Work Text:
"-I'm afraid, we really have no hope this time."
Shen Qingqiu cracks his eyes open and blinks at the ceiling. The Ling Xi Caves? How the hell did he get here? What happened on Maigu Ridge?
He spits out a mouthful of blood caused by the System and it's useless Achievements and Genre Reclassification and rasps, "I really hope that pronouncement isn't meant for me."
There's a snort and Liu Qingge says, coldly, "not everything is about you."
In counterpoint to his coldness, Mu Qingfang hurries over with an exhausted expression. "Not this time, Shen-shixiong," he says, helping Shen Qingqiu sit up. "You should recover well."
Shen Qingqiu looks around the spiritually rich cave and finds that all the Peak Lords — well, except for Shang Qinghua, probably for reasons of betraying them all to demons — are assembled. Yue Qingyuan doesn't even look much worse off than any of the rest, which is a relief. Clearly using Xuan Su hadn't drained him off too much life.
But none of them look particularly happy, either. Not the kinds of people celebrating successfully stopping the end of the world.
Shen Qingqiu looks between them with dread.
System? He says internally. System, what's going on?
【The correction of《Proud Immortal Demon Way》and genre reclassification has been completed. The system has no further tasks assigned. Thank you for your cooperation. 】
Shen Qingqiu swallows down another mouthful of blood. "Did we succeed or not?" he asks.
Glances are exchanged between the Peak Lords. "You did," Yue Qingyuan says, heavily. "Xin Mo was destroyed and Maigu Ridge exploded. Neither Luo Binghe nor Tianlang-Jun wish to continue with their plans to merge the realms, or to act against the cultivation sects."
That all sounds very good, but it also does not sound like the kind of thing that causes eleven Peak Lords to hole up in a spiritual cave system.
"But?" he questions.
"But it seems that something like the merger of different dimensions isn't easy to undo," Qi Qingqi says bluntly. "Even without Xin Mo, the world — both worlds — are collapsing. The Eternal Abyss is simply… devouring reality. Spiritually rich places like this are holding out the longest but even most of the Tian Gong Mountain Range is gone."
Shen Qingqiu stares at her, then at the other Peak Lords. Liu Qingge meets his eyes and nods — it's true.
"But—" he says, voice very small.
System? Explain?
【The correction of《Proud Immortal Demon Way》and genre reclassification has been completed. The system has no further tasks assigned. Thank you for your cooperation. 】
Is the world collapsing because the plot is complete? Is it just… over now? The last page of the book was written, there is no more? Shang Qinghua isn't even here to ask.
All of this and—
It's just going to end?
"There is one thing I can think of," Yue Qingyuan says, slowly. "A secret known only to the Sect Leaders of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. Shizun passed it to me when she ascended but I am… incapable of using it."
Qi Qingqi leans forward. "What is it?" she asks.
"An artifact that allows one to undo a great mistake," Yue Qingyuan says. "Shizun said that she never used it, so she could not tell me more. And with Xuan Su… as it is, I was unable to ever use it myself. It's supposed to… send one's own spirit backwards, so they could act anew."
"Time travel," Shen Qingqiu breathes, both in disbelief and awe.
System, do you hear that? We've got a new genre to reclassify into! Time travel! Reincarnation! Rebirth! Fixing one's mistakes! This is a sequel! A new plot!
【 ...processing... 】
There's a burst of excited murmuring among the Peak Lords, a final flame of hope or the last radiance of the setting sun.
"But only one person can go back," Yue Qingyuan says. "Who could possibly even hope to fix all this?"
And that one person couldn't be Yue Qingyuan who would have been the most obvious choice otherwise.
"Did Previous Sect Leader Zhaoqian specifically say one person," Peak Lord Xu Qingling of Ku Xing asks, running his prayer beads through his hands, "or one soul?"
"Is there a difference?" Liu Qingge asks.
"Very much so," Xu Qingling says. "Many talismans and artifacts designed for one soul can be used by two people, as long as they're properly bound together. In this case, if we could send back two people we might… have a greater chance of success."
It isn't much, but somehow sending two people seems easier to bear than only sending one alone. Even if this timeline would cease to exist, and none of these people would ever remember making such a decision.
"Every one of us would be willing," Qi Qingqi says. "It's only a matter of who might have the skills or knowledge."
Yue Qingyuan nods, slowly. "I don't know how much time this artifact will allow you — it might be very little. At the very least, I think Liu-shidi should be one of the ones to go."
There are some hesitant nods and murmurs of agreement. "He's the strongest of us," Mu Qingfang says. "If it comes to it…"
If he had to, maybe he could kill the heavenly demons before they struck, they mean. Shen Qingqiu feels cold and wishes he had his fan to cover his face with.
"And—" Yue Qingyuan meets his gaze across the cave. "Shen-shidi knows the greatest amount about what has happened and why. If anyone has the chance of averting events, it must be him."
"No," Liu Qingge snaps out, crossing his arms over his chest. "Did you not see how his choices led us here?"
Shen Qingqiu flinches and then forces himself to stand. "I'm feeling the consequence of my choices now," he says, dryly. "Liu-shidi, I will do my best. Trust me."
"I trust you," Liu Qingge says, again, just as he had the last time. "I don't trust the people you invest your trust into."
The rub is that Shen Qingqiu can hardly even tell him that he's wrong. Things are different to how they were in Proud Immortal Demon Way, but he can hardly claim they are better.
"Is anyone else a better choice?" Qi Qingqi asks. "I'm willing but realistically…"
Several Peak Lords concur with her. Shen Qingqiu isn't grateful, exactly, but this feels like it's meant for him. This is a mess of his own making, really, so he should be the one to clean it up. And… if he does not go and this timeline ends… is that not the same as dying?
He wants to live, however pathetically.
Liu Qingge closes his eyes and sighs. "Fine," he says. "The two of us will go. But you won't be sacrificed again," he declares. "The Lord of Bai Zhan Peak won't allow it."
Liu-shidi, Shen Qingqiu thinks, both exasperated and fond. "As you say," he says. "Xu-shidi. What ritual do we need?"
"Oh, it's a very simple one," Xu Qingling says. "The same as we use at weddings, really. It binds two souls together as one. Very effective. Qinglian, do you have any wine?"
The Peak Lord of Zui Xian Peak smiles. "I always have wine," she smiles, pulling forth a wine gourd and two bamboo cups from her qiankun sleeve.
It feels ridiculous, to stand next to Liu Qingge and go through a ceremony meant for weddings. But Shen Qingqiu bows to the heavens, to the ancestors and to Liu Qingge, and then tips back a cup of sweet wine. It hits his bloodstream like fire and when the nine other peak lords rumble it is witnessed he feels it alter something deep in his soul.
But there's no time to think about it. Even the Ling Xi Caves start to feel darker and less full of spiritual energy — as though something is eating away at them. They move deeper into the cave system, with Yue Qingyuan leading the way, until they find a secret room locked with talismans.
Yue Qingyuan releases them, one by one.
"I've never seen anything like these," Qi Qingqi says, eyes wide.
"This is the most secure place in the sect," Yue Qingyuan says. "Accessible only to the Sect Leader. If… if either of you two need to convince me, in the past, mentioning this place will help." He goes silent as he concentrates, and then adds, "but Xiao Jiu… I will always help you with anything you need."
The person he is trying to talk to is no longer here. But Shen Qingqiu can't ignore him. "I know," he says, quietly.
Inside are a great many treasures, but Yue Qingyuan only looks for one. It's nothing remarkable, a simple hourglass that seems to run endlessly without stopping.
"Good luck," he says, sincere and meaningful.
Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu take it in their hands and then, as one, flip it over.
The world goes white.
One of the unfortunate things about being the head disciple of An Ding Peak is that Shang Qinghua is forced to interact with the other head disciples in order to 'maintain kinship between peers'. Quotation marks and heavy sarcasm free of charge!
In this case, that means Shang Qinghua is forced to go on a terrible, no good mission with Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu. The only worse combination would be if they'd sent Yue Qingyuan as well, and if that had happened Shang Qinghua would be forced to fake his own untimely death, System be damned.
The two of them are bad enough!
It also doesn't help that the ghost-drowning-people-in-the-well is a little too canny to show its face to such intimidating cultivators. He doesn't blame it, except that that means he has to stick his head over the deathtrap — so actually, yes, he very much blames it!
Cringing, Shang Qinghua leans over the well. His reflection smiles back at him and waves, with a coquettish expression he's never successfully worn in his life.
He retreats, very quickly from the well and lets the two actual fighters deal with the absolute horde of ghosts that rushes out. It's not just one! Apparently all the people that that first ghost has drowned also want to get in on the action! Why! Can't they just accept that their role in the story is over and be good dead people that don't bother anyone?
"Retreat," Liu Qingge snaps at him, cleaving a whole set of ghosts apart with a wide and slightly wild swing.
No shit, bro! He doesn't want to be anywhere near you when you're doing that!
Shang Qinghua backs away, but there are a lot of ghosts around and blocking his way. Even Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge are finding it too crowded to properly fight — they swing around and, to their mutual disgust, end up pressed back-to-back.
And then, without any cause or reason—
Both of them collapse to the ground.
"What the fuck?!" Shang Qinghua yelps. "Playing dead is my thing. Guys!"
They do not stir. The ghosts all hover over them and then start to converge on the only remaining prey — Shang Qinghua.
"Ooooh, fuck," he says, and randomly fishes into his sleeves, pulling out smoke bombs and pepper bombs and random fireworks talismans and just throws all the shit into the air around them. "Oh no, oh no."
Where the fuck is his sword? Why the fuck is he the one who has to fight?
He's not going to. He's going to run and then these two plot critical characters are going to die and the System is going to kill him and the Peak Lords are all going to blame him. Fuck.
He finds his sword. He wildly swings his sword — while coughing and wheezing and crying from the pepper spray bomb — around the air until the ghosts are probably gone or retreated into the well or what-the-fuck-ever.
Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge still haven't moved.
They're not dead but this is Proud Immortal Demon Way. There are a lot of reasons people just just suddenly collapse unconscious. Maybe the ghosts stole their spirits! Maybe they qi deviated out of sheer disgust at each other! Maybe they ate or inhaled or touched or looked funny at a poisonous plant!
Absolutely none of these things are anything that Shang Qinghua is capable of solving. All he can do is heave the two — incredibly heavy and terribly inconvenient — bodies back into the cart and trundle them back to Cang Qiong Mountain.
Good luck, Qian Cao Peak; this is your problem now!
Liu Qingge wakes, which he considers to be a good first strike.
The air smells of herbs and medication — like Qian Cao Peak — and a quick inventory of his body tells him that it's in better condition than it has been in years. Nothing is broken, barely anything is even bruised or strained. His qi is nearly all gone, and he feels exhausted, but neither of those symptoms are unfamiliar to him.
There are the sounds of other people moving about — sounds that echo through a reasonably large space. Not the healing hall, where he'd been treated as a disciple with nothing but paper screens between the different patients, but not the private rooms that Mu Qingfang had always shoved him in in the hopes it would make him stay still. Something in-between.
"-love having disciples," a familiar, far too cheerful voice proclaims loudly, as a wooden door bangs open. "They do the funniest shit!"
Liu Qingge opens his eyes and sees that, yes, that is in fact Peak Lord Zhi Zhaoyang crashing into the healing halls, with a booming laugh. A much calmer — and smaller — Peak Lord Wu Zhaodi is following him. The room is one of the ones used for senior disciples or groups requiring a certain amount of quarantine. The only other bed that is occupied has Shen Qingqiu on it, and it's somewhat reassuring to know where he is.
"Peak Lord," he says, raising himself to sit up. He hadn't expected that they would come back this far — though he'd barely been given time to think about things at all. Zhangmen-shixiong hadn't raised the option until the very last moment, or perhaps… until Shen Qingqiu had been capable of participating.
Peak Lord Zhi claps him on the shoulder and the force of it nearly makes the entire bed collapse. "Hah! You're a funny kid!" he says, gleefully. "I couldn't have come up with this shit if you'd given me twelve jars of wine! Do you even know what you did?"
Liu Qingge had never invested himself enough to become offended by his shizun's actions and attitudes but, for all that he was never the greatest teacher, at the very least he never laughed at his disciples.
"No," Liu Qingge says, resolutely, as if this is a real question and not just his shizun meaning to continue amusing himself.
Peak Lord Wu smiles at him. The previous — current again, now — Qing Jing Peak Lord has a reputation for being kind and her smile certainly looks it. But she had also taken Shen Qingqiu as her head disciple, so he's never been sure if he believes it.
"It's certainly an event that needs discussion," she says, benignly. "Qingqiu, are you awake?" She taps a single finger against the sleeping form on the next bed over, and Shen Qingqiu groans.
"Unfortunately," he rasps, also sitting up. He looks worse than Liu Qingge feels, but he had also been… not well before they had used the artifact in the first place.
Peak Lord Wu sits daintily on the side of the bed. "Does Qingqiu know what you did?"
Shen Qingqiu looks blank. Very, very blank in a way that indicates that he might not even recognise his shizun. Liu Qingge has never been entirely sure how much of his memory that fateful qi deviation wiped away but it's clearly not an insignificant amount.
Shen Qingqiu might have been a very bad choice for this mission, afterall.
"No," Shen Qingqiu says, faintly.
"Guess," Peak Lord Wu instructs. It smacks faintly of a trap, of the chance to indict oneself with crimes that aren't already known.
"This disciple doesn't dare offend shizun with such clumsy thoughts," Shen Qingqiu denies, raising his hands and bowing to her in the very picture of a model disciple.
"You two," Peak Lord Zhi crows. "You two knocked yourselves out in the middle of a fight. You had to be rescued by an An Ding Disciple! And— and—" He breaks himself off with a braying honk of laughter.
Liu Qingge decides he's going to beat his shizun into the ground just as soon as he gets out of this bed. He can do it. No exhaustion is going to stop him.
"And you appear to have qi deviated yourselves into a soulbond," Peak Lord Wu says, sounding just the faintest bit amused. "Together."
There's a weighty pause, where it seems like the two Peak Lords are waiting for a reaction.
Given how badly he and Shen Qingqiu had hated each other at the time, that's probably called for. But Liu Qingge had completed that ritual willingly and knowingly, if only for other purposes. He hadn't necessarily thought about it — he had had a task to complete and a series of actions that would make it happen — or that the bond would last beyond using the artifact but…
It's also not surprising.
"Is that all?" he asks, kicking off the blankets and rising. Chen Luan flares to life in his hand, drawn from his soul, but it feels heavier and less attuned in his hand. Because of the exhaustion? Or because he has returned to his disciple days?
Time to test it, the way everything on Bai Zhan Peak is tested — through action. He points it at his Peak Lord and leaps.
Shen Qingqiu watches Liu Qingge kick the apparently-previous-Peak-Lord out through the door with mild vexation.
On one hand, it provides a rather good distraction. On the other — abandonment! Aren't they supposed to be in this together, shidi? Come back!
He looks at the Peak Lord sitting on his bed and guesses she's probably his Peak Lord. There's no other reason she would be here! But that doesn't mean he knows anything about her — the previous generation of Peak Lords were never described at all.
"Well, amusement aside," she says, "you made a terrible showing. Very disappointing. An Ding Peak is never going to let our Qing Jing forget this. For that… yes, I'll have you copy the new manuals for the incoming disciples. And you'll have to make a personal thank you to An Ding Peak for their help."
Shen Qingqiu grimaces at the very idea, but actually he's got bigger concerns than tedious copying or swallowing his pride to say 'thank you'. Like… the end of the world and various heavenly demons losing their shit. Much bigger problems! He has actually no idea how far back he's come — how much time do they have to fix things?
"When exactly are you planning to ascend, Shizun?" he asks. He knows when the new generation had taken over! He can work back from there! "Is it soon?"
"Hah!" his shizun says, "brat." And doesn't actually answer his serious question! Very rude of her!
She rises to her feet and points a finger at him. "Stay here until Wang-shidi releases you. I'll have the outer disciples move your things to your new quarters."
"New quarters?" Well, Shen Qingqiu doesn't actually know where disciple him lived anyway and it would have been really awkward to have to find a way to ask.
The Peak Lord smiles at him, gently and kindly, like she is absolutely going to make his life hell just for her own kicks. "Well, you're married now," she says, "it really isn't appropriate for you to live in the disciple dorms. There aren't many inter-peak marriages, but that doesn't mean there aren't any and that we don't have houses for them."
"But— we aren't—" Shen Qingqiu stutters. "It's just a soulbond."
"Don't worry," she says back, as if this is a concern and not a denial. "Your shizun will ensure that he takes proper responsibility. It's been a long time since I've played matchmaker, but I still remember how to negotiate." Her smile probably doesn't really look as sinister as he feels like it does. "You just wait and see."
And then she vanishes before he can really start to formulate proper protests. Shen Qingqiu leans back against his pillow and groans. Sure, when Yue Qingyuan had suggested the idea it had sounded fine — just a little binding of the souls together in order to go back in time and save the world! Nothing to it!
He didn't know an insane Peak Lord was going to insist that meant they were really, truly married about it! He might have hesitated a moment longer if he'd known that!
On the upside, when he's released from Qian Cao Peak and an outer disciple shows him to what are, apparently, the mixed marriage accommodations. They're on the sixth peak — Jin Zhang Peak, the one that focuses mainly on plants and therefore has the most open space — and very near the rainbow bridge. The house isn't as nice as his Qing Jing Peak Lord house but… it's not bad. Better than the crowded disciple dorms, even if he should rightly have had something private as a head disciple.
All his stuff has been unceremoniously dumped in the main room, so he takes some time to sort it out and settle in. By then its very late and he sits down at the desk to even begin thinking about how to complete the actual task they're here for. At the very least, he won't have to go hunt Liu Qingge down to talk about it!
The next thing he knows, Liu Qingge is shaking him awake. His brush has made a blotted mess of his notes and probably stained the table. Liu Qingge has a rapidly purpling bruise over the arch of one cheekbone and it's very distracting.
"Oh," he says, yawning and stretching. Liu Qingge presses a hand to his back and transfers some spiritual energy to him in a motion so familiar from years of Without-A-Cure—
"I'm not poisoned right now!" he says, twisting around to face Liu Qingge. He's not poisoned! At all! That hasn't happened yet!
Liu Qingge nods. "You're still weak," he says.
Not all of us can be you, Liu-juju! Jumping out of bed and picking a fight with a Peak Lord! How are you not back on Qian Cao Peak right now? How do you even have energy to spare?
"Your cultivation is weak," Liu Qingge repeats, as if correcting himself. He huffs. "We're both disciples again. Your spiritual veins aren't as strong as they were."
Shen Qingqiu blinks, then takes stock of himself. "Oh," he says. "Oh, that's not good." They're nowhere near what they were when he first transmigrated. He can't even say for sure that he has a golden core.
"You've done it before, you can do it again," Liu Qingge says, as if that helps! He really hasn't done this before! He doesn't even have the faintest idea of how to get himself back up to strength. "And I'll help, this time."
Too reliable, shidi.
"Then I suppose I have nothing to worry about," Shen Qingqiu says. "Did Liu-shidi happen to work out the specific date we've arrived?"
The look Liu Qingge gives him isn't quite judgemental, but he definitely thinks Shen Qingqiu ought to have been able to work that out himself. "Jia Zi," he says.
It takes Shen Qingqiu a moment to do the maths on it — he's not used to counting time based on the Heavenly Stem-Earthly Branch Calendar! Give him some nice solid numbers to work with! — but that makes them about seventeen or eighteen, right? "Tianlang-jun was sealed in the Year of the Dragon… Wu Chen… so we have four years until that happens? That's… that's good. We could stop that entirely!"
Surely that would stop the entire Eternal-Abyss-Eating-Reality thing, right? And if Tianlang-jun doesn't get caught under the mountain and Su Xiyan doesn't die… then Luo Binghe won't grow up to be the blackened protagonist seeking revenge or a betrayed young man lashing out at an unfeeling world.
"How?" Liu Qingge asks.
"I'm not sure, yet," Shen Qingqiu admits. "I think Su Xiyan is probably key, though. You heard Great Master Wu Chen talking about how the Huan Hua Palace Master imprisoned her… if we could stop that… or well, it's not like you've never broken into Huan Hua Palace before…"
Liu Qingge smirks. "They couldn't stop me," he says. They really, really couldn't! This time there wouldn't be a heavenly demon protagonist inside to stop him taking whatever he came for.
Shen Qingqiu kinda wants to just set him loose. Couldn't happen to a better Palace Master!
"As long as they can't trace it back to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect," he says. "That would probably be the hard part. But… hmm… I think I know of a few things that we could use to disguise ourselves…"
It isn't much of a plan, but they'll have years to refine it. For now, leaning together over a piece of notepaper, in rooms they'd never set foot in in their previous lifetime, it sounds a lot like hope.