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Shen Qingqiu is a rotten person, something faulty down to the very foundations of him. Additionally, he is damaged goods, his potential forever being crippled due to his late start in cultivation. His height and width, he is fairly certain, is also stunted from spending his early life bruised and hungry. There is an aching conviction inside of him that if only his life had been different, if he’d had all of the things that seemingly everyone else in the world was given without a fight, then he would be so much better off than he is. He would be healthier, stronger, more talented. He bitterly nurses these convictions, and curses the world that spoiled his success before it could even take place. 

The most insistently irritating of these flaws is the pain. Despite being in possession of a golden core that he fought for and clawed out of his shaky foundations, Shen Qingqiu often finds himself waking up and feeling like a creaky old man. His joints will ache and protest movement, his limbs stiff and ungainly. Exhaustion will seep away at him, draining his energy and making him feel as if he has slept one hour instead of ten. More often than not he will have a vicious, throbbing headache, flaring painfully when faced with loud noises or bright lights. It is as if his own body despises him, and is just barely not crumbling to pieces around him like a dilapidated house. 

Most likely, Qiu Jianluo simply kicked him in the head one too many times as a child. 

There is nothing he can do about these complaints, however. There are no injuries to heal, his body seemingly fine from the outside. If he were to go to a physician and tell them that something was wrong with him, they would look at him with pity or annoyance for wasting their time with his imagination. Shen Qingqiu already knows how pointless it would be to ask for help, and so he won’t even bother. He has no desire for unnecessary humiliation. 

Over the years, however, he has found that visiting the Warm Red Pavilion tends to… ease his issues somewhat. Not entirely, but - it is a noticeable difference. And so whenever he feels at his worst, his head throbbing sickeningly with pain and his hands so stiff he can hardly hold a brush, he goes down the mountain to stay the night at the brothel. And it helps. He wakes up refreshed and relaxed, his symptoms so markedly improved that it feels like euphoria in comparison. Even with pain still lingering at the edges of his senses, the relief is sharp and vivid, leaving his body feeling light and clear. 

Really, that only shows how much of it really must be in his head. That thought annoys him, that his own mind is so out of his control that it forces fake pain upon him that affects him, affects his body, affects his actions. He hates it. But he’s tried to will this issue out of existence many times before, to no avail. There is nothing for it but to grimly ignore it all, gritting his teeth and continuing on as if nothing is wrong, until it becomes too much and he has to slink down the mountain for some relief within the embrace of a woman. 

Somewhere behind his head, past a wall, there is a loud, performative moan, wavering in a way that lets Shen Qingqiu know the exact pacing of the customer’s inept thrusting. Disgusting and irritating; Shen Qingqiu would be praying for the man’s member to fall off from leprosy if he didn’t already feel so light and floaty from relief. 

“Sorry about all of the noise,” the woman with him, Tang Liling, tells him apologetically. “We can switch sides if you like, so you won’t be right next to the wall.” 

“It’s fine,” Shen Qingqiu dismisses. “I’ve just gotten comfortable where I am.” 

“If you insist…” 

“I do,” he says, closing his eyes. He really is very comfortable, despite all of the repulsive noises. It’s like his back is pressed up against a sunwarmed rock, a pleasant heat seeping into his muscles and loosening them one by one. His migraine, for the first time in days, is finally beginning to dissolve at the edges and it leaves him feeling liquid. The tight vise of his skull has loosened, no longer squeezing his brain in on itself. 

Behind him, he feels an impact knock against the wall and a muffled groan, as if someone just slapped their hand against it for stability. If it weren’t for that wall, then Shen Qingqiu would be able to reach out without moving and touch that couple, they’re so close. 

He should be infuriated by the racket. He should be, but instead he only feels content enough to finally fall asleep - to the sound of frantic fucking, while this woman holds him curled up against her chest. 

He thinks nothing of it. 

Shen Qingqiu is disgusted by sex. He finds it repulsive to the very core of his being, all sweaty, grunting, and grasping. He’s worked so hard to become a refined and elegant person, his body clothed in the finest of silks and muslin, velvet and brocade, his skin washed and perfumed. He speaks with sophistication and moves with poise. So why, then, would he ever allow himself to be reduced back down to an animal covered in filth, permitting another person to greedily paw at and rut against him? Nothing could disgust him more. 

The fact that other people think that that is what he spends his time doing while he’s off the mountain is asinine, but he corrects none of their assumptions. He’d rather be seen as greedy and hedonistic than as weak and pathetic. 

Still, his pride can only stomach so much trampling. If he went entirely by his own preference, then he’d spend every other night at the Warm Red Pavilion, but if he did so then half the mountain would be constantly buzzing over what a lecher he is, unable to go longer than two nights without burying himself between the legs of a whore. Instead, he rations his visits, only going whenever the imaginary pain becomes too much for him to bear - in other words, once every two or three weeks or so. 

It is two and a half weeks since the last time he visited a brothel, the latter end of his limit, and he feels ground down from pain and exhaustion. He avoids anything that requires fine motor control in public, not wanting anyone to see him clumsily force his stiff fingers through calligraphy or guqin playing. He can just barely manage to handle his fan, and that’s it. 

Still, he cannot afford to miss a Peak Lord meeting. What would people say if he were to hole up in his Bamboo House rather than attend, or worse, go down the mountain? No. He must keep up appearances. And so, teeth grit and jaw clenched, he suffers through an interminable meeting in which he hardly contributes and can barely manage to pay attention. A complete and utter waste of time, an exercise in pointless misery - nonetheless, he claws his way through it. He very carefully speaks up once or twice in order to be seen speaking, and then spends the rest of the meeting counting down the crawling seconds to the time when he can collapse into his bed. 

He only realizes that the meeting has come to a close once people begin to rise, speaking casually to each other in twos and threes, gathering their things as they leave. The relief is raw and heady, but he remains where he is. He’s too lightheaded to stand right now; he would definitely sway or stumble. He has to wait until he’s the only person left in the room. And so he stays where he is, underneath the guise of lingering over his untouched notes. 

The room slowly empties. But one man stubbornly stays put as well, as if having his heart set on being a thorn in his side. 

“All is well on Qing Jing?” Yue Qingyuan asks him mildly. 

“If it weren’t, then I would have brought it up,” Shen Qingqiu says after a fraction of a second too long spent on gathering his words. He can’t inject as much acid as is needed for rebuffing this persistent person into his words, however. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” Yue Qingyuan says, smiling at Shen Qingqiu. “One should always take the time to appreciate when everything is going well - the good days do not call attention to themselves the way bad ones do, after all.” 

It feels like someone is hammering a needle into his brain, directly behind his eyeball. Shen Qingqiu has never wanted to hurt Yue Qingyuan quite as badly as he wants to in that moment, but he barely has the strength to muster up a glare for him. Such an insipid comment deserves nothing but his immediate departure, but his traitorous, weak legs have trapped him. 

“Qiong Ding must be doing quite well for itself as well,” he says, “if its lord can afford to waste time like this, lazing about rather than making himself useful.” 

If Yue Qingyuan is in no hurry to leave, then Shen Qingqiu’s only alternative is to chase him away with barbed words. He’s done it plenty of times before, so why not? But his exhausted state must be blunting his sharp tongue, because Yue Qingyuan doesn’t so much as wince at the remark. 

“It is not a waste to take in a quiet, peaceful moment,” Yue Qingyuan says. “Especially not in the company of one's martial sibling.” 

‘Company’ - ugh. This fool thinks that just because Shen Qingqiu is still here, then that must mean that he wants to be. He doesn’t realize that he might as well be being kept in place with a chain. 

Reaching up towards his face with his hand, Shen Qingqiu catches himself before he can press the heel of his palm into his eye, a motion that would betray far too much of his aching exhaustion. He instead changes it to an idle motion of pushing some loose strands of hair behind his ear. 

Yue Qingyuan’s eyes follow the gesture. 

Shen Qingqiu’s headache abates by the slightest fraction. A very slight alleviation, but in his state, any relief is noticed and welcomed. Is it finally beginning to hit its downswing? It often feels as if the imaginary pain will only gradually build and build within him, before releasing all at once after a night at the Warm Red Pavilion. A dam bursting. 

“It was a quiet, peaceful moment,” Shen Qingqiu says, grasping for words, not wishing to look foolish. “Until someone decided to open his mouth and spoil it.” 

“Apologies,” Yue Qingyuan says, but he gives a chagrined smile as he says it. He isn’t taking Shen Qingqiu seriously. “I suppose I couldn’t resist the urge to make conversation - it is rare to catch you without others around.” 

Deliberately, by design. If Shen Qingqiu ever allows Yue Qingyuan to catch him alone, the man is liable to make vague allusions to the past, to say sentimental things, or to give him hangdog, apologetic looks that itch against his skin. Having witnesses around is the only way to make him behave - even if he then proceeds to use those witnesses as a way to pressure Shen Qingqiu to do anything but ignore him. 

“Don’t make conversation unless you actually have something of worth to say,” Shen Qingqiu says, and lifts his cup to take a sip of tea in the vain hope that ingesting enough fluids will somehow miraculously lighten his headache, despite this cure having consistently failed him up until now. Tilting his chin upwards and closing his eyes, he swallows until nothing is left. 

By the end of it, he actually does feel just the slightest bit better. He looks at the cup speculatively, wondering what sort of blend it may have been, if he could buy more of it, that perhaps it could consistently bring him some level of relief. He turns towards Yue Qingyuan to ask him about it, only to find the man - staring at him. 

“Wise words,” Yue Qingyuan says as soon as Shen Qingqiu looks at him, a sheepish smile tugging at his mouth as he looks away, but Shen Qingqiu can see the faint blush blooming across his cheeks. He’s embarrassed. Caught. 

Shen Qingqiu ought to be bristling with offense, self consciousness clamping down on him, but instead he feels - keenly alert. Something about Yue Qingyuan’s behavior catches on his attention like a hook, his focus narrowing in on him. Unconsciously, he angles his body towards him, leaning in closer. His mouth inexplicably waters. 

“Yue-zhangmen should say some of his own, then,” he says intently, not quite knowing what he’s driving towards but still mindlessly obeying his instincts in this moment. “Or can he not think of a single worthy thing to say?” 

Yue Qingyuan looks up, and seems to become trapped in Shen Qingqiu’s gaze. His mouth parts just slightly, in a way that ought to look foolish, but of course doesn’t on his handsome face. Distantly, Shen Qingqiu is annoyed - but very distantly. In the here and now, the only crystal clear thought running through his mind is more. 

“This shixiong is sorry to disappoint his…” 

Yue Qingyuan trails off into silence, and Shen Qingqiu realizes that he’s moved closer, setting a hand on the floor and putting his weight on it, as if intending to crawl through the space between them. He should recoil, but Yue Qingyuan’s eyes darken and a dizzying wave of euphoric relief washes through Shen Qingqiu from the crown of his skull. After having been steadily ground down by slowly mounting pain for days and weeks, suddenly having a portion of it taken away from him feels like pleasure. Mindlessly, he repeats what made it happen the first time. He crawls closer towards Yue Qingyuan. 

“Qi-Qingqiu-shidi…?” 

The pain-relief - it is coming from Yue Qingyuan himself, he distantly realizes. He’s radiating it like heat, drawing Shen Qingqiu further and further in like a cat or a lizard seeking somewhere warm to curl up in away from the cold. He hazily blinks, and finds himself perched in the man’s lap, the journey to get there forgotten. Yue Qingyuan is staring up at him, wide eyed and frozen, seeming to barely even dare to breathe. 

“What are… that is, what can I do for… Qingqiu-shidi, what is this?” 

Shen Qingqiu is hardly taking his words in. He feels like a starving man finally being given a meal, but it’s hard bone with the succulent marrow trapped within. He has to crack it open with his teeth and suck it out before he will finally be fed. He glares down at his meal, not knowing how to wring what he wants out of it, more of this absence-of-bad feeling that’s so good, before he decides to just - lean down and press himself even closer against it. He ends up with his face burrowed into the junction between Yue Qingyuan’s neck and shoulder, inhaling the scent of him. 

It works. More of that delicious relief courses through him, making him feel almost drugged with pleasure. It’s more potent than it has ever been before, better than any visit to the Warm Red Pavilion. That had been smelling the food from stalls and only pretending to eat it himself, while this - this is feasting. Shen Qingqiu quickly falls into a pattern of mindlessly doing whatever makes more of the feeling happen, repeating what works and increasing it. 

He ends up licking Yue Qingyuan’s face and neck, his tongue dragging across his clean, slightly salty skin, while Yue Qingyuan stammers out his name uselessly. His arms are around Shen Qingqiu now, as if to help support him, his hands featherlight and tentative against his back. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything but how good he feels. 

“A-ah, ahh,” Yue Qingyuan says as Shen Qingqiu discovers that making his hands roam across the broad chest he’s pressed up against makes that good feeling sharply spike. “Qing, Qingqiu-shidi, you sh-shouldn’t…” 

Impatiently, Shen Qingqiu squeezes at that chest, and nearly groans with satisfaction at the pleasure that washes over him in response. Almost in tandem with that wave, Yue Qingyuan’s breath hitches. He’s squirming underneath Shen Qingqiu, shifting restlessly. He wants to pry Yue Qingyuan open like a ribcage and suck the bones clean and white. His fingers curl underneath the collar of his robes, pulling and tugging, revealing underlayers. 

“Are-- are you sure?” Yue Qingyuan asks him. Shen Qingqiu blinks, and briefly registers what he’s seeing - Yue Qingyuan’s flushed face, his dark, bewildered eyes, the conflicted pinch to his features. 

Shen Qingqiu happens to slide a little further down onto Yue Qingyuan’s lap, introducing an entirely new object to his attention. Something hard and stiff, poking into his backside. Yue Qingyuan inhales sharply as Shen Qingqiu brushes against it, and that mysterious pleasure-relief-satisfaction feeling rises-- 

Sanity returns to him in a cold, harsh burst. Shen Qingqiu finds himself sitting in Yue Qingyuan’s lap, licking and groping at him like a filthy animal with no dignity at all. 

He is up on his feet. He is across the room. Yue Qingyuan’s voice, sharply concerned, saying, “Qingqiu--” 

Shen Qingqiu slams the door shut behind him as he flees. 

He does everything he can to examine himself for mind-altering compulsions or curses, of course. As the Qing Jing Peak Lord, his resources are not small. Talismans, qi techniques, pills and potions, special objects - he uses them all, to no effect. No one has placed some disgusting spell on Shen Qingqiu in order to humiliate him, to encourage him to do things he would ordinarily never willingly do or even contemplate. He hasn’t even been dosed with so much as a common aphrodisiac. 

He already knew it wouldn’t be an aphrodisiac, even as he tested for it. In that meeting hall, plastered up against Yue Qingyuan, his cock hadn’t so much as twitched even once, entirely uninterested in the proceedings. He remained soft and limp throughout the entire ordeal. What had happened had been intensely pleasurable, viscerally satisfying - but it hadn’t been sexual. 

For him. For Yue Qingyuan, it obviously had been. Shen Qingqiu had crawled all over him and debased himself, debased both of them, and the bastard had enjoyed it. Whatever has been done to Shen Qingqiu, he has half a mind to suspect him the most of anyone at all. But… not really. Yue Qingyuan had been - he hadn’t been expecting it. He’d been shocked and tentative, not knowing what to do with himself in the face of Shen Qingqiu’s repulsive behavior. 

He hadn’t pushed Shen Qingqiu away, however. 

Shen Qingqiu refuses to think about it. What matters is finding out what is wrong with him. Even now, weeks later, energy and vitality courses through him. The pain always returns to him like the tide, and yet he still feels satiated and well rested. Perhaps there is the slightest shadow of its presence upon the horizon, but nothing like what it should be. 

Because you finally got a meal of substance, he finds himself thinking, and shudders. 

Chasing answers, Shen Qingqiu finds himself entering a cave. In his relentless investigative efforts, he has managed to find an as of yet undiscovered succubus den. Some demons like to live in the Human Realm in order to have an easy source of food in the form of defenseless mortals, like fat and happy tigers lazily living amongst pigs, but they court their own doom in the doing. Demons have to perform a careful dance, in which they eat enough to sustain themselves but not enough to call the attention of cultivation sects that would destroy them. More often than not, they become too greedy in the end and sign their own death warrant. 

The succubus known as Madame Meiyin is a careful sort who has managed to live within the Human Realm for a long time now. She makes her home at the outskirts of some small town or other for months or years, letting her spawn happily feed off the mortals there, but always in moderation. Some foolish man is lured away from his home for a few days or weeks and is returned so weak he can barely stand, and the family is only happy that he’s alive at all. They generally manage to avoid killing, carefully picking targets that won’t be missed for this or that reason. When they finally are reported to a cultivation sect, they pick up their roots and flee to find their next nesting place rather than stubbornly staying in place to be pecked at by cultivators until they’re all destroyed. 

In other words, Madame Meiyin is skilled at remaining a nuisance that somehow never manages to climb to the top of the list of urgent problems to be handled. She has even been recorded as sometimes lending cultivators her aid, with her readings, counseling, or gifts of special plants or artifacts. Like bribing the prison guard for a stay of execution, she knows the worth of a well timed favor. 

Shen Qingqiu needs a favor, and he isn’t afraid to threaten a demon’s life in order to get it. He delves deeply into the cave, and soon the air is thick with the scent of perfume and rose petals, soft voices and throaty laughs drifting hauntingly through the caves. Shen Qingqiu comes upon a pack of lounging women, most of them naked or close to it, who all eye him languidly as if he isn’t a threat at all. He isn’t fooled, and doesn’t drop his guard. 

“The Xiu Ya sword?” Madame Meiyin asks, but it isn’t really a question. At the center of the pack, she is the largest of all the women - she would stand seven feet tall if she weren’t comfortable sprawled across a mossy stone, her head propped up on one hand. “This one is flattered to be graced with such auspicious company… that is, if he intends to be a polite guest. If not…” 

Shen Qingqiu ignores the threat, brusquely yanking the end of his robes out of the grip of a handsy young succubus curiously reaching out to pluck at them from the ground. Looking at her askance and taking a step to the side, he says, “Madame Meiyin has one chance to convince this lord not to call the might of Cang Qiong Mountain down upon her and her pack of mongrels. Answer my questions.” 

“Pose them, then,” Madame Meiyin says, sounding far too much as if she’s merely indulging him. The succubuses surrounding her titter and whisper coyly behind raised hands, their eyes narrowed with amusement and mouths grinning with intrigued hunger. 

Everything in Shen Qingqiu despises this, but he goes on to describe his… experiences, with his pain and his brief reprieves from it. He cloaks the details as much as he can, loathe to be giving so much information to an enemy, but Madame Meiyin listens patiently. 

“... Come closer,” she finally says at the end, holding her hand out to him. “Let me inspect you.” 

Shen Qingqiu hesitates - he has told no one where he went. If she were to pull some trick on him… But Madame Meiyin is well known for her palm readings, and she seems quite serious. Clutching Xiu Ya’s hilt tightly with one hand, he approaches and lets her take the other. 

After a long moment, Madame Meiyin sobers even more, the last of her playful amusement fading entirely. 

“Child, how are you even alive?” she asks him in horror. 

Shen Qingqiu scowls, snatching his hand back from her. “This master did not come for a lecture. If you know what is wrong, then--” 

“I most certainly know what is wrong,” she says. “You have been starving for your entire life!” 

For half a moment, Shen Qingqiu thinks that she has somehow managed to see his past of poverty and desperation in the lines of his hands, but that is clearly not what she means. Tersely, he says, “say what you mean.” 

“You don’t know?” she asks him, then shakes her head helplessly. “How tragic - like a tiger raised amongst pigeons, raised to see itself as one of them and poorly attempt to mimic them. You’re like us, dear.” 

Shen Qingqiu goes very still. He refuses to believe it. 

“Really?” one of the other succubus women cries out. They’re all sitting up more properly and paying attention now, their air of coy and predatory danger falling away as they instead stare at Shen Qingqiu in a mix of curiosity and pity. “This man is a succubus?” 

“But I can’t feel him at all!” 

“But he’s a cultivator! Is that allowed?” 

“He looks human!” 

“His true nature must have been sealed when he was a child,” Madame Meiyin says along with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Or perhaps his human side is simply strong enough to veil the other. What’s more pressing is that, besides a recent meal, it seems like you’ve never fed once in your entire life… You’re like a child that’s never even been taught how to chew. Even if you didn’t know what you were, surely you know about sex? Your instincts should have led you there all on their own.” 

Shen Qingqiu opens his mouth, closes it. When he forces words out, they’re nonsensical. 

“I would not lower myself--” 

He stops himself, clamping his jaw shut. But it is too late, the women surrounding him making pitying cooing noises or sounds of horror. 

“He doesn’t even know how to eat!” 

“Poor baby! He’s disgusted by food!” 

“What has he been subsisting on until now? Crumbs?” 

Madame Meiyin is shaking her head. “The only reason you’re still alive must be your human side, and your golden core. Still, if you wish to rid yourself of this persistent ‘weakness’ then there is a simple solution. You must feed your hunger. Go slake yourself on the lust of a human, and all of your problems will vanish.” 

Shen Qingqiu recoils, disgusted with the suggestion. His skin is crawling from top to bottom, wanting to get away from himself. He’s-- she is claiming that he is a demon. Worse, not just any sort of demon, but specifically a--

“Shut up,” he snaps. “Shut up! You’re lying to me!” 

Madame Meiyin gives him a truly pitying look. Shen Qingqiu would have preferred it if she stabbed him. 

“Believe me or not, it’s up to you,” she says. “It seems like you’ve managed to stay alive this long simply by feeding on ambient lust, even if uncomfortably and scarcely. Visit your brothels more often than you already do, and do consider feeding properly, even if it may repulse you. You don’t necessarily need to perform the acts that you might think in order to get what you need. So long as you stir up a human’s lust and bring it to completion, then that is all that is required.” 

‘Bring it to completion’ - what could that mean besides spreading his legs like a whore? Trembling with rage and disgust, Shen Qingqiu turns away from her with a snarl. 

“You’ve wasted my time with filthy lies and suggestions,” he rasps. “I advise that you make yourself scarce, unless you’d like to be skewered alongside your spawn.” 

“How frightening,” Madame Meiyin says. “If you were a regular man, my girls wouldn’t let you leave after a threat like that… but I can’t help but feel sorry for you. I can only wish you the best of luck, poor little runt.” 

Furious, Shen Qingqiu leaves without another word. 

He holes himself up within the Bamboo House. He stews. He does not visit the Warm Red Pavilion. 

The pain returns. He welcomes it like an old, hated friend, and does not let himself think of it as hunger. Months have passed - the reservoir he’d gained after touching and groping Yue Qingyuan took a long time to run dry. His lust, he finds himself thinking. That feeling was Yue Qingyuan’s lust for me. 

It should feel like a violation - a final betrayal, the last nail in the coffin of their old friendship. Instead, Shen Qingqiu’s mouth only waters, remembering the addictive, intoxicating feeling of what he now knows was finally feeling full. He wants it back. He imagines himself slinking over to Qiong Ding Peak like some predator, climbing his way through a window in Yue Qingyuan’s home in the dead of night and coming to him like a dream. He imagines… 

The details become tangled and distasteful from there. Shen Qingqiu understands the act of sex perfectly well, and every single part of it disgusts him. Imagining himself deliberately taking part in it does not appeal even slightly. But if he really were to go through with it, would his nature make him enjoy it…? The thought is repulsive, humiliating. 

He stubbornly stays put. He runs his peak as well as he can from his home, and then slowly delegates more and more as his energy saps away, snapping and snarling at anyone who dares come and bother him until no one dares approach. He withers away, dying by inches. 

It is Yue Qingyuan who comes to him, in the end. Shen Qingqiu is too weak to stop him when he enters his Bamboo House, and can barely summon the strength for a weak glare when the man kneels by his bedside, his brow furrowed with concern. So condescending. 

“You must go to Qian Cao Peak,” Yue Qingyuan says. These are the first words he’s spoken to Shen Qingqiu since that day when he greedily pawed all over him and then left with no explanation. 

“Nothing is wrong with me,” Shen Qingqiu says. If he allows himself to be inspected like this, then his true nature might be discovered. He would rather die - although, he surely would shortly after being exposed. 

“Then what is the matter?” Yue Qingyuan asks him, irritatingly stubborn. “You haven’t left your home in days…” 

He looks infuriatingly sad, maddeningly worried. How dare he pretend to be concerned? He’s already proven once that he can turn his back and forget about Shen Jiu in dire straits, so he should just do it again if Shen Qingqiu is bothering him so much. 

“What I do or don’t do is none of your business,” Shen Qingqiu spits. 

“As your martial brother, it is.” 

“So you would be visiting Mu-shidi’s bedside like this in other circumstances? Qi Qingqi? Shang Qinghua?” 

“Qingqiu-shidi…” 

That inept, disappointed scolding tone. Shen Qingqiu hates it like fire. It gives him the strength to actually push himself upwards, glaring down at Yue Qingyuan imperiously as if he isn’t wearing nothing but a simple robe, his hair loose and tangled, his complexion pale and shadows bruising the undersides of his eyes. 

“Yue-zhangmen is meddling and tiresome, visiting uninvited and pushing himself where he’s unwanted. He likes to imagine himself so important that surely there is no problem that he can’t fix, no solution he can’t provide. I must only be suffering because I am inept and foolish, unable to help myself!” 

“That isn’t what I--” 

“Prove it, then! Show me! You want to help me? Help me.” He snarls the words like a mocking threat, and grabs a fistful of Yue Qingyuan’s hair. The man’s eyes widen, and he makes an aborted noise of surprise as Shen Qingqiu uses it to yank him closer until he half falls out of his lean, supporting himself on Shen Qingqiu’s bed. 

Shen Qingqiu is aware that his tug was weak - that Yue Qingyuan could have resisted him if he had tried. He simply hadn’t. 

“How-- what do you want me to--” 

“Get into the bed,” Shen Qingqiu hisses, daring him to be disgusted, to leave. “And take your clothes off.” 

Yue Qingyuan’s face goes blank, and then slowly fills with red. He opens his mouth, and closes it. 

“You… are you s--” 

“Or you can leave.” 

Yue Qingyuan moves away from him. Coldly satisfied, Shen Qingqiu watches him go… 

Except Yue Qingyuan only stands up to begin mechanically undressing. He does it awkwardly, averting his gaze from Shen Qingqiu, but he still obeys. Shen Qingqiu stares at him in disbelief, but then bare skin begins to be revealed. He’s really doing it. He’s really… 

Of course he is. He doesn’t know what sort of foul creature Shen Qingqiu truly is - and he does lust for Shen Qingqiu. Perhaps he thinks that he’s about to get to fuck him in his own bed. Ha - he can think again! If he even tries it, then Shen Qingqiu will kill both of them. 

Yue Qingyuan strips, exposing his naked form to Shen Qingqiu - tall and broad, surprisingly hairy and more muscular than his robes typically reveal. His cock hangs between his legs, long and thick but soft for now. Shen Qingqiu glares at it with contempt and distrust, and Yue Qingyuan shifts like he almost wants to shield it from view. 

“... If you wish to dual cultivate--” 

“I do not,” Shen Qingqiu says curtly. “Now get into bed.” 

Yue Qingyuan gets into bed like a man tentatively stepping out onto a thin layer of ice. He comes closer and closer, until Shen Qingqiu can smell him - his musk, his skin, his body… Infuriatingly, it’s a rather pleasant, comforting smell, pulling on the faintest threads of memory. He looks at Shen Qingqiu with a carefully blank expression, hands on his own knees as if to show that he isn’t misbehaving. 

“What would you like me to do, then…?” 

Shen Qingqiu reaches out and places his hand on one pectoral, now bared to him. The muscle twitches slightly - Shen Qingqiu’s hand must be cold. Yue Qingyuan feels warm, at the very least. Like a man testing the temperature of a bath, he slides his hand slowly down Yue Qingyuan’s body, over his chest and his abdomen. His fingers slide over his navel, and then brush against a trail of hair leading towards… 

There it is. A small trickle of what he now recognizes as foreign lust, Yue Qingyuan’s desire for him stirred to life by his touch. After so long spent starving himself, Shen Qingqiu’s mouth instantly floods with saliva at the faintest taste. Reckless greed begins to course through him. 

“What a horrifying thing,” he finds himself saying, and then pushes Yue Qingyuan down onto the bed beneath him. Despite having little to no strength to do it with, Yue Qingyuan obeys his slightest touch. “So big and unruly, who would want that thing inside of them? It looks more like a bull’s cock than anything else.” 

“Shidi!” Yue Qingyuan protests, embarrassed, but the sharp spike of lust that makes his mind immediately light up with pleasure entirely betrays him. He liked that? Really, how degenerate… 

“It’s getting hard,” Shen Qingqiu says with disgust - it is, twitching to life between Yue Qingyuan’s muscular, hairy thighs, beginning to stiffen and fill out with blood. He still hasn’t quite touched it yet, instead stroking his hand along Yue Qingyuan’s inner thigh, digging his fingers into his flesh. “Does it take so little to excite you?” 

“It’s not that…” 

Yue Qingyuan embarrassedly tries to bring his knees up, but Shen Qingqiu immediately slaps one thigh and pushes them out of the way - Yue Qingyuan makes a choked off noise and obeys, allowing himself to be manhandled by an invalid. It really is getting hard now, standing at half mast underneath Shen Qingqiu’s glare. After hesitating for only a moment, he finally takes it in hand. It does not bite him. He squeezes it. It is… warm, and solid while still being soft. 

Yue Qingyuan gasps, and holds himself very still against the bed. Good. Waves of lust are steadily lapping against Shen Qingqiu now, and he lets them wash over him as he experimentally strokes and plays with Yue Qingyuan’s cock. He’s still dressed, is kneeling above him, and Yue Qingyuan hasn’t made any moves to attempt to touch him back yet. Just touching Yue Qingyuan’s cock like this… it’s a little bit just like touching any other body part, right? A funny looking one that’s beginning to messily drool from the head, but he imagines that pumping his fingers into Yue Qingyuan’s mouth would be equally messy and strange. 

This isn’t sex. This is… something else - and what matters is that Yue Qingyuan is still radiating lust for Shen Qingqiu to bask in, like a flower in sunlight. With every breath he takes, he feels just a little stronger and more nourished. He truly is a succubus demon… How disgusting. He should have known that he’s some sort of wicked creature like that. 

Shen Qingqiu continues to play with Yue Qingyuan’s cock like it’s a toy, stroking and squeezing it experimentally while Yue Qingyuan finely trembles and breathes carefully underneath him. His other hand kneads and gropes at Yue Qingyuan’s thigh, leaving behind finger shaped bruises. 

“Such a dirty thing,” Shen Qingqiu says when it abruptly spurts out a little pump of clear fluid all across his wrist. “To think that the venerable Xuan Su sword walks around with a thing like this hidden beneath his clothes - how do you manage to behave in public?” 

Yue Qingyuan has nothing to say, turning his face to the side. He isn’t particularly noisy at all, nothing like the performative whores or shameless customers at the Warm Red Pavilion, but a flush is painted all across his face and his chest, and his expression is twisted up with strained pleasure and embarrassment in equal measure. 

Every time Shen Qingqiu speaks, he tastes more of that delicious lust - and so, like a gluttonous animal, he keeps talking. 

“Perhaps you need to take yourself in hand several times a day, whenever you have a spare moment?” he asks, leaning in closer until his hair brushes against Yue Qingyuan’s chest - good, that was good, more, closer, harder. “Or do you simply sit there, stewing in your lust and unable to sate it, your cock hard and aching as you pretend to be dignified? Have you ever spoken to me while hiding an erection, Yue-zhangmen?” 

His chest is rising and falling, his breaths rapid and shallow. Shen Qingqiu thinks back - thinks of occasions when his thundering headache would mysteriously abate, while Yue Qingyuan was pleasantly making conversation only feet away… 

“You have,” Shen Qingqiu realizes. All those times, unbeknownst to him, Yue Qingyuan had already been lusting after him - and Shen Qingqiu didn’t notice at all, wasn’t harmed by it. “You filthy pervert.” 

He thinks to slip his spare hand downwards to fondle Yue Qingyuan’s balls then, stroking and squeezing them like his cock, and Yue Qingyuan makes a strangled noise between clenched teeth, his stomach jumping-- 

And the steady stream of lust funneling into Shen Qingqiu, feeding him strength and vitality with every passing second, crests and turns into a flood--

Yue Qingyuan comes messily all over Shen Qingqiu’s hand and wrist, cum even splattering onto his lap. Yue Qingyuan makes a small, bitten back whimpering noise - and Shen Qingqiu moans, eyes fluttering shut as he sways from the sheer onslaught of satisfaction rolling through him. He’s never-- never felt like this, never felt so full, so fed, so good. 

After a long moment, he opens his eyes to find Yue Qingyuan staring up at him with dazed, dark eyes, his face looking very foolish and soft, his mouth half open. As if Shen Qingqiu is-- 

“What are you looking at?” he snaps, drawing his hands away from the softening cock they’d been wrapped around - and then he holds his hands awkwardly in the air, thick cum dripping from them. Oh, that is - that is disgusting, without a doubt. Why can’t it stay inside of Yue Qingyuan? 

“Nothing,” Yue Qingyuan says quickly, and then, “would… would Qingqiu-shidi like for me to--?” 

“No,” he says firmly, half turning away from him. “I have gotten everything I need from you, thank you. You may now leave.” 

Yue Qingyuan needs to leave. Heady, dizzying relief is still pulsing inside of Shen Qingqiu’s head, leaving him feeling loose and light. If he isn’t careful, who knows what he might do in front of the man? He might smile at him, in a moment of incaution. It doesn’t bear thinking about. 

“Oh,” Yue Qingyuan says. And then, “... should I bring you a handkerchief first?” 

“... yes,” he grudgingly mutters. 

Somehow, this leads to Yue Qingyuan dutifully wiping every single one of Shen Qingqiu’s fingers clean himself, as well as wiping and dabbing at his wrist and lap. His touch remains respectful and appropriate throughout. Shen Qingqiu, more well fed than he ever has been in his life, falls asleep halfway through pillowed on an ample, hairy chest. 

Everything is light and golden, and nothing hurts.