Chapter Text
Shen Yuan didn’t usually dream.
It was too cold, the temperature was carefully maintained at a level just above what would send him into hibernation, but far below what he would ever consider comfortable. Maybe some of the other snakes found it cozy, but not him! He missed his pelts! Between the gritty floor, his tail-ring, and the musty air, getting cozy just wasn’t possible. Still, he had a little ritual about bed-time, especially since sleeping was one of the only things to do nowadays.
First, Shen Yuan would go to the corner, coil up, and shift from side to side to create a divot in the sand. Then, he’d tighten and arrange the coil so his body formed a nice little nook to cushion his head and blanket his tail—a configuration he much preferred to his human body when mattresses weren’t available.
Then… that was it, really. He wasn’t kidding when he called it a little ritual. He had no eyelids to close, it was already dark, and it was impossible to change anything else about his little drawer. So, he just focused on relaxing his body as much as possible and laid in wait for sleep to pass the time for him.
He dozed in and out, in and out. With open eyes, it was more like he “noticed” the little bit of light glinting thorough the air holes every once in a while. A disciple’s footsteps passed, and he became aware of the glint again just in time for it to go dark.
The lanterns were going out. Time for the real people to go to sleep.
At some point, sleep beckoned harder than usual. Nonexistent warmth wrapped around him and drowsiness tugged on eyelids he didn’t have, which was such a disconcerting sensation that he almost snapped out of it. Alas, Shen Yuan followed the summons and sank into the best sleep he’d had in years.
He was allowed exactly one second to enjoy it before sunlight awoke him. He regarded this impossibility with the carefree irritation of a dreamer. The sun sank into his bones—or at least it tried, but couldn’t quite satisfy—and emerald grass tickled his legs. He took a deep breath of fresh spring air and unhinged his jaw to get a good yawn in. He cracked his eyes open, greeted by the sight of his old creek, full from recent rain, with soft fragrant wildflowers spilling over the banks. A Silver Ribbon Deer bled out on the opposite shore. It was still twitching. Hunger and panic stuck Shen Yuan in equal measure to see the blood leaking into the water.
He didn’t want to think about that, not when he was finally home. Had he ever left? Not important. He spotted a nice warm rock, slithered up, and lay down again without even bothering to coil. He closed his eyes again and melted into a buttered noodle.
“Hello?”
Shen Yuan cracked an eye open to glare at the trespasser—smells like demon, they’re never good company—and startled into further awareness when he saw a human boy instead. He looked familiar, but Shen Yuan just couldn’t place his face…
He was handsome, for one thing. Definitely leaning more towards pretty, but there was no doubt he’d grow into a heart-stopping beauty. Shen Yuan felt like he would remember a face like that. The boy had dark, wavy hair pulled back into a high ponytail, rough hands, a scabbard at his hip, and black robes. He looked about… 17?
The boy wrung his hands and repeated himself. “Hello? Can you help me?”
Shen Yuan yawned. Why is he talking to a snake? If he knows I can understand him, he should be trying to kill me. Unless… ah, yes, the smell.
Shen Yuan responded while stretching his arms far above his head. Logic (what little of it he possessed right now) said to drive demonic trespassers away, but something bloody and feral in him wanted the stranger to stay, stay, stay. He did his best to play it cool. “That depends entirely upon what you need help with,” Shen Yuan drawled.
“I-I’m lost, could you point me to the nearest village?”
Shen Yuan scoffed. “As if I’m going to lead a disguised demon to a human village.” The closest he could bring himself to saying ‘get out of my territory’ was a simple, “forget about it.”
The boy drew back, lips pursed. “What?”
“If you were human, you wouldn’t ask a snake for help, you’d kill it.”
“... Perhaps this human is desperate for help?”
“From an animal?” Shen Yuan laughed.
The boy smiled and crossed his arms. “You don’t look like an animal. You look like a demon.”
Shen Yuan looked down at his hands. Oh huh, whaddya know? Still, he scowled at his visitor. “That’s worse! If your scent hadn’t given you away, I would have sent you to a doctor to get your eyes checked. I was on guard the moment I smelled you.”
The boy’s mouth flattened into a grim smile. “Such concern for your prey.”
Shen Yuan hissed and straightened up. “Do not refer to them as prey! Humans are not for eating!”
The boy raised a brow and cocked his head to the side—as if mildly surprised by something far beneath them. “For playing with, then? Why so protective?”
Shen Yuan curled his lip and arched his back. Wait, aren’t I humanoid right now? Why am I posing like a snake? He dismissed the thought and drew closer—within striking range. He found himself thinking depressing thoughts in advance to prime his venom. He couldn't remember, what did he use on trespassers again?
That one time I missed the final bid on limited edition merch. I’ll never browse the internet again. I miss mei-mei, I hope she wasn’t the one to find my body—
Too depressing, too deadly for a sedative! Pull back!
… Crying puppies.
Good enough. Shen Yuan geared up for a proper scolding and began, “Humans are thinking beings, but they’re also very fragile. They are not for eating. They are not for toying with. I’ve learned a lot from watching them work, my life wouldn’t be nearly this good without the skills they’ve taught me. If a demon comes and attacks even one person, though, they’ll call their cultivators and throw up walls. How long do you think my home would last if someone like Shen Qingqiu investigated the area?” Shen Yuan sniffed and turned up his nose at the idea. “No thank you! Find something without sentience to eat, before I start biting.”
The young demon didn’t have nearly as much fear as Shen Yuan was aiming for. Instead, he leveled Shen Yuan with a cold smirk. “Have some experience with that, do you?”
Shen Yuan’s hackles lowered a bit out of pure shock, but more with his own feelings toward the comeback than anything. He felt slighted, but the anger was impotent, as if he knew the other man had a point. He stepped back, his face falling into a pensive, distant stare.
He did, didn’t he? They captured him. But if he was captured, then why was he home?
“Oh,” Shen Yuan said, his voice hollow, “I’m dreaming.”
The young demon looked vaguely disappointed, meanwhile Shen Yuan looked around his home once more. This was the closest he would ever get to it again. He took in the wildflowers, the sunshine, the fresh cool water. He even spared a long look at the psyche's-reflection-of-inner-guilt-deer, running a hand down the soft, warm, white hide he was dressed in. It’d been years since he’d had arms, or clothes, or a proper voice. He usually wasn’t capable of dreaming in this much detail, he slept too shallowly. Even before his captivity, it’d never come that naturally to him.
Some more things clicked into place for him, making dread and excitement surge and mix into nausea. He turned to the boy, Luo Binghe, and kowtowed. “What can this lowly snake do for you, Junshang? Surely there are better minds to explore in the palace?”
The dream shut down so fast it sent his mind reeling. He could feel his consciousness pinwheeling in the darkness, and for a moment the excitement and trepidation of it all was skyrocketing him towards consciousness. Just as the feeling of coarse sand under his belly edged into his awareness, something seized his mind and yanked him back under. His being was weighted down, down, until even a single thought was outside his capabilities.
Shen Yuan simply was, while his brain wasn’t.
Then, that same force which had pulled and shoved his mind every which way pried it open. The discomfort of it woke him up just enough that he could feel, feel eyes on his innards, feel figurative hands flipping through him like a book.
Then the memories began.
“We have to move fast now that it’s out of the crate. I’ll seal it, you hold it down. Quickly!”
Shen Yuan was shoved to the ground, but with his wrists bound behind him, he could not catch the fall. His nose took the brunt of the impact with the stone floor, but his front teeth ached and his mouth filled with blood. A boot slammed down between his shoulder blades to flatten him to the ground, forcing a weak cry of pain out of his chest. A slip of paper was slapped onto the back of his neck, and he experienced the excruciating sensation of being crushed into his animal form without his input. He wailed as bones and sinew popped into its proper place slowly, gracelessly, guided by force rather than nature. The pressure fell off his back, only to be replaced by a harsh fist around his neck and hips each. A sharp pain pierced the scales on both sides of his tail, slid though muscle, scraped against bone, and clicked into place with a pulse of spiritual qi.
“Good work, now hold its mouth shut while I get the clamp ready.”
-
He wanted to wake up.
-
“This just demonstrates that any environment it inhabits becomes too toxic to sustain life. It’s irresponsible to let it live; even its ashes should be handled carefully!”
“And we will take care to dispose of it responsibly once the time comes, but shouldn’t some good come of this tragedy? We can make sure this never happens again by keeping a proper stock of antidotes—it’s only fair that it should be made to right its own wrongs.”
-
He needed to wake up.
-
Shen Yuan dipped his DIY brush in his gritty homemade ink. “One last thing. I’m not sure if this will be an issue, but if you feel sick at all after wearing or touching this hide, please get rid of it. I don’t want you to get hurt,” he wrote.
-
Please let him wake up.
-
He followed the scent of the suspicious demon all the way to the village outskirts, slithering through the underbrush until a bare ankle came into view. Quickly, he recalled the scene of Simba tugging on Mufasa’s ear to try and wake his father up: a tried-and-true tranquilizer. It wouldn’t be easy to drag this trespasser back to his cave when unconscious, but he wanted to make sure this first warning shot really sunk in.
-
In the dead of night, Shen Yuan pulled a chipped teacup out of the trash heap and marveled over the gorgeous craftsmanship. He tucked it into his bag and scurried back into the woods. Living alone did not necessitate this many plates, but it was nice to be prepared for guests.
-
“Get away from that thing!”
“Snake! Kill it!”
-
Please?
The presence slowed and lingered, now, on something more substantial. Shen Yuan braced himself as they surged in and focused this time.
-
Shen Yuan slithered through the underbrush in his snake form, carefully tasting the air with a flick of his black tongue. The ambient taste was of damp soil, rotting leaf-litter, and fading territory markers, but he could smell fresh water and fur now. A little closer, and the cloven hooves of a Silver Ribbon Deer came into view. It was a spiritual creature that could only thrive in very specific conditions, though the creatures themselves were quite… prolific. It didn’t take long for Shen Yuan to realize he was one of the predators that was supposed to keep their population in check.
The vents lining his cheekbones caught the infrared-heat of his prey’s body glowing in the dark. He still got a little lightheaded if he thought about it too long—being able to see(?) through his new nostrils(???)—so he’d mastered the art not thinking about it much at all. If something was warm, it glowed now. Don’t ask him what color that glow was, the best he could tell you was ‘to the left of red, in the same way red is to the left of yellow’.
He couldn’t deny that it made the world beautiful. The trail of his body’s movement left ribbons of light, the deer’s footsteps dappled the ground like sunlight, and their every breath left a fleeting glowing cloud. Sleeping birds, insects, and fellow reptiles dotted the trees with living ornamentation, all of it that incomprehensible un-red which, somehow, didn’t interfere with his normal color vision. His night-vision might have left something to be desired, yet he still carried this ace up his sleeve (not that he had arms to wear them at the time).
Shen Yuan went perfectly still and allowed the light of the deer the fully press upon him. He could tell it has a silver glow as well by the way he could make out individual strands of silky white fur, the pink of its nose, and the green of lily pads bobbing in the water as it bent its head to drink from the pond. Its heat-glow is strongest around its head and torso. The vents under Shen Yuan’s eyes are so sensitive that he can see its pulse through its body, the bright gleam of its warm tongue become dulled by the dark water, the movement of its blood bringing warmth back to its muzzle when it finally lifts its head and licks the water droplets from its nose.
Are normal pit vipers able to see with this much detail, or is this a demon thing? Having multiple vents suggests that I’m a python-adjacent species, but the emphasis on venom in the creature design, the placement below the eyes instead of above the lips, and most importantly the name of my species suggests otherwise—
Anyway.
Shen Yuan coiled his body into a tight S, extended his fangs, and struck out before the Silver Ribbon Deer could bolt. Blood flooded his mouth once his fangs found purchase in its neck, he wrapped his body tightly around its head, and wrinkled his nose to properly push his teeth as deep into the flesh as possible. He made sure to think about Airplane—that stupid fucking hack—and released his venom directly into the jugular. As his anger invaded the deer’s heart, the taste of blood instantly turned sour and bitter. The deer reared up on its hind legs, screamed, and tried to stumble into a sprint. The cry gurgled to a stop as its legs crumpled. Shen Yuan shifted back into human form and hurriedly stepped back to let his prey fall, not wanting to be crushed or dropped in a form that was 90% ribs.
It slumped down mid-step, its own weight pushing a wet wheeze out of its lungs. Dead before it hit the ground.
Shen Yuan watched this with a guilty twist to his mouth, kneeling down now to pet along its flank. He couldn’t comfort it now. He wished he had ready access to some other, nobler emotion, but that potent mix of anger and disgust was the deadliest in his repertoire. Hell, it’d killed him in his first life, too. Until he’d practiced enough with the bow and arrow to ensure a quick kill shot every time, he would have to rely on this mercy.
Leaving the envenomated body here would poison any scavengers that tried a bite, so he grabbed it by the ankles and slung the delicate creature over his shoulders to take home. Though he wasn’t looking forward to choking down the meat, he let his thumb pet over the fur on its leg with anticipation.
The Silver Ribbon Deer was naturally rich in spiritual qi, so rich that the body never quite grew cold… though it was definitely warmer than it looked, so perhaps it was just a weak version of burning demons to the touch? Warmth was warmth, however, and though Shen Yuan didn’t relish his role as a predator in this ecosystem he called home, he couldn’t deny that these silver-white pelts were his favorite to work with.
Shen Yuan took the body to his home cave, shifted aside the woven curtain of vines, and took it to the downward-sloping fork. He made sure to keep his footing steady (the tradeoff of not being mostly ribs in a humanoid form was, annoyingly, sprainable ankles) until he got to the butchering chamber. He hung the deer by the ankles, donned an apron of ugly hide from his early experiments with tanning, and got to work with his stolen knife.
One section of the wall was damp from a constant stream of water, more of a slow drip now that they were in the dry season, which pooled into a small basin. He didn’t know where the water went when it drained, but this is where he poured the blood and wastewater when he cleaned up after himself.
The memory detoured briefly as it ‘reminded’ Shen Yuan of something else.
Shen Yuan bent his head over the basin, extended his fangs, and thought of fluffy kittens as he pressed his thumb just under his cheekbone to squeeze the venom gland. A single drop of bright orange venom dissipated into the deep pool. He monitored the area for the next few days, but he kept an especially close eye on the village downriver from him. No odd activity from the wildlife, no mania or sudden song and dance from the villagers. The next day, he tried it again with all the happy-venom he could muster. Weeks passed. Still nothing. Wherever that water was draining, the animals weren’t drinking it.
(Shen Yuan feels a pulse of pure dread and self-loathing. The memory went back on track)
Clean, dry, and his new food stores tucked away, Shen Yuan turned back into a snake and slithered back out of his cave, up the rocky face around its entrance, higher still until he was at the top of a small plateau. The rocks here absorbed delectable amounts of heat for sunning, but that’s not what he was here for.
Here stood his tanning frames and jerky racks. There were many sticks and old twine bundled into piles of failures for scrap, but two of each structure stood as testaments to his perseverance and observation. Shen Yuan shifted onto two legs for the benefit of dexterous hands and pet his hand over the most recent hide. It was finally done.
Once he’d undone all the little strips of scrap hide tying it to the frame, he pulled the hide over his lap and just took a moment to admire his hard work. The plain side was soft and even, pale and unblemished enough to use as paper. This was good enough to use as clothing he would be proud to wear. He’d kept the fur this time to make for a more versatile gift, and was glad to see the strands hadn’t grown brittle or coarse. It was just as soft and bright as it had been on the living creature.
Relief flooded him to know that an animal’s life had gone towards something good, something that made the world feel a little better, not just something he cut into scraps, rags, and ribbons to hide how ugly it’d come out.
He carefully trimmed the edges, folded it, and tied it up with his best twine (scavenged from the trash heaps around the village). Most importantly, he tucked a small note of scrap paper and charcoal characters into the folds. He squeezed it tight to his chest before transforming, that way it would get stored in whatever pocket-dimension his clothes went into when he turned into a snake, and slithered on his merry way to the hunter’s hut.
The sun had set by the time he arrived at the right clearing, but there was still light in the windows. While Shen Yuan waited, the memory flipped through all the times he had waited in the bushes or the trees, silently observing the hunter field-dress his kills, how he held his knife, what he mixed to make a good tanning solution, and how he stored his meat. All of these were life-saving skills to an ex-city-dweller like Shen Yuan. This hunter was the reason Shen Yuan hadn’t starved to death, the reason he’d survived the last couple winters in comfort. Hell, this hunter was the reason he wasn’t walking around naked right now—the clothes he’d transmigrated into were beyond ruined within the first year, so Shen Yuan had moved on to watching the village weaver. His next goal was to figure out spinning and looms.
So, once the candles went out and a reasonable amount of time had passed, Shen Yuan turned back into a demon, walked to the hut, and laid the fur bundle reverently on the window sill. He had no good containers for his venom, nor did he have any real experience with creating certain effects. As much as he would like to leave a bottle of panacea or pure euphoria here for one of his favorite humans, this little symbol of his gratitude would have to do.
The hunter’s dog erupted into a frenzy of barking and snarling from inside, making him fall back with alarm. Before the hunter could light a lantern or even get out of bed, Shen Yuan had scrambled away and slithered up into a tree to wait until the coast was clear. From here he curled up on a high branch and set his eyes on the rest of the village.
Everything was peaceful. No change in the livestock, the crops seemed healthy (as far as he could tell in the dark), and the buildings still stood strong. There were still a few candles lit in the weaver's window. Nothing new, except… what was with that hole? Were they digging a well? Shen Yuan would squint in this form if he could. He supposed it’d been a drier season than usual; the river must be running too low to provide for everyone’s needs. He hoped they struck water.
(Shen Yuan wanted to wail. He wanted to cry and thrash and weep.)
The memory diverted ever-so-slightly, just a few weeks in the future.
His entire body throbbed like the giant bruise it was, splayed out half-dead on the floor of his cave. Through the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, Shen Yuan looked at his human hunter standing behind a tall, elegant cultivator dressed in green.
“The pelts here, do they match your ‘gift?’” The cultivator asked, gesturing disdainfully to Shen Yuan’s bed with his fan. “If not, then we need to keep searching for the real culprit.” The hunter stepped forward and reached out to pet the furs, only for the cultivator to snap, “Don’t touch them, idiot!”
(The presence flinched at the sound of this voice.)
A second cultivator spoke behind Shen Yuan, this one with a much gentler voice. Shen Yuan recognized him as the one who had been treating the villagers. “The welts only formed with prolonged exposure. If you absolutely need touch to identify, please be sure to wash your hands thoroughly afterwards.”
Despite the reassurance, the hunter clasped his hands behind his back and crouched down to get a better look without touching. “Yes,” he said. “These are Silver Ribbon Deer pelts. They leave no tracks—” They don’t? “—and they’re too fast even when I do find one. I don’t know if it’s possible for there to be two hunters in this area good enough to catch one, let alone this many.”
“We should all hope that isn’t the case,” the green cultivator said. “If there were two Heart’s Truth Viper Demons in the area, we’d have to look for eggs to crush.” The cultivator turned a cold sneer to Shen Yuan. “Why are we keeping it alive for Huan Hua? If its venom is really so useful, you should keep the thing for yourself, shixiong.”
The gentle voice spoke again. “I personally don’t trust a demon to give exact venom effects and dosages on command, especially not one we’ve slighted. Every single dose would need animal testing, and we simply don’t have the budget for that much waste.” A pause. “Besides, Huan Hua Palace has only agreed to provide the amount of antidote the village needs on the condition that we give the demon in return. Something about ‘replacing their stock?’”
The cultivator in green huffed and turned away. Shen Yuan let his eye slide closed, relieved.
-
The presence, bored or satisfied with whatever answers they’d gleaned from the exchange, shut the memory down. There was a moment of darkness before the presence started flipping back to earlier and earlier memories.
-
The hunger gnawing at Shen Yuan was what finally broke his resolve, but the deer was much harder to kill than he anticipated. It shrieked and bucked, sprinted without a care for the branches whipping at its hide, rolled across the ground, until Shen Yuan’s fear for his life and guilt over such a messy, painful kill was what did the thing in.
-
A cave! A cave with a fresh, clean water source inside and nearby! He could cry with happiness!
Best to save that for spring, however. For now, he was stuffing dead grass and leaves into a little alcove in the stone wall. Once he was done poking it all into place with his hands, he slithered inside and curled up. A little itchy, but the benefits of napping as a snake were not to be understated! Hibernation came quickly.
-
The presence hit a wall, then focused on it.
-
Of course he’d transmigrate into a cold-blooded creature in winter. Why was this body still awake? Why was it outside?! No wonder it died! He trudged through the wilderness, bones aching, skin stinging, drenched with sleet. He tried to hide under the trees, but that shelter wasn’t enough, and even then the ice-water had a way of sliding off the leaves and pouring directly down the back of his robe's collar.
His eyes darted around for anything that could be used as shelter. Then, he spotted a not-red glow in the ground. A burrow. Knowing his humanoid form was the only thing affording him a scrap of warmth, he got as close as possible to the opening of the burrow and bowed his head so he would slip right in once transformed.
Once inside, he followed the glow directly to the nesting chamber, then wrapped himself tightly around the creature sleeping inside: a Chinese hamster with a shining golden coat and a strange scent. He’d later recognize it as a spiritual creature, though quite a weak one. Instantly it woke up and started thrashing. Much to his surprise, however, he could understand the hamster's panicked squeaking.
“Woah hey what the fuck!” Shen Yuan tightened his coil—like hell he was going to give up his new personal space heater. “Holy shit, oh fuck, oh god. Please don’t eat me, you really don’t want to anyway I’m all stringy and bitter from stress and I’ve got no meat and—”
“Shut up.” Shen Yuan grumbled, burying his cold nose into the rodent’s soft, warm belly.
It squeaked and tried to claw him away, muttering, “Shit you’re cold!”
“No shit Sherlock, it’s winter.”
“What are you doing in here?!”
“I’m cold-blooded. Stop squirming, I’m not gonna eat you, I just need to get warm. Like hell I’m going to let myself die a second time in, like, five minutes.”
There was a long, considering silence.
“Proud Immortal Demon Way,” said the hamster.
“What the fuck?” Said the snake. “What do you know about that garbage?”
It seemed the dreams were taking a sudden turn from just unpleasant to actively dangerous. The feeling of observation intensified. To make things worse, or perhaps better, there was a faint strobe of blue over Shen Yuan’s vision—not part of the memory. Then there was a bit of static, some flashing colors, and the effect died. It was like trying to turn on a laptop that’d been run over by a car.
Despite the pitiful efforts of Shen Yuan’s System to at least become visible and issue a warning, it still achieved one thing: The memory sputtered out. When the presence—Luo Binghe of course, Shen Yuan realized (again) now that the distraction allowed him another shred of brain activity—tried to resummon the memory, Shen Yuan had to sit through his first meeting with Xiang Fei three more times, each time flickering dead just before mentioning PIDW.
Pure irritation radiated from Luo Binghe. He reached for earlier memories, but there wasn’t even a flicker this time. The poor protagonist tugged at dead weight, a broken door. The moments just before Shen Yuan was wandering through the sleet, how he arrived, and even his childhood just weren’t there. In terms of the memories Luo Binghe had access to, Shen Yuan might as well have popped into existence 8 years ago.
However, Shen Yuan obviously still had access to those memories. Judging by the way Luo Binghe had pulled up the older, functional memories again—some of them he’d already seen, most of them new—the protagonist still hadn’t found whatever information he was looking for.
Shen Yuan braced himself for a long night.
/
Luo Binghe woke up to the morning bells and took a moment to stare at his bed’s canopy in a fugue state of utter frustration. He’d answered the minor curiosity he went there for, but walked away with a brand new (and very pressing) question. Not only that, but he’d gathered boatloads of utterly useless information in pursuit of answers.
“You’re forgetting something,” Meng Mo sighed. Luo Binghe ignored him and went over his new intel.
On the rare occasion the snake introduced himself to visiting demons, Luo Binghe discovered his name was Shen Yuan. He was cautiously hospitable, but hostile towards any sign of harm towards his large territory.
He was also completely oblivious about attempts to court him. The possibility that any living soul might be attracted to him simply did not occur to the little idiot, which amused and baffled Luo Binghe in equal measure.
Shen Yuan had a strangely muddled self-image. In the introductory dream it was constantly shifting between demon, snake, and a human. The human form never appeared in memories, however, no matter how close he tried to come to the village’s people. Inversely, the human form had been clearest in the dream, while the other two forms had blurry, distorted faces. It was a common trait in those who lived away from civilization; good reflections were hard to come by in the wild.
Luo Binghe had also confirmed that the snake went out of his way to avoid killing. Even intruders got leniency other demons never extended. Additionally, that snake-milker in the basement was incorrect (possibly a misunderstanding, but probably just sensationalism): it was not the river Shen Yuan poisoned, but a source of groundwater. That only became an issue when the village randomly needed to dig a well and accessed it directly, since presumably the poison was denaturing or getting filtered by something before it could resurface otherwise. That’s how Shen Yuan could live there for years without causing significant issues: the circumstances of his capture were sincerely just bad luck.
Luo Binghe noted this as a point of interest for his future goals: a demon that wanted to protect and coexist with humankind. He wondered if Shen Yuan was a half-demon that’d been raised as a human. That would explain the urge to live near humans rather than his own kind, if not the protectiveness towards them.
Shen Yuan also had started out with a mixed bag of knowledge, as in what he’d had to learn by observing humans was spotty. He knew how to sew, but not how to weave. He knew how to cook (badly), but not how to start or build a fire. Horror of horrors, Luo Binghe almost agreed with Shen Qingqiu’s assessment of the snake demon’s upbringing (“a banished rich boy who stops thinking about his trash as soon as it’s out of sight”), but thankfully disagreed when considering that many of Shen Yuan's pre-existing skills—like cooking, cleaning, and mending—were things a spoiled brat would delegate to his servants. Though done poorly, those were still working-class skills that none of Luo Binghe’s new peers ever bothered to learn.
None of this explained why he called Luo Binghe Junshang. He’d bowed and acknowledged Luo Binghe’s power over the dream realm. The memories of Shen Yuan’s time at Huan Hua Palace were barely worth skimming over: he’d lived all five years in a small, dark, quiet box, broken up only by eating dead rats and biting collection drums. Anything before that would have been predicting the future, but the other three years of Shen Yuan’s observable life were spent alone in the human realm. No seers, no oracles. There was absolutely no point where Luo Binghe’s name, title, or ongoings would or could have been mentioned.
And yet Shen Yuan knew. The answer was behind that broken door… or at least behind the golden hamster that visited Shen Yuan’s territory occasionally. The bulk of those memories were blocked from him as well.
Actually… didn’t Mobei-Jun carry a golden rodent around on his shoulder nowadays? He called it his advisor?
As far as leads go, it was better than nothing.