Chapter Text
Shen Jiu takes a gasping breath when he wakes. His eyes are still shut, but one hand flies up to his chest to soothe the ragged pain of his lungs. He is on the floor, he can feel it hard and cold underneath him, but with a texture like pressed dirt. His clothes are rough against his skin and he can feel the wind on him, biting into exposed flesh like the starting of spring nipping at the heels of winter.
It is this that makes him force his eyes open, wipe away the grit encrusted on his eyelids to see a scene that he had not been expecting, not the ceiling of his Bamboo Hut, or the walls of the medical rooms in Qian Cao. Shen Jiu is lying on the street, in an alley to be precise, filth and dirt around him and he would have recoiled if he could move.
The first trickles of light are still making their ways over the horizon and the alley is casted in shadows but it is enough for him to take note of his current state. Shen Jiu’s wrists are thin and bony, his entire body is thin and bony. He feels the jut of his ribs and hips against the coarse fabric he wears, more like rags. His frame is smaller than he is used to almost like he was a street rat again, starving on the streets and begging for scraps.
The frigid numbness is a film over his mind and while all Shen Jiu wants is to go back to sleep, he forces himself up. Shen Jiu struggles to his feet, knocking limbs into each other ungainly like a newborn child learning to walk. His new body throws him off, hunger giving a tremble to his skeletal frame as thirst blurs his view.
Shen Jiu stumbles forward, pushing one foot in front of the other. He needs food and water, his body on its last dregs of energy as a malnutritious kid living on the streets. He has enough energy to know to avoid the people who are awake and setting up their stores, for if he was chased away and hit he would not be able to get back up.
There is a forest nearby and he pushes himself on even as he sways dangerously from side to side and fails to walk in a straight line for more than a few steps. Shen Jiu braces his hands on the trees for additional support, and the first time he tries, he overextended, physical body smaller than his muscle memory. Only luck allowed his shoulder to slam into the trunk, putting an abrupt halt to his fall rather than allowing himself to smash onto the ground. Walking for so long in this body, even if it was only a short distance, had made his head start spinning, bouts of dizziness that required too much rest than Shen Jiu was comfortable with. But he did not know if he would be able to wake up if he was to pass out, so he gritted his teeth and allowed the pain running through his body to ground him.
Thinking about why he was like this and what was happening made his head throb even harder so Shen Jiu decided to just stop thinking about it and focus on gaining some energy. He was the Qing Jing Peak Lord, and he needed all possible information he could gain to piece together exactly what should be the next step of his plan. And Shen Jiu was a strategist, and so he understood that the logical solution was to allow himself to tend to the needs of his now mortal body before analysing his situation in depth.
A blur of colour caught his attention and he staggered the few steps over there, deep enough into the forest that no hints of the village he left could be seen. Shen Jiu drops to his knees with a dull thud, the impact shuddering through his scrawny body. It took a while for his sight to clear enough to ensure that it was berries that grew from the bush and that the berries were edible before Shen Jiu was grasping at the fruits and shoving them into his mouth.
He stuffed the blue fruits into his mouth, disregarding the sour taste of the leaves that were mixed together and swallowed. Shen Jiu’s hand trembled too much to pick them out carefully and delicately and so thin cuts appeared on his fingers where the leaves had cut into his skin with his rough movements. Some juice ran down his face but he disregarded his uncouth mannerisms as he focused on filling his stomach. It soothed his rumbling stomach and parched throat for the meantime.
Shen Jiu had a clear enough state of mind to leave enough of the berries for later and not pick the bush clean as he saw no other edible fruits around, and also to not throw up what little of the food he had up and waste it. He picked a few long thin leaves from another thicket nearby and weaved them together carefully, the end result being a misshapen lump but still able to function as a carrier. Shen Jiu gained many more paper cuts in the process and two failed attempts, but used one of it as a cover for the container filled with the fruits in case there were animals nearby or he was not able to find his way back, which he doubted would happen, but it was best to be safe.
Shen Jiu started to push himself to his feet before thinking better of it, and weaved another two more carriers, both in better shape as his hands became more stable with the food settling into his stomach nicely. The containers would not hold up against heavy rain, but one was tightly woven enough that it should be able to hold water, with two layers ensuring that hardly any water would fall through.
Next on the list would be to find a water source. Just the berries would not be enough to sustain him and water was important if he wanted to continue to survive. Right now, Shen Jiu had to focus on survival, the panicking could come later. He dragged himself back to his feet with a groan, careful not to crush the container in his hands as he did so.
Shen Jiu kept an eye out for other food sources while looking out for animal tracks and lush vegetation that indicated the presence of water sources. He was still dizzy and weak, a few fruits will not make up for the malnutrition that this body has. Shen Jiu estimated himself to be around 8, the lack of proper and regular food stunting this body’s growth and causing it to be smaller and shorter, but he was around his height and build when he was 8.
The last thing that Shen Jiu had remembered was succumbing to a qi-deviation worse than he had suffered in years, being in terrible pain and blacking out in his bamboo hut. There was no sign of it having been anything other than the qi-deviations that he always had, no tampering with his cultivation and to the best of his knowledge no current plots against him.
This was not a hallucination or a figment of his imagination. Pain does not transmit in a dream and the blurriness of his sight was due to hunger and fatigue. Also, he had never known of such a clear illusion with no gaps in it whatsoever, and he was known for the sharpness of his mind. So what that was around him must be reality.
It could not be time travel. If it was time travel he would have woken up with Yue Qingyuan, he was hardly ever separated from the man in those days, so this option was ruled out. De-ageing could have been a possible option, but it would not change the fact that his location was different, unless someone had brought him here which was unlikely as he was in a weakened state and they could have just captured and killed him instead.
The last was reincarnation. Which meant that he had died due to a qi-deviation due to his own flawed cultivation. What a humiliating way to go. Shen Jiu could just think of the ways that other people would mock him for this even when he was in a grave. They would probably throw a celebration about the fact that he died and would not be a stain on the sect anymore. Shen Jiu stanchly refused to think about Yue Qingyuan, and if he would be happy or sad or as usual, guilty about his passing.
He had no idea whose body he was in, but given its state he doubted that the owner of the body could have caused both of them to swap bodies and had died instead. Even if they had swapped bodies, what could a street rat do in his old body? The rest of the sect would probably think that he had gone mad or something and lock him up for fear of him bringing even greater disgrace to the sect.
There was the faint sound of water flowing ahead and slightly to his left, so Shen Jiu adjusted the direction of his travel and the sounds got louder until he emerged past the shrubbery and to the sight of a river. It was much better than he had hoped for, which was a pond at the very least, and running water was a lot better than stagnant water.
Shen Jiu disregarded the fact that he had woven a container and directly lowered his mouth to the water and drank. He took in big gulps of the clear water, in an absolutely humiliating state of being on his hands and knees and drinking like an animal but Shen Jiu was too thirsty to care or to wait. He sat back on his haunches after he had gotten his fill, filling up the water container to check that it would hold before wading into the water.
It was cold and brought a shock to his system, waking him up thoroughly. The water levels only reached to his waist in the deepest part of the areas around him, and the flow of the water was slow enough to only provide a gentle pressure and not sweep him off his feet. Shen Jiu stripped the pieces of cloth off his body, threadbare and ragged, leaving them on the riverbank. He dunked his head under, scrubbing furiously with his hands to try and clean as much as he could with just water.
Layers of dirt were scoured off until his skin was red and his hair was untangled with handfuls of strands having fallen off with the intensity in which he had gone at his scalp. Shen Jiu could see the outline of his ribs, the bruises and cuts lining his skin and exactly what poor condition his body was in. When he was finally done having reached an acceptable level of cleanliness and the cleanest that he would ever get without soap, he tossed his hair over his shoulder and went to clean the pieces of rags that were his clothes.
Shen Jiu caught sight of his face in the reflection of the water and stopped dazed. He had thought that it was a case of reincarnation in which he had woken up in someone else’s body but his face looked just like his own. Green eyes and hollow cheeks, he could see the same high cheekbones and that slant of his nose. Exactly like how he was when he was younger. Shen Jiu shook his head roughly, so what if he looked just like he used to.
So what if it reminded him of the past that he wishes to leave behind?
He was gentler with washing his clothes than with washing his own body, but that was only due to the fact that the clothes looked like they would fall apart at any moment. There were threads falling out and the seams were clearly coming apart slowly, with the amount of holes throughout the fabric it seemed to be more empty space than cloth. No matter how many times Shen Jiu scrubbed, carefully because he still needed to wear something, it still remained a dirty shade of grey, the years of grime and sun having discoloured the material until its original colour was unknown.
Two shichen had passed while he was in the river and his fingers had wrinkled so much that they resembled prunes. Shen Jiu was shivering even when the sun was at its zenith, so he wrung the rags out and laid the clothes to dry on a rock while he mediated the best he could and tried to circulated qi through his body so that he would not catch a cold for being in the water that long. His meridians were smooth and clear, free of the blockages and twists and turns that had haunted him for much of his life, having been deformed by demonic cultivation. Qi ran through his body much smoother than it ever had and Shen Jiu could feel the potential that he thought he had lost forever thrumming through him.
He had nearly forgotten that feeling, only ever having glimpses of the feeling in his youth and now, while not the best circumstances, it had made him overjoyed. Perhaps this could be the chance that he had to erase all of his past mistakes and cultivate to much greater heights than before. Shen Jiu forcibly pulled himself away from continuing to chase after that feeling for fear of straining his body, too young and untrained. The sun would set in a few shichen and the fruits that he brought with him were finished.
Shen Jiu made his way back to the village that he had come from, his strides much surer than before. There were a few detours to fill up the remaining containers that he had with fruits and nuts. All of the fruits were sour due to not being ripe and the nuts were bland and tasteless but they had filled his stomach no matter how much he had disliked them.
The village was much bigger than he had first thought, slightly smaller than a city, which was good for him as they were less likely to realise if something went missing. Shen Jiu first nicked clothes, as wearing such rags would have immediately made him stand out and vendors were unlikely to sell him anything even if he had money. They would just think that he had stolen it and beat him up, before taking his money to line their pockets. The robes were too big, meant for someone with a larger stature than him, but with the three layers to show that he was likely to be a young master allowed him to hide that fact at first glance. Shen Jiu fashioned a ribbon to tie up his hair with the least likely to fall apart strips of cloth that were the lightest shade of grey. He had crushed a few flowers and tucked the petals in a pouch, which was also fashioned from his previous clothing, to cover up any foul scent.
While Shen Jiu made his way through the crowd, mingling among them and walking like he belonged, which would stand out much less, he slipped nimble fingers into the pouches of wealthy people. Palming a few taels instead of lifting the entire pouch altogether prevented them from feeling anything was amiss as it would be much more inconspicuous than their entire money bag going missing. It was a lot more difficult, but Shen Jiu quickly fell back into the familiar rhythm of pickpocketing and wielding the skill he had never lost, allowing only a few breaths to pass before he moved on richer and the other slightly poorer. With his skills and careful application of qi, no one was any wiser to the thief among them. It was not the most righteous or honourable, but he needed money and it was not like they were going to miss it much.
How amusing, merely a day having woken up not as the Qing Jing Peak Lord had gotten him to fall back as just a street rat so easily. Was it not just showing that he was nothing more than that no matter how high he had climbed or what luxurious materials he had adorned himself with?
Shen Jiu made an entire round of the centre of the city, with a few golden taels, a handful of silver taels, and a couple of bronze coins to show for, because the wealthy only carried big money apparently. He ducked into a simple clothing store that he spied with plain clothes with an owner that looked easy to pressure. Shen Jiu did not want to waste too much of his money on clothes after all.
He came out of the store, a fair few taels lighter, with three inner and outer robes for quite cheap. Shen Jiu was tempted to get a weimao, as it would at least be able to disguise his age, even if his height might hint at his youth and the moment he opens his mouth his voice would give it away. But at the stature that he was currently at, he doubted that it would be possible, so he forwent the idea. It would be better to spend the money on rolls of silk and different threads and needles instead. He could embroider something and sell it, Shen Jiu had been quite good with it, even if it was known as a women’s skill. Qiu Haitang had liked to drag him with him to spend hours embroidering and it was honestly quite relaxing to do so even if it felt demeaning at that time. But slaves do not have emotions, so he swallowed it down and smiled back at her.
A few pieces of bread and fruits made their way into the long folds of his robes, enough to last him for two or three days. Shen Jiu made small talk with various sellers while buying items that were functional, such as soap which was definitely needed, for a couple of coins to loosen their mouths. He learnt that this was a small city in the east known as Liyang, and there was not as much business here compared to the bigger city a few days to the north called Anyang, but there was something smaller to the south, further away at maybe a week journey, that was more of a village known as Peiyang. All of the places around here had about the same name, with the second character being Yang and just changing the first one.
Making his way to Anyang would be better, bigger cities had more information and people, since out here was so far away from any cultivation sects, there was so little information. All he had gained was that it was less than a week since he had died as Shen Qingqiu and no new information about the sect that he did not know, not that he had expected otherwise.
Shen Jiu made his way to a cheap inn and spent nearly all that he had for dinner and breakfast and a hot bath. Washing up in the freezing stream just was not the same as lounging in a tub and it was going to be a rough few days on the road so he deserved this. It was also to help him relax all his pent-up muscles and soothe the headache that had not abated from earlier in the day. A small part of him ignores the fact that this is to calm himself down from the shock that he had not let himself process yet. Will not let himself process yet.
It is only when Shen Jiu slides himself under the sheets, clad in only one layer and clean enough for him to unwind that he falls apart. The pillow is damp underneath his cheek, hot breaths the only sign of his inaudible sobs, Shen Jiu had never let himself cry loudly, had never let himself show weakness . He had learnt silence all too well and never had the chance, or felt safe enough to unlearn it.
He was Shen Qingqiu, the Qing Jing Peak Lord. He should have been above breaking down due to one small hurdle that was more like an opportunity than anything else. Why was he crying?
Everyone would be better off without him and he did not need any of them. So what if he was gone now and tossed back into one of the darkest times of his life without the one who had always been by his side through it all? Shen Jiu could handle it just fine.
Everything was fine.
“What happened to Shen Qingqiu?” Shen Yuan asks.
The floating blue box appears in the middle of the room, text running across its translucent surface.
“Shen Qingqiu is here. You are Shen Qingqiu.”
“That is not what I meant, System.” Shen Yuan hissed, balling up his fists. “I meant the original goods, the original owner of this body, the original Shen Qingqiu. Is he dead?” Shen Yuan tacked on the last part, a bit wary that the scum villain was just going to appear out of nowhere in his mind. But if he did, Shen Yuan decided, he was going to give him a piece of his mind. Curse him out for all he had done to the protagonist and about how he was now stuck in a doomed fate due to him.
“…”
“How helpful.” Why did he think that the system would actually answer his questions? It was there just to make his life difficult after all.
“Shen Qingqiu has died.”
Huh, so the system is being helpful now. Well, at least he got his answer. Shen Yuan returned to plotting out the actions that he would take to avoid his human stick fate, giving no other thought to the original Shen Qingqiu.
And Shen Yuan has died too. He just did not stay dead. What makes him think that Shen Qingqiu would not be the same?
Shen Qingqiu has died. Not Shen Qingqiu is dead.