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Long before he was Liu Qingge, his mother took him by the hand and taught him a special cultivation skill.
He remembers crying. He was hurt. It was the most pain he had ever felt in his life up to that moment. His mother’s mere touch caused a burning sensation to race up his arm. He doesn’t remember how he got hurt. He doesn’t want to remember how.
His mother had watched with amusement. There was a twinkle in her eye as she brought a finger to her lips and she told him, “This will be our little secret.”
He could barely nod. All he was able to give her was a weak, “Mn.”
Bruises bloomed on her skin that disappeared on his own skin. Vicious slashes tore into her. She did not wince. As quick as the wounds appeared, they were gone on her.
When his tears dried, he helped her dig a grave for one of his father’s beloved pets. His mother let him keep the calluses he gained from the incident.
She patted his cheek. “You’re going to need them one day.”
Liu Qingge knows better not to be careless about what his mother taught him. Despite the fact that he is stronger and able to protect himself, a part of him is still that young child, afraid of being exploited for his cultivation.
Yet seeing the disciple reminds him of what it’s like to be scared. It’s been years since the disciple selection but he recognizes the boy under the injures – the boy Shen Qingqiu stole after Liu Qingge pointed out his talent.
The treatment, the injuries, it all makes him disgusted. The boy doesn’t quite flinch when he reaches for him. There is a minute twitch but he stands his ground. Liu Qingge moves slower, taking him by his chin and lifting his face up.
And just as his mother had done for him, he does for the disciple. Liu Qingge pulls the wounds to himself. He does not need to pass the damage on; they’re barely anything. His cultivation is high enough to take care of the rest.
“There. Don’t tell anyone.”
The boy blinks. There is a beat of silence before he gives his agreement.
Liu Qingge lets go of his chin. He frowns. Without the bruises and scratches, Liu Qingge can see how emaciated the boy is. He can’t do anything about the starvation with his mother’s trick. It’s a good thing he is about to leave the sect, his bags are filled with provisions. He readily takes a pork bao out of one of his many qiankun pouches and hands it to him.
The disciple’s reaction is delayed again. He then gives a shallow bow and his voice is soft as he says, “Thanking shishu.”
Liu Qingge continues on his way. There is nothing to be done when Zhangmen-shixiong will support Shen Qingqiu. He puts it out of mind and doesn’t think about it.
A few days later, he feels something akin to an echo of hurt but it doesn’t make sense. The injuries he absorbed has already healed. On the night hunt, he had taken down the beast with no issue, transferring any injury to it. Following his instinct, Liu Qingge decides not to search for more trouble and to cut the trip short. He returns to the sect right after the hunt is completed.
As he passes the Heaven-Ascending Stairs, he sees a group of Bai Zhan disciples surround a single Qing Jing Peak disciple. He descends quickly. Shen Qingqiu is able to hold his own and then some with his nasty tricks. The same cannot be said for his disciples. The Qing Jing Peak Lord usually never allows anyone that can surpass him onto his peak.
“Hey!” Liu Qingge shouts.
At his voice, the Bai Zhan disciples snap to attention. The sole Qing Jing Peak disciple remains on the ground.
“What do you think you are doing?” Liu Qingge asks.
The disciples look at each other. One of them gulps before answering, “Training, shizun!”
“You call this training? Pathetic.” He sneers. “You won’t improve this way. Go back to Bai Zhan, for proper training. I will deal with you later. Do not bother weaker disciples from other peaks again.”
The Bai Zhan disciples run, eager not to anger him further. Liu Qingge doesn’t bother to watch. He focuses on the Qing Jing disciple and offers his hand. The disciple glares at the offending hand. Liu Qingge feels his lips twitch. The kid has guts.
“Well, are you going to stay on the ground?”
“Are you really going to do something about them?” the disciple asks back.
Liu Qingge frowns. “Were they the ones who beat you last time?”
“No, but this isn’t the first time.” The disciple is defiant.
“I will handle this,” Liu Qingge promises.
The disciple looks wary but takes his hand and stands. Liu Qingge heals the worst of the injuries but leaves the superficial bruises. A physical cultivator needs to grow somehow.
He checks his qi while he does so. Liu Qingge frowns at the recently corrected snarls. There is no way that Shen Qingqiu taught him how to do that. It is impressive that the disciple was able to do that on his own. He sends some of his own qi to strengthen the pathways.
The disciple gasps.
Liu Qingge carefully disengages.
He returns to his peak to discipline the disciples and leaves them groaning on the floor. The other disciples can take them to Qian Cao Peak if they need it. He then does the next item on his list: meeting with the hallmasters before he enters secluded cultivation. Liu Qingge orders them not to allow any peak raiding without the respective Peak Lord’s agreement to the training. It does not do for their disciples to bully weaker ones.
With that, he goes to cultivate in the Ling Xi caves. Liu Qingge empties his mind of any concerns and concentrates on the motions of his form. While the injuries have healed, he feels the phantom pull of it.
Strange aches and pains plague him during his meditation. As quick as they come, they disappear. It reminds him of the echo he feels when he doesn’t transfer injuries but still has time before it settles but not quite a match. The sensation is closer to the recent incident than anything else before. It is distracting. He pushes through it anyway – he is used to working in pain.
The qi scorching his meridians makes it evident that it is a bad choice. The qi deviation wreaks havoc on his body. The smell of iron fills the air – hot tracks of blood seep from his seven apertures. Liu Qingge chokes on the blood. He falls into a daze, ripping himself and the caves apart.
Yet as sudden as the qi deviation starts, it stops just as abruptly. Cool yin energy chills the burning in his meridians, stabilizing him. Exhausted, he collapses, Cheng Luan slipping from his grip. Rocks dig into his sides but sleep claims him anyway.
But the sleep isn’t dreamless. He feels a phantom hand page through his memories. His qi is too depleted to fight it. Even at full power, Liu Qingge is unsure he would have been able to ward him off. The pressure holding him down is oppressive. A part of him dreads that he has caught the attention of a demon lord when he is at his weakest. The hand feels familiar yet not, like a song he knows the tune of but not the words.
When the mysterious voyeur has his fill of prying into his past and digging up every part of Liu Qingge, he reveals himself in a swirl of smoke. It makes Liu Qingge snort at the dramatics for what else is there to do, he is at the demon’s mercy.
The first thing Liu Qingge notices about the demon lord is that he is lean, the sort of thinness that comes from starvation. His hair is a halo of curls. The face is undefined but his deep-set eyes gleam with crimson from the shadow. The most eye-catching feature, however, is the glowing red demon mark upon his forehead, delineating him not as just any demon lord but a Heavenly Demon.
Liu Qingge reacts instinctively – his body doing what it knows best. He launches an attack. The Heavenly Demon easily catches his wrist. Liu Qingge knees him. The Heavenly Demon doesn’t even budge, he just draws him nearer. Liu Qingge tries to yank his wrist back and the hold is tightened, nails digging in. Despite being closer, the face continues to be concealed.
“Is that any way to thank your savior?” the demon drawls while Liu Qingge struggles.
“What savior?” Liu Qingge spits.
“Did you really think you handled that qi deviation alone?” Liu Qingge stills at those words. The Heavenly Demon continues as if he doesn’t notice, “This lord was the one to provide you with the yin energy to soothe your qi deviation.”
Denial spills forth in his mind. There is no reason for a Heavenly Demon to save a peak lord from an influential sect. If anything, killing him would have given the demon more influence. Nonetheless, Liu Qingge has no other explanation of how his qi deviation resolved itself so neatly. He accepts it for now.
“What do you want?” he asks, wary.
“Nothing at the moment.” He turns to the side as if he hears something off in the distance. “Though you might want to leave the caves now.”
He drops him and Liu Qingge wakes with a jolt. He scrambles to his feet and dresses himself in new, non-bloodied robes before rushing out.
Smoke drifts from Qiong Ding Peak. Liu Qingge flies as fast as he can. He hears Shen Qingqiu say cutting words to the demons, something which he can agree with for once. Liu Qingge drops down and wastes no time to dispatch the demons, sword glares raining down. Scared off, the demons disperse. The ones not smart enough to do so, Liu Qingge deals with no mercy.
It is easy enough work that allows him to think. The timing of his qi deviation and the Demon Invasion is too coincidental. He has a vague sense of unease about it. The qi deviation could have been fatal. He wonders if the demon played him off a rival. Even if he did, Liu Qingge would owe him a life debt. The thought of it is maddening. The only person worse to owe a life debt to would be Shen Qingqiu. The scholar would have held it over his head.
He lets Shen Qingqiu handle the aftermath of the Demon Invasion. Loathe as he is to admit it, the Qing Jing Peak Lord knows what he is doing. Increased security is obviously needed and he requisitions Cang Qiong Sect’s resources as necessary, including Bai Zhan cultivators. It is a mess that keeps Liu Qingge on the mountains longer than he would like.
At night, his dreams are plagued with the Heavenly Demon. He never provides his name or asks for sect secrets. All he ever wants to do is talk; and so, Liu Qingge listens to his stories. The demon says it’s all made up but Liu Qingge has an inkling that there are some truth to his words.
The moment he is able to, Liu Qingge leaves to go on a night hunt. The reason he provides Zhangmen-shixiong is that it gives an appearance of normalcy. However, what he really wants to achieve with the night hunts is to test the stories. The demon tries to obscure the details but there is still enough information for Liu Qingge to investigate.
That first detour yields a success. From then on, Liu Qingge goes on his night hunts that are assigned by Yue-shixiong then takes a side trip to explore before returning to the sect. He encounters many of the beasts and treasures that were in the stories, untouched. Liu Qingge suspects the Heavenly Demon is a seer. The number of abilities he has is unheard of, even for a Heavenly Demon.
He brings it all back to the sect. They are grateful for the resources but his increased productivity is scrutinized. He knows he should tell them about the demon but he has not done any harm. There is no one to admit it to, but he is even fond of the demon lord that haunts his dreams. Therefore, Liu Qingge only shrugs and tells them he was following a story he heard, it’s even true. They accept it since they have no reason to suspect otherwise. Cang Qiong Mountain Sect prospers, there is no point to complaining.
The stories the demon lord tells aren’t always about treasures. There are, quite frankly, tragedies that he frames as triumphs. Much of the demon’s life revolves around women. Liu Qingge finds himself intervening or having Shang Qinghua do something so that the women don’t find themselves in situations where they have to tie themselves to a Heavenly Demon. A great deal of the women are girls. At one point, Shang Qinghua asks him about some nonsensical phrase then waves it off at his confusion.
It is a few years after the Demon Invasion that Liu Qingge notices someone discreetly following him. He goes on harder night hunts to lose them, the sort that can kill lesser cultivators and demons. Yet whoever is following him is able to hold their own. Liu Qingge takes increasingly harder challenges and they persist to keep up. Instead of scaring them off, Liu Qingge finds himself reluctantly impressed.
The pursuer begins to show off. Liu Qingge arrives to the beasts already dressed, the artifact in a less precarious place, plants presented like a flower arrangement. It is maddening.
“Who does this person think they are? What is the point of leaving all of this behind? It’s such a waste!” Liu Qingge complains.
“But it was perfectly preserved for you, was it not?” Liu Mingyan takes a delicate sip of tea, knowing the answer.
Liu Qingge grits his teeth. “They’re taunting me.”
“Ge,” Mingyan sets her cup down. “Do you really think that?”
“Mn,” he says to be stubborn.
Mingyan sighs. “They’re obviously gifts, all useful things that can help you specifically.” She begins to list all the items and the benefits to cultivation, healing, and/or preventing qi deviations. When laid out that way, the pattern is obvious. Liu Qingge never even mentioned the actual gifts of jewelry and fancy robes that started to suddenly appear.
Thankfully, for his sanity, the arrogant braggart doesn’t follow him all the time. It would be terrible if they saw him like this. He has, perhaps, gotten too careless, used to showing off and having someone that can watch his back.
And now, he’s holding his guts in with his hand. He’s not going to be able to go to the sect for a while. He can imagine Shen Qingqiu scoffing at his softness. It is foolishness to take on the injuries but it was his fault so it is his responsibility to correct. They were unconscious anyway and didn’t know the extent of the damage. Besides, the wounds are survivable as a cultivator but not so much for a mortal. Doing this much is fine.
The beast is far too dead for him to transfer the damage to it. Liu Qingge wasted so much time moving the villagers back to relative safety that it died by the time he came back. He isn’t thinking straight and now has to deal with the consequences.
He wanders off to heal alone. He struggles to find a place suitably isolated that he wouldn’t be bothered by humans or monsters. Liu Qingge constantly needs to stop, tired from his wounds. He reminds himself that it is worth it – the injuries will simply be an annoyance to heal to him but it would be fatal for them. With every move, his body protests as he climbs a tree to rest in. Once situated, he falls into a healing trance.
Liu Qingge doesn’t jostle out of his meditation when he senses a presence, one he has become quite acquainted with from afar. They gingerly pick him up in their arms. They radiate heat and demonic qi that coats the back of his tongue.
Regardless of what others think, Liu Qingge can do the math. The demon lord in his dreams is the very same as the devoted follower dogging his steps. The thing he does not understand is the cause for the demon lord’s fascination with him. But even with the uncertainty, to his horror, he realizes that at some point he has begun to trust them. Liu Qingge allows his continued vulnerability: he drops deeper into meditation.
He wakes intermittently with someone taking care of him: his wounds rebandaged, his hair brushed out of his face, cossetted in blankets. A hand touches his cheek with unearned gentleness. An unending cycle of care. Liu Qingge loses track of time.
The process of healing is not rushed. Liu Qingge is unsure of what he is expecting when he wakes. If he has to fight, he has to be at his best. All those years ago, the demon lord was stronger than him – he must have gotten even more so in the time since.
Awareness comes in stages. His mouth is dry and he is mildly overheated from the blankets. He hears the shuffling noises of someone moving around. He smells smoke. Liu Qingge blearily opens his eyes in the direction of the smoke and sounds.
Despite all the changes due to the years, Liu Qingge recognizes the demon lord at once.
The final piece laid into place – the disciple, all grown up.
The revelation doesn’t make things any clearer to him.
“What do you gain by playing nursemaid? Surely you have better uses to your time.” His voice is scratchy from disuse.
The demon lord’s attention immediately whips towards him. “I would hate for all my hard work to go to waste.”
“Why do it in the first place?” Liu Qingge pushes out of the cocoon of blankets.
“Because I can,” he says as he looks to the fire.
The nonchalance pisses him off. Liu Qingge launches himself at him and they tumble to the ground. They roll around, each trying to get the upper hand. Agitation bubbles worse in his blood when Liu Qingge successfully pins him, knowing the demon lord went easy on him.
“Is that any way to thank your savior?” the demon lord asks him, the very same question he asked when he first appeared in his dreams.
Liu Qingge repays the favor and repeats a question of his own. “What do you want?”
The silence stretches between them as the demon lord thinks until he admits, “I wish to court you.”
Liu Qingge can’t help but laugh. “I don’t even know your name.”
The demon purses his lips. “This one is Luo Binghe.”
“Luo Binghe,” Liu Qingge savors the name between his teeth then issues his challenge. “Court me properly.”