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Shen Qingqiu looked at the mission debriefing scroll in his hand, and thought about punching Airplane Bro in the face the next time he saw him.
What was this about peerless beauties being stolen?? Again?? How come the women of this damn stallion novel can never catch a break???
He reread it, to make sure he wasn’t mistaken.
There has been a disturbing number of disappearances of “beautiful young ladies” in Butterfly Town, and the bodies have yet to be found. Though the remaining ladies have been advised to stay indoors, it has not decreased the rate of disappearances.
Butterfly Town requests the aid of Cang Qiong Sect…
He sighed, rubbing his temples tiredly. Why was this mission passed to him of all people? He cursed the original goods for being the strategist of the sect.
A heavy handed knock sounded on the door to his bamboo house. He looked up just in time to see Liu Qingge open the door. His beautiful face was caressed by the light coming from the open windows, and his proud eyes were focused on him.
“Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu said, surprised.
Liu Qingge nodded at him, “Shen Qingqiu.”
Shen Qingqiu gestured to the other side of the table, “Glad you’re here, Ming Fan already made tea. This mission is making my head ache just thinking about it…”
“I wonder how strong the monster is,” Liu Qingge remarked, offhandedly. “Maybe I can accompany you to kill it.”
As the War God Immortal sat down and helped himself to the tea, Shen Qingqiu tapped his lips with a fan. He could definitely use his help as both an uber driver and a bodyguard, but the main issue would be finding that demon bastard. How in the actual hell would he solve Butterfly Town’s problem? The attack patterns were different from the skinner demon he faced all those years ago. It seemed more cunning, and hid its tracks extremely well. The only thing they truly knew was that it went after beautiful women.
Hm…
He stole a glance at the pretty boy across from him, and an idea suddenly popped into his head.
Liu Qingge, with a teacup halfway to his lips: “...Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Butterfly Town welcomes the Cang Qiong Sect and Peak Master Shen! And… This young lady here,” the mayor said haltingly, unsure of his relationship with the woman next to him. She wore a veil covering half of her face, but her beautifully shaped eyes were narrowed dangerously in his direction. She merely cupped her hands to greet him, but did not speak a word. Her white and pink robes swirled as she made the gesture, shrouding her figure in a mysterious aura. The men around the mayor couldn’t help but do a double take at the beauty in front of them. And she hadn’t even shown them her face!
Shen Qingqiu laughed, fluttering his fan in front of his face. “This is one of Cang Qiong’s head disciples, Liu Mingyan. She is accompanying me to gain experience fighting demons.”
The mayor blinked, confused. “You… brought a beautiful woman–” Liu Mingyan snorted, “when we explicitly told you this demon goes after them exclusively?”
Shen Qingqiu hid his expression with his fan. “Are you doubting the capabilities of Cang Qiong Sect?”
“No! Not at all,” the mayor said hurriedly, waving his hands in panic. “Whatever the Immortal Master needs, make sure to let us know. We’ll meet it to the best of our ability.”
The Immortal Master nodded his head gracefully, then turned to walk into the bustling market. “Come, Liu sh– Mingyan. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
“Liu Mingyan” didn’t even give the mayor a second glance as she followed after Shen Qingqiu, movements stiff as if someone had just spat in her lunch. The group of men collectively let out a breath once they left. That woman sure was scary!
“I’m going to kill you,” Liu Qingge growled, his deep voice a stark contrast to the elegant pink outfit he was wearing. Shen Qingqiu tried, but he failed to hold back his amusement as he burst into a fit of laughter. Though he couldn’t see the other half of Liu Qingge’s face, his eyes conveyed enough murderous intent to paralyze a demon in its tracks.
He pat his shoulder, only to have his hand angrily swatted away. Shen Qingqiu sighed, and said, “Shidi, we went over this. It’s the only way I could think of luring the Abductor Demon out without endangering innocent women. And I didn’t hear you come up with any better ideas.” They couldn’t actually use Liu Mingyan because she was still a disciple, and they had no idea if she would be able to fend off the mysterious Abductor Demon.
“...” Knowing he was right, he could only cross his arms grumpily and fume.
“And with Liu-shidi’s beauty, this mission should be finished soon,” Shen Qingqiu added absent-mindedly.
Liu Qingge froze, a strange expression crossing his features. He stared at Shen Qingqiu, puzzled. To his bewilderment, his cheeks began to warm.
Huh?
“Here, let’s eat at this place. According to the plan, we just have to parade you around town for a while, and then when the demon shows itself, BAM!” He smacked his fan against the palm of his hand, “I cast a suppression spell, we find out where the women went, then I’ll trust you to eliminate it. Then we get to go home and sleep for a week.”
Liu Qingge rolled his eyes, but still followed Shen Qingqiu to the food stall on the side of the road. That way, more people could see them as they walked past the place.
They ordered, and sat there for a while in comfortable silence. Shen Qingqiu got bored waiting for the food to arrive, so he suddenly asked, “‘Mingyan’, have you tried making your voice sound higher? That might help you to talk around others.”
Liu Qingge grunted. “No,” he said, intentionally making his voice deeper than normal.
Sighing, Shen Qingqiu could only grin. “Worth a shot.”
After the food arrived and they ate, they left and wandered around the market for a few hours. Shen Qingqiu hadn’t been window shopping for a while, he realized. He grabbed his shidi’s arm and pointed at a heavy looking beast encyclopedia, filled with information on monsters from the North Mountains. “Isn’t that cool, Shidi?” In his excitement, he forgot to call him by his sister’s name, but fortunately no one around them had heard.
His eyes glowed as he examined it, his novel reader’s interest piqued. Liu Qingge saw the nerdy sparkle in his eye and raised an eyebrow. After a moment of consideration, he gestured to the shopkeeper, and the book. He pulled out a few silver coins and handed them to the shopkeep, and tapped Shen Qingqiu’s arm. Shen Qingqiu snapped out of his trance and saw that Liu Qingge was looking at him, with a warm glow in his eyes that made his heart beat pick up speed. He pointed to the book in his hands, then leaned close to his ear so only he could hear his voice.
“I already paid. For you,” he murmured. Though it had been a mere moment, Shen Qingqiu could still feel the whisper caressing his ear, and he had to snap out his fan to hide his expression.
“...Thank you,” he said, looking anywhere but at the “peerless beauty” before him.
The other men around the stall saw this exchange, and shook their heads knowingly. Ah, the Immortal Master was completely smitten by this mysterious beauty!
They were looking at another stall when a brazen young man found himself gawking at the “woman” next to the cultivator in green. His friend elbowed him. “I heard that her name’s Liu Mingyan, why don’t you try your luck, bro? You’re more handsome than that other guy, anyways,” he said, blatantly lying to bolster his friend’s confidence and get him to do something stupid. He told him to go and talk to her, so the young man puffed up his chest confidently and strode up to them. His friend couldn’t help laughing, waiting to see what was going to happen.
The duo was too busy whispering to each other to notice a new person had joined their group, so the young man had to clear his throat a few times to get their attention. The woman with half her face concealed looked over her shoulder first, with a questioning eyebrow raised. Up close she was even more beautiful, and the young man felt his heart quicken.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, saying, “Hey gorgeous, you free later for a bite to ea–”
The words died on his tongue when a sword flashed out of nowhere and pointed at his throat. The beautifully shaped eyes above the veil narrowed dangerously, and she shoved his hand off of her. The cultivator next to her turned at the commotion, and snapped his fan open to hide his expression.
“Liu-shi…mei, it seems like you have an admirer,” he said, his tone detached. “Sorry, young man, but she’s mine.”
The sword at his throat jerked imperceptibly in surprise, before the cultivator closed his fan and used it to lower the glowing weapon from his throat.
He smiled coldly. “I suggest you run. Liu shimei doesn’t like to use her words when she’s upset.”
The beautiful woman’s cold eyes bore holes into him as he slowly backed away. He ran back to his friend and they fled hurriedly.
Shen Qingqiu’s indifferent and cold facade cracked and he couldn’t hold back a snicker behind his fan. “Well, you’re pretty popular around here, huh.”
The “elegant young lady” next to him turned red and stomped on his foot in indignation.
That night, they checked into an inn. Their rooms were right next to each other, but the walls were fairly solid. Shen Qingqiu convinced Liu Qingge to keep wearing his sister’s robes even by himself, in case the demon came by and tried to abduct him. Though he looked unhappy about it, he saw the logic in it and relented. Liu Qingge could just meditate to pass the time, he didn’t really need to sleep for at least another week anyways.
After about an hour of sitting on the floor next to his bed in the lotus position, he heard a knock on his door.
Frowning under the half-veil, he stood up in the dark room and rolled his stiff shoulders. He opened the door a crack, before swinging it open in confusion.
“Shen Qingqiu, what–”
He was cut off, though, by the other man’s sudden movement. His veil had been ripped off and Shen Qingqiu had cupped both sides of his face to kiss him hotly.
He was… wait, WHAT??
Liu Qingge initially struggled, before he felt a hand slide down and wrap around his waist, the other coming to rest behind his neck to make sure he couldn’t escape. Liu Qingge’s heart raced as he returned the kiss, but he was still bewildered. All he knew was that his mind had suddenly grown cloudy with desire, and he felt his control slipping. Shen Qingqiu worked his way from his lips to the edge of his jaw, then down his neck, his hot breath caressing the sensitive skin in a way that made him almost lose all sanity. He sucked in an involuntary breath, his heart thudding wildly in his chest.
He stumbled backwards and Shen Qingqiu kicked the door shut behind him. He had no time to think as he recaptured the other man’s lips in his own. He had no idea what had gotten into his shixiong, but it was hard to spare the clarity and question it when Shen Qingqiu’s hands began to wander from his waist to grip his ass. He trembled in the other man’s arms, no one had ever dared to touch him like that before. He broke the kiss off to breathe, and he heard the other man groan into his neck, “Mingyan…”
He stiffened. It was like a bucket of cold water being splashed over his head.
Abruptly, he shoved Shen Qingqiu off with an attack infused with spiritual energy, and sent him flying through the air and crashing through the wall into the other room.
How could he have forgotten so easily that there’s a demon on the loose?? Liu Qingge was too livid to dwell on what just happened.
With the dust still settling, he brandished Cheng Luan as he stepped into Shen Qingqiu’s room, staring at the man that had said Mingyan’s name.
“Shidi? What’s happening?!” Another voice came from behind him, and he whirled around to see a startled Shen Qingqiu, still in his inner robes, with the new monster encyclopedia in his hand. He looked back at the “other” Shen Qingqiu, who was currently embedded in the wall, coughing blood and steaming as the illusion melted away. Underneath was a humanoid creature with rotting flesh and blood leaking from its pupil-less eyes.
Shen Qingqiu sucked in a startled breath, then shouted, “SHIDI GET AWAY FROM IT, IT’S A ROTTING BEAUTY!” He grabbed a handful of restraining talismans and threw them at the creature before it could recover from the shock of being struck by the War God of Bai Zhan Peak. It could move its eyes and mouth, but nothing more.
Liu Qingge was breathing heavily, his face a deep shade of red in the dim room. He tightened his grip on Cheng Luan and lifted the creature’s chin with the tip.
“Speak,” he said, curt and to the point.
Instead, the monster laughed. “I never thought I’d get catfished like that, pretty boy. Bravo. Though, even as a man you trembled in my arms when I–”
The sword tip dug into his throat, cutting off his next word. There was a strong aura of murderous intent around the man dressed in pink.
“Where. Are. They.”
The demon stuck his two-pronged tongue out at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Liu Qingge froze, then looked over to Shen Qingqiu, in a silent question.
Shen Qingqiu sighed quietly, then hesitated before explaining haltingly, “When a Rotting Beauty… sleeps with their target, they absorb their spiritual essence… and the victims…”
Die.
The demon laughed again, was still laughing as Cheng Luan flashed and severed its head from its shoulders. It flew into the air and hit the ground with a thump , empty eyes still curved in an amused smile.
The air smelled of putrid rotting flesh, and Liu Qingge made a face. He wiped his mouth with a sleeve, grimacing in the direction of the Rotting Beauty.
Cheng Luan flew back into his hand, and he just stood there, staring at nothing. Shen Qingqiu raised an eyebrow, and moved to stand next to him. He tapped him on the shoulder.
“Shidi, are you…?”
“ Fine, ” Liu Qingge snapped. He flicked his wrist and the grime covering Cheng Luan evaporated like smoke.
Shen Qingqiu was at a loss. There was a big hole in the wall separating their rooms, and there was a demon corpse stinking up the room. He grabbed a fan to get rid of the smell, and threw another talisman on the rotting pile. It was demonic energy suppressing, so there would be no chance of it attracting its fellow Rotting Beauties for an ambush, and dissipated it into the air.
Finally, he sighed again. “We should probably bother the innkeeper for another room.”
“Mn.”
“...And since we caught the demon, you can change back into your regular clothes,” he offered.
“...” Liu Qingge blinked, and looked down at his now-bloodstained clothes. Right. He’s still in his sister’s clothes.
“I’ll leave you to it, while I compensate the innkeeper for damages, too.”
He put on his outer robe and left, leaving Liu Qingge by himself for the time being. He grimaced again and wiped his mouth for a second time. His face burned at the memory of being in Shen Qingqiu’s embrace, even though it wasn’t really him.
Will there ever be a day when he’s actually held like that, by the man he loved?
His jaw clenched, but then he let out a breath, and turned to change out of Mingyan’s old clothes.
Shen Qingqiu went back to their room after apologizing to the innkeeper and compensating for the damages, he asked for another room– since they were so late in their request, they were lucky to have exactly two rooms left
He opened the door to Liu Qingge’s room without knocking.
“Shidi, guess what they ha–” his words faded to nothing as he stared.
Liu Qingge was standing with his back to him, shirtless, as he was folding up Mingyan’s old clothes. His back was crisscrossed with various old scars, faded by time but still visible across the firm expanse of his back. He turned at the noise, surprised, and their eyes met. Liu Qingge started and Shen Qingqiu yelped as he turned away, covering his eyes with a hand.
“Sorrysorrysorry, uhh shidi, they have two more rooms, so when you’re done we can head over there. Okaythat’sallsorry,” he rambled, quickly leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.
Liu Qingge stood there, motionless, staring at the door. He thought again of how the other man’s face had changed different shades of red and his rambling, and tried to fight off a smile. He lost, and he huffed a laugh. It was too cute.
“The demon had been vanquished? Already?” The mayor and his comrades were astonished. They had been trying to deal with this problem for months, but it was solved by the cultivators in a single night?? How talented Cang Qiong Sect was!
Shen Qingqiu nodded, once again the picture of an untouchable immortal. Next to him, the War God of Bai Zhan Peak stood with his arms crossed, looking at his fellow Peak Lord.
“Thank you so much, Immortal Masters! But… er, may I ask…?”
Liu Qingge raised an eyebrow as Shen Qingqiu snapped open his fan.
“What… what happened to the young miss that was accompanying you?”
“She died,” Liu Qingge said, deadpan. Shen Qingqiu elbowed him in the ribs, before correcting him. His fan fluttered lazily
“She… wasn’t feeling well, so we sent her back to the sect,” he said. “Thankfully they sent a replacement to help me deal with your Rotten Beauty Demon.”
“Oh, well thank the gods for that. Now, can we have the name of this Immortal Master, in order to properly thank him…?”
“No.” The answer was immediate.
Shen Qingqiu sighed in exasperation, and a touch of fondness.
He turned back to the mayor, and said coolly, “We hope things return to normal now that the demon has been dealt with.”
And with that, they both left.
Once they were far enough away, Shen Qingqiu looked at Liu Qingge. “Really?? Died, Qingge??”
Liu Qingge was about to retort when everything blanked. He blinked.
Qingge?
It echoed in his head, but he forced himself to ignore it for the time being. “...I panicked,” he admitted. “You know I’m not very good at coming up with stories on the spot, Qingqiu.” The familiar address felt strange in his mouth, but in a good way.
Shen Qingqiu laughed, and clapped his shidi’s shoulder with a hand. “Well, good job yesterday, shidi. We were able to finish it in a single night! I bet it’s all because of your innate feminine charm,” he said teasingly.
“Qingqiu, I will leave you here,” Liu Qingge threatened.
“ Nononono -” he said quickly, before he came to a realization.
Liu Qingge was smiling.
It was a soft, rarely used smile, but it was directed at him . It softened his usually severe expression and made his face all the more beautiful.
“Qingge?”
“Mn?”
“...Nothing, just felt like calling you.”
Liu Qingge’s grin turned lopsided, as it was his turn to become exasperated. They continued walking towards the stables to ride a carriage back to their sect.
“...Hey, Qingge?”
Liu Qingge huffed a laugh. “What.”
“We still have about a week left outside the sect, so what if…” He bit his lip. It was kind of a weird suggestion.
He continued, “What if we don’t go back yet?”
Liu Qingge’s eyes widened briefly, before he coughed into a hand. His ears were a little pink.
“What will we do?” He tried to sound nonchalant.
“You know, look for rare monsters, help the innocent along the way, and the rest…” he grinned. “I guess we’ll just have to find out, hm?”
Eyebrows practically in his hairline, Liu Qingge was speechless. So… he was basically saying that he wanted to, voluntarily, spend a whole week with him.
Just the two of them.
He could feel his heart pounding in his ears.
“...Are you sure?” His mouth felt dry.
Shen Qingqiu chuckled. He patted his shoulder again, but this time his warm hand lingered. He hesitated, before tentatively grabbing his hand, giving the other time to pull away.
He didn’t.
Liu Qingge’s fingers interlocked with his. Shen Qingqiu’s breath caught, and he looked up abruptly at his shidi.
Liu Qingge was staring at their hands. His face flushed a bright red, but his thumb was gentle as it stroked his delicately shaped knuckles.
“You know I’d follow you anywhere,” he said.
At that, Shen Qingqiu’s eyes brightened.
This… will be an interesting week , Liu Qingge decided, as he looked at the equally flustered man before him.
He couldn’t help it; he smiled.