Chapter Text
When you are a kid, you wish for multiple things, maybe riches, or food, sometimes even a home, Shen Jiu knew well all of that, his early memories were the voice of a woman asking for forgiveness, the cold of the streets, and the fact he had been abandoned. Maybe his mother was a woman of a brothel who decided he would be better out of that world, maybe his parents just didn’t want him, or maybe there was a good explanation for why he ended up in the streets as a kid, he couldn't really say.
Yet it was fine, since he had his brother, he learned how to live stealing and begging, but he was still alive, and even if he was young, he knew that dead he could not eat tanghulu, even if it was the old ones people didn’t buy and were tossed aside, if he was dead, he could not cry and make his Qi-ge comfort him, and if he was dead, he could not look at the sky and be in awe of how little he was in such a big world under such a beautiful blue sky.
Yet, as mature and rational a kid could be, he was still a kid, so he always dreamed of someone helping him and his Qi-ge get out of the streets, of having a family, of growing up and living peacefully in a small cottage, cultivating vegetables and maybe having some animals. All dreams come to an end though, and those were crushed the day that, because of a stupid kid and his Qi-ge’s big heart, he ended up being sold to a noble.
The Qiu manor was a nightmare he was not ready to go into, too young, and too rebellious, and unfortunately, too pretty for his own good. So catching the eye of the young master, was something that would happen eventually, he was kicked and punched and cut in so many places, so many times, yet no one would even lift a hand to help, the men in that house all enjoyed of the suffering of the slaves, and even followed the example of their young master and forced themselves on the women.
When Qi-ge eventually came to rescue him, he was unfortunately imprisoned and could not get out, not to mention, his legs were in too much pain for him to run away. So they made a promise, he would wait, and the other would surely save him, Shen Jiu unfortunately never learned that promises could be broken even if they came from those you trust the most. He waited and waited, always with sincere trust and hope.
Be it a kid, an adult, or whoever was in such a situation, they would always call for a miracle, something to get them out of the situation they were in, or to simply help with it, the first time Shen Jiu discovered his blessing, he didn’t quite realize he had one, it was just after a really rough beating, he was bleeding, and one of the men left a basin with water for him to clean himself, since the young lady would return from her visit to her aunt the next day and he had to be presentable and well enough to recieve her. He had clean the blood in his hand in the water, he had stared at his reflect in the water for some minutes, disassociating from his reality, when he noticed his reflection started to change, and when he was before, he could see now images, specifically, the young lady returning and giving him a fan, he could also see the burning rage hiding behind the eyes of Qiu Jianluo after seeing his precious younger sister giving a slave a gift.
He thought he was hallucinating, that finally he had injured his head and all this was the result of that, so he ignored it for fear of being discarded by the Qiu’s for being insane, and so he continued with his life, until the next day, when, after going out to welcome his young lady, she gifted him the same fan he had seen in the moving images on the water, and received the same gaze filled with rage from Qiu Jianluo. He decided to try again the day after, he filled a bucket with water and stared at it for a while, yet nothing happened, it was then that he remembered his hands with blood, so, he made a small cut in his finger and let his blood fall into the water, a moment later, he saw the faint glowing of his eyes before the moving images appeared, this time showing him spending time with the young lady, walking by the camelia garden, where the girl fell down. The imagen then changed to show himself on the floor being whipped.
That same day, the vision became true.
When you have a blessing while you are in hell itself, you of course will cling to it as a safe rope, something to get out of punishment and to save yourself from different situations. So Shen Jiu, although could not control it and sometimes saw useless things related to other people, or that actually got to happen even a month after, he still used that blessing whenever he could, it was that way that he saw the Qiu manor in flames, and how he saw himself suffering from what seemed to be a Qi deviation, bleeding from his mouth, ears and nose as a man laughed in the back, that was the first time he could actually hear what was happening. As the man left him to his own luck and laughed, going back to the camp and the fire a few meters away.
—Shen Jiu, such a stupid kid, seeing a hopefull idiot ruin his own cultivation— he let out another laugh —It’s always delightfull.
So when going to the market a few weeks later and seeing the man there, Shen Jiu ignored him completely even when he tried to talk to him, giving as an excuse that he was accompanying his fiancee and young lady.
Honestly, even with his blessing, Shen Jiu never expected for Qiu Jianluo to free him from his status as a slave and engage him with the young lady. But he did understand it was a way to chain him down to that awful place once and for all, yet, when he heard the reason behind, and how the young master and even the old head of the family planned his death so they could bed the young miss, Shen Jiu tried to walk away, but they heard him, and soon he was forcefully dragged inside the office.
—A-Jiu is also really pretty, maybe instead of killing you, why don’t you become a good doll for me to use in a different way?
Feeling his hands on his body, trying to take his clothes off and touching in such private places, something inside Shen Jiu snapped, and the next thing he knew, he was using the ornamental sword he had always seen in the office to kill the old lord Qiu and stab Qiu Jianluo multiple times, then he vaguely remembered a woman coming inside the room, the same woman that always helped him recover after beatings.
—Get everyone out, women and children, I’ll take care of the men.
Then, he was outside, seeing the flames consume the Qiu manor. Shen Jiu didn’t have anywhere to go, he had waited for years and Qi-ge had never come back, not even in his visions, so he decided to try his luck in a cultivation sect.
Shen Jiu had nothing apart from the little he could get from the ashes of the Qiu manor, he sold most of it and bought the essentials, clothes and food that could last for a while, nothing more as he could get robbed in his way, he was fourteen, an easy prey to slavers and bandits, he did not have time to recover from the Qi deviation that caused the death of Qiu Jianluo and his father, but he had to defend himself, more than once he had to use his Qi to manipulate leaves and escape from danger.
That way, he walked for three months until he got to the city at the feet of the Cang Qiong mountain sect. Unfortunately for him, he discovered he got here too late, as he didn’t have the age to participate in the entrance exam. What was a life as a cultivator if he could not be beside his Qi-ge anyways? His brother was probably dead, if not, why hadn’t he come back for him? There was no way Yue Qi had forgot about him or broke their promise, Shen Jiu knew that, and so he stopped his journey on a small village, where he started to work as an apprentice of an apothecary, as he was the only young man able to read and write in the town.
He found himself stopping from seeing his visions, since there was no point in it anymore. He had a normal peaceful life, not the one he wanted, but it was much better than being an abused slave, and the old man owner of the store was nice and never screamed or did any harm to him, so Shen Jiu decided that it was better to stay.
That was at least, until one fatidical day where his peaceful life crumbled down once more.
—Shen Jiu, Can you help me with this?
The teenager stopped grinding the herbs on the mortar to look at the old man, he put everything aside and came closer.
—What is it Mr. Tang?
—I need some yellow moth grass for the medicine for Mrs. Liang pain medicine, her old bones are everyday more against her work.
—Mrs. Lian is stubborn, but, yellow moth grass, I think we are out of that Mr. Tang, I’ll go collect some from the forest after I finish with the medicine for little Xiu’er cold.
—Mm, I’ll finish that, can you go now?
—If you insist, I’ll go to the back to get everything I need.
—Alright, but be carefull, there had been enough with the two boys of the Gu Family disappearing.
—Yes, I’ll be back quickly.
It was an usual routine for he past months, as he was younger, he would collect the herbs while Mr. Tang stayed in the store, it wasn’t much, since there were only fifteen families in the town, but someone that could make medicine was valuable, and as long as he kept learning he would live good. So as always, he picked the sickle and the basket before going out and walking.
Later he thought, maybe if he had kept looking at the visions, he would have been prepared, maybe if he would have acted in a different way, or maybe he would have chosen not to go out that day. Who knows? Shen Jiu didn’t know the future awaiting him and all the complications of it, even with his blessing, he would not have been able to know, at least, not at this point in time.
So ignorant of it, he went out and made his way up the mountain. He didn’t expect for a demon to actually be the cause of the two desaparitions, still, he defended himself the best he could with his little Qi and the sickle, expecting that to be his last day, until a sword appeared out of nowhere and ended the lesser demon in one go taking his head.
Shen Jiu breathed with difficulty, feeling the pain in his ribs due to the attack of the demon that he couldn’t evade, fortunately it was just superficial pain an nothing was broke, he turned around to thank the cultivator, probably someone from the sect the mayor of the town had asked for help. He froze immediately.
—Qi-ge?
The other was no better than him, his face pale as if he was seeing an apparition. —Xiao Jiu.
—Xiao Jiu~
The voice of that monster ringed in the back of his head, he had to convince himself for a moment that the man in question was dead, his body burned to ashes.
—Why?— he could not help but ask, the other understood his question, as his face changed to show his guilt.
—Xiao Jiu, I… I’m sorry.
He gritted his teeth. —Don’t call me that!!
Forgetting about why he went up the mountain, Shen Jiu ran back to the town ignoring the screams coming from behind him, calling his name. Until he was back at the store, only being able to explain to Mr. Tang that there was a demon on the mountain, he only came back from his shock when his injury was already being treated.
Just a couple of hours later Yue Qi appeared looking for him, of course Shen Jiu only asked him the same question that wasn’t answered once more, yet, Mr. Tang, after hearing that Yue Qi, now apparently Yue Qingyuan, was Shen Jiu’s brother and part of a sect, insisted that he should follow him back instead of wasting himself away in a small town.
—A-Jiu, you are a lonesome child that has many problems and demons of the mind, go and learn cultivation, you are intelligent, more than I was at your age, I can’t even teach you anything more anyways, I’m old, and my son wrote me a letter a while ago that he will come for me so I can live my last years with his family in a big city without having to work, I was going to leave the store to you, but this is much better than that. Do you really want to stay here instead of becoming an immortal, something much better than the starving and dirty child I found on the mountain looking for herbs to eat?
He did want to, become something better, to fulfill that past dream of his, and also, he wanted an answer from Yue Qi, as to why he hadn’t come back for him too, so he decided to take Mr. Tang’s advice, and follow the other to his sect, not before going to the back and filling a basin with water, hesitantly, he made a small cut on his hand and let his flood fall into the water, he stared at it before the usual faint glow of his eyes showed as a vision appeared for him.
—Shen Jiu?
—Yes, he seemed like your type of person, Shimei.
A woman, a beautiful one, with black like ink hair and pale skin, wearing lavish robes of white and green, her hair decorated with silver ornaments, she opened a fan.
—He does, I like those eyes, he will do good in my Qing Jing peak.
He saw himself, standing there in clean clothes, another unknown woman at his side, and Yue Qingyuan at the other.
—How’s his potential?
The unknown woman answered. —He has potential, his spiritual veins are a little damaged, he must have suffered a Qi deviation at some point and didn’t receive treatment, he probably also strained them using Qi after it, he won’t reach his whole original potential, but he can get close to it.
The first woman smiled. —Then, welcome to my Qing Jing peak, kid, from today onwards, I’m your shizun.
Once again he was able to see his face in the water, his heart racing, not only because of the conversation that would occur in the future, but by the fact that what the vision showed him was something related to what he was worried about. Could there be a possibility that there was a way to control it? He decided it was something to explore later, he now had finally made a decision.
Cang Qiong mountain range was huge, as he had already seen in the past, going up was knew though, what Shen Jiu did not expect, was for Yue Qingyuan to left him in what seemed to be his room in the sect and go out to talk with the sect leader, who apparently was his shizun.
He waited there for what seemed to be hours before Yue Qingyuan and a man came for him, then he was moved to Qian Cao for a check up, he stayed the night there after Tang Mingxia, the peak lord of Qian Cao, saw the state of his spiritual veins and started the treatment immediately, the next day the sect leader came to see him along with the woman of the vision, and everything happened the same way he had seen.
Xu Mingyu was a serious and cunning woman that seeked perfection, and Shen Jiu was a student ready to give his everything to become someone that had control over his life, the same control he was robbed from during his life as a slave and that just recently had regained shortly thanks to Mr. Tang, but this was different, he would also become someone with a name, someone of his own, not just a number, a scholar, a master of the arts, he wanted to succeed and surpass others, he wanted to become an immortal, the next Qing Jing peak lord.
He started to use his blessing again, it was easier to learn when he could see pieces of the future, people playing instruments, painting, reciting poetry, explanations of his clases, he even learned that, if he added his Qi to the blood to see the vision, he could see further into the future, this way he discovered what his life in the sect was going to be.
A scum. That’s what people would call him in the future, a lecherous scumbag, someone that tried to murder one of his martial siblings, someone people hated because of his attitude. Shen Jiu felt that once again, he had made the wrong choice with his life, but he was not someone who would simply run away, so he decided to memorize everything to change the future, to change his reputation. He could live with the name he would receive in the future, he could even live with the hate of others, but, he was not someone that would simply conform with such a life, he was greedy, and like his Shizun, wanted to go for the best results, if he was going to be the second in command, he at least needed a working relationship with his martial sibling.
Qing Jing wasn’t really nice though, as the rumors started by the other disciples he was competing with got out eventually and his name started to be tainted, still, he was sure he could change things, so he endured everything.
It was in one of his visions, that he saw himself with someone he had not seen in ages, they were in a brothel, and, even though Shen Jiu had been depriving himself of sleep all to not let the rumor of him frequenting brothels to exist, he still found himself looking in the towns at the feet of Cang Qiong for that person, until he did found her, the girl he had once called his sixth sister, Li Liu.
She had just disappeared one day when they were still street rats, and now he discovered she was sold to a brothel, finding finally someone comforting, it was bound to happen that someone from Qing Jing saw him going inside the brothel one of the times he went to see his sister and to sleep after weeks of not being able to rest more than two hours everyday, he could not sleep more than that, not in a place surrounded by males, males that didn’t like him and tried to harm him everyday.
He found out there were things he could not change after all, like the fact he was finally named as Shen Qingqiu, and even when he tried to be more approachable and less sarcastic, his martial siblings still didn’t like him, although, their hate for him was less than in his visions. There was also the fact, that his sister was bought by a noble when he was out on a mission, trying to get the money to buy her contract, he waited for her return, as he knew it would happen, but he was not ready for her to die in his arms after she gave birth, leaving behind only her daughter, that the madame of the brothel ended up raising as Shen Qingqiu promised to bring her to the sect when she was old enough, always paying for all her things even if he could not be there with her.
Then the mission happened, the one where he saved the brute, maybe not from dying, but from a serious injury at least, yet, he was accused of trying to murder the other. Yes, there were some things that could not be changed, and the thought infuriated him. Why then would he have to apologize or explain his actions? Liu Qingge jumped to suppositions, so Shen Jiu didn’t explain anything and even threatened Shang Qinghua so he would not tell anyone, if they did not trust him from the start, he would not explain himself. Why? If they would not believe him anyways?
He would be Shen Qingqiu, the peak lord of the Qing Jing peak, the second in command, even if they didn’t like him, he would do what he had to do for the sect, to fulfill the expectations of his Shizun, who had chosen him and to show the world of what he was capable of, and to stay in Qing Jing, a place so clean and beautiful that could easily hide the filth of a slave.
So even though everyone thought of him as a treacherous bastard, Shen Jiu kept working hard, to polish his swordsmanship, the arts, his knowledge, and even his blessing. He was a scholar, someone drawn to knowledge, so it was understandable that he would try to investigate his blessing and find how it worked exactly. After he received his name and became the head disciple, who would be also given money for personal expenses, he started a sort of diary, writing all his knowledge about the visions, and the contents of the ones he had seen, even the ones from the past, brief mentions of the ones he had at the Qiu manor, and detailed ones of those he had after entering the sect.
There were, of course, principal components to his powers, one, he needed a liquid, it could be anything as he had done the experiments, tea, wine or water, as long as it could show his reflection. The second one, was his blood, even just a drop, the third one, was that he had to be looking at his reflection, he knew the blessing was actually related to his eyes, the power was there, the power to see the future.
Then he found out that, if his blood was enhanced with spiritual energy, he could see further into the future, not only that, the stronger his cultivation was, he could control it better, to the point that by the time he was about to become a peak lord, for the first time, he could see and alternative outcome of a vision.
He was simply curious, as he watched in the water a scene where Yue Qingyuan was trying to give him a flute made of a precious white jade that could easily feed a whole town for a year. It was the usual thing, him getting angry and telling the other not to waste money on unnecessary and unwanted gifts, as he saw the rest of his martial siblings scowl and reproach him for not accepting the ‘nice and thoughtful gift’, he simply had the thought, if not for the sake of Yue Qingyuan, to avoid having the others screaming at him.
“What if I just accept it?”
It was at that moment that the vision changed, instead of the scene of before, it showed him receiving the flute, he was so surprised by the discovery that he could not help trying again. What if he ignored Yue Qingyuan? or what if he destroyed the gift? Maybe throw it away? Or mocking the other?
At every thought, the vision would change, yet, not everything could be so easy, he had his answers, but his Qi was used every time, and his head would hurt after. A price for the blessing, it was not that bad, considering he had access to the future and everytime he was able to control it better.
He did wonder why he was given such a blessing. Maybe after all his suffering, the heavens decided to give him something to evade a bad future, he could probably use it for a lot of things, business, to steal, but also, it was useful for the path he had taken, being able to know the outcome of a mission and prepare for it, or for an accident, surely Shen Jiu could have used it to help other people, but when everyone pushes you away, you lost the desire of even trying.
So Shen Jiu never told a soul, keeping his investigation a secret and using his blessing for his own good, that way, he finally became a peak lord after the last generation ascended. From a dirty, small and weak slave, he had climbed all he way to the top, the Xiu Ya sword, Shen Qingqiu, the strategist and second in command of Cang Qiong and peak lord of the Qing Jing peak. Who else could even brag of something like that? He had even started late and his cultivation had been damaged, yet he still made it.
For that reason, when he woke up the day after the ascension ceremony and saw that all the senior disciples from his generation had decided to abandon the sect as they didn’t accept him as a peak lord, and only the young ones that hadn’t been for enough time had stayed, Shen Jiu didn’t even bat an eye, he had seen that outcome in his visions and he didn’t care. He was where he was supposed to be, he had worked hard and didn’t care about others opinions.
He taught the few disciples in the peak, selected some more in the next sect selection, then he brought his sister’s daughter to the sect, as well as other childs from the streets. Shen Qingqiu, he did his best to be the Qing Jing peak lord, even if he had a rocky relationship with his martial sibling, even if the world only knew to talk bad behind his back.
Until he had a new vision, from years into the future, he saw the world destroying itself. Red skies and waters, monsters everywhere and people dying of hunger or at the hands of demons. The human and demon realm had fused completely, and at the top of the world, a demon lord being a tyrant, doing everything he wanted, destroying anything or anyone in his way, stealing women and forcing them into his huge harem, even… his little Yingying. Cang Qiong was no more, Yue Qingyuan was no more, Qing Jing… his haven, destroyed to ashes.
As his cultivation was much better than before, Shen Jiu quickly used his blessing to see the reasons behind the end of the world, what was his surprise when he saw himself being the cause.
Luo Binghe, a half demon and, apparently, his future disciple, someone he tortured and slashed at because it reminded him of his abuser, he saw himself being the monster Qiu Jianluo was, even if the child could not respect personal space, even if he lacked a spine and could not talk and defend himself, Shen Jiu, was horriffied of his own image in the visions, of how his actions marked that child the same way he was marked years ago, how, even when he showed compasion for once for the half demon during that immortal aliance, giving him the chance to survive, during all those years, Shen Jiu had been a monster .
He wanted to throw up, he ended up as nothing more than a human stick, his limbs removed, his eye plucked out, and his tongue cut, he even was the cause of Cang Qiong’s destruction, of the end of the world, so he deserved it, he deserved every torture, having his limbs removed, to be left aside by his own daughter, to be hated.
Despair was the only word to describe how Shen Jiu felt knowing this. He could not stop, cutting himself until the water of the basin was completely red, seeing vision after vision for alternative possibilities, of what the world could become, yet in every one of the ends he saw the world was destroyed, or he had to be given to suffer for everyone to live peacefully. Cut after cut, vision after vision, his head barely able to process what he was seeing due to the headache, his Qi depleting, until he fainted.
He was not blessed, the heavens had not taken pity on him, this was punishment for what his actions would cause, the burden of knowing, the burden of carrying millions of lifes on his back, the world itself, all would be his fault, and he had to do something about it.
When Shen Jiu woke up, he cried, not even bothering to change his bloody clothes or take care of the cuts, they were now a reminder, the knowledge becoming a heart demon that made all of those scars to stay there in his skin.
But if something has never changed in his life, it was his will to live. Shen Jiu, now Shen Qingqiu, would not accept heavens rage so easily, what he saw had not yet happened, it could be changed, there must be a way and he would find it, instead of waiting, starting right now, Shen Jiu decided to start with the changes.
A slave was selfish, and he did not want to die, and even if it was for him, he could not ignore all the lives that would be lost because of his actions, and if he himself had to change for it, so be it.
Better make it worth it at the end.