The More You Don't Know

There were three things Luo Binghe knew about demons.

The first: demons were powerful. They were stronger than humans, hardier, more resistant to poison and quicker to heal.

The second: demons were vile. They were ruthless and aggressive, cunning and greedy, quick to violence, masterful manipulators, ruled by their lusts.

The third: there was nothing else in the world that scared Shizun as much as demons did.

Those first two things everyone knew, and Luo Binghe only had to look to himself to confirm the truth of them. The third had taken him some time to figure out. Shizun hid it well. Luo Binghe could only be grateful that he’d always watched him so closely. When Luo Binghe had figured out what he was, he'd known how easy it would be to ruin everything with a careless word.

The path to the top of the mountain was long and steep, and Luo Binghe’s pack sat heavily on top of his bruised ribs, but he hardly felt the strain. His demonic body's boundless strength kept him jogging easily along, even as its equally boundless appetite stirred the blood in his veins. So close to home. Just that final bend in the road, and then the path through Qing Jing Peak itself, and he’d find Shizun waiting in the bamboo house.

It had only been seven days, but the time had seemed very long to him. His body had become greedy, like a starving mutt that'd had a taste of regular meals and now wanted nothing more than to gorge itself all day.

Patience, he reminded himself. It was late, long past dark. Shizun would be asleep, and Luo Binghe would not wake him; not for anything, certainly not to sate his appetites in the middle of the night. Lust might rule him, these days, but his control was hard-won and sorely tested, and he retained some small measure of restraint even now.

Qing Jing Peak lay dark and quiet, but as he came around the bend, he saw that there was one light left: the windows of the bamboo house glowed with a warm amber light in the darkness. Shizun had not yet gone to bed.

Luo Binghe put on a final burst of speed, aching muscles forgotten. Seven days of flying, marching, and a brutal fight were wiped away: Shizun had waited up for him.

Luo Binghe made himself slow down once he reached the house, made himself knock, made himself open the door quietly, respectfully. And then self-control deserted him after all. Shizun rose from his desk, already in his thin white sleeping robes, limned by the golden glow of candlelight, a smile lighting up his face. Binghe threw himself across the room and into Shizun’s waiting arms.

He was too heavy now for Shizun to pick him up and twirl him around the way he sometimes had when Binghe had been younger, but Shizun made his best attempt: he clutched him so hard Binghe’s bruised ribs screamed in agony, and then pulled Binghe’s head down to his shoulder and held him close with urgent, gentle hands.

Binghe buried his face in Shizun’s neck and breathed him in greedily. He controlled his clamoring body with familiar effort, and felt his eyes well up with happy tears.

Shizun had waited up. Shizun had missed him. Shizun had smiled so brightly when he’d seen that Binghe had returned. Shizun was happy. Wasn't that what mattered?

Even if Binghe had had to lie his way here, didn't it count for something that he made Shizun so happy? Didn't it justify the lies? Wasn’t it all right to have this, when there wasn’t any harm?

These kinds of thoughts were how Binghe knew the rumors of his kind were true: it came so easy to him to lie, these days. It was so effortless to manipulate, sometimes he even managed to deceive himself.

Finally Shizun pulled back, although he didn’t release Binghe entirely. He set his hands on Binghe’s shoulders and pushed him back far enough to be able to look him up and down.

"What are you doing back so early? Let me look at you. Didn’t I tell you to go slowly and carefully? Those pixius are no joke. If you’d exhausted yourself pushing your speed on the sword before the fight—"

"I’m all right," Binghe said happily. He knew what it meant when Shizun scolded: Shizun had worried. Shizun cared.

He spread his arms and let Shizun look his fill. He’d stopped on the way to change out of his blood-spattered robes, and his demonic healing had already taken care of the cuts on his face. The deep bruising on his freshly-mended ribs still throbbed, but that wouldn’t show through the robes. Binghe only had to be careful not to let Shizun see. Once he did, Binghe would have to limit his healing to the slower pace possible for a human cultivator. But with a bit of luck, those bruises would be gone by morning.

"I'm glad to see you're not hurt. But Binghe, I still wish you'd be more careful—" Shizun started. Binghe knew he was in for another scolding, so he quickly darted in and caught Shizun lips in a kiss.

Shizun smacked him on the shoulder with his fan for cutting him off, but then melted into the kiss almost immediately. His mouth opened to draw Binghe's tongue inside. His body was soft and pliant when Binghe pulled him close. His thigh slipped between Binghe's almost as if by accident.

The hunger woke to immediate, roaring life, but Binghe hesitated. He hadn't been planning to push for anything tonight. It was late. Shizun had to be tired, and Binghe's ribs were bruised black and blue. He'd meant to control himself, knowing that tomorrow he'd be able to savor the carefully rationed intimacy more fully.

Binghe had been very stupid about these things in the beginning. He'd been too drunk on the knowledge that he could touch—that Shizun wanted him to touch—to think about what he was doing. He'd let himself paw at Shizun whenever the urge took him: every day, twice a day, sometimes more, until, at the end of that first week, Shizun had dodged his wandering hands, laughing.

"Binghe may be insatiable, but this master is only an ordinary man. You'll have to have mercy on my old bones."

It was the sort of thing Shizun said all the time: calling himself old, or ordinary, as if he didn't inhabit the flawlessly youthful body of a skilled cultivator; as if he wasn't the most extraordinary creature Binghe had ever met. Binghe had almost missed the warning for what it was. But later that night Shizun's words rang in his ears: an ordinary man, as if maybe what Binghe had been doing wasn't ordinary at all. That was when he'd realized, with an icy rush of dread, how careless he'd been.

He knew the strength and speed of an average cultivator, and was careful to limit himself. But he had no idea what the ordinary frequency was for this. Certainly everyone said that demons were extraordinarily lustful. That, like most of the rumors, turned out to be true. Binghe had asked a few discreet questions of the married disciples on the peak, and realized how far his own appetites deviated from the norm. There'd been too much variation to be sure of what the normal range was, but certainly "several times a day, every day" wasn't it.

Binghe had been careful to limit himself ever since. Once a week ought to be safe, he'd decided at first. Better to err on the side of too little than too much, especially since he could feel the influence of his demonic nature in how much he hated the thought of limiting himself at all. He'd already learned that the urges that were the hardest to ignore were the most important to control.

Quite that much restraint had thankfully not ended up being necessary. Three days into that first week Shizun had started throwing him concerned glances, and on the fourth day he'd stepped up to where Binghe was chopping a cabbage on the counter, put his arms around him from behind, and hooked his chin over Binghe's shoulder.

"Binghe is certain that he is well?" he'd asked, his body pressed close against Binghe's from behind.

Binghe was already resigned to the fact that Shizun, with his thin face and his prickly defenses, would never come right out and ask for what he wanted in words. But he'd known him a very long time. In that moment he'd realized, with a surge of delight, that this was as close to asking as Shizun could come.

He'd whirled around, abandoning the half-chopped cabbage without a thought, hefted Shizun into his arms, and carried him to bed right then and there.

Shizun had of course protested being carried, but there'd been a notable lack of any other kind of protests. Shizun had been hot and eager in his arms, and he'd not said anything about it when dinner ended up being very late that day, either.

So that was the rhythm Binghe had permitted himself ever since: no more than once every three days on average, in a pattern carefully designed to give the appearance of there not being a pattern at all. And never two days in a row.

It would've been a wrench to deny himself tonight, but more than worth it to be able to enjoy Shizun more fully tomorrow. But he'd never turned Shizun down when he asked. And he knew that the thigh rubbing against him as if by accident was Shizun asking.

Binghe would control himself tomorrow, then. Or maybe…. He'd been gone for a week, after all. Surely just this once, he could be forgiven for being overeager. Shizun did like to complain about the vigor of youth when it came to the other disciples, too, without ever suspecting any of them of being demons in disguise.

Binghe slid his hands down Shizun's back, grabbed two handfuls of his ass, and hitched him closer, pressing Shizun more firmly against his cock.

"Binghe!" Shizun said, managing to sound scandalized, as though he hadn't already had his thigh between Binghe's legs, rubbing away. He buried his face against Binghe's shoulder and nuzzled into his neck, his breath hot against Binghe's skin. Binghe shuddered. He slid his hands a little ways down Shizun's thighs, encouraging them to wrap around his hips until he could hoist him up.

"Binghe!" Shizun said again, still protesting, although his thighs clung tightly to Binghe's sides. "You've been traveling all day! You haven't even had dinner yet."

"That's not what this disciple is hungry for now," Binghe said, knowing it would get him smacked again. He could feel Shizun's little gasps against his neck every time the motion of his steps rocked them together. Shizun didn't actually want to stop for dinner.

He laid Shizun out on their bed and peeled him slowly out of his clothes, pausing occasionally to kiss the skin he revealed, letting himself look as much as he wanted. How he'd missed him! It felt as if some jagged tear in his insides was mending itself with every touch.

Shizun blushed and squirmed under his attentions. He was still so thin-faced in bed, every time. Eventually, Binghe thought he might like to teach him to be shameless, but for now he enjoyed the reminder that this was new to Shizun as well. Unlikely as it seemed, no one else had ever touched Shizun like this. People said he used to go to brothels all the time, but he didn't, he couldn't have. No one who reacted to being touched like this would allow a prostitute the liberty. He was only Binghe's.

Binghe took the time to hang their outer robes up nicely, because he knew Shizun would fuss about them later if he didn't. Their inner robes he dropped on the floor. His own was sweat-stained, and heaven knew who'd been doing Shizun's laundry while Binghe was gone. It probably needed doing over anyway.

He remembered too late that he should've left his own robe on. Shizun gasped and sat up in bed, concerned fingers reaching for Binghe's side. Binghe let him explore the purpling flesh.

"It's just a little bruise, Shizun," he said, which it was, now. Beneath the skin, his shattered ribs had finished knitting themselves together, and even the bruising was well on its way to clearing itself up. Binghe halted the healing for now. Since Shizun had seen it, the bruise would need to linger for another day, as it would in an ordinary cultivator.

"Binghe should be more careful," Shizun said, once he'd satisfied himself that it really was nothing serious. He let Binghe push him back down into the sheets without a word of protest.

Binghe kissed his way down Shizun's chest. He'd meant to go for something quick and easy tonight, since it was so late already, but Shizun let his thighs fall open around Binghe's hips in a way that Binghe knew was a request for something else. Hunger surged in him again. Binghe took a moment to master himself as he fetched the jar of salve and set about the slow task of working Shizun open.

This, he couldn't afford to rush. Binghe suspected that the size of his cock was another one of his demonic gifts, although it had been that way even before he'd come into his full powers. Binghe had spent enough time around the other disciples to know that in this, too, he was no ordinary man. But it was hard to resent it, when Shizun clearly liked it so much.

Oh, he complained about it, the size, the preparation it required, the inconvenience—but only in the way he complained about the hassles of daily guqin practice, or sword training, or teaching the youngest disciples: all challenges that certainly no one was forcing him to undertake.

Shizun liked to stroke them in his hands together, with his own, perfectly normal-sized cock looking small and vulnerable next to Binghe's pillar. He liked to sit in Binghe's lap, chest to back, with Binghe's cock poking up between his thighs. And he very much liked for Binghe to have him with it, now that Binghe had taught him that he didn't need to be scared.

That, Binghe thought, was the greatest triumph to come out of the three years he'd spent as a wandering cultivator. He'd learned many new skills in that time, but none as important as the knowledge of how to ensure Shizun's comfort in bed. He'd always planned to tell Shizun how he felt once he returned. He hadn't known what Shizun's reaction would be, but he knew the hope he cherished in his heart. And so he'd made sure to be prepared.

He'd stopped in at the bookstores in every town he passed, and bought the sort of cultivation manuals that were only kept under the counter. He'd dealt with a hundred smirking proprietors, worked his way through heaps and heaps of contradictory advice until he thought he could distinguish the true bones of what needed to be done beneath the thick layers of people's fantastical imaginations.

In the end, it was simple: time, patience, plenty of oil, and a subtle trick of dual cultivation that encouraged blood flow and relaxation. He'd taken a full shichen to work Shizun up to it the first time he'd attempted this, and been richly repaid for his patience.

As terrible as those three years had been in many ways, he was deeply grateful they'd given him the time and privacy to study up on this particular skill. He shuddered to think of how badly he might've hurt Shizun if he'd had nothing to go on but his own untutored instincts: the instincts of a greedy and violent creature.

"Of course Binghe is a natural at this," Shizun had said, after that first-ever time, and Binghe was content to leave him in that belief. He had no intention of ever letting Shizun know that he'd needed a book to tell him that kissing wasn't meant to involve teeth. Or that he'd rubbed himself raw for weeks practicing the qi circulation technique, which had turned out to be brutally difficult to sustain with his dick hard.

They'd gotten even better at it since then. It didn't take him anywhere near a shichen to work Shizun up to it now. Shizun groaned happily when Binghe slid inside, his back arching, his nails digging furrows into the back of Binghe's shoulders. Binghe would have to make sure to heal those away before Shizun could see and fuss about them, as much as he'd have liked to keep the evidence of Shizun's passion on his body.

"Ridiculous," Shizun gasped. "Oversized, ludicrous sky pillar. Who needs it to be this big, huh?"

But there wasn't any pain in his voice, and his cock smeared a line of sticky fluid against Binghe's stomach where he pressed them together.

"I think A-Yuan likes the way I fill him up," Binghe said, knowing it would get him smacked again. He felt Shizun's cock leak some more, at the lewd words, or at the use of the secret, private name that only Binghe was allowed to know: the name that even Yue Qingyuan, who clearly had history with Shizun going back years and years, didn't know.

Shizun didn't easily give up his secrets, but he'd given Binghe this: a special, precious gift to be treasured in his heart, and also, it turned out, a lovely weapon to use in the bedroom.

"A-Yuan," Binghe whispered, and felt Shizun clench more tightly around him. "Is it good, A-Yuan? Do you like it?"

"If Binghe already knows the answer, why does he keep fishing, huh? Isn't it unbecoming to gloat? Won't you, ah, won't you leave me some face?"

Shizun always complained about his shameless words, but they made him writhe on Binghe's cock, so Binghe opened his mouth to tell him how good he looked, spread open for Binghe to devour. Shizun, who knew him better than anyone else in the world, made an indignant cat noise before Binghe could even get the first word out, and slapped a hand over his mouth. Binghe smiled and captured two of his fingers with his lips, sucking them lewdly.

Shizun groaned, muffled around his fingers.

Binghe should've been satisfied with nothing but this. It was so good already, so much more than he'd ever have dared to hope for, back when he'd been a lowly disciple admiring his lofty Shizun from afar.

But nothing ever seemed enough to sate his terrible hunger. Even now he wanted more. He'd spent too much time teasing his own appetite this past week, rolled up in a blanket on the hard ground and thinking of Shizun, imagining things that Shizun, with his thin face, had never yet permitted them to try.

Shizun made a wonderful sound when Binghe pulled out, hungry-dazed, reaching for Binghe with a wordless mewl of complaint: back arched, legs spreading. Binghe knew Shizun would never do this if he knew the picture he made. But Shizun's mind was slow with lust, and his body wasn't so shy about letting Binghe know what it wanted.

Binghe had to yank himself from his fevered thoughts. He didn't ordinarily struggle with his stamina – if anything, he had the opposite problem – but just then he could've happily spent himself over Shizun's sweat-sheened body without so much as another touch.

Shizun's legs were spread far enough to let him see how Shizun was still open and wet, how easily he could slide himself back inside….

Binghe drew in a ragged, trembling breath and mastered himself. He lay down on his back, grasped Shizun by the hips, and arranged him until he had him propped up on his knees, perched above Binghe's cock. Shizun was so dazed it took him a moment to understand the implications of the position. Shizun liked to hide his face in the pillow, liked to muffle the sounds he made. Like this, Binghe could see everything: his lust-drunk face, his blood-flushed cock, every clench of his muscles.

Binghe got to watch the ferocious blush spread itself from Shizun's cheeks to the tips of his ears and halfway down his naked chest.

"Binghe!" Shizun hissed.

Binghe smiled. He realized too late that it was his dangerous smile, the sharp one he usually took care not to let Shizun see. He hastily softened it as much as he could.

"A-Yuan, I've been travelling all day! My legs are very tired."

It was a cheap, unworthy bit of manipulation, but Binghe couldn't bring himself to feel bad about it. Shizun really should know better. Even the strength of an ordinary cultivator would certainly suffice for this, travel or no. And yet Shizun melted for him immediately.

"Well, then," he said, still blushing, still indignant, but not protesting anymore. "If Binghe's tired, then—uh—then—"

"If A-Yuan thinks he can manage. If it's not too hard," Binghe said, as innocently as he could, half expecting to get smacked for it. Even Shizun would notice eventually if he put it on too thick.

But Shizun was obviously distracted. "Certainly I can manage," he snapped, letting himself be goaded. Binghe had to bite down on that too-sharp smile again.

Binghe wrapped a hand around the base of his own cock, helpfully steadying it for Shizun's use. He drew up his knees so Shizun could brace himself against them, and then he simply waited, taking care not to smile, while Shizun squirmed and shifted, grasped at him with clumsy hands, and finally managed to work the head back inside himself with a gasp.

The books had counseled against using this position for a first time, particularly if the penetrating partner was very large, so Binghe had known that it might be a challenge. But he hadn't known it would be like this. Shizun trembled like he had the very first time Binghe had taken him.

Binghe stopped trying to control what his face was doing, even as he felt his mouth curl into a smirk. Shizun's eyes were glazed, unseeing. Binghe stroked his shivering flanks, crooning wordless encouragement, but didn't reach out to steady him, even though Shizun's thighs were shaking so hard it looked like they might give out on him.

"Look at you," he said softly, knowing he was making it worse, making Shizun face what he looked like: sweat-soaked, gasping, trembling like a spooked horse. Maybe he'd overdone it after all, because Shizun made an outraged noise. His hands clenched on Binghe's thighs hard enough to bruise, but instead of pulling off he worked himself down. And then it was Binghe who was losing his voice, sheathed in Shizun's tight heat. Shizun shivered in his lap, furious, indignant, wrecked.

Binghe abruptly realized that he'd worked himself past the edge of his own endurance. He took Shizun by the hips, lifted him up, and yanked him back down. Too hard, he cautioned himself sharply, be careful, but Shizun's gasp was only overwhelmed, not hurting. Binghe didn't stop, only took care to work out the angle he knew Shizun liked, which took a few attempts to find in this new position. It wasn't hard to tell when he'd managed. Shizun shuddered in his grasp, gasping, not fighting at all as Binghe moved him as he liked.

There never seemed to be a limit to how much Binghe's body wanted. Given free reign, he thought it might've liked to rut for hours and hours. But the books had been very clear that it could be painful to go for too long, or to get taken after orgasm, so Binghe had never allowed it.

He'd learned the trick to making himself finish long ago: a little jolt of qi right to the spot inside himself that felt so good to be touched. Coming like that felt less like an orgasm and more like a very precise kick behind the balls, but certainly it was preferable to causing Shizun pain. Binghe finished like that more often than not.

Tonight, he wasn't going to need any such tricks.

Climax hit him without warning. He barely managed to bring up a hand to curl around Shizun's cock and make sure to take him along. The pleasure was almost sharp enough to hurt. It left him entirely spent, so drained he barely knew how to pick himself up from it.

Making himself move took a staggering amount of willpower. But there were things yet to be done. Binghe eased himself out of Shizun's body with a care, painfully aware of Shizun wincing like he hadn't since their first-ever time, when Binghe had still been clumsy with inexperience.

He fetched a soft damp rag and wiped both of them down. Shizun indignantly slammed his legs shut when Binghe made to check on him, but he got enough of a look to be sure that at least there wasn't any blood.

Binghe got them clean and dry and under the covers, and then finally let himself go limp. He felt as if he'd been hit by a boulder.

"Binghe was very fierce today," Shizun muttered.

Binghe stiffened. If he'd gone too far—if he'd shown too much of that demonic hunger—

But Shizun only petted him on the arm and nestled more closely against him. Binghe closed his eyes, Shizun curled up warm and safe and trusting in his arms. He felt almost too good to fall asleep. He'd always known he could only have this for as long as he could manage not to give himself away. But tonight he'd let something of his real nature slip, and Shizun hadn't minded it.

Maybe things could be all right; maybe this could be something he could keep.

Shizun shifted in his grasp. Binghe realized that, while he himself had been about to slip into sleep, Shizun had grown more tense.

"Binghe," he said, in a tone that made Binghe's stomach muscles tighten anxiously. "Binghe, are you happy?"

Ah. Only this, then. Binghe relaxed and pulled Shizun closer against himself.

"I'm happier than I'd ever hoped to be in my life," he said, dropping all formality. In this, he'd learned it was best to speak from the heart.

Shizun grumbled and squirmed, the tips of his ears tinting pink. "You don't need to be so sentimental," he chided, but his voice was warm. "It's only that… I worry sometimes. Can this really be all Binghe wants? Little nighthunts, and living here with this old master?"

Taking down a pride of fifteen pixius wasn't a little hunt, some part of Binghe wanted to protest. But this conversation wasn't about Binghe's insecurities.

The first time they'd had this talk, it had scared Binghe half to death. Now, it was almost comforting in its familiarity. He still remembered the first time Shizun had asked him this question, a few weeks before what would've been the Immortal Alliance Conference.

There'd been such an anxious tension in Shizun's eyes, such strange depth of emotion, as he'd asked: Binghe, do you want to become stronger? Strong enough to overcome any enemy? Even if you have to suffer hardship for it?

There'd been more than one time Shizun had gotten hurt taking a blow that was meant for Binghe, so an answer had jumped readily to mind. Of course he wanted to be strong. There was no hardship he couldn't endure if it would let him keep Shizun safe.

He almost hadn't seen the trap.

But then Shizun had unfolded the fan in his hand, the one Ning Yingying had gifted him, painted with no particular excess of talent but great sincerity; and Binghe had realized what the question was actually about.

Ning Yingying had given that fan to Shizun when she'd left for her training: a year at the Zhang sect, who specialized in musical cultivation. Her skills in that area had exceeded Shizun's own abilities to teach her, and so he'd arranged for an exchange to further her skills.

Shizun, who always took his disciples' training so seriously, wasn't asking him some sort of deep philosophical question that needed to be answered with pathos. Binghe was being over-dramatic again. Shizun was asking a practical question about his training, and if Binghe didn't shut his fool mouth, he'd find himself packed off to study elsewhere, as Ning Yingying had been.

A year or more without Shizun by his side. No improvement in his cultivation could possibly be worth it.

Binghe picked his words with great care.

"Shizun knows this disciple will always follow his guidance. If there's any task Shizun sees fit to give, this disciple will do his best to excel. If there's any weaknesses Shizun wants to point out, this disciple will work hard to overcome them. But if Shizun gave me a choice, I would not want to be anywhere else but here, studying at Shizun's side."

He'd been a little worried about Shizun taking it badly. Shizun always had such exacting standards, and he expected more from Binghe than from any other disciple. He'd always encouraged Binghe to be ambitious, to work hard to reach his full potential.

But Shizun always seemed pleased to have Binghe by his side, too. And although he wouldn't admit to missing him when he was gone, the others told him that Shizun would hardly ever eat anyone else's cooking, and visibly disliked letting anyone else into the bamboo house even just to clean. So he'd thought, overall, that surely Shizun would be pleased that Binghe wanted to stay.

He hadn't expected the way Shizun's entire body flinched as if from a blow. Shizun had snapped his fan up and his eyes down, covering his face from Binghe's view, but not before Binghe saw the flash of—well. Binghe had barely had time to see it. Later, he tried to tell himself that he must've exaggerated it in his mind. He was being dramatic again.

Surely Shizun, who was always so self-possessed, couldn't have been on the verge of tears over his disciple refusing to contemplate a training assignment.

But when he replayed the memory in his mind, he couldn't help but see the despair in Shizun's eyes, the way his shoulders had bowed as if under a great weight.

Binghe had almost given in then and there. The last thing he ever wanted in this life was to disappoint Shizun. It was only the fact that he already had a plan that had let him stay the course.

The Immortal Alliance Conference was coming up in just a few weeks. Binghe was going to take first place. He'd make Shizun proud. He'd show him that he hadn't taught a coward. Shizun knew he wasn't weak, or lazy, or undisciplined. And if this made him doubt it, even for a minute, Binghe would show him. He'd bring honor to the peak, to Shizun.

He'd show all of them what he was capable of. He'd prove to Shizun that he wasn't a child anymore. And then—

then—

"Well. If that is the case," Shizun had finally said, interrupting Binghe's dream of glories to come, "this master will simply have to make sure that Binghe can stay on Qing Jing Peak to continue his studies."

He'd tried to smile, but it'd been tremulous, all wrong. His hold on his fan had been so tight his knuckles had gone white.

It would be all right, Binghe had tried to tell himself. If Shizun was disappointed now, or burdened, surely that would all be forgotten once Binghe proved himself at the Immortal Alliance Conference.

And then the conference had been cancelled. It'd been an enormous scandal at the time. A planned demon attack; a spatial instability that could’ve resulted in a portal opening to the Endless Abyss; Huan Hua Palace somehow involved with it all.

Binghe had found it impossible to care about any of that, because it was the moment he'd realized the dream had been too good to be true in the first place. He'd seen himself returning to Shizun the triumphant victor, seen Shizun falling into his arms. But now that he knew it wasn't going to happen, it was easier to admit that it never would've worked in the first place.

Shizun wasn't going to touch someone he saw as a disciple, as a child. Which meant that Binghe needed to make Shizun stop seeing him that way. No single act of heroism was going to do that. He'd have to leave after all.

The realization had come to him in a single sickening moment of clarity. Finding the strength to make himself go through with it had taken a lot longer than that.

Looking back, Binghe had left just in time. The seal on his powers had been weakening even then. Meng Mo had been impressed with his progress. But of course in retrospect all of that had been nothing but the tremors that heralded an earthquake.

The seal broke during the first real fight he'd had in his turn as a wandering cultivator. Of course he hadn't known what was happening at the time. One moment he was bleeding on the ground, the next there was a flash of pain and a rush of power like nothing he'd ever felt before.

A red haze of rage overcame him. He'd never been able to remember the rest of the fight. He found himself in the middle of a pile of blood and guts, trembling, black claws sprouting from his fingers. It still made him sick to think how close he'd come to disaster.

If the seal had broken anywhere near other people… near Shizun….

There was no way he could've managed to hide what he was. His monstrosity was sickeningly obvious in the beginning: claws, red eyes, and a demon mark in the middle of his forehead, impossible to hide.

It took him almost two years to be certain that he wouldn't lose control over his nature. In the beginning, his claws grew back every time he tore them out. He needed months to learn to retract them at will. It took even longer to learn to keep the demon mark on his forehead from flaring up every time he became agitated.

He'd had to be very careful who saw him doing what in those years. Of course he wanted to be sure that Shizun would hear about the more heroic of his deeds, but no one could be allowed to carry tales to Cang Qiong of what his body had become.

But eventually, Binghe had mastered himself. He'd learned to use his powers; he'd learned to hide what he was. When he'd finally returned to Cang Qiong after those endless three years, there was no sign left to betray what manner of creature Binghe truly was.

And now—now he got to hold Shizun every night, got to have him the way he'd only dreamed, as a young and stupid disciple; would get to keep having him for as long he could manage not to give himself away.

Binghe drifted off eventually, but it wasn't a very deep sleep, so he noticed immediately when the dream began.

Until he'd started sharing Shizun's bed, Binghe had never realized how many nightmares he had. Shizun must've been using silencing talismans all along, or he thought he would've noticed even from the side room. They came almost every night, an hour where Shizun would shift restlessly in his arms, his skin growing damp with sweat. Sometimes he made noises, too: little whimpers, the occasional voiceless plea.

Shizun was viciously private about the nightmares. He'd forbidden Luo Binghe from trying to enter his dreamscape in the strictest of terms. The one time Binghe had tried anyway, he'd realized Shizun had warded himself against his interference. Shizun woke up tightlipped and furious, so terrifyingly ice-cold in his rage that Binghe found himself off the bed and on his knees, flinching from Shizun's reaching hand.

He'd only realized when Shizun's face fell that it had been an old instinct, so old it might as well have been from another life. That fear was long behind him. Binghe's body, as it was now, strong and trained and alive with qi, could easily take a strike; and of course Shizun, as he was now, would never strike him at all.

"Binghe!" Shizun said, shocked out of his rage. He'd looked stricken, urging him off the floor with trembling hands.

"This disciple apologizes—"

"Binghe, no—this master is sorry, too. But you can't interfere with my dreams, do you understand? Never again."

"I'm sorry for disturbing Shizun's privacy," Binghe said.

He hadn't tried again since then. His more mundane attempts at interrupting the dreams hadn't been appreciated, either. Waking Shizun up seemed to do very little. He inevitably slipped back into the nightmare as soon as he fell back asleep.

"Better to just let it run its course," Shizun said. "My disciple worries too much about some silly little dreams. Doesn't everyone who's fought a battle see it in their dreams sometimes?"

True as that might be—Luo Binghe certainly had his own share of nightmares – not everyone woke up sweat-soaked and shivering night after night. But Shizun would grow snappish and prickly at even the vaguest allusion to the topic. Eventually he'd started making noises about sleeping in separate beds so he wouldn't keep Binghe awake.

At that point, Binghe reluctantly stopped pushing. He knew that Shizun really would start sleeping elsewhere, if he thought he was causing Binghe distress. As if it wouldn't be ten times as distressing to be in another room, unable to do anything while Shizun suffered.

Now he only made sure to be awake at the first faint gasp, so he could draw Shizun's tense and shaking body into his arms and hold him close for what little comfort it might give.

Still, it worried him. The nightmares had seemed to grow worse in the days before he'd left, as if some unseen wire was winding itself tighter and tighter. Apparently the trend had continued in his absence. Tonight was the worst he'd ever seen it. Shizun strained in his arms, pulling against Binghe's hold. Binghe released him reluctantly. Having his arms restrained seemed to make it worse for Shizun, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Shizun panted, his face twisted in a pained grimace. Luo Binghe petted his heaving sides, feeling utterly helpless. Maybe he should wake Shizun after all. But every time he'd done that before the dream had run its course, Shizun had unfailingly slipped back into it. And he always looked so scared of falling back asleep, those times. Binghe didn't want to add the agony of anticipation to his suffering.

Shizun twisted like a fish on a hook. His back arched in a rictus of agony, and then he screamed—no words, only the mindless terror of an animal at slaughter.

Enough was enough. Shizun's thin face would simply have to bear it; Binghe wasn't standing by for another second of this.

He reached for the dream and felt the cobweb tingle of Shizun's wards. He cautiously brushed them aside, careful not to tear them, and hit another layer of resistance. Something was trying to bar his entrance to the dream, something that didn't feel anything like the cool spring-breeze brush of Shizun's qi.

Shizun gave a defeated whimper. Binghe abandoned all caution and simply tore his way into the dream by force. But even as he did, he felt it disintegrating around him. He caught only a few fragmented impressions: a dungeon room, chains dangling from the ceiling, Shizun restrained to the wall. The stench of sickness and blood in the air.

A man in red and black robes stood with his back to him, setting a bloody knife down on a table.

Outside the dream, Shizun moved restlessly against him. The dream shivered and blurred.

The man in red and black turned around and looked at him with Binghe's own face.

"Good night, Shizun," the nightmare-Binghe drawled with a smirk.

The dream dissolved.

Binghe opened his eyes. Beside him, Shizun sat up with a gasp, his eyes wild, unseeing. Binghe reached for him, and Shizun… Shizun flinched.

Binghe felt something twist painfully in his chest. He let his nerveless hands drop to the sheets. But before he could say anything—before he could even think of what there might be to say—Shizun's eyes cleared.

"Binghe," he gasped. He threw himself into Binghe's arms with a sob.

Binghe caught him against his chest with arms that still felt numb, and pressed his hands flat against Shizun's back to hide the traitorous way they trembled. Shizun huddled in on himself in his embrace, shivering. Luo Binghe rocked him, murmuring thoughtless reassurance, feeling sick.

"It's all right. I'm here. Shizun—" He felt Shizun flinch again, felt it like a stab to the chest. The nightmare-Binghe had called him that as well. "A-Yuan," Binghe corrected himself, forcing his voice not to crack. "You're all right. You're here."

Eventually, Shizun grew still, resting against Binghe's chest. When he lifted his head again, his eyes were clear.

"Binghe, why are you awake? It's the middle of the night," he scolded gently, as if this were any other night.

Binghe realized belatedly that Shizun hadn't noticed him inside the dream. Shizun didn't know what he'd seen.

He forced his voice to come out steady. "It's nothing, A-Yuan. I thought I heard a sound, but it must've been an animal outside."

Shizun's face softened with gratitude. Of course they both knew it was Shizun's thrashing that had woken Binghe up, but Shizun understood what he meant: he wasn't going to press Shizun about the nightmares.

"Ah, Binghe. This master is sorry for keeping you up with his silly dreams," he said, and Binghe knew it was Shizun making a concession in return: if he'd pressed, Shizun would've denied that he'd had a nightmare at all.

"Shizun doesn't need to worry. This disciple doesn't require as much sleep as he used to," Binghe said.

This time Shizun didn't flinch at his use of the title. He let Binghe ease him down to the bed, allowed Binghe to curl up against him as if it were any other night.

Maybe Binghe had been wrong. Maybe he'd drawn a lot of conclusions from a single blurry glance in a dream. Maybe it had only been this once.

Maybe Binghe wasn't the one terrorizing Shizun's sleep night after night.

But as skilled as he'd grown at deception, he'd never been very good at lying to himself. It explained so much about Shizun's stubborn refusal to let him see the dreams.

Binghe let Shizun pillow his head on his shoulder, stroked his feather-soft hair, and tried to tell himself that things could still be all right.

Binghe hardly knew how to make it through the day. He dusted, he swept the floor, he cooked, trying to empty his mind of anything but the finicky details of timing and preparation. Tender slivers of roast duck, crispy fried noodles, the wontons Shizun liked that were so complicated and time-consuming to fold.

Shizun eyed the laden table. "Binghe must be hungry today," he said with a smile, as if nothing had happened, as if this was just another day. But then, Shizun had these nightmares every day, didn't he.

Binghe shoveled food into his mouth, chewing mindlessly, tasting nothing.

"Slow down, you'll make yourself sick. Anyone would think this master had been starving you," Shizun said.

Binghe forced a smile. He was pretty sure it'd been meant to be a lighthearted remark. Shizun didn't cook, could barely even manage to make tea without scalding it. If it'd been up to him to feed them, they really would be starving. But Binghe knew his smile came a beat too late and not brightly enough.

Shizun's brow pinched in worry.

"Apologies, Shizun. I'm only tired. I didn't get much sleep last night."

A low blow, but he knew it would make Shizun stop asking. Shizun never wanted to discuss the dreams.

"Maybe we could go to bed early tonight," Shizun said, which suited Binghe perfectly well.

He drew a bath for Shizun and spent a long time combing out his hair for him, fixing it in a low braid for sleep. He rubbed Shizun's back until he was drowsy and relaxed, and then wrapped him in his softest night robe and tucked him gently against his chest. Shizun fell asleep smiling, clearly content to be held.

Binghe's heart clenched like a fist in his chest, small and tight, cramped around a futile, desperate hope. But no part of him was truly surprised when he opened his eyes in the dreamworld and found his own twisted face staring back at him.

Last night he'd been too shocked to get a good look. Now he noticed what he'd missed that time. This wasn't Binghe as Shizun would ever have seen him. The man in the dream was built just a bit differently than Binghe himself: he was rangier, and there was something hungry about the sharp slashes of his cheekbones, the look of an animal that had starved a few too many times.

But that wasn't the difference that really caught the eye. In the middle of the nightmare-Binghe's forehead glowed Binghe's own demon mark.

It only confirmed what Binghe had already known.

After Shizun woke up from his qi deviation, after he'd started treating Binghe with kindness, Binghe had spent a long time confused. He didn't understand what could've caused Shizun's sudden change in behavior. Shizun had lost memories with his qi deviation, everyone knew that much. But what could he have forgotten about Binghe to explain such a change? Shizun had treated him with contempt almost from the first moment. What had Binghe done wrong as a small child to cause such dislike in a man as patient and forgiving as Shizun was?

For a while he'd tried to downplay it in his mind. It hadn't been as bad as it had seemed at the time, he'd tried to tell himself. Binghe had been clumsy, and weak, and slow to learn cultivation at first. He'd gotten almost everything wrong, and Shizun valued perfection. Wasn't it natural that he'd lost his patience? Surely he'd only been trying to toughen Binghe up. And it had worked, hadn't it? Wasn't Binghe stronger for the experience?

He'd forgiven it all, he'd tried to tell himself. He'd tried to forget. And then he'd set out on his own, and broken his demon seal, and suddenly everything made a horrible kind of sense. So this was the thing Shizun had known, and then forgotten.

Of course Shizun, who knew so much about every kind of monster under the sun, would know how to recognize a demon cub if it fell into his lap.

The explanation became more and more plausible with every new power Binghe discovered on his travels. Shizun must've known what he'd become, how powerful he'd be. Shizun would've known to fear him.

Binghe hadn't been able to see it, as a stupid child. But looking back, with an adult's experience and without the resentment that had clouded his eyes back then, he could see how much of Shizun's dislike had been rooted not in hate, but in fear. He remembered, now, how Shizun would flinch from him sometimes, and only then snap over to rage. How nothing made him lash out harder than being startled.

If you trained a foal to the halter and whip early enough, it would never realize how easily it could rip the leash from your hands once it had grown big and strong enough to crush you.

Shizun had known he was raising a dangerous beast, and so he'd raised it to fear his lash.

And then he'd forgotten, and all his fear with it. It wasn't just Binghe Shizun was different with, afterwards. Once, Ming Fan had dropped a laden tray behind Shizun's back when Shizun hadn't known he was there. Shizun had jumped at the unexpected clatter, but then he'd laughed and scolded Ming Fan indulgently, not a trace of fear in him. Only then Binghe had realized that he'd expected for Shizun to cringe and then fly into a rage.

Was this what Shizun had been like, before he'd first set eyes on Binghe? It made sense of much. Yue Qingyuan loved him dearly, and Yue Qingyuan was a kind man himself. How could he have developed such affection for a man as harsh and cold as the Shen Qingqiu Binghe had first gotten to know? No, it made much more sense that it was the fear that had turned Shizun so cold.

Binghe had sworn to himself that he'd never give Shizun cause to fear him like that again. And he hadn't.

But now here he was, terrorizing Shizun's dreams.

The demon mark on the nightmare-Binghe's forehead proved Binghe's suspicions correct. It wasn't some generic monster's mark. It was Binghe's demon mark, and Binghe's demon body, down to the details: Binghe's hands with the short black claws, the red shine of his eyes that Binghe still sometimes saw in the mirror when he was alone and upset enough to forget himself.

Some deeply buried part of Shizun remembered exactly what sort of creature he was dealing with. And something had come along and latched onto that long-forgotten memory to torment him with.

This wasn't a natural dream, Binghe could see it now. It was too crisp for that, too detailed, too resistant to his own manipulation.

There were several creatures that fed on nightmares, and any number of curses meant to torment a victim with their own deepest fears. Too many to narrow it down in the moment. Meng Mo might know. Binghe would have to ask him later.

So. This was Shizun's deepest fear: Binghe, seen as he really was.

He'd known that, of course. It made sense of everything. Shouldn't even come as a surprise. And yet Binghe felt paralyzed with it, numb, like he wanted to burst into tears, or scream until his voice gave out.

"Shizun! Have you reconsidered?" the nightmare-Binghe drawled.

He slunk towards Shizun with a predator's grace. Binghe followed his glowing red eyes to where Shizun was still shackled to the wall, chains at waist and ankles and his right wrist. His left arm had been left free, and—oh. Oh no. He was missing a finger, the smallest one, the stump still pink and fresh.

Had he been missing a finger in yesterday's dream? It had all happened so quickly. Binghe thought of the bloody knife in the nightmare-Binghe's hand and felt the urge to scream rise again.

"I'm not unreasonable, Shizun," the nightmare-Binghe drawled. He patted Shizun's arm, raised it up to inspect the stump of the missing finger, tutted over the wound.

"None of this needed to happen, did it? Why don't you tell me you're sorry, and I might consider forgiving you. I might even make your finger all better for you."

He lifted Shizun's hand to blow on the stump with mocking tenderness, like a parent soothing a child's scraped knee.

Binghe saw it coming, so the nightmare-Binghe must've, too: Shizun ripped his injured hand free and struck out, lightning-quick. His nails scored three bleeding lines across the nightmare-Binghe's cheek.

The demon barely bothered to dodge, contemptuous; he only moved enough to keep Shizun from gouging his eye, as he'd undoubtedly intended to do.

Binghe watched the blood well up in grim satisfaction. It was the least of what the demon deserved.

Maybe he should've expected what happened next.

The nightmare-Binghe reached out, inhumanly quick, took Shizun's arm by the elbow, and yanked.

Shizun screamed.

Binghe lunged. Too late, too late and the wrong reaction in any case: he didn't have a physical presence in this dream.

His hands slid grasping, futile, through the demon's cruel grip. There was a wet, rending noise. Shizun's scream changed in pitch.

Binghe finally got his hands on the fabric of the dream and tore. Even now, it resisted him. Binghe yanked with the strength of desperation. Something came apart. The dream dissolved around him. And then he was in their bed, holding a trembling, sobbing Shizun tight to his chest.

Shizun clutched his left arm and pressed himself tighter into Binghe's hold, taking comfort from the last man he should've wanted any comfort from.

"It's all right. Shizun, it's all right, it was just a dream," Binghe murmured, knowing it had been nothing of the sort. The dream had been so lifelike, so clear. He didn't doubt that Shizun had felt every moment of the pain as vividly as if it had happened to his physical body.

Shizun only sobbed and clung to him.

It took a long time for Shizun to fall back asleep. Longer for Binghe to gather himself enough that he thought he could pretend to be unaffected.

But Meng Mo had known him since he was a child. Despite Binghe's best efforts, Meng Mo took a single look at him and tutted in concern.

"What happened, kid?" he said, and then looked startled at himself. He hadn't used the old address in years. It'd been "Lord Luo" since the day they'd both realized what Binghe was.

Binghe showed him what had happened, pulling up his memories of the entity that had controlled the dream, filtered as much as he could. Shizun's screams weren't for Meng Mo to hear.

"Huh. Never seen anything like it," Meng Mo said, scrubbing through the memory, playing it back and forth.

Binghe gritted his teeth. There was too much of his own horror and panic left in those memories, and he hated to have Meng Mo handling them, but he also needed his advice. He couldn't sanitize the experience any more without blurring the details.

"Not a dream eater, and not an alp snake, either. Definitely demonic, but. Hm. It's clearly using spiritual power, too. Never met anyone who could wield both so interchangeably, except for you."

"It was very powerful," Binghe admitted reluctantly. The harder he'd pushed, the harder the creature had pushed back.

"You'll have to be careful," Meng Mo said. "And I know you're not going to want to hear this, if it's got its claws in your Shizun, but promise me you're not going to do anything stupid."

"Watch who you're talking to," Binghe snapped, letting his qi flare out in a violent pulse. Rage still roiled inside his chest, choking and awful. It felt good to let some of it out.

Meng Mo winced but stood his ground.

"Don't posture at me, kid, I know you're the stronger one now. But if you get yourself killed, it's both our asses on the line. I've been inside your head for too long. I don't think I could find another compatible host at this point. So will you just please be careful, ki—Lord Luo?"

Binghe took a deep breath and brought himself under control. The urge to lash out was almost overwhelming, but he might need Meng Mo's help again before this was over.

"Do you want me in the dream with you tonight?" Meng Mo asked. "I might be able to tell more if I'm closer."

"No!" Binghe said, recoiling. Shizun—proud, private, secretive Shizun—wouldn't want anyone to see him like that. Binghe would handle this, whatever it took.

Binghe made it through the day somehow. He knew he wouldn't be able to pretend at normalcy, so he took himself out of the house and spent the day digging up a stump in the garden, the remains of an ancient tree with its roots grown deep and wide.

"You know, I didn't really mind that stump so much?" Shizun said, eying him bemusedly when he came in to wash up for dinner, sweaty and covered in streaks of dirt. Binghe followed his gaze outside to the garden, which looked a terrible mess now, with a great big hole in the middle and the earth churned up for several steps all around where Binghe had dug up the roots.

Binghe winced. "The energy flow wasn't right. Too much wood, not enough water. There should be a fountain in that spot instead," he improvised.

That was bullshit, but he knew Shizun wouldn't call him on it. Shizun, smart and widely read and beautifully proficient in the four arts as he was, had weird gaps in his knowledge sometimes. Feng Shui was one of them. Binghe kept having to nudge the furniture back from the random spots where Shizun had pushed it, even though anyone who'd grown up aware of qi flows should be able to tell when they were blocking the energy flow of a room.

Binghe was going to fix the garden, he promised himself. A fountain really would go nicely there. Just as soon as he'd fixed the other situation.

He dropped his filthy robes on the ground outside the house. No point dragging in a bunch of dust and soil.

"I'll wash up at the well, Shizun, don't worry," he promised.

"Mm-hm," Shizun said, sounding distracted.

Binghe rubbed at his chest, where a streak of soil had dried in an itchy smear. He'd go have a wash, and then it would have to be something quick for dinner. No time to marinate anything, or even to simmer a broth.

"Here, let me—" Shizun said, but Binghe ducked away from his reaching hand. Even his hair was sweaty and unpleasant. He wasn't going to subject Shizun to that. He'd failed him enough. But that was going to end now. How long had he let Shizun suffer those nightmares while standing by, useless? He'd root out whatever that nightmare demon was like he'd rooted out that tree.

Binghe returned from washing up at the well feeling hardly any less unpleasantly overheated. Shizun's eyes tracked him across the room as Binghe carried in his bundled-up robes, his wet hair dripping water down his naked back. The filthy robes dragged in some dirt despite his best efforts, but it wasn't the state of the floor Shizun seemed to be worried about. It was Binghe himself Shizun was watching, as avidly as a hare tracking a wolf around the room.

Binghe couldn't help but wonder if he'd scared him. He knew he'd been behaving erratically all day.

He wasn't sure how much Shizun remembered of the dreams. Not all of it, he knew that much; if he did, he'd have realized the truth of Binghe's demonic heritage long ago. But even so, surely some of it must make it through. Could it really be so easy for Shizun to separate the demon of his nightmares from the man he spent his days with? Wasn't there some part of his mind, deep down, that remembered the beast he'd tried and failed to whip into shape?

Binghe paused, a fresh black underrobe dangling from his hand. Binghe still wore the white overrobes of a Cang Qiong disciple, with the green accents that all of Shizun's disciples favored: Shizun's favorite color. But lately he'd been mixing in more blacks and dark reds. He'd thought the colors made him look striking. Dangerous. Having seen them now on the demon of Shizun's nightmares, he knew that they did: a warning as obvious as the black and red stripes on a coral snake. Why had he ever thought he wanted Shizun to see him like that?

The side room still held all of Binghe's old possessions, carefully preserved while Binghe had been gone. Binghe had been so touched to see it, when he'd returned from his travels.

He should've taken the hint then. That was the Binghe Shizun liked: Cang Qiong's upstanding disciple in his neat uniform, not some half-wild creature dressed in the colors of a venomous snake.

He could still make himself fit into those old robes, although they pinched at the shoulders and gapped a little more than was ideal at the chest.

He'd get them fixed, Binghe promised himself. Just as soon as he'd fixed everything else. He'd chase out the demon haunting Shizun's nights, and he wouldn't let himself forget again who he was: Shizun's disciple and a righteous cultivator. With time, Shizun's memory of the demon would fade, as it had before. He wouldn't go back to looking at Binghe with cold, hate-filled eyes.

Shizun kept watching him from the corner of his eyes while he cooked, and all during dinner. Binghe made sure Shizun was well-fed and replete, but he himself ate sparingly, as he would before a battle.

"Shall we go to bed?" Binghe said abruptly, with the dirty dishes still on the table, where he'd normally never leave them. He couldn't stand this. He needed it fixed.

He knew he was acting strangely, knew he was looking at Shizun too intently, but he couldn't help watching for signs of anger or alarm. Surely there had to be some indication that part of him remembered.

Shizun himself hadn't taken his eyes off Binghe for a second. Was that fear, in his intent gaze?

And then Shizun reached out and placed a hand on Binghe's chest, fingertips trailing down the gap in his too-tight robes.

Binghe's entire body jolted.

Oh. Yes. That made sense, he supposed. That was what it usually meant, when Shizun gave him those lingering sidelong glances. But—now? Today?

Never in his life had sex been further from his mind. His entire body recoiled from the thought of it. Something of the reaction must've shown in his expression; Shizun's face fell.

"Well!" Shizun said, puffing up like an indignant cat. He gave the collar of Binghe's robes a sharp tug, as if that was what he'd meant to do all along. "These robes are a little small, aren't they? Can't my disciple afford clothes that fit him?"

He was still fussing with the collar, and Binghe realized belatedly that he'd offended Shizun's thin face. Binghe had never said no before, when Shizun signaled he was willing, and Binghe had never made him ask so blatantly before, either. Usually he'd be much quicker to pick up on Shizun's little hints.

He ought to—he should—maybe he could just…. But there was something sickening about even the thought of touching Shizun now, like this, when he knew how badly he'd been failing him. Months of leaving him to suffer through his nightmares, and even now the demon in his dreams wasn't banished.

He caught Shizun's hand in his and pressed a kiss to his palm. "This disciple apologizes for not being up to his usual standards… of dress. He let himself get too tired. Will Shizun please forgive him?"

"Oh! Of course, that's. Yes," Shizun said. He closed the hand Binghe had kissed into a loose fist and wrapped the other one around it. It made him look like a man clutching a precious thing, although Binghe knew he'd given him nothing real.

"You worked very hard today. If you're tired, you ought to rest," Shizun said, giving him a gentle smile that twisted Binghe's heart inside his chest.

They got ready for the night in silence. Binghe slid Zheng Yang under the bed while Shizun wasn't looking. He didn't think there was going to be a physical fight—the entity had shown no sign so far of having a presence outside of the dream—but he wanted a weapon at hand just in case.

Shizun curled into his arms, warm and trusting as he'd ever been. If Binghe hadn't known….

If he hadn't known, he wouldn't ever have been able to tell. Shizun would've kept suffering night after night at the hands of a creature with Binghe's face, would've been forced to look at the face of his tormentor every day and pretend that he was fine.

Getting himself past Shizun's wards undetected was already second nature, but the entity fought harder than ever to bar his entrance from the dream.

Binghe forced himself through, even though something about the pushback was causing nausea to flare up sharply in his chest. He opened his eyes in the same dank dungeon room. Shizun was still chained to the wall. The horrible stump of his left shoulder had been left unwrapped, the skin healed over but still raw and sore-looking.

Across the room, the nightmare-Binghe smirked.

Binghe gritted his teeth and forced himself to focus. The real threat wasn't in this room with them. But that was hard to remember, when that demon was crossing the room towards Shizun.

The dream's fabric was thick and densely woven, almost impossible to see through. But Binghe knew there was something behind it holding the strings.

He made himself push away the too-real feeling of the horrible dungeon cell and reached for the powers that guided the dream. The demon stood by Shizun's side, sharp teeth bared in a terrifying smile.

The threads in Binghe's hands lengthened and strained until they almost tore from his grasp.

Shizun hissed contemptuously, but there was terror in his eyes.

The demon laughed.

Binghe tugged through a rising pain. It felt as though the strands in his hands were cutting his fingers to ribbons.

The demon reached out and squeezed the stump of Shizun's arm.

Binghe yanked; something tore. Binghe found himself standing in a blank, empty space with Shizun's scream still ringing in his ears.

The only other thing in the room was a transparent pane, glowing blue characters flickering over it like sunlight on a window screen:

Unauthorized access

Storyline interrupted

Punishment Protocol: status pending

"Who are you?" Binghe asked.

He reached for the strands of the dream again, but they evaded his grasp. The pain spiked, like trying to hold razor wire with blood-slick hands. Binghe gripped harder, leaning into the pain.

"Who are you!"

Unauthorized access, the screen flashed.

Mission interrupted. Error. Error.

Currently active world: DLC Pack 1: An Easier Road

DLC purchased by: User 002

• Optional Mission: a Path from the Abyss
• Status: finished

• Main Mission: a Price to Pay
• Status: ongoing

Current mission: Critical

Failure penalty: Account termination

None of that was very coherent, and he didn't understand most of it, but that wasn't unusual for a powerful demonic entity. Many of them communicated in heavily idiosyncratic ways. Binghe knew how to pick out the relevant word in that wall of information: purchased.

For some unfathomable reason, Shizun, who feared demons more than anything else, had chosen to make a deal with this demon. He'd consented to give it a hold on him.

Had he known, when he'd made the deal, what the price would be? Surely not. He'd already had the nightmares when Binghe had returned from his wanderings. Seven months now, at the least, of nightly torment. What could possibly be worth such a price? Neither Shizun nor Cang Qiong had faced any unusual danger while he'd been gone, nor any other kind of serious hardship. Binghe would've returned at once, if anything like that had been going on.

Binghe tightened his grip on the fabric of the dream again. He yanked. The pain spiked. He felt a terrible tugging sensation, as if the strands he was tugging on were wrapped around something inside his own chest. With every tug came a wave of leaden exhaustion.

Binghe growled, and kept pulling.

"Reveal yourself! Who are you? What have you done to Shizun?"

Mission failure imminent

Failure penalty: account termination

Currently active accounts: User 002 (Shen Qingqiu)

It was a bluff, it had to be a bluff, Binghe was almost sure of it. He was the one in control. The entity couldn't do anything to Shizun, even if Shizun had been stupid enough to give it a hold on him.

He was almost sure.

But in that moment of uncertainty, his grip had faltered. The strands slipped from his grasp. The dream dissolved around him. The entity was gone.

For a moment, he was alone in that empty blank space. Binghe cast about. He'd left Shizun behind. He'd pulled him out of the entity's nightmare, but hadn't wanted to pull him into its realm with him. A moment's search found Shizun's mind still asleep.

Without Binghe or the entity to direct him, he'd slipped into a dream of his own. Binghe reached for him desperately, the fear still pounding inside him. If there was anything that demon could do….

A gentle tug, and he was in Shizun's dream with him.

The space was so familiar and yet so different, it took him a moment to realize where he was.

Ah. This memory, then.

He supposed it was only natural that Shizun's mind, tortured by a demon his conscious mind had forgotten, had fled to a moment when he'd still had that demon under his full control.

The woodshed was smaller than Binghe remembered it, the space somehow less dark and yet more ominous at the same time. It was immediately obvious that Shizun's mind retained only the faintest threads of this memory, because the details were all wrong.

There was a body suspended in the middle of the room: Binghe's body, as it had been at fourteen years old, in his shabby, too-small disciple robes. But the way he was tied was all wrong. The dream-Binghe hung from the ceiling, suspended by his spread arms in a way you couldn't really suspend a person unless you didn't mind crippling them. Binghe's body as it was now might be able to take that kind of strain, but Binghe then, with his faulty cultivation, certainly couldn't have. Both his shoulders would've dislocated. Yue Qingyuan wouldn't have let even Shizun get away with that.

Most other details were wrong, too. The dream Binghe bore every strike of the lash with stoic dignity, even though Binghe remembered perfectly well the humiliating way he'd grunted and yelped, how hard he'd struggled not to cry.

Only the whip was right: Shen Qingqiu's favorite whip, with its worn-down handle and the heavy leather tails. Binghe had found it abandoned on the trash heap a few days after the incident with the skinner demon. That had been the first time he'd truly let himself hope that maybe things had changed for good.

The whip scored deep cuts into Binghe's back, cracking loudly with every stroke in a way the real one never had. Blood streamed down and collected into puddles on the floor. It was all very dramatic, much more than it had ever been in reality.

Shizun had known how to hit without cutting the skin: brutally painful strikes that would leave no sign that would show through clothes. He'd known how to save face for the peak. How would he have explained it, one of his disciples going around bleeding through the back of his robes all the time? Discipline was a master's prerogative, but even in Cang Qiong there had been limits. And clearly Shen Qingqiu hadn't been interested in exposing Binghe's demonic heritage, which could've been the only excuse for measures as harsh as these.

But for all the faulty details, there was one thing Shizun's mind had recreated correctly: the way Shen Qingqiu's eyes had sparked with rage and hate and, although Binghe hadn't known to see it at the time, terror.

Poor Shizun, Binghe thought, in a way he never could have as a child. Back then, his own fear and pain had been all that he cared about, and his terrified worship of his fearsome master had teetered on the cusp of turning into hate.

Poor Shizun, who knew so much about every kind of monster, who knew all too well that he was raising the sort of creature that could and would tear a man's arm from the socket with one hand.

Binghe couldn't even deny that it was the sort of thing he might've done. Not to Shizun, of course. Never to Shizun. But he knew the specific and elaborate turns his own revenge fantasies took, when he felt himself wronged.

The whip came whistling down again. Blood splashed. The Binghe suspended in the middle of the room flinched, stoic and dignified and pitiable all at once in his pain, when Binghe knew that in reality he'd been a shameful blubbering mess.

"Stop!" someone screamed.

Binghe realized, too late, that he'd found himself in another nightmare.

There was another Shizun in the room: his Shizun, chained to the wall just as he'd been in the demon's dungeon. He was watching himself flail away at Binghe's unprotected back, naked horror on his face. His Shizun, who didn't remember that he hated and feared the creature suspended in the middle of the room.

"Stop!" Shizun pleaded. Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes. "Stop, please stop. Why would you do this, how could you—"

It was awful to watch him plead like that, and get ignored; the Shen Qingqiu with the whip clearly couldn't hear him at all.

But this wasn't one of the entity's dreams. It was nothing but a mundane nightmare, easily altered. It took no more than a moment of concentration to make Shen Qingqiu disappear. A single thought wiped the chains out of existence, freeing Shizun from the wall. The Binghe in the middle of the room collapsed to his knees, and then Shizun was there, cradling him carefully to his chest, gentle hands wiping the tears from his face.

Binghe watched the scene with a lump in his throat. It was what he'd wanted back then, more than anything: a loving Shizun to tell him he was a good boy, a brave boy, that Shizun was sorry. And of course it was all a lie, the same lie Binghe had been telling for months now: the one where Binghe was a normal boy Shizun could love, and not the demon that had sparked such hate in Shizun's eyes.

There was no fixing this. Binghe couldn't…. What could possibly be gained, by telling Shizun the truth? He never wanted Shizun to look at him with that terror in his eyes ever again.

And yet it wasn't fair, to keep living this lie. What he ought to do—the only thing that would be fair to Shizun—would be to walk away.

He should. He knew he ought to. He'd walked away before, even though it had felt like tearing his own heart out of his chest. He'd spent three years without Shizun. But he'd known he would return, then. It'd been the only thing that had kept him going, the only thing that could hold the crushing loneliness at bay. He knew he couldn't have done it without that knowledge. To walk away knowing he was never going to see Shizun again—

No.

Binghe couldn't. He didn't have that sort of strength.

And so they were going to keep living this lie, and Shizun would keep loving him, just as long as he was careful. Just as long as he never slipped up, not even once. And in return Binghe would keep him safe, and he'd make him happy, and he'd have to hope that it would be enough.

Binghe closed his eyes for a moment and made another effort of will. And then it was him, kneeling on the floor in Shizun's arms, small and bloody and safe, Shizun's arms tight around him as if he'd never let him go.

At some point, the dream slipped from his grasp. Binghe woke up in the morning clutched in Shizun's arms.

"Shizun?" he muttered.

"Hush. Go back to sleep, it's early," Shizun said, but his voice was tense, and he had the fabric of Binghe's robes in a tight grip.

"Everything all right?" Binghe asked blurrily.

"Just a bad dream," Shizun said. His hands smoothed over Binghe's back as if to make sure he was unhurt. Binghe's heart clenched. Was Shizun worried for him? It was ridiculous, when he had to know it'd only been a dream, and a dream of ancient history, at that. Meanwhile Shizun himself was suffering night after night. But it would be very like Shizun, to worry about Binghe when he should be worried about himself instead.

"Binghe should sleep a little longer, but this master needs to start packing," Shizun said.

"Packing?" Binghe asked, pushing himself up on one elbow.

"Oh, did I forget to mention?" Shizun said, with terribly faked levity. "There's a small conference on Qiong Ding Peak. Just a few routine matters, I'm sure, nothing very interesting. No one but the other peak lords, and the, ah, representative… of the demonic empire."

Right. Forgotten to mention it, had he? Of course. Shizun, who never did his own packing, who always griped and grumbled for weeks before every discussion conference that required him to leave his own peak. He'd send his disciples in his stead any time he could find even the vaguest reason not to attend. Except, notably, to any conference that involved any demons—which he refused to talk about and always attended personally and alone, without exception.

Shizun had always been very good at hiding his fear of demons. But Binghe knew him well enough to recognize the way he dealt with a threat: putting himself in the line of fire while trying to keep all others away. Once he'd finally realized, it was obvious: the fretful way Shizun would put himself between Binghe and any demon who got too close, the guilt on his face as he anxiously ushered Binghe away.

Shizun was ashamed of this fear, Binghe knew. He cared about treating others fairly, about giving every creature a chance. He'd say all the right things, if you asked him. He'd tell you that there was nothing inherently wrong with demons. They could be good or evil, just like humans; they were capable of great kindness, of astonishing feats of heroism. And yet Binghe could see Shizun's anxiety every time they encountered a demon.

Shizun would avoid the topic unless pressed. That had been Binghe's first clue, way back when, because the omission had been so notable. They'd had a whole series of seminars on recognizing creatures in disguise: Aoyin and Hua Pi Gui, Gu Huo Niao and Nine-Breasted Griffin Minxes. But nothing about humanoid demons whatsoever, even though they were the most likely creature by far to try and hide themselves in a human guise.

In retrospect, Binghe had to be grateful Shizun had never lectured on this topic. Binghe had read up on it later, once he knew what he was, and realized that there were in fact several things that might've given him away. Those were probably also the things Shizun had picked up on the first time he'd seen him as a child: a few quirks in the flow of his qi and in the way his body responded to injuries.

Of course, after Binghe's seal had broken, hiding his heritage had turned into a much more involved project. But it was terrifying to realize that there'd been signs even before he'd come into his powers, before he'd had any idea he needed to hide. It'd been pure luck that no one else had noticed except Shizun, that first time around; almost more luck that anyone could hope for, that Shizun had forgotten.

Even now, Binghe knew less about the demonic realms than he sometimes thought he ought to, because Shizun went to such trouble to shield him from the subject.

He knew that there'd been an alliance between the humans and a group of demons in the wake of the foiled attack on the Immortal Alliance Conference.

He also knew that cultivators had been involved in helping the demon Mobei Jun onto the throne of the demonic realm. Binghe hadn't been to any of those conferences. He'd never even seen Mobei Jun in person, and Shizun clearly didn't intend for that to change any time soon.

Well, Shizun would simply have to deal with it. Binghe wasn't letting him out of his sight until the issue of the nightmare entity had been resolved. But there was no point in arguing with him about it, knowing how stubborn he could be when he was trying to protect someone. Binghe would simply let him go ahead, and then follow. Easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

Binghe took the half-full satchel out of Shizun's hand and efficiently finished packing for him, made him a quick breakfast, and ushered him out the door. He didn't bother to protest staying behind, as he'd usually have done.

Shizun gave him a suspicious look. "Binghe should take this opportunity to rest. He must still be very tired."

"This disciple will make sure to get a good night's sleep," Binghe said blandly.

Specifically, he planned to get this good night's sleep in bed with Shizun, after he'd finished making sure Shizun was safe. But that discussion didn't need to be had just now.

Qiong Ding Peak was crowded. For all that Shizun had claimed that this wasn't an important conference, all the peak lords were in attendance, and everyone except for Shizun had brought guards and personal disciples.

The cultivators were warily eying the guards from the demonic side, a dozen hulking brutes with spikes and horns and claws. Binghe sometimes wondered if that's what he'd end up looking like, if he didn't take so much care to suppress his demonic nature.

Binghe had made sure to arrive shortly before the first meeting was supposed to start, so everyone was already milling around in front of Qiong Ding's sword hall. Shizun stood off to the side, huddled together with Shang Qinghua, having what looked like an intense argument in whispered tones.

Binghe swallowed down the instinctive spike of jealousy he felt whenever he saw the two of them together. Shizun was so secretive about his past. Even now, Binghe knew very little about his background. Nothing about where he'd grown up, what his early life had been like. He'd overheard enough, in the last few months, to figure out that Shang Qinghua knew a lot more than that. He clearly knew things about Shizun's birthplace, and he could even read the strange script Shizun used when he was writing his coded notes.

Binghe didn't understand it. Shizun hadn't seemed close to Shang Qinghua at all before that failed Immortal Alliance Conference, and now they were acting like long-time hometown friends.

Maybe there were good reasons Shizun had never fully trusted Binghe. Binghe, after all, was hiding enough secrets of his own. But why trust Shang Qinghua, of all people? What did Shizun see in that strange, squirrely man, especially when everyone knew he'd had secret dealings with the demons Shizun feared?

Binghe took a moment to quiet down the unsettled flow of his qi and then strolled towards them at an angle that would keep both of their backs to him. He wasn't sneaking—someone would certainly notice if he snuck up on his Shizun in full view of everyone else—but he took care to make sure that his footsteps would make no sound on the soft grass.

"—don't understand how this is even a problem," Shizun was saying, in an angry hiss. "The absolute least he could do, after everything we've done for him—"

"No offense, bro, but are you freaking kidding me? The only reason you got the sects to support my king was that you didn't want a power vacuum in the demon world with You Know Who off living his domestic housewife fantasy life. That doesn't mean he owes you—"

The ring of a gong signaling that the meeting was about to start interrupted the argument. Shizun whirled around and then jumped, startled, to find himself face to face with Binghe.

Binghe saluted, bowing deeply, not giving Shizun any time to speak. "This disciple apologizes for his lateness! But Shizun can rest assured that Ning-shijie has everything well in hand at the peak now," he said.

"Binghe!" Shizun hissed.

"Please, Shizun! After you," Binghe said loudly, stretching out one arm to gesture Shizun ahead of him into the sword hall.

Shizun gave him a glare, but there wasn't much he could do just now without making a scene. There were at least a dozen other people close enough to hear them. He couldn't scold Binghe for ignoring orders and following him without losing face.

Shizun grudgingly allowed Binghe to usher him into the sword hall. His eyes flitted anxiously from Binghe to the demon faction in a way that made it very obvious that Shizun didn't want him anywhere near the demons.

The emperor, Mobei Jun, was a tall demon with faintly blue-tinted skin and a cold, haughty face. He seemed content enough to let Shang Qinghua do most of the talking for him. Apparently here was another person who placed an unreasonable amount of trust in that strange little man.

There was some sort of trouble with an upstart demon tribe who wouldn't accept the demon emperor's authority, and who Shang Qinghua seemed convinced the Cang Qiong Sect ought to be helping him with. Binghe barely paid any attention. If Cang Qiong did end up embroiled in this conflict, he'd be happy enough to join the fight. But that seemed vastly less relevant than the fact that even now, Shizun was subtly trying to put himself between Binghe and the demon emperor's gaze. There was a fine sheen of sweat on the back of his neck.

Binghe wished he knew what to do to reassure him. He was confident he could handle anything even a demon lord had to throw at him, but it wasn't like he could tell Shizun that without revealing the source of his powers.

He settled for glaring at the demon emperor over Shizun's shoulder. Except then he had to stop doing that, too, because it caused Mobei Jun to give him a sharp glance that made Shizun squirm anxiously in his seat.

"I do agree that it cannot be in anyone's interest to let these demons rampage unchecked—" Mu Qingfang was saying.

That's when one entire side of the room burst open into the howling void of a portal, and a horde of demons came spilling out.

Binghe jumped to his feet and drew his sword, vaguely aware of the other peak lords doing the same around him. There were at least two dozen demons, turning their side of the room into a bristling mass of weapons, teeth, and claws. But it was the leader who drew his eye: a tall demon, less spiky than the rest. His aura was strong, although nothing exceptional. But the sword in his hand blazed with a power like an oncoming storm.

There was an awkward moment as Binghe tried to put himself in between Shizun and the demons at the same time that Shizun tried to put himself in between the demons and Binghe. By the time Binghe had given up on keeping Shizun out of the fray and arranged them to fight back to back, the demons were on them.

"Is that Jiuzhong Jun? Why the fuck does he have Xin Mo?" Shizun snapped to Shang Qinghua, who squeaked something incomprehensible in reply while Mobei Jun yanked him unceremoniously behind his back.

The demon with the sword—Xin Mo? Why would Shizun recognize a demon's blade on sight?—went directly for Mobei Jun. Binghe got the impression Mobei Jun would've been more than a match for Jiuzhong Jun if it wasn't for Xin Mo, but as it was, he was visibly struggling to match the sword's powerful blows. But Binghe couldn't get more than an occasional glimpse of that fight, as Shizun and him together were fighting off half a dozen demons of their own.

Binghe snarled and threw himself into battle with a rage fueled by the awareness of Shizun at his back: Shizun, who must be terrified right now and yet was still fighting to keep Binghe safe. He'd kill them all for scaring Shizun, some cold hard part of his mind was thinking, and in the ice-cold light of that certainty, it was all he could do to keep his own demonic side at bay.

Binghe knew how to fight like a cultivator, how not to draw on any powers that would betray him. But his strength was limited like that. He could only hope it would be enough.

There was a pounding noise at the edge of his awareness as the peak lords' guards tried to get into the room, but the walls of the room glowed with a strange dark light, some sort of force that barred the windows and doors. It was something that demon sword was doing, Binghe was almost sure.

His own opponents, in the end, weren't much of a fight. They clearly weren't used to fighting as a united force, especially not in close quarters like this. Their sheer numbers were hindering them as much as helping; they kept getting in each others' way. The peak lords, who'd trained together as disciples, seemed to be managing some amount of cooperation.

Binghe thought Shizun and he should be able to fight like that, too, a united team who knew each other like the back of their hands. Unfortunately, that was not what was happening. Shizun kept getting into his way, plainly trying to keep Binghe out of the fight as much as possible and leaving himself dangerously open to do so. Binghe had to pull one risky maneuver after another to keep Shizun safe.

"Shizun, I can do this. Let me fight!" he snapped.

Hadn't Shizun trained him with his own hands? Why didn't he trust him to hold his own? Shizun knew what Binghe could do. Or at least the part of his strength that was safe for anyone to know about, which was formidable enough.

"Binghe, let this master handle this fight." Shizun was gasping for air, clearly pressed, fending off two demons at the same time. Binghe put his shoulder besides Shizun's, joining their defenses together. He bashed one demon back with a powerful blow and cut the other one up the belly in a hot rush of blood. More were already crowding in.

He was wasting too much of his focus on keeping his demonic qi contained. It was like fighting with one hand behind his back. He kept half an eye on the biggest threat in the room, Jiuzhong Jun, who was steadily bashing Mobei Jun back with great ringing hammer blows of that vile demonic sword. It glowed like a black sun, sucking all the light out of the room.

Binghe saw the moment Shang Qinghua darted in with a dagger to Jiuzhong Jun's back; saw Jiuzhong Jun toss him aside with a contemptuous backhand, hard enough to smash him against the wall with a crack of breaking bones. He saw the momentary, disastrous shift of Mobei Jun's attention as he turned towards Shang Qinghua's limp body, saw Jiuzhong Jun close in to take advantage of the distraction; and then Binghe had to yank his focus back to fighting the two demons creeping up on him from the side.

He dropped one demon to the ground with a shattering blow to the knee, drew his sword clean across the other one's throat, and looked up to see Mobei Jun on the ground and Jiuzhong Jun coming for Shizun's unprotected back.

"Shizun!"

His voice cracked on the terror choking him. He turned, too slow. He was going to be too late. Jiuzhong Jun swung that horrible sword in an arc that was going to cleave right through Shizun's spine.

Binghe put on a burst of speed, unleashing every drop of demonic qi in his body all at once. Out of the corner of his eye he saw half a dozen heads turning to face him at the sudden burst of demonic power, but that didn't matter anymore. What was the point of remaining undetected if Shizun was gone?

He brought up Zheng Yang to intersect Xin Mo's arc, putting all the strength of his qi behind it to bolster it. Xin Mo's power flared to match his strength. The sword radiated a feeling almost like glee, a vicious and endless hunger for blood, drawing on all the energy in the room. Zheng Yang, powerful as it was, had never been forged to contain powers like this. It shattered into shards in his hand, doing nothing to break the power of Xin Mo's blow.

Shizun wasn't going to be able to get out of the way in time.

Well. Binghe had already revealed himself. All manner of things were going to come to an end today.

With one last burst of demonic speed, Binghe put himself between Shizun's back and the arc of the sword.

He caught the blow in the right side of his chest, in a burst of sensation so intense it couldn't even be called pain. Qi flared, sun-bright and poisonous. Binghe took a step closer, forcing his body further onto the blade; he needed to be able to reach. He closed his hands over Jiuzhong Jun's on the hilt before he could withdraw the sword.

Hello, he told Xin Mo: one creature of vile demonic powers to another. You like power? Be mine, then.

The full force of his demonic qi was already on display, blazing bright in the cramped room. Binghe could only be grateful that for now, every cultivator in the room was still busy fighting off the invading demons. No one could possibly miss this. There'd be no hiding anymore. But none of that could matter right now.

Right now, there was only him and Xin Mo. Jiuzhong Jun's power on the other end of the sword was nothing but a guttering candle compared to the sun-bright flare of Binghe's own qi, and the cold dark light of the sword's.

Choose. Be mine, he told Xin Mo, and then it was.

Jiuzhong Jun screamed as his hands caught fire where they touched the hilt of the sword. He staggered back, face twisted into a grimace of agony and disbelief, weaponless, blind to the cultivator behind him who dealt his deathblow almost in passing.

Behind Binghe, Shizun dispatched the last of his own foes. All around them, the battle was dying down.

Good. It was good.

Binghe's knees gave, his legs folding gently underneath him until he found himself on his back on the floor. His fall jostled the sword where it emerged from his back, forcing him to let go of the hilt. He wrapped his hands around the blade instead, the flat of it caught between his palms.

There was something going wrong in the lung that had been pierced, a strange whistling noise every time he breathed in. The pain he'd barely felt at first was now a hot poker bored into his side, twisting and jabbing at him with every breath.

Hush, he told Xin Mo, which was clamoring for him to get up and rejoin the fight. Hush now. We're done.

The cultivators had been victorious. The last of the demons were dead, or kneeling on the ground in surrender. Across the room Mobei Jun staggered to his feet, grunting with effort as he picked up Shang Qinghua's limp form.

There was nothing left for Binghe to do. Several of the cultivators were ringed around him now, swords drawn.

He could've fought them all off if he wanted. He could already feel Xin Mo's vast power amplifying his own. He could pull the sword out of his chest and heal himself as easy as breathing.

And then what? Kill Shizun's martial brothers and sisters? Carry Shizun off over his shoulder like a villain in those little yellow books Shizun was always pretending not to read? Lock him up in some demonic fortress and force a demon's unwanted attentions on him until terror wore him down into compliance?

Yes! Fight! Xin Mo hounded him. Kill them all! Take what's yours!

Binghe felt a wave of something almost like pity for the sword, which could not know how repulsive and unwanted it was, how little use Binghe had for it and its horrid suggestions: a vile demonic thing that could not help its nature.

Calm, he told it. Everything's all right.

There were other options, of course. But none of them seemed worth getting off the ground for. He could flee, and never see Shizun again. Scrabble out a life somewhere alone in the wilderness, or stop suppressing his demonic nature and make his home among the demons. Maybe eventually he'd turn into a hulking brute covered in spikes himself, or surrender to the sword's call, fight and fuck and kill like an animal.

Or he could let himself be taken captive, for what few days that might buy him. There were half a dozen unmoving forms on the ground, beloved disciples of the sect killed in the fight. The peak lords would be out for blood. Someone must've let the demons through Cang Qiong's wards. There was a traitor in their midst. Binghe supposed he'd hand them a rather convenient scapegoat, if he let himself be captured as he was now.

Maybe Shizun would be there to witness his execution.

No. None of these options appealed in the slightest.

He could feel his body trying to heal himself around the blade, but he only had to jostle it a little to get the blood flowing again. The pain had mostly stopped, replaced with a feeling of grim satisfaction: he'd show them all. Even a vile demon could die honorably, defending his sect, defending his—

"Binghe!" Shizun crashed to his knees beside him.

Binghe closed his eyes for a moment, flinching from whatever expression might be on Shizun's face. But then he made himself look, made himself bear it.

"Sorry, Shizun." His voice came out low and cracked. It hurt to talk. The side of his lung with the sword in it still made that terrible whistling noise when he breathed. "Sorry I… I lied to you."

"Binghe!" Shizun patted frantically at his chest, trying to examine the wound without jostling the sword. For a moment Binghe wondered whether Shizun might simply not have noticed what he was, in his horror over seeing him injured. But no. Binghe's demonic qi still flared in angry waves, beyond his ability to control with him wounded as badly as he was. He knew his eyes had to be glowing red, the sigil unmistakable on his forehead; no cultivator could miss it.

Shizun's hands were pressed to his chest now, trying to stem the flow of blood. His face was twisted with horror and grief.

"Sorry, Shizun," Binghe whispered again. He drew in a ragged breath, and dared: "Will you say you forgive me? You don't have to mean it. Just… just for a little while."

He coughed, disturbing the sword. Pain like a red-hot poker jabbed between his ribs. He tasted blood, metallic-bright in his mouth. "It's only going to be a little while now."

"Binghe! What are you talking about? Heal yourself, now!"

Binghe eased one hand off the sword and caught Shizun's trembling hand in his own. "Shizun. Say you forgive me."

"Binghe, if you die, this master shall certainly never forgive you!"

Shizun's voice cracked. There were tears running down his face, unheeded. He'd started channeling qi into the wound in a frantic attempt to stem the bleeding.

Binghe stared at him, a painfully tender blossom of hope sprouting somewhere from that white-hot boil of pain in his chest. Shizun wanted him to live. Shizun was looking at Binghe in his demon form, undisguised and flaring with inhuman qi, and still he was scared for Binghe's life.

Shizun pressed down hard on the wound. "Binghe, listen to me! I'm going to pull the sword out, and you have to act quickly, all right? I know this must all be a shock to you, but you can use the demonic qi to heal yourself. Do you know how? It's meant to be instinctive, I think. I'm so sorry, Binghe. This master failed you. If only I'd told you earlier, you could've practiced."

Binghe's breath caught, and not just because Shizun had put his hands on Xin Mo's hilt and moved the blade in his chest. Shizun… knew? How could that be?

"I'm so sorry," Shizun said again. "I thought… I just wanted you to have what you wanted. I thought I was buying your safety. But of course it's like wishing on a monkey's paw. It always finds a way to turn things around on you…"

"'It,'" Binghe repeated. I thought I'd bought your safety. Was that the deal Shizun had made with the nightmare entity?

Of course. What else would Shizun, who certainly knew better than to make a deal with a demon, have bargained for? What else would he have bought at the cost of all those nights of suffering?

"Shizun. What is it?"

Shizun winced, his eyes growing shifty in the way Luo Binghe had long learned to recognize.

"It doesn't matter. This old master is merely babbling. Binghe has to be very strong now."

Shizun bent down and pressed a kiss to the demon mark on Binghe's brow.

Binghe's breath caught. For a moment, that was almost enough to distract him.

But he'd felt it, in the exact moment Shizun had winced: a tug on the inside of his chest, and not from the blade of the sword, either.

"Shizun. Tell me about it."

Shizun winced again, and this time, Binghe was watching for it: something pulling on the quickly dwindling reservoir of his powers.

So. This entity, which used both righteous cultivation and demonic qi intertwined, as only Binghe himself had ever been able to do, and which could wield them strongly enough to rival Binghe's own strength: Binghe was the source of its powers.

He didn't think he'd have felt that slight tug under any other circumstances. It was only using a drip of power from what was usually a vast reservoir inside him. But right now, he was running so low that even that small additional drain was noticeable.

He felt Shizun's hand close around Xin Mo's hilt, felt Xin Mo's bristly hostility reluctantly smooth out into a sort of possessive glow, like a cat having its ears scratched by its owner.

Don't you dare hurt him, Binghe told the sword, and felt Xin Mo's indignation at the idea.

This one's ours, it told him.

Xin Mo would've permitted Shizun's touch, but Binghe couldn't let the sword be taken from him right now.

"Wait." His shaking hands didn't have the strength to pry Shizun's off the hilt, but Xin Mo caught his intent and helped. It repelled Shizun with a gentle wave of power, entirely unlike the force that had burned Jiuzhong Jun's hands.

So. The entity was anchored inside of him, then. Well, Xin Mo was already where it needed to be. Binghe put both hands back around the blade and directed the sword's power to the glowing tracework of forces inside of himself, where his human and demonic qi twined around each other.

Underneath that, deep inside his core, wrapped in Binghe's qi like a silk worm in its cocoon, sat the entity.

"Binghe? Binghe, what are you doing? Are you—Leave him alone! He's already hurt! Fucking—System, leave him be!" Shizun hissed. Binghe could feel the thing's power draw increase as it tried to shield him from hearing what Shizun had said.

The 'System,' then, was it? What a strange name.

The room faded out around him. For a moment, Binghe found himself standing in that strange non-space again, nothing but white around him and the glowing blue screen floating in the air, blaring Warning! Warning! Warning!

But he had the entity in his grasp now, and he would not be threatened again.

Xin Mo started to cut the System out of the cocoon it had spun from Binghe's own powers. The pain stole his breath away, and though the strands of qi came apart cleanly under Xin Mo's ethereal edge, he could feel his grip start to falter. He tried to hold on to the dreamspace, but it flickered away from him as the pain increased. Something inside him was coming apart. He was losing blood too quickly, and too many of his meridians had been damaged.

Binghe gritted his teeth and tried to push through. His hands were slick with blood, and his mind could barely keep hold of the energies he was guiding inside himself. Something was going very wrong in the injured half of his lung, a growing insidious pressure that was squeezing all the air out of his chest.

Binghe focused, forcing the sword through his own flesh and qi one more time, and felt the worm flinch in its cocoon.

"Binghe!" he heard, and then nothing.

He was in the blank white space, the System's screen flickering in front of him.

Connect power source

Connect power source

Rebooting

Rebooting 1%

Rebooting 2%

This was not a real space, Binghe knew. He didn't think he even needed to breathe in here, and yet he couldn't seem to catch his breath. The pain in his chest was still there, flooding over from where he'd left his real body behind.

Rebooting 7%

Binghe realized he wasn't alone anymore. There was another person in the space with him. Not the System, that much was clear to him right away, although he couldn't have said how he knew.

There was a man, dressed in the most bizarre ensemble Binghe had ever seen: heavy canvas pants like a peasant might wear to protect his legs in the fields, but dyed a brilliant shade of blue no peasant could possibly afford; a strange thin undershirt, much too immodest to be seen in and yet clearly meant to be shown off, as it was equally painted in expensive dyes, with a stylized depiction of a disgruntled-looking cat.

The man was short and a little soft-looking, with big eyes behind wire-rim spectacles.

The man's eyes went wide. "Binghe!" he said, and Binghe knew.

The voice was different, but the tone of breathless concern was instantly recognizable.

"Shizun?"

"Binghe!"

Shizun launched himself across the formless space between them, his hands patting frantically at Binghe's chest.

"Are you all right? What did you do?!"

"It's all right, Shizun." He gently took Shizun's frantic hands and realized, too late, that even in this space, he was in his demon form. The black tips of his claws were stark against the soft skin of Shizun's wrists.

Binghe hastily released him, curling his hands in, as if it wasn't far too late to hide the evidence.

"Shizun, what—" he started, half a dozen questions springing to mind at once: What's happening? What is this space? Why do you look like this?

But those were the wrong priorities. All of that could be discussed when they were safe. The System was still a threat.

"This System. What is it? How can I defeat it?"

"You can't! It's too dangerous! I do not want you messing with it, Binghe, are you listening to me? You need to get us out of here—"

"Shizun already knew this," Binghe said slowly. "You knew what the System was. You knew the weakness was the power source." It wasn't a surprise, of course. When it came to monsters, Shizun always knew what to do. But this time…

"Shizun. I know it was torturing you."

"Torturing me, pah. Binghe is always so dramatic. Nothing but a few bad dreams. And anyway, what was there to do? Come on now. We need to get out of here before it finishes rebooting."

"Tell me how to fight it."

"You can't! It's not alive, not as Binghe would think of it. It's just an AI. The only way to turn it off is to destroy the power source, which we can't do, so—"

"I'm the power source, isn't that right?"

Shizun stiffened. "No," he said sharply. "Binghe, whatever you're thinking—"

Shizun had known. And Shizun had chosen not to destroy it, not even to save himself months of nightly torture.

"Shizun. I'm a demon," Binghe said.

He uncurled his hands, holding them up between them, sharp black claws on full display.

"Yes, yes, that's very impressive, Binghe, but it's still not safe to be here!"

Shizun was barely even looking. Something inside Binghe snapped like an over-tightened spring.

Shizun knew.

There was a feeling bubbling up from the depths inside of him, something too large to be rage or pain or joy or confusion, and yet all of that at the same time; jagged and all-encompassing.

"Binghe, we really, really have to go!" Shizun said. He tugged urgently at Binghe's sleeve, as if Binghe's entire world hadn't just tumbled upside down; and also, as if there were anywhere to go. This wasn't a physical space. There wasn't a place to run.

Binghe caught Shizun's wrists.

"Shizun. You knew."

He didn't know what was in his voice, didn't know what it was he was feeling. He only knew that his insides were a churned-up storm.

Shizun winced.

"I did. Binghe, I'm so sorry. I thought it would be for the best. And now you're facing all this, unprepared."

His hand went up to cradle Binghe's cheek: an unfamiliar hand, small and soft, with none of Shizun's calluses from the sword and qin, and yet endlessly familiar in the loving way it touched. As if there wasn't anything strange about a righteous cultivator kindly patting the head of a demon; as if any peak lord might gently nudge the hideous mark on a demon's forehead with his finger.

"Oh, Binghe. No, don't cry," Shizun said helplessly. "I'm so sorry. Your stupid master really fucked it all up, huh."

"Shizun, please," Binghe choked out, with no idea what he was pleading for, only that the feeling in his chest was too large, and he couldn't bear it. "You couldn't…. How could you know? You forgot! This was the thing you forgot!"

"I… what? I'm so sorry, Binghe, I don't know what you're talking about," Shizun said, frowning. He shook himself. "…but we can't talk about it now. We need to leave! Binghe!"

"You turned into a whole different person!" Binghe yelled.

Shizun flinched as if he'd struck him. "Yes. I'm sorry." He looked down at his unfamiliar body in its strange clothes—which wasn't at all what Binghe had meant, although he had questions about that, too. The dreamspace was showing Binghe in his secret form, the one he'd never wanted Shizun to see—was it doing the same to Shizun? Was this what Shizun had been hiding?

Shizun gave him a shaky smile. "I'm afraid my secret wasn't anywhere near as impressive as yours," he said, gesturing vaguely at himself, his mouth twisting, as if he expected Binghe to disapprove. As if there was anything to dislike about that body, this softer version of Shizun, with the cute face and the little spectacles that couldn't hide the sight of Shizun's loving eyes: the gentle eyes that had watched in anguish as the dream-Binghe was getting whipped.

Shizun had hated even to watch it happen. Gentle Shizun, who hadn't remembered, who'd gotten the details all wrong.

Shizun, who wasn't anything like the man who'd whipped Binghe at all.

"You… turned into a whole different person," Binghe said again, slowly, swallowing hard as the truth of it finally dawned on him: into this person, Binghe's kind Shizun. But….

"Shizun. You're scared of demons."

He hadn't imagined that; he did know his Shizun. He'd seen the anxiety, the guilt.

"I'm not!" Shizun said indignantly, in the tone he used to deny things that he didn't want to be true.

Binghe flinched.

Shizun squirmed guiltily. "Not… demons in themselves, there's nothing wrong with demons. It's that…. It was just…. Binghe, seriously, do we have to do this now? If the System reboots—"

"Your worst nightmare was getting tortured by a demon with my face!" Binghe burst out. But… no, that wasn't quite it, was it? He realized his error even before he saw Shizun shaking his head.

That had been the nightmare the entity had forced upon Shizun. Shizun's own nightmare had been different. In Shizun's nightmare, Shizun had been forced to stand there, unable to help, while Binghe was being hurt.

"But then… why would it make you dream about me as a monster?"

Shizun frowned. "He's not a monster," he said sharply. "And you weren't meant to see any of that—"

"I was torturing you!"

"You weren't doing anything at all!" Shizun snapped. "And he has lived a very different life, so you really can't be using the same standard. You can't judge him for what he's done to that man." His lip curled with distaste.

That man. The Shen Qingqiu who'd beaten Binghe bloody as a child. The Shen Qingqiu who wasn't his Shizun at all.

"And now you're crying again!" Shizun said, exasperated. He reached out as if to wipe Binghe's face with his sleeve, only to realize he didn't have any sleeves, because the saucy little undershirt he wore bared his arms all the way to the shoulder, the soft undersides of his wrists on display to the whole world. He hmphed and wiped at Binghe's cheeks with his thumbs instead.

"Shizun. This is who you are?" Binghe asked. He'd had it all wrong, somehow. This man, with his kind eyes: that was his Shizun—his A-Yuan?

Oh, but it would be easy to learn to love that body, knowing it was Shizun's body. The body language was the same; the differences were fascinating. And the things he wore! The tight pants were practically molded to his ass; it was indecent. Delightful. Shizun used to go around like this, wherever he came from?

But Shizun's shoulders were drooping, which took some of the joy out of the thought.

"It's who I used to be," Shizun said insistently. "Binghe. Can you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive," Binghe said, shaken to the core by the realization: there was nothing, nothing at all. Everything he'd worked so hard to forgive and forget, it had all been done by another man entirely.

That man, Shizun had said, with his lip curled in a sneer.

Because Shizun, who liked his monsters, wouldn't beat a demon cub. Shizun had never raised a hand to him at all, and never would.

It left him breathless. Or maybe that was his lungs, which really were failing him now. Time didn't pass the same way in here as it did in the outside world, but it hadn't halted entirely, and he knew the clock was running down quickly out there.

"Binghe!" Shizun said, reaching for him again, eyes wide in concern.

Binghe loved him so much it hurt. There was nothing he wouldn't do to keep him safe. The system was about to find out that it had miscalculated very badly in its choice of enemies.

Binghe closed his eyes. He focused past the pain, past the claustrophobic feeling of a heavy weight on his chest. Every breath was like drawing in a lungful of hot ash straight from the fire, but none of that mattered now.

He reached for the energies around them, forced them to take a shape he could work with.

"Be careful, Binghe. This isn't a normal dreamspace. I don't know what's going to happen if you get hurt in here," Shizun said.

"It's all right, Shizun," Binghe said.

Shizun was right, of course. This wasn't truly a physical fight, and none of the things he saw were real; but they represented real energies, and all the tangled threads of qi around him were anchored in Binghe himself. He was the power source, and he had no idea what would happen once he cut that connection.

He wasn't going to let that stop him. Not when he needed to keep Shizun safe.

Out in the physical world, Binghe's body lay on the ground, pinned by the sword in his chest, laboring for every breath.

In the dreamspace, Binghe stood in the center of a vast spiderweb, Shizun by his side, Xin Mo in his hands. Sticky threads tangled around his feet, trying to pull him down. Binghe lifted the sword and hacked through the web.

It hurt. Every slash of the sword cut away at something vital within himself, every stab severed something irreplaceable. But Binghe didn't relent.

He could feel the creature at the center of the web, the monster wrapped up cozily in threads of Binghe's qi, a parasite grown fat on Binghe's life force. The thing that had tortured Shizun night after night.

Above them, in a featureless sky, the screen still blared its glowing blue warning.

Rebooting 98%

Rebooting 99%

Binghe braced himself.

He felt the threat redouble when the System woke to new life. Every strand of the spider web was suddenly a razor wire, cutting at his limbs as he slashed through the entangling strands.

In the physical world, Binghe's body convulsed, heels drumming against the floor. In the dreamspace, Binghe stood tall, laughing with blood bubbling up between his lips.

"You think you can fight me?" he snarled. He coughed, a feeling like a knife between his ribs. More blood spilled from his mouth. He spit out the salt-iron taste of it with the words. "You'll pay for what you've done."

"Binghe!" Shizun screamed.

Binghe tried to find the strength to give him a reassuring smile. He was losing control of the dreamspace, everything turning to a blur. His dream-body was starting to fail as his real one did. But he could feel Shizun by his side, lending his own strength to the dream: concerned hands holding Binghe's shoulders, keeping him on his feet as his knees tried to buckle.

The dream stabilized. Changed. Another image was taking shape inside his mind. They stood on a wide grassy plain, beside a row of spindly metal towers connected by thick bundles of wires.

Binghe had never seen such a thing before, but his wasn't the only mind in here. Shizun knew what this was; and somehow, in the intimate closeness of sharing a dream, Binghe recognized it as well. He could feel the energy arcing along the wires, each one carrying enough power to light up a city: instant death to the touch.

He grabbed Shizun by the shoulder, pressed a hard kiss to his mouth, felt Shizun reach for him in turn, and twisted away. His sleeves slid through Shizun's anxious grasp. Xin Mo's blade was beneath his feet, lifting him up.

"Binghe, no! You'll die! Binghe!" Shizun screamed.

Binghe jumped. For a moment, he was weightless in the air, hovering beside the sparking wires. His body hurt, even here in the dream; every breath was a scream of agony in his chest. He knew that once he started falling, he wasn't getting up again. But Xin Mo, which had a power all its own, still came easily to his hand.

He swung the sword in a wide arc, slashing through the wires in one last burst of desperate strength. Power flooded up the blade, too much to take all at once. It burned through him like a lightning strike.

Binghe screamed. He was falling, paralyzed with pain.

Strong arms caught him. Shizun, who shouldn't have been able to manipulate the dream at all, had somehow managed to summon Xiu Ya and rise up to catch Binghe's falling body. He was drawing the deadly energy away, grounding it inside his own body.

"No," Binghe gasped. "Shizun, no!"

They crashed to the ground in an uncontrolled tangle of limbs. In the sky above them, the System's screen flickered and crackled. The blue light drew in to a pinpoint and winked out with a pop of static. All the power it had been using was freed up at once, rushing back into Binghe's already-overloaded body.

The dream shifted, merging into the real world in a disorienting blur. One moment they were on that wide grassy plain; the next, they were on the floor of Qiong Ding's sword hall. Shizun was bent over Binghe's body, pouring out his clean, soothing qi for Binghe to use, taking the deadly current into himself in exchange. His hands were flat around Xin Mo's blade as it conducted all that power.

No, Binghe thought at the sword. Don't you dare.

Xin Mo didn't listen. This was just what it wanted: power pouring into it from every side. Shizun's life force, all of it freely given. Shizun, who was theirs—

No, Binghe thought. Shizun was his, his alone, and he wouldn't suffer for Binghe again.

He took the sword by the blade, his hands either side of Shizun's, and made himself the conduit for the energy instead. He felt his body arch and seize under the torrent of power. Blood ran down his hands. He refused to let go of the blade, even as it burned his hands.

All that energy needed somewhere to go. Binghe's body was full to bursting, and that deadly power wasn't going into Shizun. He wouldn't permit it. So there was only one receptacle left. The blade glowed white-hot in his hand as he forced more and more qi inside it.

Binghe gritted his teeth and pushed with the last of his strength, even as his chest threatened to burst apart with every wheezing breath. Xin Mo shattered in his hands.

Everything went dark.

For a long time there was nothing. He floated on a sea of black, punctuated by flashes of pain and noise: stolen moments of consciousness, paid for with shattering pain.

Shizun, who never cursed, yelling: "No one fucking touches him!"

Hands under his knees, under his shoulders, a jostling that woke the pain to roaring life. His breath like fire between his lips. A boulder on his chest, crushing the life out of him.

Voices yelling. Gibberish words in Shizun's secret language. Shang Qinghua's frantic voice.

"It was the first result on Baidu for 'dangerous injuries that are easily fixed.' I didn't know I'd have to deal with it in real life!"

"I'll give you 'tension pneumothorax,' you useless fucking hack!"

Mu Qingfang's measured tones. "If my honored Shixiong would please step aside—"

Another pain, brighter, sharper. A whistling rush of air. Instant relief.

Binghe gasped. Every breath was still molten fire, but there was space enough in his lungs to receive it now.

"His qi is stabilizing," someone said, and then everything went blessedly dark again.

Binghe awoke to a gentle tugging sensation on the tip of one finger. When he opened his eyes, he found Shizun bent over his hand, one claw pinched gently between two fingers to extend it to its maximum length. There was an open sketchbook balanced on Shizun's lap, showing three drawings he'd made exploring possible ways the claws might attach to Binghe's bones to allow them to retract.

It was the same book Shizun used to make sketches of all the other monsters he was always so fascinated by. Binghe wasn't sure he liked that thought at all.

Shizun must've seen him moving, because he abruptly dropped the claw and leaned up to cup Binghe's cheek, peering into his face with concerned eyes. The sketchbook went sliding off his lap, unheeded.

"Binghe! How are you feeling?"

"Shizun need not be concerned. I'm very well," Binghe said.

"Very well! This master has been worried sick!" Shizun snapped. "What were you thinking?

"Shizun knows what kind of creature I am," Binghe said. The knowledge sat like a stone in his chest. Now that Shizun had had time to think, would he still be so unconcerned? "Shizun knows how quickly I heal."

"That's all well and good, Binghe, but there are limits! You shattered a blade inside your own chest! Mu Shidi worked for hours! I thought I was going to lose you!"

Shizun's voice cracked.

Binghe swallowed hard. He'd never been so glad to be scolded in his life. Shizun still cared.

"I'm here, Shizun. I—As long as you want me here—"

He struggled to sit up. Shizun grasped him by the back of the head and pressed their foreheads together. They sat like that for a while, just breathing the same air. Finally Shizun gave him a gentle shake.

"Hush now. What's with all these emotional displays? Dry your eyes, Binghe. What will Mu Shidi think when he comes to check on you?"

"Sorry, Shizun," Binghe said, smiling through his tears.

He let Shizun guide him to lie flat, let him fuss around fluffing the pillows under his head, and didn't say anything about the suspicious shine at the corner of Shizun's eyes.

They sat for a moment in silence. Shizun's eyes kept flickering down to his hands.

Binghe extended his claws for him.

"I could tear one out for Shizun to study. They grow back," he offered diffidently.

"Absolutely not! What on Earth is wrong with you, Binghe!" Shizun snapped.

Binghe felt something ease inside him.

Ah. He'd not even quite realized himself that it had been a test; apparently manipulation still came as easy as breathing.

"I know Binghe's not a creature for me to study," Shizun said, squirming a little. "It's only that they're so very elegant!" He threw up his hands. "There's a lot of really stupid beasts in this world, you know. I mean, take the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python. Or the Hot-Hooved Falcon! Have you ever really looked at one of those? It's bad design!"

Binghe had to bite down on a laugh that woke the sore places in his chest to screaming life. Whoever his Shizun had been in his past life, he'd still been a spoiled young master, that much was clear. The sort of man who, if you gave him the chance, would walk up to the world's creator and complain about shoddy workmanship right to his face. Binghe was so fond of him it ached.

"But look at you! You're… a masterwork," Shizun said. "Can you imagine? The same idiot hack who made all these stupid monsters, and then he got you just right."

He didn't even say it like he was trying to flatter. If anything, he sounded aggrieved.

Binghe pressed a hand to his chest to hold in the feeling swelling within him.

"Binghe? Are you all right? Is it your lungs again? Should I get Mu Shidi? …Oh no, don't cry—"

"It's all right, Shizun," Binghe said, smiling through his tears. "It only just hurts a little bit."

"Well, you'll be fine, I'm sure," Shizun said, sounding as embarrassed now as he'd sounded panicked before. "There's not many things in this world that could kill a Heavenly Demon."

"Is that what I am? A Heavenly Demon?"

"Yes, of course. Don't you—?" Shizun's brows pinched. "No, of course you wouldn't know. Not like there's any others left…. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Binghe. I thought it was for the best. If I'd know what would happen…."

"You really don't mind?"

Binghe's voice came out small.

"Of course I don't! Binghe! Look at you, you're magnificent! It's only…. I'm so sorry, Binghe. I was being a coward. I thought… once you know who you are…. You're meant for so much bigger than this, Binghe. The things you could do! Any demon could tell, you know, now that your seal's been broken. They could see how special you are."

Shizun took a shaky breath. "I shouldn't have been holding you back. Only… you were happy, Binghe, weren't you? Did I… Should I have—"

"I was happy. I am," Binghe said. So that's why Shizun had kept asking, over and over again. "Shizun, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else for the world. Is that what you were scared of? Losing me?"

Shizun looked down, refusing to meet Binghe's eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't think you could tell."

"I thought you were scared of demons," Binghe said. His voice cracked, embarrassingly. "You lost your memories, and then you didn't hate me anymore. You changed, you became a whole different person. You were so much happier. I thought—there had to be something, something big, that you knew, and then forgot. About me."

"And you thought it was you being a demon? Oh, Binghe, no. Oh, my poor little sheep." Shizun's hands petted anxiously at his hair. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what the fuck Shen Jiu's damage was, but I know it was nothing to do with you."

A strange expression flickered over Shizun's face, something faintly malicious. "You could probably ask your Shang-Shishu, if you really wanted to know."

Binghe frowned, momentarily derailed. "Shang Qinghua? Why would he know?"

"Oh, he knew Shen Jiu intimately," Shizun said, in the grimly satisfied way he had when he knew he was throwing someone under a cart but felt they fully deserved it.

But the malicious light was already fading from Shizun's expression again. He looked exhausted, deep shadows like bruises under his eyes. How long had he been sitting vigil by Binghe's bedside? How badly had he been hurt, drawing so much of the System's poisoned qi into himself? Had anyone even checked on him, with Binghe drawing all the attention to himself?

"Shizun, come up here," Binghe said, petting the space beside him on the bed.

Shizun glared at him. "In the infirmary! Binghe, don't be so inappropriate!"

"My chest hurts," Binghe said, letting himself sound as small and scared as he'd felt, lying on the ground, knowing that his darkest secret had been revealed.

Shizun's face crumbled. "Oh, Binghe. Is it worse lying flat like that? Here, let me see about those pillows…."

"If I could lie in Shizun's lap—" Binghe said.

Shizun glared at him—he could tell when he was being manipulated, if Binghe put it on thick enough—but he was also kicking off his shoes and clambering into the bed, so that was all right.

Shizun piled the pillows up against the headboard, leaned back against them, and pulled Binghe into his lap. It did actually hurt to move, a sensation like shards grinding against each other inside his chest, but Binghe swallowed down the gasp and leaned his head into Shizun's chest until the pain subsided. Shizun put one arm around him, cradling him gently. Binghe reached up and tangled Shizun's fingers with his.

"Shizun suffered so much, for so long. Why didn't you ever say anything?"

He knew, of course. Shizun had never cared enough about his own pain when there was someone else to protect. Binghe tilted his head back, unsurprised to see Shizun shake his head.

"Binghe worries too much. The dreams weren't all as bad as the one you saw. Nowhere near."

Binghe was almost sure he was lying; knew he was downplaying his own pain again. Maybe the nightmare-Binghe hadn't been mutilating Shizun every night—there'd seemed to be continuity between the dreams, and Shizun had had all his limbs, to start with—but he'd seen the smirk on that familiar face when the demon had been hurting Shizun, and he knew it hadn't been the first time. He knew, because that was his face, his own hunger for revenge.

"I'm sorry," Binghe said. His voice cracked. "Shizun, I'd never—"

"I know!" Shizun said immediately. "Binghe, I know. He's not you, and you're not him. You don't need to worry about it."

"I'm a demon just like him."

"And there's nothing wrong with being a demon," Shizun said firmly. "I'm so sorry, Binghe. I wish you'd told me what you were worried about. I don't ever want you to be ashamed of what you are."

His hand tightened on Binghe's. "I really thought you were happier not knowing. If I'd known…. But I was being selfish. I wanted to keep you by my side, but I shouldn't have…. I could tell something was troubling you."

"I was happy," Binghe said firmly.

Shizun slowly shook his head. He looked miserable. "Binghe… you don't have to keep pretending, now that you know. I know you're not getting your needs met. A healthy young Heavenly Demon…. You should have energy enough to keep a whole harem full of women on their toes, and instead, you're…. I know I'm holding you back. You deserve someone who makes you want—"

Shizun broke off, clearing his throat.

Binghe frowned. He still felt a little sluggish with the strain of his healing, and he had no idea how a harem full of women had come into this. And then he noticed the way Shizun was blushing. His chest felt suddenly lighter.

"You're saying… it's not natural, for my kind, to only want it every three or four days."

Shizun flinched, even as his face flamed bright red. "Binghe! No. Don't say it like that! It's just…."

"What if a healthy young Heavenly Demon had been worried about troubling his Shizun too often?" Binghe said slyly.

"Who's troubled?" Shizun snapped, and then, as if he'd only just heard himself: "Binghe! You're injured! We're in the infirmary! We're not talking about this here. Or at all. It's…. Surely you must have questions! Important questions!"

"Yes," Binghe said. His voice came out a low, rumbly purr. Shizun looked down at him: unsettled, but not scared. Not afraid at all. His fingers were absentmindedly plucking at Binghe's claws again, as if he liked them so much he didn't want to stop touching.

Oh, but he did have a real question, Binghe realized.

"If I stop suppressing my demonic side… will I grow horns?"

"Horns? No, of course not. I'm sorry," Shizun said, gently, as if anyone would mind not having great big horrible—

Of course. Binghe realized, with dawning delight, that Shizun, who liked his monsters, who liked Binghe's claws, would probably like—

"I could wear horns for Shizun," Binghe said.

Shizun blushed so deeply, Binghe could feel the heat rising off him.

"Binghe! That's entirely inappropriate! What did I tell you!"

"All right, Shizun. All right. I only have one more question, then."

"Anything, Binghe. …Anything appropriate!"

Binghe smirked, knowing he was putting the tips of his fangs on display. Shizun's eyes went to his mouth as if magnetized.

"Shizun. Back in your hometown. Where you wore that tiny little shirt, the one with the cat on. With… with your arms all bare, and the tight pants. Did you go out in the streets like that?"

"Binghe! Oh, I take it back. You're a monster."

"You like it, Shizun," Binghe said, and knew it was true.

THE END