Chapter Text
He wakes up on the ground in an empty field. It’s not uncomfortable, the grass long and full enough to provide a surprising amount of cushion. A light breeze keeps the warm air from becoming stifling and fluffy clouds cross the mid morning sky at a lazy pace. Birds sing from several of the trees nearby.
It’s relaxing. He spends a while just enjoying it before realizing he has no idea where he is. Nothing looks familiar. Standing up doesn’t help in this matter, but it does let him discover that he’s injured. Or, at least that he had been recently. The heavy white and green robes he’s wearing are spattered with blood. Several areas are ripped. Had he been attacked by a beast? Left to die by vagabonds?
Well. He’s not going to get answers just standing here.
It takes half a day to find a road. The road itself isn’t much, dirt packed down by traveling carriages and the like, but it’s at least a sign of civilization. A more rural area, which makes sense this close to obviously unsettled land. He walks along it for another shichen and then he’s there, in a small town, with people staring at him. His clothes are better quality than theirs. His hair is in better condition. Is this a place for the poor? He thinks he’s used to much better.
“Can- can I help Daozhang with anything?” a woman says, eyeing his clothes, and the title seems incorrect. He thinks. Why isn’t he sure?
“I need to speak with a local authority,” he realizes. Someone that might be able to tell him everything he needs to know- assuming he knows what he needs to know. He’s not sure what that might be, either. How vexing.
The woman’s eyes widen for a moment before she directs him to what appears to be an unofficial headman for the town. Middle aged fellow, clothing just barely better than the others’, dark hair in a tidy, no-nonsense topknot.
“And what brings such an honored guest to our humble town?” the headman asks. There’s a level of unease in his tone, his gaze flickering over the bloodied evidence of battle.
“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I woke up alone in a field.”
The headman and the woman exchange looks that don’t hide at all how suspicious both are.
“Ah… I’d be happy to make some inquiries,” the headman. “If Daozhang would give a name, that’d make things easier.”
He opens his mouth to answer and then closes it as he makes the startling realization that he doesn’t know his own name. For several moments, all he can do is stare through the headman and scramble for something. What he finally decides on is, “Shen Jiu.”
Shen is a common family name. It’s been roughly nine shichen since he woke up in the field. Good enough for now. It isn’t something that will survive too much scrutiny, but Shen Jiu will make do. The headman accepts it in any case and promises to send for assistance from a contact in one of the larger cities nearby.
Shen Jiu finds silver in one of his sleeves and rents a room at the only inn in town (which is actually just an extension off the headman’s residence that his wife runs), where he systematically goes through everything he currently knows about himself and the specific things he knows he doesn’t know. Neither add up to much, unfortunately. He’s apparently rich, considering all the silver. Or was? Or maybe he’s a terrible thief.
Except… Would a cultivator at this level of maturation really need to resort to thievery? The throb of power inside him is a deep well he doubts many cultivators get to, even if there are obvious hitches that point to past injuries of some kind that he’s apparently never managed to fully soothe. Shen Jiu considers this seriously as he cycles his qi, remembering how to do it the moment he thinks about doing it. Maybe the rest of his memory will come back the same way. He’ll just have to experience as much of the world as he can to figure out everything he’s forgotten.
That seems like a lot of effort for very little reward. Shen Jiu lays back on his rented bed and stares at the ceiling in silence. He’d been alone in that field. Whatever happened to him, no one was there with him. Maybe he was betrayed by a companion. Maybe whatever people he knew just didn’t like him. It feels right, the notion that he doesn’t have anyone that actually cares about him. It feels lonely in a familiar way. Whatever life he’d had before, something tells him he won’t be missed. That feels familiar, too.
So. Shen Jiu is a powerful cultivator with plenty of money on him. He hasn’t sensed any kind of spiritual sword and that hits hard, that is a true loss, but maybe it had abandoned him, too. He is a man alone in the world. Well, if no one is looking out for him, Shen Jiu will just do it for himself. That feels the most familiar of all.
He stays in the town for three days before a far too luxurious carriage rides in just past midday. The carriage contains a man who wears his wealth with subtlety, but there’s no one who dares give him a cross word. Shen Jiu watches from the inn doorway as he’s greeted by the headman and wife, both smiling like he’s a rich relative they don’t want to offend. For his part, the man smiles with a similar level of discomfort before the wife directs him towards the inn room. The man glances up and locks eyes with Shen Jiu.
“Greetings, Daozhang,” he says, oddly respectful for a rich man, even bowing with politely cupped hands that seem to be trying for something a cultivator would do but in the way of civilians who have only seen it happen in passing would. The depth is wrong, as is the tilt of his hands and the angle of his arms, but perhaps he can be taught. “This one has heard that Daozhang encountered trouble on a night hunt and needs an investigator?”
Is that what the headman had said to summon him? Well. He’s not wrong, exactly.
“Mm. We’ll speak privately,” Shen Jiu says, nodding towards the inn room.
The rich man follows him inside to the tiny sitting area and the wife brings them tea. Even with his discomfort, the rich man still comes across as warm and kind with compliments that make the wife smile a little more truthfully. Shen Jiu is fairly sure it’s a trap and can’t tell if he’s impressed by the man’s acting skills or disappointed at the villagers’ stupidity.
“Where are my manners?” the rich man says after they’ve each had a moment to sip. “This one is called Shen Yuan.”
That is… oddly coincidental. Is that why the headman called for him specifically? Why the rich man let himself be summoned so unceremoniously to such a humble place? But the headman didn’t seem like he doubted Shen Yuan would come, nor were their interactions at all like anyone on either side expected violence or hardship in the arrangement, despite the understandable unease interacting between stations always engenders.
“Greeting Shen-gongzi,” is all Shen Jiu ends up saying. “This one is called Shen Jiu.”
Shen Yuan goes very still for a few moments as if that’s familiar. Then he just smiles, a little strained. “No courtesy name…?”
“No,” Shen Jiu says, despite suddenly being entirely sure he probably does have one. It would make sense for the station he’s fairly sure he inhabited due to his clothing alone. Maybe he doesn’t want it, though. He won’t know until he has more information about who he was, if there’s any to be found.
After a minute of silence, spent staring at one another, Shen Yuan flinches and glances off to the side. “So. So this night hunt?”
Shen Jiu amuses himself by assigning a point for winning the staring match, even if Shen Yuan might just be an awful opponent. “The locals had no information on what I was hunting.”
“And you…” Shen Yuan sneaks a glance back to him, hesitating a moment, then finishes, “don’t know either?”
“I do not.”
“How long have you been on the hunt?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you first start hunting it?”
“I don’t know.”
Shen Yuan blinks at him. “So, what do you know?”
“That I woke up in a field alone, then walked to this village.”
They stare at each other again. Shen Yuan looks away first again. Shen Jiu assigns himself a point again.
Then Shen Yuan jerks up straight and sputters out, “Wait, did you lose your memory?!”
Ah, considering how little information Shen Jiu volunteered, he’s a little impressed it only took Shen Yuan that long to figure it out.
“Did you only forget the specific time period of the hunt or…?” Shen Yuan asks.
“I appear to have forgotten all biographical information about myself,” Shen Jiu admits, “at least everything before the field I woke up in.”
Shen Yuan blinks a little, lifting a hand to his chin as his gaze turns inward. “Retrograde amnesia? Cheap plot, but we’ll wing it.”
His voice is low enough that even sitting this near, Shen Jiu probably wouldn’t have heard well enough to understand if he weren’t a cultivator. He lifts a brow as Shen Yuan mutters to himself for another few seconds, content to let the man show more of himself for Shen Jiu’s judgment. Odd but well meaning is the initial impression. Shen Jiu can work with that.
“Well,” Shen Yuan finally says, looking back up. “We’ll just have to ask around and see what other info we can get on the situation. I have contacts in most of the region who can do the footwork for us. In the meantime, this one would be honored to house Shen-daozhang in his estate.”
As rich as Shen Yuan dresses, it’ll doubtless be a comfortable place. Shen Jiu nods his acceptance and soon finds himself bundled into Shen Yuan’s carriage to make the trek back to his holdings. Over the next day and a half, Shen Jiu has a surprisingly entertaining ride as Shen Yuan babbles about such and such books or plays he’s recently enjoyed, and it turns out that Shen Jiu knows several of them once reminded. It gives him hope that this “experiencing things to trigger memories” idea has merit in regaining himself. If he’s going to be sitting around some noble’s estate, at least the man is educated and has some amount of taste. Though, he did seem a little overly entertained by what Shen Jiu knows to be a passable at best combat sequence in one of the more recent plays about the sealing of Tianlang-jun. No one is perfect, he supposes.
The estate turns out to be quite generous. Shen Yuan is the heir to a merchant family that’s been doing very well for itself, groomed from birth to some day take it over from his father (“He’s very healthy and not that old yet thankfully,” Shen Yuan is quick to add during the explanation, grinning sheepishly in a way that makes Shen Jiu want to poke him with a fan or something similar.). Much of that money has obviously been reinvested into the surrounding lands where they employ several workshops and craftsmen to produce their own goods, along with stock sourced elsewhere and sold at a premium locally (“Just because we can control most of the supply chain doesn’t mean it’s always worth the trouble!”). They pass several midsized settlements on the way to the main family home, as well as other large holdings Shen Yuan indicates are other branches of the same family.
When they finally reach the main family home, Shen Jiu isn’t surprised by the large size or ornate architecture. There’s an ease that Shen Yuan has with wealth and it makes sense the home he’d grown up in would show it. Thick wooden pillars at symmetrical intervals with immaculate paint, subtle carvings along the bases of the outer walls, and carefully crafted lattice windows. The main complex itself is huge, plenty enough to house several generations comfortably in their own courtyards.
The sprawling gardens just inside the outer walls with their immaculate flower beds and several small, open air pavilions seem a bit much, though. Shen Jiu eyes a few plants he’s fairly sure are poisonous as he lets Shen Yuan lead him inside the house.
“Gongzi,” an older man in servants’ robes greets them in what looks to be a formal receiving room, bowing, “and guest. Welcome.”
“Thanks. Shen-daozhang will be staying with us for a while. Will you have rooms made up for him?” Shen Yuan starts to say something else, then cuts himself off to add, “The best we have.”
Shen Jiu’s brow raises a little at that, but he supposes his clothes and position as a powerful cultivator make the respect warranted. The servant at least doesn’t seem surprised by Shen Yuan’s insistence on treating him well.
“It will be done,” the servant, possibly even head of house, says with a nod.
“And is it close to lunch time?”
“If Gongzi is hungry, this one would be happy to inform the kitchens to quicken preparations.”
Shen Yuan waves a hand vaguely. “Oh no, there’s no need to go through the trouble. Some snacks would be fine to tide us over.”
The servant nods again, entirely unfazed, and leads them to a very comfortable sitting room where tea and snacks are presented. Shen Yuan makes a show of complimenting everything set between them, smiling brightly at the servant girls in a way that doesn’t surprise any of them and is quickly returned. Narrowing his eyes, Shen Jiu carefully observes the interactions for any sign of foul play. It’s just not normal, a lord being so personable with his servants. Not unless he’s getting something out of it.
He freezes when one of them brings by a tray of tiny, intricate mung bean cakes and leans over to murmur into Shen Yuan’s ear, “A-Li said to let Gongzi know she really liked the ribbons he gave her.”
Ah, was Shen Yuan bribing the servants after all? And in return…
But Shen Yuan’s face lights up with honest delight, not a hint of guile or lustiness to be seen. “I’m so glad! She’ll have to wear them the next time she visits the estate.”
The servant smiles back cheerfully and leaves with a barely polite bow.
“A-Li?” Shen Jiu asks.
“Ah…” Shen Yuan glances away, a light dusting of pink on his face as he scratches at his cheek. “One of the servants’ children. She just turned ten and this one wanted to make sure she got something pretty for it…”
Hm. Starting into them young, maybe? Shen Jiu files that away and tries to enjoy the tea.
It doesn’t take long before the head servant from before comes to lead Shen Jiu to his rooms for the foreseeable future. They’re more than generous, an entire courtyard just for him with plenty of space and pampering. If this is how the rich treat their guests, he wonders how much more grand Shen Yuan’s rooms must be. Shen Jiu idly runs his fingers along the lavishly clothed platform bed, studying the inconspicuous but delicate embroidery along the coverlet that must have taken months to complete, just for this single piece. There are other subtle signs of wealth elsewhere, in the wood choices and the subtle craftsmanship of each furniture piece. Yes, the Shens certainly have plenty of money to throw around but don’t feel the need to make it that obvious, if you aren’t looking for it. The subtlety certainly agrees with Shen Jiu. Well, he’ll think about it later. For now, he settles into his new rooms and decides to rest until lunch.
Lunch itself is much like tea had been. The food is delicious, the dining room another show of taste and refinement, and the servants seem to have genuine interest in making sure both he and their young master are well cared for. There’s another quiet thanks delivered to Shen Yuan, this time about a book of poetry for “A-Wen”, who Shen Yuan explains is a kid sister of a servant with a “real ear for lyricism, you’ll see what I mean the next time she comes by!”. Shen Jiu files this away in his mental notes to look into. Once is bad enough, but showing favor to young girls twice? And no one is surprised by it, so this must be ongoing behavior. Lips tight, Shen Jiu just keeps his eyes open for more evidence of just what kind of man this Shen Yuan really is.
The afternoon is spent on a guided tour of the estate. Shen Yuan points out various places of interest, many that actually do spark Shen Jiu’s curiosity, but the crowning achievement is definitely the library.
“It’s not that big yet,” Shen Yuan admits, despite there being a relative fortune in skillfully bound and cared for volumes to his name already. “I only just started collecting them seriously.”
The room the books are housed in is huge, and from remnants of previous fixtures, Shen Jiu thinks it may have been a ballroom of some type before it was retooled as a library. There are shelves lining the whole of one wall, most of them filled with books in careful organization. These turn out to be tomes on magical beasts and flora from around the country, which Shen Yuan seems particularly excited about.
“This one has great illustrations, but there’s so much information missing from the entries,” he babbles as he points one out. “They definitely gave up quality for quantity on that front.”
Which just gets him into flipping to a particular entry that he goes on at length about the information not included. Shen Jiu only half listens. He’s not that interested in Ruby Breasted Cuckoos and their particular child rearing practices, but he supposes knowing how best to harvest the small rubies that naturally sprout in their features is worthwhile enough to be written down. Even if not worthwhile enough to listen to a half shichen long diatribe about it!
Dinner allows him to escape, but it also brings another instance of Shen Yuan’s odd relationship with the servants. As a second course is brought out for them, one ducks in to murmur quietly to Shen Yuan about “A-Bo”’s new interest in archery and how sad it is they won’t have a chance to nurture that interest. Without hesitating, Shen Yuan assures her that he’ll keep an ear out for any archers nearby who might be willing to give them a few lessons. The servant brightens, heaping praise upon Shen Yuan’s generosity even as he waves it off with embarrassment and turns back to his food.
Hm. Shen Jiu’s eyes narrow. A boy this time? When he asks, A-Bo is indeed a boy, but far closer to being a man by the sounds of it. Another child of a servant, one who doesn’t serve in the main house but has aspirations of joining the local guards apparently. Shen Jiu still doesn’t see what Shen Yuan is getting out of this, but he’s starting to wonder if it’s less Shen Yuan taking advantage of anyone and everyone taking advantage of him instead.
There’s no sense in worrying about what a rich man decides to do with his money, Shen Jiu supposes. The family business is apparently doing well enough to support his philanthropic tendencies, but it would be up to his father to stop him if that weren’t the case. Not Shen Jiu’s concern, either way. If he does end up seeing evidence of wrongdoing on Shen Yuan’s part, he can just take care of the problem then.
---
It takes over two weeks for any of Shen Yuan’s contacts to get back with them about Shen Jiu’s hunt. Apparently, a highly capable cultivator matching Shen Jiu’s description had questioned people in three villages before going after a beast Shen Yuan identifies as a Three Winged Harpy Moth. (“Fascinating species. It’s more of a lizard than either a moth or a bird though, so the name’s stupid, but its venom can be used to give immunity to leprosy! Not that there aren’t also ten other cures for leprosy that don’t involve fighting one, but…”) They had even been able to confirm the Harpy Moth was killed as someone came across part of the carcass semi-close to where Shen Jiu had awakened, but that’s the end of the good news. No one had actually gotten the name of the cultivator who showed up, nor had they petitioned a sect about the issue, so there’s no trail to where Shen Jiu had come from.
In addition to that, a Three Winged Harpy Moth would not have been the cause of Shen Jiu’s amnesia, so something else must have been out there with him or he’d succumbed to something like a qi deviation. That possibility has Shen Yuan worried, and it takes a while for Shen Jiu to calm him down by sparking another lecture on beasts known to cause amnesia in humans, which Shen Jiu only half listens to, a skill it seems he will get great practice for. That gives him a good full shichen to consider things while Shen Yuan is distracted.
If the beast Shen Jiu hunted isn’t the cause of his memory loss, the idea of a qi deviation becomes the main working theory. He’s done a few cursor examinations of his spiritual system since waking up, and while powerful it’s not as robust as it should be. There are hitches and scarring all through him, even flaws in the foundation the rest was built on in the first place. This is a spiritual system ready to deviate at the slightest increase of instability. Whoever Shen Jiu used to be, he’d been on the edge of a drop constantly. If he’d been close to any other cultivators, either he didn’t trust them enough to help him or they hadn’t wanted to.
That puts his current situation into stark relief. Instead of putting himself in peril for random civilians or maybe even a sect that didn’t care about him, here he is given comfortable rooms, good food, and a companion that only annoys him a little in intervals. Shen Yuan has given no indication that he wants Shen Jiu to leave, has said nothing about a time limit to his generosity. There has to be a catch to this, but Shen Jiu hasn’t found one yet. He needs more time and that, at least, doesn’t seem to be a limited resource.
“Oh, there you are,” Shen Yuan says as they cross paths. Shen Jiu had been headed back to his rooms after a while in the library (which has grown by a quarter the size in only the last few days, just how much money is Shen Yuan willing to burn on his passions?!) but pauses to greet him. “I picked something up in town for you.”
This is the third day in a row Shen Yuan has said this same thing. First was a new set of robes, luxurious and of a similar cut to what he’d awakened in, then a set of perfectly balanced knives for just in case. Today’s gift looks to be more robes by the look of the package Shen Yuan’s personal servant, A-Su, is carrying. Shen Jiu sighs and lets them into his rooms.
The package is, indeed, a new set of robes. They’re beautifully tailored and richly dyed in shades of green and black, delicate embroidery along the cuffs and hems to a point that Shen Jiu starts wondering if Shen Yuan is just that in need of a pretty doll to dress up. He seems pleased with the ensemble after bullying Shen Jiu into trying it on, tugging here and there to verify the fit and making nonsense comments under his breath about future orders. Is… Is this going to continue…?!
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Shen Jiu demurs, but Shen Yuan just waves it off like everything else.
“What kind of host doesn’t provide for his guests?” Shen Yuan says as explanation, and Shen Jiu tries very hard not to read more into that than there is. “A man like you should have plenty of clothing to choose from. This one is just making sure to keep you in the style you’re accustomed to. It is his duty.”
Shen Jiu stares at him. That sounds very much like something a rich lord says to a favored concubine or even a wife, not an unknown guest.
“Besides,” Shen Yuan continues without noticing the shock, “isn’t Daozhang more comfortable in fabrics like this?”
He has a point. The silks are luxurious, so soft and light. A fortune, surely. But why? Just what is Shen Yuan trying to do here with all this generosity? There has to be a catch, some dark side Shen Jiu just hasn’t had time to uncover yet. His determination to ferret out all of Shen Yuan’s secrets intensifies.
The act of investigating Shen Yuan isn’t actually that difficult. Shen Jiu has full reign of the estate, even the office space Shen Yuan shares with his father, who apparently does not come home often. This mostly means Shen Jiu has a far more nuanced idea of just how filthy rich this family is and Shen Yuan, individually. At least half of the family workshops are under his direct purview, those creating some of the most lucrative of goods, and Shen Yuan visits them personally to check in with the head craftsmen at each. He seems to have a good enough relationship with them that when Shen Jiu visits with him one day, all he sees is great respect and affection. The common people of the holding love Shen Yuan. Another sign of long term generosity and returned respect. In Shen Jiu’s experience, that usually means…
Actually. He doesn’t remember what that usually means. But he has a feeling this is unusual.
On another day of visits that Shen Jiu accompanies Shen Yuan on, mostly due to boredom, he finally hears something interesting.
“We already told Shen-er-guniang that it would be another week,” one of the men sighs out, running a hand down his face. “Unless you have any ideas on increasing the yield?”
Shen Yuan doesn’t, but he looks troubled. “Why was Shen Meili here in the first place?”
“She said you’d sent her for the inspection?” the man responds with a flash of concern. “Did Shen-gongzi not?”
“No. It seems I’ll need to have another talk with her about keeping her hands out of my business,” Shen Yuan mutters, glancing off darkly.
Shen Meili, as it turns out, is the younger daughter of the second house of Shen. When questioned, the servants of Shen Yuan’s estate have nothing good to say about her. A schemer and conniver, according to the head servant.
“We always put out the silver dishes when she visits,” he says, mouth a thin white line. “Gongzi was too lenient the last time she tried to poison him and only lowered her stipend percentage from the business.”
Very lenient when Shen Yuan would have been within his rights to cast her out of the family entirely, despite her belonging to a different house. Hm. That smells like a problem just beginning. More digging finds that Shen Meili is not alone in her attempts to undermine the first house. Only a shichen of conversations uncovers not one, not two, but twenty attempts on Shen Yuan’s life within the last year alone. Shen Yuan’s home may be orderly and generous, but the other houses of Shen appear to be a veritable cesspool of villainy that Shen Yuan is either ignoring or simply lacks the tools to deal with effectively.
If Shen Yuan dies, there goes Shen Jiu’s comfortable free ride while he figures out what to do with himself. Unacceptable. There’s still a chance that whatever group or sect Shen Jiu might have been part of will come looking for him, so he needs to stay put. Which means Shen Jiu will have to do something about this situation.
There are four houses of the Shen family. Of them, only two have male heirs, but one of the di wives and two shu wives are currently pregnant with other possible ones. The daughters of the Shen family have either been married off to prosperous other families or are working towards finding advantageous marriages. That doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to work for their parents’ aims.
A closer look at the second house, led by the younger brother of Shen Yuan’s father and the next head of family should something happen to him, immediately brings about some odd observances. Apparently, Shen Dexing or his daughter have been visiting the workshops a lot. Asking questions, making comments about the quality of the goods and quantity in the storehouses, alluding to upcoming changes in management. It makes the craftsmen nervous enough to open up to a quietly neutral ear like Shen Jiu, despite his place as a guest of the first house. With a little silver to help loosen tongues more, Shen Jiu builds up his information network to great effect.
“Huh,” Shen Yuan says when Shen Jiu brings up the concerns of the craftsmen during tea, brows furrowing. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with them…”
“There’s some interest to be found in seeing how things are constructed. It would be better if they didn’t have to deal with the aggravation of needless interruptions.”
Eyes narrowing, Shen Yuan considers that before sipping his tea. “...Suppose I’ll have a word with Shushu, then.”
“I’ll accompany you.”
That gets him an odd look, but Shen Jiu doesn’t trust this Shen Dexing not to make a play at poisoning Shen Yuan, and Shen Yuan is definitely too trusting to avoid it.
As it turns out, Shen Dexing doesn’t try to poison Shen Yuan, but his fucking daughter certainly does. Shen Jiu deals with it quietly enough that Shen Yuan doesn’t appear to notice. That just solidifies Shen Jiu’s resolve when it comes to the second house in general. His meal ticket is not getting murdered on his watch, damn it.
All it takes to get Shen Meili out of the way is a marriage, one Shen Jiu is sure won’t be a happy one, but does at least take her well away from Shen Yuan’s vicinity. It’s hellish keeping the idiot alive until the marriage is finalized, but Shen Jiu finds it almost fun to discover and circumvent Shen Meili’s increasingly desperate attempts to delay her wedding by getting the family into a mourning period that would also be advantageous for her father.
Shen Dexing is more difficult, subtle as he turns out to be. The whole plan seemed to be a convoluted attempt to discredit the heads of each workshop so they could be replaced with puppets under his control, which would then allow him to mobilize them against Shen Yuan by discrediting him, too. With enough bad publicity surrounding Shen Yuan’s “poor leadership”, that would set the stage for Shen Dexing to attack Shen Yuan’s father and oust him for leadership of the family in general.
It’s not a terrible plan. Shen Dexing has been patient enough in building the groundwork, but the loss of his most mobile piece in the form of his daughter is a serious blow. Under Shen Jiu’s careful manipulations, the whole conspiracy gets turned instead onto him. The rumors are easy to get going once Shen Jiu has the ear of the right people of the second house and surrounding towns, slowly ratcheting up the pressure until Shen Yuan’s father is forced to step in and officially censure his brother.
That’s not a permanent solution, but it at least gets Shen Dexing to back off the workshops. Several messages of thanks and small presents make their way to Shen Jiu’s rooms in the following weeks, a collection that he is absurdly proud to call his own. Unlike Shen Yuan’s constant stream of gifts, these are things Shen Jiu earned by his own hard work.
“Remind me not to complain about any of my other relatives around you,” Shen Yuan jokes over dinner, smiling in a way that seems about half intimidated. It’s a good look on him. Shen Jiu wonders what he might look like if actually threatened himself.
“I don’t stand by incompetence,” Shen Jiu says blithely. “Especially criminal incompetence. If you’re going to plot against your family, you might as well do it adequately.”
Shen Yuan’s laugh is choked but genuine enough.
Knocking down Shen Dexing quiets the other houses somewhat, but Shen Jiu knows it’s only a matter of time before someone else gets too bold. Shen Yuan is very much one of a kind within the family at large. That just means Shen Jiu has ample opportunity to entertain himself by shorting out possible conspiracies before they can get too far.
It’s a comfortable life, Shen Jiu decides after he’s been within the first house of Shen for two months. He’s well provided for and Shen Yuan actually seems to enjoy his company, even if sometimes he has odd reactions to things Shen Jiu says or does. The house servants show proper respect for him even when he starts nipping the most outrageous of Shen Yuan’s thoughtless favors to them. If he wants any adventure, he’s free to leave the estate for a local hunt and receives a hero’s welcome upon his return.
There’s little more one could ask for. Shen Jiu considers this one quiet morning as he leafs through a new poetry volume Shen Yuan had just added to the library, one that seems entirely attuned to Shen Jiu’s wants rather than his own. Had he been this comfortable in his past life? It doesn’t seem possible. Shen Jiu might never be a man who loved company, but he’s comfortable with the people close to him now. Did he have anyone before?
No one has come for him. No one has been around to ask after him in any of the surrounding villages or larger towns of the area. No one is looking for him. What worth does this mysterious past have if it doesn’t appear to be missing him now?
So, if he isn’t going back to wherever he was before, what is the plan now? Where will he go?
What if he stayed? That thought sticks with him though the rest of the day. Shen Jiu considers the options, but most don’t give the level of stability he finds himself craving. Sure, Shen Yuan hasn’t said anything about him leaving by a certain time. That doesn’t mean he won’t eventually. What Shen Jiu needs is a permanent reason to keep him around. He considers his various skills, what needs the first house might have that he could fulfill, and then overhears a very useful conversation.
“Are you sure I can’t just… send it back?” The cringe in Shen Yuan’s voice mirrors the look on his face as he stares desperately at his head servant. “It’s not like I have to consider every offer that comes my way.”
The head servant sighs. “Gongzi, you are already twenty-one years old. The other houses will only get more daring if you don’t marry soon.”
And hm. Now that is an idea. Shen Jiu had thought it odd that a man in Shen Yuan’s position wasn’t married yet, but he hadn’t considered that Shen Yuan himself might be avoiding it. Tapping his chin, Shen Jiu thinks about the way Shen Yuan seems immune to the admiration of the servants and craftsmen, of merchants the few times they’ve gone to market together. If he’s just as indifferent about people in his own social class, no wonder no one has caught him in their grasp.
And he’s not an ugly man. Shen Jiu can appreciate the gentle features of his face and his lithe frame as much as the servant girls do. He could take his pick of potential brides if he were at all interested in them. Could Shen Jiu be interested in him? Well, there’s a lot he’d be willing to do to secure his position, but this need not necessarily be a hardship.
So, that’s it, he decides. Shen Jiu is comfortable where he is and has no great need for whatever life he left behind. He might as well seduce Shen Yuan and become Shen-furen of the first house. Surely, it will only flourish under his firm hand, and what better way to keep Shen Yuan alive than to have ample reason to accompany him literally everywhere.
Excellent.