Wow Cher, go take a drink of water, you sound a little thirsty there 👀
I think I gave Shang Qinghua too much power in this… eh. When you snap, you snap! He deserves it. @cherfleur
—
Shang Qinghua drops the scrolls onto the large, ornate desk with a heavy sigh, wiping one hand across his brow. He looks down at them and contemplates just leaving them there for future-Qinghua to deal with, but the voice of reason at the back of his head makes a sarcastic quip about how well that always works out for him, and how he’s always so exhausted whenever he finally does return from a long day only to find unfinished work that he’d procrastinated, and so he resigns himself to sorting through them now.
Each scroll gets slotted neatly into its respective shelf above the desk, a miniature library of diamond-shaped holes that expand just above the area of the workspace. There’s another shelf to the left of the desk that rises up from the floor and reaches halfway up the wall toward the vaulted ceiling, veritably filled with even more scrolls and work that honestly Shang Qinghua would love to never have to ever think about again, but….
Even if he never actually signed up for this, it still is technically his job. So.
He slides scroll after scroll into the loose system of organization he has going on here, far less complicated than the one he’d had to design for the actual, legitimate library of the Eternal Winter Palace. Shang Qinghua can still remember the soul-consuming, absolute horror he’d experienced the very first time he’d walked into that place, when Mobei Jun had been showing him around, years ago. If he hadn’t remembered the details of the demonic history he had plotted for this part of the Realms in his first life before, then he certainly knew all of it and then some after he’d been forced to, for the safety of his own mind, reorganize the entire, expansive ancestral libraries of the ice demons. An endeavor which had taken him just under a decade to complete.
The demons, it seems, had little to no sense of organization in their lives. They just wrote down what needed to be written and then stashed said document or scroll into the dark library to never be seen again. Heavens forbid if anything needed to be dug up for later referencing. No fucking wonder the political atmosphere of the demon realms were so stagnant and slow.
Anyway. They weren’t like that anymore! Shang Qinghua has since taught them all better. Every single demon in the palace, from Mobei Jun to the youngest kitchen maid, knows the system of organization that Shang Qinghua has worked so hard to put into place, as well as what would happen if any of them were to ever attempt to somehow mess it up.
“Hey,” a bored and impatient voice sounds from behind him. “Are you done?”
At the demand, Shang Qinghua turns away from his desk and gives his companion a narrow glare.
“You know, you didn’t have to come with me,” he shoots back, annoyed.
Liu Qingge’s arms are crossed over his chest, and he glares right back at him from where he’s leaning against the door of Shang Qinghua’s palace suite.
He mutters something, and Shang Qinghua raises an eyebrow, planting one hand on his hip. “What was that?”
“I don’t trust these demons. Had to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?” Shang Qinghua asks, exasperated. “That they’re not planning to attack the sect? That I’m not giving them inside information?”
Liu Qingge scowls. He’s such a scowly man. Shang Qinghua doesn’t remember writing him like this. “No,” the swordmaster says shortly. “I— We know you’re not. Nobody thinks that, not anymore.”
“Then what are you here to ensure? That I’m safe? Because I am safe, Liu-shidi. I’m safer here than I could be anywhere else.” Thanks to his king, there hasn’t been a single attempt on Shang Qinghua’s life in two years! It’s honestly a new record. It just proves how much of a valued and efficient worker Shang Qinghua is considered in the palace. Makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside.
For some reason, however, his words only make Liu Qingge even grumpier. The man’s hand clenches around the hilt of his sword and he makes a very angry face. Thankfully, it’s aimed at the ground and not at Shang Qinghua, so he knows that Liu Qingge isn’t exactly enraged with him. The fact that he’s enraged at all, though, is still a little nerve wracking.
Shang Qinghua takes a tiny step back. This makes Liu Qingge glare even more fiercely, and the An Ding peak lord does his best not to tear up out of frustration. What the hell is wrong, Liu-shidi? Please tell him, so Shang Qinghua can find some way to fix it so that you’ll stop looking so scary!
Liu Qingge huffs, turning away from him to stare out of the open door instead of at him, like he’s some sort of guard.
“Shidi…” Shang Qinghua hedges, fidgeting with the tail end of his hair ribbon and biting his lip in thought. Is the man even going to answer him?
“There are many powerful demons in this palace,” Liu Qingge finally says, shortly.
Shang Qinghua can feel his soul already exiting his body. “Liu-shidi! Please don’t challenge anyone here to a fight! They take it very seriously in the demon realm! There’s no such thing as sparring. It’s all just fights to the death. If you challenge one of them, they’ll definitely take you up on it!”
Ah! That was absolutely the wrong thing to say! Liu Qingge glances over his shoulder, face thoughtful and considering, and Shang Qinghua can see the glint that enters his eye at his words.
“Shit, no, I meant — Liu-shidi! Liu-shidi, come back here!”
Too late, Shang Qinghua! He’s already out the door, stalking down the hallway like a tiger on the prowl. Fuck Shang Qinghua’s life, honestly. The An Ding peak lord’s shoulders slump, and he hangs glumly from where he’s grabbed onto the door frame, staring down the now-empty corridor with dead eyes.
“Please behave, Liu-shidi,” he whispers. It’s a prayer that he already knows isn’t going to be answered. “… Goddammit.”
Since it’s highly unlikely that Shang Qinghua would catch up to his fellow peak lord before Liu Qingge could make good on his desires and goad a fight out of someone, he decides to leave this, at least, as a problem that is definitely for future-Shang Qinghua to worry about. He closes the door and walks mulishly back over to the desk, grabbing a scroll off the shelf and sitting down to get to work on calculating the tax deficiencies for this month’s collection from the merchants in the capital.
Because there is always deficiencies, and the treasury staff of the palace are…. They’re just not really mathematicians. They’re just highly susceptible toward making too many mistakes in the overall count, and mistakes only exist to make Shang Qinghua’s job more difficult. So, he’d long ago told them to just worry about the count of their own departments, and leave the final calculations to him.
It’s a good hour later that the door opens again, and Shang Qinghua is so deep in the slog of long multiplication that he doesn’t even notice someone else is in the room until a large hand settles roughly over his head.
He sits up with a startled sound, lifting his hands to right his hairpiece that’s been knocked askew, even as his face is forcibly turned around and he gets a big eye full of bare chest and black furs.
He blinks, and then jolts out of his chair to stand at his feet and give the scowling Mobei Jun a bow. “M-My king! Forgive me, I didn’t see you come in.”
Shang Qinghua cringes at his own words, glancing fleetingly up from beneath his eyelashes at the demon, who only continues to stare down at him in a glower. Why is his king so goddamn scary all the time? Doesn’t he have any other expression? Why is he so much like Liu Qingge?
And why, oh heavens why, is it so attractive?
You useless fucking gay, Shang Qinghua berates himself from the safety of his own mind. Focus! Let’s do our best not to get beat up today! We’ve been doing so well!
“U-Um, my king…” he tries, hands desperately trying to both keep his hair in order but also not rudely knock the king a hand away. “M-My hairpiece….?”
Mobei Jun’s icy cold stare moves from Shang Qinghua’s face up to his previously neat half-bun, and he finally removes his hand. The peak lord breathes a sigh of relief, fixing his hair while the king takes half a step back and instead looks over his desk, where there are half open scrolls and an ink stone that has been brought nearly to the end of its usefulness.
“You’re working?” Mobei Jun asks, reaching out to touch a finger to the edge of one of the scrolls.
Delicate, tiny vines of frost swirl out from beneath his fingertips and into the paper, and Shang Qinghua makes a noise of panic as he reaches forward to snatch the scroll out from under his King’s hand before the ice can ruin the paperwork.
Mobei Jun retracts his hand, expression dark.
“M-My king…” Shang Qinghua quails, stuffing the scroll into a random empty space on the shelves, disregarding the organization system entirely. He takes the smallest, tiniest step backwards, but the desk hits the back of his legs.
“Shang Qinghua.” Mobei Jun says, simply. It’s enough to send the alarm bells ringing in the peak lord’s head.
The king reaches out the same hand, Frost still costing his long, pale fingers, and Shang Qinghua uselessly ducks his head as if there is any way he could possibly dodge the touch.
He expects his king to grab him by the ear, or the hair, or even the chin like he so often does, but instead the wall next to Shang Qinghua’s desk explodes.
Hm.
That…. What?
Shang Qinghua opens eyes he doesn’t recall ever closing, to stare incredulously at the spot where Mobei Jun had previously been standing. The king is no longer there, the room entirely empty except for Shang Qinghua himself, and here is a large, gaping hole torn in the wall to his left.
It takes a few seconds for Shang Qinghua to reboot from his shock, but once he does he slowly walks over to the hole and climbs over the rubble and debris that decorates the floor and peers out of it into the outer hall that it now connects his suite to.
Ah, there his king is, several yards away, brows pulled down in a deep scowl and blade crossed with a rather vicious and antagonistic looking Liu Qingge.
Shang Qinghua figures that he should have probably guessed.
He watches the two in silence as they go at one another as if they’re trying to kill each other, as they most probably are. Liu Qingge makes to go for his king’s throat, but Mobei Jun summons a jagged spear of ice to redirect his blade and bring his own blade, shimmering and blue just like the outer walls of the palace, around toward Liu Qingge’s unprotected side.
Liu-shidi isn’t the peak lord of Bai Zhan for nothing though, and quickly reveals the weakness as only a bluff, taking advantage of the placement of Mobei Jun’s blade to strike out with his leg and disarm the demon of his sword. The weapon shatters against the ground, and Mobei Jun summons a spear to replace it.
Shang Qinghua steps away from the hole in his wall, gazing wordlessly at where there had once been a shelf. Of scrolls. Neatly organized scrolls. Scrolls which had been filled with data and information that Shang Qinghua still had need of. Paperwork that was either already completely or still awaited completion. He can spot some of those scrolls littering the ground, many of them partially or entirely destroyed by the rubble.
Shang Qinghua brings up a hand to press his forefinger and his thumb down against the sides of his nose. He runs at the bridge, attempting to preemptively lessen the impending migraine, already knowing it would be futile. The clanging and clashing of swords in the hall over isn’t helping.
He steps back toward the hole. His foot catches on a discarded scroll and sends it skittering across the floor. Shang Qinghua feels like crying, a little. He takes in a deep breath.
He watches silently as the scroll hits the frame of the door and rolls to a stop at a pair of boots. Shang Qinghua follows the legs attached to said boots and up until he sees the face of a servant demon standing in the doorway, staring at him in stunned surprise. He watches as the demon glances over at the hole in the wall with wide eyes, as he takes in the mess of rubble on the floor and, finally, Shang Qinghua sees the exact moment the demon spots the buried scrolls.
The blood drains out of the servant’s face, and his eyes flit over to stare at Shang Qinghua. The peak lord isn’t sure what expression he’s wearing, since he’s been doing his best to keep it as blank as possible, but whatever is in his eyes makes the demon take a step back.
The servant sketches a hasty bow, turns tail and runs.
Huh.
Shang Qinghua steps back over the rubble to stand on the hole in his wall. His shidi and his king are still at one another’s throats, snarling insults and causing damage in the interior structure of the corridor. There looks to be another hole in the wall, in the very near future, and —wow! Shang Qinghua clenches his trembling hands in the sleeves of his robes, and jumps down from the hole and into the corridor.
He’s had enough! Did anyone up there hear that? System? God? Shang Qinghua has had enough for today!
The An Ding peak lord stalks over to the two opponents currently fighting to the death in the hallway beside his room. They’re so absorbed with one another and the next possible move they could make against each other than they don’t notice Shang Qinghua approach until he’s already got his hands fisted in their collars.
Shang Qinghua floods the musculator of his upper body with his own qi and gives a sharp, vicious tug with both arms. There are twin noises of surprise as both his king and his shidi go tumbling to the ground.
They whip around to stare incredulously at him, both of them offended and incredibly pissed, teeth bared. They look so much alike in this moment that if Shang Qinghua wasn’t just as pissed himself, he might have laughed.
“Shang Qinghua—!”
“What the hell do you think your d—?!”
“Shidi,” Shang Qinghua hisses, and Liu Qingge abruptly rears back, words cutting off.
Mobei Jun falls equally as silent, sitting up to regard the two of them silently, his analytic and battle-oriented mind likely trying to puzzle out what has the fierce warrior that he’d just been fighting on equal footing so hesitant to interrupt the weak and pathetic scribe that Mobei Jun has before used as his own punching bag. His king is so incredibly observant! It sucks that Shang Qinghua is way too mad right now to appreciate it like he normally would.
Liu Qingge shifts onto his knees, sword held over his legs in one tight fist, and he glares up at Shang Qinghua with a clenched jaw.
The An Ding peak lord isn’t having it, though. He’s way past the point of having it. He can already feel the migraine coming on.
“What the fuck,” he demands, “do you think you’re doing?”
Liu Qingge only continues to glare at him without reply.
Shang Qinghua reaches down and unsheathes his blade. Mobei Jun’s eyebrows rise up in obvious surprise at the move, but the king remains silent.
“What,” Shang Qinghua says, “were either of you thinking?!”
Mobei Jun frowns. “Shang Qinghua, you speak like that to this king?” He finally demands, eyebrows scrunched in anger.
“No, my king. No. Forgive this one his impudence, but,” Shang Qinghua holds up a finger, “shut up. Shut up, or I’m going to shred your body through a woodchipper and serve the remains as a shaved ice dessert to your court of bureaucratic idiots at the next feast. Shut up.”
Mobei Jun blinks in outrage, but doesn’t appear as if he knows how to respond to that. He glances between Shang Qinghua, who continues to stare down at his shidi, and Liu Qingge, who glares back.
“Shidi.”
Liu Qingge hunches his shoulders. “He was going to grab you. He should not have tried.”
“You tore a hole in my wall, Liu-shidi! You destroyed my shelf, and half my paperwork and scrolls! You put me back months in terms of work! Months! Liu-shidi!”
Liu Qingge gruffly turns his head away, belligerent scowl on his face. He clutches his sword in his lap like he wants to use it again, but isn’t yet sure on what.
Mobei Jun leans over into Liu Qingge’s space.
Liu Qingge narrows his eyes at him.
“What’s a woodchipper.”
The Bai Zhan peak lord glares. “I. Don’t. Know.”
“Both of you, look at me!”
Mobei Jun stares back at the swordmaster, eyes growing more and more intense, and Shang Qinghua grows more and more furious the longer these two toddlers ignore him.
“… What is shaved ice?”
“Isn’t it self-descriptive?! Shut up!”
Shang Qinghua drops his sword carelessly back into its sheathe, having not drawn it completely free to begin with, and slaps both his hands to his cheeks in frustration. He lets out a growl, glare fixated at the ceiling, before reaching forward to grab his martial brother by the collar.
“My king, Fix the wall with your ice for now.” He says, not even considering the fact that he’s ordering around Mobei Jun, something he’d normally never dare to do. He turns on his heel and begins to drag a sullen and red-faced Liu Qingfe behind him as he goes.
“Liu-shidi, come with me. You’re going to clean up the mess you’ve made, and then you’re going to redo any paperwork you’ve lost me. Do you have any idea how many months worth of work you just destroyed? I am going to fucking flay you alive with nothing but a pair of chopsticks, Liu-shidi!”
Liu Qingge slumps in his hold. The man doesn’t even get to his feet. He remains seated stubbornly on the ground and mullishly allows the still-ranting Shang Qinghua to drag him across the floor and away from the silent Mobei Jun, who stares after them in confusion. The Bai Zhan peak lord crosses his arms and scowls, not meeting the king’s eyes.
After they leave, Mobei Jun regards the hole in the wall of the corridor and how, beyond it, Shang Qinghua’s workspace is completely demolished. He wonders why the man hadn’t just gone back through the hole, instead of walking the long way around.
Then, he spots the half destroyed scrolls that clutter up the floor, and winces. Ah.
