’s no point in trying to get through. He knows nothing about cultivation, nothing that can help him here— because Qi-ge won’t teach him anything— and Qi-ge is big and strong and wouldn’t have made a wall that Xiao Jiu could break. He has time to think, before Qi-ge returns.

If Qi-ge doesn’t say anything, if he doesn’t know that Xiao Jiu tried to leave, then he won’t say anything. Qi-ge is… He searches for the words. Qi-ge cares. It’s very, very clear. Xiao Jiu knows that. He cares and he doesn’t want anything to happen to Xiao Jiu and seeing him die must have been really, really awful.

But Xiao Jiu won’t be a bird in a cage. Not for anyone. Not even for Qi-ge.

He ends up digging out a book while he waits. There’s a lot of books in the bedroom about monsters and creatures and things like that, and Xiao Jiu wonders if he—if Shen Qingqiu—liked them a lot. They’re interesting, sure, but Xiao Jiu wouldn’t say they’re his favorite…

By the time Qi-ge gets back, Xiao Jiu has managed to work through a chapter. Qi-ge steps through the barrier like it’s not even there, like there’s nothing separating the garden and the palace, and smiles at Xiao Jiu. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he says. “I had work to do.”

Xiao Jiu frowns at him. He thinks… he thinks Qi-ge’s robe is different. Just a little bit. He could be just making it up, but he thinks it sits a little differently on him. Tighter, maybe. An older robe…? “What kind of work?”

“Just Palace Master business,” Qi-ge says dismissively, moving to pack up all their stuff.

“What kind of Palace Master business?” he asks. He’s not going to let it go this time.

Qi-ge seems to sense this. He pauses, and looks at Xiao Jiu. Xiao Jiu looks back, meeting his gaze evenly. “...There was an intruder,” he says, which does explain things. It explains the urgency of the disciple, and it explains the barrier. Hm.

“Someone after me?” Xiao Jiu asks.

Qi-ge shakes his head. “No, just someone trying to steal from us,” he says. “We have a lot of treasury rooms.”

Xiao Jiu nods a little bit at that, watching Qi-ge back everything into the basket, and offering his book so that Qi-ge can pack that up, too. “You only showed me one,” he says, and it’s a little bit accusing. If they’re both rich, then shouldn’t he know what they have, too?

“There’s dangerous artifacts in a lot of them, Xiao Jiu,” Qi-ge says with amusement, and gives his head a pat. He offers Xiao Jiu his hand, and after a moment, Xiao Jiu takes it. It’s okay. Qi-ge isn’t scary. “Maybe when you’re older.”

Older. Older older older he always has to wait until he’s older. Xiao Jiu scowls. “And when I have a golden core?” he asks. “Qi-ge won’t teach me anything. How am I supposed to be a cultivator again when Qi-ge won’t teach me that stuff?”

Qi-ge’s face goes a little blank, and though he squeezes Xiao Jiu’s hand as they start to walk, he doesn’t say anything at first. “...Tomorrow,” he says, finally. “We can talk about that tomorrow.”

“We had better,” says Xiao Jiu. He’ll hold Qi-ge to that.

They don’t get any attention when they walk through the halls this time—the disciples are running about, scurrying like ants, and Xiao Jiu wonders if there’s any destruction. Maybe one of those dangerous artifacts went off? He wants to ask, but he has the feeling Qi-ge won’t tell him. It’s annoying.

Qi-ge’s not supposed to have secrets, not supposed to know things that Xiao Jiu doesn’t, and he does. Even though Xiao Jiu trusts Qi-ge very much, it makes this very difficult.

If there’s destruction, Xiao Jiu doesn’t see it, even when he requests that they go to the library. He tries to get a book that seems like it’s about cultivation, but Qi-ge plucks the books from his hands and puts it back on the shelf and no amount of yelling gets it back to him. Not even kicking Qi-ge in the shins.

He gets a stupid storybook instead.

When they get back to the room, he looks around. “You never got rid of the gold and stuff like you said you would, Qi-ge,” he says, plopping on the floor and looking around. “You said you’d let me tear everything off the walls and redecorate. It looks stupid.”

Qi-ge looks at him, amused. Xiao Jiu hates how much like a kid he feels. Qi-ge is so much bigger than him. “Does Xiao Jiu still want to do that?” he asks. Xiao Jiu does, and they do.

Every picture that looks ugly comes off the walls, and Qi-ge uses some paper-thing— talisman —to get the gold off. It flakes off and Xiao Jiu looks at it all disgruntled. “Who uses gold to paint the walls, ” he complains, because even if he’s now stupidly rich because Qi-ge is stupidly rich, it’s such a waste. He doesn’t like looking at it in his room and since people who aren’t Qi-ge are never going to come in his room, what’s the point? “You should’ve killed him just for this stuff, Qi-ge. That Old Palace Master.”

Qi-ge laughs a little, but it’s a surprised laugh. Xiao Jiu doesn’t understand what about that is surprising? Did Shen Qingqiu not kill shitty people?

He doesn’t ask, though. If Xiao Jiu asked every question he ever had then he would do absolutely nothing else.

They get the room to a satisfactory state for now, though Xiao Jiu has to think about what he wants for later—because right now it’s super, super clear they just took everything off the walls and got rid of the gold. Qi-ge tucks him in and kisses him on the forehead goodnight. “You will talk to me about cultivation stuff tomorrow,” Xiao Jiu says.

Qi-ge hums. “I don’t know,” he says. “Xiao Jiu was very stubborn about that book today. It made Qi-ge sad, that Xiao Jiu wouldn’t listen to him.” Xiao Jiu hits him for that, and he chuckles. “Alright, alright.” They say goodnight to each other, and Qi-ge leaves.

Xiao Jiu watches him go, and he thinks. He waits until he thinks it’s been long enough that Qi-ge is definitely gone and is nowhere outside, and then he slips out of bed. He steps over to the door and he looks at it.

In the garden… he understands, even if he doesn’t like it. An intruder. Danger. There was a very good reason to keep Xiao Jiu in the garden, and he guesses the barrier worked both ways. Qi-ge should have told him, there’s no reason to keep Xiao Jiu locked inside because he’s not stupid and he would have stayed, but… hmph. He can accept that, at least.

But here… Qi-ge said that no one can come in. That doesn’t mean that Xiao Jiu can leave, though. Carefully, Xiao Jiu slides the bolt aside. He inhales, exhales, and he pushes on the door.

It doesn’t move.

He tries again—it doesn’t budge. It’s tight. Sealed(?) tight. Xiao Jiu stares at the painted wood as if that will open it, and he tries not to scream. Not even Qi-ge can do this. Not even Qi-ge.

Xiao Jiu presses his hands over his mouth to hold in his sounds, and sits down in front of the door, staring at it. He remembers staring at another door. Every part of him hurt, ached, skin purple and mouth bloody, the only taste apart from dryness, because he had no food or water, nothing but the filth he sat in, the clawing and desperate fear that this was it, that he would never see sunlight again and would die in this room and-

It takes everything in him to breathe.

If Qi-ge will let him free if he asks, then Xiao Jiu will… forgive him. Probably. Qi-ge isn’t in those memories of nothing but darkness and pain and breathing, so maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe.

The fear that he won’t listen chokes him. Xiao Jiu bows his head and tries not to cry.

Chapter Text

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how long he sits there. He can call Qi-ge, he knows that, but he doesn’t want to face that. Doesn’t want… doesn’t want to hear him tell him that ‘ It’s for your own good, Xiao Jiu,’ or something like that, doesn’t want to be trapped in here by the one person he’s supposed to be able to trust.

Besides, he can make it a… a test then, can’t he? Qi-ge said he could only hear his name, spoken in the room. That he’s… that he’s not spying on Xiao Jiu or anything like that.

If Xiao Jiu can stay up all night long, staring at the door, then Qi-ge was telling the truth about that. If he comes early, then he was lying. It’s a good test, even if it means that Xiao Jiu doesn’t sleep.

(He hates this. Hates this. Hates having to test and check and look at everything twice to make sure it’s real and true but that’s just how the world is, isn’t it? If you don’t do that, you’re a fool who will never survive in this world. You’re stupid. Stupid.)

(Xiao Jiu is a lot of things, mean and awful and filthy and terrible, but he’s not stupid.)

He falls asleep, and Qi-ge calls to him through a door —he jerks back awake.

He falls asleep, and Qi-ge stands over a dead body, taller and older, and Xiao Jiu grips the sword, blood on his hands —he jerks back awake.

He falls asleep, and Qi-ge sits beside the bed, presses a hand to his wrist, hand twitching in Qi-ge’s grasp, and he shuts his eyes and feels himself slip away —

Xiao Jiu starts pinching himself every few minutes to keep himself awake, after that. He doesn’t understand the dreams, doesn’t understand the memories. In all of them… he can’t see Qi-ge’s face. He doesn’t know how he was feeling. What he was thinking.

Might not know even if he could see. Xiao Jiu’s never been very good at that.

Because there’s no windows, he doesn’t know what time it is when the door finally begins to creak open. Qi-ge pokes his head in, glancing towards the bed, blinking in surprise at its emptiness, and then he frowns when he casts his gaze about and sees Xiao Jiu sitting where he is. “Xiao Jiu?” he asks. He steps into the room, closing the door behind him, frowning. “Why are you sitting there? What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t know how he looks, what expression is on his face, but there’s definitely… worry in Qi-ge’s gaze. Concern. The way his eyes look at him softly and the way his brows are drawn together… Xiao Jiu glares at him. “You—” He tries so hard not to let his voice crack. “You locked me in!” His eyes feel wet, damp, and he blinks rapidly but doesn’t let any tears fall. No crying. No crying.

Qi-ge visibly hesitates, before he sits down on the floor, kneeling and facing Xiao Jiu. “You tried to get out last night?”

Xiao Jiu thinks Qi-ge doesn’t look surprised, but he doesn’t know if that’s just because Qi-ge already knows from some sort of cultivation way (but if he did, why didn’t he come before now?) or if he just knew Xiao Jiu would try eventually or if Xiao Jiu is just being stupid right now and he is surprised. He nods.

Qi-ge reaches towards him to touch his head, and Xiao Jiu lets him, even though he’s mad. He pats Xiao Jiu’s head and tousles his hair a little. “I’m sorry,” says Qi-ge, which feels right. That’s what Qi-ge always says. “I just want you to be safe.”

Xiao Jiu scowls at him, though he doesn’t pull his head away. “So you lock me in?” he asks. “I’m not stupid, Qi-ge, I’m not gonna try anything stupid. ”

Qi-ge looks at him and raises an eyebrow and Xiao Jiu feels his face flush. “You did try to leave, Xiao Jiu,” says Qi-ge, and Xiao Jiu scowls and pushes his hand off.

“I wasn’t going to leave, ” he insists. “I was just testing to see if I could. ” He folds his arms, tight across his chest. “It’s stupid to lock me up. What if somebody from Cang Qiong comes? I should be able to get out so I can run away.”

Qi-ge’s face goes blank, and then he’s tugging Xiao Jiu suddenly into his arms, holding him tight. “No one will take you from me,” he says. “You’re not leaving me again, Xiao Jiu.”

Xiao Jiu hesitates, but doesn’t pull away from the hug. He whacks Qi-ge on his side with a little fist, though. “I don’t wanna! But you better not lock me up! Keep the door unlocked!” He doesn’t—it’s too much, to try to think about why, to try to talk about why. Even the thought of the words leaving his mouth make him want to bite his own tongue off and choke on the blood.

Qi-ge calls to him through a door, dark, dark, everything hurts, a whisper just louder than his heartbeat as he presses himself against the wood—

He’s held tightly, squeezed against Qi-ge, and Qi-ge is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that Xiao Jiu doesn’t think he’s going to answer and he hits him again. “Qi-ge! If you—” His voice cracks again, and he lets out a shuddering exhale that shakes every part of his body. “If… If you lock me up… I’ll hate you forever. I will. I really will.”

Qi-ge presses his face into the side of Xiao Jiu’s head, and it's damp. He’s crying. Why is he always, always crying? “It’s okay if Xiao Jiu hates me, as long as he doesn’t go,” he says, which is terrible and awful and so stupid and exactly what Qi-ge would say. It’s also a really scary answer, which is why it’s good that Qi-ge keeps talking. “But… I don’t want Xiao Jiu mad at me, so I won’t lock him up.”

Xiao Jiu relaxes into him, the fight draining out of him. “Good,” he says, “Okay.” He’s tired. He’s really, really tired.

A hand smooths over his back. “Why didn’t you call for me?” asks Qi-ge very softly. “We could have talked earlier. You didn’t need to stay up all night.”

His eyes drift closed. “If you said no,” he says, “That you would… would still lock me up, I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to like you for just a little bit longer.”

Qi-ge doesn’t say anything to that, is quiet for a long time, and then just squeezes him.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t fall asleep right away. He’s tired and not happy but that’s Qi-ge’s fault, not his. He reads with Qi-ge, stays in his room because he’s so exhausted, and ends up drifting off on Qi-ge’s lap. No dreams.

When he wakes up, he’s tucked into bed, and Qi-ge is doing work at the table. He looks… serious. He’s quiet, diligently filling out whatever papers are on his desk. No shine in his eye, no smile, no hands quick to touch, just steady working. It’s a strange side of Qi-ge to see—and one that disappears the moment that Xiao Jiu is awake.

Qi-ge is quick to scoop him up—which Xiao Jiu protests but doesn’t REALLY protest—and after eating he’s quick to want to go outside, because he doesn’t think he can stay in that room any longer. They go outside and Xiao Jiu gets a stick and writes in the dirt and it… it feels like he’s done this before, so many times, and he gets a headache and has to sit down.

Just like before, Qi-ge gets called away, and this time—this time, Xiao Jiu sits up and watches him go with intense, focused eyes. Qi-ge hesitates, right before he goes inside. “Xiao Jiu,” he says. “Stay here?”

Xiao Jiu nods. “I will,” he says.

He waits until Qi-ge is gone, and then he goes and tests the door. There’s no barrier. Nothing stopping him. He could follow, if he wanted to. He could go see who this intruder was, see if it’s someone from Cang Qiong.

No , he decides. Not yet. 

Going now is foolishness. Qi-ge will be worried and watching for him. If he goes on his own now, he’ll get caught, and then Qi-ge might… if Qi-ge changes his mind, and decides to lock Xiao Jiu away, he’ll have to start hating Qi-ge. And he can’t have that. Xiao Jiu gives the palace one last look, and then goes to climb a tree.

Staying up there is the best decision because it means that when Qi-ge comes out later, dressed in new robes—he’s definitely positive this time they’re new robes, so did he get… blood or something on him? If so, his or the intruder’s?—he doesn’t see Xiao Jiu right away. He walks out with a smile and then it freezes on his face and it takes everything in Xiao Jiu not to give himself away.

“...Xiao Jiu…?” calls out Qi-ge, and Xiao Jiu stays silent. The smile slips off of Qi-ge’s face. “Xiao Jiu? Xiao Jiu!”

There’s a weird feeling in his body, squirmy and hot, and Xiao Jiu shifts on the branch as Qi-ge’s eyes lock on him. He relaxes and smiles. “Xiao Jiu, there you are.”

“Qi-ge was being stupid,” says Xiao Jiu, and he doesn’t come down just yet.

“I was worried, ” says Qi-ge, as if Xiao Jiu doesn’t know.

Xiao Jiu rolls his eyes. “Yeah. That was the point, Qi-ge. Punishment.” He drops out of the tree, then, and Qi-ge catches him without hesitation.

Qi-ge looks down at him, frowning a little. “Punishment?”

He rolls his eyes again. “When you’re being stupid, you get punished,” he says, and he smacks Qi-ge’s shoulder. “Whatever. Can we go inside and eat now?” Qi-ge didn’t pack food today.

They go back inside so they can eat, and Qi-ge seems to be thinking about things. Xiao Jiu waits pretty patiently at first, eating slowly and chewing each bite carefully to drag out the time, and when he’s finished his whole bowl and Qi-ge still hasn’t said whatever he’s thinking about, Xiao Jiu kicks him. “What?” he asks. Qi-ge looks at him, startled, and Xiao Jiu scowls. “What are you thinking about?”

Qi-ge sets down his chopsticks. He looks over Xiao Jiu, in his Huan Hua Palace uniform, to the fan resting on the table, and meets Xiao Jiu’s gaze. “Xiao Jiu… doesn’t remember a lot, does he?”

He feels hot. Bad. He folds his arms over his chest. “Qi-ge knows I don’t.”

Qi-ge nods a little bit. “I told you… I wanted to figure out a way for you to remember.” He had said that. Something like that. Honestly so much has happened that Xiao Jiu can barely even remember the stuff happening right now. He nods, though. “I did. We could try tomorrow if you’d like, Xiao Jiu.”

That’s… that’s not a lot of information. Xiao Jiu frowns. “...What would we be trying? What did Qi-ge figure out?”

“I figured out a way into your dreams, Xiao Jiu,” he says. “I can try to bring out memories with strong emotions.”

“Why only those ones?”

“I might be able to bring out more,” Qi-ge says, “But not everyone remembers everything. It’s better to start with those, because they will be easier to draw forward.”

Xiao Jiu wants to ask a million questions, but he doesn’t have… have the words for them. Whenever he tries to think about cultivation, tries to make himself remember, all he gets is a huge headache and a few words that don’t mean anything to him. “So you’ll… you’ll go into my head? Will you—will you be able to see the… the memories, too?”

He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that. The idea of Qi-ge poking around in his head is so— he shivers just slightly, and Qi-ge’s eyes lock onto that movement. He speaks slowly. “I’ll put you to sleep—but it’s not a normal sleep, it has to be induced with an herbal tea. Once you drink it and fall into that sleep, I can meditate and enter your dream. From there, I can pick up on your memories—ones with stronger emotions will be easier for me to find. Once I’ve found them, I can make you dream them, and remember them. I… don’t know if I’ll be able to see them or not. Possibly.”

Xiao Jiu chews over that for a long moment. Qi-ge might be able to see his memories. He doesn’t care if they’re memories that Qi-ge was in, because obviously he remembers them. That’s fine. But not all of the memories have Qi-ge in them, and he doesn’t want to give up secrets.

But is it better to never learn to keep things quiet, or learn but have Qi-ge learn, too?

He wants to know. He wants to know who he is so desperately bad his heart aches in his chest. “Okay, Qi-ge,” he says. “We can try tomorrow.”

Qi-ge smiles, and Xiao Jiu tries to give one back.

He takes a bath again because the baths feel nice—it’s crazy that he can just take a bath whenever he wants—and he wants to feel better for tomorrow. Xiao Jiu gets all tucked in and a kiss goodnight and when Qi-ge gets to the door, Xiao Jiu frowns at him. “No locking,” he says.

Qi-ge looks at him for a moment, face blank, and then he nods. “I promise, Xiao Jiu. No locking.” And then he shuts the door.

Xiao Jiu refuses to fall asleep at first. He waits, and waits, and waits. Pinches himself if he thinks he’s going to drift off. And when it seems like it’s been long enough, he scrambles out of bed and goes to try the door. It opens.

He stares out at the dark corridor, and he waves a hand through the air. No barrier. He takes a step outside the door, but keeps one inside. Nothing stops him. Not even when he fully steps outside.

Xiao Jiu slips back inside, closes the door, and frowns at it. He knows that Qi-ge wouldn’t have left him unprotected, but… he still doesn’t like it. (He knows. He knows that when he puts the pieces together they make no sense. He won’t let himself be locked up and yet he wants the protection. A barrier makes him want to scream and yet he wants to block everyone out. He knows, he knows, he knows.)

After looking over the room and surveying the door, he pulls over the table, climbs on top of it, and uses one of the fans to reach up and knock down the door latch to stop anyone from getting in. There. That should at least stop random disciples.

Satisfied, he goes to bed.

In the morning, he has to do the same thing again to open the door and let a knocking Qi-ge inside. Qi-ge doesn’t mention the latch, or the testing (which he must have guessed happened, even if he doesn’t KNOW), and neither does Xiao Jiu. They eat breakfast, even if Xiao Jiu can only eat a little bit because he feels really, really sick and like he might throw up because they’re going to try to summon his memories, and then he pushes the bowl away.

“Qi-ge,” he says, because he wants to get this over with. “Can we do it now?”

There’s a long moment of quiet, before Qi-ge reaches into his robes and pulls out a small satchel. “I’ll make this into tea,” he says. “And then you drink it, okay?” He explained thoroughly yesterday, so Xiao Jiu nods.

He can’t quite watch Qi-ge make the tea–it feels… it feels like a lot, and he looks to the side and studies his fans instead. He doesn’t want to talk. Doesn’t want to… he doesn’t know. Xiao Jiu feels twitchy, like he’s full of energy that’s ready to burst out of him, but he also feels sick to his stomach like when hunger is clawing at him.

Eating sounds terrible, though, so he waits.

It doesn’t take long before Qi-ge is pushing over a cup. Xiao Jiu stares down at it, picks it up in his hands, but he doesn’t drink it yet. “...No matter what he sees, Qi-ge will still like me, right?” he asks, very quietly. He doesn’t look at Qi-ge. “Even if Xiao Jiu is worse than Qi-ge thought, he’ll still like me?”

He knows he’s awful. He knows he’s terrible. He is dirt on the ground, he has filth buried deep in his bones, he is a weight dragging Qi-ge down and he—he thinks that maybe, someday, he’ll be so awful that Qi-ge will want to cast off that weight.

Xiao Jiu thinks that even when he’s Shen Qingqiu, he must feel this way.

Qi-ge makes a sound like a wounded animal, and when Xiao Jiu peeks up, his eyes are wet. “I—I could never not… not like Xiao Jiu,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what I see. I could never.”

He doesn’t believe that. He doesn’t think that Qi-ge is lying, but he does think that Qi-ge… he doesn’t really know. Qi-ge may say that, but it’s not the truth. 

Qi-ge truly believes that, though, and that has to be enough.

Xiao Jiu downs the tea. It’s hot—scalding hot, and he almost chokes on it as he coughs. The world blurs, gets fuzzy, and he can feel hands on him. He flinches before he realizes they’re Qi-ge’s hands, big and thus the wrong size but still Qi-ge, and he leans into them. Xiao Jiu is pulled down until his head is resting somewhere soft, and his hair is gently pet.

He closes his eyes. He dreams.

A child, bleeding. Xiao Jiu hates him. Hates him hates him hates him. Shiwu—yes, Shiwu. He’s bleeding and the hooves come down and Qi-ge is right there, right there, and Xiao Jiu won’t let anything happen to Qi-ge. The coin in his hands becomes a blade and he stabs, blood on his hands as Qi-ge grabs Shiwu and Xiao Jiu grabs Qi-ge and they run, quick, hurry, those eyes haven’t seen him yet—

A door. A door, locked, no matter how much Xiao Jiu tries to force it open, no matter how much Qi-ge pulls, and he can do nothing but press close and whisper, look through the lock to see his face one last time. In the memory he sees his face but now he sees nothing, a blackness a blur and he wants to reach through that door, Qi-ge come fast, Qi-ge please return—

A foot slams into his stomach, a hand hits his face. Over and over until he can do nothing but shake in the corner, shake and spit blood into his sleeves because if he spits it on the floor he’ll just be hurt more, those eyes that face that person looms over him and laughs, Qiu Jianluo, Qiu Jianluo—

When he comes to, it’s all at once. One moment, he’s in that place, he’s cowering against the wall like a weakling, everything hurts and the next, he snaps awake with a little gasp, but his eyes stay closed. He doesn’t want to see anything just yet.

He can hear things that are real, feel things that are truly here. The beat of his own heart. Qi-ge’s breathing, steady and soothing. The hand running over his hair, curling into the strands and combing through them. It’s safe. It’s real. There’s no one here that will hurt him.

There’s pain throbbing in Xiao Jiu’s head, and he blinks his eyes open. The light makes him shut them again immediately and he groans. “Shh, it’s okay,” says a voice that’s too loud, says Qi-ge’s voice, and the thing he’s laying on shifts a little.

Lap. He’s on Qi-ge’s lap.

Xiao Jiu’s body aches, but it doesn’t. There’s no real pain, only the memory of it, the gasp of air as the kick hits his stomach, the blood coating his hand as his knife sinks into the horse’s leg. He feels it, but he doesn’t. It happened, it was real, but it wasn’t now.

He tries again to open his eyes, slowly this time, and the light from the lamps doesn’t hurt as much. Qi-ge is still petting him, and Xiao Jiu lays there for a moment, staring at the table in front of him, before he turns his head slightly to look up at Qi-ge.

Of course, Qi-ge is crying. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know why he expected anything else, but he’s not crying a lot, just crying a bit. Wet eyes and tears gathering up. “Qi-ge,” Xiao Jiu murmurs, and Qi-ge tries for a wet smile.

“Xiao Jiu,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

He blinks slowly, and tries to figure that out. He feels… bad, but not especially bad. He’s had dreams like that before, remembered things that were probably the same or at least similar, and even if that felt more real, more vivid than in the past, it’s nothing… strange. Nothing that’s a surprise.

“Water,” he says, because he doesn’t think he can say anything else until he gets it, and he sits up while Qi-ge pours him some tea. It’s not as hot anymore, but that’s fine, and Xiao Jiu gulps it down. He leans against Qi-ge when he’s done, feeling kind of shaky, and blinks slowly. “...Could Qi-ge see?” He thinks he could, because he’s crying, but honestly maybe Qi-ge just started crying because Xiao Jiu was lying in his lap. This big Qi-ge would do that.

“...I could,” says Qi-ge, and he pets Xiao Jiu’s head once more, hand shaky, and presses a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m sorry, Xiao Jiu, I’m sorry.” Qi-ge sounds like he’s going to burst into real real tears, and Xiao Jiu just turns so he can press the side of his face against Qi-ge’s chest and hear Qi-ge’s heartbeat. It’s faster than it should be, he thinks.

“Qi-ge came back for me,” he says. “Right?”

There’s a pause, and Qi-ge nods. “Yes. I’ll always come back for Xiao Jiu.”

Xiao Jiu thought so. It makes it better, even if it’s still awful. He closes his eyes. “Is… is he dead?” He doesn’t think he can say the name, let it pass through his lips, but if Qi-ge saw, he knows.

“Yes,” Qi-ge says immediately. His voice is… dark. Like if Qiu Jianluo wasn’t dead, Qi-ge would make sure of it, and that more than anything makes Xiao Jiu feel okay. “Xiao Jiu killed him.”

“Good,” says Xiao Jiu. He hopes he gets to remember that. “Can we go outside?” He doesn’t want to talk about the memories. Qi-ge was in two out of three of them, so he already knew, and that last one—

He doesn’t want to talk about it. Qi-ge doesn’t make him.

“Okay, Xiao Jiu,” he says, and they go.

They don’t talk about it at all. It’s a nice day outside, but Qi-ge is very quiet. That’s okay. Xiao Jiu is quiet, too. He works on his calligraphy and puts his feet in the pond and squints at the few other disciples they see—they still don’t approach him, and he’s glad—and when Qi-ge leaves to go do sect business, Xiao Jiu doesn’t follow.

He feels too sick today to do that. Feels too much like he wants to curl into a wounded little ball, claw off his own skin and scream wretchedly until his voice is hoarse, so doing some investigating that might end up dangerous is not something he wants. Sure, Qi-ge definitely won’t be paying attention or expecting it right now, but it still sounds absolutely awful.

So Xiao Jiu waits, and Qi-ge returns and he’s still quiet, and after they go back inside they go to the library just because Xiao Jiu doesn’t want to go back to his room, and then to the treasury room, and then even to the ‘throne room’ where everyone stares at them and Xiao Jiu just glares back. He asks about the prison again, and Qi-ge says no again but it’s a lot less firm than the first time. Maybe he’ll let him, soon.

When they do finally go back to Xiao Jiu’s room, it’s almost time for bed. He gets tucked in by Qi-ge, and then hesitates, before he goes. “Xiao Jiu,” he says quietly. “Should we still try it again? Remembering?”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t look at Qi-ge. He can’t. His gaze slips past him, to everything on the shelves that Qi-ge has gathered for him, for the memory of him, that Shen Qingqiu. The person who Xiao Jiu is and yet isn’t. The one that Qi-ge wants, the one that Qi-ge saved him in memory of.

The one who Xiao Jiu is only bits and pieces of.

“Yes,” says Xiao Jiu. “I’m sure.”

Qi-ge can tell what time the memories are from, sort of, and they don’t stick with just that period of time after that. Xiao Jiu wants memories of being older, of when he is rich and a cultivator and is with Qi-ge and thinks are better, but Qi-ge doesn’t think that’s a good idea.

“Not yet,” he says. “Let’s make sure you remember enough from early on.”

It’s… confusing. Xiao Jiu doesn’t understand why Qi-ge won’t show him his more “recent” memories—which does not make any sense to him, since he already does remember some things—but Qi-ge doesn’t give any better reason to him.

If he can remember things right after the Qius, why can’t he remember things from much later on? If he doesn’t have to remember things in that correct specific order—why can’t he remember the happier times?

There’s never anything happy when he’s in the Qiu household, as he slowly pieces it together. Qiu Jianluo beats him and locks him up and puts on a happy face when he talks to Qiu Haitang. Xiao Jiu—Shen Jiu, Shen Jiu there, but he’d rather be Xiao Jiu still with Qi-ge—learns how to write with Qiu Jianluo, and as he remembers he can read and write better even when he’s not dreaming.

“You were engaged to her,” Qi-ge says of Qiu Haitang. His eyes don’t look happy. “That’s what she said.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t remember an exact moment of engagement, but he can see it in their interactions. “Being with her was the safest I could be there,” he says, and he feels the way he both loathes and loves her and every memory of Qiu Haitang makes him just want to sit in Qi-ge’s lap and be held until his heart settles down.

He remembers a man—Wu Yanzi, his teacher—and he is terrible and awful and yet better than Qiu Jianluo. There is terror in him in almost every memory with Wu Yanzi, and there is so much blood on his hands. Shen Jiu kills, sees eyes go blank and bodies go limp, sees people who seem to be perfectly ordinary and perfectly innocent perish at the hands of Wu Yanzi and Shen Jiu, and Xiao Jiu can do nothing but shake and shake and shake.

“You didn’t tell me anything about him,” Qi-ge says, when asked. “I knew he was your teacher, but… I didn’t know any of this.”

That strikes a cold curl of fear into him, and Xiao Jiu feels like he could burst from the horror of it as he stares. “You didn’t… know? You didn’t know that I—”

Qi-ge’s eyes widen and his words come quickly. “I knew that you killed people,” he says, words almost tripping over each other in their speed. “I knew, I knew. I just didn’t know how your teacher was. I knew, Xiao Jiu.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t even know if that’s the truth, but he’s not going to question it, not going to push it. Even if Qi-ge didn’t actually know until now, if he’s going to lie about it, it just means that this won’t be the final black mark against Xiao Jiu, the final stain on his soul that makes Qi-ge realize he’s worthless.

Qi-ge gathers him into his arms and squeezes him. “You had to do awful things to survive,” he says. “But I’m glad you survived. It was worth it.”

Maybe Qi-ge’s killed many, too, and that’s why he doesn’t care. Xiao Jiu almost hopes that’s the case. He buries his face in Qi-ge’s chest. “Where were you?” he asks. “You came back for me, right? Where were you?”

It takes Qi-ge a long time to answer that one. “I’ll always come back for you,” he says. “I always want you. But we were… separated. It’s… not a good memory.”

That’s a clear avoidance of the question, but Xiao Jiu is well aware—there are some memories that Qi-ge says are big ones. Ones that are more emotional than the rest, and they’ve both mutually agreed that they’re going to be bad. There’s more with the Qiu than with Wu Yanzi, and given how bad the not-worst memories are, Xiao Jiu struggles to even figure out what the worst ones could possibly be.

One is probably the first time he killed someone with Wu Yanzi, they think. Another one has to be when Xiao Jiu kills Qiu Jianluo—he’s relieved when Qi-ge tells him that Qiu Haitang is still alive, even now—which will be sort of happy, maybe, but Qi-ge can’t just pluck those memories out of the bunch and let him remember those and avoid the others (...and he hopes one of the big ones is when Qi-ge comes back for him).

Xiao Jiu still really, really isn’t sure how it works. Qi-ge doesn’t go into any more detail than what he’s already shared, and Xiao Jiu really isn’t of the mind to press something like that, these days. He’s not of the mind to follow Qi-ge when he has to leave Xiao Jiu behind in places, even though there’s nothing trapping him there anymore. He’s not of the mind to ask questions about what Qi-ge does when he leaves, or glare at the disciples that stare at him, or try to push and remember more reading and calligraphy and painting or even try the musical instruments that Qi-ge starts to gather in the corner of the room.

Whenever Qi-ge touches him with no warning, he jumps and he snaps and he snarls. Every time, Qi-ge looks at him with those sad eyes, and Xiao Jiu wants to do nothing more than rip them out of his head because it’s not his fault, it’s Qi-ge’s fault, and eventually Qi-ge stops touching him altogether unless Xiao Jiu touches him first. It looks like it pains him, every time he reaches out and then stops himself, but Xiao Jiu just wants to rip those fingers off his hands.

He can’t sleep, he can’t, even though he rarely actually dreams anymore, because he feels like he’s going to fall into one of those terrible memories, those terrible dreams, and he wants something good for once so badly he presses his palms into his eyes and wonders if he pushes hard enough, he’ll go blind, and then he won’t have to see those awful things anymore.

That won’t stop the pain, though, the ache, the phantom of a kick or the fear fear fear he feels choking him at every waking moment. Xiao Jiu wishes he could just leave his body behind entirely and watch everything like a ghost. Like how Qi-ge does. 

He doesn’t know how Shen Qingqiu was happy. How could he be happy, after this? How? Did everything suddenly start getting better? When they finally got together once more, when Qi-ge was there, did Qi-ge manage to protect him?

Where is he? Where is Qi-ge? Why did he let him go through all this?

Xiao Jiu hopes it hurts Qi-ge to watch this. To see his failures. To see what Xiao Jiu went through when Qi-ge wasn’t there. Xiao Jiu thinks that before, when he was Shen Qingqiu, he must have never truly told Qi-ge the details and maybe he’ll regret it in the future but right now he wants it to hurt him, too. He wants Qi-ge to hurt but he also wants Qi-ge to hold him but he also wants to rip off every limb if Qi-ge touches him.

Most of all, he wants to stop. To let those memories stay locked away.

But Qi-ge is seeking out Shen Qingqiu, wants him back, and Xiao Jiu is only a piece of that person. He can’t stop. He can’t.

“I want to do a big memory,” he tells Qi-ge, and Qi-ge looks tense.

“Are… you sure, Xiao Jiu?” he asks.

Xiao Jiu nods. He’s quite sure. It’s so horrible right now that he doesn’t think it can be any worse, he doesn’t, and he thinks if he keeps putting it off then Qi-ge might not be willing to anymore. He looks more and more upset by the day and Xiao Jiu wants to do it, wants to just force through it and maybe come out on the other side better for it.

“...If you’re certain,” says Qi-ge. “I’ll choose one of the earlier ones.”

It hurts.

There’s breathing by his ear, hot and horrible. He looks at the ceiling and counts the slats, looks at every single crack, gasps brokenly and does not cry, does not cry as his hands curl in the sheets and his back burns against them and—

Xiao Jiu rips himself awake from the dream.

Touching touching touching he’s touching him and Xiao Jiu shoves himself to his feet, takes a few quick steps back, scans the room.

He’s not there. He’s not there. He’s in the room that Qi-ge gave him, in Huan Hua Palace, where no one can touch him where he’s safe and yet he hurts every day here and Qi-ge stares at him with wide eyes so horrified so sad and Xiao Jiu wanted him to hurt like this, wanted to reach into his chest and wrench his heart like this but not— not—

Xiao Jiu can’t breathe.

He clutches at his own chest as everything burns, hot and horrible and choking him, grabs at his throat with his other hand as if he can force it open. Qi-ge reaches for him, saying something and Xiao Jiu can’t hear it over the pounding of his head, his heart, but he can see that hand and he sucks in a shuddering gasp of nothing but fear.

Every part of him is shaking. Every part of him is trembling like he’s going to fall to pieces and he feels like he might, like he might shatter like a teacup swept to the floor, and Qi-ge says something again. He’s moving closer, very very slowly, holding his hands up where Xiao Jiu can see them and Xiao Jiu meets his eyes and he can’t. He can’t.

He turns on his heels and he runs.

Where? Where? Where? He doesn’t know if Qi-ge is right behind him because he can’t hear anything, he can’t look back, he can’t do anything but run and run and run. There are people in yellow and gold and he sprints by them. Some reach out to him, he sees hands— arms— faces—, but he runs and runs and runs. His chest still burns. His legs burn now. He feels like he’s going to throw up and he runs until his mind manages to light upon a place he can go.

Alone. Alone. The treasury room.

Xiao Jiu is able to get in, is keyed into the protections, and he flings open the door and then slams it shut behind him. For a moment, the room is nothing but dark, and it presses down on him in a way that’s worse than being outside and he almost opens the door again before the night pearls embedded in the walls begin to light up. It’s dim lighting, barely there, but it’s enough for him to find his way and to let him breathe. 

He staggers away from the door, further into the room, and finds a corner to tuck himself into. A wardrobe to guard his back, a folding screen to hide himself from the entrance. There’s a mirror, here, and Xiao Jiu glances at it before he’s hiding his wretched face in his knees.

That’s what he is. Wretched and awful and filthy, and he doesn’t— He can’t do it. He can’t remember anymore. He can’t be Shen Qingqiu, can’t be this person that Qi-ge loves so much that he wants him back—

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how Shen Qingqiu could possibly be happy. He keeps his face hidden and he weeps.

He hears the door open. There’s only one person it could be, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t move. Doesn’t twitch. He scoots back a little, tries to hide himself away, but he knows it’s useless. He’s not foolish. He’s not stupid.

Steps echo through the room, a stronger light is visible through his eyelids, and Xiao Jiu just presses his face harder into his knees to block that out and doesn’t move. Heavily, Qi-ge sits next to him, and there’s nothing but quiet for a long moment. Qi-ge doesn’t touch him. He just breathes.

“...I’m sorry, Xiao Jiu,” says Qi-ge, very quietly. “I… shouldn’t have done that.”

Xiao Jiu sucks in a ragged breath. He swallows, and tries to think about what to say. He feels cold, but it’s better than the heat from before. “...I asked for you to.” He still doesn’t look up, still doesn’t uncurl.

“I didn’t know it was that bad,” he says quietly, and that’s something Xiao Jiu expected. Qi-ge would never want to show him something like that. He wouldn’t have asked for it, either, if he knew. It’s okay to not remember what actually happened with Qiu Jianluo, what actually happened with Wu Yanzi, where Qi-ge fits all into this if he can avoid memories like that. There’s no need to remember this.

Honestly, he doesn’t want to remember anything else, but he can’t say that yet. Not… not to Qi-ge.

Qi-ge clears his throat, makes an aborted noise as he tries to talk, and then sighs heavily. “...Six years before you died, you had a qi deviation.” There’s a pause. “It’s… like a cultivator sickness. You had a very bad one, and it left you very, very ill.” Xiao Jiu doesn’t understand why Qi-ge is sharing this, but he listens anyway. “When you recovered, you acted much differently. At the time, I wasn’t sure why. But now…”

Xiao Jiu makes himself look, makes himself pry his face out of his knees and look at Qi-ge. The area around them is now lit dimly by a lantern that sits in front of them, the flickering flame casting light and shadows over Qi-ge’s face. It’s clear he’s been crying, too, eyes red-rimmed and all swollen, and Xiao Jiu swallows. Qi-ge almost reaches out for Xiao Jiu when their gaze meets, but his hand hovers in the air, and he pulls it back.

“I think you forgot a lot of things that hurt you,” he says quietly. “I think that’s why… you acted differently. You forgot a lot of things.”

Oh. That’s why he’s telling him. Xiao Jiu fights hard not to let his face crumple, not to let himself fall to pieces, but tears are gathering in his eyes and he can’t help but exhale raggedly as he tries to hold himself together. “So it’s… it’s okay, if I don’t remember those things?” he asks, very quietly. “I can… I don’t… I don’t have to remember the big things? The bad things?”

Tears start to trickle down his cheeks, and he tries so hard to swallow a sob. “I don’t—I don’t want to remember, Qi-ge, I know you want Shen Qingqiu back, but I don’t want to—” He chokes on it, an animal noise that he can’t suppress, every part of him shaking, but when Qi-ge tries to reach out again he flinches, and Qi-ge freezes.

Qi-ge sucks in a ragged breath, and his own eyes are damp with tears, but he doesn’t cry, retracting his hand again. Good. Someone needs to Not Cry here. “You don’t have to,” Qi-ge says, and he sounds like he means it. “You don’t have to. You don’t have to remember anything other bad memories anymore, Xiao Jiu, I promise.”

That’s good, but—Xiao Jiu swallows, a painful swallow like there’s something hard in his throat, and wipes roughly at his tears. “I don’t… I don’t want to remember—remember anything. Qi-ge, I don’t—I don’t want to do it again…!”

Before he started to remember, he could think about it, and figure out who he was. Try to put the pieces together like a puzzle. When he started to remember and it was all very bad, he at least knew that good was coming, at some point it would end.

But now… Xiao Jiu has more Very Bad memories. More big ones. They could be even worse than the one he just had and he thinks if he has to remember anything else like that again he’s going to throw up and then tear his way out of his own skin.

Even the good things, even when it gets better, whether he gets happier before or after he forgets–Xiao Jiu doesn’t want to. He can’t do it. He doesn’t want to drink that tea and lay his head in Qi-ge’s lap and have Qi-ge look through his memories. He doesn’t want to remember being different, he doesn’t want to remember being older, he doesn’t want to remember being Shen Qingqiu.

He just wants to be Xiao Jiu, right now, but Qi-ge doesn’t—he doesn’t— “But you don’t want Xiao Jiu! You want Shen Qingqiu!”

Except Qi-ge looks like he’s been struck through, like Xiao Jiu slipped that pretty knife out from his pocket and rammed it right into him. He closes damp eyes for a moment, opens them, and then his entire face gentles, softens. He leans over Xiao Jiu just a bit, but doesn’t touch him. “Xiao Jiu,” he says, “Even if you never, ever remember, I will still want you.”

It sounds too good to be true. It sounds like Qi-ge is lying. He furrows his brow and he looks up at him and he wipes at his eyes and cheeks one more time, trying to stop the stupid, stupid tears. “You…You will?”

Qi-ge reaches out very slowly, and Xiao Jiu watches that hand, but doesn’t pull away. He flinches minutely when the back of Qi-ge’s finger touches his face, and Qi-ge freezes once more, but when nothing else happens he keeps moving. Gently, gently, Qi-ge wipes away his tears. “I will,” he says, very quietly. “Even if Xiao Jiu never remembers anything, never… becomes Shen Qingqiu, then I will still want you. I will.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if he believes that. It’s not that he thinks that Qi-ge is lying to him, but that Qi-ge may think that and over time, he will regret it. Change his mind. Want that Shen Qingqiu back that Xiao Jiu fails to be. It’s easy to say that now, but what if Xiao Jiu grows up differently? What if he’s too different? He thought before it was enough if Qi-ge believed that, even if it wasn’t true, but…

He sniffles a little, and then leans into that hand as Qi-ge cups his cheek, his thumb rubbing gently over his skin. Maybe it’s a lie, an unintentional lie, but he’s not going to fight it for now.

“Okay,” he says, very quietly. He wants Qi-ge to hold him, but feels like he’ll scream if he’s touched anymore than he is now. “Okay.”

They sit there for a long, long time. Qi-ge’s hand slowly, carefully migrates to Xiao Jiu’s back, and he rubs up and down. His hand is big, across the span of him, and he’s warm. Xiao Jiu can’t help but hiccup and cry a few more tears and he feels—so—

“Qi-ge…Qi-ge will forget what he saw,” he says quietly, rubbing at his eyes, and he’s pitiful for even saying such a thing but he can’t help it. “Qi-ge can’t remember it. He… he won’t.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t. He didn’t want to talk about the bad memories before unless he had questions, like with Qiu Haitang, and he doesn’t want to talk about this Very Bad One right now. Probably never. Never ever.

“...Alright, Xiao Jiu,” Qi-ge says. “I’ll forget.”

Chapter Text

Qi-ge treats him more carefully after that. Like he’s glass. They sit together for a long time in that room before Xiao Jiu’s finally willing to leave, and even though he wants Qi-ge to carry him so he can bury his face in Qi-ge’s shoulder and hide from everyone’s gaze, hide his red-rimmed eyes, he walks alongside him. He doesn’t let Qi-ge touch him again, either, and Qi-ge doesn’t try.

That’s the real sign that Qi-ge doesn’t forget—not that Xiao Jiu expects him to magically erase it from his memory.

He doesn’t hug Xiao Jiu, now. Doesn’t press kisses to the top of his head or wherever he feels like it. Doesn’t scoop him up, doesn’t hold his hand… He still does touch Xiao Jiu, but it’s very… deliberate, Xiao Jiu thinks that’s the right word. He always moves slowly, makes sure he’s within view, and pulls away the moment he thinks it’s an unwanted touch.

Qi-ge also stays outside the bathroom when Xiao Jiu takes a bath, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t even have to tell him to. When Xiao Jiu comes out later, eyes red-rimmed from crying in the tub, he doesn’t say anything about that. (At least he doesn’t dream at all, nowadays, because Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if he’d have enough tears for them as well.)

When Xiao Jiu tells him to leave, he leaves. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how far he goes—for all he knows Qi-ge is just sitting right outside his door—but he still leaves. Xiao Jiu can be alone as much as he wants, and Qi-ge won’t push him. He doesn’t have to talk to Qi-ge at all, and Qi-ge won’t push him.

For the first time in his life, Xiao Jiu wishes there was someone else with him. He doesn’t… he doesn’t really ever remember, having anyone else. He thinks there was a woman, when he was younger, in that first life. He vaguely remembers being held by a woman, someone who was soft and older, but it wasn’t his mother because Qi-ge was there, too. There was Qiu Haitang, but that was… that was different, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t want to think about the Qius, doesn’t want to think about that at all. That’s it.

Otherwise, he only remembers Qi-ge. Just Qi-ge. No one else. He wants someone else to speak with, wishes he had another person because with Qi-ge he feels so… he feels so uncertain, and he wants to be with someone who truly doesn’t know. Who is clueless, who knows nothing, who has not seen glimpses of his old memories or seen the filthy parts of him that he can’t scrub away.

And yet, had he not just told Qi-ge he wished to remember nothing? That he didn’t want to know the difference between him and Shen Qingqiu, to have this person he could never truly be held up before him?

He is always like this. Always like this. Wants to be held, but will rip off the hand that touches him. Wants to be safe, yet hates every effort Qi-ge puts in to make him so. Wants Qi-ge, but doesn’t, wants to be Shen Qingqiu, yet doesn’t, wants to know who he has and yet doesn’t want to remember and- and- and—

Xiao Jiu wants to know. At least this. It’s a small enough question that it won’t swallow him whole, but important enough to eat away at him, and he thinks… even something like this… can it be that bad? Even for him? He can have one good thing in Qi-ge, the world’s allowed him that, no matter how it tears at him, so maybe he can have two?

(And if he’s wrong, if this question is as painful as everything else, he’ll truly never ask anything ever again.)

So he asks. “Qi-ge,” he speaks up quietly. He has a brush in his hand and an empty page before him—calligraphy isn’t going well. Qi-ge doesn’t push, though, never pushes, and just watches him. Xiao Jiu looks up and meets his eyes. “On Cang Qiong, did I have… friends? Aside from Qi-ge.”

Xiao Jiu isn’t sure what the face Qi-ge makes means, but after a moment, he nods. “You were a teacher,” he says. “Your disciples cared for you a great deal.”

He was a teacher? Really? Xiao Jiu has always thought he was smart, but to teach… He sets down the brush, and considers this carefully. “Tell me about them.”

“Your disciples?” Xiao Jiu nods. Qi-ge presses his lips together, thinking carefully. “...you were a good teacher to all of them. They cared for you,” Qi-ge says, “But there were three that were your favorite. Ning Yingying, you’ve always been very close to. I think… you’ve known her for a long time.”

“You think?” Xiao Jiu asks, even as he tries to run that name over in his head. It feels familiar, in the way that so many things do, like he’s heard them in passing but doesn’t truly know them.

“They were your disciples, not mine,” he says. “I didn’t see them much. But she was cheerful, sweet, and you were close to her. There was also Ming Fan, one of your most senior disciples. He was always… obedient, and listened well to you.” For all Qi-ge claims to not know them well, Xiao Jiu is amused to hear just a bit of a bias in his tone. It’s clear who Qi-ge likes better, between the two.

That makes sense, though. Xiao Jiu likes women more, too, so it’s nice to know that Qi-ge agrees with him. Obedience is good, too, so that also makes sense. “And the third disciple?”

Qi-ge is quiet for a long moment. Xiao Jiu looks at him, brow furrowing as the time shifts, and Qi-ge doesn’t look at him. He stares at the floor and his expression is unreadable and Xiao Jiu doesn’t like that. “Qi-ge? The third disciple?”

“His name was Luo Binghe,” Qi-ge says quietly, and he looks at Xiao Jiu with a gaze so sharp and focused it feels like it cuts right through him. Is he expecting something? A reaction? It sounds familiar, but in the same way that Ning Yingying’s name sounds familiar, or Ming Fan’s. Nothing special. Qi-ge seems to see that, and speaks again, quicker. “He was your personal disciple—you were very close to him. He lived in your home with you, and you… favored him.”

That doesn’t… that doesn’t sound like him? Xiao Jiu doesn’t know Shen Qingqiu, doesn’t know his future self, but the idea of someone living with him… Now that he has his own space, now that he understands what it is to have something of his own, he can’t imagine going back. Maybe, maybe, he could stand to share with Qi-ge, but only if he has somewhere he can go to when he wants to be alone, like right now.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know what to say to that, if he even should voice such thoughts, so he just nods slowly. “Okay… Are they all on Cang Qiong right now? Will they…” He doesn’t know what he wants to ask. Will they come after him? Would they be happy to see him again? What?

Why aren’t they here? If Xiao Jiu cared about someone and they died, he would bring them back, find them once more. That’s what he’d do if it ever happens with Qi-ge which he does not want to think about. These were his students, his favored students, and they’re… not here.

“Ning Yingying and Ming Fan are still on Cang Qiong,” Qi-ge says. “Luo Binghe… I don’t know where he is, now.”

They’re still there? Of course. Of course they are. How dare they claim to care about him, and then cast out Qi-ge for trying to bring him back. How dare they. If they really cared, they would do the same.

What use is his closeness to Ning Yingying if she’s on Cang Qiong, forgetting him? What use is Ming Fan’s obedience if he won’t stay obedient after death? But Luo Binghe, the most favored of them all…

Xiao Jiu pauses a little, considers him. “Did he leave when I died?” Was he still loyal?

“Around that time.”

“Hm,” says Xiao Jiu, and that’s all he says. He needs more information before he can decide anything. So he asks for it, and Qi-ge answers him.

He spins fantastical tales of missions that sound like something out of a storybook, with Shen Qingqiu as the leading role, as the hero. Of lessons that Qi-ge observed him teaching, of how the students flocked around him and hung on every word. Poetry that he had written, as well. He even reveals that Shen Qingqiu had saved Luo Binghe’s life from a poison, even though it had greatly harmed him.

Xiao Jiu is kind of stunned by that. Well, not kind of—he’s absolutely shocked. “I did?” he asks, wondrous. How can he be this Shen Qingqiu at all? How can that be him? If he didn’t remember things, did that change him this much? Because Xiao Jiu doesn’t remember his past now either, and yet…

“You did,” Qi-ge confirms, watching him carefully. “You’re that surprised, Xiao Jiu?”

He nods quickly. “I thought—” Xiao Jiu pauses, figuring out how he wants to say this. He has thoughts too big for his words, sometimes, too big for his tongue. “If I could save somebody and I knew it would hurt me, then I’d save you. But that’s it.” Qi-ge was the one who would save anyone, not just Xiao Jiu, which he didn’t like but since he would still save Xiao Jiu, it was okay. “I must have really liked him.”

Why? Why did he like this Luo Binghe? He wants to meet him. He wants to know.

“You must have,” says Qi-ge very softly. Then, abruptly, “Let’s go outside for a walk.”

Xiao Jiu accepts the topic change for what it is. He’s not sure why Qi-ge is so reluctant to talk about this Luo Binghe—is he jealous? Xiao Jiu hopes it’s that, greedily, because it would be so lovely to have Qi-ge being possessive even if it also frightens him—but Xiao Jiu isn’t sure what he even wants to ask, so it’s fine, anyway. It’s not like Qi-ge could have read Shen Qingqiu’s mind, and if he knew why, he probably would share.

Qi-ge is willing to share more stories, mostly just stories about his students, though he doesn’t share any names. He doesn’t really want to talk about the other teachers or the non-disciples from Cang Qiong, and there’s definitely some anger in him when Xiao Jiu asks about them. Probably because they kicked him out.

Even from Qi-ge, seeing anger makes him twitch. Makes him go still and cold, body shifting backwards slightly, readying to move. Qi-ge sees that. He reaches for Xiao Jiu, stops, pulls his hands to his side and exhales slowly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t… want to talk about them. I’m not mad at you.”

Xiao Jiu knows this, he does, but it doesn’t make the ice inside of him melt. “Okay,” he says. “Tell me… a story about something else, then.”

And Qi-ge does.

He wonders, of course. He always wonders, with all the secrets. It’s strange, to feel as if you can trust someone so much, so profoundly, and yet not trust them at all. Xiao Jiu knows and trusts that Qi-ge will never hurt him, even if he gets scared sometimes. He trusts in Qi-ge’s love, in his care, in his affection.

And yet… Qi-ge still won’t say how he died, exactly. He won’t fill in the gaps in his memories—not that Xiao Jiu wants much of that, these days—not even about himself. He rarely will speak of him and Shen Qingqiu on Cang Qiong, and it takes much coaxing from Xiao Jiu for the times that he does. The disciples are an easier topic, for some reason. He won’t speak of the peak lords, won’t speak of Cang Qiong, and the one time Xiao Jiu attempted to speak to another disciple here at Huan Hua Palace, slipping out of his door during one of the times he sent Qi-ge away and engaging with the first one he saw, it didn’t go well. The disciple looked terrified, stumbled over his words, and fled. Qi-ge showed up just moments later, and Xiao Jiu didn't try again.

He needs to know. He needs to figure this out.

Xiao Jiu waits until they’re not in his room when Qi-ge is pulled away again. If he was in his room even without Qi-ge, maybe Qi-ge would know he was snooping. He still doesn’t trust that there’s absolutely nothing spying on him there, even if he’s clearly not being prevented from going outside anymore. (It makes him kind of mad to think about, but he also knows if he had a way to Track Qi-ge At All Times, he would do it, so he’s not… that mad. He wouldn’t be mad at all if they were both tracking each other. Then it’s just fine.)

So when they’re reading in the library, Xiao Jiu waits just a little bit (Qi-ge is a cultivator, he’s fast), and then he slips out to follow.

It’s not overly difficult. He wanders a bit at first, and then follows the noises. It’s loud. Fighting, and he hurries.

When Qi-ge had left for “Palace Master Business”, that first day in the garden, he had told Xiao Jiu it was an intruder. Xiao Jiu hasn’t asked again, but he thinks.. it’s always an intruder that he’s been dealing with, almost every day when he slips away and returns with robes that are just slightly different. Does someone from Cang Qiong come every day, without ceasing, all just to kill him? It's not a thief, when it happens this routinely, Xiao Jiu isn’t stupid.

The scene he bursts into seems to confirm his thoughts.

They’re outside—outside the front door, maybe, Xiao Jiu hasn’t exactly been shown the way to LEAVE Huan Hua Palace which is not something that went unnoticed—where Qi-ge is fighting another cultivator. They’re fast—too fast for Xiao Jiu to really make out any details, really understand how the fight is going, but he can see some things.

First – Qi-ge is winning. This is a little hard for him to determine, because they’re moving so quickly, but the unfamiliar (or is he?) cultivator is bleeding and it doesn’t look like Qi-ge is. So he’s probably winning.

Second – there’s a strange, red mark on Qi-ge’s forehead. It’s not one that Xiao Jiu’s seen before. Qi-ge, overall, looks a bit… inhuman. He grins, and his teeth look… sharper. His hand gripping his sword seems like it has clawed fingers. And what a sword that is! Xiao Jiu doesn’t know anything about swords, about cultivation swords especially, but it seems strong and powerful and honestly kind of scares him. He doesn’t know why. Something about it feels bad.

Third – Xiao Jiu is in the way.

There’s no one else out here, not a single person, and maybe Xiao Jiu should have looked at that and realized that it meant he shouldn’t be here, but he didn’t. Qi-ge doesn’t know he’s here and when the unfamiliar cultivator sends… some sort of light? Attack? Thing? at Qi-ge, he sweeps it aside without thinking about it, blocking with his sword and sending it off to the side, and, well.

Xiao Jiu is right there.

It’s so quick, so fast, he doesn’t even have time to cry out or to fully realize it. One moment, he’s there, a quickly growing blinding light filling his gaze, and the next, he’s in someone’s arms.

They’re not Qi-ge’s arms. It takes him a moment for that to sink in, for his eyes to blink away that light and realize the robes he’s desperately clutching aren’t the usual red and black that Qi-ge wears, but the white and gray of the unfamiliar cultivator. Xiao Jiu looks up—and he looks… he looks…

The man staring down at him looks slightly bewildered, brow furrowed and gaze intense. Xiao Jiu… knows him…? He knows him. There’s a sense of recognition, of deja vu, of something bubbling up inside him and he thinks he’s… angry at this man? Furious, at this pretty-faced man staring down at him? He knows him.

He feels more of a sense of knowing than he did when he met Qi-ge, feels more like he… like his name is right there, just out of reach. Xiao Jiu lets that feeling rise up. He wants to hurt him—wants to stab the other, wants to go for his knife and let it sink into his flesh. Not to kill, not to kill, but just to wipe that expression off his face, to make him change, arrogant arrogant arrogant—

“Put me down!” he yells, and struggles against the cultivator, but he just holds him tighter.

“Who are you?” he asks. The man looks at him and then he looks at Qi-ge. “Why the hell is there a brat here?”

Xiao Jiu looks at Qi-ge, too, seeking some kind of help—and flinches, just a little. Qi-ge looks…

Just the other day, Xiao Jiu had seen Qi-ge angry, and it had frightened him. He doesn’t like anger—only he can be angry, or he can wield it, no one else is allowed to. Especially Qi-ge. But right now, Qi-ge is furious.

“Put him down,” snarls Qi-ge, he actually snarls, and Xiao Jiu can’t help but shrink back a little bit, back against the cultivator that holds him. Not to get away, but— yes, to get away, and not because this cultivator will shield him- but maybe he will—

The grip the stranger has on him tightens. (But not a stranger, Xiao Jiu doesn’t know who he is, but he knows that Shen Qingqiu must have known him because he hates him and he doesn’t feel like the man will stab or hurt him but oh does he hate.) “Who is he?” snaps the man, and Xiao Jiu risks a single glance up at his face but can’t read him at all, can’t tell what he knows, if he knows anything, and then Xiao Jiu looks back at Qi-ge and his breath catches in his throat.

The look on his face is terrifying.

Qi-ge’s face is twisted, is like an animal’s, is so much that Xiao Jiu wishes he didn’t remember anything from this moment, that he had never followed. Qi-ge trembles with it, and Xiao Jiu already felt like the sword was bad—now he feels like that whole feeling is sweeping over him, over everyone and everything and it makes him choke, makes his entire body shake and he feels like it’s going to tear him apart, rip him to pieces, scatter those in a dark place where no one can find him and where he’ll rot, forgotten forgotten forgotten.

He can’t see. He can’t feel. He can’t hear. Everything is dark. Everything is dark dark dark and everything is hot, there’s a burning inside of him and Xiao Jiu can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, his hands coming up to clutch at his head and nails digging into his skin and his vision is going white now instead of black and there’s something ringing in his ears, a strange chime as blue flickers flickers flickers, a strange distorted voice that’s just out of reach—

“—Jiu. Xiao Jiu. Xiao Jiu.”

Over and over again, echoed a thousand times, a different voice slips through the noise. A familiar one. Qi-ge’s voice. Not urgent, not desperate, but quiet and tired. Again and again and again. “Xiao Jiu. Xiao Jiu. Xiao Jiu.” His voice pauses a moment. “I’m sorry, Xiao Jiu,” he says. “I’m sorry. I keep messing this up. It’s okay. Nothing will hurt you now. It’s okay. Xiao Jiu. Xiao Jiu.”

The words sweep over him, but Xiao Jiu doesn’t really… understand. Not quite. It’s Qi-ge, he’s got that much, and he’s calling for Xiao Jiu. Okay. Okay.

His other senses slowly return. He’s surrounded by warmth—Qi-ge is holding him. One hand is gently rubbing his back, the other arm wrapped around him and clutching him tightly to Qi-ge’s chest, hand buried in Xiao Jiu’s hair. It’s uncomfortable, honestly, pressed against him so tightly, his cheek against Qi-ge’s… chest? Maybe?

That man had him, that cultivator who he hates, and then Qi-ge- and then Qi-ge— Xiao Jiu’s breath hitches a little, feeling a tremor go through him, a shiver like when the sun sets and takes its warmth away, and Qi-ge’s hand and voice still for a moment. “Xiao Jiu?” he asks, quietly, and Xiao Jiu can hear him and now even understand him but he can’t bring himself to say anything, and when he opens his mouth all that comes out is a sob.

Qi-ge hushes him, holds him close and squeezes him tightly and whispers assurances that Xiao Jiu can barely hear. He feels hot and cold all at once, terrified but tired. Xiao Jiu doesn’t… hurt anywhere, but the exhaustion in him is so strong it’s almost painful. He feels terrible. He feels disgusting. He feels small.

It hurts, to hiccup, to let his tears curl out of him, every touch of Qi-ge like a burn and he remembers what Qi-ge looked like and he can’t bring himself to open his eyes and try to see through his tears. He can’t. He can’t. Xiao Jiu never wanted to cry again, never wanted to be this weak and he can’t remember if that promise is from this life or when he was Shen Qingqiu and if it’s the second one then he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want it especially since he’s broken it so many times and Xiao Jiu pushes it aside and he cries and he cries and he cries.

Qi-ge holds him. Qi-ge’s own tears hit his head, and he doesn’t let him go.

Eventually, he runs out of tears. Eventually, he can’t cry anymore. Xiao Jiu opens swollen, bleary eyes, and takes everything in. He’s staring at red and black, because Qi-ge is holding him. Except it’s more red, now, because of dried blood and when Xiao Jiu pulls back a bit to look, he can see more and more of it. Dried blood on Qi-ge and dried blood on Xiao Jiu, dyed red red red and-

—there’s a sword in his hand, smoke in the air, Qi-ge isn’t coming and they deserve it, every single one, he’s choking on his hate hate hate and his fear fear fear and he can’t tell where one ends and the other begins—

Xiao Jiu wrenches himself away and he throws up.

He throws up once, on his hands and knees on the floor, getting it all over the floorboards that stare back at him but at least not on himself, and then he gags over it but nothing else comes up. After a moment, Qi-ge’s hand rubs his back, and though Xiao Jiu shudders he doesn’t pull away.

It’s disgusting to just look down at it so Xiao Jiu closes his eyes and tries to breathe before he sits back on his knees and looks at Qi-ge, finally.

He looks… normal.

There’s nothing odd about him. No strange features, no anything, no nothing. He looks just like normal Qi-ge, eyes red-rimmed and still filled with tears from his easy crying – as Xiao Jiu watches, another tear drips down his cheek. There’s dried blood on his robes, but now that Xiao Jiu is slightly further from them, it’s not as obvious as the blood splattered on Xiao Jiu’s golden ones. Qi-ge looks like a mess, but he looks very… very human, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t know what he would have preferred to wake up to.

This makes him just feel like he’s losing his mind. Maybe he is. Maybe he is. He feels like no matter what he does, he just gets worse and worse and worse and maybe he should just start over and let Qi-ge find the new him and take everything learned here to help, but Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if he could actually take a blade to his throat.

They’re back in his room, back in this place that feels like both a prison and a comfort, and Xiao Jiu wonders how long he was—like that.

He doesn’t know what that was. He doesn’t know if Qi-ge knows what that was. He doesn’t know if he’s just a broken person like he always has been or if trying to make him into the one that Qi-ge wants (even if he says he doesn’t) has broken him even further. Qi-ge looks at him and Xiao Jiu looks back before he squeezes his eyes shut. “Is he dead?” he asks, voice small.

It’s the cultivator’s blood, right? It’s the cultivator’s. Xiao Jiu has never cared if Qi-ge has killed countless people before, has never cared how much blood is on his hands because clearly it covered Shen Qingqiu’s, clearly you must do anything to survive, but for some reason—some reason, now… “No,” says Qi-ge, and Xiao Jiu jerks and then stares at him.

“What?” he asks. “Why?”

Qi-ge hesitates. “You… were friends with him,” he says. No wonder Qi-ge hadn’t wanted to talk about anyone other than the disciples. But it’s so different from what Xiao Jiu felt while seeing the man that this feels… off. Wrong. Xiao Jiu knows he’s terrible, knows he thinks terrible things about people, and even if that man was his friend he could definitely do terrible things to him.

(Sometimes he wants to do them to Qi-ge. He could, right now. Could lunge at him and tear with his teeth, claw at his face, sink his knife into Qi-ge’s chest and see if he’ll show off that strange side, that inhuman side, see if he’ll claw at Xiao Jiu right back—and he thinks if Qi-ge makes him bleed it will be a better pain than everything that twists and turns inside of him.)

But if he was his friend, even if he wanted to hurt him, shouldn’t there have been… something more? Anything? He felt hate and he wanted to hurt but it’s not like how he hates and wants to hurt Qi-ge, it’s not the same, and for him to call him a friend… And… and he didn’t… “He didn’t know me,” says Xiao Jiu, very quietly.

Qi-ge’s eyes… Xiao Jiu can’t tell what expression they hold, what’s inside them. “No,” he says, very carefully. This Qi-ge lies and lies and lies, Xiao Jiu thinks, and he hates every moment of it. “I doubt he would think I would be able to find you.”

Even if he doubted, wouldn’t he then realize what happened, immediately? Even if he questioned, wouldn’t he still consider it? If he thought he couldn’t find him, then why would he attack?

Xiao Jiu has to pick the least painful question here, pluck from the thousands that swirl within him always and pick the one he thinks will help him the most, if anything will. “Qi-ge,” Xiao Jiu says, swallowing sharply. “Why was he here? Really?”

A single person attacking just to attack made no sense. If he wasn’t here for Shen Qingqiu, if he didn’t know that Qi-ge found him… Xiao Jiu frowns at him. Qi-ge looks away. “...We’ll clean up, and then I’ll show you,” he says.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t say anything, but he manages to get to his feet, wobbling his way into some sort of stability, and goes to wash up. Qi-ge follows him, if only to set up the bath, and Xiao Jiu hates him for following but also is glad for it because Qi-ge remembers to grab new clothes. When he leaves Xiao Jiu strips and climbs in and he lets himself sink into the warmth.

Maybe he should drown himself. Maybe he could just stop breathing and sink underneath. It would be less painful than slitting his throat, right? It would be quicker? No blood. No blood.

He doesn’t want to see blood ever again.

Xiao Jiu does try it, for a moment. Holds his breath and slips beneath the hot water, but he can’t do it. He can’t. He can’t.

It feels so stupid, to give up now, when he has everything at his fingers. He’s just so- so- so terrible and broken he can’t deal with it properly.

Qi-ge is here. He’s in charge of a whole sect, and will teach Xiao Jiu to cultivate when he gets old enough. They’re rich and wealthy and Qi-ge is strong enough to put a stop to anyone who tries to hurt them, or take Xiao Jiu away, or anything like that. No one can touch them. No one at all.

And yet he’s like this.

He makes himself get out and get ready, making sure to empty the pockets of his old robes, his coin purse clinking as he slips it into his new pocket, but he decides to hold onto the knife in his hand this time just because it feels better. Qi-ge is already changed into new robes when he emerges, and the floor is clean as well. Xiao Jiu looks at where he threw up, and then looks away, hand squeezing the knife.

Disgusting. Terrible. Terrible.

“Is Xiao Jiu ready to go?” Qi-ge asks, very softly. If Xiao Jiu thought he was being treated like glass before… he doesn’t know what will change now. He nods very slightly. “Can I… carry Xiao Jiu?” He pauses, and then nods very slightly again.

Carefully, slowly, as if ready to pull away at any moment if Xiao Jiu changes his mind, Qi-ge bends down and picks him up. It’s warm against him, the way that Qi-ge holds him. It’s different from that other cultivator. Xiao Jiu rests his head against Qi-ge’s shoulder, and exhales heavily, a shuddering sigh that goes through his whole body. “What was his name?” he asks.

Qi-ge doesn’t pretend to not understand, though he stills a little before he opens the door. “Liu Qingge,” he says.

He knows that name. He knows—sword pointed at his neck, arrogance in those eyes, hate hate hate burning inside him, grasping and grabbing and maybe he’ll just kill—that name.

Xiao Jiu buries his face in Qi-ge’s shoulder.

It’s quiet for a long moment, footsteps in the halls, until Xiao Jiu hears a voice. “-aster! Palace Master!” It’s a young woman’s, firm and demanding, and Xiao Jiu looks up. There’s a lady wearing pink instead of the usual gold here—though there is still some, tucked in the rich robes she’s wearing. She’s headed towards them down the hall, and looks angry, another lady in gold trailing behind her. She yells at Qi-ge to stop, damn him, that she needs to talk to him, but Qi-ge doesn’t say anything to her.

Instead, he gets tense underneath Xiao Jiu. “Close your eyes,” he says.

“Are you going to make me go to sleep again?” Xiao Jiu asks. He didn’t like that when they met, that Qi-ge did that. He won’t like that now.

“No,” says Qi-ge, even as the two of them watch another woman in gold emerge from an adjoining hall and sprint towards the other two. “Just close them.”

“...Fine.”

He does, because it’s okay as long as Qi-ge doesn’t put him to sleep, and he feels Qi-ge move. Fast, quick, and he must have had to close his eyes because he can feel the wind pushing against him. How fast are they going? He can’t really hear anything—he thinks he hears a shriek, but maybe that’s just his imagination, though he kind of hopes it’s a shriek because that would be funny—and then Qi-ge slows down, Xiao Jiu can feel it, so he opens his eyes.

They’re in a new part of the palace, a part that Xiao Jiu’s never been to before, in one of the outside hallways, and none of the women are anywhere in sight. He takes a moment, staring straight ahead, and then looks up at Qi-ge. He doesn’t look winded, of course, but he does look… awkward, maybe, is the right word. Annoyed.

Qi-ge looks down at him and Xiao Jiu looks up at him. “...Did you just run away from them?” he asks.

“Yes,” says Qi-ge.

“Aren’t you in charge?”

“...Yes,” says Qi-ge.

Xiao Jiu feels like laughing. It’s so stupidly absurd, after… not even just after today, which has been awful, but after everything, because Qi-ge just sprinted away from his own disciples for- for- Xiao Jiu can’t even imagine for what reason, cannot even begin to grasp why he would run and—

He can’t help it. He laughs.

It’s not really the good kind of laughing. Not the kind of good laughing he’s seen others do, that he’s never ever really done himself. There are tears in his eyes because he’s crying again too because he’s terrible like that, and he feels like he can’t breathe and like he might throw up again and his voice cracks and squeaks and Qi-ge looks a bit alarmed and rubs his back.

He can’t make himself stop. Not until he’s laughed so much he ends up pressing his face into Qi-ge’s shoulder and getting it wet from his tears, until he shakes and shakes from the force of it and Qi-ge just squeezes him.

Terrible. Terrible. Pathetic.

Qi-ge murmurs soothing things that Xiao Jiu can barely listen to, and squeezes him close as Xiao Jiu tries to slowly, slowly calm. He doesn’t ask Qi-ge why he ran. He doesn’t care. Not really. The woman seemed annoying, and Xiao Jiu didn’t and doesn’t want to see her and honestly maybe Qi-ge was just running because he doesn’t want his disciples to talk to Xiao Jiu or because today was terrible because every day is terrible or maybe—

There’s a lot of reasons. Xiao Jiu doesn’t care. He doesn’t. He just tries to make himself calm as Qi-ge squeezes him. “Are you okay, Xiao Jiu?” he asks, very quietly. “We can go back to the room. I can show you tomorrow. I think it might be… too much for Xiao Jiu to see today.”

No. No.

Xiao Jiu pulls back and glares fiercely at Qi-ge through his tears. “No,” he snaps. “Qi-ge lies and hides so much and won’t tell Xiao Jiu anything so if Qi-ge is going to tell Xiao Jiu, Xiao Jiu wants to know now. You can’t back out, Qi-ge. You said you’d tell me. You said.”

Qi-ge goes very, very still. He’s so still that even his breathing stops for just a moment, looking at Xiao Jiu with eyes wide and pained and filled with tears and Xiao Jiu wants to rip them out of his head, just to stop him from looking.

He closes his eyes before Xiao Jiu can think too hard on that impulse, inhaling and exhaling, and then opens them again. His gaze is warmer now, calmer. “Alright,” he says. “But if Xiao Jiu is frightened… you have to tell me, alright?”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t like the sound of that. What is Qi-ge hiding? Why was that Liu Qingge here? “Alright,” he says, very quietly. “Alright. Xiao Jiu will.”

Qi-ge continues to walk, then, and Xiao Jiu leans back against him and takes deep breaths too. He rubs away the tears in his eyes, feels his heart slow and stop hammering against his chest, and he sinks into the warmth of Qi-ge.

It’s nice to be outside, even if it’s not the garden and just going through the palace, and their destination becomes very quickly clear. A pavilion, more ornate than anything he’s seen so far—which is saying something—and with no one around…

Xiao Jiu frowns a little. “Qi-ge,” he asks, narrowing his eyes at the building. “Are we going to your rooms?”

Qi-ge misses a step, just slightly, but then catches himself and keeps walking as if nothing had happened. “Yes,” he says.

He doesn’t like the idea of going to Qi-ge’s rooms. He doesn’t. If Xiao Jiu had his way he’d never be in anyone’s rooms but his own ever again—it’s a pity cultivators seem to need to sleep, because he thinks he would rather like being a cultivator and getting rid of his bed altogether and not having to worry about horrible things like that, especially after remembering… But no matter how much he doesn’t like the idea, he wants to know what’s going on, wants to finally have something answered, and so Xiao Jiu doesn’t say a word.

The pavilion is locked tight. That’s clear. No window nor any door is open, everything firmly shut in a way that Xiao Jiu hasn’t quite seen elsewhere. Windows obviously exist in Huan Hua Palace. Doors are open to let in air and also just to be open, because that was what you often did.

Everything here is locked tight. Everything is shut.

Qi-ge puts Xiao Jiu down on the ground. His hands shake a little bit, but he doesn’t say anything, and instead pulls a pretty green coat from nowhere. It will look horrid with the golden robes, in his opinion, but Xiao Jiu likes the color.

“Why do I need that?” he asks. It’s not cold out. It’s not night time, either, and that looks too thick for even night.

“It’s cold in there, Xiao Jiu,” Qi-ge says, and he holds it out for Xiao Jiu to put his arms into.

Xiao Jiu hesitates. Why would Qi-ge bring a coat when they’re going inside? He supposes he’ll find out in a moment. He slips it on. It has animal fur on the inside, like what rich people wear. Exactly what he requested of Qi-ge when he first arrived here. Xiao Jiu rubs the soft cloth between his fingers and doesn’t say anything.

It is cold, when Qi-ge opens the door. There’s a burst of… energy, of qi(?), and Qi-ge shields Xiao Jiu from it. It’s like a wind but it’s not a wind, he can tell, and it’s such a cold burst of energy he shivers. It’s dark inside. He can’t see anything.

But oh, is it freezing.

Qi-ge scoops him back up again and cradles Xiao Jiu against him, and that’s extra warmth, at least. “Tell me if it’s too cold,” he says, even though Qi-ge is the one who should worry about that because he’s not wearing anything extra, but Xiao Jiu nods.

It’s like it’s winter, all of a sudden. There’s a few traces of tears that Xiao Jiu didn’t quite wipe away and they freeze almost instantly. He shivers, and he can only stop his teeth from chattering by clenching his whole jaw. Never ever has he been this cold before, not even when he was sleeping on the streets, but he doesn’t say anything and Qi-ge doesn’t stop.

There’s a sitting platform in the center of the pavilion, or at least Xiao Jiu thinks it’s a platform for sitting, that’s the appropriate spot. Curtains hang around it, though they’re a little bit see-through, and the entire framing of it looks like it’s a bed. Is… it a bed…? Is that where Qi-ge-

There’s someone on it.

Xiao Jiu’s breath catches in his throat. He can see that there’s someone laying on the platform, through those curtains. Lying on their back, impossibly still, or maybe he just can’t see the movement from over here. He shrinks back against Qi-ge, and Qi-ge pauses for a moment, but when Xiao Jiu doesn’t say anything, he keeps going.

He steps up to the platform, one foot in front of the other, and draws back the curtains so that Xiao Jiu can see.

It’s Shen Qingqiu.

Xiao Jiu knows that like breathing. He knows that instantaneously, not a moment to think about it, not a moment to think. It’s not a person. It’s a body. Shen Qingqiu, beautiful and serene and composed, perfectly preserved in this cold coffin.

It’s him.

It’s him.

Chapter Text

“Qi-ge,” Xiao Jiu says because he doesn’t know what to say. He opens his mouth. Shuts it. “Qi-ge, that’s… me?”

Qi-ge nods, just slightly. Xiao Jiu can’t tear his eyes away from the body, that’s his body, that’s his deaddeaddeaddead body, and he can only see the small movement because he’s right next to Qi-ge’s head. “Before I found you,” he says, “I thought… maybe I could bring you back. So I kept you.” Xiao Jiu doesn’t know what feeling is in Qi-ge’s soft-spoken words but he doesn’t know what he’s feeling either because. Because.

It’s good that Qi-ge would do this. Wouldn’t let him go. If it were the other way around, Xiao Jiu would do the same, he knows he would. Qi-ge is his and not even something like death would change that. If Qi-ge died then Xiao Jiu would find some way, something, anything, to bring him back to Xiao Jiu. So that’s good.

But it’s… it’s…

Xiao Jiu hadn’t thought, before, that he would have a body. A corpse. He realized he would but he hadn’t thought about it, that there was another him, a body, rotting in the ground somewhere. It felt like when cultivators died, they just disappeared, but that wasn’t true, was it? Cultivators were still people. Still humans. So Shen Qingqiu had a body but it wasn’t rotting because Qi-ge was keeping it here.

“Put me down,” he says. Qi-ge hesitates. “Put me down!”

Carefully, Qi-ge sets him on his feet. Shen Qingqiu’s body is laid out nicely, if a body can be nice. It- He’s- It’s lying on its back, eyes closed, dressed in a thin robe with arms and hands folded neatly on its chest. Xiao Jiu reaches out to carefully press a hand to its shoulder, ignoring the way that Qi-ge sucks in air sharply behind him.

Cold, of course. How could it not be? Even if it weren’t a dead body – his dead body, it’s his dead body – the room would turn anything cold. Despite the fact that this body has been dead and empty for years, though Xiao Jiu doesn’t know the exact amount because he doesn’t know how old he is, and he doesn’t know if the whole ‘new life’ thing starts literally the moment you die, the body looks… fine. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Xiao Jiu’s seen corpses before, in those horrible memories that he doesn’t have to remember anymore. Most of the corpses, he was making. Sometimes there were rotten ones, though, old bodies dug up by dirt-encrusted hands or rotting enemies that Shen Qingqiu had swiped a sword through, and they were horrifying. Terrifying. This is…

Qi-ge hovers over him, still and quiet and Xiao Jiu doesn’t look at his face. Instead, he looks at Shen Qingqiu’s face. At the body’s face. He pulls his hand away from the clothed arm and reaches towards the face that is his and yet not his, and carefully brushes his fingers over the cheek. It feels real. Cold, but real.

“...Liu Qingge was here to take-” He stops, swallows, tries to figure out the best way to say it. “-take Shen Qingqiu’s body back?” Xiao Jiu pulls his fingers away and finally looks up at Qi-ge.

He doesn’t have the words to express what’s on Qi-ge’s face. He rarely does, in truth, but he really doesn’t now. Lips pressed together, eyes wet, gaze resting on the body with a longing in that look, making Xiao Jiu’s throat feel tight, his whole body run through with a chill that has nothing to do with the current cold. Qi-ge says it’s fine if Xiao Jiu is Xiao Jiu, but… but… even if he’s not lying, Xiao Jiu knows better. He does.

Qi-ge’s eyes shift to Xiao Jiu’s, and it doesn’t really change, which does help. He still looks at Xiao Jiu the same way he does at Shen Qingqiu’s body. “He was,” he says. “Cang Qiong thinks that I’m- that it’s wrong of me, to try to bring you back, that I will never succeed and that you should be laid to rest and that I’m being disrespectful and unfilial and that damn Liu Qingge comes every-” He’s getting angry, hands curling into fists at his side, gaze sliding from Xiao Jiu as he rants, and Xiao Jiu takes a tiny step back, the tiniest of steps, legs bumping into the platform.

It’s noticed. Qi-ge looks at Xiao Jiu again and visibly takes a deep breath, calming himself. His hands uncurl, and his look softens once more. He reaches out for Xiao Jiu, very slowly, and when Xiao Jiu doesn’t flinch or pull away, he pats Xiao Jiu’s head once, twice, and then withdraws. “They thought I couldn’t, but it doesn’t matter,” he says. “You’re here now.”

He is here. Which is why…

Xiao Jiu glances back at the body, pressing his lips together in an almost mimicry of Qi-ge, and then looks back up at him with a furrowed brow. “Since… you found me,” he says slowly, trying to piece this together. “Why do you still have Shen Qingqiu’s body?”

Qi-ge looks caught off guard by this. He blinks down at him, and then all expression wipes from his face. “Does… Xiao Jiu want me to get rid of him?” There’s an emphasis. Xiao Jiu… doesn’t know what he’s supposed to read into that. That because Xiao Jiu is also Shen Qingqiu, he’s the one that gets to make the decision here? That even though Qi-ge says it’s okay for Xiao Jiu to be Xiao Jiu, he never gets to truly stop being Shen Qingqiu, that even without those memories he is still that person and so that is his body? That perhaps this could… be Xiao Jiu’s body again, if he so wished it, if Qi-ge has something up his sleeve that could slip him into it once more, and that’s why he’s held onto it?

(He hates that the last idea came to mind. Hates it. The thought makes him want to tremble and shake and smash himself into pieces, rather than do that. The body is him but it’s not him and he never wants to wake up using those hands because he’s seen what that body has done and what’s been done to it and it’s even filthier than his current one and he doesn’t want it doesn’t want it doesn’t want it-)

Even if that’s the case, though, even if that’s what Qi-ge hopes and wishes for (he needs to stop thinking the worst, stop stop stop stop, but if you think the worst then you can avoid being disappointed), it’s his body, it’s his and Shen Qingqiu’s body, and Xiao Jiu looks at it again, seeming to sleep peacefully, and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No. I just… wanted to know if there was a reason.”

Qi-ge doesn’t answer that. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to share the reason, if it’s anything like what Xiao Jiu’s worst imaginations are dreaming up, or if it’s simply because he’s just like Xiao Jiu in this.

There’s no reason to keep it, and yet the idea of burying it, of letting it rot away in the earth, in losing this…

Xiao Jiu doesn’t like to give up anything if he can help it.

He presses his hand to that body’s arm one more time, and then lifts his arms up towards Qi-ge like a child, so he can be held once more. “It’s cold here,” he says, instead of saying that it gets more and more disturbing the longer he looks at the body, and Qi-ge nods and they leave.

They’re quiet for a bit, both of them, and Xiao Jiu watches where Qi-ge walks because he wants to try to find this again, wants to try to follow these steps in the future. Qi-ge is the one who speaks up first. “You’re not… upset?” he asks.

Xiao Jiu looks at Qi-ge. Qi-ge’s brow is furrowed, face pinched, looking down at Xiao Jiu with deep, deep concern. It pleases him, to know how much Qi-ge cares about his opinion. That part matters. It’s just not a matter of Xiao Jiu being here, but also what Xiao Jiu thinks. Qi-ge would care if Xiao Jiu hated him. He said that before, but it’s good to see it.

Still, though, he takes a moment to think about it and answer. “...What part does Qi-ge think Xiao Jiu should be mad about?” he asks instead of giving a proper reply. Can Qi-ge guess? Does Qi-ge know? Does he understand?

That seems to surprise him, and Qi-ge thinks it over for a moment. “Xiao Jiu should be mad… about the lying,” he says.

A correct answer. Good job, Qi-ge. It’s good that he’s realizing it’s about that, it’s almost always about that. But Xiao Jiu folds his arms even as he leans against Qi-ge’s shoulder, looking up at him. “Not about the body?”

Qi-ge smiles a little. It’s a good smile, and it settles Xiao Jiu after the horrible events of this day. It’s not a fake one he pastes on while he’s trying to treat Xiao Jiu like he’s made of glass, or when he’s trying not to cry, or anything like that. It looks real to Xiao Jiu. “You would do the same, wouldn’t you?”

“Qi-ge can be smart sometimes,” Xiao Jiu says.

“Only sometimes?”

“Yes, only sometimes.” Qi-ge looks like he’s going to laugh, and if Qi-ge actually laughs and it’s not a terrible laugh like Xiao Jiu’s earlier laugh, if it’s real and true and everything, that will be so good, so Xiao Jiu doesn’t smack him for it, for once.

It feels better, to focus on this. To try to think about this. He’s shaky, still, and he’s trying to pretend that’s just from the remnants of the cold but he’s still wearing that coat even though they’re out of that building, so it can’t be. He still feels like if Qi-ge says something just slightly wrong, he is going to break like the glass that Qi-ge thinks he is. He can still feel the cold of that body, right against his palm, his fingers, and he still needs to figure out what happened before, but right now he looks at Qi-ge’s smile and he breathes.

Qi-ge lifts one hand to gently comb through Xiao Jiu’s hair, moving slowly so Xiao Jiu can pull away, and eyes softening when Xiao Jiu doesn’t and he gets to run his fingers through it. His hair is getting longer, Xiao Jiu thinks. He’s not sure how long he’s been here, because every day seems so long and like it’s passed in just a blink of an eye. It feels like he’s been here forever. That sleeping on the streets before was just a dream like all the other memories.

Xiao Jiu leans into that for a moment, and enjoys it, before he speaks again. “...So even if they come again, if that Liu Qingge comes, it’s just for the body,” he says slowly. “He won’t be trying to get me.” Or would he now, now that he’s seen Xiao Jiu? “Who will he think I am?”

Qi-ge doesn’t look happy at the question. He looks away, focuses on the path ahead of them, and his hand stops combing but remains tangled in Xiao Jiu’s hair. “There’s… another in Cang Qiong, who knew who you were, before you became Shen Qingqiu,” he admits. “He might be able to guess who you are, if Liu Qingge describes you properly enough.” Qi-ge hadn’t used Xiao Jiu’s name, at least from what Xiao Jiu remembers – he shies away from thinking about it properly, he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to think about that terrifying version of Qi-ge – so that might help, but…

“If he thinks I have you for some nefarious purpose,” Qi-ge spits out the words like they’re poison, “He might try to ‘rescue’ you anyway, even if he doesn’t know who you are.”

Xiao Jiu made a mistake, then. A very big one, it seems, if Cang Qiong knows about him now. And yet he can’t truly regret it, because now he knows one of the secrets that Qi-ge has been hiding from him, one of the lies that Qi-ge tells, so he doesn’t say anything. Not even an apology that’s not really an apology, because he’s not sorry. Instead, he looks at the walls that they’re walking past, those horrible golden walls, and he thinks.

“...Will Qi-ge fight for forever, then?” he asks.

“I’ll fight forever for you, Xiao Jiu,” says Qi-ge, which is nice and also something Xiao Jiu definitely already knew, so it wasn’t what he was asking. Nice to hear, though, he still likes it.

“Yes, but…” Xiao Jiu frowns. He furrows his brow, and tries to figure out how to say it properly. “If they know I’m here, and I’m alive, and I want to be with Qi-ge… will they leave you be? When will it stop? Does Qi-ge have to fight for forever? Does Xiao Jiu have to hide for forever?”

He lamented, just the other day, that there wasn’t anyone else. He wonders maybe, maybe, if he steps forward, if they know he’s here and he wants to be and if they rip him away from Qi-ge he’ll hate them forever, and not even the good kind of hate where you want to be with them because you still love them too, but the bad kind of hate where you’d just rather kill them and have them stay away forever, maybe… maybe it wouldn’t even be being left alone, but reconnecting.

Maybe he misread the hate, and the hate he feels for Liu Qingge is the good kind of hate, like he wants to sink in his teeth and never let go, rip open his ribcage so Xiao Jiu can live inside next to his beating heart. Maybe Ning Yingying and Ming Fan do care, do want their teacher back and will welcome him even in this form, will apologize to him for ever doubting in him and in Qi-ge, will teach him just like he once taught them. Maybe Luo Binghe will show himself from wherever he is, and Xiao Jiu can understand what kind of person he cared for almost as much as Qi-ge, enough to protect him and live with him and inspire enough loyalty that Luo Binghe would leave Cang Qiong for his sake.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He doesn’t voice that, though, looking at Qi-ge once more, and Qi-ge sighs a little. “They won’t listen while Xiao Jiu is young,” he says. “If Xiao Jiu remembered-” But he cuts himself off, there, because Xiao Jiu doesn’t remember and doesn’t want to remember, and it’s Qi-ge’s turn to look away. “They won’t listen while Xiao Jiu is young, because they’ll think I’m… behind it. That I’m manipulating you.”

Xiao Jiu is pretty sure Qi-ge is manipulating him, but he doesn’t mind. Much. Xiao Jiu’s doing it, too. It’s back and forth, back and forth, twisting and bending the other person, cajoling them. Qi-ge manipulates and Xiao Jiu punishes and they fake smiles and tears and hide things away and lie and maybe someday they’ll tear each other open but that’s how it’s always been. He feels that, at least. It seems right. Correct.

“So when I’m older…? And Qi-ge will have to fight until then…?”

He doesn’t think he much likes that answer, that solution. Qi-ge looks like he doesn’t really like it either, but he nods. “Unless they finally realize how outmatched they are and give up,” he says.

Xiao Jiu considers it. “That Liu Qingge didn’t seem very smart,” he says, even though he doesn’t actually know if that’s true at all.

Finally, finally, Qi-ge laughs. “You’re right, of course.”

“I’m always right,” he says, and he’s pleased.

He feels better until they get to his room again. When they get there, it feels… bad. Xiao Jiu thinks he can still smell the blood, even if that’s ridiculous. Stupid. Liu Qingge isn’t even dead so the blood doesn’t even matter, and maybe it would be better if he was dead anyway-

“Xiao Jiu?” asks Qi-ge, concern written all over his face, and Xiao Jiu breathes.

He gets put down and he can finally take off his coat, which was rather warm to wear all the way back, and he considers it and then considers Qi-ge. “Is Qi-ge going to lock me up again?” he asks.

Even if maybe Xiao Jiu deserves it, even if he did something terribly foolish today and maybe got them in more trouble, in more danger, he will still hate Qi-ge for it. And not the good kind. “I won’t, Xiao Jiu,” Qi-ge says quickly. It’s quick enough that Xiao Jiu narrows his eyes up at him. “I won’t. As long as Xiao Jiu promises to not do that again.”

Xiao Jiu considers it, long enough that Qi-ge is narrowing his eyes at Xiao Jiu and then immediately widening them again, as if he’s trying very hard to avoid doing that. “Fine,” says Xiao Jiu. “But Qi-ge has to promise two things, first.” He’s lying, of course. He doesn’t want that to happen again no matter what. He doesn’t want to see that Liu Qingge and he doesn’t want to see Qi-ge all terrifying like that (Xiao Jiu keeps putting off asking because it all feels so much and so much and he doesn’t want to know not really but he needs to) and he has zero plans to ever ever do that again, but if Qi-ge wants Xiao Jiu to listen this badly then it would be foolish to not get something else in return, to bargain.

(Qi-ge still acts as though he’d fulfill every wish that Xiao Jiu had, that he would never deny Xiao Jiu anything, but it feels so uneven and fake because of that, that Xiao Jiu prefers to bargain and not have that much held over his head. Even if Qi-ge doesn’t seem like he would hold it over his head because you never ever know, you don’t, you don’t.)

“What does Xiao Jiu want me to promise?” Qi-ge asks. Xiao Jiu tugs Qi-ge to sit down, and he does so obediently. It makes Xiao Jiu feel better to have him be smaller, and Xiao Jiu remains standing.

“If something changes,” Xiao Jiu says, “Qi-ge has to tell me.”

Qi-ge narrows his eyes a little, and forgets to catch himself this time. “What do you mean by that?”

“If someone else comes to fight,” Xiao Jiu says. “Or if Liu Qingge says something new, if Cang Qiong knows something more, or if… if someone else comes to see Xiao Jiu, then Qi-ge has to tell me.”

Qi-ge doesn’t seem to know what to make of that last part. “If someone comes to see you? Does Xiao Jiu expect someone to come?”

There’s… something in Qi-ge’s voice that Xiao Jiu doesn’t like. He fumbles for his fan and pulls it up in front of his face. “Qi-ge said that other people liked Xiao Jiu. His… disciples, that he had friends. If they come, Xiao Jiu wants to know. If… Luo Binghe appears, especially, Xiao Jiu wants to know.” It still seems strange, seems… like a lie, that someone would like him that wasn’t Qi-ge, but he doesn’t see why Qi-ge would lie about this. If he were going to lie, it would make more sense to tell Xiao Jiu that no one cared for him aside from Qi-ge, because then Xiao Jiu would care about anyone else, either. So Xiao Jiu doesn’t think this part is a lie.

Whatever Qi-ge was thinking, he goes very still, and then he relaxes at Xiao Jiu’s words. “Alright,” he says, very careful. “I’ll tell you if something changes.”

Good. Xiao Jiu nods a little behind his fan and then pulls it down so his eyes peek over it. Qi-ge looks… happy? Amused? Something like that, but with some sadness in it. Xiao Jiu’s not sure why. “The second thing is that Xiao Jiu wants to see his body.”

That confuses Qi-ge. “You want me to take you again?” he says. “I can do that, Xiao Jiu.”

But Xiao Jiu shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Alone. Let me be able to open the door or… whatever you need to do, and give me some warmer clothes because it’s so cold in there.” Can he have gloves? Xiao Jiu’s never had gloves before. They always looked nice when it was cold.

“...Why do you want to go?” asks Qi-ge.

Xiao Jiu tries to figure out how to say it. He doesn’t really know himself. He just knows that with- with Qi-ge there, looming behind him, watching Xiao Jiu’s every movement and watching Xiao Jiu’s- Shen Qingqiu’s- the body, too, it was… He didn’t like it. He didn’t linger long for a reason.

But it’s his body, in a way, in a way that Qi-ge himself insists upon, so he wants to see it again. “I… I just do,” he says. “It’s my body. Can’t I go see it?” Xiao Jiu gets snappy. He can’t help it.

Their eyes meet, and Qi-ge’s eyes soften a little. He reaches out and takes Xiao Jiu’s hand, the one not holding his fan, and squeezes it gently. “You can,” says Qi-ge. “You just want to see him?”

Xiao Jiu nods. “What else would I do?”

“Alright,” says Qi-ge. “If Xiao Jiu wants to, he can.” Xiao Jiu relaxes. “And I’ll give Xiao Jiu warm clothing, so he doesn’t get cold.”

“Good,” says Xiao Jiu.

The rest of the night is… normal. It’s normal. It’s so carefully normal that Xiao Jiu knows both he and Qi-ge are forcing it to be that way, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe making things normal like this is fine.

They eat dinner. They drink tea. Normal tea, and Xiao Jiu gets tucked into bed and Qi-ge leaves. Xiao Jiu doesn’t fall asleep, though. When Qi-ge’s gone, really really gone and it’s been long enough that Xiao Jiu doesn’t think he’s waiting outside the door or anything, Xiao Jiu grabs one of those soft pillows and buries his face in it and screams.

His whole body shakes and tears well up in his eyes and he feels like he’s going to fall apart into a thousand little pieces and he screams and screams until his throat aches and he can taste blood in his mouth. It takes him a few moments to even be able to make his body work, to cease the trembling of every single limb enough so that he can almost fall out of bed and go get some water to drink. Qi-ge always leaves water on the table. Xiao Jiu needs it now.

It almost spills when he pours it and brings it to his lips, and he sits down heavily on the floor cushions and tries to pull himself together and. And. Put all the pieces together. Make sense of everything.

Liu Qingge. He’s first. Qi-ge says that Liu Qingge is his friend, but Xiao Jiu didn’t feel like that. It was bad hate, and he thinks about what Qi-ge told him before. That Xiao Jiu forgot a lot of things, and that he acted differently. Did he forget his hatred of Liu Qingge? Is something like that possible? Was that part of it?

And that… that… that forgetting. Xiao Jiu’s tried to shy away from really really thinking about it, but now he kind of has to. Qi-ge just said differently, but Xiao Jiu’s not stupid. He’s not. Xiao Jiu is not a good person and he’s not a kind person and he knows this. He knows this. So he must have forgotten the things that made him rotten, made him terrible and unkind, and that’s why Qi-ge says he was. So maybe Liu Qingge was friends with this kind Xiao Jiu, this kind Shen Qingqiu, but Xiao Jiu is already rotten and can’t forget what he knows so he doesn’t think he can be that person again. Maybe he can get close to it, but he can’t be the same.

(Qi-ge says it’s okay but Qi-ge lies a lot. Qi-ge might also not know what he wants, might think it’s okay and then Xiao Jiu will prove him wrong because he’s Xiao Jiu. He wants to think Qi-ge is telling the truth. He wants to believe it so bad.)

He wonders what he did, before. He knows some. Those awful, awful memories, blood on his hands and corpses at his feet – but that can’t be all. It can’t. Those were from a long time ago, when Qi-ge wasn’t there (and where were you Qi-ge, why is that the one question you won’t answer, why did you come back for Xiao Jiu and then leave again what happened what happened what happened), and Qi-ge remembers him changing so Xiao Jiu must have still been terrible when Qi-ge was around.

Oh. That’s a little bit settling. Qi-ge came for Xiao Jiu when he was terrible and Qi-ge remembers Xiao Jiu when he was terrible so maybe it really is okay for Qi-ge, whether Xiao Jiu is kind or not, whether Xiao Jiu is filthy and cruel or whether he’s forgotten what makes him that way. Maybe they really are both okay.

That makes him feel better on that, and he takes another shaky sip of water that soothes him, but it’s still… his body. The body. Shen Qingqiu who is Xiao Jiu who is not him, not at all. It lays there and Xiao Jiu doesn’t. He doesn’t. He doesn’t know.

What is there to know? What is there to think? It’s just so much.

His disciples. The bad and the… maybe. Ning Yingying and Ming Fan he can push to the side for now, but who is Luo Binghe? How could he ever care for another that much, someone new, someone who isn’t the only one he ever ever has? Is Luo Binghe trying to bring him back as well? Should he have Qi-ge try to find him? Is he mourning? Is he disgusted with Cang Qiong? Who is he?

And then there’s… there’s Qi-ge.

He had been terrifying. Frightening. So, so different than Xiao Jiu had ever seen him before. What was with the mark on his forehead? His claws? That sword that felt so bad, so frightening, that it made Xiao Jiu want to crawl into a hole and never come out?

Qi-ge hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t offered any explanations. That doesn’t really mean anything, though – Xiao Jiu thinks that if Qi-ge could get away without ever explaining anything, he would. Maybe he doesn’t think Xiao Jiu remembers, or maybe he’s waiting for Xiao Jiu to bring it up, or maybe that’s just perfectly normal for cultivators and he’s forgotten it’s something he should explain.

(He doesn’t think it’s the last one.)

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know what to do about this one. Maybe he’ll ask in the morning, if he can bring himself to. Maybe he’ll ask tomorrow. He doesn’t know what answer he’ll get and even though he likes knowing things it just… it just…

He sets the cup carefully down on the table and leans over it and he cries.

Xiao Jiu wants to feel safe. He wants- He wants to feel like Qi-ge is his Qi-ge, like he’ll never ever hurt him, and maybe Qi-ge won’t ever hurt him on purpose but Qi-ge will do so many things and he just. Xiao Jiu doesn’t ever remember being not scared. Never ever.

He was scared before Qi-ge, when it was just him alone and these dreams these memories everything everything. It seems every memory Qi-ge conjured up for him is horrible horrible horrible and he’s so scared, and now with Qi-ge it’s just so much and Xiao Jiu feels ill and terrible all the time and he sucks in a deep breath because he’s remembered to breathe, pressing his hands to his chest so he can feel that inhale and in and out in and out in and out.

It’s too much. Too much. Too much.

He wipes clumsily at his eyes, forcing himself to his feet, and heads back to bed. He can’t think about this anymore. At least these days, he doesn’t dream anymore. At least now, he can fall asleep and wake up in the morning and there won’t be any new torments.

(Xiao Jiu wants a good dream. A good memory. He knows he has them. He’s had them before. He wants one he wants one he wants one.)

He buries himself under the covers and tries to breathe, lets his eyes fall closed and tries to stop his mind. Tries to stop all his thoughts. He doesn’t want to think about how terrible he is. About Qi-ge, about- about anything.

Xiao Jiu’s mouth tastes of dirt. He bites down on his tongue until he can only taste blood, instead.

Chapter Text

Qi-ge gives Xiao Jiu the warm clothing he asked for the next morning. It doesn’t quite fit him – the gloves and hat are a little too big – which means Qi-ge probably just got the smallest sizes of standard disciple warmwear or whatever. Do they just have like… a giant room filled with this somewhere? It’s a funny picture.

It also makes him feel… well. Hm. Mixed thoughts? On one hand, if Qi-ge had emerged with super perfect sizing for everything like he had been planning this ever since he grabbed Xiao Jiu, it would have been nice, because Qi-ge was paying that close attention. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have been nice, because Qi-ge was paying that close attention. He knows he doesn’t make any sense.

That’s not the situation anyway, though, so he pulls it on and gets all bundled up and Qi-ge promises warm boots soon, but they definitely don’t have any right now that Xiao Jiu could even walk in so he accepts that. He does.

Qi-ge seems relieved when Xiao Jiu puts it in the wardrobe with his other clothes, though, and doesn’t seem inclined to wear it today, just his normal golden robes and yellow fan. They go outside, because Xiao Jiu feels like he’s going to lose his mind even more than normal if they stay inside for too long, and they bring reading and writing out with them and Xiao Jiu is getting a little better.

The day feels very… forced normal, like they’re both making sure that Today Is Normal and not acknowledging anything from yesterday which is both good and bad, and yesterday doesn’t slap Xiao Jiu in the face until Qi-ge freezes for a moment when they’re on their way back inside to the library. “Qi-ge?” asks Xiao Jiu. They’re holding hands and walking because he didn’t want to be carried today.

He doesn’t know why, but he didn’t.

Qi-ge looks down at Xiao Jiu. “I need to go,” he says. He hesitates, and then adds slowly. “Liu Qingge is here.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how to feel about that. He opens his mouth to try to say something and doesn’t- have anything to say so he lifts up his fan instead and pulls away his hand. It slips into his pocket and curls around the knife. “Okay,” he says. “I can go to the library on my own.” There. A response.

A bit of tension slips out of Qi-ge. “You won’t follow me?”

He shakes his head. Qi-ge leans down like he wants to press a kiss to Xiao Jiu’s head, but he just pats his head gently instead. “Don’t go anywhere else,” he says, and Qi-ge leaves.

Xiao Jiu watches him go, and he goes to the library. There’s one other disciple there, a boy whose eyes get wide when he sees him and immediately leaves in a move that’s so blatant Xiao Jiu wonders again what they all know, what did Qi-ge tell them, but Xiao Jiu just gives the disciple’s back a glance and settles himself down in a corner.

It works that Qi-ge is gone, in a way. Xiao Jiu had expected that he would leave at some point, because he always does and now Xiao Jiu knows why. (Does Liu Qingge come every day? For… for him? He wonders, again, about the friendship he has supposedly made, about Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe and his other disciples that he apparently cared for so much.) It gives Xiao Jiu time to try to figure out something.

The… memories he has… They hurt and yet they’re all he has so Xiao Jiu is mixed up about them like he’s mixed up about everything ever, but one thing in the dreams he wants to try is cultivation. Most of the cultivation he remembers is – bad. Wicked things, wicked tricks, blood on his hands and he doesn’t like to think about that so he tries very hard not to.

One memory he has, though, is of turning a coin into a knife. He pulls his purse out of his pocket and pulls out a coin. It’s not the first coin, not the one Qi-ge first dropped in his bowl that clattered so nicely because he will never get rid of that coin unless he has no other choice (such a memory will mean nothing if he’s dead, which feels weird to think because he did actually die) and if he messes up this cultivation enough to warp the coin, he might have to hide it and never have it again.

He can’t let Qi-ge know. He can’t.

The problem is that Xiao Jiu doesn’t really know how to start. He knows… qi. He knows cultivators use qi, and it comes from within them. A golden core, he knows, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if he’s heard this before or if it was in one of his memories or if he just knows, like how he can read and write when he doesn’t think about it (though he’s getting better). He turns the coin over in his hands for a bit, running it through his fingers, before he ends up tucking it back inside his pouch and deciding to meditate instead.

Cultivators do that. He definitely knows that. Xiao Jiu has no idea… how to meditate, though, and he ends up just crossing his legs as he sits in the chair, closing his eyes and breathing. No thoughts. No thoughts.

That’s how you’re supposed to do it, he thinks, except he’s not even supposed to think something like that. In and out, in and out, only his breathing and the darkness, trying to feel some sort of energy within him, some sort of anything, anything-

-scrabbling at the dirt, need to get out out out, it’s so quiet it’s not here it’s QUIET, but one step and everything collapsing underneath him, body weak and stupid and-

“Xiao Jiu.”

He flinches away badly from the hand on his shoulder and almost falls out of the chair, only stopped by Qi-ge’s steadying hand which almost makes him flinch again. Qi-ge’s face is apologetic, and he pulls his hand back immediately. “You were sleeping,” he says, and Xiao Jiu takes a few breaths to calm himself. Was he? Or did he just look like he was sleeping, because he was trying to meditate?

“Oh,” he says.

Qi-ge is watching him carefully. “Did Xiao Jiu dream?” he asks.

It reminds him so viciously of that time before they tried the tea that he has to bite his tongue and dig his hands into the chair to stop himself from physically recoiling. “No,” he snaps.

Qi-ge doesn’t look like he believes him. Qi-ge has never looked like he believes him. That’s fine. That’s fine. Xiao Jiu doesn’t really believe Qi-ge either, sometimes, and he looks away and grabs his pouch from the table next to him and tucks it back into his pocket. It gives him something to do. “Did… did anything happen in the fight?”

Obviously, he won. That wasn’t part of the question. Did anything different happen, Qi-ge? Xiao Jiu wasn’t going to give Qi-ge the chance to skim by that, to not fulfill his promise. He exhales, and manages to meet Qi-ge’s eyes once more.

“...Yes,” Qi-ge says, after a moment. “He asked about you. I didn’t tell him anything.”

Ah. That… that made sense. “He thought it was strange, that you have me?” Xiao Jiu asks. His brow furrows. “You could have just said I was a disciple.”

There’s a twist to Qi-ge’s mouth, and he… considers that one. “I doubt he would have believed such a thing,” says Qi-ge. “If you were a simple disciple of Huan Hua Palace…”

Huh. Xiao Jiu understands what’s being implied. He tips his head slightly to the side, narrows his eyes and surveys Qi-ge. It’s… interesting. “You wouldn’t care?” Qi-ge doesn’t quite nod, but he also doesn’t disagree, either. Xiao Jiu reaches out for Qi-ge and Qi-ge leans in obligingly, so Xiao Jiu can touch his face. He puts his hand on Qi-ge’s cheek and he gives it a few pats as a reward. It feels better, when he’s the one touching and not the other way around. “Good job,” he tells Qi-ge. “You got smarter. I didn’t think you could.”

Qi-ge smiles underneath the touch, and even if bending over like this must be uncomfortable, he doesn’t move at all. “Really? I was so stupid before? You keep saying such things.” He seems way, way too amused. It’s not funny. He is and was stupid. Xiao Jiu gives him a look, and pulls his hand away.

“Yes,” he says, very matter-of-fact. “Qi-ge cared about other people, too. It was stupid. They just took advantage of you. Xiao Jiu is smarter than that.” Except he has other people now… it’s strange. “Qi-ge doesn’t have anyone else, now? Was Qi-ge… friends with Liu Qingge? Did Qi-ge have disciples?”

He doesn’t have anyone now, but…

Qi-ge’s face twists. He ends up getting down on his knees, kneeling before Xiao Jiu. It’s… weird, but it’s okay. Even though it doesn’t make any difference really, because Qi-ge is so, so strong, it makes Xiao Jiu feel better when Qi-ge’s lower. He looks at Xiao Jiu and then he slowly lowers his head to rest in Xiao Jiu’s lap and closes his eyes.

It’s strange. Isn’t everything always strange? But even if it’s odd, nothing about this feels… bad to Xiao Jiu, feels like he wants to pull away or shove Qi-ge off or claw something to shreds, so instead he just rests his hand on Qi-ge’s head and starts to comb through his hair. He thinks… Qi-ge used to comb through his hair. Was that here, before things changed, before touch got even more poisonous and worse? Was that before, when he was Shen Qingqiu, or Xiao Jiu the first time? He’s not quite sure. When it comes to things like this, he’s not always good at remembering.

Either way, it’s nice, and after a few moments of Xiao Jiu running his fingers through Qi-ge’s curls, he speaks. “I had friends, before,” he says quietly. His eyes stay closed. “But you’re the most important. And when you died, I- I couldn’t-”

Tears well up under his closed eyelids and seep out, and he’s grabbing Xiao Jiu, suddenly, wrapping his arms around Xiao Jiu’s waist and pressing his head firmer into him, wetting Xiao Jiu’s robes with his tears. Xiao Jiu’s hands hover and he stares down at Qi-ge, unsure. “I’m sorry,” whispers Qi-ge. “I keep- I keep failing. This d- I’m useless. I’ve been wrong so many times, and you… Sh- You don’t deserve any of this.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t understand. Is this because of yesterday? Qi-ge was terrifying, yesterday, more than the usual frightening. Xiao Jiu’s been trying not to think about it. He lowers his hands, one hand petting Qi-ge’s hair, and the other brushes his forehead where that strange marking was. As if knowing what Xiao Jiu is thinking about, Qi-ge’s grip tightens a little bit more. “Qi-ge has been wrong-”

“Can-” Qi-ge interrupts him. “Can you… not call me Qi-ge, just for the moment? Please?”

It… it makes sense, he guesses. He becomes Shen Qingqiu. Qi-ge must become something else. Maybe they call each other by completely different things, maybe ‘Qi-ge and Xiao Jiu’ are just old memories, old titles that Qi-ge is putting on for Xiao Jiu’s sake. But he thought… He had thought…

Xiao Jiu swallows. Just for right now. Just… just for right now. “...You’ve been wrong,” he says again, and it feels so strange, but he can do it. “And… and you’ve made mistakes. But… I’ll teach you to be better.” He’s glad he’s here, he wants to say, even if sometimes that would be a lie, but he doesn’t say it. The words catch in his throat and he just exhales instead.

Qi-ge peeks up at him with teary eyes. “You’ll teach me?”

He nods. “You said I was a teacher. And… Qi- you can be stupid, so I have to teach you everything.” Xiao Jiu tries to act haughty, then, gives a sniff, and Qi-ge’s eyes crinkle a little at that.

“I should call you ‘Shizun’, then.”

Shizun.

-brushing messy hair and carefully tying in ribbons, the taste of tea in his mouth as someone kneels before him pathetic pathetic pathetic, earnest eyes and an obedient bow, notes of music slightly off-key and a flinch as he presses lips together-

“-Jiu? Xiao Jiu?”

Qi-ge’s eyes are no longer crinkled in that smile. He looks up at Xiao Jiu, entire face wrinkled up in concern, and Xiao Jiu sucks in a deep breath and pushes Qi-ge off. There’s a flash of something across Qi-ge’s face, through his eyes, but he just rocks back on his heels and stays kneeling as Xiao Jiu looks away, focusing on the shelves closest to him.

“Xiao Jiu?” Qi-ge asks again, soft.

“Did…” Xiao Jiu has to wet his lips, has to swallow, and he tries again. “Did my disciples call me Shizun?” There were other titles they could have used, other addresses that could have been said and yet.

“Yes,” says Qi-ge, very softly, but there’s something in his voice, an intensity that Xiao Jiu can’t understand and can’t figure out, and maybe if he looked at Qi-ge he could read it in his face but he doesn’t want to and he’s so bad at that anyway so he keeps his gaze away.

“...Call me what you want,” Xiao Jiu says after a moment, and he slides his gaze from the shelves to his hands, curled in his damp robes. “I want to go back to my rooms and change.”

“Very well,” Qi-ge says, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t let him touch the whole walk back.

He shoos Qi-ge away early that night. Qi-ge doesn’t call him anything, Xiao Jiu notices, doesn’t call him ‘Xiao Jiu’ or a teasing ‘Shizun’ or anything. Xiao Jiu doesn’t call him anything, either, and maybe that’s why he wants him gone.

It always feels so tender, when something is remembered. Fresh. Raw. He doesn’t want touch and he doesn’t want to be with anything and he wishes he doesn’t have to breathe because he hates the sound of it, it feels too loud.

Xiao Jiu curls up in bed and closes his eyes and tries to remember. It hadn’t been a bad remembering. Not compared to other things. He was a teacher, he had disciples, and… the ribbons… Ning Yingying…? Maybe…? Were the earnest eyes Luo Binghe? The off-key music Ming Fan? They could all be one person, or they could be none of them. He only knows three names. From how Qi-ge described things, he had more.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, doesn’t remember when he drifts off, but he jerks awake suddenly with a gasp. There’s something in him. Something- Something- some energy, some strange tingling sensation that’s like a light inside him but it’s not a light because he can’t see it, it feels like it’s filling him up and burning and-

Xiao Jiu scrambles out of bed, choking on his heart in his throat and he flings out his hands and screws up his eyes. It’s something he doesn’t remember, like when he can read without trying or knows things without a source, and he presses that energy towards his hands and he flings it out.

Wind rushes around him, like a sudden storm, his hair flung every which way and his sleeping clothes tugged and pulled, the sound of things falling to the ground and maybe the table overturning and Xiao Jiu falls to the ground as it dies, landing backwards hard. He opens his eyes, desperately trying to suck in air.

Everything is everywhere.

The table really did overturn, and the water Qi-ge left is spilling across the floor. Fans and books and everything else has fallen off the shelves, scattering everywhere, and Xiao Jiu takes it all in for one long moment before realizing the water is spreading out right towards the fallen fans and he scrambles to his feet.

He quickly moves everything out of danger and goes to get a towel from by the bath and mops up the water. Qi-ge doesn’t come. He… doesn’t come.

Xiao Jiu could call for Qi-ge. He’s never used that before, never called out for Qi-ge like Qi-ge’s promised he could, and he could call for Qi-ge and get everything all cleaned up together and maybe Qi-ge could help him. Maybe if Xiao Jiu shows that he can use cultivation – because that was cultivation, there was nothing else it could be, he had figured it out – maybe if he shows that his meditation today had actually worked, or he unlocked it in a dream, or- or- or-

Maybe Qi-ge would teach him. Maybe he would agree.

Xiao Jiu looks over everything, the upturned table and the scattered fans and books, the wet towel in his hands, his windswept hair he can see in the mirror…

Maybe Qi-ge wouldn’t, and would forbid him from doing it ever again.

No. He’ll clean up the whole thing by himself. He puts the table back in place and carefully sets up the kettle and cups as if Xiao Jiu had just been very thirsty and drank all the water last night. The towel goes back by the bath, hanging up right where he had grabbed it, and all the books and fans go back up with belong.

After thinking about it, he changes fans. His precious one with yellow flowers goes on the shelf in favor of one with bamboo for tomorrow. If Xiao Jiu messed up the order of fans and put them in the wrong place, he has an excuse. He was trying them out. He puts a book out on the table so he can say the same thing there, does his best to fix his hair, and then scrambles back into bed.

He won’t say a word, and maybe Qi-ge won’t notice at all. Nothing’s obvious… and tomorrow, he can work on this a bit more. He can cultivate! He can really, truly do it!

Qi-ge doesn’t notice in the morning when he comes. They have breakfast together, and Xiao Jiu’s fan choice makes him smile for some reason, but Qi-ge seems a bit… distracted. Something is on his mind, and Xiao Jiu hesitates. He wants to ask what’s wrong, but it’s good that Qi-ge is distracted, so he doesn’t. Maybe tomorrow. Or after a few days have gone by, so Qi-ge definitely really hasn’t noticed anything changed and if he happens to suddenly realize, Xiao Jiu can act like he’s crazy.

Xiao Jiu’s not sure if Qi-ge notices that Xiao Jiu’s not calling him Qi-ge – as weird as that is, because it’s not like he has anything else to call him – but Xiao Jiu sure notices that Qi-ge avoids calling him, well, Xiao Jiu. He calls him ‘Xiao Shizun’ at one point, teasingly, and he looks so happy to say that that Xiao Jiu promptly has to look away, because he doesn’t like that.

He’s Xiao Jiu. He’s not Shen Qingqiu, and he’s not anyone’s Shizun, and even if he said it was okay for Qi-ge yesterday he’s regretting that now.

“I want to go see the body today,” Xiao Jiu says abruptly, turning his gaze back towards Qi-ge.

Qi-ge’s face immediately falls into nothing. There isn’t anything on his face, and his entire body is still. Then he smiles a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “We can go in the afternoon,” Qi-ge says.

Xiao Jiu shakes his head. “I want to go alone,” he says. Qi-ge’s smile slips, and he looks… uneasy. Uncertain. Like how Xiao Jiu feels every day. “I won’t touch,” Xiao Jiu tells him, because maybe that’s the problem?

It’s all he can think of, if his body is delicate and Qi-ge is worried about Xiao Jiu causing problems with that. Xiao Jiu would love to tell him that he does not cause problems, but that would be lying, and even if he’s fine to lie, Qi-ge knows better than to believe it. But a promise to not touch? Qi-ge might believe that.

Even if that’s a lie, too.

“...If you’d like,” says Qi-ge, after a few moments. He doesn’t look any happier, but he does agree, at least, and Xiao Jiu relaxes. “I… will be busy in the morning, however, so Xiao Shizun will be alone for much of the day today. Is that acceptable?”

Xiao Jiu frowns. “I can’t go when you’re busy?” he asks. Qi-ge shakes his head. “...It’s just one day. That’s fine.”

He can handle a day without Qi-ge.

Qi-ge doesn’t look happier about this no matter what Xiao Jiu says, though, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t think there’s anything new to be said to make him happy, so Xiao Jiu just focuses on his food. He can eat more, now. He can handle his food a little stronger, and his food hasn’t made him throw up since. He still hasn’t touched his snacks, the carefully preserved box that’s there just in case, but he does check it frequently to make sure it’s full.

Actually… Maybe there is something Xiao Jiu can do to make Qi-ge happy.

“Qi-ge,” he says. “I want to bring a snack with me today. Will Qi-ge explain all the ones he made before he goes?” It’s not like Xiao Jiu’s tried most of them. Qi-ge lights up.

It definitely cheers Qi-ge up before he goes, getting to show Xiao Jiu all sorts of treats and explain them and even though Xiao Jiu can’t possibly remember them all – so much! – he decides to take a little bag of almond cookies to bring with him later and tells Qi-ge so. He’s seen these ones before, in some life, sold on the street and was never able to steal one even if he wanted to.

He doesn’t tell Qi-ge that part, though.

Xiao Jiu spends the morning in his room. He really wants to keep trying cultivation, he does, but it feels like a bad idea. He’s not sure what time Qi-ge will return – and it’s hard for him to keep track of time properly anyway – and if he messes up his room again, he might not be able to get everything sorted.

Instead, he decides to design a new fan. He doesn’t have a blank fan or anything, but he can draw pictures to practice. Xiao Jiu wants a fan that’s… that’s Xiao Jiu’s. One that he makes, as he is now, but he really doesn’t know what to put on it. There’s truly nothing that separates the him now from the him before, at least in a way he can easily think up and put on a fan. And he’s still not very good at drawing when he thinks about it, so it’s better to not do that.

Xiao Jiu allows his hand to move over the page, absentmindedly creating what it does, and considers other things. He had thought maybe he would ask Qi-ge about the people yesterday, but he didn’t. The three women. Probably not important, though one was seeking out Qi-ge. A wife…? No, no, that idea was stupid.

Qi-ge’s most important and only person is Xiao Jiu, and he promised that he and Xiao Jiu weren’t like that, so Qi-ge can’t have a wife. Who else would think themselves important enough to approach Qi-ge like that, though?

He decides he’ll ask about that woman later, even if he doesn’t care about the other two, and looks down at what his hand has made. A bird — a… crane, he thinks. It looks fairly real. Bamboo, like what’s on his fan for today. A symbol he doesn’t recognize at first, at least until he squints at it.

Ah. It’s the mark on Qi-ge’s forehead.

As if his drawing has summoned him, that’s when the door opens, and Qi-ge enters with a small smile. Had it really been that long? “What are you doing, Xiao Shizun?” he asks.

He doesn’t like that stupid nickname. He frowns at Qi-ge, and then slides the paper over so Qi-ge can look at the drawings as he sits. “I’m designing a new fan,” he says. “Get me the materials later.”

Qi-ge nods obligingly, looking over the paper, and Xiao Jiu can see the moment his eyes fall on the symbol, the way his whole body stills. “Xiao Jiu…” Oh, are they back to his actual name now, Qi-ge? “What is this?” He sets the paper down and he taps it.

As if Qi-ge doesn’t know. It’s tempting, to call him out on his lie. You know! You know! It was on your forehead! But Xiao Jiu has thought that maybe Qi-ge isn’t sure if Xiao Jiu remembered or not, and this is confirmation of that. He shrugs lightly. “I don’t know,” he says. He doesn’t. It’s not a lie, which makes it an easier lie, easier half-truth. “Does Qi-ge know it?” Qi-ge gets to be his actual name, too, Xiao Jiu is sick of whatever the name thing is.

Qi-ge’s shoulders slump a little bit. Xiao Jiu’s not sure with what emotion. “No,” he says, like the liar he is. “I was simply curious.” He smiles now, a fake fake fake smile. “I finished early, so I can take you to see your body now.” Those words sound really weird. Xiao Jiu chooses not to acknowledge that.

“Fine,” he says, and they go.

Qi-ge doesn’t carry him this time because Xiao Jiu has made Qi-ge carry all his warm clothes — that’s the excuse he uses at least, and Qi-ge accepts it probably because he realizes it’s just an excuse to let both of them save face. He tries to focus on remembering the correct way there, because even though he tried on the way back before that doesn’t mean he actually remembered the whole thing, but ends up kind of distracted because of the question he thought of earlier. “Qi-ge,” he asks. “Who was that lady in pink before?”

Qi-ge makes a face immediately. It’s very funny. “She’s the Old Palace Master’s daughter,” Qi-ge says.

“The one you killed?” Xiao Jiu asks, even though he’s pretty sure Qi-ge hasn’t confirmed or denied it either way. Qi-ge inclines his head. “Does she know you killed him?” She had looked angry…

“She guesses, but there’s no proof, and I never said I did,” Qi-ge says, amused, and still not telling Xiao Jiu what he did. “Officially, he’s missing.”

“Hmmm.” Xiao Jiu still doesn’t buy it. It’s funny, though, to watch Qi-ge pretend, so he won’t call him out for it. “I’m glad Qi-ge’s more ruthless now. Did that happen before or after I died?”

Qi-ge misses a step as he walks, but recovers. He doesn’t look at Xiao Jiu. “…After,” he says, and he walks a little more quickly. Xiao Jiu has to hurry to keep up. Conversation killed, then.

When they get to the pavilion, Qi-ge helps Xiao Jiu get all bundled up. Hat and gloves and coat, and Qi-ge looks worriedly down at his normal boots. “Will you be fine?” he asks.

Xiao Jiu rolls his eyes. “Yes,” he says, exasperated. “When I’m done, what do you want me to do? Is Qi-ge going to wait out here for me?” Before Qi-ge can answer, he frowns. “Don’t do that. That’s stupid.” Also it makes him feel… itchy. Want to scratch out of his skin kind of itchy.

Qi-ge looks amused instead of worried, so at least that’s a win. He pulls out a paper with writing that Xiao Jiu can’t read. “I’ll put this on the door after I close it behind you. When you open it again, I’ll know. Just wait here for me.”

That’s straightforward enough. Xiao Jiu makes himself give Qi-ge a hug, partly as an apology for bringing up his death earlier and partly because maybe if every time he comes here he gives Qi-ge a hug, he can trick him into it by messing with his head and making him want to come. Or something like that. It’s an idea.

And then he enters, and Qi-ge shuts the door behind him.

There’s light. The lanterns are lit, and Xiao Jiu wonders if Qi-ge came earlier to light them before he returned for Xiao Jiu, or if they’re just always lit. He doesn’t approach the body at first, instead choosing to look around the room. There’s a pile of folded robes on a side table — some look like the white ones on the body, some look like they’re Qi-ge’s, and Xiao Jiu isn’t sure what to make of that. There’s two swords attached to each other resting in a stand, and Xiao Jiu frowns at them and skims a hand over the hilts. One of them stays the same. The other-

-it’s his it’s HIS, he knew he would be strong enough to gain a sword, knew he was better than what they said, knew his filth didn’t run this deep and the sword gleams and he feels approval run through him, so strong it’s like it’s his own emotion-

Xiao Jiu yanks his hand back.

His breathing is quick, harsh and fast, and he sucks in a few deep breaths and tries to calm himself down. That’s his sword, then. His. Xiu Ya. Qi-ge’s never told him the name, he thinks, but he knows that’s what it is. Xiu Ya.

He wants to pull off his glove and touch it for real, to feel the hilt against his palm, but he doesn’t. No more memories. No more memories.

Instead, after glancing up at where his body lays but not moving towards it, Xiao Jiu pulls his gloves off for a different reason. He slips them into his coat pocket, closes his eyes, and tries to focus. He tries to feel for that energy that coursed through him, for the qi that he had wielded. Now that he knows the feeling of it, the flow, he should be able to grasp it, correct? Create a gust of wind like he did before? Maybe a light? Anything?

Nothing.

Xiao Jiu stands there until his hands go numb, until his face hurts from frowning in concentration, but nothing happens. It’s very frustrating. Had that just been an accident, a one-time slip he’d never be able to do again? Does he need to meditate once more? Maybe the second one.

There’s no real spot to sit, though, unless he wants to sit on the floor, which… Xiao Jiu touches it and shivers. No, he doesn’t want to do that. He slips his gloves back on and approaches his body. It looks exactly the same as it did before. Shen Qingqiu, sleeping.

“…Who were you really?” he asks quietly. None of Qi-ge’s stories seem to match up to who Xiao Jiu is, which unfortunately seems to make sense — the loss of memories changed him, Qi-ge said. How else could Xiao Jiu be kind? How else could he be good? He forgot how filthy he is, forgot everything that made him bad, and-

Xiao Jiu swallows, and touches Shen Qingqiu’s cheek with one gloved hand. “I think I remembered too much to be good.” Immediately, he jerks his hand back, and he feels pathetic. There’s enough room for him to sit next to the body without touching it, so he does that. He presses his knees to his chest and then presses his face to his knees and tries to breathe.

He has to remember that Qi-ge liked him even when he was terrible. If Shen Qingqiu didn’t forget until he was older, and became kind then, that means Qi-ge still loved and cared for him before that. He came back for a Xiao Jiu that was similar to the Xiao Jiu he is now. The Qi-ge now still likes him, even if Xiao Jiu knows he likes Shen Qingqiu more, but Xiao Jiu- Xiao Jiu can live with that. He’s pretty sure he likes Shen Qingqiu more, too.

Kind. Kind. How can you be kind when the world is out to get you? How can you be kind when you’re rotten? Even Qi-ge grew out of that kindness. Xiao Jiu has to think that’s normal, has to think that the world hates him, or that makes him an even worse person. It means that he truly has everything, is rich and with Qi-ge who would get him everything he ever wanted, and yet Xiao Jiu is still miserable. At least if it’s the world doing it, it means it’s not Xiao Jiu’s fault.

He exhales raggedly and tries to shove those thoughts away. He didn’t come here to think about Shen Qingqiu. No, it’s to work on cultivation, but since that isn’t working… maybe some meditation?

Xiao Jiu tries. He really, really tries.

But he can’t manage to clear his head, or even fall asleep partway through like he did before. It… might have to do with the dead body lying next to him. Maybe. There’s a chance of it.

After awhile, he gives up and after looking at Shen Qingqiu one more time, and then Xiu Ya, he heads out the door to wait for Qi-ge. Hopefully it wasn’t a fluke. He’ll have to try again later.

Chapter Text

Xiao Jiu awakens to pain.

It’s that horrible, hot squirmy feeling coursing through him that he’s felt before, but this time it hurts, a burning sensation that makes him gasp and cry out, tears welling up in his eyes. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

“Qi-ge,” he gasps, and he rolls out of the bed, hitting the floor with a thump that makes him gasp again. “Qi-ge!” He should come, right? He heard his name. He should come he should come Qi-ge should come.

And just as fast as it came, the pain is gone. The only thing burning is Xiao Jiu’s throat as he desperately tries to suck in air, panting on the floor. What? What?

Before he can even begin to think about what happened, a new sensation rushes through him. Energy. Power. Qi. He doesn’t know what to do with it, can’t get up and can’t aim and he flings out his arms and closes his eyes and feels a whirlwind at his fingertips as everything crashes and clatters. Xiao Jiu only opens his eyes when that energy is gone and the wind is gone and it feels like he can breathe.

Everything is a mess. He thinks maybe some of his fans have torn but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. Xiao Jiu trembles, and it feels like tiny aftershocks of pain are rippling through him but maybe he’s just imagining it, maybe it’s not real, but it still hurts and he can’t breathe and-

Where is Qi-ge.

Xiao Jiu sniffles and forces himself up onto his knees, wiping at his eyes, and croaks out a “Qi-ge!”

Qi-ge bursts through the door. He kneels immediately next to Xiao Jiu and Xiao Jiu flings himself at Qi-ge and bursts into tears. “Xiao Jiu!?” he exclaims.

He buries his face in Qi-ge’s chest and cries, and now his throat isn’t the only thing that’s burning ‘cause so are his eyes, and Qi-ge wraps his arms around Xiao Jiu tightly and he came.

Just like he said he would, Qi-ge came for him.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how long he’s there, crying into Qi-ge’s chest with gentle, warm arms around him, Qi-ge murmuring nonsensical gentle things or at least gentle things that Xiao Jiu doesn’t know if he can understand right now, but eventually the tears slow. He still shakes, still trembles and doesn’t think he could pry his fingers out of Qi-ge’s robes even if he wanted to — he doesn’t — but his tears have stopped coming at least.

“Water,” he croaks. Qi-ge has dragged Xiao Jiu fully into his lap by this point, so he shuffles over without moving off his knees. He probably looks so stupid, and Xiao Jiu lets out a creaky bark of a laugh that just makes him cough.

A cup of water gently taps his head, and Xiao Jiu pulls back so Qi-ge can help him drink like he’s a baby. Xiao Jiu doesn’t even touch the glass. He sucks it all down and then Qi-ge pours more out of view and Xiao Jiu drinks that one down, too, before shaking his head because he doesn’t want more.

Qi-ge sets it aside and runs a gentle hand over Xiao Jiu’s head and then down his back. “Xiao Jiu,” he says quietly. “What happened?”

Xiao Jiu presses himself into Qi-ge until the other fully holds him, wraps his arms tightly around Xiao Jiu and enfolds him in that warmth, and then he exhales shakily and tries to put his words together. “I- I woke up and- and everything hurt.”

Qi-ge looks angry. “Hurt!?”

“Yes, it-“ The feeling returns, that hot squirming inside of him even though it doesn’t burn, moving through his whole body, and Xiao Jiu thrashes with a gasp, trying to get out of Qi-ge’s grip. “It’s back! It’s back!”

He shakes, terrified and needing to get away from this warmth now, because it’s too much and having Qi-ge’s hands on him when any minute Xiao Jiu knows there will be pain is- he doesn’t want that, he doesn’t, and then the feeling stops and he slumps against Qi-ge with a gasp.

Qi-ge has tears in his eyes as he squeezes Xiao Jiu. “It’s done?” Weakly, Xiao Jiu nods. Very gently, Qi-ge wipes a few tears off of Xiao Jiu’s cheeks. Did he start crying again? Or were these from before? “If it happens once more,” Qi-ge says, “I’ll get a healer.”

“Okay,” Xiao Jiu whispers, and presses his face into Qi-ge’s chest. He rocks him gently, running fingers through his hair.

“What happened to the room?”

Right, that, too… Xiao Jiu is quiet, trying to figure out how to explain it, and Qi-ge just holds him. “I… I used qi.”

Qi-ge stills. “You’re certain, Xiao Jiu?”

He nods. “I… I did it before, too. I made wind with my hands.” It doesn’t feel… correct, in a way, probably Shen Qingqiu never did uncontrolled wind like that, but he did do it.

Qi-ge gently pulls on the back of Xiao Jiu’s robes so he can see his face, and Xiao Jiu lets himself be pulled, blinking up at Qi-ge. There’s… wonder(?) in Qi-ge’s eyes, light and soft as he looks down at him. “Why didn’t you tell me before, Xiao Jiu?”

Xiao Jiu frowns. “You… you said you wouldn’t teach me cultivation.” This is a big conversation to be having when now he just wants to go back to sleep or be held or- something that’s not this conversation. “I didn’t want you to stop me.”

Gently, one after the other, Qi-ge uncurls Xiao Jiu’s hands from his clothes and presses a kiss to each palm. “If Xiao Jiu has a golden core, I’ll teach him. I’ll show you how to use it.”

Oh. That works. Xiao Jiu lets his body slump forward against Qi-ge again. “Then Qi-ge will be Shizun.”

There’s a very long pause as Qi-ge’s body goes very still, barely breathing. Xiao Jiu doesn’t look at what’s on Qi-ge’s face. “I… guess I will,” Qi-ge says quietly.

Xiao Jiu still doesn’t look at what’s on Qi-ge’s face. “I want to go to bed,” he says. “I want… I want to talk about this tomorrow.” If Qi-ge doesn’t know why he hurt… Xiao Jiu doesn’t want to think about how he’s felt that weird feeling before, how it’s only been here, how he felt it in Qi-ge’s arms and Qi-ge didn’t even notice, because if somebody’s going after him… it can’t be Cang Qiong, because he felt it before he met Liu Qingge, but then who? And what is going on?

(There’s probably a lot of people out there who hate him, but who hates him and knows he’s here? That’s the question.)

”Alright, Xiao Jiu.” Qi-ge’s voice is still so soft, and Xiao Jiu still avoids it, still doesn’t want to look. “Do…” He hesitates. “Do you want me to stay?”

It’s Qi-ge. It’s Qi-ge. No matter what’s wrong or weird or anything, Xiao Jiu knows Qi-ge would never try to hurt him. Would never… do anything. He knows Before, he slept with Qi-ge. He remembers it. But now… when Qi-ge’s big…

But if the weird feeling comes back, especially if it hurts? Xiao Jiu hesitates a long moment, and then nods. “Yes,” he says, “But Qi-ge has to sleep on the floor.”

Qi-ge relaxes underneath him. “If that’s what Xiao Jiu wants,” he agrees. His face is safe to look at now, so Xiao Jiu does look, and it’s soft. That’s fine and normal, then.

He gets one of Xiao Jiu’s pillows and a blanket, and settles down on the floor without a complaint. Xiao Jiu crawls into bed. It’s quiet for a long moment before he whispers, “Good night, Qi-ge.”

“…Good night, Xiao Jiu.”

-walking through bamboo, home home this is home, but he’s still small, smaller than he’s ever been here. There’s a black-robed figure up ahead, Qi-ge it’s Qi-ge and beyond him is that… is that Shen-

Xiao Jiu awakens to noise.

It sounds like an explosion, and a torrent of noise in the hall, and Qi-ge is sitting up. He looks sleepy, like he’s not all there yet, and Xiao Jiu scrambles off the bed and shakes him. “Qi-ge!” he hisses. “It’s loud!”

Qi-ge snaps into awareness all at once, and his gaze hardens. “Stay here,” he says, and he’s leaping to his feet and running out the door so fast that it takes a moment for Xiao Jiu to even realize what happened. The door is open, though, and Xiao Jiu can see disciples moving in the hall.

He gets up to go to the door, peeking out. It’s a rush of what seems like everyone he’s ever glimpsed in this place. One stops, and Xiao Jiu recognizes her. The lady who was chasing the lady who was chasing the Old Palace Master’s daughter. “Get inside, brat!” she scolds. “Junshang’ll kill me if anything happens to you!” And she shoves Xiao Jiu inside and slams the door.

What?

Xiao Jiu blinks and then scowls, and tries to yank open the door. It doesn’t work. It simply won’t move. A chill spreads through him. His breath hitches. He tries to ignore all that and tries again.

It doesn’t work.

It’s… it’s fine. It’s fine. That was a random disciple – well, not completely random if she has a hand in wrangling the Old Palace Master’s daughter, and not if she’s taking personal responsibility for Xiao Jiu’s safety, but she’s someone that’s far below Qi-ge. So whatever she’s done, it won’t keep Xiao Jiu in here for long, because as soon as Qi-ge’s done dealing with whatever that was, he’ll be back and he’ll bust this door open and it will be fine. Xiao Jiu will get it. It will be fine.

The door latch is already completely smashed and broken from when Qi-ge burst in earlier, and that’s weirdly reassuring. Qi-ge can’t be kept out. Even if Xiao Jiu wants Qi-ge to stay out, Qi-ge will only stay out because he listens to Xiao Jiu – because he doesn’t want Xiao Jiu to hate him – so he’ll stop whatever that lady did and free Xiao Jiu.

And then he’s never, ever staying in this room again.

Xiao Jiu is sick of this room. Hates this room. He wants to move into Qi-ge’s rooms (because he must have more than just where the body is) for a few days while they fix him up somewhere completely new, somewhere with windows and multiple entrances that Xiao Jiu can sneak out of and maybe even a hidden spot somewhere. If he asks, maybe Qi-ge will do that.

(Well, he won’t ask for the hidden spot. He needs to make that on his own. He needs a spot to hide from Qi-ge, too, just in case.)

He paces back and forth, because he definitely can’t get back to sleep and he needs to move or he’ll start freaking out even more about how the door is locked and he can’t deal with that kind of miserable night again, he can’t, he can’t.

What happened? Is it Liu Qingge? He’s never attacked at night before- Or, well. If he’s attacked at night it’s been a lot quieter and Xiao Jiu didn’t know, so tonight either it’s his first time attacking at night while Xiao Jiu’s been here or he’s just really loud this specific time for some reason and Xiao Jiu doesn’t know which is more likely.

Junshang? That has to be Qi-ge. There’s nobody else it could be. Xiao Jiu doesn’t… doesn’t really know details or stuff, but that’s like, really high-ranking royalty or something? He’s a lord? Is that because he’s the Palace Master now? It’s impressive, if so. Xiao Jiu needs to ask about it. Does that mean he gets to be a lord when he’s old enough to let Cang Qiong and other people know about him? If Qi-ge’s a lord then Xiao Jiu wants to be one, too.

(How much does that lady know about him? Does she know who Xiao Jiu really is, is that lady so important? Does she just know that Xiao Jiu is important to Qi-ge? Probably any Huan Hua disciple can guess that, but…)

And then- and then there’s also the weird… weird feeling, he’s felt it a few times since he came here now that he looks back and tries to remember (he thinks it’s been here, he thinks, his memory is always so messed up and blending together but he really thinks-). There’s also everything going on with his qi, with cultivation, and he doesn’t know why it’s like this because he doesn’t think it’s supposed to be and-

Xiao Jiu can feel his qi welling up inside of him.

He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t want this. Tears spring to his eyes he wants Qi-ge here now, and he just turns his hands on the door to see if he can blast it to shreds, but nothing happens at first. It’s just filling him up, welling up, and he stumbles a few steps forward and slams his palms into the door and pushes.

The door explodes.

Xiao Jiu is knocked off his feet, flying backwards into the bed and banging his head, splinters raining down on him and slicing into his skin and he cries out, shielding his face as best as he can until everything stops.

He’s crying even more now because everything is happening, nothing is going right, and he just keeps messing up and it hurts. He’s bleeding. His arms and legs are scraped up, the wood slicing right through his robes to make him bleed, and his head throbs and when he touches the back of it his hand comes away red and sticky. The door is completely gone. There’s nothing there, now, just the broken latch hanging and swinging slightly, and nobody is in the hall beyond the entryway.

He hurts. He hurts.

Xiao Jiu bursts into sobs.

He buries his face in bloody hands, shoulders shaking as he cries and cries and cries. His head hurts. Hands hurts. Body hurts and legs hurt and now his eyes hurt and the way his mouth is twisted hurts and his throat still burns from before and now it’s even worse now and he’s bleeding and Xiao Jiu’s had to take care of this himself before, he can he can he can, but he doesn’t want to he just wants Qi-ge and he gasps out his name. “Qi-ge!”

He shouldn’t call, he shouldn’t, Qi-ge’s dealing with whatever’s going on and he’ll be back as soon as he can but he wants him to hurry, wants him to hurry hurry hurry and “Qi-ge, p-please!”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t call anymore because he can’t, sobs tearing at his throat, and then and then and then because everything is awful and everything has to get even worse because nothing can be good ever the burning starts again.

It’s in his whole body it’s in every limb it’s in his fingers and his toes his arms his legs his mouth his head his eyes head ears tongue burns burns burns and he screams, writhing on the floor where is Qi-ge where is Qi-ge where is Qi-ge it hurts it hurts it hurts and he can’t stop screaming and there’s blood in his mouth and he closes his eyes and he can’t hear can’t feel can’t think it hurts it hurts it hurts-

Everything stops, abruptly, and Xiao Jiu is left sobbing on the floor. His hearing comes back to him first, the sounds of his own breathing and his tears and Qi-ge’s frantic, loud voice calling his name. The feeling is next, desperate hands on him, petting his hair and touching everywhere, arms cradling him as he rests in what must be in Qi-ge’s lap and the feeling is still there, it moves through him but doesn’t hurt but it’s still there and Xiao Jiu somehow cries even harder and buries his face in Qi-ge’s chest as his whole body shakes.

The feeling stops after a little bit, and then it’s just Qi-ge holding him closely and making soothing sounds and saying his name and apologizing over and over, apologizing for failing him and for hurting him and Xiao Jiu can’t do anything but cry and cry and cry and then Qi-ge says, “Xiao Jiu, I’m sorry for this,” which is a different apology than anything else so far but Xiao Jiu can barely even breathe right now, let alone try to figure out what he means.

That horrible feeling returns, sleepiness and weariness dragging at all of his limbs, at every part of him, and Xiao Jiu falls into darkness.

Xiao Jiu awakens to warmth.

He’s still held in Qi-ge’s arms, and nothing hurts. Not even his throat hurts from screaming, nor his eyes from crying. He feels… fine. “Xiao Jiu?” murmurs Qi-ge.

He doesn’t understand anything. That horrible feeling, whatever’s inside of him – it put him to sleep. Xiao Jiu isn’t stupid. He’s not. He’s not. Qi-ge did that. Qi-ge can do that horrible feeling. Is that just someone else’s qi moving inside of him? Is it? Is that what it is?

That… that must be what it is. Qi-ge wouldn’t hurt him. Qi-ge wouldn’t hurt him. Not like that. Not for real. Not on purpose.

Xiao Jiu opens his eyes and looks up at Qi-ge. He’s crying, of course, always crying, but Xiao Jiu can barely notice that usual before he realizes there’s light. Sunlight, streaming in through windows. They’re somewhere new. Somewhere- Somewhere-

He scrambles off of Qi-ge’s lap and looks around with wide eyes.

It’s… “Home,” he whispers, very quietly. He remembers this place. He knows this place. Xiao Jiu remembers dreams when he was big and rich and a teacher, when he was on Cang Qiong – his bamboo house. His home. It… it looks…

“I made this for you,” Qi-ge says, very quietly. “It’s not the real one, but it’s a replica. Do you like it?”

Xiao Jiu turns and looks at Qi-ge. There are tears in Qi-ge’s eyes, and a way that he looks at Xiao Jiu that feels… different. He always looks at Xiao Jiu like he never wants to look at anything else, which Xiao Jiu understands, but this time it’s a bit different. There’s something… hm. Maybe a little lost? Uncertain? Xiao Jiu doesn’t really know, and Xiao Jiu takes one look around at the rest of the room and returns to Qi-ge’s lap.

After a moment, Qi-ge wraps his arms around him again. “What happened, Qi-ge?” he asks. He’s not mad about being put to sleep this time. He was-

Well, he was doing very bad. So it’s okay. He’ll be mad about it later just to be mad so Qi-ge knows not to do it again, but he’s not really angry with him. Sleeping made him feel better.

Qi-ge exhales, his breath warm against Xiao Jiu’s head. “Liu Qingge attacked last night,” he says, which Xiao Jiu did kind of figure out. That question is answered, and he doesn’t really need to know if the noise or timing were different, which it was. It would be stupid to not do things differently sometimes, and Xiao Jiu hopes someone who was supposedly his friend isn’t that stupid, because that’s Qi-ge’s job.

So he just nods a little, resting his head on Qi-ge’s chest so he can feel his heartbeat, looking out at the room. He wants to explore it, wants to touch and feel and see if it’s just like what he remembers, but he’s also worried that will bring back even more memories which he does not want, not right now at least, and everything has been… it’s been… it’s a lot.

Qi-ge clearly needs to hold him, anyway, so Xiao Jiu will stay on his lap for now to let him.

“I… made the door explode,” he says, very quietly. “Is… something wrong with my qi?” That’s a safe question to ask. Maybe it will delay cultivation right now, but Xiao Jiu knows that Qi-ge will teach him to be a cultivator no matter what eventually, because cultivators live for forever and Qi-ge obviously wants him around for forever (right? right?), so he’ll teach him and whatever’s going on is scarier than waiting to do cultivation.

Qi-ge squeezes him and presses a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m not sure,” he says. “I have… a theory, Xiao Jiu, but we’ll have to wait to test it.”

That’s not a good answer. “Why?”

He presses another kiss to Xiao Jiu’s head, and then another. “This… I’m sorry,” he says. “When Liu Qingge attacked, he got away with Xiao Jiu’s body.”

His current body goes cold, and he yanks back to look up at Qi-ge’s face, which is frowning and apologetic. “What? He has- What will he do with it, Qi-ge!?”

“Bury it,” Qi-ge says, with such swiftness it’s deeply reassuring. Oh. Okay. Okay. “I need to get it back quickly, though, and so I’ll go right now to get it back.”

Back… quickly?

Ah. It’s a body. Bodies can… well, Xiao Jiu vaguely remembers seeing what some bodies can do, and he doesn’t want to think about that, especially when it’s his own. So he gets that. He really does. But…

“Qi-ge,” Xiao Jiu says, hands curling in Qi-ge’s robes. “What if… what if it hurts again?” He swallows sharply. “Is… is it someone’s qi? Is someone trying to- to-” He doesn’t know what the point in torturing him would be, unless it’s just… just to torture.

Qi-ge’s face crumples and he pulls Xiao Jiu in to tuck his face against his chest, and pets his head carefully. “Does… does Xiao Jiu trust me?” he asks.

Maybe the pause is longer than it should be. “...About what?” Xiao Jiu asks. He can’t… can’t just say yes. He could – but it would be a lie, and he doesn’t want to lie right now. Not really. Because he does trust Qi-ge about many things, but he doesn’t trust him about other things.

There’s an exhale and then a kiss to his head. It’s a wet kiss, tears falling onto Xiao Jiu’s hair. Stupid Qi-ge. Don’t do untrustworthy things if you want to be trusted in everything, then. “If I say you won’t hurt again while I’m gone, will Xiao Jiu trust me?”

Oh. That’s it? He nods, staring at the red fabric of Qi-ge’s robes in front of his face. “Yes,” he says. “Qi-ge knows what’s going on?”

“I think so,” he says. It’s very, very careful, even though his words are wet. Xiao Jiu’s not sure what to make of it.

“You think?”

“If I’m wrong, I’ll be back immediately,” Qi-ge says. “I’ll set an alarm. But I don’t think I’m wrong.”

Xiao Jiu presses his lips together in a line and tries to consider this. “...What does Qi-ge think it is, then?” He hasn’t said, so he probably doesn’t want to tell Xiao Jiu, but can he get some kind of hint? Qi-ge keeps secrets and then is upset he isn’t trusted.

Well. Xiao Jiu also keeps secrets and would also be upset if he wasn’t trusted, but he would at least understand it. He would still be mad, though.

“I’ll tell you when I come back,” Qi-ge promises, refusing to give Xiao Jiu anything. He presses another kiss to Xiao Jiu’s head. “It will take a long time to explain, and I need to hurry. Will Xiao Jiu be okay here?”

Xiao Jiu pulls back and when Qi-ge lets him and doesn’t shove him against his chest again, he looks around. He thinks he’ll be okay here. He wanted out of that room anyway, and here might… be better? “Can I leave here if I want?” he asks. “Are we still in Huan Hua Palace? How will I get food?” His box of snacks is in the corner, at least. He spots it and feels relieved.

“You can go outside, but not into the rest of the palace,” Qi-ge says. “We’re not in Huan Hua Palace, we’re somewhere else, and it will be dangerous to wander. I have a barrier set up again, okay? And someone will bring you meals.”

Qi-ge is getting impatient, Xiao Jiu can tell. He probably wants to go off to Cang Qiong as quickly as possible. Xiao Jiu doesn’t like it. Qi-ge shouldn’t be eager to leave him, he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t.

So much has happened in a single night, or at least it feels like it. This new place came out of nowhere. Liu Qingge took his body. Xiao Jiu’s qi is strange and something keeps happening to his body which hurts, hurts, and Qi-ge thinks he knows why but won’t tell Xiao Jiu either reason, and Xiao Jiu wants to hook his fingers into Qi-ge and not let go, wants to cling to him and force Qi-ge to pry him off, wants to scream and yell and demand that Qi-ge take him too, that he go to Cang Qiong and stare down everyone there that once knew him and tell them off for being unfaithful, to look them right in the eye and tell them how much he hates them and how little he wants them to have his body.

Maybe if he cries, maybe if he caves into the feeling bubbling in his chest, then Qi-ge will stay. They can forget about that body. They can get it later and restore it somehow, or never get it at all because it’s not like Xiao Jiu needs it, anyway, because he’s right here and he’s whole. Well. As whole as Xiao Jiu can really be.

But maybe if he cries, Qi-ge will go and leave him crying anyway.

“...Okay,” Xiao Jiu says quietly. “Qi-ge has to be fast. He has to come back right away, has to beat up that Liu Qingge and come back as soon as he can. Alright? Xiao Jiu will be waiting for him.”

Qi-ge’s gaze softens, and he leans down to press a kiss against Xiao Jiu’s forehead. “I’ll hurry back,” he promises. “I’ll be quick.”

He stands up, then, picking up Xiao Jiu, and carries him over to the bed to sit him on the end. “If Qi-ge is very very fast,” Xiao Jiu says, “I’ll give him a reward.”

That gets him a little laugh. “What kind of reward?”

“Hurry and you’ll get to find out,” says Xiao Jiu.

Qi-ge smiles at him. “Mm. And what if I’m slow?”

“Then Qi-ge gets a punishment,” says Xiao Jiu.

“I’d like anything if it comes from you,” says Qi-ge. That’s exactly what he should say. That’s what he’s said before, in some life, and it makes Xiao Jiu relax a little. Stupid Qi-ge. “But I think I’d rather have a reward, so I’ll hurry.”

“Good,” says Xiao Jiu. “Good.”

He gets one more kiss on the head, and then Qi-ge is gone. There’s no good-bye. That… that would be stupid. There’s no reason to say good-bye when all it is is Qi-ge… running an errand. Yes. That’s what this is. He just has to go to Cang Qiong and beat up a thief and then he’ll be back and Xiao Jiu maybe won’t have even noticed any time has passed. Maybe if he tries to read, Qi-ge will be back by the time he finishes the book.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Come back quickly, Qi-ge.

Chapter Text

Qi-ge is not quick at all.

It takes days. How many days, Xiao Jiu isn’t sure. Time here is… weird. It’s not like Huan Hua Palace, where if he were shut up in his room, he wouldn’t know what time it is because there were no windows and no time pieces. No, here, it’s because time itself is weird.

Sometimes it seems to move too slow, sometimes too fast, and it doesn’t seem to work with what his body thinks time should be. He gets sleepy even when it’s bright out, because his body says it’s time for bed, but it’s not time for bed at all so he has to fight it off.

He thinks it’s because of the demons. Because there’s demons now.

Or at least one specific demon who Xiao Jiu has no idea what to make of.

The first time it comes time to eat, the lady that locked him in his room before walks in except she’s practically naked. Xiao Jiu yelps and covers his eyes. “Where are your robes!?” he demands, because even if he’s seen ladies wearing very little before to try to get clients he wasn’t expecting it.

The woman snorts. “I’m already stuck babysitting you, I’m not putting those back on,” she says. “Eat, brat.” And then she leaves.

She leaves a bowl of noodles, lukewarm. They taste really good, except just… not warm enough. The only reason Xiao Jiu trusts them is because they’re clearly from Qi-ge, just through this lady.

When she comes that evening(?) with burnt dumplings, he’s prepared for her clothes and doesn’t hide his face. In addition to her completely strange attire, she has… pointed ears. And a mark on her forehead that makes him think of the one he once saw on Qi-ge’s forehead, though it’s obviously different. “Why do you look like that?” he asks her. Maybe he should be more polite, because this is a lady, but she’s weird and he’s already kind of mad at her and also Qi-ge isn’t here.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m a demon,” she says, and she leaves.

Does… does that mean Qi-ge is a demon? Is that what that mark means? When he asks her, she doesn’t answer, but he does learn that her name is Sha Hualing. She’s comforting, in a weird way, and Xiao Jiu feels tempted to call her Jiejie.

He has zero idea where that impulse comes from and he definitely doesn’t say it. Does she remind him of someone he can’t remember or something?

She never gets better at heating up the food and only shows up to drop food off and take away empty bowls and otherwise Xiao Jiu is completely on his own. He goes outside the little house, which doesn’t look accurate on the outside and is definitely disappointing. It’s made of bamboo, sure, but it definitely feels off to him. He’s not sure why or how or what, but it doesn’t feel correct. And, of course, there’s no bamboo growing around it.

He misses it. Fiercely. He dreamed about it recently, and now it’s all he really wants. (Well, that and Qi-ge, of course.) It’s honestly kind of odd that he dreamed about it… because it feels like he hadn’t really dreamed of anything for awhile? And yet he had, before Qi-ge left.

Here, Xiao Jiu dreams, too.

Xiao Jiu remembers kneeling before someone and feeling desperate longing to impress them, for them to consider him worthy, for them to let him get up off his aching knees and accept him. He remembers being fiercely angry at someone, hating them and loathing them, but also the hurt that curls around that hatred, how he also feels just utter sadness at the same time.

He remembers pouring tea on someone’s head, and not caring as they cry.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t try to focus on them. Doesn’t try to remember. After initially inspecting everything just to see what he has – Qi-ge has robes here for both him now and for Shen Qingqiu, the two fans he’s used so far, and his knife and coin pouch, but everything else is new and different, new books and writing materials and paints and more – he doesn’t try to compare, doesn’t try to figure out what matches or doesn’t match the scant memories he has of this place.

If he remembers something really bad, Qi-ge isn’t there to help. (Or hurt, because sometimes it’s worse to have Qi-ge there.) He also doesn’t want to remember, which is something he has to keep reminding himself of.

He’s Shen Qingqiu, but he’s not. He’s Xiao Jiu, but he’s not. He doesn’t really know who he is, so he tries not to think about it.

Instead, he tries to redraw the pictures he drew for the fan he wants to make, and fails. He tries to read a book, but it hurts his head and he can’t tell if it’s because he’s trying too hard or if it’s just too much, so he puts it aside. He tries to copy some poetry and he stares at the page as ink drips off of his brush and writes absolutely nothing.

Sha Hualing won’t talk to him, really, when he tries to have her talk to him, because that’s the kind of low he’s fallen to. She won’t be baited into conversation and when he’s especially pertinent she just flicks his forehead and leaves. There’s no trees outside to climb and no ponds to stick his feet in and he does try to leave to see if Qi-ge was lying about the barrier but he absolutely wasn’t. Xiao Jiu can do nothing but stare at the stone walls that lay behind the invisible wall, and can get no closer.

It’s maddening. He hates this.

Is Qi-ge okay? He seems very strong, and he’s beaten Liu Qingge plenty of times, but this isn’t just Qi-ge fighting against Liu Qingge. He’s attacking all of Cang Qiong, and Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how strong they all are. Will he do it alone? Probably not. He’s smarter than that, Xiao Jiu thinks. He’ll probably bring all of his Huan Hua Palace disciples along with him (and demons, if he has more than Sha Hualing), but… Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how strong they are, either.

And maybe it’s harder to fight against the sect where they both were taught. Qi-ge may be more ruthless now, but he’s always had a soft heart, and maybe they’ll try to persuade him off of this path.

Maybe they’ll try to make him forget someone like Shen Qingqiu, because Qi-ge is so much better than him and he’s long dead anyway.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t… doesn’t think they’d ever succeed in that, but he still doesn’t like to think about it.

He hates this. All of it. Just sitting here and thinking about Qi-ge and not knowing if he’s okay or not and Xiao Jiu goes and lays down face down in the dirt and screams about it for a little bit.

His qi goes weird a few times, but not as weird as before, and Xiao Jiu knows better what to do with it. Now he’s able to run outside and kind of… direct things? He wishes he had bamboo, so he could see if he’s able to like… slice it properly, and aim, but he at least thinks he’s doing okay. It’s coming out more like wind-y attacks than just gushes of energy. Xiao Jiu makes a blade of grass sharp like a needle at one point just by focusing on it really hard and that’s honestly very neat.

He wishes Qi-ge was here. He wants to show him.

When the door opens, he’s lying on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He’s not doing anything worth doing, and he turns his head slightly. “Is it time-”

Xiao Jiu is expecting Sha Hualing, with more food. Qi-ge steps through the door instead. He scrambles to his feet, smile already spreading on his face even though he tries to squash it because no, no, he has to scold Qi-ge, that took far too long so he needs to get his punishment, when he freezes.

His smile drops.

In behind Qi-ge walks another figure. It’s not… He’s not exactly the same. Not entirely. But Xiao Jiu looks at that face and locks eyes and he knows. He knows he knows he knows.

“Shen… Shen Qingqiu…?”

The man who must be Shen Qingqiu, who has to be Shen Qingqiu, who is somehow him and not him and and and this is Shen Qingqiu, looks equally startled to see Xiao Jiu there. Xiao Jiu immediately runs for Qi-ge, who scoops him up without looking at him, and both he and Qi-ge watch Shen Qingqiu and Shen Qingqiu watches them right back.

“System, is that the original goods?” Shen Qingqiu says, and then there’s some weird sort of chiming in the air that Xiao Jiu feels like he’s heard before but also hasn’t, but the weird thing is that Qi-ge doesn’t react at all.

“Who are you talking to!?” Xiao Jiu demands. “What does that mean? Original goods? Who are you?”

Shen Qingqiu looks even more startled, and Qi-ge finally tears his gaze from Shen Qingqiu to look at Xiao Jiu, his brow furrowed just slightly. He lifts a single hand to tuck a stray piece of hair behind Xiao Jiu’s hair and then starts to gently comb it out, as it had gotten messy from lying on the floor. “What are you talking about?” Qi-ge asks. “Did he say something?”

“You could hear me?” blurts Shen Qingqiu.

“You couldn’t hear him?” asks Xiao Jiu, wide-eyed.

Qi-ge shakes his head, and his gaze slides back over to Shen Qingqiu. “I didn’t hear anything… but Xiao Jiu did. What interesting things that says, Shizun. Would you like to explain why there are two of you?”

Shizun? Why is he calling him Shizun? That stupid game, now? Xiao Jiu wants to shake Qi-ge and make him talk, make him explain, but apparently Qi-ge doesn’t know much more than Xiao Jiu does and what happened out there and where did he come from.

That’s not his body. That’s not his body. Where is his body?

“I…” His eyes dart between them. “Give me… a moment. I need to see what I… can tell you.”

The wording is very deliberate. Qi-ge frowns. “Can?”

Shen Qingqiu nods very slowly. “Can. Can tell you.” Qi-ge nods slowly and Shen Qingqiu turns slightly away, muttering quietly to himself. Xiao Jiu can’t hear his words, but he does hear the weird chiming, over and over, and he winces.

Qi-ge notices. “Does Xiao Jiu hear something?” he asks.

“Weird… chimes,” he says. “Like strange bells. I think he’s talking to someone.” Xiao Jiu swallows. “Qi-ge… what’s… what’s going on?” He talks quietly, too, because he doesn’t want Shen Qingqiu to hear.

He was expecting Qi-ge to return with his body and then- then they could mess with his qi and he could explore more of the palace and- and- he doesn’t know what more, but not this. Not this. Never ever could he have thought this.

Qi-ge hums. “There’s two of you. His qi was why you were using qi. You were in pain because he was in pain.” Qi-ge presses a kiss to his head. “I’m sorry, Xiao Jiu, I didn’t know that when I was attacking him I was hurting you.”

Wait, Qi-ge did that? Xiao Jiu looks at him with wide eyes. “You- Why did you attack him?”

Qi-ge frowns. “He was helping-” The chimes have stopped, all of a sudden, and Xiao Jiu shoves his hand in Qi-ge’s face to stop him from talking. He doesn’t want Shen Qingqiu to hear, and he looks at the man. His fan is up and hiding his face, eyes narrowed at them both over the top of it.

“Shizun,” Qi-ge says, which Xiao Jiu hates so so much because this is not the time for that, but Shen Qingqiu doesn’t look at all perturbed by the form of address. Was this a game they played before? What is going on? “Please, enlighten us. Why are there two of you?”

Something flashes across Shen Qingqiu’s gaze, and he looks at Qi-ge. “Hasn’t Binghe already guessed?” he asks cooly.

“I would like to hear it from Shizun,” says Qi-ge, quietly. There’s something uncertain about his expression. “There’s still much this disciple… this disciple wishes to understand.”

Xiao Jiu feels cold.

He feels ill.

He feels like crying.

Binghe. Shizun. Disciple. He stares at Luo Binghe, and he tries to swallow. This isn’t… this isn’t Qi-ge. This isn’t Yue Qi. Isn’t Qi-ge. This is the disciple that he mentioned, this is Luo Binghe, who lied to him and pretended and faked and he saw so many of Xiao Jiu’s memories and- and they slept in the same room and he let Luo Binghe hold him Luo Binghe is holding him right now and Xiao Jiu lunges forward to claw at his face and Luo Binghe catches both his wrists without even trying.

“Let me go!” Xiao Jiu snarls, desperately trying to wrestle his hands away. “You’re not Qi-ge! Let me go, bastard!”

“Shh, shh, Xiao Jiu,” murmurs Luo Binghe. He can feel Luo Binghe’s… qi, or whatever is, moving inside him. It tugs at him like before, makes him sluggish and sleepy, limbs weighing so much and Luo Binghe arranges him carefully as he slumps against Luo Binghe. “I know you are upset that I lied to you,” he says. He pets Xiao Jiu’s hair and Xiao Jiu wants to bite him, but he can’t make anything move and he’s shaking like he’s going to fall to pieces because Luo Binghe can’t stop that, apparently.

“Give him to me,” says Shen Qingqiu. His eyes flit back and forth between the two, and his fan is lowered enough that Xiao Jiu can read anxiousness in his face. “Give him to me, and I’ll tell you.”

Luo Binghe looks at him. Xiao Jiu can’t read what’s in his face. He doesn’t trust himself to read what’s in this man’s face, this man who lied to him for so long. “What does Shizun think I’ll do?” he asks. “Shizun truly thinks so low of me. I would never hurt Xiao Shizun. I may have hid my identity from him, I may have hidden things from you, but none of the feelings I have revealed were false.”

Xiao Shizun. Hah. Not just a game, then, but his true title. This was his disciple. A disciple he was close to. One that devoted himself to Shen Qingqiu. He had been interested to meet him, at one point.

This false Qi-ge, this Luo Binghe… how could none of the feelings he showed be false? Was every tear real? Every word that passed through his lips? How could they be, when they were concealed under such lies?

Luo Binghe knows things now that Xiao Jiu, that Shen Qingqiu, would never want him to know. He knows this, because Xiao Jiu didn’t even want Qi-ge to know, and now this complete stranger does. Whoever this Shen Qingqiu is, however there are two, surely they must be the same in this, even if he doesn’t know what Luo Binghe now knows.

Shen Qingqiu’s lips press into a thin line. “Luo Binghe, at present I really don’t know which of your words are true and which are false. Therefore, don’t bother saying such things.”

Such words seem to make Luo Binghe furious, reddening with anger, even his eyes flashing red. Red, red, like Xiao Jiu had seen them before. Qi-ge isn’t a demon. Luo Binghe is. “Shizun’s only concern is being angry that I deceived them,” he says coldly, his gaze looking between the two of them. “But if I hadn’t done so, I’m afraid I still wouldn’t be able to speak a word to you. Shizun has deceived me before, and now scorns me. Xiao Shizun would have never come with me nor trusted me.”

He exhales very deliberately, seeming to try to keep himself calm. “Shizun has many reasons to think I am a devil incarnate now. If Shizun worries for Xiao Shizun, perhaps he should speak and explain.”

Shen Qingqiu looks at him, measuring and weighing. He looks at Xiao Jiu, held in the arms of this liar, liar, liar. “Very well,” he says. He snaps his fan shut, tapping it in the palm of his free hand. “Eleven years ago… Shen Qingqiu died of a qi deviation. I… had passed as well, and found myself in his body.”

Xiao Jiu’s mind goes blank. He can’t- he can’t think. He can’t breathe. He can’t-

Luo Binghe’s face softens, tears springing to his eyes. “I remember,” he says. “I remember how Shizun… changed. We thought you had lost some of your memories. But you… you were a new person.”

Shen Qingqiu’s cheeks flush and he reopens his fan and hides his face. “I did not… realize that was the belief,” he says.

Luo Binghe takes a small step forward. “The Shizun who gave me medicine was you. The one who protected me. Who cast me away. That was all you, Shizun.” His face goes very carefully blank. “And the original Shen Qingqiu…”

Shen Qingqiu looks at Xiao Jiu, eyes anxious again. “Binghe,” he says. “I know that… he did not treat you well. But this is a child. Please give him to me.”

“Shizun still thinks that-”

Xiao Jiu can move. He’s not- he’s not sure when he started being able to move. He’s not sure when Luo Binghe’s tricks wore off. He can’t think. He can’t think. Xiao Jiu lunges forward and bites Luo Binghe’s hand and shoves himself away.

Luo Binghe drops him and Xiao Jiu lands hard on the ground and then scrambles up, backing away, backing towards Shen Qingqiu, who at least wants to protect him. “You-” His voice breaks. Luo Binghe’s face is unreadable.

“You didn’t want me,” he says. Even if he was furious and terrified and so so scared because it wasn’t Qi-ge, just a moment ago, this was at least someone who was looking for him and wanted him so badly he would lie for it. One last thread of safety, one last thread holding Xiao Jiu together – but he didn’t want him. Doesn’t want him. He isn’t wanted.

He had died, and no one had noticed.

If this Shen Qingqiu is telling the truth – and why would he lie? – then no one knew. No one knows. Xiao Jiu turns his gaze on Shen Qingqiu. “You- replaced me?” There’s guilt in his eyes in his face in his expression in everything, everything, and Xiao Jiu feels like he’s going to throw up.

He died, and no one realized. He was gone, he was dead and gone and nobody knew and apparently he got kinder but no, he never really got kinder because that wasn’t him, he died still wretched and awful and- and-

Qi-ge didn’t know he was gone.

Qi-ge- Qi-ge didn’t- Qi-ge didn’t know he was gone. Xiao Jiu had died, and Qi-ge hadn’t noticed. Even if he thought that this Shen Qingqiu was Xiao Jiu, this imposter was him, when this imposter had died Qi-ge hadn’t thrown away everything to try to bring him back, to try to find his reincarnation or resurrect him or anything like that. That had been Luo Binghe, trying for someone else. Not someone who wanted him. Not someone who wanted Xiao Jiu.

He had been confused, this whole time. Where Qi-ge was in his memories. If Qi-ge came back for him, where was he? Why did he only remember Qi-ge when they were older, at Cang Qiong? Luo Binghe had said they were separated, that something had happened, lies and lies, excuses and excuses, false words coming from someone who didn’t even know what happened.

Qi-ge never came back for him. Not now, and not before. He never came back.

No one wants him. No one wants him. No one wants him.

Xiao Jiu can feel it building in his chest like a scream. Qi that is not qi, energy that is not energy, chimes ringing in his ears and he stands between the person who was never really looking for him and the one who stole his whole life and as he bursts into sobs, pain erupts within him, cold and hard and devouring.

His entire world goes white.

He’s sitting.

He’s sitting on the ground, knees to his chest, arms wrapped around them as he cries. Tears drip down his face, snot clogs his nose, his mouth is open and dry and desperately sucking in air, he is gross and awful and disgusting and no one wants him.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know where he is. Through his eyelids it’s bright, bright, but he doesn’t open them and look. There’s no Luo Binghe. No Shen Qingqiu. No- No Qi-ge, real or fake. No one. No one. The only sounds are his own heartbeat, his own ragged breathing, and the chimes. The chimes that drum into his head, over and over, a piercing pain that he can’t get rid of.

“Shut up!” he yells into nothing, because if it’s a person, he doesn’t want to hear them. “Be quiet! Go away!”

The chimes are quiet for one blessed moment and then they start up again and Xiao Jiu screams. He grabs his head, nails sinking into his skin, and he screams and he screams and he screams, throat burning and bloody and hoarse because at least if he’s screaming he doesn’t hear anything else.

When he stops, raggedly sucking in air, it’s silent. It stays that way this time.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know how long he sits. He doesn’t want to uncurl. He doesn’t want to keep going. What’s the point? What’s the point of anything?

It would have been better to die on the street and think that in some dream, in some world, Qi-ge loved him. He thinks he would have preferred that. Not this – not here, where he thought he was loved and wanted and someone’s most important person, and now he knows everything is a lie.

Qi-ge never came for him. Luo Binghe cares about the other Shen Qingqiu, that person who slipped into his body and stole his life and was kind, because Xiao Jiu could never be kind, he is rotten down to his core. He should have known, the moment he heard that. Ming Fan and Ning Yingying don’t actually care about him. Liu Qingge isn’t his friend – no wonder Xiao Jiu hated him, yet Luo Binghe said they were friends. He’s the fake Shen Qingqiu’s friend.

But can Xiao Jiu even call him a fake? He’s been Shen Qingqiu for eleven years, and everyone likes him better.

If Xiao Jiu told everyone, would they even care? Would it even matter? Would they just shrug their shoulders and declare they like the new one better, too bad, and kick Xiao Jiu out to go die on the street?

Shen Qingqiu is kind enough that he doesn’t want Xiao Jiu to die, at least. Hah. Pity. Is that enough?

Of course not. Of course not.

The chimes start up again, but Xiao Jiu’s head doesn’t hurt as much anymore, and he finally lifts his head and opens his eyes to see where he is.

White – that’s all that surrounds him. He’s sitting on white. It’s not a white floor, just… white. Everything is the same in all directions. He feels a wall behind him, but when he glances back, it’s just white. Nothing. Endless.

In front of him floats what looks like strange, shining blue glass. As he looks, the chimes start up again, and words spread across it. He can understand them without even trying.

Good morning! Good morning! Xiao Jiu is awake!

Is this… what Shen Qingqiu was talking to? The system? He nods. “Who… are you? Where… where is this?” His voice breaks a little. He wishes he had water. As soon as he thinks that, with a sparkle of blue light, a glass of water appears next to him. Xiao Jiu stares at it with wide eyes.

The System is here to help! Xiao Jiu should drink up! Xiao Jiu is a growing boy and should stay hydrated!

Xiao Jiu stares at it. He feels, absurdly, like laughing. Nothing in his life makes sense. Everything is awful. What is going on? “Do you talk to Shen Qingqiu like this?” he asks, because what? Is this thing some kind of… nanny?

An image appears on it, two dots and a downturned half circle underneath it, before it chimes once more with writing.

Xiao Jiu is a baby, and the System is on easy mode! Everything will be okay! Gentle Reminder: Stay Hydrated!

He feels like swearing at it. He wants to tell it to fuck off to disappear to stop chiming so so badly, and clearly yelling at it before hadn’t deterred it, but whatever’s going on, easy mode coming off sounds bad.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t know where he is. What this thing is. What anything is. He drinks the water.

(The worst it could be is poison, and he’d welcome that at this point.)

“Where… where am I?” Xiao Jiu asks again. His throat feels better now. It hadn’t answered that question.

Xiao Jiu had a very bad time. It makes the strange symbol again. Is that… a frowning face? Maybe? So right now, Xiao Jiu is in a place between his mind and User 02’s!

User 02…? “Shen Qingqiu?” The box flashes with more strange marks, lines on top of dots, and makes a new chiming noise that sounds like triumphant music. He’s going to take that as a yes. That also means there’s a User 01 out there somewhere, but honestly, Xiao Jiu doesn’t care. It’s clearly not Luo Binghe, or Qi-ge, and that’s about all that he would care about.

No- No, he would only care if it was Qi-ge. Luo Binghe is a stupid stupid liar. So even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.

Okay. Okay. Xiao Jiu tries to wrap his mind around this. It’s… weird. It’s hard. But it’s better than thinking about how much every single person ever doesn’t care about him, so he wants to think about this. He’s in… he’s in his mind. Kind of. And this thing… knows him. Knows Shen Qingqiu, too.

Xiao Jiu swallows, and asks very carefully, “Does… the System know me? About- about me, I mean?”

The System does that flashing and music thing again which means he’s said something correct, and then chimes.

Yes! The System knows all about Xiao Jiu and is happy to help. What does Xiao Jiu want to know? There’s stories that Xiao Jiu’s heard, in this life or before, about making deals with demons and spirits. How you can be tricked into giving up too much, promised something that isn’t what you think it is, get a deal that is far worse for you. That’s what it feels like, here.

But Shen Qingqiu deals with this… thing. And Luo Binghe is a demon.

Xiao Jiu swallows sharply. “What… what did I do to Luo Binghe?” he asks. Shen Qingqiu had been so frightened that Luo Binghe would- would hurt him over it. Would harm him. And if he was never kind, if he was always cruel, then… then…

There’s a pause, before the System chimes again. Xiao Jiu has enough points to unlock the memories! Does Xiao Jiu want to? They’re not very nice. It makes the frowning face again.

Yeah, he did think they’d be terrible. “What are… points?” he asks cautiously.

Xiao Jiu earns them for doing special things! They can be used to unlock special prizes. “Like memories?” It does the flashing again. Xiao Jiu doesn’t know what these… points are. That description was deeply unhelpful. He also kind of wants to demand an entire prize list, just to see what he could get, but- but-

(Unless he can use the points to change everyone’s minds, to want him to try to keep him to care about him… what else can he use them for that matters?)

“Okay,” he says, very quietly. “I want to know. I want to… unlock those memories.”

-he’s sitting in his house, watching Luo Binghe kneel before him, eyes shining. Jealousy twists through him and he dumps his tea over the boy’s head and watches him freeze-

-the beast tumbles and laughs with Yingying, somehow still here, somehow not having killed himself with that stupid sabotaged manual and saved them all from his presence and his mouth twists-

-he holds a whip in his hand, the beast kneeling on the ground, bruised underneath his robes and yet he hits him again as the beast tries to hold back his tears, apologizes with shining eyes-

Xiao Jiu throws up.

He didn’t know if he’d be able to do it in this strange world, this strange whiteness, hadn’t really considered it, but when he feels the bile in his throat he leans over and he throws up. He stares at it. It disappears in a few sparks of blue light, and is replaced with another glass of water.

Xiao Jiu had a very bad time! Gentle Reminder: It’s important to stay hydrated, especially when you’re-

“GO AWAY!” Xiao Jiu shouts, and he swipes his hand, planning to smash the blue glass. His arm goes through it instead, and it sparks and disappears. It’s gone. It’s gone.

He’s shaking, every part of him is trembling, and he feels- there aren’t words to express how bad he feels. He did that. He did that. He did that.

Xiao Jiu took everything that Qiu Jianluo and Wu Yanzi did and then he did it too. No. Not everything. No sheets twisted under his hands but that’s such cold comfort and Xiao Jiu leans forward and he sobs, clutching his knees.

No wonder Shen Qingqiu thought Luo Binghe would hurt him. No wonder everyone just accepted the new Shen Qingqiu. No wonder Luo Binghe seemed so surprised by some of the things Xiao Jiu said, if he was expecting this good and kind and wonderful Shizun and he got Xiao Jiu, who is so- so-

No one wants Xiao Jiu. He doesn’t blame them.

“Come back,” he whispers, because he has another request. He has another wish. He wants to use his points use his points use them now. “Come back!” he yells. “I want my knife!”

Xiao Jiu thought about it before. Letting “Qi-ge” start over with a new Xiao Jiu. Now he doesn’t think anybody should have to find the next one. No wonder he’s not eleven, even if he died eleven years ago. He knew better than to come back here to this world. To this life. “I want my knife!”

The System doesn’t reappear. No knife shows up next to him or in his hand or in his pocket. He’d take his coins, even, because maybe he could choke himself on those. Something. Anything. He can’t drown in a glass of water so he grabs it and hurls it instead, hoping it will shatter.

It simply disappears into nothing in midair, and Xiao Jiu is completely alone.

He screams. Digs his hands into his cheeks and screams and screams until he can taste blood in his throat, and he coughs and coughs, gasping for air, and the moment his body lets him he screams again. He feels light-headed. Dizzy. But when he runs out of air the second time his body won’t let him scream anymore, so he can’t scream himself to death.

Maybe if he dies in here he doesn’t even really die, so maybe it doesn’t matter at all. “I want out!” he yells, coughing, burning, trying to breathe. “Let me out!”

There’s no chimes. There’s no nothing. Just an endless expanse of white.

Xiao Jiu buries his face in his knees and he sobs.

Time doesn’t feel real here.

He doesn’t feel tired – exhausted with everything that has happened, with himself, with all of the lies and half-truths that swirl around his head and make him want to scream again (he does one more time, and then a second), but not physically tired, not the kind of tired that means he needs to rest.

He doesn’t feel hungry, nor thirsty – any want for water he has is just for the burning of his throat. While the System doesn’t return, after he screams yet again, he does get a glass of water by his side. It’s out there, listening, but it doesn’t speak to him.

Xiao Jiu tries not to think about it watching him.

After nothing changes, he just sits there, curled up. His mind drifts. Will he die, if his body dies out there? Maybe it’s been days. Weeks. Months. Years. Time doesn’t feel real. He hopes Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe let his body die. He doesn’t want to start again, and he really understands why he’s not eleven, why the previous him didn’t want to be reborn once more.

Existing is so exhausting. There has to be a way to just stop entirely, and never start again.

Eventually, though, something changes. When he is feeling everything and nothing at all, there’s a touch to his shoulder. Xiao Jiu’s whole body jerks, twitching, but he doesn’t yank away. Why would he? Even if such a light touch were from someone who wanted to hurt and kill him, he’d welcome that, now. It would be better than remaining here.

Xiao Jiu looks up with a tear-stained face and sees Shen Qingqiu.

Or… not Shen Qingqiu? He is Shen Qingqiu and he is not.

He wears green robes that look like they match him entirely. Xiao Jiu thinks he’s seen them in memories, seen the folds of said robes under his hands when he looked down at himself. His hair is scandalously short, coming to just below his chin. There’s some earrings in his ears along the top, he’s a bit shorter and thinner, and he wears glasses.

Yet his face is Shen Qingqiu’s, and so are his eyes. They’re gentle. “May I sit?” he asks.

Why are you here? Xiao Jiu wants to ask. How are you here? Who are you really? What do you think of me? Do you like being me?

He doesn’t say anything and looks away, and Shen Qingqiu sits next to him. They’re both quiet for a long moment. “...Binghe’s very worried about you, you know,” he says quietly. “He’s the one who got me in here.”

Xiao Jiu doesn’t ask how long it’s been. He doesn’t want to know. He huffs a little in disbelief. “He was looking for you. Not me.” His grip on his arm tightens. He wishes he didn’t have long sleeves, so his nails could dig right into his skin. More pain would be better. “He hates me.”

“Binghe doesn’t hate you-”

“He should!” Xiao Jiu glares at him. Tears are rising in his eyes, burning, and he’s trying so hard to not let them fall. “I remember what I did! He should! I would hate me! I was just like-”

His throat closes up on itself. Shen Qingqiu is looking at him so soft and so sad and Xiao Jiu wants to rip those eyes out. He feels like that a lot. He thinks he doesn’t want anyone to ever look at him ever again.

Shen Qingqiu mutters something quietly, but sighs and then moves his hand to gently rest on Xiao Jiu’s head. He ruffles his hair. “You did,” he says, “But Binghe forgives you.”

He can’t help it. A sob curls out of his throat, choking him, and the next thing he knows, Shen Qingqiu has his arms wrapped around him and is pulling him into his lap. Xiao Jiu presses his face into Shen Qingqiu, weeping, and the man rocks him. He keeps speaking gently. “You were hurt, and you hurt other people. I hurt Binghe, too, and he hurt other people.”

Shen Qingqiu rubs his back so gently. “No one’s blameless, but no one’s innocent, either. It’s okay. We all just need to keep going forward. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, too.” He laughs at that, a little dryly. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

He falls quiet after that, just holding Xiao Jiu, and Xiao Jiu just shakes and shakes and shakes and lets himself be held. Shen Qingqiu is more awkward with this, shifting underneath Xiao Jiu and not quite sure where to put his arms. He holds him more gently than Luo Binghe does.

Xiao Jiu wants a Luo Binghe hug, all of a sudden.

The thought almost makes him choke on a cry, surprised, and he manages to keep breathing and pulls back to wipe at his eyes instead. “Why- why are you here?”

Shen Qingqiu actually looks surprised by that, which Xiao Jiu feels kinda mad about. “I told you, Binghe is-”

“I don’t care!” Xiao Jiu snaps. And maybe it’s weird to say because Luo Binghe should hate him and he just cried and he feels like crying again and he wants a Luo Binghe hug but but- “Y-You’re going to make me wake up and go out there! I don’t- I don’t want to!”

“You don’t want to wake up?” He looks even more surprised and Xiao Jiu will bite him or cry, he hasn’t decided which.

“M-Maybe he’s worried and maybe… maybe he forgives me, but he doesn’t want-” His voice cracks. Crying it is. “He doesn’t want me! You don’t want me! Qi-ge never c-came back for me and nobody even knew I d-died and I don’t- I don’t want to be that Shen Qingqiu anymore but I don’t- don’t want to be Xiao Jiu and nobody wants Xiao Jiu or that Shen Qingqiu anyway-” He can’t talk anymore because he can’t breathe through his tears and Shen Qingqiu pulls him in tight against him again.

It hurts. It hurts. Everything hurts so bad.

Xiao Jiu almost screams, a tear-filled yell tearing out of his throat as he grips Shen Qingqiu’s robes like a lifeline. He doesn’t even want a lifeline and he says he wants to die but now that there’s something to grab he can’t let go, he can’t, because he’s so pathetic he can’t even bring himself to leave the world even when no one wants him.

But even if Shen Qingqiu doesn’t want him, he holds him gently, and maybe that’s enough.

Chapter Text

He’s tired.

Xiao Jiu doesn’t think he’s ever been so tired in his life. His eyes hurt, they’re puffy and aching and terrible, and his nose is so stuffed up he has to breathe through his mouth. Shaky, ragged inhales and exhales that make his whole body tremble with the effort as he sags into the warm embrace still holding him. Xiao Jiu’s hands are hooked into Shen Qingqiu’s clothes like claws, and Shen Qingqiu just rubs his back gently.

“…I hate you,” he mutters, very quietly.

Shen Qingqiu stills at that, and then sighs heavily, starting his gentle rubbing again. “That’s fair,” he says, dry. “I hated you once, too.”

“When I was bigger. Before. Cause I hurt Luo Binghe.” Xiao Jiu’s words are tired and dull — he just… he wants to be done. He doesn’t want to move ever again.

He wants his knife.

“Yes.” Shen Qingqiu keeps his voice calm. Xiao Jiu wonders if that’s what his voice sounded like, before. Was he calm? Xiao Jiu doesn’t think he was. He doesn’t feel like he’s ever been a calm person. “But I don’t hate you now. And neither does Binghe.”

This again? “I don’t care,” he mutters. It doesn’t feel strong enough, doesn’t feel like he’s been firm enough on this. Everything hurts, everything aches, but Xiao Jiu grits his teeth and shoves away from Shen Qingqiu and onto the white nothingness of the floor. He forces himself onto his feet while Shen Qingqiu blinks at him stupidly, surprised. (Did he ever look that stupid?) “I don’t care!”

No one wants him. No one actually wants him. Maybe he’s forgiven and maybe there’s pity but no one actually wants him, no one actually wants Xiao Jiu to be there and he said that before and he’s readying himself to say it again when Shen Qingqiu blurts- “Your Qi-ge came back for you!”

It feels like Xiao Jiu stops working.

He wants to run, wants to take several steps backwards away from those words away from the hope that it gives him, wants to run and run until he can’t hear anything and he doesn’t have to think about them and can just vanish into the white of this place and stop existing. He wants to lunge forward, wants to press his hands over Shen Qingqiu’s mouth and shut him up, make him stop talking and silence every stupid word, wants to dig into him and make him bleed and then he won’t say anything more.

But Xiao Jiu’s stopped working, and he doesn’t move. Shen Qingqiu hesitates, mutters something about “miscommunication trope”, and then repeats himself. “Your Qi-ge came back for you,” he says. “It… it was too late, but he did. He still wants you.”

Xiao Jiu sits down. Qi-ge- he… he… Xiao Jiu swallows sharply. “Who… is he?” It’s a stupid question, one that makes no sense — but fortunately, Shen Qingqiu understands.

“His name is Yue Qingyuan, and he’s the Sect Leader of Cang Qiong,” says Shen Qingqiu, quietly, so gently it just makes Xiao Jiu hate him more. “You were peak lords together.”

Together. Together. Luo Binghe had mentioned in passing that someone else knew him by the name of Xiao Jiu — he hadn’t thought much of it, just another mysterious friend, someone who “Qi-ge” wouldn’t tell him more about. But now- But now-

Qi-ge came back for him. Qi-ge was with him. Even if Luo Binghe was lying about it being him, he and Qi-ge were actually separated and then reunited and Xiao Jiu tries to breathe. “Does he-“

His throat is dry, and he wants more water, but he thinks if the System shows back up again with more water he’ll break it to pieces. “Does Qi-ge… know how terrible I was?” he asks. Luo Binghe did. But.

Does Qi-ge know? Of the people he killed, of what he did to others, of how cruel he was to Luo Binghe? Does he know? Does he care?

Xiao Jiu can’t bear to look at Shen Qingqiu’s face, so he looks at the man’s knees instead as there’s a pause. “…Yes,” says Shen Qingqiu. “He does.”

His breath all leaves his body in one large exhale, one woosh of air. Qi-ge came back for him. He wants him, even if he knows how terrible he is. It’s funny how that changes everything, doesn’t it? If Qi-ge wants him — then it’s good that Shen Qingqiu is here, to bring him out, to let him rejoin others. If Qi-ge wants him — then it’s good that Luo Binghe forgives him, even if he doesn’t want him.

If Qi-ge wants him, he only needs the knife for others, not for himself.

“I still hate him,” says Xiao Jiu. “He came late. I hate him.” He doesn’t, not really — not like… not like the hate that crawls through him when he thinks of Qiu-

No. No, no, no.

“…And you. I hate him. And you. And Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge and-“ He curls his fists in his hair, fingers curling around the strands, and tugs. It doesn’t hurt very much, but it’s enough, it’s enough, and he tries to shakily breathe.

“Why?” asks Shen Qingqiu.

That question infuriates him enough to make him look at the man, to glare at him. “Why not!?” Xiao Jiu snaps. “Everyone’s terrible! Everyone’s awful! They lie and cheat and hurt and kill and- and- why would you even like anyone!? There’s no point!” The other man somehow looks surprised, one hand coming up to cover his face like it’s a fan like Xiao Jiu does and he hates him he hates him he hates him. “Why do you look so surprised!? You should know all that! Don’t you know me!?”

“I don’t,” says Shen Qingqiu.

Something cold digs at him, but Xiao Jiu doesn’t want to focus on that so he clings to his anger. “What do you mean you don’t!? You know who Qi-ge is! You know what I did to Luo Binghe! Luo Binghe knows everything! What the hell do you mean?! Who are you!?”

Someone who died and took over his life — but who is he!? Shen Qingqiu hesitates, this fake Shen Qingqiu who looks so strange, and then asks, “System, what am I allowed to tell him?”

The transparent blue System suddenly appears before Shen Qingqiu, and Xiao Jiu scoots back with a hiss. He can’t read any words on it, it looks blank to him, but the weird chiming noise it makes sounds and he glares at it. He hates it, too, but since he might want to live now (he’s not sure) he doesn’t say it out loud.

“Good news, I can tell you everything,” Shen Qingqiu says. “Bad news, I might give you an existential crisis.” Xiao Jiu looks at him blankly. He has zero idea how to take that. “…Actually, maybe I won’t.”

Shen Qingqiu sighs, and the System disappears. “I’m… from a different world,” he says. “And in that world, this world is a book. A hack- terrible book, but I liked the main character. Luo Binghe.”

Oh. Assuming he’s not insane — though if one of them here is insane, it’s definitely Xiao Jiu — then… “I was the villain.” That’s easy enough.

“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu grimaces and nods. “When I died, I woke up in your body, because you had died, too. The System put me there.”

There’s a lot to ask. Xiao Jiu is kind of overwhelmed by it all. Another world is- bizarre, strange, terrifying, but given where he literally is right now, it’s not unbelievable.

A book. Is this what he meant by an ‘existential crisis’? Xiao Jiu knows he’s real. He’s painfully, painfully real, and he wishes he wasn’t. The contents of the book… presumably, what’s happening right now didn’t actually happen. If Luo Binghe was the protagonist and Shen Qingqiu was the villain, then in the book, he probably died. Maybe there’s more he can learn later — he is curious — but he doesn’t really want to. That’s not the important part.

“You don’t know me because that stuff wasn’t in the book,” he says. Shen Qingqiu nods. It’s a relief. It means that the really bad memory… he never would have told Qi-ge, so only Luo Binghe knows.

He feels ill again. If he throws up, he’s gonna do it all over Shen Qingqiu.

“But how did Luo Binghe know? And how do you know that Qi-ge is Yue Qingyuan?”

“Binghe…” Shen Qingqiu sighs, and looks like he’s delivering really bad news. “He looked at your dreams, to figure out how to pretend to be Yue Qingyuan.” Oh. Xiao Jiu was already mad about that when it was Qi-ge — even if he didn’t know how much his dreams were looked at, he realizes now — and then he got even madder about it being Luo Binghe and this really doesn’t change how mad he is if he’s being honest. That was smart and those memories weren’t bad ones. He’s still mad but not more mad.

“And Qi-ge? How do you know who Qi-ge is?” Xiao Jiu prompts. That’s the most important bit here.

Shen Qingqiu seems a little surprised — maybe cause Xiao Jiu isn’t more mad? — but speaks. “There’s someone else like me,” he says. “He’s the au-“ He stops, looks over Xiao Jiu, and speaks again. “He’s read more of the book, so he knows. He knows more than I do.”

Xiao Jiu… doesn’t like that. How much does this stranger know? Did he know Xiao Jiu before? Who else died that he came here like this Shen Qingqiu? This must be User 01.

“…I want to meet him later,” is what he says, because even if there’s so so many things he needs to ask, needs to learn and know, this white space is starting to hurt his eyes and Xiao Jiu wants to figure out whether he’s going to die or leave here soon.

“Just don’t kill him,” Shen Qingqiu tells him, and it’s clearly meant to be a joke but Xiao Jiu can’t help but flinch.

He remembers killing so many. He doesn’t- He-

“I want… I want Qi-ge,” Xiao Jiu whispers. It all spews out like vomit. “I want Qi-ge but you’re Shen Qingqiu now and I don’t want to be him and I’m so mad at Luo Binghe and I hate him but I want him and- and- and I don’t want to be Xiao Jiu! I don’t! I hate it!”

Tears prick at his eyes and he hates that too, eyes burning, and Shen Qingqiu reaches for him but he scrambles to his feet and backs up so he can’t be touched.

Xiao Jiu is so full of hate. It’s part of him, every piece of him saturated with it, and right now he hates this place, too, hates being here with Shen Qingqiu and talking about Qi-ge and Luo Binghe and- and- and-

“I want out,” he whispers, and then he says it louder. “I want out. You came to make me leave, right!? I want to get out of here!” He wants… he doesn’t know what he wants.

Out. Out. That much he’s certain.

“Are you sure-“ Shen Qingqiu begins, brow creased in concern, but Xiao Jiu is sick of him and his concern.

“Shut up! I don’t want you! Get me out of here!”

Shen Qingqiu frowns. “Fine, but I have to touch you.” He stands up, pushing himself to his feet, tall and looming and Xiao Jiu takes just the smallest step back, just a little one. He braces himself, and Shen Qingqiu reaches out and touches his shoulder. “Binghe,” he says quietly, and everything goes dark.

He’s lying on his back, and his eyes are closed, and he doesn’t know how he got there.

None of those are good in Xiao Jiu’s book, and his whole body twitches and jerks in one direction and then hands touch him from that way and that means he flinches hard in the other direction and hits a wall(?) and scrambles up so he’s sitting and opens his eyes.

Xiao Jiu is sitting on the daybed, which has been moved so it’s in the bedroom. Shen Qingqiu, looking like the real Shen Qingqiu and not the strange sight he was in that white place, is laying on the actual bed, and sits up with a slight groan, rubbing at his head. Luo Binghe is sitting on the floor between the beds, hands raised — he was stopping Xiao Jiu from rolling off — and looking at Xiao Jiu with intent in his gaze.

He looks like he’s a mess, as if he’s been crying, and Xiao Jiu stares right back at him and swallows sharply.

“I want you,” is the first thing Luo Binghe says, and Xiao Jiu sucks in a sharp breath while Shen Qingqiu twitches in the corner of his vision. “I do want you, Xiao Jiu.”

“Binghe!” cries Shen Qingqiu. “I told you not to watch!”

“Sorry, Shizun,” Luo Binghe says, voice gentle, his gaze not looking away.

“System, how is it okay for the protagonist-“ Shen Qingqiu hisses, but since Luo Binghe can’t hear when the System is spoken to, he keeps going and that drowns out the words.

“I don’t hate you. I-“ He shakily exhales. “I thought… Shizun did those things to me. Hurt me.” Shen Qingqiu falls silent in the background. “But I love Shizun, so I forgave him. I can forgive Xiao Jiu for the same, especially when Xiao Jiu didn’t do it.”

Xiao Jiu’s crying, tears burning in his eyes and starting to roll down his cheeks, and Luo Binghe makes a wounded noise and starts crying too and reaches for him but stops when Xiao Jiu jerks back. He doesn’t… he doesn’t know what to say to the second part. Where does this Xiao Jiu and that Xiao Jiu end? But the first…

He swallows sharply. “But he-“ Xiao Jiu’s breath hitches, and he tries again, rubbing at his eyes. “He was n-nice and c-cared about you and I- and I-“ Xiao Jiu as Shen Qingqiu was so horrible, so horrible and awful and no one should ever want him but Luo Binghe just shakes his head.

Carefully, slowly, he reaches out and lays a hand on Xiao Jiu’s knee. “Is Xiao Jiu saying that he didn’t care about me when we lived together? That he was cruel to me?”

‘Lived together’. As if they were two people playing at some horrible, lying, terrifying version of house. Xiao Jiu wants to say that, wants to bring that up but his voice chokes on a sob and he can’t quite do it. “B-But before, I-“

“I don’t care about before,” says Luo Binghe. His gaze is still intent, still fixed on Xiao Jiu, though he relaxes slightly when Shen Qingqiu steps up from behind to put a hand on his shoulder. “I care about you.”

Xiao Jiu bursts into horrible, wretched sobs, shaking his entire body as he flings himself forward and Luo Binghe catches him and squeezes him tight tight tight. Luo Binghe presses kisses to his hair and squeezes him and he’s warm and Xiao Jiu can hear his heartbeat and Shen Qingqiu smooths a hand over his head and it just makes Xiao Jiu cry more and more and more.

He’s not Qi-ge. He’s not. But Xiao Jiu has never even met Qi-ge and he doesn’t want to be the person he was before who has met Qi-ge, and even if Qi-ge came back for him and knows how terrible he is and still loves him anyway, Qi-ge was fooled by Shen Qingqiu and let him die without trying to bring him back the way that Luo Binghe did-

And Luo Binghe wants him, he says so and even if Luo Binghe is a liar and Xiao Jiu hates him so, so much for all the lying, he doesn’t see why he would lie now and Xiao Jiu buries his face in Luo Binghe’s shoulder and weeps and weeps until he has no more tears and is just heaving with dry, empty sobs.

He feels like a wrung out dishrag, and after some time, even those sobs stop.

“I hate you,” Xiao Jiu mumbles, and Luo Binghe lets out the quietest of wet laughs. He’s clearly been crying, too. “You’re a liar.”

“It’s okay if Xiao Jiu hates me, as long as he doesn’t go,” Luo Binghe says, and Xiao Jiu shudders at the echoes of words, said before when he thought it was Qi-ge. “But… I don’t want Xiao Jiu to be mad at me, so I won’t lie to him.”

Luo Binghe remembers his promise. He remembers what he said. He wants Xiao Jiu, wants him fiercely enough that he spied on him and Shen Qingqiu speaking, and maybe for other people that would be a terrible thing, would be too much, but for Xiao Jiu it just means he’s truly, deeply wanted. He- He even put Xiao Jiu on a separate bed from Shen Qingqiu, knew and cared enough to do that, and Xiao Jiu knows he can’t pretend that Qi-ge is the only one that matters.

He doesn’t- He doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know what to do about Qi-ge. How… things should be told, if they even should be told, how that matters in the case of Shen Qingqiu and if he should even care about what happens to Shen Qingqiu.

He doesn’t know what to do about Luo Binghe. This liar who seems to love him, who wants him, who hurt him so deeply even though he didn’t try to — but it’s not like that’s something unique to Luo Binghe, isn’t it? Everyone hurts him. Everyone. And he hurts everyone right back.

But one thing he does know.

“I don’t…” His breath hitches, and he starts again. “I don’t want to be Xiao Jiu, anymore.” Can he do that? Is that okay?

He doesn’t want to remember. He’s said it before, and he’s certain this time. But he still wants Qi-ge, and he wants Luo Binghe, and is that okay? Can he be someone new, and still have them?

Being Xiao Jiu hurts so much.

“You can be someone else,” Luo Binghe says. Xiao Jiu likes the tone of his voice. Like he would fight anyone who tried to say otherwise, would kill to let Xiao Jiu be someone new. “I’ll call you by any name you like.”

He doesn’t have a new name to pull out of his pocket, though, and he thinks maybe that’s clear on his face, because Shen Qingqiu coughs quietly. They look at him.

“Before… this one was Shen Qingqiu,” he says, very carefully, fan in front of his face. “He was… he was known as Shen Yuan.” He lowers the fan, drops the formality just a little. “I’ve taken a lot from you. If you want, you can have that name.”

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes are shining, a little wet. So are Luo Binghe’s. Xiao Jiu can’t- he can’t imagine giving up his name, just like that. Handing it over to another and stripping it from himself completely.

Maybe Shen Qingqiu wants him, too.

“Okay,” he says, very quietly. Shen Yuan. Yue Qingyuan. He doesn’t know if it’s the same character, and yet… and yet…

“Okay,” says Xiao Yuan.

He wants to stop existing for a bit, to just be held and not have to think, and Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe let him do so. They talk quietly to each other, and he listens to Luo Binghe’s heartbeat and hears no chimes, none at all, and only starts to absorb the conversation when he hears his name.

“-Xiao Yuan’s too young to be a disciple,” Shen Qingqiu is saying. “But I don’t know if he… if he would even want…”

“If I would want what?” Xiao Yuan croaks, and Shen Qingqiu looks at him, startled, as Luo Binghe shifts underneath him. He clears his throat and tries again, voice a little better. “If I would want what?”

Shen Qingqiu lifts his fan as a shield. “Does Xiao Yuan like Huan Hua Palace?” he asks. “Does he want to continue living there?”

He grimaces. “No.” He looks up at Luo Binghe, though, hopeful. “Does Cang Qiong still hate you? Can we go back?” Assuming that part wasn’t a lie, which he doubts, since Luo Binghe did have the body.

Luo Binghe looks down at him. “And what if they still hated me?” he asks. Shen Qingqiu swats him for the question, gentle, but Xiao Yuan understands. He’s testing him. That’s how it works.

(This is why it’s hard to really, really hate Luo Binghe. Xiao Yuan understands him. If he were in that situation, he would do the same.)

“Then I’d go yell at Qi-ge,” says Xiao Yuan, even if that’s clearly a lie because thinking about talking to Qi-ge makes him want to scream or cry or both, but it makes Luo Binghe huff out a laugh and Shen Qingqiu shake his head.

“He’s allowed to come to Cang Qiong,” he says, with the voice of one who will fight another to make it happen, and Luo Binghe looks at him with soft, soft eyes.

Oh. Oh. Xiao Yuan doesn’t want to think about that right now for many, many reasons.

“So?” he asks instead. “We can go back, then?” Back, as if he’s ever been there before. Back, as if he’s not trying to be a new person. He’s very bad at this.

“You’re too young to be a disciple,” says Shen Qingqiu, which reminds Xiao Yuan that he really needs to figure out his qi. “But I’m not sure how else to explain you…

He seems genuinely at a loss. Luo Binghe looks at Xiao Yuan. Xiao Yuan looks back, and then looks at over his body, and then at Shen Qingqiu. He remembers what Luo Binghe had said, that others might think him the son of Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu.

“Don’t explain anything,” he says, and he settles back against Luo Binghe. “They can think what they want.” Xiao Yuan closes his eyes. “I want to go. I want out of here.”

“Then we’ll go,” says Luo Binghe. “No explanation will be fine, Shizun.”

“If Binghe is so confident,” Shen Qingqiu gently chides. “Then… let’s go home.”

Home. Home.

One day, Xiao Yuan will sit down with Shen Qingqiu. He will learn of the story Proud Demon Immortal Way, of a world deeply unlike his own, of what happened while he slept, of Tianlang-Jun and a dangerous, dangerous sword.

One day, Xiao Yuan will be held by Luo Binghe as he apologizes. He will explain every step of his plan, every lie and every truth, and how even if he’s sorry for hurting Xiao Yuan, he feels no regrets, for without the lies he couldn’t have met him, and Xiao Yuan won’t say it but he will agree.

One day, Xiao Yuan will meet User 01, will watch him cry and absolve him for something he never meant to be real, absolve him for pain that was never meant to be true.

One day, Xiao Yuan will weep before Yue Qingyuan, who will carve out his heart and offer it to him, give up every weighty secret, and while nothing will be healed, the cracks will fit together just right.

One day, Xiao Yuan will stand before the demon lord another him created, and wonder at the value of being kind.

Today, though, is none of those days. Today he is just Xiao Yuan, and there are two people holding his hands. “I can walk by myself,” he says.

“I just like holding your hand,” says Luo Binghe, which is honestly probably the truth. He’s ridiculous.

“You might slip and fall,” scolds Shen Qingqiu gently, as if neither he nor the demon walking alongside Xiao Yuan could catch him in that case. He’s also ridiculous.

“If you say so,” says Xiao Yuan. He doesn’t think he could walk on his own, honestly. Not because he’s too small, but because he can’t stop shaking, his fingernails digging into both men's hands, and they just aren’t mentioning it.

Qi-ge is here, and he doesn’t know Xiao Yuan. No one here knows him, for good and for bad. Ming Fan, Ning Yingying, Liu Qingge, Qi-ge… Countless more that he doesn’t remember and doesn’t want to…

It’s okay. It’s okay. He’s not… he’s not that person anyway. Not anymore. Not anymore. Xiao Yuan. Xiao Yuan, who is wanted by at least two, and even if he can’t trust them, not fully… they want him. They want him.

Luo Binghe squeezes his hand. Xiao Yuan looks up at him, and gets a smile for that. He doesn’t smile back, can’t, but he squeezes Luo Binghe’s hand as hard as he can.

It’s enough. It’s all… enough. They have him. They want him.

And hand-in-hand, the three ascend to Qing Jing peak.