Chapter Text
Whenever Shang Qinghua goes to Qian Cao, it's for a brief, brief moment, and only in the event that the injury proves severe enough that he can't ignore it or patch it up himself.
Primarily, his forgoing of the peak’s medical assistance stems from An Ding’s chief rule: always be prepared. Problems pop up, weed-like things that they are, where plucking one incites another three to take its place. Which he thinks is a rather valid reason not to go. After all, peak lords are busy people—they don't have time to drop their duties just because a gash bleeds down their thigh, or fractures cobweb across their ribcage, or a crack bends their femur. Even as a measly outer disciple of An Ding, he didn't have time for it.
Plus, his senior martial siblings dished out enough of their personal lessons—if he sought a physician’s aid each time it happened, two things would follow. One, work would only pile on itself, and he needed as much leverage as he could get in order to climb the status ladder. Two, some authority figure would find him at fault should he have chosen to report any incidents, negating the labor he'd done up until that point. His shizun was the kind of person to do what she needed to do. Disciples were just another method of getting the job done, parts that were easily replaceable should they perform unsatisfactorily.
The lingering thought of what happened after that delivery trip still makes him vaguely nauseous.
All in all, if Shang Qinghua finds it in himself the need for Qian Cao’s help, it's because he can't coherently function without a medical professional. Like if his dominant arm no longer exists, guts spill out of his stomach, or, of course, he passes out from a severe onslaught of mental stimulation and spends two days in a comatose state.
Well, that last part is technically a new addition to the mental list of hypothetical situations where he might consider going to Mu Qingfang. Naturally, finding out he isn't living his second life, but his third is a reasonable cause for an extreme existential crisis. Finding out that his true second life was spent as an immortal existing from the genuine beginning of this world until the System snatched him up once more serves as a probable cause for adamant denial (of course, leading to said passing out).
The memories have yet to settle in completely. Neither has the insight as to why the System suddenly deems him fit to remember now (the parts he can recall edge him toward unconsciousness again—). What's more, whenever he tries to retrieve the memories, the pulse behind his eyes worsens. The harder he calls to mind, the blurrier the image, the sharper the headache.
Rather than focus on aspects of his (unearthed) life, his attention veers to a feature he's miraculously able to access again—the Archives.
In all honesty, if he concentrates on the situation at hand, the likelihood of ever making it out of this bed will drop significantly. Even peripherally acknowledging it drills unease into him, a distinct feeling of wrongness he wants to avoid. Exploring the Archives while he's on mandated bedrest is all he can really do at the moment. Unless he sneaks out of the peak. Not that he hasn’t done that before, but something gnawing in his mind warns him to stay for a bit longer.
(Otherwise, he’d sift through the memories shooting up from the depths of his subconscious mind, and he aches. So much is starting to make sense—)
The Archives is a mental library of everything he remembers and learns about this world and its people. As long as he discovers it—whether it be as small as a passerby’s favorite color to as large as a demonic lord’s deepest secret—the Archives documents it.
Flipping through the tabs reminds him of just how endless it is, and the best part is that it’s fully his. The System possesses no attachment to it whatsoever. They're two entirely separate beings. Which makes him wonder why the Archives didn't reveal itself to him at all in the past three decades.
There are interactive maps of places he's visited, some fully fleshed out and others with locked regions, logs of the plants and creatures he's witnessed, including a picture of what they look like, and character profiles of people he's met, updated to the very last time he's seen one of his inner disciples. Scrolling horizontally reveals an items section, filled with details on melee and artifacts, a powers sections, detailing curses, talismans, abilities, and the like, and—
—memories. Slots only allotted to specific, vital scenes of his life.
He closes out.
It's best to perceive those as a distant dream, or a vision of someone else. It's how he's coped with his first life: considered it a collage of pictures with faint emotions threaded into them. If he gets caught up, he’ll fall through the web of memories they make, sticking to them like an insect in a spider's trap.
(Besides, even if he did confront his latest past life, there would be no one to remember him for it.)
It's easier to talk to the senior Qian Cao disciple assigned to him. It's easier to believe Shang Qinghua is all he is and all he ever was. He knows how to shove it away and never look at it again. He’s done it before at a much younger age.
(Meimei would be so sad to know he did, though.)
Fingers wrap around his wrist, clinically firm. He flinches. The disciple whose name he can't place shows no sign of feeling it. She knows how to deal with this, too, then.
"Shang-shibo's meridians are calmer now. I wouldn't recommend anything strenuous for the next week, should it trigger another deviation. How does Shang-shibo feel?"
"I'm sorry?" Words dredge up out of his chest, trembling. "I feel alright, just a minor headache. Some soreness, I guess.” And apparently another life cycle, but who cares?
"These are normal after-effects of a deviation," she supplies, her brush scraping across paper. "If it gets worse, do let us know. Some more bedrest and it should be fine. Luckily, the deviation wasn't anything too severe."
"Yes, very lucky,” he hears himself agree.
"This disciple will take her leave, then. Do call if something arises." She bows her leave, taking the filled out form with her.
Air drafts through the windows, sunlight pouring in from the carved silk. His fingers dig numbly into the sheets beneath him. There's a water basin, a vase with some flowers, and even a tray of light foods that won't expire easily, should he decide he's hungry.
He just wants to go back to his peak. He’s gazing through water, trapped underneath the surface, trying to make out the land above through its distorted screen. No matter how hard he grips the sheets, his fingers aren’t intact. He isn’t intact.
Experimentally, he wiggles his feet. They move. Then his legs, his arms. He takes a deep breath, and his lungs contract and compress. The hand over his heart proves the beat remains, languid and slow, a lazy ocean's tide. None of them are his.
He sighs. His body sags with it. The headache bursts across his skull, a striking a hammer, harsh and pounding. Qi deviation and settling an entire library inside of his mind has some side-effects, unfortunately. He wants to sleep. Maybe when he wakes up he'll be better prepared to deal with this (that’s what he’ll tell himself, anyway).
Sleep just means wasting time, though, and he distinctly remembers there being something important he was looking at before he fainted.
The headache drills against the sides of his skull. His bones don't sit right, and his skin feels separate from his body. Colors fade away and sleep calls to him once more, a siren in the midst of a foggy sea. A beacon, no matter how dangerous the consequence is. He listens.
In the beginning, there was no separation of the realms. It was just the world, a plane to navigate. There were no demons and there were no humans. It was just him, his memories, and the flora and fauna.
At some point the world evolved: sentient trees that wave as he passed, ice with a mind of its own, bodies of water that would snag at his feet should he have walked close enough. Some rivers were more playful than others, twisting this way and that to gain his attention. Some were stoic and calm, never moving more than necessary. Some were aggressive, slapping his robes and conjuring hurricanes to ravage the land. Some were curious, having never experienced a life like his before.
Those would inch towards him slowly, a cat sneaking up on its owner. Closer and closer they would reach, until the surface would brushed his fingers, his hair, whatever body part was near enough to them. In those moments, he would be still as the stone he sat on, or stiff as the log he leaned against, letting them learn what he was. The gentler ones never hurt. They were delicate, a drop against his palm, a small trickle of energy foreign to him. The more hostile ones he consciously stayed clear from. Rationale reminded him he couldn't perish, but rationale and feelings were two different things.
As time went on, these water bodies would greet him. The most interesting part was not that they did this, no; it was that, as he drifted from place to place, they would touch his calf or kiss his cheek like they knew it was him. Eventually, he no longer crossed a hostile body of water. He never ventured back to the previous ones, and storms of the deepest rage still ruled over some parts of the world, but newer rivers and lakes never did that to him. As if they had some instinctual, intrinsic awareness that he was safe, like they could communicate over large distances, or were infinitely connected.
He would say hello, and hold out his palm for them to wrap around. The wetness receded when they did, but the freshness cooled his skin like a balm for many hours afterward. Knowing the world was connected this thoroughly wasn't an awful shock. If anything, it made sense. Especially when it applied to other areas, too. Though water remained the foremost medium that engaged so interactively with him, other elements had their individual quirks and distinctions.
What he dubbed the Deku Tree was familiar with him in a sense. Often, he'd travel to certain regions of the world, as sort of checkpoints or stops to keep him situated when navigating the terrain. As it stood, the Deku Tree was around the middle of the world. It pillared above all else, a sentinel for its forests and surrounding valleys. A wonderful land it was, with grass thick and lush, like upward strokes of smooth ink, hills round and blanketed with flowers, bursting open to taste sunlight, and sweeps of trees with roots stretching across the land. An ambrosial scent sang in the zephyr, and at the zenith of the hills reigned the Deku Tree.
The first time he ventured there, the flowers bit his heels and the roots tripped his legs. Strays of chorus wind slapped him whenever he walked through. The next time he went, he stopped at the base of the hill, promising to keep the terrain as it was and to not harm anything within. He was able to walk a bit further.
After that time, a curl of water followed him from a nearby stream. So miniscule it appeared, in the great scheme of the Deku Tree's overlook, but it was the first time he was able to make it to the crown. There, he spoke to the sentinel itself. Swore that what lived and died on its territory would remain in its territory, and that it was not an objective of his to hurt or cause discomfort to it. That he was curious as to how it breathed, how it functioned, how it maintained itself. That if it did not want his return, he would not offer it, but he couldn't speak for anything or anyone other than himself.
He went back again, again, and again. He remembers spotting some bamboo on one of his journeys, some hollow shells on another, and some chord-like twine on the one afterward. He spent two nights spooling and weaving, twisting and knotting, in order to make a windchime. He figured that if he visited the Deku Tree that often, he should at least have the courtesy of giving something in return for its hospitality.
When he went to the Deku Tree, he held the windchime out in his palms, explaining in a hesitant, yet almost fond tone that he wished to thank it for the kind cordiality. That it did not have to accept, but that he made it in mind of the Deku Tree and its territory, and that the bamboo and shells and twine in which he used would compliment its element if it chose to accept. As he continued to speak, out of his peripheral vision, he spotted a branch of the Great Deku Tree reaching out. Once he was done, it curled forward, nudging his fingers.
The Deku Tree adorned the windchime like jewelry every meeting afterward. In the middle of the night, some fields away, its ring sang through the valley.
One night, he woke to a cry. It wasn't anything like he'd heard before, so tiny, so vulnerable. At first, he thought it was a huli jing. Those were more common than before, or, well, what he considered before. Time didn't quite exist to him yet, but he knew that after the third fox's appearance, it was progressing. That the world was evolving around him, just a little, just enough to birth different creatures to nurture and move forward with.
Huli jing were mischievous things, but never out of evil intent. At least, not yet, and not the ones he came across. He thinks that was how they explored, played, and interacted with the world. Through innocent pranks or childlike teases, a tug of hair, a silly bark. They'd never heard a wail like this, and neither had he. They could only copy what they experienced, after all.
He listened, and listened some more. The ocean beside him dithered, unsure of the newest addition to their world. Then the crying grew and grew, and each hiccup broke a little something in him. It was a feeling he wasn't unacquainted with. A piece of this universe had carved a nook in his heart and nestled inside, and hearing one of its creatures sound helpless pained the world, which in turn discomforted him. Though, it could have been the other way around, too. He carved himself into the world, and it nestled around him, so his pain was its pain. It could have also been imagined; he lived with no other verbal contact besides his own syllables. Sure that was enough to drive one to insanity, no matter how mentally strong.
Regardless of the feeling's origin, he went to search for the sound's source. If he was in danger, then he could jump into the cradle of the ocean and flee. The water assured him of that with a pat on his back as he left.
The clutter of rocks where the noises started made them resonate louder, echoing across each other until the cry was nowhere and everywhere. Eventually, he found the maker of the cry. It was a tiny thing, a glowing droplet of light, no longer than the length of his palm. It couldn't have been thicker than two twigs.
He was wary to approach; who knew what this was? It could have been enough to kill him, if it tried hard enough. Some of the places he visited had creatures that attempted to, like their own life depended on taking his. He couldn't let the noise, nor the luminesce, nor the scent of stardust blind him. As much as he befriended the world, there was just as much if not more that he never set foot in, that distrusted him.
However much it cried, he would not be a fool to a trap. Which is why he went back to the mouth of the beach, bunched up protein-packed roots, and returned to the collection of rocks. Carefully, he placed the roots on a large, soft leaf, and pushed it toward the little star-drop with a stick. He ran as soon as the creature perceived him.
Days later, he sluggishly brought himself back to the rocks. The creature was gone, and with it, the roots.
It would be many, many cycles of the moon later when the creature would make itself known again.
Waking up is like having to drag himself out from under a semi-truck carrying heavy-duty furniture. Hard, grueling, and a part of him just wants to crumble beneath the weight.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of talking going on outside, and the voices pull him up to the surface. They hurry and yank, quick enough to blend together. Shouldn't they be quieter in a patient's ward?
They pass his door with a pair of strong, determined footsteps. Another injured peak lord, perhaps, or at least someone of equivalent importance.
Huan Hua Palace Sect is supposed to send a delegation over to discuss the trading routes along the borderlands. Apparently, they're dissatisfied with the shipments they've received as of late, and want to personally negotiate terms. An attempt at intimidation no less, no matter how fruitless the endeavor will be. Though, that's not for another week, and it couldn't be that one of the delegates unfortunately contracted an illness Qian Cao would graciously aid in, therefore putting Huan Hua in debt to Cang Qiong for the treatment of a precious member of their sect.
Which begs the question: who's being treated? Liu Qingge’s rarely battered enough to require such a worried level of commotion. Not to mention he bypasses visiting the medical peak as often as Shang Qinghua does. Shen Qingqiu experiences qi deviations much too frequently for comfort, of course, but if he can avoid going to Qian Cao he will—and he does.
Moving around in bed proves difficult for no small amount of reasons. There's just too much going on everywhere to comfortably remove himself, but that’s not a new experience. He's used to dealing with general discomfort, since the dark circles under his eyes have been part of his skin for three decades now.
As soon as his feet touch the floor, his headache spikes again. It's duller than before, less like a hammer and more like a heavy spoon. At least now, his fingers feel attached to his body. No more astral projection from inside his skeleton—a relief, even if entering that state again would make the pain as vague as his connections to his flesh. Which is sometimes a good thing, especially if he's working late at night.
Color snapped back into its proper place while he slept, and being mostly surfaced from the obscurity of unconsciousness, the voices don't sound muffled anymore.
Shoes go on, a hand through his hair, rearranging his robes. He gathers himself. Deep breaths, deep breaths. The nap was nice, but the world waits for no one.
(It used to, for him—though the distraction of this reality may rid him of the last one's existence.)
After snacking on some seeds, of course. They're honey roast, he should be given some slack.
Closer outside, the words clarify into a followable conversation. "Shizun said to bring it back to him," a disciple says. Shang Qinghua leans against the door. "Get some of the mixtures we used last time."
Another round of footsteps, lighter and more hurried than the last. It must be a younger disciple, then. The same, strange feeling warning him to not sneak out of leave Qian Cao prickles again, except this time with an inclination as to who it is.
Shen Qingqiu qi deviating isn't uncommon. It happens more often than it should, yet with each deviation, he makes it out on the other side more or less alive. The way he acts, the peerless stature he embodies, all makes it seem like a come and go illness akin to a head cold.
For someone to mask the side effects of a qi deviation so smoothly, like peeling off one layer of skin in exchange for another, truly is as appreciable as it is terrifying. To perform convincingly enough that the audience cannot fathom another face than the one presented to them, all so they can't distinguish one facet from another, really is a powerful skill.
It's dramaturgy at its finest and brightest peak. If there is such a person able to do this so gracefully, it would be Shen Qingqiu. To have a failing foundation one day, and little than a week later appear as though nothing went amiss isn't replicable by many, if any at all. Then to pose his life as healthy to outsiders? It's as fascinating as much as it is cursed.
However, that also means the severity can be covered as quickly as a cloth thrown over a canvas, so the strokes of pain and declining health completely submerge underneath a sturdy, opaque white.
If disciples run back and forth like this—mature, experienced, professional, trained disciples run like this, it cannot be anything other than devastation. For a moment, a familiar yet odd sensation of dread sinks into his bones. The space beneath his ribs burns.
The air reeks with a low, foreboding tone, heavy and deep, bitter, desperate. Shen Qingqiu has survived each qi deviation. There is no question that he battles them with the power of a regent defending their territory. This is different. It spurs Shang Qinghua into a frenzied sort of state—no matter how strange that is. The realization it may be Shen Qingqiu's last qi deviation sludges through his veins, uneasy and discomforting.
It's easy to sweep underneath a ragged rug with a poorly-bristled broom the fact he knows, extensively, the destinies of these people, and claim it isn’t his problem. It’s really not! If they don't want to communicate properly with each other, that's their burden to carry. If they want to turn their heads in the other direction, that's their death to come. Just because he crafted their characters ages ago doesn’t mean they aren’t responsible for their actions now.
Still, an innate puddle of guilt exists, small enough to dry up with the hems of his robes. If he allows himself to feel the weight, the drop will contort into a hurricane. He'll have nothing and no one to stop it.
Avoidance had worked for thirty years, and it could work a hundred more. The very real, very present threat that Shen Qingqiu could be dying should not hurt. It should not resemble the ill-fated block pulled from a tower, causing the entire structure to crumble. The tower shouldn’t even exist in the first place. Shen Qingqiu should not be the piece that holds it together, nor should his absence be the one to destroy it.
(Didi always pestered him about his ‘mysterious’ piece. He had never answered in full.)
His head is a raging tempest—wuthering, turbulent, raw. He slams his feet on the ground, forcing awareness back into his legs. He's stood up for too long. He wants to sleep. The disciples rushing past him stop, a dam to the rush of water. Which isn't good at all.
Slapping his face does little to help him out. Deep breaths, deep breaths. This is fine, Shen Qingqiu makes it out fine each time, so it's fine. This one might be a little harder than the rest, but this is Shen Qingqiu they're talking about here, he'll be fine.
(Meimei would be so disappointed if she knew what he’s doing—)
His heart thunders in his chest, mounting like the tide, but it fails to catch the shoreline. It just keeps rising and rising, no matter how hard he presses his palm down to quell it.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
He goes to the water kettle, pouring himself a cup. He ignores the shakiness of his fingers, the ripples surfacing on the drink. The water chills his lips, his tongue, his throat. The work of a cooling talisman within the kettle, probably. The standard for most kettles in or near a developed cultivation sect.
His trembling hand makes some water drip down the sides, and that makes him freeze, too. It trickles down his wrists, a curling tendril, a hand caressing his skin. So similar to the water back at the cove, which held onto him even when he had no intention of falling, or the water in the beginning, which slowly befriended him. They would curl around him like this, like the hand of a child, small and strong and—
Da-ge?
He sets the cup down, furiously scrubbing at the wetness. His blood rushes through his veins like a roaring sea. He's done so well these past few decades, ignoring, deflecting, rephrasing. It can't be that now of all times he breaks down.
He inhales, the scent of petrichor lingering in the air. A storm settled itself over Cang Qiong days ago and refused to cease until recently, leaving the air tinted with the smell of earthy soil.
Da-ge.
He thinks he used to nap on days like this a lifetime ago. The thought stills his heartbeat for a moment, before it thuds deeply in his throat. Shang Qinghua shoves a mouthful of seeds in his mouth, pointedly ignoring the elevating voices outside his door.
Priorities rearrange themselves in his mind, the return to his peak imminent. A mishap occurred with one of the trading venues near the border of the Eastern Highlands—he believes he has to send someone from Bai Zhan, maybe Qing Jing to investigate, though he can't quite remember.
Da-ge!
The tray slams on the table, stuttering the noise outside his door. He slings that open, too, and a picture he must make for the disciple nearest to him to actually flinch.
"What's going on?"
His System appears sporadically—at its leisure. Usually at the most inconvenient of times to Shang Qinghua, like when he's supposed to be leaving his shixiong to recover and return to his own peak, his own business.
He's not supposed to be here, outside of Shen Qingqiu's ward, with a headache that makes him nauseas and legs that feel like jello. The System wants him here, though, no matter how hard he tries batting it away. The parameters of which he can move include his own recovery ward, the gardens surrounding it, and nowhere else.
It's not a mystery of what's going on inside. There's three of his martial siblings: one dying, one's soul going with him, and the other trying to stitch fate together with a needle and a thread.
The disciple outside the door glances between him and the ward, an inquisitive air about them. He's sure this one will deny him entry, but he’s not asking. He's not about to step into the scene behind that door.
The disciple seems to catch his mind. They don't wince, but they act like they want to, stiff and tense to prevent unwanted movement.
His vision blurs, the thudding incessant and incensed. Like a toddler in a tantrum, throwing, hitting, biting, scratching. His peripheral shifts, blacks, then appears once more. His chest hollows, ears burn, face chills. The ground drops beneath him, and it takes all his years of acting to keep himself from toppling over.
"Shang-shibo—"
"I know, I know," he slurs. The shouting muffles behind him. He went there, he heard it, and now he's going back. There's nothing left for him to do right now. What can he do? Storm in there and demand that Shen Qingqiu not die? No, he can't. It's not his battle to fight, and he's nothing but a small mote in the scheme of the world.
He's tired. He wants to sleep.
(Didi wouldn’t approve. He’d say an unearthed devotion is worth fighting for.)
Shang Qinghua regrets waking up. The first time was an experience he doesn't want to relive; something his mind hasn't completely processed and in fact, may never process so long as this headache persists. It's been three days, yet it's only gotten worse, like an itch left unscratched. Disappointing that he can't take out his brain, run it under cold water, and put it back in. He'd love to try, if it stops this pain. In this world, surely something of the kind is possible.
Unfortunately, the recent events have only made it so that the headache upgraded from a hammer to a jackhammer. Really, he isn't all that surprised. He's dealt with so much, and the memories still resurfacing prove he's been through so much more. It's just oddly placed.
The first thing that comes to mind is Shen Qingqiu. The second, that he gave up waiting and returned to his wards to read a report from one of his peak's latest excursions (and he was completely distracted through it all).
Normally, that would be up to a senior disciple or some other qualified, approved authoritative figure on An Ding. Once they look through the week's missions, they'll compile and condense it and send the finalized, most concise version to him. If there's something more important, they'll be notes. There are a few cases where the mission ranks high enough where he has to personally overlook the details and events before sending them out, then revisit them to ensure it went smoothly. Basically to sign forms that it went well, and that there's no injuries and such for record keeping.
This particular report was a delivery and retrieval mission. Nothing out of the ordinary at first, simply taking some talismans commissioned from some minor sect and picking up a load of wood along the way back. As they did this, however, they heard of some talk around town that the local river was poisoned. The entire town's water supply is currently stopped because of it. They have to get water from a neighboring sect. The odd thing is, on the way back, the disciples heard that the neighboring sect's water supply was also tainted. Now, not only is the original sect's river harmful, but so is their adjacent sect’s.
Nothing to look at too deeply, since problems like this rise way too often. Someone could have gotten a smart idea and dumped corrosive powder into their backyard's stream, too ignorant or oblivious to realize that it then drifts all the way to the main water source.
That water source, the river in this case, connects to the other river, so naturally it gets polluted, too. It's just a matter of neutralizing the poison from this point on. That's all he thought then and up until this morning, when the memories flooded through. Now it’s mirroring an issue from centuries past, one that shreds his mind to try and recall.
The Qian Cao disciple in charge of his recovery only relays the necessary to him. When she leaves, one of her junior martial siblings approaches her, speaking of a recently poisoned uncle. They walk off before he can catch the rest, not that he bothers to. There's two half-dead shixiongs next door. A random, unwell uncle isn't going to top that.
It's just odd. Suspicious and turning the faucets in his mind that something isn't right. He's had that feeling for a couple of weeks now, but that's a normal mode for him. Something isn't right all the time—it's simply that sometimes the problem is less severe than others.
Shang Qinghua only just woke up and the last time he went to Shen Qingqiu's ward was when he was probably dying. Judging by the silence that presses down on the peak like a heavy fog, it didn't end well. It's not unusual for it to be quiet afterward, but this noiselessness doesn't soothe the ache in his chest, either.
He doesn't believe Shen Qingqiu actually died. Perhaps it's something worse, but either way, he's alive. He has to be; he's Shen Qingqiu.
(Unhelpfully does his mind supply he believed the same of his meimei, decades layered over decades ago.)
Gathering the strands of his will, he steps outside. Qian Cao's beautiful, but he can't appreciate it now. There's something he needs to find out first.
"Shang-shibo," a disciple greets. They must be a senior since they are walking around here. When they face him completely, their face is slightly pale. Not in the jade-skin, snow-white color, no; they're more akin to someone who lost half their blood. Someone trying to keep themselves together, even though they'd rather be breaking down in some storage closet. An intimate feeling to Shang Qinghua, the man who's apparently died twice. "Is there something I can help Shang-shibo with?"
"Yes, well, it's about your other shibos." At this, their face gets impossibly paler. He hopes they don't faint while he's around—he won't be much help in his condition. "Are they...alright?" Alive, are they alive goes unsaid but most certainly heard.
They straighten up, chin held high and jaw clenched so tight it hurts to look at. Something heavy plunges into his stomach at the sight. Before he can get an answer, one that's probably not straightforward or what he's looking for, a door opens.
Out from this door comes Mu Qingfang. If Shang Qinghua looks bad, he can't compare to the doctor. A fierce corpse would be envious of his pallor.
Bone-exhausted eyes meet bone-exhausted eyes. He quietly regrets leaving his room. "It's nice to see you conscious, Shang-shixiong," Mu Qingfang says, tone slightly passive-aggressive. Not dissimilar to the air of a mother upset at her child's recklessness.
Shang Qinghua smiles regardless, even if his stomach rolls. "Conscious is a loose way to put it. How's...?" He glances at the ward Mu Qingfang left.
Mu Qingfang sighs deeply from his chest. "Alive, the three of them."
"Ah, that's good, that's good." Shang Qinghua stops, replays the words, and manages to lose more of his mind. Surely, surely, he heard wrong. "Three?"
Shadows slant over his shidi's face, making him appear both old and young. "Three."