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It was a team building exercise, and Shen Jiu’s mettlesome shizun had probably woken up today and thought he was about to be hilarious. With an expression of extreme and casual disinterest, the man had pitched the idea of labyrinth-running, in two-pair teams, with one standing above the labyrinth and one in the corridors below. The Sect Leader, ever a pragmatic woman with little care for games, wasn’t sold on the idea until the Qing Jing Peak Lord mentioned the team aspect of it. And then they’d shared a look that glinted like the flint about to strike the spark that burned down a perfectly nice forest.
A week later, Shen Jiu was, to the surprise of exactly no one and the anticipation of everyone, paired with Yue Qingyuan. For the first round, he’d stand above and watch the maze, and guide Yue Qingyuan along. All in all, three mazes were set up in a large fielded area. There were invisible lines set up that would give a nasty shock when touched. The lines would change for each disciple that went through, leaving one unlucky boy to receive a jolt when he tried to follow a melon seed trail left by the previous disciple.
Everyone was doing well, until Yue Qingyuan stepped into a maze and the disciples in the surrounding mazes started taking a lot of missteps, increasingly distracted by their desire to watch the center-most maze.
It should have been easy to tell a person to walk three steps forward, turn left, and walk five steps—“Stop! Your steps are too long!”—but Yue Qingyuan was the type to overthink everything, so every few steps, he’d ask things like, “Am I close?” and Shen Jiu would have to tell him to shut up and keep walking. He was inwardly seething by the time Yue Qingyuan had made it halfway through the maze. One would think that Yue Qingyuan would have more faith in him, but Yue Qingyuan had always been the type to think thrice before speaking never.
Meanwhile, people around were running bets on when Shen Jiu would snap and purposefully run Yue Qingyuan into an electrified wall.
The answer was around Yue Qingyuan’s three-quarter mark, but Shen Jiu had to be forgiven for this one. It really wasn’t his fault. He’d been waiting for Yue Qingyuan to walk his ten steps forward, when he noticed Shang Qinghua struggling to open a jar of—something. He couldn’t tell and didn’t care to ask. But, as Shang Qinghua’s struggles grew increasingly pathetic, Shen Jiu felt his eyebrow start to spasm. That man was supposed to be a peak lord one day.
Below him, Yue Qingyuan had reached the tenth step. “Shen-shidi?”
“I’m still here,” said Shen Jiu, biting off a longer, much more acerbic comment. Yue Qingyuan called out his name every time he stopped moving. It was both endearing and annoying. Shen Jiu wanted to wring Yue Qingyuan’s voice from his throat. “Turn left—two steps.”
Next to him, Shang Qinghua still struggled. He’d wandered close enough that Shen Jiu could make out ink stains on Shang Qinghua’s fingertips. Future administration peak lord, indeed.
“Turn left, one step—ugh, that’s the wrong way!” Shen Jiu burst out, snatching the jar from Shang Qinghua and twisting it sharply the opposite away, pulling the lid free.
Below him, Yue Qingyuan yelped as he ran into a line.
Money exchanged hands.
“I wasn’t talking to you!” Shen Jiu called down to Yue Qingyuan, throwing an I’ll-kill-you-later look at Shang Qinghua, who just looked disgruntled. Shen Jiu pulled out his fan and snapped it open, waving it in front of his face. “Turn around, one step.”
Yue Qingyuan’s strides were more hesitant after the shock, but he reached the end of the maze without another incident. Shen Jiu met him in the field. He’d thought of coughing up an apology, but it was very likely he’d cough up blood, too, and in the end he couldn’t bring himself to. At the very least, Yue Qingyuan seemed to believe he hadn’t done it on purpose. That was enough.
Before he could head to the front of the maze, Yue Qingyuan caught his sleeve. His grip was light enough that Shen Jiu easily could have pulled away. Shen Jiu let himself be stopped anyway.
“You can trust Qi-ge.”
The name burned in Shen Jiu’s ears, almost lost in a roar of blood. It was the desire to not cause a public scene, not benevolence or forgiveness, that gave Shen Jiu the strength to let the nickname pass. He jerked his sleeve free, averting his eyes and ignoring the way his chest tightened at the way Yue Qingyuan’s eyes flashed with hurt—always, always looking like a kicked puppy, as though he wasn’t responsible for everything—
Shen Jiu managed to grit out, “We’ll see.”
True to his words, Yue Qingyuan walked him through the maze without a single mistake. Shen Jiu was trying not to care that he’d been one of the few to actually make their partners run into a wall. It was natural to feel inferior to the future Sect Leader, anyway. Not that he was feeling inferior.
Yue Qingyuan followed him back from the end of the maze, saying things like, “Were you shocked at all?” and “Are you all right?” and “I should have found a quicker route out of the maze, Qi-ge is sorry,” until Shen Jiu got far enough away from everyone to tell him to beat it.
A rare moment of frustration passed over Yue Qingyuan’s face. The novelty of it made Shen Jiu feel oddly exhilarated.
“Is there anything that could convince Shen-shidi to tolerate this shixiong?” The words were not so much spoken, as they burst out. As soon as they were out, Yue Qingyuan realized his mistake.
Shen Jiu gave a smile that was all teeth and didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t have to say a word.
A moment passed, before Yue Qingyuan murmured, “Bidding shidi a good night.”
Coward, Shen Jiu thought as the other left, smothering the disappointment in his heart.
(Money was passed into the hand of the Sect Leader. The Qing Jing Peak Lord was very put-out.
“That’s it, this master is at his limit. They’ll speak to the inside of a closet, or they’ll not speak again!”
“You cannot imprison students for no reason.”
“No, but this master can devise a team-building escape room that’s roughly large enough for those two.”
The Sect Leader stroked her chin thoughtfully.
“Interesting.”)