Chapter Text
Luo Binghe regrets listening to his wife.
Why had he listened to Sha Hualing in the first place? He’s not sure. What he is sure of is that he will not be making that mistake again.
Sitting before a witch and silently moving Sha Hualing down on his list of favorite wives, Luo Binghe begins to think that maybe he should just leave.
He is, after all, the Demon Emperor of the three realms. Why should he have to sit here and listen to a witch ramble?
“And there are also buildings that go up into the sky!”
—The witch is saying while gesturing largely with her hands, clearly making things up. Things that Luo Binghe certainly cannot see in the foggy orb that the other is staring into.
“Skyscrapers are their name, because their reach is so high they scrape the heavens!”
Binghe can barely restrain an eye roll,
“Okay?”
The witch’s arm movements come to a halt at the sarcastic tone, but it is only for a moment. Quickly, she recovers, opens her mouth once more to say—
But Binghe doesn’t really feel like letting her,
“Stop,” he says, head bowed in frustration and hand raised up to signal she should shut up, “How do you know he’s at this place with the… sky scrapers?”
In his head, Luo Binghe can still recount the hours Sha Hualing had spent praising this witch’s prowess. Practically gushing about her amazing abilities.
There has to be something about her. Something she’s capable of doing. Everyone (Sha Hualing in particular) knows the consequences of wasting their Demonic Emperor’s time.
So, even if it really does feel like this witch is a fraud...
Well, Luo Binghe has not gotten as far as he has by being impatient. He’s very accustomed to carrying on where others would have given up.
“Why are you telling me about these buildings?” He grits out a little more calmly than he had asked the first question.
The witch, for her part, does not seem off-put by the fact that Luo Binghe seems less than believing. The scrap of cloth that she holds in her hand, the scrap of cloth that had once belonged to a set of pale green and white robes, is cradled loosely in her grip.
Good, Luo Binghe thinks a little hysterically. If she ruins that cloth then he’ll be forced to kill her.
“Is this not an item belonging to who you’re looking for?” She asks with a furrowed brow.
She brings her eyes up and off the cloudy orb so that she can look her Demonic Emperor in the eyes.
“It is,” he says simply while remembering the fight when he had torn the scrap from its original owner.
The witch hums in approval,
“Then this lowly one asks for your Lord’s trust when I say that the person you’re looking for is in a world far from our own.”
A world, according to the witch, where people walk around practically naked, with towns that are lit up even at night and buildings that scrape the skies.
It all sounds very likely.
Luo Binghe leans back casually and pulls a coin from his pocket. Almost boredly, he lets the little thing spin around on his fingers.
“Well then, how do I know you’re not lying?” He asks, looking at the coin, not the witch.
“This lowly one would not presume to even think about lying to you, My Lord. If I must offer up proof, I can.”
“Oh?” Luo Binghe looks up at the woman and he smiles a smile that shows off his fangs, “Proof?”
The witch responds with a lowered gaze now as she slowly reaches for the parchment and pen sitting innocently on her desk.
“Should my Lord wish to find this person, he may travel to this other world and search for the one whose surname is Shen.”
Outwardly, Luo Binghe shows no emotion at the name. Inwardly, he can feel his heart jump at her accurate guess.
“He resides in a place called Shenzhen Bay, you will find him at the highest point.”
Directions are good for Luo Binghe if he wants to direct his portal somewhere specific. He is relieved the witch offers such precise placement without him having to ask.
“His hair is dark, his eyes sharp,”
The witch’s hand scribbles fiercely over the paper with each description,
“He may be hard to read, but he’s quick to feel,”
Luo Binghe’s heart beats fast with each correct description. Perhaps Sha Hualing’s recommendation is indeed a good one?
“The one you’re looking for, the one you most desire is—”
The witch turns the piece of paper around to reveal what she’s been scribbling—
“Shen Yuan! The third son of a major family living in Guangdong, China!”
“...”
It’s a drawing.
Inked onto the paper is a drawing of a man, his age indiscernible (cultivator’s never look their true age), but Luo Binghe thinks he looks quite young. If he is a cultivator, then he would have to be an extremely powerful one to have retained his youth so well.
The man’s hair is cropped so short that it hangs over his forehead and falls into his eyes. Eyes that are outlined for some reason with larger, surrounding circles? Perhaps some kind of jewelry?
There is no color in the drawing, but the witch has filled in his eyes to be completely black, just as filled in a few freckles that fall over the subject’s nose.
It is a very good rendering in all actualities, especially since it was done so quickly, however, it is important to note that it is certainly not a drawing of Shen Qingqiu.
Not even a little bit.
“Who is this?”
The witch’s proud look slips off of her face slightly,
“Umm,” she starts unsurely, “This is Shen Yuan.”
Luo Binghe looks at the drawing of not Shen Qingqiu and feels burning, intense hatred for something.
For the witch, for the drawing, for Sha Hualing, for Shen Yuan, for his Shizun. The list is honestly quite endless.
Tapping a hand against Xin Mo, telling his friend to calm down, Luo Binghe takes a deep breath.
For it would be unbecoming to hit a woman.
Snatching the drawing up with one clawed hand and taking the scrap of cloth back in the other, Luo Binghe doesn’t even spare a look at the witch as he stands up.
When he unsheathes Xin Mo, he hears an alarmed yelp come from the still seated witch.
Silly. It is not as if he intends to harm her.
Despite how she has wasted his time.
“I’ll be taking my leave now,” he says while slashing a portal into existence.
When he does turn around, it’s with a smile that’s a little too sharp to be real. A little too dark to be comforting,
“You have been entirely unhelpful, little witch.”
And then in the next instant, he is gone.
—- —- —-
The thing about Luo Binghe is that ever since he had met that other version of himself, that other Shizun, he hasn’t, not for even one moment, stopped thinking about it.
That nice Shizun who had taunted him with his nice smile. That weak Binghe who had earned his teacher’s loyalty so easily.
That other world.
An idle hand comes up to fidget with the braid still tied into his curls.
From his seat atop his throne, Luo Binghe finds he can only frown.
The braid in his hair made by that other Shizun is not even quite a braid anymore. Just a larger knot in the overall knot that is Luo Binghe’s curly hair. When he had first returned from that other world, many of his wives had pointed out the new addition to his hair—
A-Luo is so handsome, Luo-ge should let me braid his hair! Bing-Bing, will you let me touch it please?
But now, no one can see it under the knot that it has become.
Ning Yingying had even once offered to brush out ‘the tangle’ she spotted in his hair. Luo Binghe had then kissed her until he successfully made the girl forget she had ever had that thought.
And yet still, he refuses to take it out.
Why is that?
Luo Binghe fiddles with it and thinks of all his failed attempts to find even just one more nice Shizun. All the worlds he had cut through only to find his cruel teacher that he had already used up in his own world. He must have torn his way through hundreds of worlds at this point, and never did he ever find even one iteration where Shen Qingqiu was nice.
Turning to the witch for help had been a sort of last resort in the face of his failure.
Luo Binghe scoffs, and the hand that had been playing with the braid instead reaches into his sleeve. From it, he extracts the drawing of “Shen Yuan.”
A boy who is decidedly not Luo Binghe’s Shizun.
“…What a shame.” He mumbles, having truly had high hopes that the witch could solve his problem.
He flexes his hand to crumple the page and be done with this once and for all, but something stops him.
Something in the boy’s expression.
Luo Binghe looks down at the page sitting unharmed in his palm, and the boy looks up at him in return.
Luo Binghe breathes a harsh laugh out from under his breath,
“Ridiculous,” he says lightly while shaking his head, and then he tries to crush the paper again.
Once again, his hand stops.
“…”
This Shen Yuan, well, he does not look like Shen Qingqiu. Certainly, not like the man Luo Binghe had been raised by.
But something about the expression on his face…
…It reminds Binghe of that nice Shizun somehow.
Luo Binghe looks at that face and thinks that maybe he has seen it once before. Just with different features.
So, instead of crumpling the page and throwing it away as he had intended, Binghe folds it back up neatly and slides it into his sleeve. Something inside of him resolves with the motion. Xin Mo roars at the indication that it is about to be used by its master, and Luo Binghe feels an unrestrained smirk fall over his features.
Yes, what would be the harm in at least trying?
—- —- —-
Shen Yuan has always hated to read a transmigration novel with a protagonist that is stupid.
Oh, I’ve suddenly woken up with longer hair, in a different room, wearing Xianxia style robes! Let me ask the first person to approach me which Comic Convention this is!
Idiotic, really.
If there is even one sentence about hallucinations, if there is even one word breathed about ‘wow, that’s a good cosplay,’ Shen Yuan is forced to throw the book away in anger.
He feels he might just be one ‘I think I’m having a fever dream’ away from total insanity.
It’s for this reason that Shen Yuan has always promised himself that should he ever find himself in that situation, god forbid, he will certainly not act stupid.
So when reality splits right in the middle of his living room—a rupture occurring in both time and space—this is the reason he will cite for why he does not immediately panic.
Quietly, Shen Yuan watches a man dressed completely in Xianxia-style robes step out of the anomaly in his living room. Watches as he dusts off his front and looks around.
His back is to Shen Yuan (and what a broad back it is), so clearing his throat, he decides he must be the one to speak first,
“Hello,” Shen Yuan says, as calm as he can manage, “What brings you here?”
Eyes red like the setting sun snap onto Shen Yuan, and it starts to take a fortified effort to not think that perhaps he really is hallucinating.
No, he thinks a little forcefully, you will take this in stride. Don’t be a loser.
Those bright, red eyes give him a once over from where he is sat on his own coach,
“You are Shen Yuan, then?” The man asks, surprising him in turn.
“How do you—“
He bites down hard on the instinct, intentionally overcorrecting,
“Oh? You know my name? That’s interesting.”
The rip into the abyss of darkness finally closes behind the newly appeared man, and Shen Yuan feels he must keep talking to fill the silence,
“However, if you would please forgive me, I don’t seem to know yours?”
Shen Yuan hesitates only a second more before asking,
“What should I call you?”
—- —- —-
When Luo Binghe had heard the name Shenzhen Bay, naturally he had assumed that Shen Yuan must live on the edge of a body of water.
The witch had told him that the person he’s looking for lives at the ‘highest point of Shenzhen Bay’, and he had taken that to mean the highest elevation point in a bay.
And then Luo Binghe’s first steps into the foreign world the witch had described are onto the roof of a very tall building.
A building so high, in fact, that it breaks through the clouds.
Upon first contact, the open air immediately assaults all of his senses. Not only does the wind whip his clothes around at a speed Luo Binghe has only ever experienced while flying on a sword, but the air itself feels… different somehow.
He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but at first inhalation the Demonic Emperor wheezes out a cough instead.
This air, it is not something he’s used to.
Luo Binghe has not had a problem with access to clean air since his teenage years spent in the Endless Abyss, and honestly, he is less than grateful for the reminder. Breathing more mindfully, he looks toward the edge of the roof he’s on and finds he is amongst the clouds.
The building he stands on reaches the sky.
Shenzhen Bay, it turns out, is not a bay, but instead a building inside which multiple people live—A fact Luo Binghe had discovered upon opening a portal to the bottom of the building (a confusing place with big paintings and bowls of fruit everywhere), the middle (also a confusing place, but filled with a family Luo Binghe had accidentally startled), and then subsequently the highest point that Luo Binghe could portal to that isn’t the actual roof.
It is in this last destination that he finds Shen Yuan. The man he has been looking for.
When he had first stepped into the new room, Luo Binghe had thought he was alone. Certainly there is no family that lives here like in that other room.
Then a voice that sends shivers down his spine says something, and the half-demon snaps around to see the human sitting with his legs crossed, looking up at Luo Binghe as if it’s normal to suddenly have strangers walk into your home.
The short and floppy hair is the same, the eyes the same, the freckles the same. The accessory that he wears on his face slips down his nose by a centimeter, but the human is quick to push it back into place over his eyes.
Everything is as the witch had said. This is the drawing the witch had done for Luo Binghe.
This is Shen Yuan.
“What should I call you?” Not Shen Qingqiu is asking, and Luo Binghe is forced to center himself in the current moment.
Very suddenly, Luo Binghe realizes that this is important. First impressions and all that.
It is something that hadn’t been on his mind when he was recklessly cutting portals through time and space, but something he feels he maybe should have planned ahead for.
“You may refer to this Lord as anything you’d like—”
—The good news is that Luo Binghe has had a lot of practice thinking on his feet. It has been a long time since his days as a stuttering, nervous disciple on Qing Jing Peak,
“Luo Binghe is my name, but maybe you’d like to call me gege?”
Shen Yuan’s eyes widen at his words, and Luo Binghe finds that he is also surprised his immediate instinct is flirt rather than intimidate. It’s not a reflex he’d thought would happen around another man, but since when is he someone who does not do what he wants?
If this is what Luo Binghe feels like doing, then this is what he will do. He trusts his instincts more than anything else in his life.
Smirking to himself for his brilliant introduction, there is literally nothing that could prepare Luo Binghe for Shen Yuan’s next words—
“What the fuck?”
Luo Binghe, ridiculously, startles at the curse.
“Luo Binghe??”
And it would seem getting called gege is off the table already.
“Yes—”
“From that shitty ass, no plot, just porn, garbage novel??”
“...”
“I don’t know?”
“...”
“Fuck…” Shen Yuan breathes as he slides himself off the cushion he was sitting on so casually, “Luo Binghe?” He says again, but this time with more understanding.
“Yes,” he answers, confidence a little chipped and control slipping through his fingers.
Shen Yuan steps closer to him and uses one hand to push up the circular accessories that cover his eyes again. His eyes dart up to the glowing mark on his forehead, and Luo Binghe lets him look.
Lets him go left and right, look up and down, and generally examine him as if he were a doll.
He’s not sure what he expects when Shen Yuan inevitably asks another question, but it’s certainly not—
“When you were fighting the cloud beast in the Cave of a Thousand Sorrows, I’m just curious, how did you escape?”
“Well, I— what…?”
Maybe it’s the strange world, or maybe it’s the strange man, but Luo Binghe feels off-kiltered by this interaction.
Nothing is quite going like he had thought it would.
“When you were in the Cave of a Thousand Sorrows,” Shen Yuan is continuing as if nothing is wrong,
“What did you do to get out? I mean, you were in an impossible situation! The Cloud Beast had sucked all the moisture and oxygen from the air, and then it had blocked all the exits! There were no wives in the cave to fix the situation with papapa, and there were no magical swords or weapons to help you out.
“Even Xin Mo! You had accidentally left Xin Mo outside of the cave, so, how did you do it? The only thing that hack of an author wrote was some bullshit time skip that vaguely implied you killed the beast. Stupid author, stupid book—”
“I did kill the beast,” Luo Binghe says, cutting off the rambling man, “how do you know about that, however?”
Because it’s very curious that this Shen Yuan could know about that.
Luo Binghe hadn’t told anyone that he had gotten trapped in the Cave of a Thousand Sorrows. He had thought better of sharing such a weakness with even his advisors, for who could know who would turn out to be a snake in his palace?
Failures, or almost failures, are things Luo Binghe keeps mostly to himself. So how did Shen Yuan know about the Cave of a Thousand Sorrows?
“Yea, that’s the one part I already know!” Shen Yuan brings a hand up to push at the hair on his forehead, “But how? It’s been driving me crazy just thinking about that plot hole!”
“You know who this Lord is?” Luo Binghe says instead of answering, eyes trained darkly on Shen Yuan.
The other crinkles his nose in probable displeasure at not receiving an answer, but he answers anyway,
“Of course I know who you are, you’re like, famous.”
Luo Binghe is famous across worlds? This is something he had never expected.
“You have your own version of this Lord here in your world, then?”
It wouldn’t surprise him, honestly. Obviously, there exists that weak version of Luo Binghe in that frustrating world with that nice Shizun. But even beyond that one world, he has since cut through hundreds of worlds, with hundreds of Binghe’s, all in search for just one more nice Shizun.
To know that even in this strange world there could be a Luo Binghe here, well, he’s sure that could be possible. But still for some reason, the question provokes the boy to laugh.
“What?” Shen Yuan asks, accidentally snorts, and then just laughs some more, “No, that’d be crazy—” And then, before Luo Binghe can mentally prepare himself, “—I wish! That’d be cool, but no…”
The demon’s spine snaps straight up at the same time that his shoulders tense.
I wish! Bounces around in his head, playing over and over, taunting him.
Shen Yuan doesn’t even notice,
“—spiritual veins, flying swords, no, we don’t have any of that stuff here. Demons, even, non-existent. Well, actually, I guess that’s up for debate for some people, but they don’t mean a demon like you. They mean—”
Luo Binghe just doesn’t quite know what to do with that information.
In every world he has been to, in his own world even, the presence of Luo Binghe hasn't really been a good thing. Fellow demons hate him for being stronger than them. Fellow humans hate him for merging the two realms.
Nobody really benefits from him being around in that regard.
It’s not a big deal that no one likes his reign as Demonic Emperor. His wives surely like it, and anyone else who doesn’t can just get crushed underneath his immense power. It really doesn’t matter. Luo Binghe doesn’t care—not at all—but by all means a Heavenly Demon Emperor should mean death and destruction for a human like the one before him now.
I wish, echoes in his head once more.
It just doesn’t make any sense…
“—and I mean it’s not like you guys have a Shen Yuan over in your PIDW world, so…” Shen Yuan finishes whatever he’s saying, clearly not even noticing the way Binghe is not listening.
He doesn’t know what ‘PIDW’ means, but still he can’t help but open his mouth and say,
“How do you know?”
“...Hm?”
Shen Yuan stares at him, eyes blinking in confusion behind his glass accessory thing, so Luo Binghe repeats,
“How do you know there’s no version of you in my world?”
Deft fingers twine through his curls. They swivel and twist, but never pull. A nice voice soothes him while the hands work their way through his hair.
Subconsciously, a hand comes up to where he knows that old braid rests beneath all his curls.
“Well,” Shen Yuan is saying, tapping his chin and looking at the ceiling, “I just can’t imagine there would be.”
And that’s the end of that, apparently. Even Shen Yuan does not believe that he could be nice Shizun.
So then, what reason does Luo Binghe have to stay?
Feeling a little frustrated, Xin Mo rattling at his side, Luo Binghe doesn’t even give Shen Yuan a response.
He just turns around and slashes a portal into existence.
He was right, it turns out—
—He should have never listened to that witch.
And Luo Binghe is never coming back to this world.
— — —
“You’re back!”
Shen Yuan leaps up off the couch at the unexpected visitor.
Standing almost ashamedly, in the exact same spot he had appeared the first time, is Luo Binghe. The golden protagonist of Proud Immortal Demon Way.
It has taken the Demonic Emperor of the Three Realms ten days to come back.
The last time he had visited, Luo Binghe had come and gone so suddenly that Shen Yuan could only stand in his living room after and blink in a state of shock.
Now, he’s back, portal and all, in the middle of Shen Yuan’s living room.
“...I am back,” He says, with absolutely no explanation.
Behind him, his portal closes, and the TV screen that Shen Yuan had been watching before comes back into view.
Swiftly, Shen Yuan darts past his intruder, knocks their shoulders together accidentally, and swipes the TV remote off the coffee table so that he can turn it off and give his full attention to the newly appeared entertainment.
Turning around, he’s opening his mouth to say,
“Sorry about that, I didn’t know you were—”
But when he comes around fully, it’s to see that the OP protagonist has pulled out his legendary Xin Mo sword, and he’s wielding it in a defensive motion.
Slowly, Shen Yuan blinks a couple times in confusion.
It’s hard to imagine that his sudden move could have startled Luo Binghe into defense, and actually? The thought is so ridiculous that Shen Yuan almost immediately banishes it from his mind.
Instead, he gives full focus to the much more interesting thing that has just happened which is—
“Is this your sword? Xin Mo?”
Luo Binghe’s stare lingers for a beat too long, uncomfortably long, before his shoulders relax along with his stance,
“So, even my sword is famous here?”
Shen Yuan huffs a laugh,
“Well, of course it is. But, I had expected it to be, I don’t know…” Slowly, he trails off.
“To be?” The half-demon prompts, a note of impatience in his tone.
Shen Yuan looks over at Luo Binghe, and for the first time since meeting his favorite character, he ponders the dangers of accidentally pissing the Demonic Emperor off.
It’s strange, really, the way that Shen Yuan knows Luo Binghe is basically all-powerful. Knows Luo Binghe could kill him as if he were a gnat in the air, but still. It’s hard to see past the fact that he is, at the end of the day, a character in a web novel.
“To be...scarier?” He finishes, having barely thought out the consequences.
“You do not find my presence intimidating?”
The tone that Luo Binghe speaks in is much darker now, almost as if he is insulted.
“Well,” Shen Yuan starts, tapping a finger against his chin, when suddenly that very sword is being pointed at his neck.
“Do you find Xin Mo scary now?”
The dark, black sword of legend is so close to his throat that when Shen Yuan swallows, the tip makes contact with his skin.
“A little bit more, yea,” Shen Yuan says, having to go a little cross-eyed to look at Xin Mo, “But I always imagined it’d be, like, bigger?”
Luo Binghe cocks one perfect eyebrow in what Shen Yuan recognizes as his famous, Go on… face. And wow, he can’t believe he gets to see that in real life!
“Like, online, I saw this one person who made a Xin Mo sword for their cosplay, and they had designed it after Yoru’s sword from One Piece. Kind of like a bigger than their own body kind of sword, you know?”
Xin Mo presses a little harder into Shen Yuan’s neck,
“What?”
Shen Yuan waves his hands around in a forget it motion.
“Nothing, nothing, I like this version just fine! I swear, it’s just not what I expected.”
“This is the only version,” Luo Binghe reiterates, clearly someone who has not seen the many fan recreations Shen Yuan has.
“Yes, yes, you’re the real Luo Binghe, so I guess all the other ones are fake,” He says flippantly, but something about his wording must have caught the protagonist’s attention.
“There are imitators of me?”
“Well, of course,” Shen Yuan says, “Why wouldn’t there be?”
And then he whirls around to look for his phone. Maybe he left it lying on the kitchen counter?
“Here, I’ll show you. I’m sure I can find at least fifty accounts dedicated to cosplaying you.”
His feet pad across his wooden floor, his socks cushioning each step.
“Okay, see!” He’s saying upon finding his phone in the kitchen as predicted, “All I have to do is look up the Luo Binghe hashtag, and then—”
He’s back in the living room, phone in hand as he continues,
“There’s millions of…”
When Shen Yuan finally looks up, holding his phone aloft for the other to see, he is met with an empty living room.
Silence is the only thing that greets him.
Shen Yuan heaves a big sigh,
“Again?” He mumbles under his breath. What a shame, he thinks, that something so interesting is gone so soon.
With a shrug, Shen Yuan pads his way back over to the couch and reaches for the remote.
One click, and his show starts exactly where he’d left it—
Love is Blind. Season 6, Episode 2.
“Come on!” He shouts at the screen, forgetting temporarily that these are real people and not just characters on a screen.
“You can’t just tell her you’d leave with her, and then promise the same to another girl!”
Roughly, he shakes his head,
“That’s just bad writing!”
—- —- —-
Visiting that stranger’s world twice was a mistake.
The first time was an understandable mistake. A mere checking of a lead, if you will. The second time even, Luo Binghe can also excuse under the pretense that he was just being thorough.
To go a third time would be nothing but a mistake.
There’s no justification Luo Binghe can give, no reason for why he should go back to that world for a third time.
Shen Yuan is clearly not the nice Shizun that Luo Binghe has been tearing through worlds to find. Shen Yuan is not even the cruel Shizun that he cannot stop finding all over the place.
Shen Yuan is just that—Shen Yuan.
There is nothing remarkable about him. Nothing that Luo Binghe can discern at the very least.
There is nothing that should be the reason for why Luo Binghe cannot seem to get that little human out of his mind. No, there is no reason for him to go back to that alternate world again.
Angrily, Luo Binghe pulls out the drawing that he now keeps exclusively in his sleeve so that he can pull it out at a moment’s notice. With a violent jerk, he slams the paper flat onto his desk, face up.
That face stares up at him mockingly.
It’s currently so late into the night that it’s actually, probably, technically morning by now. Luo Binghe has taken none of his wives to bed with him tonight, despite many propositions of that nature being thrown at him. How could he possibly sleep with any of them when the only face he has on his mind is the one that’s inked on the paper sitting on his desk?
Luo Binghe, hunched over his writing desk with only the smallest glow from a candle illuminating the page, finally allows himself the opportunity to stare at the face he has been thinking about all day.
It’s almost remarkable how the witch was able to capture Shen Yuan’s likeness into lines of ink on a piece of paper. Luo Binghe looks at those eyes and thinks that even the freckles are placed in accurate spots, which… is astoundingly accurate?
The demon thinks back to his time sitting in front of that witch, a foggy crystal ball in between them, and thinks she surprisingly got a lot of things right.
He remembers vividly how it had felt to stand on top of that building that extended all the way into the clouds. How the wind had whipped at the ends of his robes, trying with all its might to knock Luo Binghe over.
He remembers the temporary shock he felt at the clothes Shen Yuan chose to wear. The moment he laid eyes on the human and could see so much more skin than he’s used to seeing from humans.
Were those not both things that the witch had predicted would happen in that world?
The witch had gotten so many things right… things such as the freckles on Shen Yuan’s face.
Luo Binghe breathes silently in the dark of his private chambers.
Going once was understandable, twice even would make sense. To go a third time?
Is it justifiable?
Slowly, Luo Binghe reaches a hand into the drawer connected to his writing desk. From it, he pulls that scrap of cloth.
Something that Shen Qingqiu had owned. Something that version of Shen Qingqiu had owned.
Feeling pathetic, the Demon Emperor brings the cloth up to his face.
Something the nice Shen Qingqiu had touched… does that mean if it touched his cheek, he’d be indirectly touching Luo Binghe?
It’s inches away, centimeters away—
Luo Binghe jerks his hand back.
No, he thinks firmly, going a third time would be fine.
Since when has Luo Binghe not been a thorough individual? It would not do for his enemies to be able to call him sloppy.
No, going a third time is actually the right thing to do. Because to not go would be lazy.
Luo Binghe unsheathes Xin Mo, and unwillingly he hears Shen Yuan calling it unimpressive.
Jerkily, Luo Binghe shakes the thought from his head.
Luo Binghe will find the owner of that damned cloth, and he will do it thoroughly.
Even as unlikely as it may seem that Shen Yuan could be connected to any of this…
Even still…
…Luo Binghe should triple check all the same.
— — —
“And this is my washer machine…”
Shen Yuan turns to see if his Demonic Emperor guest is impressed yet and finds Luo Binghe looking at the metallic box with a tilted head.
“So, it really just washes my clothes, see,” Shen Yuan opens the swinging circular door on the front, and Luo Binghe creeps forward. Evidently, curious.
He kneels in front of the washer, and then even goes as far as to stick his head inside.
“Interesting,” His voice echoes through the hollowed, metal space, “How does it work?”
Shen Yuan smiles to himself,
“Uhhh, you know I’m really not too sure.”
The fluffy head of the protagonist removes itself from the washer, and he ends up looking inquisitively up at Shen Yuan from the floor.
“Well, I put all of my dirty clothes in there, and when I press the start button the machine fills up with soap and water… and then it spins them for me?” Shen Yuan finishes a little slowly.
Hey! He had said he’s not exactly sure what goes on in there, just that pressing the start button means his clothes will be clean in 45 minutes.
“Where does the water come from? Is there a talisman inside of here?” When he asks, Luo Binghe once again sticks his head back into the machine as if he is searching for the talisman himself.
“Talisman?” Shen Yuan snorts a little, “No, that’s not it.”
His head pops back out,
“Then how?”
The protagonist, kneeling on his laundry floor and blinking up at him all confused, goes even further and tilts his head to the side.
Too cute! Shen Yuan wants to put a hand in those curls and pet him like a dog at this rate!
Clearing his throat and looking away awkwardly,
“...Well, I told you that I don’t really know,” Shen Yuan shrugs his shoulders feeling a little stupid, “It just happens.”
Luo Binghe’s eyes sharpen and pierce through him as if he is trying to figure out if he’s withholding information on purpose.
He’s not! Dear protagonist, don’t waste your efforts on analyzing this stupid idiot! Shen Yuan cries in his head.
After another intense moment, Luo Binghe seemingly makes up his mind,
“Show me,” He demands while sitting criss-cross applesauce on the tile floor.
“Wha–What?” Shen Yuan asks, taken by surprise.
Luo Binghe’s gaze turns a little darker, and really! You don’t have to be doing this much!
“Show me.” He repeats, firmer this time.
“You want me to do my laundry?”
All he gets is a nod.
So, it’s with a desperate sigh that Shen Yuan turns on his heel and grumbles,
“Okay, just, give me a second,” Nevermind that he already did his laundry two days ago!
The only things sitting in his laundry hamper are two pairs of underwear, one pair of socks, and he thinks there’s also that towel he had used to wipe up a spill yesterday.
Reluctantly, Shen Yuan starts to strip the sheets off of his bed.
He doesn’t exactly need to wash his sheets, but it’s better than wasting a whole laundry cycle on just underwear.
“Stupid protagonist, thinks he can just show up and boss me around,” He’s mumbling while he works.
With a huff he throws the sheets into his hamper, and makes his way back to where he knows Luo Binghe is.
“Somehow this is that damn author’s fault, I’m sure of it.”
Arriving back to his laundry room, he sees that Luo Binghe has stood up and is now taking interest in the accompanying dryer that’s sitting next to the washer.
Oh no, he thinks, let’s walk before we can run, yea, protagonist?
With a thunk, Shen Yuan sets his basket down. (If he’s breathing a little hard, well, he’s not gonna be the one to admit it.)
“So,” he says through breaths, “can you pass me the detergent.”
He knows when he says it that he’s only inviting the next question from Luo Binghe. What’s detergent?
But apparently worthy of his title as a Stallion Novel Protagonist, Luo Binghe is quick on the uptake.
Without even a pause, Luo Binghe is reaching for the bottle with the tiny little word ‘detergent’ printed in the bottom corner. It would seem the other has done a perfunctory glance of all his belongings while Shen Yuan was gone.
“What’s detergent?” He asks as he hands the detergent over, and Shen Yuan can’t help but crack a smile at the irony.
“Think of it like soap, but for your clothes.”
“So,” Luo Binghe pauses, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Soap?”
Shen Yuan laughs lightly,
“Yea, I guess. But, I don’t know, for some reason it’s different.”
Luo Binghe tilts a head and looks at him sharply when he says, “You don’t know a lot about this, do you?”
Shen Yuan flushes slightly in embarrassment,
“I know a lot about other things, okay!” He’s defending while he fills the detergent up to the line in the lid.
“Now pay attention!” He says a little snappishly.
Luo Binghe, surprisingly, obediently takes a step forward to watch Shen Yuan’s movements closely.
“So you fill the detergent up until this line, you see?”
The demon eyes the lid as if it’s the most unimpressive thing he has ever seen in his life, and honestly? Having read Luo Binghe’s life, it probably is.
“The line tells you what the right amount of soap is, and—”
“What happens if you go over the line?”
Shen Yuan pauses.
“Uhm…”
He would literally rather combust on the spot than admit that once again! He is unsure of how this all works.
“You’ll just have too much soap, probably, and it’ll overflow.”
That’s probably why, right?
Luo Binghe accepts the explanation without further pushback, causing Shen Yuan to huff a breath in relief.
“So then, you pour the detergent over your clothes, try to get it as even as possible, and put the lid back on the detergent when you’ve poured it all out. Will you put this back where you got it from?”
When Shen Yuan passes the detergent over, Luo Binghe’s fingers graze his own. (It’s interesting how soft they are for a Demon Emperor’s hands.)
“Next, you just close the door and adjust the settings to your liking.”
Gesturing at all the buttons and dials, Shen Yuan looks back to see his student actively listening to every word he says,
“I normally do the cold water setting, we can say this is a light load for now, and no need for it to be a gentle cycle.
“And ta-da!” Shen Yuan pushes the final button hat starts the cycle, “Now it’ll wash my clothes for me.”
Luo Binghe leans forward to examine all the buttons on the machine. He doesn’t voice any questions like a normal person who has never seen a washer machine might, but still, Shen Yuan trusts the Protagonist's intellect.
He’s written to be sharp and quick on his feet, afterall.
“Interesting,” is all he says, before he bends down again to peek through the window into the machine, and reaches for the door handle.
“No!” Shen Yuan kneels down lightning fast and latches his hand over Luo Binghe’s before he can pull the door open, “No, no, no, don’t do that.
“If you open that, it’ll stop automatically.”
Looking at Luo Binghe’s face, it is so offended that Shen Yuan has to hold back a laugh.
“Sorry,” He says smiling nervously while he drops the other’s hand, “But you can’t open it until it’s done.”
“I can do anything I want.”
Shen Yuan stands up and simultaneously looks down at the honestly, pouty face of the Proud Immortal Demon Way Protagonist. This time, he actually does laugh a little.
“I know, I know,” he chuckles and replies flippantly with a hand flopping gesture, “But, I mean, you shouldn’t open it. Then we’d have to do all that work again.”
And then, he turns on his heel and leaves Luo Binghe sitting on his laundry room floor.
“You can sit there the whole sixty minutes if you would like, I won’t stop you, or you can come with me and I’ll show you the kitchen?” He’s saying over his shoulder, while he makes his way across his apartment.
Secretly, Shen Yuan is really hopeful that his offer will get taken up. He’s certain the kitchen will impress the Protagonist way more than the laundry room.
There’s no response for five seconds. Enough time for Shen Yuan to make it to the doorway of his kitchen, when suddenly,
“I will see the kitchen.”
— — —
The kitchen, Luo Binghe thinks, is extraordinary.
If there is any reason to return to this strange, strange world, it is most definitely so that he may have access to Shen Yuan’s kitchen.
“Fridges are pretty common, yea, most of every household will have at least one…” The human explains while opening up the doors for Luo Binghe to look inside.
He had thought surely this Shen Yuan must be well off to own such a valuable item, but apparently it is commonplace in this world?
“So, your food never goes bad, then?”
“Well…” The human pushes at the glass circles on his eyes, “I wouldn’t say never, but definitely with less frequency.”
Luo Binghe nods, that makes sense, he notes in his head. He also notes that he would very much like one of these ‘fridges’.
“And, I think that’s it, as far as the appliances go,” Shen Yuan turns to look up at him.
So far, Luo Binghe has learned about the ‘air fryer’, ‘toaster’ and ‘espresso machine’. He had already been familiar with ovens and stoves, but the ones that Shen Yuan owns are much, much better than even Luo Binghe’s own in the Imperial Royal Demonic Palace.
“There’s definitely other things that more advanced cooks will have in their homes, but for a basic person like me, this is all that is standard…” Shen Yuan is still saying, while looking around as if to see if he forgot to show something.
Luo Binghe almost wants to ask how it all works, but he notices that all the ‘appliances’ have the same little, thick strings connecting them to the walls. The washer and dryer had these strings too, and so Luo Binghe has concluded that this is somehow the answer to how all of these things work.
Or in short—there’s a good chance that Shen Yuan can’t explain these any better than he had explained the clothes washer.
So instead, Luo Binghe just nods once,
“Good,” He says in approval, before looking at Shen Yuan with intent to threaten, “You will let me use them now,” he demands as menacing as he can manage.
Shen Yuan blinks up at him for a second, and then shrugs a little half-heartedly.
“Yea, sure, go ahead.”
Luo Binghe’s eyes twitches at the casual response,
“I’ll have to stay here and make sure you don’t start a fire on accident—” and here, Shen Yuan has to cut himself off to accommodate a sleepy yawn,
“—but, yea, that’s honestly fine,” He finishes around the edges of his yawn.
Luo Binghe, feeling off-kilter and confused, still kinda letting out his menacing aura, nods stiffly.
“Well, then,” he says firmly still, “I will do that.”
Shen Yuan’s not even looking at him when he nods again in agreement. Instead, he’s walking over to an empty counter and hoisting himself up to sit on it.
“If you can find any good ingredients in the fridge or pantry, go ahead and use them. Except actually,” He’s raising up his finger to negate what he’s just said, “if you don’t know what something is, ask me first instead of just using it.”
Then he mumbles something about how ‘Gushers’ are probably not a good ingredient to be using.
“...”
Luo Binghe stands there and blinks for a second.
He had expected more push back, so now he doesn’t know what to do with all the fight he had been building up in his body.
At his side, Xin Mo rattles in confusion.
Shen Yuan has pulled out the little rectangle he’s frequently glancing at anyway, and seems thoroughly invested in looking at it.
The kitchen is completely his to use.
Luo Binghe shakes his head a little and decides that humans in this world must be weird.
For no humans in Luo Binghe’s world treat him the way that Shen Yuan does.
— — —
“Your house is so strange, who are those other people that live in your house?”
Shen Yuan tilts his head in confusion, “I don’t live with other people?”
Luo Binghe furrows his eyebrows, almost as if he is annoyed that Shen Yuan is playing dumb. Which he’s not! The Protagonist just loves to speak vaguely and as if everyone knows what he’s talking about a lot!
“You do. I saw them when I first came here,” He says with a little more force, like he’s gonna need to press the truth out of Shen Yuan.
“The first time you came here?”
It is now officially Luo Binghe’s fifth visit to Shen Yuan’s home, and still he is not sure why he keeps being graced with the character’s presence. Luo Binghe is yet to tell him, and Shen Yuan is satisfied to have an occasional house guest who also happens to be amazing at cooking.
“I swear I don’t live with other people, though?”
From his spot looking out the window (like a dog, Shen Yuan has to hold back the thought,) Luo Binghe turns around to give him a full glare.
“I saw a family at a lower point in your building the first time I ever came here.”
Lower point in his building?
“Oh!” Shen Yuan exclaims, understanding coming fast, “Oh…?” He says again now a little worried about whatever poor residents the half-demon must have scared.
“That’s not–They’re not–” Shen Yuan huffs, struggling to find a way to explain.
“Those people don’t live with me,” he finally settles on saying.
Luo Binghe cocks his head to the side, and long curls slide over his shoulder.
Shen Yuan swallows a little,
“No, like, they live in this building, but that’s their room. This is my room. Normally, we don’t have access to each other’s room like that.”
Luo Binghe’s eyebrows furrow further,
“So… this whole building is not your house?”
The comment is so surprising that it startles a laugh out of Shen Yuan,
“What?” He laughs out, “No! This building is way too big to only be mine. There’s probably like thousands of rooms here.”
“My palace has thousands of rooms.”
“Well, yes, but that’s different.”
Luo Binghe turns around fully so that his body is no longer facing the window at all,
“How so?”
Shen Yuan pauses, sets down the Switch he had been playing Animal Crossing with, and thinks for a second.
“Well… you have thousands of people living in those thousands of rooms. Me, I would be alone if I had a thousand rooms all to myself.”
Which, wow, that sounds sadder when said out loud.
“I mean—” He’s starting to say, pushing up his glasses and feeling slightly embarrassed, but Luo Binghe is quick to cut him off,
“Are you poor, then? You have to share your space with others?”
Shen Yuan gracelessly chokes on his spit.
“What? No! I’m not— This is a very nice apartment!”
Luo Binghe, bewilderingly, smirks. As if he is amused by Shen Yuan’s distress.
“But you have to share your space with strangers?”
“Well, yes! Kind of. But I’ll have you know this is one of the most expensive apartments in this area! And I’m in the penthouse!”
It’s not even that Shen Yuan prides himself on being rich. The money that he has is certainly not his own, but instead the benefit of being the third son to an extremely affluent family. However, for some reason, he feels the need to set the record straight when Luo Binghe takes a look at all of his very nice things and says that he must be poor.
“I know you don’t know a lot about my world, but trust, this is a nice apartment.”
Luo Binghe hums back in response, still smiling as if something about Shen Yuan’s reaction was funny??
“So then, most people live like this?”
Shen Yuan grumbles a little bit more, before he sighs and moves his Switch over to the table. It seems Luo Binghe is back to his favorite hobby of questioning Shen Yuan endlessly.
Animal Crossing will just have to wait, then.
“Yes, most of everyone will live in an apartment. Especially in a city like this. But, for people with families or kids, they might own a house on the outskirts of the city.”
“You don’t have a family or kids?”
“...”
“...”
“I’m twenty-one years old.”
“...”
“You’re twenty-one!”
The ensuing mocking laughter makes Shen Yuan want to combust on the spot.
“You’re twenty-one?” Luo Binghe is repeating in between loud barks of laughter.
“Yes. What is so funny about that, hm?”
“Does time pass differently in this world than in mine?”
“No! Our years are about the same amount of time!”
Shen Yuan huffs, a disagreeable feeling bubbling in his chest, “What is so funny! Why are you laughing!”
“You’re practically a child!” Luo Binghe barely manages to say through his loud laughs.
“Alright!” Shen Yuan’s face feels like it’s about to burn off, “Okay! Twenty-one is a plenty respectable age, okay? Now, where’s your dumb sword?”
It’s hard to be heard over Luo Binghe’s loud laughs, so Shen Yuan endeavors to speak louder as he marches toward the other,
“Get out your sword, go home like you always do,” He’s saying as he pats Luo Binghe down in an attempt to find that fuck ass sword.
Luo Binghe for his part is still laughing like a maniac. Even leans back and lets Shen Yuan pat him down without any resistance.
“Cut your stupid portal into existence and then don’t come back for another week, okay?”
His face is still on fire when he finds Xin Mo and shoves it into the Protagonist’s hands.
“Okay?” He asks again, just barely managing the courage to look Luo Binghe in the eyes.
He’s practically in the other man’s lap after all his efforts to search him, with Luo Binghe himself laid back casually to allow the transgression.
Quickly, Shen Yuan diverts his eyes away. Pushes his glasses up in a nervous gesture, and because he’s not looking, he doesn’t see the calculating look sent his direction by the other.
“And what if I refuse?”
The voice is so low that it sends involuntary shivers down Shen Yuan’s back.
What if he does refuse? Shen Yuan wouldn’t really be able to do anything about it, not really.
From his place seated in the other’s lap, Shen Yuan looks up again to see the smuggest look he’s ever seen on Luo Binghe,
“After all, you’re talking to your Elder right now. You think you can boss me around?”
And the righteous, embarrassed anger is back.
Shen Yuan huffs loudly and shoves Xin Mo more forcefully into Luo Binghe’s hands,
“Get out!”
When the half-demon does leave, he leaves not a trace of himself behind except for the sound of his echoing laughter.
— — —
It has now become apparent to Luo Binghe that this Shen Yuan is completely unrelated to the nice Shizun he is searching for.
Twenty-one years of age? There’s just no way.
The Shizun that Luo Binghe had met in that other world carried himself with the poise and dignity that only a peerless immortal who had lived for hundreds of years could have. Shen Yuan’s mere twenty-one years simply cannot compare.
And Luo Binghe feels…
Something about this revelation.
He just isn’t quite sure what it is he’s feeling.
Anger, elation, relief, dread. They all swirl around his chest in a chaotic frenzy.
He’s mad to have failed again, excited to have his answers. Lighter to know he’s one step closer to finding the Shen Qingqiu he’s looking for and…
…
The dread sinks more heavily in his stomach than the rest.
It’s the one emotion Luo Binghe is trying his hardest to ignore– The worst emotion to have to face, but it is all the same the most powerful one.
Luo Binghe feels unending dread.
At the prospect that he’ll never be able to find another nice version of Shen Qingqiu? At the idea that he has wasted days, if not months, in this particular pursuit.
This lead was the closest he’s felt to answers in awhile. While Shen Yuan and his world might have been a world full of confusion, and a face that doesn't exactly look like Luo Binghe’s Shizun, it had still been interesting.
Had still felt promising.
To come to the conclusion that Shen Yuan is not, in fact, Shen Qingqiu, well… It should have been the obvious conclusion. It was the obvious conclusion that Luo Binghe had already come to when that witch had first handed him that stupid drawing.
But something had persisted inside of his chest. Something clawed at his mind and told him to keep visiting Shen Yuan.
A waste of his efforts, apparently.
Luo Binghe, laying in his bed (alone— always alone these days), feels an unending dread stirring around a broad range of emotions in his chest.
Is he happy? Is he sad? … It’s hard to decide. Moonlight filters through the window and illuminates only about half of his chambers.
Shen Yuan would like his chambers, probably. Would say something in that strange way he speaks sometimes, like, wow, this is so cool!
Whatever that means.
Luo Binghe shakes his head back and forth because he knows. He knows what those words Shen Yuan uses mean.
The two have spent enough time together that Luo Binghe knows the human’s idiosyncrasies. He knows that when Shen Yuan pushes those glass circles over his eyes that it means he is nervous. Knows that when Shen Yuan says fandom and Protagonist and PIDW, he is usually talking about Luo Binghe and his world.
Luo Binghe seemingly knows a lot of useless information now. All things surrounding Shen Yuan.
When he rolls over to lay on his side, Luo Binghe thinks about the 1000 other rooms that exist in his palace, and the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who wish they could be in his particular room tonight.
Is Shen Yuan one of them?
Would Shen Yuan want to see his chamber? Sleep in his chambers?
By not knowing the answer, is he now admitting that there are still things about that human he does not know?
Luo Binghe doesn’t know enough. Luo Binghe knows too much. Luo Binghe doesn’t even know what he does and doesn’t know.
There is only one thing he feels sure about. One thing about that human that he does know. Shen Yuan is not Shen Qingqiu.
And Luo Binghe has no reason to go back there to learn useless information about a useless human.
— — —