Chapter Text
Shen Jiu's thighs were numb.
The cat has used them as his portable bed for two hours, give and take, before he felt generous enough to move onto the table. Actually, Shen Jiu didn’t mind. It only took a few minutes to get the feelings back onto his thighs, after all.
The cat was now lying on the table, in the space that wasn’t occupied by trinkets, books, and other goods that Shen Jiu currently sells. He was lying in a position that didn’t expose his belly for Shen Jiu to poke onto. Left with nothing to do, the boy put his index finger on the cat's paw instead.
And the cat moved his paw on top of him.
And Shen Jiu moved his finger on top of the paw again.
And the cat changed the position again.
And Shen Jiu reverse it again.
And so on so forth.
There was a silent but ferocious battle between a human and a feline creature, with both of them too stubborn to quit, while Mu Qingfang was sniffling quietly in the background.
"This is really sad," the head disciple mumbled, oblivious to the battle around. An open book was laid on the table right in front of him. He took his time shedding his silent tears.
Shen Jiu applied pressure on his finger with qi, not enough to hurt but enough to unable the cat to reverse their position again. The cat hissed in anger and bit him instead.
Then, the cat slammed his other paw to the book Mu Qingfang was reading, successfully blocking the head disciple from turning the page.
The head disciple blinked in confusion.
The cat was glaring at him as if Mu Qingfang had offended eighteen generations of his ancestors
Shen Jiu coughed twice. "We're merchants, not a librarians."
"Ah.." Mu Qingfang seemed like he had just come up from a trance. "How much..?"
Shen Jiu named the price, all the while trying to pull out his finger from the cat's stubborn mouth. This feline creature looked annoyingly smug. Where the hell did he get this kind of attitude?
Cheater bastard.
Mu Qingfang frowned, paying no attention at all to the human-cat interaction before him. He had come here too many times to know that this was normal. He asked, "Do you purposely increase the price every time I come here?"
"Absolutely nonsense," Shen Jiu said, pulling his finger free from the cat's mouth. Finally. He stared thoughtfully at the bite mark on the skin.
Someone won’t get any dinner tonight.
Or at least, dessert.
Shen Jiu wiped away the little bit of saliva clinging on his finger using his clothes before pulling out a fan. It was a beautiful fan with an intricate design. Clearly worth quite the money. And the way the boy was fanning himself elegantly made him seemed like he was an untouchable immortal master who resides on top of a mountain. If not for the worn clothes on his body, no one would believe that he was a mere merchant.
Or a slave, at that.
Mu Qingfang was staring.
It seemed like the head disciple finally knows where his money had gone to, Shen Jiu mused.
Outside, he clicked his tongue and held out his hand impatiently.
Mu Qingfang blankly stared at the hand for a while before his awareness came to and he hurriedly fished out a few coins out of his pocket.
Shen Jiu accepted them with a satisfied smile.
"It's a nice fan," Mu Qingfang commented, gesturing lightly to the fan.
"It is, indeed," Shen Jiu answered. He opened his fan fully and hide his lower face behind it, offering the beautiful bamboo painting to Mu Qingfang.
"It suits you."
Shen Jiu hummed. "Yes, it is."
Mu Qingfang continued to stare at him. Just as Shen Jiu felt like he was getting creepy, the head disciple averted his gaze.
Mu Qingfang looked at the open book on top of the table. The cat had pulled his paw and was currently sleeping peacefully. He spent a moment to marvel at how fast the cat could fall asleep before gently closed the book and straightened its cover.
"May I ask who wrote these poems?"
Shen Jiu took a moment to responds. "Master Qingqiu."
Somehow, Mu Qingfang look disappointed.
What, did he expect me to answer with my own name?
"May I ask who this esteemed master is?" the head disciple asked again. "I seem to never hear his name before."
"That's because he's dead," Well, nonexistent would be the best choice of word but that answer wasn't a lie either. Shen Qingqiu had indeed died, but not in this world.
You can’t die if you don’t exist in the first place.
"My condolences," Mu Qingfang cupped his hand and bowed lightly. "Is he your master..?"
"No, but I stole this from him," Shen Jiu answered easily, as if he hasn’t just confessed a crime. "You're not a snitch, are you?"
There was a complicated expression on Mu Qingfang's face. "..No..?"
"Anyway, the guy is really shy and has no family. Even if you tell people, no one will know about him." Shen Jiu shrugged.
Mu Qingfang coughed and hurriedly change the conversation.
"So.. You don’t have any master?"
Shen Jiu slowed his fanning. It seemed like he knew where this conversation would go. "No."
"But you can cultivate.."
"Just enough to harvest the mind-stressing herbs," he answered. "I've told you about this."
(He did. They had a long interrogation conversation about how Shen Jiu, a mere merchant, could harvest the herb perfectly. Shen Jiu had fabricated a long ass story about a family legacy and how he came to be the only one left. He might or might not borrow that bit from the Qiu family of his past life.
"A demon attacked in the middle of the night, armed with a rusty blade as he controlled it seamlessly to murder everyone—"
Mu Qingfang's expression was solemn that time, as fake as Shen Jiu's pitiful one as he continued to sprout nonsense he called as tragedy.)
Mu Qingfang continued. "Your calligraphy is also quite impressive.."
"I copy it from Master Qingqiu. Good calligraphy will increase the price. Really, you will do anything for survival."
The head disciple nodded in understanding. And then—
"Are you sure you don’t want to join Cang Qiong Sect?"
—came the usual question. Which required the usual answer which consisted of a single, "No."
Mu Qingfang hide his disappointment. He had asked this question too many times to the point it had become a tradition every time he came to visit the merchant.
"May I ask the reason why?"
Shen Jiu didn’t hesitate when he answered. "No, you may not."
The head disciple, in turn, ignored him. "Why do you decline the offer?" he asked. "Even if you don’t want to join Qian Ciao Peak, the peak of medicine, my shifu is more than willing to recommend you to the other peaks. Qing Jing, for example. The peak of scholar. I think it suits you well to be there," he patted the poem book lightly.
Shen Jiu snorted. Been there done that. "No."
Mu Qingfang looked sad. "Why?"
"I don’t want to get tied to a sect."
"Cang Qiong Sect will pe proud to have you there."
Shen Jiu rolled his eyes. Yeah, just wait until he cause the destruction of the sect and let's see if they are still proud to have him or not.
"Still no."
"You don’t have to live like this anymore," Mu Qingfang continued to push. "You don’t have to pay for anything. We will provide for you. Clothes, place to sleep, food, you can focus on your cultivation and study."
Shen Jiu hummed. This was indeed a dream comes true for a slave. If this happens in his last life, he would seize this offer the very first chance he got. Alas, Shen Jiu was never lucky.
He made a show of showing his interest. "Do they accept cat?"
Mu Qingfang brightened. "They do."
"Hmm still no," Shen Jiu said, plucking the last bit of hope from the head disciple's face.
Mu Qingfang looked visibly deflated, just as he always look every time they have this kind if conversation. Shen Jiu has had enough seeing this kind of expression and asked, "How many herbs do you need this time again?"
Mu Qingfang never say anything about herbs. He strode into Shen Jiu's stall out of nowhere and proceed to read the poem book he sells. Shen Jiu let him. When he think about it, the number of times Mu Qingfang had appeared suddenly in front of his stall was more than the number of mind-stressing herbs' harvest season he had gone through since starting this business.
Shen Jiu didn’t know the reason. He found himself not caring enough to find out.
Mu Qingfang looked at him. He was smart enough to catch the not-so-subtle signal (unlike a certain brute).
"Ah.." he rubbed the back of his neck. "I want to ask if you can harvest the herbs with me this time but my shifu asked me to teach the younger disciples."
Shen Jiu nodded. Mu Qingfang had asked the same in the past and he had accepted. The head disciple had bought the many herbs Shen Jiu managed to harvest, give him a pouch of high quality, expensive, tea leaves (which Shen Jiu very much appreciated), and even paid him—and his cat—dinner.
He didn’t know why Mu Qingfang did that since the money he spent was clearly more than the herbs he got, but Shen Jiu certainly didn’t have any objection.
"Half of the basket then?" the merchant guessed.
"Yes," Mu Qingfang nodded.
"Okay then, come back here again in two weeks and everything will be ready."
Everything was—in fact—not ready.
Shen Jiu was walking back from the herb's location, a basket half-full of the harvested goods on his back. The cat was walking beside him, grumbling in his own language for the first few minutes of the journey. A small hand-made basket was on top of his back, full of dried leaves and rocks. Shen Jiu didn’t trust him to carry any of the herbs, the weight was there purely for the purpose of the cat's exercise.
All of a sudden, he felt the air around him shift.
Shen Jiu has had too many experience to instantly know that this was a quick qi attack.
He grabbed the cat and jumped, fast enough to avoid the white sword that came into view, slashing at the air on the exact spot he had been standing on a millisecond ago.
The figure that met his eyes made his heart jumped. Shen Jiu found himself curse.
This fucking bastard.
The last time Shen Jiu saw him was inside a freezing cave. Bloody, unmoving, and not breathing. The red liquid made such a contrast with the white fabric. If Shen Jiu didn’t know that the initial colour was white, he would say that the figure was wearing red all along.
Shen Jiu had stared blankly for a few minutes back then, expecting the figure to get up and curse at him. Or maybe pick up his sword and kill him. Shen Jiu didn’t care. Anything would be better than a corpse.
He had stared some more before realizing that he had, indeed, killed him.
He killed him.
(He didn’t know
How—how could he explain something he didn’t know?
Yue Qingyuan gripped his shoulder and plead Shen Jiu to tell him the truth.
Shen Jiu had confessed, voice just a bit lower than usual. He felt small and lost. The part of him that was hidden deep beneath his consciousness—this small part that somehow manage to stay innocent all these years, was crying.
Qi-ge, I don’t know. I'm telling you the truth! Qi-ge please believe me. Please don’t leave me again. Please, Qi-ge, I'll be good! Please don’t leave me alone again. Please please please Qi-ge—
The disappointed look on Yue Qingyuan's face back then shut this small voice up forever.)
Shen Jiu landed a few meters away, the cat instantly leaped from his arms and ran. Shen Jiu spared a moment to look at the three-colored creatures that quickly getting smaller and smaller, running fast between the trees and bushes with a speed that didn’t quite match with his size. Shen Jiu sighed in relief.
Good, he thought. He can still run.
Shen Jiu had been worried that the cat would lose the ability to run due to his fatness.
He might be unquestioningly cruel, but he wouldn’t let any lives under him die easily.
(He refused to think about his disciples back in his past life.
They were all his faults.)
Shen Jiu turned back his attention to his opponent, just in time to see the white figure charged at him. He dodged, the attack missed him only by a hairbreadth. The basket on his back was slashed.
The once perfectly harvested herbs fell onto the ground, ruined. Shen Jiu didn’t need a glance to confirm it. The harsh jostling alone was more than enough to ruin the herbs.
Liu Qingge.
He looked young, healthy, and painfully alive. He was very much the same as the brainless brute Shen Jiu had come to know.
(So different from a corpse)
He also looked crazy.
The spikes of qi in the air were abnormally high but they still retained some sort of control. They were not the wild, turbulent wave that was the main characteristic of qi deviation. And Liu Qingge's complexion was too good to be someone who undergoes a deviation, even if it isn’t severe.
Then, why did he look crazy?
Shen Jiu sniffed at the air. There was a certain type of smell there. The scent of a flower.
He cursed. This stupid idiot!
This was the scent of the very same flower that was always found growing in abundance near a succubus’s nest.
There were rules in Cang Qiong regarding succubus: when dealing with them, always be with someone from Ku Xing Peak (unless you are Shen Jiu who was too traumatized to think about sexual pleasure). Even if your cultivation is high enough to resist the sexual effect of the poison, it is hard to deny a cultivator's natural instinct to fight.
This idiot barged into a succubus nest without his partner in sight. He was highly dosed with succubus’s poison. What the fuck is he doing?! Where is his partner?! Why can’t Shen Jiu see any bald head nearby?!
Shen Jiu angrily pulled out his sword from his qiankun pouch. It was quite an expensive blade but still amount to nothing when compared with even the lowest level of the sword of the Wang Jian Peak. Let alone a high grade one like Cheng Luan.
Liu Qingge charged at him like a mad dog. Shen Jiu instinctively hold up his sword. The metal instantly broke upon contact.
Damn, he missed Xiu Ya.
Shen Jiu leaped away and pulled out another sword.
This qiankun pouch of his was full of expensive blades.
They exchanged moves again. Shen Jiu was never above using tricks. Every time he had to retreat to pull out another sword, countless of qi-infused leaves danced in the air.
Liu Qingge growled angrily as if Shen Jiu had insulted his mother. If this brute wasn’t so crazy due to poison, Shen Jiu was sure he would have shout, "Fight honestly, you coward!"
Well, fuck you Liu Qingge.
They exchanged more moves.
Shen Jiu alternated between fighting directly, retreating, and setting up an ambush with his leaves . It couldn’t be helped. Even if his cultivation was much better than before (thank you Wu Yanzi for not being there), Liu Qingge in his crazed state was still a problem. Especially when Shen Jiu didn’t want to kill him.
But it seemed like Liu Qingge has had enough with Shen Jiu's tricks. When the other boy had to retreat to pull out—yet again—another sword, he charged forward with a full speed, letting thousands of sharpened leaves cut at him.
Shen Jiu was caught off guard. He hastily pulled off a few leaves that would otherwise cause a vital wound (like cutting off one of his ears, perhaps) but then, Cheng Luan was only a millimeter away from his body—
—he saw horror dawned on Liu Qingge's eyes—
Slash!
Blood dripped onto the ground.
The sword dug painfully at his side.
Well, honestly it wasn’t that painful. Luo Binge had increased his pain threshold to an impossible level. Added with the rush of adrenaline through his vein, Shen Jiu barely registered it.
There were splinters of wood in his palms.
The sword was originally aimed at his neck. Right in the last second, Shen Jiu pulled out his expensive, beautiful, elegant, one of a kind hand fan to redirect the attack to his less vital part.
The fragile wood was instantly broke under the force.
Shen Jiu kicked Liu Qingge away. The other boy—who seemed to regain a brief moment of awareness—didn’t put up a defense. He crashed into a tree but quickly got up again, glaring at Shen Jiu, sword ready in his hands, obviously back to his crazed state.
Shen Jiu looked blankly at his broken, crushed fan on his palm before letting the remains fall to the ground.
That was his favorite fan. He had saved up his money for so long just to buy it.
Shen Jiu glared at Liu Qingge. He pulled out all the remaining swords from his qiankun pouch and a thick stack of his handmade explosive talisman. At the same time, all the leaves were plucked from their branches and floated threateningly in the air.
That's it.
Liu Qingge could die.
(But perhaps Shen Jiu was the most dishonest person to ever live.
Because he never wanted any of his martial siblings to die).
Mu Qingfang was worried when he stood waiting at their usual spot.
It wasn’t even morning anymore. The sun had risen up in the sky yet the merchant was nowhere in sight. Shen Jiu was never late before, he always set up his stall early in the morning. Mu Qingfang had been waiting for a full one hour and he still haven’t seen signs of the merchant showing up.
Is Shen Jiu okay?
Mu Qingfang looked up to the sky. Thirty minutes more and he had no choice but to start guiding the younger disciples to the harvesting spot.
Suddenly, he felt something soft rubbing at his leg.
He looked down to see the familiar three-colored fat cat staring up at him. The cat meowed.
"Ah, you're Shen Jiu's cat," Mu Qingfang crouched down and patted the furry head. "Hello. May I ask where Shen Jiu is? Is he okay?"
The cat, of course, didn’t answer. He meowed, turned his body, and started to walk, fully expecting the human to follow. And Mu Qingfang did.
The cat led him to a small cottage at the edge of the city. The front door was thrown open. The cat stopped before the door and looked up expectantly at Mu Qingfang. From this spot, the head disciple couldn’t get a glimpse on the inside of the house.
"Is this your home?"
"Meow," the cat flattened his ears and hissed at the open door before looking up at Mu Qingfang again with a neutral expression.
Mu Qingfang pulled out his sword.
He didn’t understand but somehow, he had a bad feeling about this.
Mu Qingfang stepped silently inside the house, with a sword coated with qi and ready to attack. But the sight that met his eyes stopped him completely on his track.
"Liu-shixiong?"
Liu Qingge was there, sitting on the floor, pulling off the clothes of a very limp Shen Jiu in his arms. There was an ugly, bleeding gash on the smaller boy's side.
Mu Qingfang felt his blood boils.
"Shixiong," He called icily. The sword in his hands wasn’t lowered one bit. "What are you doing?"