Chapter Text
An Ding is the peak of logistics, but it is also a peak of secrets.
Here is one secret, safely kept among the disciples of An Ding Peak: that for all his absences, and absent-mindedness, the current Peak Lord runs things with an efficiency that would put all the other Peaks combined to shame. There are systems, and systems for the systems, which every new disciple accepted to An Ding gets drilled on from their first week. New students are thrown in headfirst, taught with a ruthless efficiency that might be better-suited to a demon court.
(No one on An Ding talks about that three-eyed ice elephant in the room, but that is also common knowledge.)
"Don't let any of the others convince you we're beneath them," they are taught, from day one, from the mouth of the Peak Lord himself. He likes to give a little speech to all the new disciples once they've been accepted. "They'd fall apart without us. It's important to remember that we could make them suffer, but we won't, because it's not really worth the headache for us. So if you're going to pick a fight, pick it wisely. Make sure you're armed with what you need to win. Sure, it's not glamorous, but what good is glamor if you have nothing to show for it? What's the point in showing off your strength if it gets you dead? The most powerful people don't need to rub it in. If you know, and you know what you know, that's what matters."
With his speech comes a set of rules--actual rules, set to paper and made law on the peak--that every disciple abides by. These, too, are considered secrets, because these rules are meant for the disciples of An Ding only, rarely advertised even to their sect-siblings.
One--every disciple is assigned two partners upon their acceptance to An Ding Peak: one senior and one in their immediate cohort. It operates as a mentorship for the junior disciples and teaches the seniors how to guide others, and it fosters a relationship between the yearmates as they develop, both as a guaranteed partner for more complicated work and (most times) a friend for time off periods. The practice is fairly new, the way all of these unspoken rules are, and it isn't always successful, but it works well enough for what it is meant to do.
Two--there is, in fact, time off. Every five days, each disciple is given two days off in a row. These periods are staggered so that An Ding is never completely without a majority of active workers, and disciples are allowed to swap their days if they wish. This is definitely only something that became standard when the current peak lord ascended to the position, and this is actually one of the most jealously-guarded secrets of all. Why let the other peaks know that it's possible to still function smoothly even if you're not breaking your back every second of every day?
Related to two ("two point five," as Shizun would say, whatever that means)--after xu shi, only true emergency cases are allowed. Running out of something that you should have submitted a report for a week ago does not count. Everything else is filed away to be dealt with in the morning. Emergencies must be approved by either the Peak Lord or his Head Disciple to count as such.
(It is agreed, privately among the disciples, that it is a very petty satisfying thing, to tell anyone who comes puffing and demanding to their door that things will have to wait until the next morning.)
Three--information is far more important than praise. Of course thanks are always to be appreciated, and An Ding kept records of who was more pleasant to work with than others, but that too fed into the information. Let the other peaks brag about their libraries and their battle prowess, or whatever they make with their hands. An Ding knows whose brother slept with whose cousin and whose auntie isn't speaking to whose father and why. An Ding knows when you broke curfew last week and with who, and just what you were doing.
An informed person is the most dangerous sort of person. A single An Ding disciple could topple the whole of Bai Zhan in a week, given the need.
And four--because of that, because information is precious, it must be treated like the treasure it is. Any disciple that uses this power carelessly is subject to strict punishment. Latrine duty, having to deal with the worst and most recalcitrant of the merchants they do business with, being sent out on the most tedious and boring of the "farming missions" that get doled out and--worst of all--the dreaded phrase from their teacher: I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.
The point is that despite the thanklessness of how the rest of the sect treats them, no one who becomes a disciple of An Ding is given the leeway to wallow. Their teacher might not be the bravest or the strongest, and he's hardly the best representation of a straightforward, righteous cultivator... but there isn't a single disciple that does not trust him. The surest way to start a real fight with students from the other peaks is to disparage his capabilities.
There is a saying among the senior inner disciples, which gets regularly parroted to the younger ones that come into the fold: "Shizun is always watching, even when you think he isn't even around. No one knows more than he does, so as long as you trust him, things will work out."
That, too, is a secret among the disciples of An Ding. In this, it's actually pretty convenient that the other peaks tend to overlook them! Imagine how much more difficult it would be, to get a moment of their shizun's time, if people from other peaks started bothering him!
(More than they already do, at least. It's different if they come to complain because a ridiculous request was denied, or because they're too spoiled to realize that their desire alone doesn't manifest shipments coming from the other side of the country. That is just standard business, and no one likes it--least of all Shizun--but a necessary sort of bother.)
(However, the story of the first time that Shen Qingqiu came to call upon their master after his return from his honeymoon is one that the senior disciples still tell fondly, where they managed to send him on what amounted to a wild goose chase for a solid two hours before he finally caught on. They no longer haze him, especially if he brings that husband of his along, but there is still a coolly pleasant animosity between Shen Qingqiu and Head Disciple Teng to this day.)
And finally, kept carefully secret among all the disciples of An Ding Peak, are rules that are not official but known and followed. They are very simple. There are only two.
One: just because we work for you doesn't mean we have to like you.
Two: we will always choose our own, first.
It is shortly after lunch on some otherwise-innocuous sunny summer day when it happens. A shipment of new writing supplies has arrived from one of the more reliable merchants that An Ding works with, and there is a gaggle of junior disciples sorting through the inventory, ostensibly monitored by their partnered seniors. In reality, it's more of a chatty gossip section, like aunties over tea. The shipment had come early, and no others were expected for the rest of the day. It's one of those days where things go smoothly and quietly and nothing goes wrong.
Ha! There's always something that goes wrong!
The sorting is almost done when it happens: a sudden intense drop in temperature, so fast that a couple of the gathered disciples sway, dizzied by the rapid change. It's not even entirely unprecedented on An Ding Peak of all places, though every time previously, the phenomenon has always been centered on the Peak Lord's Leisure House. (One of many open secrets that none of the disciples speak of to anyone off the Peak.)
The fact that it is happening out here, in one of the warehouses, is enough to startle even the seniors present. As one, they draw together into a knot of people, waiting.
No one says: this doesn't feel like a winter cold. This doesn't feel like those unfortunate times someone happens to be nearby when a specific visitor no one is supposed to notice drops by. This is a cold that reaches past muscle and bone, down into the grave itself.
A beat later, a dark rip in space opens itself up by the door of the warehouse--accompanied by an actual ripping sound, as if someone had grasped a fine piece of fabric and torn it in two.
What starts as a dark line in the air slowly peels open, wide enough to admit an arm into the room: twisted with ropey muscle, dark purple mottled with red and blue--not unlike the colors of a fresh bruise--and far longer than any human arm could hope to be. In its long fingers, it holds something. The loose fist turns first one way and then the other, as if it has the eyes to see, and then it stretches out further, further, and further, to drop something at the oldest senior's feet.
It makes a wet splatting sort of noise as it hits the floor.
No one makes a sound as the arm retreats, and as the rip seals itself back up and the temperature goes back to the ambient warmth of summertime. Everyone looks, instead, at the dropped item: a pouch wrapped around something relatively small. The fabric of the pouch was, once upon a time, a fine bright teal color, though it has been stained to a dark reddish-brown along the bottom, which also obscures the stitched cloud patterns. Without that, it would certainly match the uniforms of the gathered disciples, though the embroidery was finer, more detailed and delicate than anything they wore.
Finally, still without saying anything, the eldest of the disciples, Zhou Fa, kneels down and gently opens the pouch. His fingers tremble slightly. No one comments on this.
Nor do they say anything as he turns the pouch over and spills three human fingers onto the floor: long and thin, stained with ink at the fingertips.
For a long, long time, they all just look at these fingers. One of the knuckles has a scar that curls like a question mark. It matched part of the metal filigree of a cursed hairpin that their shizun had once plucked, barehanded, from a young girl's hair. He'd cursed and complained and whined about it after, demanding both coddling and a break from his paperwork, but he'd never once tried to remove it, despite how small it was in the face of his cultivation level.
And then Zhou Fa looks up and says, very quietly, "Someone get Teng-shijie," and that is that.
If you were to ask, most members of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect would say that of the two authorities of An Ding Peak, it's far more intimidating to speak with Head Disciple Teng Lixiang than the actual Peak Lord. She's no great beauty, though she is small with delicate fingers, and there is a sweet pleasantness to her round face and soft shoulders that often lulls people into a false sense of security.
No one is foolish enough to underestimate her more than once.
She sweeps into the warehouse with a steely serenity, using a handkerchief to wrap the fingers up, ignoring the way that they begin to soak the cloth with blood. She barely spares a glance for the gathered disciples, striding away from that back to the peak lord's leisure house, but nor does she tell them to stop following her when they trail in her wake.
Here is another secret that An Ding keeps: that in a certain lockbox, plain and rough-looking and kept in a secret false panel in the floor of the leisure house, is a treasure that is only meant to be used under the most severe of circumstances. No one is supposed to know about it, which means that everyone on the peak does.
Only the Head Disciple knows how to access it, though--which of the four plain boxes holds what they need, and which three are trap triggers. Nothing in the boxes is immediately deadly, but they're all painful and inconvenient to deal with.
The lock itself is a relatively simple thing. If there is a key that fits it, no one actually knows where it is. That's not the point. It's made of whispering star iron, which means that the more force that is applied, the stronger it becomes; it takes a delicate hand to pick the lock, and Teng Lixiang is known for having a deft touch.
Inside of the lockbox, tied together with a strip of tattered teal ribbon, are three separate talismans. The ink on them is deep, deep violet-blue, though the edges fade into a dusty, dirty reddish-brown. The writing is far neater and more precise than anything that the An Ding Peak Lord usually uses in his work. Almost every scrap of space is used, the complicated lines of the spell coming close, but never quite blurring together.
As her fellow disciples watch, Teng Lixiang carefully slides the topmost of the three talismans free of the stack, holding it pinched between her fingers as she turns away from the lockbox. She glances briefly around, takes a deep breath, and concentrates. All it takes is a little burst of spiritual energy, and the thing goes up like dry tinder, flaming a brilliant icy blue before it's consumed in a flash.
One second passes. Two.
And then for the second time that day, the temperature drops from the warm summer day outside to a bone-deep chill. Teng Lixiang holds still as her breath begins to steam in the cold air, as a portal opens and the man of the hour steps out. Snow flurries flutter around his feet, and frost crystals form under his feet as he settles his weight. There is a deep and unimpressed scowl on his face as he looks first at Teng Lixiang, then sweeps his gaze around the gathered other disciples. It takes him only a second to zero in on the wrapped stained bundle that had been given back to Zhou Fa to hold.
In an instant, he's across the room, snatching the bundle from Zhou Fa's hands. His own hands are steady as he unwraps it, but although the expression on his face doesn't change, there is no mistaking the way the temperature in the room drops even further. One of the junior disciples, the youngest of the group, who had tagged along more out of a swept-along morbid curiosity over anything else, begins to whimper quietly; she's hushed by her senior partner, who manages this without looking away from the man staring down at those severed fingers.
And then, finally, he looks up. His lips curl back from his teeth in an expression between a snarl and a sneer, displaying a set of dagger-sharp fangs.
"Tell me," he says, and nothing more.
Teng Lixiang brings her hands together in salute and bows, not rising from her kneeling position. Her voice is mostly calm.
"Answering the king, this disciple was summoned by her fourth shidi due to an incident at the second An Ding warehouse. When she arrived, she found her sect siblings waiting, and the... gift that was provided to them. Regretfully, this disciple was not present at the time, so she must defer to Fourth Shidi to explain further."
At this cue, Zhou Fa bows as well. "Picking up from where Teng-shijie left off," he said, though unlike Teng Lixiang, he does quail when the man's attention turns to him. "I was there. We were in the process of cataloging a shipment, when the temperature suddenly became very cold. At first, we wondered if perhaps Shifu had mistaken his way home and would be joining us shortly." This was not entirely an unheard of thing for their master to do, though normally, his king's aim was far better. "Unfortunately, this was not the case.
"Instead, as this disciple and his fellows watched, an arm appeared out of a strange portal, and dropped these at his feet. They were wrapped in a silk pouch, and so we had only a vague guess of what we might find inside. Upon examining the contents of the pouch and making this discovery, this disciple went to fetch his shijie, who made the decision to summon you."
Silence follows his words. It stretches out, long and tenuous, until the youngest disciple in the gathering, still shivering and weepy, says in a very small voice: "Is Shizun all right?"
For a single second, the temperature in the leisure house goes so cold that even Teng Lixiang shivers. It's bitter, and then breathable again. The eyes of the demon king glow like icefire, his sharp-featured face schooled into complete and perfect stillness.
"He will be," Mobei-jun says, in clipped tones, his voice as sharp as his cold, and then he's gone. Even in his absence, it takes a long time before any sort of warmth seeps back into the room.
Outside, absurdly, a bird starts to twitter, as if in defiance of the deadly chill.
"...That went well," Zhou Fa says at last. "Do you think he'll come back?"
"Not because he wants to," says Teng Lixiang. "But we might as well do our part. Meng-shimei, if you'd get the babies back to their dorms? Zhou-shidi, Li-shimei, help me start going through Shizun's papers. All of you know the expected protocol, right?"
She gives them all a long look, waiting until each person meets her eyes and nods. For now, the knowledge of what happened in the warehouse--and of the man they summoned--will be kept among the people gathered in the room. It's a rougher introduction to this side of An Ding's work than their shizun would prefer, but right now, his opinion has little sway.
Once she has their agreement, she gets to her feet. Her movements are stiff from the cold, and she turns to their teacher's study, squaring her shoulders.
"All right," she says. "Let's do this."
It's hardly pleasant work. Their master seesaws wildly between incredibly meticulous and incredibly... not. He has books and books of carefully kept notes on every merchant that An Ding has ever done business with over the course of his time as Peak Lord; he has scrolls and maps that detail the flora and fauna of both the human and demon realms; and he has stacks of neatly cut squares of paper that detail information on each of the other Peak Lords, their Head Disciples, and the general tone of the interactions they have with An Ding.
The problem is that he never puts things in the same place twice, and while he keeps all of his notes for one particular merchant or realm or whatever together, the different pieces often end up getting placed on opposite sides of the room. He leaves volumes out of order and out of place: on his desk, in his library, under his pillows. One memorable time, Teng Lixiang had found a book with the details of a certain (now blacklisted) silk merchant half-buried in his garden, which he'd claimed he had no memory of doing.
With some diligent effort, though, Teng Lixiang finally finds what they're looking for: a battered, crudely-bound book, which purportedly details their teacher's schedule, month to month. Despite the fact that he rarely consults it, Teng Lixiang has seen him diligently fill pages out on the last day of the month, always muttering to himself as he scribbles in it furiously. Sometimes he disappears to Qing Jing Peak for an hour or two with the book, but he always returns with it clutched in hand.
Most of the contents are indecipherable, even to the three disciples, who are, at this point, relatively used to their teacher's idiosyncrasies. There are occasional notes in Shen Qingqiu's neater handwriting, though much of it is in the same odd language. There are far more doodles in the margins--sketches of things that likely only exist in the demon realm, a rather inappropriate amount of a certain demon king, and some of that one Qing Jing disciple that caused so much trouble a few years ago, now married to his own shizun. Teng Lixiang only vaguely remembers his name. There might have been the character for ice in there somewhere? Either way, it's not important. For now, she flips through the book to the last pages that have been filled out, skimming the truly atrocious handwriting until she finds what looks like a lead:
"This soon, probably??" her teacher had written. "Hungry hive mind bastards. Deal with before ungrateful son makes my king do it."
The word "ungrateful" had been crossed out, and then rewritten again above it.
"Found it," she says. Zhou Fa and Li Wen look up from their respective notes. Teng Lixiang holds the book up, then passes it to Li Wen. "Now we just need to find the right corresponding bestiary. Unfortunately, I believe that Qing Jing's library is our best bet. I'll send someone to harass Shen-shibo until he coughs something up."
"Respectfully wondering," says Li Wen, "how hard should we be leaning on Shen-shibo, if the time comes?"
"As hard as possible," says Teng Lixiang. "If that sticky man of his gives you trouble, just remind him: three months ago, when he came crying to Shizun's door asking for help."
Both Zhou Fa and Li Wen stared at her. Teng Lixiang blinks back, utterly serene.
"He did what?" asks Zhou Fa.
"What would he even be asking about?" Li Wen asks at the same time.
Slowly, crisp with each syllable, Teng Lixiang says: "Marital woes."
A beat later, out of sympathy for their breathless continued curiosity, she adds, "Shizun sent me out of the room, but I heard part of the discussion. Apparently it had something to do with an argument with Shen-shibo, and Shizun gave him reasonable advice in the past. I made sure that he saw me when he left, and that I was close enough to make it seem like I could have overheard. I also know that Shen-shibo came by a week later to yell at Shizun about it. If that man knows what's good for him and the peace of his marriage, he won't test us."
Her juniors look at each other, then nod. There is some awe in their faces.
"Teng-shijie is truly formidable," says Zhou Fa. "This one hopes to someday match her in the terror she can inspire in others."
Teng Lixiang smiles her sweetest smile, the one that takes the best advantage of her round cheeks and dimples. Her teacher had taught her how to smile like that, critiquing her as strictly as any of her aunts in childhood. Wider, press the corners of your mouth in, not like that, like this, yes. Like many things he has taught her, it serves her very well. "This disciple thanks her juniors for their kind words."
In the end, Teng Lixiang herself goes to Qing Jing Peak and requests to speak with the Peak Lord. The public libraries of Qing Jing yield a short list of possibilities that she has her juniors cross-referencing back on An Ding, but she also knows for a fact that Shen Qingqiu has a more... esoteric collection than what is what is openly available. As Head Disciple, she has more weight to her request.
When she arrives, the Qing Jing Head Disciple gives her a narrow-eyed look that turns nervous when she flashes her dimples at him. Her own teacher's notes indicate that Qing Jing's Head Disciple has eyes for his shijie, but hasn't presented his suite to her, out of some misguided conviction that she still holds their shizun's husband first in her heart. Shizun's notes had concluded, hopefully someone puts him out of his misery soon, because the moment she starts seeing someone else because he won't say anything, he's going to qi-deviate and take half the mountain with him through sheer secondhand embarrassment.
She hopes it won't be her, though if he does end up being Shen Qingqiu's successor, she supposes she'll "take one for the team," as Shizun likes to say.
Still, his crush has its uses. What this means for Teng Lixiang, who has the same soft doe eyes and occasionally wears her hair in the same looped braids as Ning Yingying, is that Qing Jing's Head Disciple is incredibly easy to topple with just a look and the threat of a smile. Today, as always, his attempt at being stern crumbles after a second of looking at her sidelong, and he leads her to the bamboo house.
"Shizun," he says, after he knocks twice. "Shizun, the Head Disciple of An Ding Peak is here to see you."
It's nearly a minute before the door opens. It isn't the Peak Lord, but his husband, too large for the doorway and looking down at them with narrow eyes. He passes over his shixiong after only a second, focusing instead on Teng Lixiang instead. There is an unkind gleam in his red eyes, and for a long moment he clearly doesn't recognize her.
Then it clicks, and that light doesn't fade, though it becomes slightly more cautious. Teng Lixiang considers flashing her dimples, then decides against it. The Head Disciple's insecurities aren't entirely unfounded; An Ding knows very well that the shijie he's mooning over had, at one point, been circling a budding childhood romance with this very man. Teng Lixiang can see why, in a distant sort of way: he has a nice enough face--exactly the sort of thing that would turn heads in a crowded market, or cut a dramatic figure in whatever adventures he finds himself drawn into. Under different circumstances, Teng Lixiang would even call him attractive.
But she has spent many years as An Ding's Head Disciple. She knows exactly how many headaches his escapades have caused her peak, even after Shen Qingqiu returned to the mountain. She knows how much he's tried to bully her poor juniors into expediting this order or that shipment for Qing Jing. A beautiful man is only worth as much as the manners he shows to people who aren't his lovers. She's not above playing on looks to get what she wants, but nor is she terribly interested in even trying that with him.
So instead, she just puts her hands together and bows, her form tidy but not perfect. "This disciple apologies for interrupting your current business," she says. "But there are some urgent matters that urgently require Shen-shibo's input."
The husband curls his lip. It's a very artful sort of thing. Teng Lixiang almost admires it. Her face is too soft and sweet-looking for that kind of disdainful sneer; she'd practiced a couple of times, and it always just made her look like she was about to sneeze.
"Shizun is busy right now," he says. "Whatever it is, it will have to wait."
He starts to close the door, and Teng Lixiang says, "What a shame, that Qing Jing will have to wait on its shipment of inkstones, then. I'll be sure to let my juniors know that it's hardly a rush."
As far as volleys go, it's nowhere near as effective as reminding him that she had heard him whining at her shizun about his marital problems, but nor is that something she wants to bring up in front of his shixiong. That man is still hovering, clearly unsure if he needs to escort her off or not.
The husband pauses. His fingers curl enough to make the wood of the door creak. Teng Lixiang waits, her back curved in holding her bow. She doesn't smile, because she knows better than to be so obvious. Long seconds pass, and then Shen Qingqiu's voice comes from inside the house:
"Let her in, Binghe. Tea can wait."
The husband--ah, Teng Lixiang still can't remember his family name, though she hopes it will come back to her before she has to directly address him--pouts furiously as any spoiled child, but finally steps aside enough to let her in. She straightens and tucks her hands into her sleeves and walks in.
The bamboo house is more neatly kept than any other personal quarters; Teng Lixiang knows this because she fields the request for cleaning supplies as they come in. That husband of Shen Qingqiu, for all that he glowers and sulks around to try and live up to his heritage of being a half-demon, is surprisingly domesticated.
Shen Qingqiu is seated at his table, a qin resting in front of him. He has one of his many fans (Li Wen has complained, many times, about the amount of money that goes into keeping Shen Qingqiu supplied in fans) up over his face. One delicate brow arches up; she suspects he's thinking of his own private list of grievances with her, specifically.
"What a surprise to see Teng-shizhi here," he says. "Usually, isn't it Shang-shidi who comes?"
What sort of trouble has he gotten into now, that he's running away from facing me like a man? seems to be the implication. Teng Lixiang has the urge to do something like flip the table over, or perhaps snatch that fan from his hands and smack him upside the head with it. It's a common feeling she has when dealing with the Qing Jing Peak Lord.
She resists. For one, it's both unbecoming and would reveal too much of her own worry, bubbling and itching under her skin like the Thousand Ant Curse. For another, as momentarily satisfying as it would be, she does still need access to his library. For a third, she isn't certain yet how much she actually wants Shen Qingqiu to know about what happened. He'll hear about it eventually, since his husband is connected to Mobei-jun, but she's still wary of speaking the words aloud.
...Ah, speaking of that husband, he would probably object to violence. There is that, as well.
"This humble disciple apologizes for dropping in unannounced," she says. "Unfortunately, Shizun is... unable to come himself."
There's a pause. The look in Shen Qingqiu's eyes sharpens. "Unable?"
"Unable," Teng Lixiang agrees. She can hold a serene face with the best of them, and for all that Shen Qingqiu likes to hide behind his fans, his eyes are now keen, the faintest of lines drawn between his brows.
"And what," he says at last, slow and deliberate, "would be so pressing that Shang-shidi would resist the urge to come and pester this master himself? Surely Teng-shizhi is aware that we have an arrangement?"
"This one is aware," she says. "Seeing as Shizun will occasionally flee to Qing Jing Peak under the guise of 'consulting' Shen-shibo when he's just trying to avoid work, surely Shen-shibo understands the gravity of the situation, shat Shizun would not come himself."
The fan lowers slightly, enough that she can see Shen Qingqiu's full frown. Even his husband looks mildly more curious than annoyed.
"Speak plainly, then," Shen Qingqiu says. "What is it that brings you to my Qing Jing Peak?"
Now, finally, Teng Lixiang bows. This time, she makes it as neatly perfect as she can manage, which is far more graceful than she displayed outside of the bamboo house.
An Ding is not a Peak that is overly concerned with ceremony and ritual; it cares about efficiency and practical matters, and all the details that are actually important in the process of living. Lofty immortals who? Righteous cultivators what? As her teacher likes to say, showing off can only take you so far. It's one thing to be truly powerful and act pitiful, and it's another thing to be pitiful and act powerful--and it is another thing entirely to walk the line between the two.
But An Ding cares for its own. And Teng Lixiang thinks of three fingers wrapped in silk like cakes, the resigned good humor on her teacher's face the last time she saw him--I'm off to fix things again, don't let the babies run too wild while I'm gone--and uses that to curl her spine and lower her head, her form impeccable.
"Your library, Shen-shibo," she says. "There's a certain urgent report that this disciple needs to make, and would be grateful for access to your collection."
He gives her a long, thoughtful look. She wonders if she'll have to resort to bribery or blackmail, and which would be the easier and less costly option, but in the end, he nods and gestures.
As you wish," he says.