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Quiet Night Thought: Chapter 3 [SVSSS]
Title: Quiet Night Thought
Fandom: Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
Pairing/Characters: Shen Jiu & Shen Yuan, Shen Jiu & everyone, Shen Yuan & Shang Qinghua, Shen Jiu & Yue Qingyuan
Rating: NR (probably T?)
Warnings:
Word Count: 2,541, Ch. 3 / 5; See All Chapters
Summary: Shen Yuan unwittingly gives character-growth advice to the Qing Jing head disciple Shen Jiu in a weak plot device of a shared dream. Of course, advice that's good from a plot perspective isn't always advice that's good for the individual, especially when that individual is a real person with real emotions and real trauma.
Shen Qingqiu hadn’t tried the Dream Seeking Wisdom flower again, but somehow he had met the flower spirit despite that. Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan. Was he some ancestor, sharing his wisdom after ascension? But something in Shen Qingqiu rebelled against that interpretation. Shen Yuan didn’t feel like an ancestor. And after all, Shen Qingqiu’s own surname had been chosen by he himself, after he decided he liked the sound and the shape of the character. Sharing the same surname in this case held no suggestion of a shared bloodline. And yet… it felt significant, somehow. And Shen Yuan himself hadn’t blinked at either their shared surname nor at the personal name Shen Qingqiu had shared with him. A slave’s name. But perhaps he’d assumed it had a different meaning, or perhaps in his spirit world, numbered names were common.
Shen Qingqiu had tried to follow the advice he’d learned from Shen Yuan’s strange, condensed library, but if anything, his attempts only made him feel worse. On reflection, he was able to recognise the problem—the theory underlying the documents he had read clearly specified that this therapy involved being exposed to that thing causing your fear until you learned that your feared outcome never came to pass. That was never going to work for Shen Qingqiu—his fears were rational, and exposure to those things he was afraid of did produce the feared result. He had only tested this in small ways—spending more time with his male peers, and so on—but it was clear that in the absence of the requisite safe environment, this therapy was useless to him.
His first experiment inspired by the flower spirit, though—that one continued to have merit. Shen Qingqiu smiled, and Shen Qingqiu bowed, and Shen Qingqiu didn’t start fights even when his fellow disciples were begging to have their faces rearranged. His wrists were dark with bruises, and his exhaustion and terror made him a little listless and vague at times, but his seniors were looking at him with more and more approval as time passed on. Shen Qingqiu made himself as pleasant as possible, ignored the sneers and insults of his peers, and tried to spend as much of his time alone as possible.
“Sh-shixiong, I found this excellent new tea, and—”
Shen Qingqiu sighed and put down his xiao. “Thanking shidi for his consideration,” he said blandly. Still, as irritating as Shang Qinghua was, he was growing on Shen Qingqiu, if only because of his clear concern over Shen Qingqiu’s health. “Please,” he said, “join me.”
They sat silently, and then Shang Qinghua pulled out a ledger and started working on it, muttering to himself and seemingly forgetting that Shen Qingqiu was there. Eventually, Shen Qingqiu picked up his xiao again, and Shang Qinghua didn’t seem bothered by the rudeness at all. They continued that way, sharing the same space but focused on their own pursuits, until their free period ended, and they went their separate ways.
It was… nice. It reminded Shen Qingqiu of the time he’d spent in Shen Yuan’s spirit flower home. It reminded him of what it felt like to not be afraid.
When Liu Qingge approached Yue Qingyuan, the older disciple smiled at him and said, “I’m sorry, Liu-shidi, but I don’t have time to spar today.”
As though that was the only thing Liu Qingge was interested in! Liu Qingge ignored the twinge of disappointment in his stomach and realigned his strategy—he had, indeed, intended to request a spar as a means of introducing the delicate topic.
With that path blocked for him, he simply said directly, “I wanted to talk to you about Shen Qingqiu.”
As expected, Yue Qingyuan perked up even as his eyes sharpened. “Of course, this shixiong is happy to listen,” he said, even as he beckoned Liu Qingge into his private office, protected by sound-proofing wards.
Liu Qingge sat as directed and began outlining his concerns. Shen Qingqiu was acting strange, yes, but Shen Qingqiu was also looking unhealthy and frightened. Shen Qingqiu was clearly being threatened by someone or something, but Liu Qingge hadn’t seen him interacting with anyone for any lengthy period of time other than Shang Qinghua, around whom he seemed at his most relaxed. And wasn’t it suspicious that this had all started right when Shen Qingqiu’s excessively permissive shizun was gone on an extended trip?
Yue Qingyuan’s face settled into a rare frown. “Liu-shidi has been working hard,” he said quietly. “But it may be the case that there is nothing left to learn from following Shen-shidi. If this shixiong may so impose, it may be better to redirect your surveillance to another target. Perhaps Shang-shidi would be a good starting point?”
Liu Qingge nodded agreeably. “Shang Qinghua, or the other Qing Jing disciples.”
Yue Qingyuan’s face had returned to its usual serene smile. “Leave the Qing Jing disciples to me.”
The mist rose and receded, leaving behind a yawning Shen Jiu. They were back in Shen Yuan’s flat, as they had been since that very first dream. Shen Jiu didn’t even glance over at Shen Yuan before picking up the tablet and settling on the armchair to read, his shoulders relaxed as he continued to devour his way through all the Chinese-language psychological resources available via Shen Yuan’s WiFi connection.
When Shen Jiu arrived, Shen Yuan was picking his way through an improv arrangement of his new obsession’s OP on his qin. He usually used his piano for recreating anime and donghua OSTs, but he’d been in the mood for the qin, lately.
He had passed out during his lecture and had been firmly handed a recommendation by his university that he complete the rest of his requirements online, even as his classmates giggled into their phones as they compared footage of his gasping, blue-tinged face, all captured before the paramedics arrived and they were chased out of the room. It had been an airborne allergen, they told a resuscitated Shen Yuan and his stony-faced older brother, who had come roaring onto campus when he’d gotten the call that Shen Yuan was ill—again.
The strings bit into his calluses even as they sang for him, and something about the tiny, benign pain followed by the success of a puzzle solved, a goal achieved, was cathartic. He looked up and saw that Shen Jiu was looking at him.
“Do you like music?” Shen Yuan asked, even as he directed his fingers into the familiar patterns of the opening sequence to One-Winged Angel. “Hey, you could look up ‘musical therapy’ for your next research project!”
Shen Jiu frowned at him, but obediently typed in the search terms. That kid was a natural net boy—soon, he’d be more familiar with the tablet than Shen Yuan was. He’d even picked up pinyin in no time at all. As he did so, Shen Jiu asked, faux casually, “Why does your qin have seven strings?”
Shen Yuan blinked, a little surprised by the question. He was, of course, fully prepared to discuss the history and development of the instrument, and how it had and hadn’t changed over its millenia of usage. He was prepared to compare the practical differences between different numbers of strings. He was prepared to justify his decision to hunt down the rare and increasingly difficult to come by silk strings over the more common steel-nylon strings.
He was prepared to do all of this, but instead he simply said, “Would you like to try?”
Shen Jiu came over, and Shen Yuan moved aside so that Shen Jiu could sit behind the instrument. He was a skilled musician, and he overcame his unfamiliarity quickly as he began experimenting through different melodies. Shen Yuan listened quietly, hiding a smile behind his ragged sleeve. None of his siblings were interested in music, not beyond the social necessities of having something intelligent to say at the opera to impress their business associates, or his second brother’s not-so-secret obsession with K-Pop. It was nice to see that his dream friend shared some of his interests, at least.
When Shen Jiu finished his impromptu composition and settled the strings, Shen Yuan said, “Want to see my piano?”
That dream was a lot of fun, too. Shen Yuan almost regretted waking up to the chime of a new chapter of Proud Immortal Demon Way.
“Do you have anything that helps with sleep?” asked Shen Qingqiu as he accepted Shang Qinghua’s latest offering. Even Liu Qingge seemed to have gotten bored with tailing Shen Qingqiu when he failed to do anything nefarious, but Shang Qinghua continued to appear at intervals too regular to be anything but scheduled, and he always came with some new, rare tea for Shen Qingqiu. The teas were uniformly disgusting, so Shen Qingqiu made a point of smilingly sharing them with Shang Qinghua.
Shang Qinghua blinked up at him. “With… sleep?”
“Yes, shidi,” said Shen Qingqiu serenely. “That thing where one reclines, closes one’s eyes, and drifts into another plane during a period of rest and rejuvenation.”
He had tentatively begun to allow some of his sardonic tones and acerbic commentary to slip back into his conversations with Shang Qinghua, and he was surprised to discover that, when applied with moderation, Shang Qinghua was completely unfazed by it. It made his little social gatherings with Shang Qinghua almost… relaxing.
“Yes, but like with falling asleep? With keeping from falling asleep? With sleeping in a particular way? With entering into a particular dreamscape? With avoiding dreams? With entering into a centuries-long coma that can only be broken by dual cultivation with your one-true-love? What kind of sleep tea are we talking about, here?”
“Definitely not that last one,” replied Shen Qingqiu, disgusted. “Is that a real effect?”
Shang Qinghua shuddered. “Yeah, the Eternal Sleep Rose produces something like that. I always thought that story was kind of… ew, especially when I read the Grimm Fairy Tales version where—uh, but yeah, it’s a real effect.”
“I’m looking for a tea that will help me to fall asleep,” Shen Qingqiu said with careful precision after a moment of horror. “Perhaps a relaxant, or something that helps to reduce anxiety. Nothing that would prevent me from waking if disturbed, and nothing that blocks me from having dreams.”
“I could probably find something,” said Shang Qinghua, a little doubtfully. “But wouldn’t it be better to just go to Qian Cao for something like that?”
Shen Qingqiu was silent. It was familiar advice, to see professional help. It was repeated often in Shen Yuan’s spiritual library.
“If there’s someone there that you’re avoiding, you can request not to be seen by them,” Shang Qinghua coaxed. “Especially if you’re able to provide a good reason.”
“I’m not interested in sharing my good reasons.”
“So make one up,” said Shang Qinghua carelessly. “Or schedule a visit for a time that person is off-shift or on a mission. I could help you with that.”
Shen Qingqiu stared at him, his jaw working. Finally, he said, a little shell-shocked, “This shixiong gratefully accepts his shidi’s assistance in this matter.”
“I don’t think it’s Shang Qinghua,” said Liu Qingge after summarising his report for Yue Qingyuan. “If anything, he seems to be trying to help. He keeps bringing weird medicinal teas that really seem to be medicinal, and he even convinced Shen Qingqiu to visit Qian Cao Peak. We could bring him in on the mission.”
“Hmm.” Yue Qingyuan frowned down at the mission-style report Liu Qingge had handed him. “No. Not yet, at least. But perhaps it is time to recruit another person to our cause. I’ve noticed Mu-shidi has been looking increasingly concerned at Shen-shidi’s deteriorating condition. I observed him reaching out to Shen-shidi on multiple occasions, but he was always rebuffed. Politely.”
Politely was Shen Qingqiu’s new modus operandi, even when faced with things that would have made him puff up in apoplectic fury not too long ago. Even Yue Qingyuan’s excitement at Shen Qingqiu’s mild treatment had begun to fade at his continued lack of warmth. The cold politeness seemed to be wearing on him almost as much as the cold rejection once had.
“We can feel him out,” said Liu Qingge, and it was immediately understood between them that by we, he really meant you, as Liu Qingge was not blessed with subtlety. “What about the Qing Jing disciples?”
“I can’t say they’re not suspicious in terms of motive and desire, but based on their general confusion, I would say the means of this particular problem are likely beyond them,” said Yue Qingyuan with diplomatic care.
Liu Qingge snorted indelicately, thinking of the green-robed scholars who were so good at talking big and so bad at doing big. At least Shen Qingqiu really had tried to stab him in the back rather than just talking about it. “I’ll bet.”
Mu Qingfang jerked his head up in surprise. “Shen Qingqiu is here?” he asked urgently, interrupting the quiet gossiping of two novices. He’d chastise them for their lack of professional discretion later. “Seeking medical care?”
The novices changed nervous glances. “Yes, Mu-shixiong,” one said.
“Where is he? I’ll see him.”
“He’s already with another healer—” the other novice tried.
“I will take over his case,” said Mu Qingfang firmly.
“No,” said Wen Lin from behind him, “you will not.” She was one of the oldest disciples on the peak, and her seniority gave her a certain weight on the peak. She was on track to ascend not long after the current generation of peak lords, or she might have been the succeeding disciple rather than Mu Qingfang.
“It would be better for him to receive care from a peer,” argued Mu Qingfang. “And you can hardly make any long-term commitments to your patients.” In the distance, he could just make out a green-robed figure stepping onto the rainbow bridge, and he deflated.
“I am not ascending tomorrow,” said Wen Lin drily. “Nor the day after. As our circumstances change, we can reevaluate, of course, but I will oversee his care for now.”
“But—” Mu Qingfang tried, before he was silenced by Wen Lin’s judgmental eyebrows. “Very well,” he acquiesced, none too gracefully. “I expect you’ll keep me apprised?”
“If it concerns you,” said Wen Lin in a tone that indicated she found it unlikely that it ever would.
“Thanking shijie for her consideration,” said Mu Qingfang resentfully.”
The mists rose and faded. Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu played instruments together, read silently together, talked together, argued together. Shen Yuan had never had a friend like this before. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that none of this was real, that it was all just a dream about a rando xianxia background character so minor he couldn’t even remember where he’d read about them.
Anyway, the waking world wasn’t that different from the dream one. He was still in his same apartment, doing the same things, reading the same stories, playing the same instruments. The only difference was that he was in pain, and he was alone.
He was starting to prefer being asleep to being awake.
Next Chapter
Fandom: Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
Pairing/Characters: Shen Jiu & Shen Yuan, Shen Jiu & everyone, Shen Yuan & Shang Qinghua, Shen Jiu & Yue Qingyuan
Rating: NR (probably T?)
Warnings:
Word Count: 2,541, Ch. 3 / 5; See All Chapters
Summary: Shen Yuan unwittingly gives character-growth advice to the Qing Jing head disciple Shen Jiu in a weak plot device of a shared dream. Of course, advice that's good from a plot perspective isn't always advice that's good for the individual, especially when that individual is a real person with real emotions and real trauma.
Shen Qingqiu hadn’t tried the Dream Seeking Wisdom flower again, but somehow he had met the flower spirit despite that. Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan. Was he some ancestor, sharing his wisdom after ascension? But something in Shen Qingqiu rebelled against that interpretation. Shen Yuan didn’t feel like an ancestor. And after all, Shen Qingqiu’s own surname had been chosen by he himself, after he decided he liked the sound and the shape of the character. Sharing the same surname in this case held no suggestion of a shared bloodline. And yet… it felt significant, somehow. And Shen Yuan himself hadn’t blinked at either their shared surname nor at the personal name Shen Qingqiu had shared with him. A slave’s name. But perhaps he’d assumed it had a different meaning, or perhaps in his spirit world, numbered names were common.
Shen Qingqiu had tried to follow the advice he’d learned from Shen Yuan’s strange, condensed library, but if anything, his attempts only made him feel worse. On reflection, he was able to recognise the problem—the theory underlying the documents he had read clearly specified that this therapy involved being exposed to that thing causing your fear until you learned that your feared outcome never came to pass. That was never going to work for Shen Qingqiu—his fears were rational, and exposure to those things he was afraid of did produce the feared result. He had only tested this in small ways—spending more time with his male peers, and so on—but it was clear that in the absence of the requisite safe environment, this therapy was useless to him.
His first experiment inspired by the flower spirit, though—that one continued to have merit. Shen Qingqiu smiled, and Shen Qingqiu bowed, and Shen Qingqiu didn’t start fights even when his fellow disciples were begging to have their faces rearranged. His wrists were dark with bruises, and his exhaustion and terror made him a little listless and vague at times, but his seniors were looking at him with more and more approval as time passed on. Shen Qingqiu made himself as pleasant as possible, ignored the sneers and insults of his peers, and tried to spend as much of his time alone as possible.
“Sh-shixiong, I found this excellent new tea, and—”
Shen Qingqiu sighed and put down his xiao. “Thanking shidi for his consideration,” he said blandly. Still, as irritating as Shang Qinghua was, he was growing on Shen Qingqiu, if only because of his clear concern over Shen Qingqiu’s health. “Please,” he said, “join me.”
They sat silently, and then Shang Qinghua pulled out a ledger and started working on it, muttering to himself and seemingly forgetting that Shen Qingqiu was there. Eventually, Shen Qingqiu picked up his xiao again, and Shang Qinghua didn’t seem bothered by the rudeness at all. They continued that way, sharing the same space but focused on their own pursuits, until their free period ended, and they went their separate ways.
It was… nice. It reminded Shen Qingqiu of the time he’d spent in Shen Yuan’s spirit flower home. It reminded him of what it felt like to not be afraid.
When Liu Qingge approached Yue Qingyuan, the older disciple smiled at him and said, “I’m sorry, Liu-shidi, but I don’t have time to spar today.”
As though that was the only thing Liu Qingge was interested in! Liu Qingge ignored the twinge of disappointment in his stomach and realigned his strategy—he had, indeed, intended to request a spar as a means of introducing the delicate topic.
With that path blocked for him, he simply said directly, “I wanted to talk to you about Shen Qingqiu.”
As expected, Yue Qingyuan perked up even as his eyes sharpened. “Of course, this shixiong is happy to listen,” he said, even as he beckoned Liu Qingge into his private office, protected by sound-proofing wards.
Liu Qingge sat as directed and began outlining his concerns. Shen Qingqiu was acting strange, yes, but Shen Qingqiu was also looking unhealthy and frightened. Shen Qingqiu was clearly being threatened by someone or something, but Liu Qingge hadn’t seen him interacting with anyone for any lengthy period of time other than Shang Qinghua, around whom he seemed at his most relaxed. And wasn’t it suspicious that this had all started right when Shen Qingqiu’s excessively permissive shizun was gone on an extended trip?
Yue Qingyuan’s face settled into a rare frown. “Liu-shidi has been working hard,” he said quietly. “But it may be the case that there is nothing left to learn from following Shen-shidi. If this shixiong may so impose, it may be better to redirect your surveillance to another target. Perhaps Shang-shidi would be a good starting point?”
Liu Qingge nodded agreeably. “Shang Qinghua, or the other Qing Jing disciples.”
Yue Qingyuan’s face had returned to its usual serene smile. “Leave the Qing Jing disciples to me.”
The mist rose and receded, leaving behind a yawning Shen Jiu. They were back in Shen Yuan’s flat, as they had been since that very first dream. Shen Jiu didn’t even glance over at Shen Yuan before picking up the tablet and settling on the armchair to read, his shoulders relaxed as he continued to devour his way through all the Chinese-language psychological resources available via Shen Yuan’s WiFi connection.
When Shen Jiu arrived, Shen Yuan was picking his way through an improv arrangement of his new obsession’s OP on his qin. He usually used his piano for recreating anime and donghua OSTs, but he’d been in the mood for the qin, lately.
He had passed out during his lecture and had been firmly handed a recommendation by his university that he complete the rest of his requirements online, even as his classmates giggled into their phones as they compared footage of his gasping, blue-tinged face, all captured before the paramedics arrived and they were chased out of the room. It had been an airborne allergen, they told a resuscitated Shen Yuan and his stony-faced older brother, who had come roaring onto campus when he’d gotten the call that Shen Yuan was ill—again.
The strings bit into his calluses even as they sang for him, and something about the tiny, benign pain followed by the success of a puzzle solved, a goal achieved, was cathartic. He looked up and saw that Shen Jiu was looking at him.
“Do you like music?” Shen Yuan asked, even as he directed his fingers into the familiar patterns of the opening sequence to One-Winged Angel. “Hey, you could look up ‘musical therapy’ for your next research project!”
Shen Jiu frowned at him, but obediently typed in the search terms. That kid was a natural net boy—soon, he’d be more familiar with the tablet than Shen Yuan was. He’d even picked up pinyin in no time at all. As he did so, Shen Jiu asked, faux casually, “Why does your qin have seven strings?”
Shen Yuan blinked, a little surprised by the question. He was, of course, fully prepared to discuss the history and development of the instrument, and how it had and hadn’t changed over its millenia of usage. He was prepared to compare the practical differences between different numbers of strings. He was prepared to justify his decision to hunt down the rare and increasingly difficult to come by silk strings over the more common steel-nylon strings.
He was prepared to do all of this, but instead he simply said, “Would you like to try?”
Shen Jiu came over, and Shen Yuan moved aside so that Shen Jiu could sit behind the instrument. He was a skilled musician, and he overcame his unfamiliarity quickly as he began experimenting through different melodies. Shen Yuan listened quietly, hiding a smile behind his ragged sleeve. None of his siblings were interested in music, not beyond the social necessities of having something intelligent to say at the opera to impress their business associates, or his second brother’s not-so-secret obsession with K-Pop. It was nice to see that his dream friend shared some of his interests, at least.
When Shen Jiu finished his impromptu composition and settled the strings, Shen Yuan said, “Want to see my piano?”
That dream was a lot of fun, too. Shen Yuan almost regretted waking up to the chime of a new chapter of Proud Immortal Demon Way.
“Do you have anything that helps with sleep?” asked Shen Qingqiu as he accepted Shang Qinghua’s latest offering. Even Liu Qingge seemed to have gotten bored with tailing Shen Qingqiu when he failed to do anything nefarious, but Shang Qinghua continued to appear at intervals too regular to be anything but scheduled, and he always came with some new, rare tea for Shen Qingqiu. The teas were uniformly disgusting, so Shen Qingqiu made a point of smilingly sharing them with Shang Qinghua.
Shang Qinghua blinked up at him. “With… sleep?”
“Yes, shidi,” said Shen Qingqiu serenely. “That thing where one reclines, closes one’s eyes, and drifts into another plane during a period of rest and rejuvenation.”
He had tentatively begun to allow some of his sardonic tones and acerbic commentary to slip back into his conversations with Shang Qinghua, and he was surprised to discover that, when applied with moderation, Shang Qinghua was completely unfazed by it. It made his little social gatherings with Shang Qinghua almost… relaxing.
“Yes, but like with falling asleep? With keeping from falling asleep? With sleeping in a particular way? With entering into a particular dreamscape? With avoiding dreams? With entering into a centuries-long coma that can only be broken by dual cultivation with your one-true-love? What kind of sleep tea are we talking about, here?”
“Definitely not that last one,” replied Shen Qingqiu, disgusted. “Is that a real effect?”
Shang Qinghua shuddered. “Yeah, the Eternal Sleep Rose produces something like that. I always thought that story was kind of… ew, especially when I read the Grimm Fairy Tales version where—uh, but yeah, it’s a real effect.”
“I’m looking for a tea that will help me to fall asleep,” Shen Qingqiu said with careful precision after a moment of horror. “Perhaps a relaxant, or something that helps to reduce anxiety. Nothing that would prevent me from waking if disturbed, and nothing that blocks me from having dreams.”
“I could probably find something,” said Shang Qinghua, a little doubtfully. “But wouldn’t it be better to just go to Qian Cao for something like that?”
Shen Qingqiu was silent. It was familiar advice, to see professional help. It was repeated often in Shen Yuan’s spiritual library.
“If there’s someone there that you’re avoiding, you can request not to be seen by them,” Shang Qinghua coaxed. “Especially if you’re able to provide a good reason.”
“I’m not interested in sharing my good reasons.”
“So make one up,” said Shang Qinghua carelessly. “Or schedule a visit for a time that person is off-shift or on a mission. I could help you with that.”
Shen Qingqiu stared at him, his jaw working. Finally, he said, a little shell-shocked, “This shixiong gratefully accepts his shidi’s assistance in this matter.”
“I don’t think it’s Shang Qinghua,” said Liu Qingge after summarising his report for Yue Qingyuan. “If anything, he seems to be trying to help. He keeps bringing weird medicinal teas that really seem to be medicinal, and he even convinced Shen Qingqiu to visit Qian Cao Peak. We could bring him in on the mission.”
“Hmm.” Yue Qingyuan frowned down at the mission-style report Liu Qingge had handed him. “No. Not yet, at least. But perhaps it is time to recruit another person to our cause. I’ve noticed Mu-shidi has been looking increasingly concerned at Shen-shidi’s deteriorating condition. I observed him reaching out to Shen-shidi on multiple occasions, but he was always rebuffed. Politely.”
Politely was Shen Qingqiu’s new modus operandi, even when faced with things that would have made him puff up in apoplectic fury not too long ago. Even Yue Qingyuan’s excitement at Shen Qingqiu’s mild treatment had begun to fade at his continued lack of warmth. The cold politeness seemed to be wearing on him almost as much as the cold rejection once had.
“We can feel him out,” said Liu Qingge, and it was immediately understood between them that by we, he really meant you, as Liu Qingge was not blessed with subtlety. “What about the Qing Jing disciples?”
“I can’t say they’re not suspicious in terms of motive and desire, but based on their general confusion, I would say the means of this particular problem are likely beyond them,” said Yue Qingyuan with diplomatic care.
Liu Qingge snorted indelicately, thinking of the green-robed scholars who were so good at talking big and so bad at doing big. At least Shen Qingqiu really had tried to stab him in the back rather than just talking about it. “I’ll bet.”
Mu Qingfang jerked his head up in surprise. “Shen Qingqiu is here?” he asked urgently, interrupting the quiet gossiping of two novices. He’d chastise them for their lack of professional discretion later. “Seeking medical care?”
The novices changed nervous glances. “Yes, Mu-shixiong,” one said.
“Where is he? I’ll see him.”
“He’s already with another healer—” the other novice tried.
“I will take over his case,” said Mu Qingfang firmly.
“No,” said Wen Lin from behind him, “you will not.” She was one of the oldest disciples on the peak, and her seniority gave her a certain weight on the peak. She was on track to ascend not long after the current generation of peak lords, or she might have been the succeeding disciple rather than Mu Qingfang.
“It would be better for him to receive care from a peer,” argued Mu Qingfang. “And you can hardly make any long-term commitments to your patients.” In the distance, he could just make out a green-robed figure stepping onto the rainbow bridge, and he deflated.
“I am not ascending tomorrow,” said Wen Lin drily. “Nor the day after. As our circumstances change, we can reevaluate, of course, but I will oversee his care for now.”
“But—” Mu Qingfang tried, before he was silenced by Wen Lin’s judgmental eyebrows. “Very well,” he acquiesced, none too gracefully. “I expect you’ll keep me apprised?”
“If it concerns you,” said Wen Lin in a tone that indicated she found it unlikely that it ever would.
“Thanking shijie for her consideration,” said Mu Qingfang resentfully.”
The mists rose and faded. Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu played instruments together, read silently together, talked together, argued together. Shen Yuan had never had a friend like this before. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that none of this was real, that it was all just a dream about a rando xianxia background character so minor he couldn’t even remember where he’d read about them.
Anyway, the waking world wasn’t that different from the dream one. He was still in his same apartment, doing the same things, reading the same stories, playing the same instruments. The only difference was that he was in pain, and he was alone.
He was starting to prefer being asleep to being awake.
Next Chapter