Chapter Text
The first time Shen Qingqiu realized what was happening, he was fighting the brute. Xiu Ya and Cheng Luan were locked at the hilt, the other disciple attempting to leverage his superior strength. It was a position Shen Qingqiu tried to avoid, knowing he was at a disadvantage in such close quarters, but it wasn’t unfamiliar after their many years of “spars.” Only something was different this time, some instinct prompting him to meet his opponent’s eyes.
Except— The brute wasn’t glaring at him with his usual battle fervor. Instead his eyes were- they were focused downwards, staring at Shen Qingqiu’s mouth?
The shock lit a strange electric tingle at the base of his neck, sizzling straight down into the pit of his stomach. He gasped, and saw Liu Qingge’s eyes dilate as the other man focused on his lips. In the next moment they were staring at each other, and he could tell by the widening of the brute’s eyes that he was as aware of what just happened as Shen Qingqiu was.
Shock and mortification curdled in his stomach, the flush of adrenaline gone clammy. His thoughts turned shrill, panic foremost amongst all the paranoid situations his mind was now calculating.
A twist of his foot between the brute’s, a wrench of his sword in the moment of distraction, and Liu Qingge went sprawling to his ass on the ground, Cheng Luan landing nearby in a sad puff of dirt.
Shen Qingqiu ignored everything—whatever effect this would have on his reputation, murmurs from the onlookers that inevitably gathered when they fought, the brute’s outraged shout—and ran.
The brute startled him on Qing Jing Peak, launching forward with a roar of his name and sword already drawn. It shouldn’t have been a surprise—just because Shen Qingqiu had been avoiding the brute didn’t mean he would cooperate, as past experience had proven.
But Shen Qingqiu had been ignoring the other disciple so thoroughly that his sudden appearance made him flinch and slow to draw Xiu Ya. The fight quickly turned vicious as he tried to defend against the brute’s onslaught, until both of them had discarded their swords to tussle on the ground.
The brute attempted to pin him and Shen Qingqiu snarled , using the other man’s momentum to flip their positions. Their faces were so close they were breathing each other’s air, Shen Qinqiu gritting his teeth as he tried to keep the writhing body beneath his down . There was a yank on his hair and—
Warmth. A hint of wetness.
They both drew back at the same time. Liu Qingge was flushed, his eyes huge with shock. His lips—
Shen Qingqiu caught himself pressing a hand to his mouth like a scandalized maiden before he scowled and curled it into a fist instead. He couldn’t help the instinctual scoff—at himself or the situation, he didn’t know—and tried to pull back, only for another tug on his hair to offset his balance.
They both rolled away hissing in pain, Liu Qingge clutching at his forehead and Shen Qingqiu holding his abused nose. The tender flesh throbbed and there was the gentlest tickle above his lip. It was hardly the first time the brute had made him bleed, but the circumstances were far from dignified. Shen Qingqiu could feel his lip curling even as he swiped the blood away, rearranging his robes with precise motions as he made to stand.
A hand closed on his wrist and he whirled around, ready to tear the brute to metaphorical pieces for instigating this whole sorry incident.
Liu Qingge was frowning, but without the anger he’d expected. Instead the other man looked dazed, brows furrowed in confusion as his eyes flicked back and forth over Shen Qingqiu’s face.
“Wait. Shen… Shen Qingqiu. Shouldn’t we talk about this?”
His eyes dipped just once before a blush spread and he glanced away. There was a bruise forming on one of his high cheekbones and it made the flush on that side of his face darker. Shen Qingqiu bit his lip, remembered what had just happened, and fixed his gaze elsewhere.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing happened.”
The fingers around his wrist flexed, but didn’t let go.
“You… We should talk.”
“Nothing. Happened.”
The brute’s grip broke easily and Shen Qingqiu didn’t look at him again as he retrieved Xiu Ya and left.
He’d thought the brute understood and they would mutually ignore each other. But while the challenges to fight ceased, the brute wouldn’t stop staring.
It happened during joint night hunts, when they attended to their Shizun, and at meetings with the other Head Disciples. Shen Qingqiu would catch the brute watching him, and each time their eyes met he would feel a spark flicker to life in his gut.
Weeks spent trying to ignore the tension did nothing but prove that whatever this was, it wasn’t going away. He couldn’t talk to his Shizun about this, it was too weird and embarrassing, but the jiejie were different, they would understand.
Shen Qingqiu took the familiar path down the mountain, intent on the comfort the Warm Red Pavilion would provide. He was almost at the brothel when the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Feigning distraction, he slowed his steps and carefully turned his head to glance out of the corner of his eye in one direction, then the other.
The brute was following him, several steps back and half-hidden behind another passerby.
All the frustration Shen Qingqiu had been feeling burst into anger. He stormed past the entrance to the Warm Red Pavilion, took a quick turn into the nearest alley, and waited. The brute was right behind him, having sped up to keep pace. Shen Qingqiu pinned him to the alley wall before he could react.
“What do you want? ”
The brute swallowed, and his eyes dropped to Shen Qingqiu’s lips.
“I… I want—”
His grip on the other man’s wrists tightened reflexively and Liu Qingge’s eyes fluttered— Shen Qingqiu tore himself away, that same tension throbbing in the air between them. He was too warm, felt like his blood was simmering, and knew he was starting to blush.
“I want more.”
Liu Qingge looked as overheated as he felt, red across his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. He was still leaning against the alley wall, hands gripping at the stones like they were the only thing supporting him. Shen Qingqiu’s throat was bone dry.
“More what? I don’t know what you mean.”
He licked his lips to wet them, realized Liu Qingge was watching, and jerked his arm up to cover his face with his sleeve.
“I’ve, I’ve never felt like this before.” He took a step forward, face vulnerable in a way Shen Qingqiu had never seen from the brutish future Peak Lord of Bai Zhan. “But I want to.”
Shen Qingqiu kept his sleeve up, refusing to look at the other disciple. There was the sound of an exhale, then the scuff of boots against the ground.
“This is why I said we should talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about!”
He flinched backwards when a warm hand landed on his shoulder.
“How stupid can you be, ah? It’s obvious it’s just—”
But explaining meant admitting he felt it too, this thing between them that made heat surge through his body for Liu Qingge , of all people. He was painfully aware of all the places his robes clung, sticking to his sweaty skin.
“Shen Qingqiu.”
Calloused fingers gripped his chin, and he hissed, slapping away the brute’s touch.
“Scram!”
“Shen-shixiong.”
He inhaled sharply, hating that he was reacting even as he looked up, but the brute never called him by his proper title without the bitter tinge of sarcasm or disdain, had never used the title like a plea .
“Can we talk? Please?”
Liu Qingge was still watching him with that unfamiliar vulnerable expression. Shen Qinqiu wondered if the privileged young master of the Liu Clan might kneel in the alley dirt if he asked, and the thought made him blush anew.
“...not here.”
The other man’s eyes met his, found whatever he was searching for, and he gave a single nod before leaving. Shen Qingqiu, who’d long since lost control of his face, stayed in the alley a long time after he’d gone.
Ming-jie took one look at his face and raised her voice. “A-Jiu, what’s wrong?”
There was an immediate chorus of voices, as everyone who was awake this early in the day started clamoring to know what had happened. Even the flower he’d passed on the way in had abandoned her broom to peer inside at the sudden noise.
He was shooed upstairs to one of the private sitting areas, women following after with tea, snacks, and extra cushions. They chattered softly as they settled in, passing cups and plates, fussing over this or that, and he was glad to have them flutter around him, letting the familiar voices soothe the tension he’d been carrying.
Two of the ladies were bantering, poking fun at clients current and past when Ming-jie cleared her throat. “A-Jiu, you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”
Shen Qingqiu pushed away the empty tea cup he’d been clutching and tried to arrange his thoughts. He’d been planning what to say as he went down the mountain, but all the words had fled at the brute’s appearance.
“One of the other disciples and I, we—” He stopped, frustrated at his inability to say what he wanted, the Head Disciple of Qing Jing Peak stumbling over his words like a dirty youth, fresh from the disciple trials.
“Wait,” a flower interrupted, “is this the one who hurt you?”
He huffed in sardonic amusement. Yue Qi—Yue Qingyuan—could hardly stand to look at him, much less want that from him.
“No. This is the one who’s always challenging me to fight.”
“Ah,” he saw several pairs of eyes roll, “the 'brute.'”
“Yes, him. We—the last few times we fought, I, my body—reacted.”
He realized he was clenching his robes in white-knuckled fists and forced himself to let go.
“Reacted like that .”
The room was quiet, all the flowers waiting for him to speak in his own time. His Shizun was like that too, giving him space to voice his own opinions. He always appreciated it afterwards, but it didn’t make it easier in the moment to voice things he’d rather leave unsaid.
“But I don’t like him! Why do I feel this way? Doesn’t this make me— aren’t I no better than any other man, being controlled by my body, behaving like a beast…!”
A gentle hand coaxed his fingers open and guided them around the refilled cup. Another pair of hands deftly plucked the guan out of his hair, then began to card through the strands. Shen Qingqiu sighed, posture relaxing at the care offered so easily despite the shameful things he’d just admitted.
“Has A-Jiu acted on these feelings?”
“Of course not! I won’t lower myself just because I feel like this.”
“And has the other disciple— has he done anything, said anything, to make you feel pressured?”
He thought back to that moment in the alley with Liu Qingge waiting for his answer as if it truly mattered to him, and how different it had felt to—memories he’d rather suppress, especially here surrounded by kindness and comfort. He wet his dry mouth with tea and shook his head.
“I doubt the brute even knows what married couples do. He doesn’t know what this is, or what he wants, how could he know to act on it?”
“Then A-Jiu has nothing to worry about. Having feelings can’t be controlled, only our own actions and what we do with them. You’re still yourself no matter how you feel, and our A-Jiu could never be a beast.”
Ming-jie’s words soothed some of his anxieties, though doubt lingered deep down.
“But why… for him? This has never happened before, so why now and why him ?”
“Oh, A-Jiu. Even we, who claim to be experts in the matter, don’t fully understand the nature of attraction.”
Shen Qingqiu flinched at hearing that word said aloud. The flower who’d been brushing his hair tsk’d and rubbed gently at his shoulders.
“As for why now- Perhaps this is the first time A-Jiu has felt safe enough or allowed himself to feel such things?”
The scoff was automatic. His battle-obsessed shidi was the last person anyone would consider safe . But Shen Qingqiu wasn’t scared of Liu Qingge.
Loath as he was to admit, there had been fear in the beginning: Fear of what that first loss would cost him, then fear over his larger share of losses in their bouts, and the final most shameful fear that he and his Bai Zhan bullies would one day go too far in pursuit of their grudge.
But his position as Cang Qiong’s next Peak Lord of Qing Jing Peak was now secured, and the brainless monkeys of Bai Zhan—including the chief monkey himself—had never offered more than a stiff beating or mocking words, which was nothing Shen Qingqiu couldn’t handle.
The fear had vanished with their predictability, and wasn’t Liu Qingge just as predictable in this?
He was only afraid to face these feelings fully and know they existed in himself, not afraid of
Liu Qingge.
Whatever could be said about the brute—a privileged ass who’d been dismissive of Shen Qingqiu’s feelings from the start and turned himself into a permanent annoyance with his snap judgments and baying for brawls—he’d had years and never developed the cruelty
Qiu
—that person had shown from the first meeting.
“It could be something else, too,” another woman piped up, to agreements from the others. “It can be something simple, little things that should be silly, but aren’t. Like— the shape of their hands, or the sound of their voice.”
“How they twitch their nose when they’re annoyed,” someone else suggested, her own nose scrunched at the thought.
“Their backside,” voiced by an older flower, to a round of boisterous laughter from the rest.
Shen Qingqiu snorted, smiling despite himself at their antics. “His face is good, even if his personality is lacking.”
“It can be fun, even if you don’t like them,” the same older flower shrugged, drawing another wave of titters, and the conversation dissolved again into good-natured complaining about past affairs with other such individuals.
Having an attraction to the brute’s looks seemed somehow pedestrian, but wasn’t that a relief in a way? How often did poets and scholars lament the appeal of a pretty face, and how often did the flowers themselves sigh over some real or imagined paramour’s looks? In this Shen Qingqiu was blessedly normal, experiencing something even slaves had in common with rich young masters, because wasn’t Liu Qingge the same?
At least if he was to share these symptoms with a mannerless brute, it was indisputable said brute was peerless in appearance and connections both, and set to become a Peak Lord himself. Shen Qingqiu had never been ashamed of being ambitious.
He was interrupted from his musing by Ming-jie taking his hand.
“Does A-Jiu feel better now?”
“En,” he nodded, turning his hand in hers to entwine their fingers. “But, jie, what do I do now?”
“What does A-Jiu wish to do?”
He looked to the next closest flower, who was telling a ribald tale with gusto, mid-gesture as she measured a length between her hands. She caught his eye and winked, then proceeded to pull her hands an incremental distance wider, to the instant scoffs and objections of several women.
Shen Qingqiu flushed and looked back down at their clasped hands “Do I need to do anything?”
“No, of course not. But you have options, and it might be better to consider them before you decide to pursue nothing.”
Ming-jie had always been gentle with him, but he felt scolded regardless. He knew as well as she did that while the Madam could keep out the worst sort of people, the business only kept that measure of control by servicing the remainder. No flower in this place was truly free to do nothing as he could if he decided to ignore the brute and everything he inspired.
“What would Ming-jie suggest?”
“Has A-Jiu considered acting on his feelings?”
He choked back the instinctive protest, that denial exactly what she was advising against.
“I—I wouldn’t know how ,” he whispered, squeezing her hand for the comfort of it.
“A-Jiu never has to do something he doesn’t want to,” Ming-jie smoothed her free hand over his white-knuckled grip, “but if your martial brother is as unknowing as you say, perhaps he’d be a good candidate to practice with. Someone to try being close to, who lets you set the pace.
“And consider, too, how many substances have… unwanted effects in this world. Better to experience something when you can control the setting than to be exposed unaware.”
He relaxed his clutching fingers under the light strokes of hers, blunt logic chipping away at the fear. How often had Liu Qingge’s own self-righteous notions of honor been used against him? Wasn’t this the perfect situation to turn them on the brute in return? Shen Qingqiu was no innocent maiden, but Ming-jie understood that steering the potential “courtship” could only benefit him with his revulsion of men.
And while she was expected to understand aphrodisiacs due to her trade, cultivators frequently encountered such effects from flora and fauna in the wild. Shen Qingqiu had memorized the information required in lessons by rote and ignored any implications for himself, as if slave brat number nine could be so lucky to avoid such things for the long life of an immortal master. He had already felt the loss of control in his latest interactions with Liu Qingge. The brute might be satisfied bumbling about his life unknowingly, but if there was a way to master these feelings Shen Qingqiu wanted to know .
“All right. What do I do?”
Ming-jie smiled. “Let me ask the Madam. We have some things you might like to have before you get started.”
“Ask me what?” A new voice cut in.
Madam Jialan was lounging in the doorway behind them, rogue-tinted lips quirked at their surprise. Her makeup was already flawless despite the earliness of the day, while many of the flowers around them were still in their sleeping robes.
“I think I heard the jist—” She reached into her sleeves to produce several objects, handing them over one after the other to the closest woman to be passed finally onto Shen Qingqiu.
The books were expected, even the vials of oil, but he couldn’t help the blush when three jade things of varying sizes were given to him. Ming-jie caught the last one when his sweaty hands fumbled and dropped it, looking him in the eye when he moved to take it from her.
“Remember what I said: don’t do anything you don’t want to, no matter what he does or says. You only need these things if you want to use them, not because you have to.”
“That’s right,” Madam Jialan nodded. “Any man is lucky to have our A-Jiu touch his hand.”
The room swelled with noise as the flowers voiced their agreement, and his face flushed for a different reason.
These women understood all too well what he’d suffered, and knew what it cost him to admit an interest in another man despite his past. They had never offered anything but genuine care and support, always taking his side and encouraging him to do what he thought was best for himself.
Shen Qingqiu ducked his head under the weight of their regard, shoving the items he’d been given into a qiankun pouch as he withdrew another from his sleeve, only to stop when Ming-jie’s hand closed on his.
“A-Jiu, not again! You can’t keep giving up your allowance for us.”
He reversed their hands so he could press the pouch into her palm.
“It’s not all my coin. There’s talismans and medicines too.” And some small gifts, but he wasn’t about to say that to Ming-jie’s disapproving face.
“It’s fine, Xiao Ming,” Madam Jialan cut in to his relief. “You know this is how A-Jiu says his thanks.”
She came further into the room, flowers moving aside to give her space to kneel beside him. Gentle fingers cupped his cheek.
“Our A-Jiu is a good boy. If that young man hurts you, you make him bleed for it, understand?”
Shen Qingqiu nodded, careful not to dislodge her hand.
“And if he needs tips you send him to us, we’ll set him straight.” She chuckled and covered his mouth before he could stammer out a protest
“But if he treats you well and you decide to keep him… A-Jiu better bring him to meet us.”
Him, keep the brute as something more than an experimental plaything? That was unlikely and he said so. His response had Madam Jialan throwing her head back in laughter, giggles erupting from the flowers as well.
“As long as A-Jiu brings his lover when it matters, that’s all I ask.”