Chapter Text
Liu Qingge did not want to be here.
Shen Qingqiu did not want to be here either.
Nevertheless, after the disastrous well mission had his ignorant shidi accuse him of murder, their relationship, which had always been acrimonious, had turned into a blood feud, and when Liu Qingge was on the war path, so were his lackeys. After months of blows and bloodshed between Qing Jing and Bai Zhan (Shen Qingqiu very bitterly reminded that unlike Liu Qingge, he was on his own) and expense report after expense report of grotesque damage repairs, Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu were put on one more mission together by their teachers, with the strong but silent emphasis:
Get your shit together or you're both spending a year in Ku Xing, ascension be damned.
They had to succeed on this mission together or they would be putting the generational handover on delay for another few years. Their teachers - many in their mid-to-late centuries of age, and considerably weakened after the subjugation of Tianlang-jun a few years past, could only wait so long before some of them might just die of illness or old age.
So they had to do this properly. Seriously.
And their mission was a sensitive one too, as the granddaughter of a local lord had gone missing recently with no visible culprit. Though it could just be slavers, they didn't mess with noble children blithely, and rumours had abounded recently of a sighting of a mysterious man with a flute in the forest, followed by a host of children who always disappeared as soon as someone tried to approach them.
So: a kidnapper, yes. A mere mortal, though? Doubtful.
It was the kind of mission that required little in the way of brute force, but information seeking and patience, which was just fine for Shen Qingqiu, but it was clear as soon as they dropped down in the city Liu Qingge would be a disaster at it.
After all, how the hell could you tell your would-be client: "And you lost your granddaughter in a matter of ke? Sounds like your household staff are worthless" and expect to get any information out of the man after? They had already heard the wailing of protesting servants and slaves being flogged for the outrage of losing the lord's little girl, so was it not obvious their client already felt the same?
Shen Qingqiu gritted his teeth and ignored the screaming, pleading, the stained stone paths and the planks of wood used to beat people they passed by in the courtyard before heading inside.
The client was insulted, of course, and Shen Qingqiu had to spend a half-shichen soothing his ruffled feathers by complimenting his taste in artwork and porcelain and making it very clear he was on his side, and that he was equally mortified by his shidi's behaviour.
(Meanwhile, the brute just rolled his eyes and walked off, no doubt to do some brilliant legwork of his own.)
The only information Shen Qingqiu eventually managed to get out from their client was that his granddaughter wasn't the first child to have gone missing recently, just the most important one.
"Most of the others are just street rats, little better than slaves," the lord said.
"Mm," Shen Qingqiu agreed as he rubbed the edge of his celadon tea cup, wishing he could throw the Longjing tea into the old bastard's face. "Naturally, their parents wouldn't be able to afford our services."
"If they even have any," the lord said. "But my Jingyuan, ah, she's the pearl in my palm, my only reason for going on. Immortal master, I'll pay anything for you to find her safe and unharmed for me."
"Of course, Lord Gao," Shen Qingqiu smiled, and knew he would hold him to it.
*
"Found anything?" Shen Qingqiu asked Liu Qingge sarcastically that night at their inn. They had both graciously (ha!) declined to stay at the client's vast estate, saying their comings and goings would only be a distraction to his household.
The only thing that would have happened, Shen Qingqiu was certain, had they agreed to stay, was how long he'd be able to hold out before he took one of those planks of wood and smashed it on every piece of artwork and porcelain and fine treasure in Lord Gao's home to show how he really felt about about the punishment he had seen that day (no doubt performed in the larger courtyards for their viewing pleasure). Some of the servants beaten had been children themselves, little kitchen maids sobbing with bloody backs as they pleaded for mercy to no avail.
He could feel the pressure of a headache rising as he remembered the sight. Forget it, the sooner he could complete this mission and meditate away what he'd seen the better.
"Well?" he asked again, putting down his cup of (tasteless) tea.
They were sitting at a table in the dining room, though neither had ordered much; Liu Qingge a plain meal of rice and steamed vegetables and braised pork, while Shen Qingqiu just had a pot of tea and a mung bean cake to nibble on. He could never eat much in public to begin with, worried his manners would fail him at the most inopportune moment, and what he had seen at Lord Gao's place had made his stomach churn even worse than usual.
"I visited the forest," Liu Qingge said, not barking back at him for once. "Felt an unusual qi signature here and there, though I couldn't track it down for certain. Not yet."
Much as Shen Qingqiu liked to insult his shidi, Liu Qingge was the best tracker in their generation, possibly even better than his shizun or the Peak Lord of the Beast Peak.
"Hmm." He sipped his tea. "Did you see anyone who looked like a child? Even an apparition, or an illusion?"
Or a trap.
"No," said Liu Qingge, then hesitated. "But I heard voices. Children talking here and there. Whenever I tried to follow the sound - "
"Dangerous," Shen Qingqiu snapped.
" - it would always disappear. As if it didn't want me to find it."
Well, no wonder. Liu Qingge was hardly the right age for a victim, was he...
Shen Qingqiu rubbed his eyes at the realisation. "We'll need a lure if we want to find this creature," he muttered.
Liu Qingge had come to the same conclusion. "There's no parent in this city who'll give up their child to be stolen if this goes wrong," he said, crossing his arms. "No amount of money will be enough to repay them if the brat goes missing - or dies."
Oh, shidi, Shen Qingqiu thought deprecatingly. You have no idea what people are really like, do you?
But for once the seriousness of the situation meant he and Liu Qingge were communicating properly, and without barbs twined into every other word. So he bit back his reflexive remark and bit down on a piece of his mung bean cake. Sweet and creamy and mellow, just the way he liked.
"No," he agreed. "No parent would ever do something so barbaric for money, after all."
*
After joining Qing Jing Peak, Shen Qingqiu had washed away all traces of his former self, or tried his best as he could afford to. He mimicked (dear god) the least offensive of Qiu Jianluo's manners and etiquette he learned from sitting in on Qiu Haitang's lessons, and picked up the rest from observing his Shizun, and his shixiongs and shijies when they believed he was out of sight and mind, and therefore not worth smiling discourteously at.
As a disciple of Cang Qiong, he was granted a certain awe as he walked down the street in his crisp white uniform and hair drawn up in an elegant ponytail. He was also expected to behave in a calm and dignified manner, which usually went sideways when a Bai Zhan knucklehead confronted him in plain sight for the audacity of spending the night in the Red Warm Pavilion when Shen Qingqiu had specifically gone in disguise. As if Bai Zhan was made wholly of muscle-headed virgins to begin with!
Nevertheless, Shen Qingqiu did his best to maintain a proper image when he left the sect, if only not to make his Shizun's brow lift in question when he came back to report after a mission.
So. Dressing in neat but plain clothes and walking into a side alley in the early afternoon to observe which orphaned street brat might be the most susceptible to accepting his and Liu Qingge's outrageous proposition was the opposite of all that.
Indeed, Shen Qingqiu's back crawled at the very idea. How was he better than a slaver, honestly? How would anyone even trust him, even if he tried to convince them? Through showing his cultivation tricks? Wu Yanzi had made his jaw drop with his own nonsense too, in the beginning.
But after a week of trying to find more information and searching through the forest - and Shen Qingqiu had heard the children's voices too, only to be left rudderless in pursuit - there was little other choice.
Truly, he felt like a piece of shit. The least he could do was pay the kid, but...
Well, street kids weren't idiots. Enough rumours had gone around the city that children, attended to or not, were in danger, that most of them had gone dark altogether, only walking around in groups when they absolutely had to, and hiding in their secret spots otherwise. Which was great for their intelligence and safety, but less so for Shen Qingqiu's mission.
Perhaps he'd have to write back to the sect to ask for an illusion charm, he thought dourly. Something to make him or Liu Qingge look like a child for a few shichen, so this mysterious kidnapper could try and snag them, only to get caught. Sure, it would cost them an obscene amount of spirit stones, but it was better than this useless snipe hunt, and -
"Ah!" a tiny voice suddenly squeaked out. "Thief! Gongzi, he stole your money!"
Shen Qingqiu blinked and looked down to see a filthy little boy pointing in the distance... and indeed, he realised his qiankun pouch full of talismans and taels had gone missing. He cursed; how in the hell had he been caught off-guard like that?
"Where did he go," he commanded, and the lookout, who didn't even reach his waist, pointed again. Shen Qingqiu memorised his face briefly - pale, chubby face, tangled black hair, ragged brown robes and a pair of barely-together sandals - before taking pursuit.
With his developed senses and qinggong, it wasn't long before he caught his thief in a back alley, who turned out to be a skinny brat with a mouth full of broken teeth and curses when Shen Qingqiu grabbed him by the wrist and snatched his pouch back.
"Steal from cultivators often, do you?" he murmured.
"Fuck you!" the thief cried. "Mind your own business!"
Shen Qingqiu tightened his grip until the boy shrieked, and then he let him go, watching coldly as he dropped to the ground and began shaking.
"Stupid, stupid," the thief muttered.
"You are indeed stupid," Shen Qingqiu agreed. "Are you so hard up for luck you had to steal from the likes of me to survive?"
The boy glared up at him with wet eyes and a stubborn jolt to his lip. "As if the young master would understand," he said sarcastically. "It's been two days since the last time I had something to eat. Even the vendors aren't coming out anymore; they think the childsnatcher will come for their children too. But hell, I'm so hungry..."
Shen Qingqiu stepped back. He didn't want to hear this anymore, a twisted version of his own story thrown back at him. "Stop snivelling," he snapped, and after a moment, opened his pouch and flung a silver ingot at the boy, who cried out:
"Ow!"
Then gaped when he saw what Shen Qingqiu had thrown at him, which was a ten-tael ingot... the kind of money his lot would never see in his whole life.
(And which had been twice as much had cost to buy Shen Jiu, once upon a time ago.)
"If you still possess a flicker of intelligence, you'll know how to make this last," Shen Qingqiu said in a thin voice. "Use it, save it, break it into copper, you know what to do. But don't be so careless again, not if you want to keep going. No one else will ever show you this kind of mercy again."
He turned back to walk away, only for the brat to yell, "Thank you! But young master, what's your name? In - in case I can repay you one day..."
Shen Qingqiu snorted at the idea. His first name had been a number, and his second was a branding. Had his parents named him before they sold him? Truly, he would never know.
"Does it matter?" he said. "Either way, you'll never see me again."
And walked off despite the thief's profuse thanks, remembering at last the lookout who had warned him just a few minutes ago - Only to find the street he had been standing on deserted and silent, and no boy in sight. Shen Qingqiu cursed. He had been stupid - with a kidnapper about, he should have worried about the snot-nosed brat, not the grubby teenage thief who could have taken care of himself!
Fuck! Had he really let a child get kidnapped in exchange for some useless lecturing? God damn it -
"Shen Qingqiu!"
A hand snatched his wrist out of nowhere just as he slammed his fist into the wall, and then Liu Qingge was staring at him, bewildered and lost.
"What's wrong," he said.
"Nothing!" Shen Qingqiu spat out, biting his lip bloody. "I just - there was this kid, and I let him out of my sight and he's not here anymore. I wasn't thinking, and now that monster probably got him - "
"He could have gone home," Liu Qingge said. "You're freaking out, but you don't know -"
"You said it yourself," Shen Qingqiu said, hysteria creeping into his tone. "No parent would let their child out at a time like this. He was so small, shidi, and dirty. What was I even thinking..."
Liu Qingge let his wrist go and lowered his own hand, looking contemplative. "Look, it can't have been long," he said. "We'll find him, alright? You're smart, and I can track anything with a trace. Just don't give up already..."
"I'm not," Shen Qingqiu snarled, even if he had to wipe his eyes with a sleeve. Liu Qingge gave him a moment to calm down, and then they began searching for clues in earnest. It wasn't long before the man called him over to a corner and held up a tiny worn-out sandal.
"That's it," Shen Qingqiu said at once. "It's his. He wouldn't have left it behind, it's all he has."
"Alright," Liu Qingge said. "I can use that." He hesitated, then added: "We'll find him, shixiong. I promise."
*
They soon found themselves flying into the forest on their swords, Liu Qingge in front and holding the sandal up, muttering incantations under his breath to be able to draw a connection between it and its former wearer. Meanwhile, Shen Qingqiu was ashamed of his behaviour back in the street, the pathetic sniffling he had shown to Liu Qingge of all people. But there was no talking about it until the brat - and the other children - were found. Tears were useless. Only results mattered.
Eventually Liu Qingge's incantation led them down, down, down, into a small cave opening in the forest. They put their swords away and silenced their qi signatures.
Shen Qingqiu took in a deep breath, knowing he would have to be prepared for what he might see next, whether it be a demonic cultivator who had stolen the children to use as cauldrons or medicine, a demon or flesh-eating monster or anything else this disturbing world could conjure up.
(They might all be dead already, for all he knew.)
For once he didn't protest when Liu Qingge took the lead, knowing his supreme strength and lightning-quick reflexes would shut down any attack from the front. Shen Qingqiu watched their backs and sides with bitter-hearted zeal. Easy, easy...
Their eyes adjusted to the growing darkness well enough, and soon they started hearing faint echoes of voices here and there - young voices, faint and distorted. Some sounded like they were laughing; some crying; some dazed and slow and stupid. But either way, they had come into the belly of the beast, and they would have to slay it.
Suddenly Liu Qingge stopped moving forward, and Shen Qingqiu slammed into his back, smashing his nose into Cheng Luan's sheath. "You - " he hissed, only to go silent as Liu Qingge shook his head.
And then the sound of a flute vibrated through the cave, smooth and mellow and sweet, and the discordant children's voices fell silent and did not speak again.
The music continued, and after a stifling pause Liu Qingge started moving again. The music began growing louder the deeper they descended, the more calm and surreal the song was as its master kept playing, much to Shen Qingqiu's growing horror.
He didn't have to wonder for long, for he and Liu Qingge finally entered a vast underground clearing, with unearthly glowing mushrooms giving off a sickly light in the darkness... and one with dozens of children, filthy and languid and murmuring incoherently to one another... and one thin, ragged man at the top of a jagged rock, playing his flute and looking at no one in particular.
What the fuck, Shen Qingqiu thought silently. Somehow he knew Liu Qingge felt the same way.
Somewhere in there was the tiny lookout, and Lord Gao's granddaughter, and everyone else who must have gone missing. Dozens and dozens of children... and they had only gotten a request from Lord Gao now?
This was going to be the fight of a lifetime, Shen Qingqiu knew, as the flute finally stilled, and the thin man turned to look at the two interlopers and murmured:
"Look who's here, darlings..."
And lifted his flute to his mouth again.
One by one, the little children roused to their feet, and gazed at Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu with empty eyes.
"Shidi - " Shen Qingqiu said, already knowing what was coming ahead.
"I'll take the bastard," Liu Qingge said, drawing Cheng Luan in one fluid motion. "You - can you - without hurting them - "
"Of course I can," Shen Qingqiu snapped. "You should be grateful I carry so many strange powders and potions with me." He reached for his qiankun pouch, the one he had nearly lost for life, and cracked his neck in furor and promise. "I guarantee I'll finish this without touching a single hair on these brats' heads."
"Hmm," Liu Qingge snorted. "Can't say the same for me and mine."
And just as the flute went into crescendo and the children rushed blindly at them, they leapt into action.
(If their teachers could have seen them that day, they would have been overwhelmed with pride and relief.)
*
After the battle - after Liu Qingge killed the man, Shen Qingqiu covered up the corpse with his own outer robe to prevent the children, hysterical and sobbing, from seeing their kidnapper’s remains now that they could remember what had happened, remember themselves.
Liu Qingge had always been the quicker hand and his cultivation was stronger, so he ferried brats back and forth on Cheng Luan, dropping them off at the Magistrate's manor to get them all sorted out in one go, while Shen Qingqiu stayed behind, trying to console the weeping ones the best he knew how, which wasn't much at all.
He had never been good with children, even when he had been one. Xiao Jiu had always clung to Qi-ge like a leech and barked off any attempts for a younger kid to try and "adopt" him as his own gege; he had Qi-ge, it was enough, he didn't need anyone else, too bad so sad, go away now.
It didn't matter right now what Xiao Jiu would have done. These kids were younger even than the smallest disciples at Cang Qiong, and Shen Qingqiu could hardly draw them into his arms without his own body locking up in discomfort.
He had nothing in the way of knick knacks or food to appease them either. So Shen Qingqiu did the only thing he could, which was use a little of his cultivation - deploying light and shadow - to create a puppet show while they waited for Liu Qingge to return.
(Puppet shows had been the one kind of entertainment Xiao Jiu had always been guaranteed, since they were often held out in the open whenever festivals came by, and Qi-ge would always find the best spot for him.)
He decided to tell the story of Chang'e and Houyi, even changing his voice to act out their lines the way he remembered it being told. Eventually the sniffling stopped, and the children edged closer to him, even as Liu Qingge came again and again and their numbers dwindled.
Eventually only the last batch of kids was left, and Shen Qingqiu, exhausted more from entertaining a heap of sniffling children than the battle - though using his fan to spread the sleeping powder among the children without skewering any of them with Xiu Ya had been a nightmare - noticed the little lookout at last, hovering near by a large rock.
"Hey," Shen Qingqiu said, remembering that small face, that mop of dirty black curls. "Come here."
The boy came forward with a stutter, clearly missing a sandal on one foot, grubby hands clutching the hem of his robe as he looked up at Shen Qingqiu without saying a word.
"How are you?" Shen Qingqiu asked him instead. "Are you okay now?"
"I'm fine, gongzi," the boy mumbled. His voice was hoarse, no doubt from crying.
Shen Qingqiu hesitated. "Do you have someone? A mother, father? A gege to look after you?"
The boy looked dumbly back at him before shaking his head. "It's just Binghe," the boy said. "No one else."
He could hardly be more than four or five years old, though knowing how kids like him aged, perhaps even more so. Shen Qingqiu had barely been a handful himself before he joined Qing Jing and ate cultivated food for the first time. He had grown up like a sapling his first year, his skin and health clearing up like a stream, even if his meridians were permanently damaged and beyond help.
"Binghe," said Shen Qingqiu. "Is that your name?"
"Mm." The boy nodded. "Luo Binghe. I was, um..." He rubbed his nose. "I had a family once. But ah, they're gone now..." His voice began to waver. "Are you taking me back too, gongzi? Do I need a family to be able to go back?"
He must think Shen Qingqiu was going to abandon him with that line of questioning, he realised in horror. "Of course not," he said immediately. "We're saving everyone. I was looking for you before, you little fool. I wanted to thank you for saving my pouch."
"Really?" Binghe inched closer.
"That pouch was where I kept all my magic powders," Shen Qingqiu said. "Without it I wouldn't have been able to save anyone. So you can say today's heroics are thanks to you. You..." He swallowed. It was strange, talking like this, but for once there was no harm in being soft, in being kind. "You helped save everyone. That was very brave of you."
"Oh." The boy looked close to tears. He sniffled, rubbing his nose again. "Gongzi, can I - "
"Hey," Liu Qingge said suddenly. "It's time to go."
Shen Qingqiu flinched, and Binghe leapt back. Idiot shidi...! Shen Qingqiu cursed under his breath, then sighed and looked at the boy again. "Come here," he said in a low voice. "You can ride back with me." He raised his brow. "Unless you really want this person to throw you over his shoulder like a sack of rice?"
"No," Binghe giggled, even with damp eyes. "No, I want gongzi to carry me instead."
And so, for the first time he could remember, Shen Qingqiu lifted a boy in his arms and held onto him tight as he flew on Xiu Ya, Binghe's face buried into his neck the whole time as the little boy finally let the day's events get to him and cried, silent though he was.
Strange, Shen Qingqiu thought, feeling tender and hollow too. He had never comforted anyone before, never so much as lifted a hand to soothe anyone but Qiu Haitang's occasional fussy temper and her brother's sadistic one. Qi-ge had always been the one consoling him instead.
This was…
He let the thought drift by as Xiu Ya rose to greet the sunset, and light hit Shen Qingqiu's eyes for the first time in hours.
"Hey." He nudged the squirt in his arms. "Look up. It's not so bad."
It took a while longer, but eventually Binghe finally cracked his eyes open, though he continued holding onto Shen Qingqiu for dear life.
"Oh," he mouthed as he saw the sunset a hundred feet up in the air, from a view he would have never gotten a chance to see before.
"You'll be fine now," Shen Qingqiu said in a soft voice. "So stop crying, alright?"
"Alright," Binghe whispered, unable to tear his gaze away.
*
"What are you going to do with the brat?"
It was the morning after at the Magistrate's manor, and half the city had been up all night to retrieve their lost children, the sobbing of relief enough to keep up the other half. Lord Gao had come in with a vast entourage and began weeping when he saw his granddaughter - a scuffed-up girl of nine who looked a mess. She in turn burst into tears and ran into his arms immediately.
Shen Qingqiu remembered how the man had had kitchen maids just a few older than his granddaughter beaten for the crime of not looking after her when that had never been their responsibility to begin with, and let the bitterness pass over him for once. They would receive their payment, they would return to Cang Qiong with a letter of glowing recommendation, and their teachers would be able to ascend soon with their worries extinguished and a calm conscience.
It was just…
It was the morning of their departure, and all the children had returned home to their families but Luo Binghe. The boy had been allowed a warm spot to sleep in the large greeting hall where all the children had been kept until their parents retrieved them, but otherwise he was still in his rags, he was still alone, and it was doubtful he had even been given a cup of water to nurse on all night.
Shen Qingqiu hadn't looked after him, too busy with everything else, but now as he watched the boy curl up into a shivering lump as he slept, something small and low in his heart ached.
Stupid. He was just an orphaned brat like thousands others in this world. Shen Qingqiu had been one of them once upon a time, and he had managed to survive just fine.
(But he'd had Qi-ge, and who did this kid have - no one. No one at all, but him...)
"If it bothers you," Liu Qingge said, "we could drop him off at a monastery."
No sect would take in a child this small, much less without testing his aptitude first, which for a child this young was a crapshoot. Leaving him in the hands of someone like the Magistrate or Lord Gao would mean he would grow up as a servant, which would suffice until one day they decided to sell him for being slow with the laundry.
Shen Qingqiu had only known him for a day and a half, so why should he care? Why should he bother? But he kept grinding his teeth and biting on his lip nonetheless, and he mumbled, "The kid doesn't even have all his teeth yet, and you want him to be a monk, shidi?"
Liu Qingge studied him in silence. They'd bickered less than usual on this mission, and though Shen Qingqiu didn't want to go back to their old acrid dynamic, he could feel himself retreating into bitterness again - into the comfort of his own low expectations.
"Shixiong..." he said. He had begun calling Shen Qingqiu that without any prompting all of a sudden. He wasn't going to thank him for it, though he was quietly grateful for the newfound respect.
"If it really bothers you," Liu Qingge said. "I can ask my family to take him in."
Shen Qingqiu jolted. "As a servant?" he asked, agape.
"No! As a ward," Liu Qingge said. "They'll treat him fine."
Shen Qingqiu shook his head. No, no... noble and lofty a clan as the Liu were, they'd only grant the boy a modest existence as a "ward", especially considering his paltry circumstances and the fact they'd be taking him in as a favour to Shen Qingqiu, who as far as they last knew, had been trying to publicly kill their beloved son and heir.
How long would such charity last? How long would Liu Qingge's generosity towards Shen Qingqiu last?
"No, I don't - "
Shen Qingqiu shuddered. He didn't know what he was doing, what all these strange emotions bubbling inside of his rotten head, his rotten heart meant, but he was certain he didn't want to cast Luo Binghe away like a used rag.
The boy had no one else.
Shen Jiu had no one else.
"I'll take him," he found himself saying, just as the boy roused from his sleep and gazed at him from across the hall with drowsy eyes, as Liu Qingge's own eyes widened and he opened his mouth in disbelief.
"I'll take him," Shen Qingqiu repeated, and knew he would never be able to take those words back for as long as he lived. "He'll be mine."
"Yours?" said Liu Qingge. "What do you mean by that?"
"Gongzi...?" he heard a small voice mumble, his heart lurching at how lost it sounded.
"I meant exactly that," Shen Qingqiu said. "He'll be my son."
"You! You can't be serious - "
But Shen Qingqiu had already turned heel and marched to the brat, who was shuffling to his feet even as he was shivering from the cold. "Hey," he said, crouching. "Little fool, did you hear all that?"
"Mm." Binghe rubbed his eyes, blinking furiously to stay awake. "Gongzi wants to take me with him?"
His voice was careful, shy despite its youth, because he couldn't quite tell if Shen Qingqiu was mocking him.
(Shen Jiu remembered that kind of uncertainty too. Hated it.)
"That's right." He softened his voice. "Look. I'm not the nicest person out there. Most people hate me, actually. But I'll make sure you get fed and wear nice clothes and sleep with a roof over your head, and I'll teach you everything you have to know. You just have to listen to me and be good."
"Binghe can be good," the boy said in a small voice. "And... one day I'll learn how to fly? Just like you?"
Was that what he was hooked on? "Of course you can," Shen Qingqiu said. "If you work hard, one day you can fly all over the world."
"O - oh."
Shen Qingqiu saw the moment the little boy decided to believe him, how his sleepy black eyes widened, then hardened with a resolution beyond his years.
"Okay," Binghe said, and held out his arms up to be held.
Shen Qingqiu scooped him up, feeling how light his would-be son was in his arms and said, "Let's go home, little brat."
And as the boy finally smiled and laid his head down against his shoulder, for once his heart felt lighter than air and sweeter than rain.
Shen Qingqiu had just made a decision that would change his life forever - but not one he would ever live to regret.
For once, he knew he was doing the right thing.