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“I would rather die,” Liu Qingge says stiffly. His words are stiff, and his body is as well; it’s the paralysis at work. It’s moving not-so-slowly from his extremities into his torso; soon, it will reach his organs, and then his heart will stop and he’ll die.
“Come now,” Tianlang-jun says with all the cheer he can muster, “we both know that’s not true.”
I WOULD RATHER DIE, Liu Qingge thinks, loudly and pointedly, in Tianlang-jun’s direction. He thinks that the mindreading can be diverted through such brute force tactics? Tianlang-jun smiles, as sweetly as he can, and projects back in his direction:
I’ll fight you if you’re still alive after.
There- no words accompany it, but a swell of anticipation, eagerness, excitement swirls through Liu Qingge’s frenzied mind. His face goes sour, glaring at Tianlang-jun like he’d prefer to remove his head from his body; he can tell that Tianlang-jun sensed his reaction. Tianlang-jun can also sense the fury and indignation that’s building up in Liu Qingge from having his secrets so easily manipulated from him.
“Surely,” Tianlang-jun says, strolling over to take a seat at Liu Qingge’s side where he leans half-propped against a tree, “there are worse things to do than to spend an afternoon being intimate with a friend?”
The wordless cacophony in Liu Qingge’s head rises to a new level- he attempts to glare at Tianlang-jun, but fails to move his neck. “Intimate?” he hisses, flustered indignation bleeding through their mental link. Tianlang-jun’s internal amusement is obviously coming through loud and clear to him, because his apoplectic expression is getting more and more flushed.
“Come now,” Tianlang-jun says cheerfully, slinging his arm around Liu Qingge’s shoulders and pulling him marginally more upright from where he’d slumped half down. “A bit of skinship never hurt anyone! Let me hold your hand, immortal Liu.”
There’s a low, repetitive die die die die echoing in Tianlang-jun’s head, but Liu Qingge can’t do anything to resist as Tianlang-jun interlaces their fingers, humming.
“Cuddle or die isn’t what I’m used to,” Tianlang-jun muses, playing with Liu Qingge’s fingers and watching the way the webbing between them stretches. “Just think, it could be worse!”
“STOP THINKING THOSE- THINGS,” Liu Qingge grits out, face going redder. Tianlang-jun jostles him closer, laughing, attempting to corral his imagination. “You- perverted-”
“Calm down, immortal Liu, what could go wrong?” Tianlang-jun says- and that’s when the bodyswap happens.
“It came off again,” Liu Qingge says, borrowed face going green.
“Ah, it just reattaches,” Tianlang-jun says offhandedly, still attempting to see his reflection in Cheng Luan. “You just have to use the demonic energy to- oh dear, that doesn’t look good.”
Liu Qingge, removed arm going putrid with necrosis, looks like he’s going to faint.
“Actually, try not using the demonic energy,” Tianlang-jun advises, watching interestedly. “I think you used too much, that plant body of mine doesn’t take well to it. You’re a little heavy-handed with power, you know.”
“It’s rotting,” Liu Qingge says faintly, holding the arm away from himself like it’s- well, a piece of rotting meat.
“It will fix itself,” Tianlang-jun reassures, returning to studying his own face. “As long as you reattach it quickly. I say, is this really all that you humans can make out? I thought cultivators had better senses- I can barely see your qi flow through your skin.”
“See-?” Liu Qingge repeats, as a ka-CHA sound comes from behind Tianlang-jun, accompanied by a shudder. “Oh. Oh.”
“The necrosis will reverse,” Tianlang-jun says, flipping Cheng Luan in his hand to flash in the light. “I’ve always wanted to fly like one of you human cultivators,” he says gleefully, swinging the sword. It rings clearly through the air, unaccompanied by any form of spiritual energy. “How do you control it?”
Liu Qingge glares, and Cheng Luan flies over to smack lightly into his demonic hand, half-detaching it from the wrist. He scowls, face twisting in disgust.
“Oh, not fair,” Tianlang-jun says with a pout. “Well, we should probably figure out how to switch back, then. You can’t hear my thoughts anymore, correct?”
It’s not until a full day of trying various methods- ranging from the unlikely to the bizarre- that they manage to switch back. Liu Qingge’s usually inexhaustible wells of yang energy are completely depleted; they’re in an abandoned shack, sheltering from the cold that shouldn’t bother him. He’s shivering, even as Tianlang-jun stretches luxuriously, rotting flesh healing at a visible rate.
“There we are,” he says, and glances at Liu Qingge out of the side of his eyes from under his eyelashes. “Night is coming on- can you smell the snow?”
“There’s no snow,” Liu Qingge says spitefully as flakes blow in from under the door, teeth chattering. “I’m leaving.”
“Enjoy the blizzard,” Tianlang-jun says dubiously, shaking out the ratty blanket he finds heaped on the corner of the abandoned bed.
“I’m not getting in there,” Liu Qingge says viciously, rubbing his hands together. His fingers are going white with the cold. “I saw the monstrous things you thought about.”
Tianlang-jun frowns, as if in confusion, then his face clears. “Oh, the sex!” he says with a laugh. “Yes, we can have sex if you want- that would warm you up.”
“I would rather die,” Liu Qingge says.
“That’s what you said about the cuddling,” Tianlang-jun replies, raising an eyebrow. “And you’re not dead. It doesn’t matter either way- not having sex won’t kill you. Freezing to death when there’s a blanket right here might, though.”
“Give me it, then!” Liu Qingge bites out, striding over to snatch it from Tianlang-jun’s hands.
“I’m warmer than the blanket,” Tianlang-jun pouts. Liu Qingge thoroughly ignores him, wrapping himself in the blanket and bringing his legs up on the bed to sit with his chin resting on his knees. His shivers don’t stop.
Eventually, Tianlang-jun coaxes him into sharing the blanket; and then, lying down. His arm is summarily removed when he attempts to put it across Liu Qingge’s chest, but after reattaching it, Liu Qingge doesn’t dismember him again.
Eventually, they drift off in an uneasy embrace.
They awaken, bleary-eyed, to a number of snow-encrusted townspeople letting themselves into the shack, stomping off snow and removing snow goggles.
“You see!” one of the townspeople says triumphantly, pointing at where Liu Qingge and Tianlang-jun are still entwined in the bed. “I was right! The wedding of the legends has occurred; we don’t need to leave the sacrificial children outside to freeze anymore! The curse is broken!”
“What,” Liu Qingge says, hair visibly raising on the back of his neck. An expression of great interest is crossing Tianlang-jun’s face; sitting up, he scoots to the edge of the dilapidated bed with an ominous creaking sound, leaning his torso forward.
“There’s a legend?” he says, fascinated, leaning his chin in one hand.
“We’ve kept this small shack functional for decades in hopes of your coming!” the self-satisfied woman announces. Voice deepening, she beings to intone: “Only by the joining atop the bed of an unkillable lord and a battle god shall the curse be broken-”
Liu Qingge lets out what can be politely referred to as not quite a scream and breaks the door down on his way out, kickflipping his sword over the snow drifts to take off into the sky.
“There he is!” Tianlang-jun says, waving excitedly. “Here! I’m over here!”
Liu Qingge, glancing across the sea of faces, freezes his face into a death-promising scowl the likes of which Zhuzhi-lang hasn’t seen since Su Xiyan’s time. The War God turns away deliberately, expression of disgust marring his handsome face.
“Look!” Tianlang-jun says, grabbing a random cultivator next to him and pointing to Liu Qingge with a broad grin. “That’s my husband!”
In a flash, Liu Qingge has appeared by their side, knocking Tianlang-jun’s hand from the old man’s shoulder and jabbing Cheng Luan’s hilt into his sternum. “Stop,” he grits out, “telling people that.”
“But isn’t it true?” Tianlang-jun says, fake wounded air completely failing to hide his obvious cheer. He ignores the threat of Cheng Luan’s pommel to take Liu Qingge’s sleeve, even as the blunt tip visibly sinks in a half inch into his chest, accompanied by the sound of cracking cartilage. “We were joined in marital bliss by the ancient practices of that trblllbbghh-”
Liu Qingge’s fingers and thumb dig into either side of Tianlang-jun’s face hard enough to turn the skin white, looking like they would rather rip his tongue out than cover his mouth. Glancing from side to side, he pins Zhuzhi-lang- the only one listening, aside from the confused old man- with a threatening glare, and neatly forces Tianlang-jun’s arms behind his back to leap them away, hand still over Tianlang-jun’s mouth. He gets far enough that they’re out of earsight, if not eyesight, before Tianlang-jun good-naturedly rips his own arm out to turn around and keep talking.
“Congrats on shidi’s, uh, matrimony,” Shen Qingqiu says, waving his fan awkwardly. Luo Binghe, by his side, stares like a ghost waiting for its chance to rip the living’s head off.
“We don’t even know each other,” Liu Qingge says flatly, Cheng Luan unsheathing itself three inches in threat when Tianlang-jun bats his eyelashes and leans forward as if to touch his arm across the table.
“But husband,” Tianlang-jun says pleadingly, causing a vein in Liu Qingge’s forehead to twitch, “haven’t we shared each others’ deepest thoughts and feelings? Been in each others’ bodies?” Shen Qingqiu is visibly sweating, glancing between the two of them. The aura of violence around Luo Binghe darkens and thickens, swirling like mud. “And you left so cruelly after the warmth of our wedding night, leaving me alone in the morning with nothing but the cooling sheets to remind me of you-”
More than one building is destroyed in the ensuing wreckage, but Bai Zhan peak only has to pay for half of the damage.