Archive of Our Own

“His pulse is racing. Disciple Shao, ease up on the energy transfer.” 

“His daemon just started breathing again! He— oh, whoa!” 

“Stand back. Try not to touch him.” 

“He’s going to hurt himself if we don’t do something!” 

Shen Yuan blinked his eyes open before immediately squeezing them shut. The world was spinning around him. He felt light headed, overheated and, for a brief moment, so dizzy he thought he was about to throw up. 

He was lying flat on his back in a brightly-lit room. There was a commotion going on around him — hurried footsteps, urgent voices, the clattering sound of something being knocked over. He couldn’t remember where he was or how he got here. 

He peeked his eyes open again, but—

“I’ve got him!” 

A dreadful squirming sensation erupted down his back, like there were thousands of needles poking at him and ants crawling under his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed down bile, taking quick, shallow breaths. 

“Settle… settle…. That’s it.” Someone was saying. Were they talking to him?

Something small and — and furry? — was set down on his bare chest. The crawling feeling immediately stopped and was replaced by a sense of warm comfort, radiating out from the contact point. 

It startled him back to his senses. With a grimace, Shen Yuan took a heaving breath in and opened his eyes properly this time. 

He was in some sort of traditional-style… hospital room? Honestly, it kind of looked like a costume drama movie set. Everything was made of lacquered wood and paper. Pressed up against the far wall, he could see a couple of antique chairs set on either side of a small, low to the ground table. He was lying on a hard, narrow bed, wearing this weird, untied hospital gown, and on his bare chest was a small gray kitten. 

He blinked down at the kitten, utterly confused. The kitten blinked back with its big, green eyes. 

In the background, people were talking. 

"— seen one resettle before," a girl whispered.

"It’s very rare, but not unheard of," a man answered softly. "This is the first case in—"

Then the kitten scrunched up its nose and hissed at Shen Yuan. 

“Huh?” He asked aloud. Abruptly, the whispering stopped. There was a pause. 

"Ah, Shixiong, I’m glad to see that you’re awake.” 

Shen Yuan’s head jerked up. A large, bearded man with a friendly face was standing at his bedside. He could hardly believe he hadn’t noticed him until just now. 

The man was wearing gray hanfu — not the fluttery silk kind that urban counterculture kids liked, but practical working robes with a white apron tied around his waist. His sleeves were wrapped at the forearms with a white binding, and his hair was pinned up in a neat topknot with some sort of fancy silver guan. Wrapped loosely around his neck, a large snake stared intently down at Shen Yuan. Altogether, they made for such a weird picture, it took his brain a moment to process it. 

The man wasn’t the only person in the room. Standing by the foot of the bed were two women: one who looked older, maybe in her fifties or sixties, and a teenager. They were also dressed like actors in a period drama, and they also had animals with them. A goat stood next to the teenager, and a small, brown field mouse was perched on the older woman’s shoulder. 

“How are you feeling?” The man asked, dragging Shen Yuan’s attention back. “Does anything hurt?”

“Uhh…” Shen Yuan frowned, not quite tracking with the question. There was a lot going on, and he had not been conscious for very long. He definitely wasn’t at his sharpest. 

Blinking a couple more times, he scanned the room over again. Pieces of the strange situation at hand were starting to slot together. 

Shixiong. The archaic setting. The animals — how calm and quiet they were. 

Shen Yuan had spent a large portion of his life reading novels on Zhongdian Literature. He knew how to spot a transmigration scenario when he saw one. The fact that he was the transmigrator here was a little shocking, but didn’t all transmigrators think that? Anyway, it wasn’t like he hadn’t prepared for this exact moment. He’d spent years daydreaming on buses and in the shower, going over exactly what he would say. 

Wow, everyone’s costumes are so good, haha! Everything looks so realistic~! 

Yeah, no. Absolutely not. 

If Shen Yuan had just transmigrated into a web novel, then he wasn’t going to be one of those dopey, slow-witted transmigrators who fumbled their way through the plot. No, he was going to ace his role. He was going to get a perfect score in being a transmigrator, something both normal to want and possible to achieve. 

Wait. He stopped short. That might literally be possible to achieve. 

Plenty of transmigration stories included omnipotent, computer-like systems which assigned the main characters quests and kept track of their success rate. He swiveled his head, looking around for some sort of glowing screen or hologram 

“Shixiong?” The bearded man’s brow furrowed with concern.

Ah, yep. Okay. He didn’t see anything, so maybe there was no system. Either way, now was not the time to investigate. He needed to get into character. 

Shen Yuan cleared his throat. “What happened?” 

Hearing his own voice for the first time was a bit of a shock. The register was a bit deeper than he was used to, and there was a faint, peculiar accent to his words. He cleared his throat again, rolling his jaw. 

“You don’t remember?” The man looked properly worried now. Glancing over at the two women, Shen Yuan saw they were frowning too. 

“Ah, was it a qi deviation?” He replied slowly. He had a sense that he was entering dangerous territory here, but if this was the story he thought it was, and if he was reading the room right, then ‘qi deviation’ should be a pretty safe guess. 

“That’s right.” The man — almost certainly his doctor — nodded. “I have a few more questions for you.” 

Shen Yuan coughed and made a show of wincing. “Can it wait? My head is killing me.”

He wasn’t ready to answer questions! He had just woken up! Couldn’t he have at least a couple of minutes to get his bearings? He still had to figure out who he was!

The doctor briefly glanced at the gray cat on his chest before refocusing on him. “Of course. The deviation was severe and you’ll likely be feeling its after effects for a while. There appears to be some damage to your cultivation base, although it’s not as bad as I had initially feared. Your daemon…” he paused. “Well, we can talk about that when you’re up for it. For now, rest is the most important thing.” 

Shen Yuan nodded and did his best to look sick. It didn’t take much effort. Actually, now that he thought about it, he really did feel achy and gross, kind of like he was hungover. 

“Master Song, check on his vitals at least once an hour.” 

“Yes, Lord Mu.” The older woman nodded. She and the teenage disciple followed him out, closing the door behind them.

Shen Yuan’s mind was racing. 

Had he really just said daemon?! And then that woman called him Lord Mu? Now that was some pretty damning evidence. He had to be in Proud Immortal Demon Way. This strange xianxia hospital room had to be one of the recovery rooms on Qian Cao Peak. 

Holy shit, Shen Yuan thought, taking it all in with new eyes.

The doctor — Lord Mu, who could only be Mu Qingfang, had called him Shixiong. Mu Qingfang was a peak lord. If Shen Yuan had transmigrated into the body of his Shixiong, it could only mean that he was now a peak lord as well, and a higher-ranked one at that. Qian Cao Peak was relatively far down in the order, so there were a couple of possibilities. 

He was clearly still a man, which ruled out the female peak lords. There was no way he was Yue Qingyuan, or everyone would have been referring to him as ‘Sect Leader’, right? So that left what? Bai Zhan, An Ding, Wan Jian, and Qing Jing? 

God, he hoped he hadn’t transmigrated into the body of Shang Qinghua. Yikes.

With some trepidation, he turned his gaze to the gray kitten. This must be his daemon, then. 

The kitten was sitting quietly, staring up at him with an intense look. They still hadn’t spoken. 

If Shen Yuan had just transmigrated, then what about this daemon? Were they also a transmigrator? 

In the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way, daemons were physical manifestations of the soul that lived alongside their human counterparts in animal form. With Shen Yuan’s consciousness newly set into this world, was he now looking at the embodiment of his soul? 

Speaking of, didn’t this daemon seem a little young? Daemons were born at the same moment as their partner and grew in time with them. Shen Yuan was in his early twenties, and he had clearly been dropped into the body of a peak lord, who had to be even older. Why, then, was his daemon a baby cat?

“What’s your—” 

Before he could finish his question, the cat cut in in a sharp voice: “Who are you, and how are you in my body?”

“…”

Oh. Shen Yuan thought faintly. Oh no.

His mouth fell open and his brow furrowed as he stared down at him. All the while, the kitten glared back up. 

Well, that certainly answers a few questions. He acknowledged. And then he thought, emphatically— I’m so fucked. 

“You’re Shen Qingqiu.” 

He’d meant it as a question, but his voice came out flat. 

There was no way to be completely sure. Very few of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect peak lords actually made an appearance in PIDW; Airplane hadn’t described Liu Qingge or Wei Qingwei’s personalities much at all… but surely that acerbic tone could only belong to one person. 

“Yes.” The kitten hissed. “Who are you?”

“I’m… I’m…. Ow! Stop that!” In his agitation, Shen Qingqiu’s claws had slid out and were digging into Shen Yuan’s chest. 

Shen Qingqiu startled at the sharp tone, retracted his claws, and then transformed into a rabbit.

“What?” Shen Yuan’s eyebrows flew up. “You’re— you’re unsettled?!” 

Only children’s daemons were able to change shape at will. On reaching maturity, a daemon was supposed to settle into their final form, never to shift again. Once again, Shen Yuan wanted to point out that he was a fully grown man, so what on earth was going on here?

“Yes, because of whatever you did to me.” Shen Qingqiu spat. “Where is A-Zhuang?” 

Shen Yuan had no idea who A-Zhuang was, and he didn’t know how to explain himself either. In most transmigration novels, the other characters don’t find out about transmigration at all — certainly not right away! But if Shen Qingqiu’s original consciousness had also moved to a different body…. 

“I didn’t do anything! I don’t know how I got here, I swear!” 

“Who are you?”

“I’m no one! I– I’m not from this universe!” 

“You’re a monstrous demon?”

“No! I’m a human, I’m human, I just— I died? Holy shit. Did I just fucking die?”

Shen Yuan had gone to bed with the worst stomach ache of his life after eating a cup of instant noodles that had tasted weird and chemically. Oh my god, had that literally killed him? Obviously, the main character dying was how most transmigration stories started, but had he honestly died from instant noodle poisoning?

“How did you get access to my body?” 

“I don’t know! Seriously, I just woke up like this.” 

Shen Qingqiu transformed again, into a bobcat this time, the largest form he’d taken yet. He leaned towards him, baring his sharp teeth. “You knew about the qi deviation. Were you lying in wait? Did you curse me somehow, then wait for the opportunity to strike?” 

“No!” Shen Yuan was leaning back into the headboard of the bed, trying to get as far away from Shen Qingqiu as possible. It was futile, he was literally sitting on his chest. He scrambled to explain, “I was just guessing about the qi deviation! You’re obviously a cultivator, and that guy was obviously a doctor. I put two and two together.” 

“You knew my name.” Shen Qingqiu accused. 

Shit. Right. 

“I, ah….” Shen Yuan swallowed. Possibly the strangest part of this entire situation was the bit where Shen Qingqiu was a cat. He was arguing with a talking cat. “Listen. Okay, um. I read this book.”

“Start from the beginning. Explain it all clearly, and don’t even think about lying.” Shen Qingqiu spat out, incandescent with anger. 

When Shen Yuan had transmigrated into Shen Qingqiu’s body, Shen Qingqiu’s consciousness had apparently gone into the body of his own daemon. Something about that process had resulted in him becoming unsettled. Where his original daemon’s consciousness had gone, neither of them were quite sure. 

Shen Qingqiu was taking the concept of transmigration and the existence of alternate worlds surprisingly well, possibly because he had just switched bodies himself. Shen Yuan had winced his way through the explanation, knowing that he sounded completely insane, but when he was done talking, Shen Qingqiu actually seemed to believe him. Mostly. He asked a lot of questions about Shen Yuan’s original identity and about the plot of PIDW. That had quickly evolved into an interrogation of what he knew about Shen Qingqiu himself. 

The answer was, apparently: not much. In Shen Yuan’s defense, Airplane had really never gone into Shen Qingqiu’s backstory. 

“So you’re saying I was the villain.”

Shen Yuan grimaced a little. It was one thing to meet the scum villain, it was quite another to call him that to his face. “... Yes.” 

There was really no way to qualify it or make it sound nicer than it was. 

“And what was the protagonist’s name again?” 

“Luo Binghe. You seriously don’t know Luo Binghe?”

Shen Qingqiu frowned and shook his head. 

“He’s one of your disciples… or he will be? Maybe he’s not in Cang Qiong yet. I’m not sure what year he arrived. Oh, wait, how long has it been since Tianlang-Jun was killed?”

Shen Qingqiu thought for a moment. “A little over fourteen years.” 

Shen Yuan grimaced. Luo Binghe had arrived at the sect when he was ten. That meant he had already endured years of bullying. The brief glimmer of hope that he might be able to avert the protagonist's tragic backstory altogether and save himself from being turned into a human stick was ruthlessly stomped into the dirt.

“Is this boy related to the demon emperor somehow?” Shen Qingqiu asked suspiciously

“No!” Shen Yuan’s eyes flew wide. “No, he’s not related to any monstrous demons! He was the protagonist of the story, remember? Tianlang-Jun’s death was just the first major plot event I could think of to use as a reference.” 

Shen Qingqiu might be stuck as an unsettled daemon right now, but that didn’t mean it was safe to let him know about Luo Binghe’s mixed heritage. One of the guy’s most notable characteristics was that he was super prejudiced against monstrous demons! Who knows what he might do if Shen Yuan let that tidbit slip!

“But listen.” He carried on, “We can’t afford to get on Luo Binghe’s bad side, okay? All of the bullying and treating him like shit has to stop. Sure, for now he’s still a kid, but in the future, if he leaves Qing Jing peak harboring a grudge, he is going to come back and kill me! Which would also kill you, since you’re my daemon.” 

Shen Qingqiu actually had the audacity to roll his eyes at that. “This master can hardly be expected to manage the feelings of a young outer disciple with whom he has no personal relationship.” 

“You seriously don’t remember him? You selected him for Qing Jing yourself!” 

Shen Yuan was flabbergasted. This was Luo Binghe they were talking about. Shen Qingqiu had gone out of his way to make his life a living hell, how did he not even recognize his name?!

“Do you really think this master leads so simple a life that such inconsequential details are memorable?” 

“You dumped a pot of tea over his head!” 

“Oh.” That gave Shen Qingqiu a moment of pause. “That disciple.” 

Shen Yuan threw his arms up in exasperation. 

In addition to the whole interrogation/backstory drop, there were a couple of practical details they needed to discuss: among other things, how they would hide the transmigration. They had both agreed immediately that no one could find out. 

“Quick, that woman is going to come back in soon to check on us — what should I call you?

“A-Zhuang. Zhuang was the name of my daemon.” 

For a moment, Shen Qingqiu looked genuinely distressed at the thought of his mysteriously-disappeared daemon. It was a startling moment of vulnerability for someone who had spent the better part of the last hour interrogating and viciously criticizing basically every decision Shen Yuan had made in his entire life. He didn’t let the emotion stay on his face for long — before Shen Yuan could say anything, he was back to wearing a pointed glare. 

“Okay, sure, but what about when it’s just the two of us? I can’t keep calling you Shen Qingqiu. Not if I’m supposed to be Shen Qingqiu.” 

Shen Qingqiu thought about it for a moment. “My personal name is Shen Jiu. I suppose that will have to do for the time being.” 

“Shen Jiu?” 

“Does this master need to repeat everything he says?” He asked coldly. 

“No! Nope. I’ve got it.” 

Besides keeping their true identities a secret, they had also agreed that they needed to figure out how to reverse the transmigration as soon as possible. Shen Qingqiu’s body was the absolute last place Shen Yuan wanted to be. He had no interest in playing the role of the abusive scum villain, and no desire to be turned into a human stick, thank you very much. 

Similarly, Shen Jiu had no interest in remaining a daemon, and very much wanted to return to his human form. He was distinctly unconcerned about dying at the hands of the protagonist. 

“Even if some details are correct, there is no way to be sure that this so-called ‘web novel’ you read is accurate. Did it ever mention anything about ‘transmigration’? Even the smallest of changes can have rippling consequences. Only a fool would blindly believe that they can foresee the future.” 

Unfortunately, neither of them had any idea how to go about undoing what had been done. Their mission also raised several uncomfortable questions, such as what would happen to Shen Yuan afterwards, considering he’d died in his original world? Not to mention, where exactly had Shen Jiu’s original daemon gone? Would Zhuang come back if his body was made available again? What if he didn’t? Would Shen Jiu end up without a daemon? Would that kill him?

Living without a daemon was akin to living without a soul. Ordinary people usually died immediately if their daemon was killed. Powerful cultivators could sometimes survive it, but they were never unaffected. At best, they might grow tired and listless, presenting many of the same symptoms of chronic depression. At worst, they went insane. There had been a couple of stories like that in PIDW, pretty chilling stories if Shen Yuan was being honest. He wouldn’t wish that kind of fate on anyone, not even Shen Qingqiu. 

These questions were serious enough that they couldn’t be ignored. Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu would need to research any potential reverse transmigration mechanisms thoroughly. They would need to try and find something remotely approaching a precedent — any explanation for how the soul-swap had occurred — and then likely undergo a prolonged development and testing phase to make sure they got the reversal right. 

Uncomfortably, this plan relied heavily on Shen Jiu’s knowledge and expertise. 

Shen Yuan wasn’t particularly happy with this. For obvious reasons, he didn’t trust the scum villain in the slightest. If he thought he could work out the solution on his own, then he would do just that, but there was no chance. For all he knew about the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way, no amount of reading could compare to decades of lived experience. Besides, Airplane had never included transmigration as a trope! They were in completely uncharted territory here.  

That was only the start of Shen Yuan’s problems. Much more pressingly, if they had to spend time researching the problem and devising a solution, it meant that for the foreseeable future, Shen Yuan was going to have to live as Shen Qingqiu. In other words, to avoid being found out, he was going to have to learn to passably act like Shen Qingqiu. 

Thinking about it all left him so flustered that when Master Song came back to check on them, she only had her fingers on his pulse for a couple of seconds before her eyebrows flew up and she rushed out of the room, hurrying back minutes later to force a calming herbal tea down his throat. 

As it turned out, surprisingly little was physically wrong with Shen Yuan. 

“You’re lucky to be alive. That you’ve barely suffered a setback in cultivation is frankly a miracle. A qi deviation of the magnitude you experienced is normally deadly.” Mu Qingfang explained and sort of scolded him the next day, when they were finally ready to debrief. 

After their tense conversation yesterday, Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu had both fallen asleep, completely exhausted from the ordeal of waking up in new bodies. The next morning, Shen Yuan at least was feeling a lot more clear headed. 

“Hm.” He replied, doing his best to affect the sort of cold, dismissive tone he thought Shen Qingqiu would use. 

He had been given strict instructions to say as little as possible. Even now, Shen Jiu was watching him closely, perched on the side of the bed in the form of a hawk. 

Earlier that morning, a Qing Jing peak disciple had delivered a set of fresh robes and Shen Qingqiu’s spiritual sword. With a little trial and error, along with some causticly-delivered pointers from Shen Jiu, Shen Yuan had managed to dress himself. Now, he was now sitting primly on the edge of the infirmary bed. Wearing five layers of expensive silk and resting his hand on a weapon that tangibly radiated spiritual energy was going a long way towards making him feel more settled in his skin. 

He was just starting out in this new world, but he knew how it worked, more or less. He could do this. 

“Aside from what’s happened to your daemon, I’m not seeing anything that I would expect to bother you long term.” Mu Qingfang assured him. “You’re on track to make a full recovery. Your foundation looks like it might even be more stable than before.” 

Now that was odd, but Shen Yuan couldn’t afford to probe for more details right now. What he really needed was some privacy so he and Shen Jiu could continue to strategize how they were going to get themselves out of this mess. 

“When can we return to Qing Jing peak?” 

“I’d like to run a few more tests first. As I’m sure you are aware, what’s happened to your daemon is incredibly rare. While I’ve heard of cases of resettling, I’ve never seen an adult’s daemon become unsettled. Interestingly, it’s almost as though he’s regressed in age, I’m seeing juvenile markers that I would only expect to see in a child's....” Mu Qingfang trailed off when he noticed the death glare both Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu were leveling him with. “Anyhow, I would like to confirm that both of you and your bond are still healthy.” 

Mu Qingfang called his assistants back into the room. What followed was an uncomfortable half hour in which both Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu were asked to perform a variety of simple tasks while narrating how they felt. 

Shen Yuan hadn’t had a chance to notice it before, but talking to him now, Mu Qingfang was kind of a weird guy. It wasn’t that his bedside manner was bad, exactly, but there was a certain… intensity to his gaze. It put Shen Yuan on guard. He couldn’t quite tell if he was suspicious of him, or if the medical peak lord looked at all his patients like they were liars whose every gesture needed to be closely examined for the slightest hint of pretense. 

Shen Yuan watched as Shen Jiu transformed into a menagerie of animals. They wanted to see how large he could become, and how small. They had him demonstrate that he could fly, run, slither, and jump. 

Shen Yuan wondered if it was challenging, getting used to moving around in a completely different type of body, but Shen Jiu passed every test seemingly effortlessly. 

The doctors moved on to asking a series of simple logic and reasoning questions, testing whether his mental state had regressed along with his body. Shen Jiu had been surprisingly patient up to that point, but when it became obvious what they were after, he snapped, “That’s enough. My mind is intact. I’m perfectly capable of doing simple arithmetic and solving elementary word puzzles.”

Of Shen Yuan, they first asked him to recount the qi deviation, which he had to admit that he had no memory of. Luckily, this didn’t seem to be too much of a red flag. The doctors followed up with a couple of general questions about Cang Qiong and Qing Jing peak, which were easy enough to answer having read PIDW. Then they asked some more specific questions about what he’d done on the day of his qi deviation, which he and Shen Jiu had anticipated and prepared for. 

“Your daemon appears to be in very good health.” Mu Qingfang concluded in the end. "If you would permit it, I would also like to do a distance test, and some—"

“Absolutely not.” Shen Jiu cut in. 

Startled, they all turned to look at him. He had changed into a red-crowned crane, the form Shen Qingqu’s original daemon, A-Zhuang, had settled as. A crane made for a very elegant and impressive daemon, Shen Yuan had to admit, but he could feel instinctively through what must be their bond that Shen Jiu wasn’t entirely comfortable in this skin. 

Standing on the other side of the room, he was now glaring at Shen Yuan specifically, and when their eyes met, he tilted his head pointedly. 

“Ah, we are perfectly capable of testing that ourselves.” Shen Yuan hurriedly backed him up. “Qian Cao peak has provided more than enough assistance as is.” 

Too nice, too nice. He scolded himself. He’d been aiming for bitter and condescending, but he was flustered and his words had come out sounding meek — it was completely OOC! Shen Jiu obviously thought so too, if the sharp glare he was shooting him was any indication.

Shen Jiu strode forward, crossing the room on his long, gangly bird legs to stand at Shen Yuan’s side. Perhaps he thought that he could supervise him better if he was close by. 

“If Shixiong is sure…” Mu Qingfang agreed with some reluctance. “Zhangmen-Shixiong has been greatly concerned for your well-being. He would like to visit you, if you would permit it."

Zhangmen-Shixiong — did he mean the sect leader, Yue Qingyuan? Before Shen Yuan could open his mouth, Shen Jiu’s clawed foot was suddenly digging into his own, a sharp reminder. 

“No!” Shen Yuan half-yelped. “No, I don’t want to see anyone. I need to rest.” 

"...Very well.” Mu Qingfang replied, giving them an odd look. “I shall inform him."

After a quick negotiation, they agreed that Shen Yuan could return to Qing Jing peak as long as he allowed Master Song, Head Disciple Shao, or Mu Qingfang himself to check in on him at least once a day. 

That left them free to go. Mu Qingfang saw them to the rainbow bridge, upon which Shen Jiu decisively took the lead, hiding the fact that Shen Yuan didn’t know where he was going.  

For Shen Yuan, this was his first real look at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. 

“Stop gaping.” Shen Jiu hissed under his breath. He wasn’t even looking at Shen Yuan, his eyes were fixed firmly forward, so how did he know?

Shen Yuan wasn’t sure if he would be able to stop even if he wanted to. The view from the rainbow bridge was breathtaking. 

In PIDW, Airplane had spent a couple of paragraphs talking about how grand and magnificent all of the various peaks were, but what he’d said didn’t even come close to covering how spectacular it was in real life — starting with the landscape itself. 

Cang Qiong was a mountain sect, the mountains were literally part of the name, and looking around, the towering, monumental pillars of rock were the first thing that grabbed the attention. If this place were in the real world, it would be able to go toe-to-toe with any of China’s national parks and probably come out on top, Shen Yuan reckoned. The view in front of him was the most splendid of landscape paintings come to life. 

The mountains were a lot bigger than Shen Yuan had thought they would be. Describing the sect as twelve peaks was all well and good, but they were really more like twelve distinct mountains! The entire sect must have spanned several hundred square li. 

Qian Cao Peak was one of the central mountains — very practical for the medical peak — and when Shen Yuan craned his head, it didn’t matter if he looked to the left or to the right, the sect spanned out farther than the eye could see. 

When he had been reading PIDW, he’d imagined the rainbow bridge as one distinct structure that connected everything up in the middle, but with the way it was all situated, that would have been physically impossible. Instead, the shimmering spiritual bridge zig-zagged between the peaks, jumping across plummeting valleys and mist-covered ravines, stitching white marble pavilions and wooden gazebos together like an intricate cat’s cradle. 

It was impossible to forget that he was now living in a world where magic was real, what with all of the talking animals, discussions about qi deviations, and the crazy, powerful, hard-to-describe feeling he got when holding Shen Qingqiu’s sword. Looking around Cang Qiong Mountain Sect made forgetting even more impossible. 

The existence of spiritual energy, or perhaps the ability to fly on swords, had clearly allowed for building techniques that weren’t possible in his world’s ancient China. He was seeing structures that almost seemed to be floating with how precariously they were set into the rock. The buildings of Cang Qiong didn’t just sit on top of the mountains, they arched between ridges, stretched out over precipitous drops, and hung down from overhangs. Off in the distance, Shen Yuan spotted a pagoda that was balanced perfectly on a point of rock as sharp as a knife’s edge. 

It was a long walk back to Qing Jing peak. The only mountain further away from Qian Cao was Qiong Ding, which stood at the northernmost end of the range. For most inter-peak trips, going by bridge wasn’t actually that convenient. Anyone that had their spiritual sword and could fly usually did. In fact, the sky was full of cultivators wearing uniform robes of all colors, shooting by at startling speeds. 

Shen Yuan, of course, had no idea how to fly. He was pretty sure he could figure it out… but maybe in a more private location first. He didn’t say anything, but Shen Jiu caught him eyeing his sword and shot him a particularly poisonous warning look. Anyway, he was supposed to be injured, so no one batted an eye at him traveling by foot. 

Convenient or not, the rainbow bridge was very well trafficked. On their way, they passed cultivators of all ages, ranging from young outer disciples running errands to old masters leisurely chatting with each other. They also passed a large number of carts and wagons transporting loads of various shapes and sizes between the peaks. These were usually accompanied by harried-looking disciples wearing yellow — An Ding peak cultivators charged with delivering supplies. 

Nearly everyone was visibly accompanied by their daemon, and no two daemons were exactly alike. Of course, daemons everywhere were as varied and unique as the individuals they were partnered with, but cultivators in particular were prone to having their daemons settle into unusual and eye-catching forms.

Quite a lot of cultivators seemed to wind up with birds, Shen Yuan noticed up front. He saw several peacocks, birds of paradise, parrots and parakeets, a cassowary, and even a phoenix trailing behind a woman on a sword. Having a daemon that could fly would be awfully convenient, he had to admit. And surely useful, too. 

Most ordinary people couldn’t travel too far from their daemons without experiencing discomfort or pain, but cultivators, once again, were different. After reaching a certain level of cultivation, the spiritual bindings between daemon and human loosened, allowing for free travel and a degree of independence. If a cultivator’s daemon could fly, it would be so easy for them to pass messages, scout ahead, or retrieve help in an emergency. 

There were plenty of land-bound animals, too, however. They passed a monitor lizard ambling down the path in step with an older woman dressed in Xian Shu colors. A Bai Zhan disciple jogged by with his lantern moth daemon perched on the front of his robes like a large broach. On one gazebo, they found two Wan Jian cultivators deep in discussion, while their daemons, a banded armadillo and a massive white rhinoceros, napped in the sun. 

He and Shen Jiu didn’t say anything to each other along the journey; there was no need to. Shen Yuan was thoroughly distracted with sight-seeing, and Shen Jiu, meanwhile, seemed lost in thought. Their relationship so far could only be described as ‘tense,’ but for now, the silence between them was almost comfortable. 

Still, Shen Yuan wondered what his new, unwilling partner in crime was thinking about. He wondered what form he would settle into, if he settled at all. Most of all, he wondered which one of them felt more trapped in their new body. 

A disciple had been sent ahead to inform the rest of Qing Jing peak of their lord’s imminent return, and so when they finally arrived, they were received by a welcome committee of a few hundred people. 

Shen Yuan swallowed dryly as he scanned over the rows and rows of cultivators. 

There was a wide range of ages represented in the crowd. Recently accepted outer disciples stood alongside their teachers. Old masters with graying hair and aged daemons were intermixed with teenagers whose daemons were right on the edge of settling. There were cultivators who looked like they were in their twenties, their thirties, and moving up into middle age. 

Forget about a cultivation peak, this was a whole village’s worth of people!

“... so many?” Shen Yuan whispered in shock. 

“What, exactly, were you expecting?” Shen Jiu replied, scathing, but equally quiet. 

He understood now how Shen Jiu could have forgotten Luo Binghe’s name. With so many masters, teachers, seniors, and contemporaries to keep track of, not to mention a whole legion of disciples and more fresh-faces coming in every year, it really wouldn’t be easy to keep track of everyone’s identity.

Everyone was wearing shades of green and white, the Qing Jing peak colors, but he spotted maybe two dozen varieties of uniform. There were a few distinct styles obviously set aside for the inner and outer disciples, and a different style for the teachers. Most of the old masters looked like they were dressing to their personal preference, but many of the adult cultivators were wearing outfits that seemed to signify their job on the peak. 

In the web novel, Airplane had painted out a cast of maybe a dozen Qing Jing peak cultivators total. There were the handful of classroom bullies who tormented Luo Binghe. There was Ning Yingying, of course, who as a future wife had naturally gotten the most screen time. One or two teachers were mentioned (also bullies), and then there was Shen Qingqiu himself. Aside from the servants and a couple of random NPCs performing tasks in the background, nobody else was even mentioned.

Shen Yuan had kind of gotten the impression that Qing Jing peak was a pretty small and isolated community, but clearly, it was not.

I’m going to need to lie to all of these people. He realized suddenly, his stomach plummeting. I am going to need to convince every one of them that I actually am Shen Qingqiu. 

He caught the gaze of a young woman with a powerful-looking lion daemon. She was wearing an elaborate outer robe made out of a shimmering, sage-green silk. It was clearly not a uniform. That, coupled with the proud way she held herself, gave Shen Yuan the suspicion that she might not be quite as young as she looked. 

Nothing in her expression was hostile, but the cold, analytical way she appraised him kind of made him want to curl up into a defensive crouch. He was going to have to convince her that he was an unrivaled master of the four scholarly arts. 

“Do not say anything.” Shen Jiu instructed firmly. “Keep walking. Look straight ahead.”

Shen Yuan followed along. As they passed through the gate, the crowd bowed in unison. Shen Yuan stopped in his tracks, forcing Shen Jiu to do the same. 

“Welcome Shizun back.” One of the older disciples loudly announced. 

“Tell them to stop wasting their time.” Shen Jiu ordered, so quiet that even the immortal masters wouldn’t be able to hear. 

Shen Yuan swallowed. In a loud, firm voice, he called out, “Everyone rise. Return to what you were doing.” 

The words had felt so awkward coming out of his mouth, but at once, the group moved to obey, straightening up and starting to disperse. 

“Shizun!” A young man in his late teens hurried over to them. At his waist hung a white jade pendant, and affixed to that pendant was his daemon, a bright green tree frog. Shen Yuan didn’t recognize him, but he also seemed a little too old to have been one of the disciples mentioned in PIDW. “What are your plans, now that you’ve returned to the peak? Will you be resuming your usual schedule?”

“This master is still in recovery. I will be retiring to the bamboo house for the time being.” As an afterthought, he added, “Bring me a report on everything that has happened on the peak while I’ve been away.” 

The disciple nodded, and replied, “I will prepare it at once, Shizun.” Before bowing and taking off to do just that. 

Shen Yuan stood up a little straighter, feeling rather pleased with himself. That hadn’t gone so bad.

There were a couple of others standing around, clearly hoping to talk to him. With his beak, Shen Jiu tugged on his sleeve sharply. When Shen Yuan turned to look at him, he rolled his eyes and gestured down the path with a jerk of his wing. 

Affixing his expression to a stern glower, Shen Yuan waved everyone off without saying a word. 

It was a walk of about fifteen minutes to reach the bamboo house, which was situated high up, close to the mountain’s actual peak. Along the way, they passed by training grounds, administrative buildings, dormitories, and several decorative gardens. It was only a small part of the grounds, but Shen Yuan could already tell that Qing Jing peak was easily the most elegant place he had ever seen. 

Water splashed down the cascading steps of a gutter dug alongside the stairs leading up to the house. Beyond the gutter, a mossy hill bank turned into thick bamboo forest. Looking out the other way, trees mostly obscured the view, but he caught a few glimpses of wide blue sky and the expansive valley below. The path was well-shaded, with dappled sunlight shining through the leaves overhead. A brisk morning breeze rustled the bamboo. 

In his prior life, Shen Yuan hadn’t been that into the outdoors. He was a city boy born and raised, totally unhabituated to the fresh air of the country. If this is what it was like, though, he was starting to see the appeal. 

With Shen Qingqiu’s boundless qi flowing through his limbs, the exertion of climbing up a few hundred steps felt like nothing. The scenery was so pleasant, the path so peaceful, he could almost forget about what a fucked up situation he had transmigrated into. 

They arrived in a small clearing, and he found that the bamboo house was even more lovely than all of the beautiful buildings he had seen so far. The style of architecture was minimal and refreshing. A simple tiled roof was supported by a frame of thick wooden posts. The walls were arranged to offer privacy, while also keeping the house airy and light. 

It was a little smaller, a little more humble than might be expected of the second highest-ranked peak lord, but as they grew closer, Shen Yuan could see that in every aspect, it had been thoughtfully designed and well constructed. 

Along the whole journey, he had carefully kept the proud, haughty posture of Shen Qingqiu, but the moment they were through the front door, Shen Yuan let his shoulders slump. He took several steps in, then whirled around. 

“Those were all Qing Jing peak cultivators? All of them?” He asked, aghast. 

Shen Jiu looked unimpressed. “Those were just the ones who decided to waste their time making an unnecessary fuss.”

Shen Yuan felt nauseous. “How many are there in total?” 

Shen Jiu didn’t even have to think about it. “Three hundred and eighty seven,” he replied without missing a beat. 

Well, if he couldn’t remember all of their names, at least he knew that, Shen Yuan thought uncharitably. He made his way over to a table set next to a window with a charming view out over the valley. There, he sat down hard in one of the chairs. Rubbing his temples, he tried to process all that he had just learned.

“Okay. Okay then.” 

Looking back at Shen Jiu, he saw him stretching out his wings and shifting his weight between his two feet. 

“Are you okay?” 

Shen Jiu shot him a glare. He used his long beak to scratch under the feathers of one wing. 

“You look uncomfortable. Is it the form you’re in?”

“This is what I’m supposed to be.” Shen Jiu insisted. “This is supposed to feel right.” 

“If it feels bad, you should just—” Shen Yuan started, but then Shen Jiu sneezed and, without warning, transformed into a red panda. 

“Ack!” He yelped, standing up on his hind legs and staring at his paws with dismay. He tried to shift back into a red crowned crane, but doing so must have been intolerable because, with a shudder, he immediately turned back into a panda. “This couldn’t be more undignified! This is unbearable! How am I supposed to—”

“Okay, listen, we’ll figure this out.” Shen Yuan interrupted as Shen Jiu started to spiral. 

It didn’t work, Shen Jiu didn’t even seem to hear him. 

He scratched his arm with one paw, then scratched at his other arm. Visibly trembling, he looked like he was two seconds away from a full blown panic attack. Shen Yuan saw his eyes dart to the open window, ready to make a break for it. He didn’t know what else to do, so he lunged for him. At the same time, Shen Jiu started to bolt. 

Shen Yuan was faster. He tackled Shen Jiu to the ground, wrapping his entire body around him. The scum villain immediately started to struggle. 

“Get off of me, get—!” He shrieked, writhing around, transforming into a sable, an owl, a tiger, then back into a red panda. “How dare you!”

Shen Yuan could only hold on for dear life. Their bond felt like a live wire sparking on the ground. He couldn’t tell if Shen Jiu’s panic was contagious, or if his emotions were somehow bleeding through. Something in his gut told him that he had to keep him there, that he couldn’t let him run off, or it was going to end up hurting them both. 

Pinning him down firmly with one hand, desperate, he started to stroke Shen Jiu’s back. It was the only thing he could think to do to soothe him. It took a few long seconds, but to his surprise, Shen Jiu actually started to calm down. 

It was the strangest thing — Shen Yuan had never felt anything remotely like it before, but touching Shen Jiu was basically an instant serotonin hit. He didn’t like him, he didn’t even want to be near him, but as his hand slid through thick fur, his own anxiety and frustration were tangibly fading away.  

“I despise you.” Shen Jiu grit out, his body practically liquified in Shen Yuan’s lap. 

“Yeah, I’m not exactly your biggest fan either.” 

Still, he kept petting him. This situation was awful, but there was only one way out, and that was through. 

After a few minutes, Shen Jiu was finally calm enough that Shen Yuan felt safe letting go of the grip he had on him. Delicately, the scum villain jumped down from his lap, then turned around to glare at him. 

“Listen,” Shen Yuan started, trying to be reasonable. “Obviously, this sucks. I’m not any happier about it than you are, but we have to figure out a plan moving forward. We’ve got a little time, what with needing to ‘recover,’ but that’s not going to last forever. I need to know enough about Shen Qingqiu to be able to fool all three-hundred-and-however-many people out there.”

Shen Jiu’s mouth turned in a doubtful grimace. He opened it to speak, but before he could, his ears perked up and he turned to look at the door. A moment later, there was a firm knock. 

“Shizun? I’ve brought lunch.” A girl’s voice called out. 

Shen Yuan opened the door to a young disciple, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, holding a tray. Her hair was pulled up into two loopy buns, and the moment she laid eyes on Shen Yuan, her big, brown eyes widened with innocent, childish excitement. 

Could this be… Shen Yuan wondered. 

Still holding the tray, the girl half-bowed, beaming up at him. “The kitchen has prepared Shizun a meal to promote healing and aid rest. Can I bring it in?” 

A little overwhelmed, Shen Yuan nodded and stepped aside. 

The disciple made a beeline for the table that Shen Yuan had been sitting at earlier and set the tray down. With practiced hands, she quickly set up the meal for him, then gestured that he come over and sit. Shen Yuan did so. 

There was no tactful way to ask for her name, and he had no idea how Shen Qingqiu would normally act in this situation, so he continued to say nothing at all. 

It didn’t seem to bother her. Done with her task, she clasped her hands together and bowed to him again. “This one is so glad to see Shizun well!” 

As she was leaving, Shen Yuan took his first tentative bite. 

The food was… bad. Or, well, not irredeemably bad, just extremely bland. The rice, tofu, and steamed vegetables in front of him were completely unseasoned, not even with salt. 

 He wasn’t sure how much of it he would be able to force himself to eat. 

“Ah, wait a minute, before you go!” Shen Yuan called out to the disciple. “Could you possibly bring me some soy sauce? Or even better, chili paste? Maybe some vinegar, too?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You want… I mean, yes! Of course, Shizun! I’ll be just a moment.” She bowed yet again and scurried out the door. 

When Shen Yuan glanced at Shen Jiu, his eyes were wide, too. 

“What?” Shen Yuan asked defensively, but Shen Jiu didn’t say anything. 

It took about ten minutes, but when the disciple returned, her arms were full with an assortment of small jars. Shen Yuan perked up in excitement. 

“Begging forgiveness, but when the head chef asked what kind of vinegar Shizun wanted, I wasn’t sure, so I brought several kinds.” She set all of the jars down on the table. Shen Yuan eagerly grabbed one and removed the stopper. The smell of a rich, high-quality soy sauce hit his nose. 

“Would you like anything else?” She asked sweetly. 

“No, no, you can leave.” Shen Yuan replied absent mindedly, too busy looking through all of the condiments. There was chili paste. Bless the xianxia genre and its anachronistic tropes! Shen Yuan was so relieved he could cry.

He smeared a liberal amount of chili over the tofu, along with a dash of soy sauce and black vinegar, then tucked in. It still wasn’t as good as modern day takeout, but all of the ingredients were fresh, and altogether, it wasn’t half bad. He suddenly found that he was ravenous. 

“Do you need to eat?” He asked Shen Jiu about halfway through the meal, belatedly remembering that he was still there. “Do you want some?”

Silently, he shook his head. Something about how he was eyeing the food struck Shen Yuan as odd. 

“What is it?” 

“... You’ve been in my body for less than forty-eight hours and they’re already treating you better.” Shen Jiu admitted after a pause. 

Shen Yuan frowned and tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“I was the peak lord for seven years, and no one ever….”

“No one ever brought you condiments?”

Shen Jiu’s frown deepened. 

“Did you ever ask?” 

Still frowning, Shen Jiu transformed into a barn owl and jumped to perch on the back of the chair on the other side of the table. He met Shen Yuan’s eyes with a severe look. 

“You can’t do this again. It’s too out of character, somebody will find out.” 

Shen Yuan was immediately indignant. “I just asked for soy sauce!”

“Light dishes promote tranquility and encourage a clear mind. This food is traditional on Qing Jing peak, and I have never complained about it before.” 

“So you just lived with eating awful food every day, and now you’re expecting me to do the same? You’re the peak lord! Who is going to stop you from adding a little seasoning?” 

“If anyone realizes what has happened, they are not going to let us continue being the peak lord. Most likely, you will be imprisoned and one of my enemies will take the chance to kill us while I’m in this weakened state.”

“Okay, so we train. Then we both can fight back and that won’t happen.” 

Shen Jiu didn’t have hands as an owl which limited how much he could gesticulate, but the look he shot him was offensively skeptical. 

“I’m not going to give up flavor!” Shen Yuan insisted. “People can chalk it up to the after effects of the qi deviation. As long as I get most of your character traits right, they’re not going to guess what actually happened. It’s too improbable! You’d never even heard of transmigration before it happened to you.” 

“They won’t get the particulars right, but what if they decide you’re a ghost possessing my body? Will the results not be the same?” 

Not having a good counter argument, Shen Yuan fumed and took a bite of his chili-smothered tofu in silence. 

Shen Jiu looked at him pointedly, before flying across the room to the bookshelf. He transformed into a monkey and, having regained opposable thumbs, began to peruse its contents. He stayed on the other side of the room for the rest of the meal, not so much as glancing back in Shen Yuan’s direction.

What an asshole! Shen Yuan thought indignantly. And talk about being paranoid!

By the time he was done eating, Shen Jiu had picked out a small selection of books and scrolls. His anger somewhat attenuated, Shen Yuan found himself begrudgingly curious about what he was doing. He piled up all of the empty bowls and half-full jars back onto the tray, then wandered over. 

Peering down at the pile of books, he was a little confused to see the top volume was titled Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute.  

“What is this?” He asked warily. 

Shen Jiu turned around. “If you’re going to pass as me, then you’ll at least need to be able to pretend that you can do the job of peak lord. You’re in my body, there will be some muscle memory, but how far will that go? We need to see what we’re working with.” 

Shen Yuan perked up. “You want to test my abilities?” This was a classic part of any good xianxia transmigration plot. 

Shen Jiu nodded, shuffling over and picking up the book of flute scores. “We’ll start with music.” 

Shen Yuan did not retain Shen Jiu’s skill for music. 

Oh, he could play the instruments, that wasn’t the problem. From Shen Yuan’s point of view, it was actually pretty awesome. In his prior life, he hadn’t so much as touched a flute or qin, but now, when he rested his hands on them, it was like they had a life of their own, automatically moving into the right positions, thoughtlessly carrying out the right sequence of movements. Shen Yuan could apparently play from start to finish songs he had never heard in his life. 

Only, the longer he played, the more puckered Shen Jiu’s already-sour expression became. When Shen Yuan plucked out the first notes of Mist and Clouds Over the Xiang River on the qin, he finally broke. 

“What on earth are you doing?!”

See, having never heard any of these songs or learned any music theory, Shen Yuan had no proper sense for timing or artistic execution. 

“An actual monkey could perform this piece better!” Shen Jiu pronounced. He ushered him out of the musician’s seat and proceeded to give a demonstration. 

From the moment he started playing, it was immediately apparent that he was right. 

Shen Jiu’s monkey hands were way smaller than a human’s, and his arm span was definitely not wide enough for the qin in front of him. Still, in spite of these insane handicaps, he made the song Shen Yuan had been playing sound completely new. 

It was honestly a pretty moving performance. Shen Yuan was begrudgingly impressed. 

Unfortunately, when it came to the other three scholarly arts, the verdict wasn’t much better. 

Calligraphy was the best of them. In this case, muscle memory really was able to do the brunt of the work. Shen Yuan’s handwriting came out fine, just as long as he didn’t think about it too hard. 

Painting was the next best. Shen Yuan actually had seen his fair share of traditional landscape paintings, and using the same trick of half-unfocusing his brain, he was able to let his hands lead him and come up with something that didn’t look half bad.

“Uninspired,” Shen Jiu graded his wild plum blossom scene, “Barely passable.” 

His weiqi, however, was absolutely hopeless. 

“Are you an imbecile, or do they not have chess in your world? I would expect the youngest disciples to perform better than this.” Shen Jiu shook his head in disgust after beating him in less than fifteen minutes. 

The end of game layout on the chess board in front of them was, admittedly, a travesty, but Shen Yuan still thought that was uncalled for! He obviously knew the rules. He just hadn’t spent much time on it, okay? Where he came from, weiqi was just a hobby, not a critical skill used to gauge people’s intelligence and strategic thinking!

Both frustrated, they moved on to the other skills that a peak lord was expected to know. 

Shen Yuan thought his swordplay was fine, but Shen Jiu clearly didn’t agree. He started by drilling him in a variety of moves and forms. Given the amount of detail that Airplane had put into some of his fight scenes, Shen Yuan actually knew what he was talking about most of the time! Still, even with muscle memory once again providing a powerful advantage, Shen Yuan’s timing was apparently still off, and the way he was channeling his spiritual energy was not nearly graceful enough to meet Shen Jiu’s monumentally high standards. It was a disheartening half hour of sword practice. 

His knowledge of poetry and literature was abysmal. 

“Just recite anything, just, any poem that you know. Even one poem.” Shen Jiu practically begged when he couldn’t offer up more than a couple of disparate lines. 

“... A kingdom smashed, its hills and rivers still here, spring in the city, plants and trees grow deep—” 

Shen Jiu put his head in his hands in despair, which was actually kind of interesting because it meant that Du Fu existed in this universe. Given that was the case, though, it wasn’t surprising that chunwang was still considered one of the most basic poems you could know. 

Shen Yuan’s meditation was not great. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” 

“Hey! I’ve never done this before!”

“That much is obvious.” 

“It’s not like I’m going to be amazing on my first try! Besides, we just had a qi deviation, in case you forgot. They know you’re going to be a little off!” 

About halfway through all of these exercises, the monkey form had started to bother Shen Jiu and he had shifted into a painted turtle. Now, Shen Jiu managed to look angrier than Shen Yuan had known a turtle could look. 

“Precisely. They know something’s wrong, and when they look closer and discover exactly how wrong, we’re going to be killed. At this rate, I don’t see how there’s hope that we’ll make it to the end of this week.” 

Shen Yuan gave up. He slipped out of lotus position in favor of sprawling out flat on his back. He stared up at the wooden ceiling beams with complete resignation. 

“We’ll have to cancel all of our teaching assignments. You’re not even fit to guide the most junior disciples.” Shen Jiu continued ruthlessly. 

“We can say our cultivation is at a delicate stage, that we can’t expend too much energy in practical demonstrations.” Shen Yuan tried reasoning. 

Working with Shen Jiu was so hard. Being around him was hard. Between his unwavering pessimism and merciless criticism, Shen Yuan felt like he was being slowly ground down into the dirt. 

Would it kill you to say something constructive? He thought, clenching his hands in fists at his sides so as not to do anything regretful to his absolute ghoul of a daemon. Would you die if you were even remotely helpful for once?

“Retreating altogether will put us at a disadvantage. For every step back taken, our enemies will try to take a dozen steps forward.” 

“So I don’t teach practical classes, I can still teach theory.”

“Theory is exactly what you are lacking!”

Shen Yuan lifted his head and met Shen Jiu’s gaze. 

“I’m lacking musical theory, weiqi theory. That doesn’t mean I don’t know anything!” He argued back. “I know plenty about some things! Monsters, flora and fauna. Geography. A little bit of politics.”

“ Thinking you know about this world isn’t a valid teaching qualification.” 

“So test me, then!” Shen Yuan challenged him, sitting back up and waving his arms for emphasis. 

“Fine! We’ll need several books I don’t have in the house. Go ask one of those useless disciples to retrieve them from the library.” 

Armed with more than a dozen reference books and atlases, Shen Jiu proceeded to ask Shen Yuan a vast number of extremely specific questions on topics ranging from demon realm geography to plant biology to mortal realm history and economics. To his astonishment, Shen Yuan kept getting the answers right. 

“Where is the natural range of the black serpent-fanged fungus spider?” 

“Those should only be within a couple of li of an abyssal vent, right?” 

“Why did the Jin dynasty collapse?”

“The Jin dynasty… the line of mortal emperors who were obsessed with collecting demon realm artifacts? Didn’t they develop a daemon-related hereditary disease that got progressively worse after too much inbreeding?”

The longer it went on and the more topics Shen Yuan demonstrated his knowledge of, the more astounded Shen Jiu became. It was getting to the point where even Shen Yuan himself was a little surprised. 

The only explanation he could offer was that he really, really liked the setting of Proud Immortal Demon Way. There was a reason he spent so much time on the story in spite of all the horribly written sex and embarrassingly bad dialog. Over the course of the plot, with all of its long, meandering side quests, Luo Binghe had gotten around to seeing a lot of the world. 

“So? Am I good enough or not?” He prodded when Shen Jiu finally started to lose steam.

Shen Jiu harrumphed, which, by now, Shen Yuan knew was as good as a yes. He smiled wide, cheered by his victory. 

“So, we’ll hide what we can, and in the meantime, I can focus on learning and catching up to the level of skill that Shen Qingqiu is supposed to be at.” 

Shen Jiu looked deeply skeptical. 

That night, after a low-key dinner and an evening spent silently reading, Shen Yuan lay awake, tossing and turning in Shen Qingqiu’s bed. 

Yet another thing he had learned today: buckwheat husk pillows were a lot harder than modern ones. The thin cotton pad stretched over a wooden platform wasn’t exactly the sort of bed he was used to, either. 

He just wanted to be back home, in his normal, modern bed. 

Before they had turned in for the night, he had helped a sullen Shen Jiu arrange a pile of blankets for his bed in the main room, just on the other side of the wall. His disappeared daemon, A-Zhuang, had apparently preferred to sleep on a special cushion in the bamboo house’s side room, but for Shen Jiu, back in his red panda form, that arrangement hadn’t felt right. 

Neither of them had wanted to admit it, but even though their bond could stretch the twenty-something paces between the two rooms, it didn’t feel right to be that far apart. 

It was so strange. Intellectually, Shen Yuan didn’t want anything to do with Shen Jiu. He had a garbage personality and basically no redeeming qualities. Still, the metaphysical, spiritual whatever that was tying them together was seriously powerful. He was feeling okay knowing that Shen Jiu was only a wall away, but even thinking about separating further made him itch. They had tried a distance test earlier, and Shen Jiu couldn’t get further than thirty paces or so before they both started to feel physically sick. 

(This was another thing that was strange. Shen Qingqiu’s cultivation had hardly been affected by what was apparently a disastrous qi deviation, but his daemon’s cultivation was in shambles. As an immortal master and peak lord, he and his daemon should be able to travel at minimum, dozens, if not hundreds of li apart. According to Shen Jiu, before the deviation, he and A-Zhuang had advanced to the point where there was basically no limit to how far their bond could stretch. If the transmigration had changed this and unsettled his daemon to boot, then why was Shen Yuan coming out scot-free?)

Shen Yuan was tired. He hadn’t asked for any of this. 

At this point, he had thrown all of his plans for a perfect transmigration run out the window. He didn’t need to get an A+ anymore. He just wanted to get through this in one piece, with all of his limbs still attached. 

According to all reason and logic, Shen Jiu should want the same thing. In theory, their goals should be perfectly aligned. Of course it couldn’t be that easy in reality. Hypercritical, hypocritical, and fussy: Shen Jiu was pretty much the group project partner from hell. 

Still, even in the middle of his angry diatribe, Shen Yuan couldn’t ignore the fact that Shen Jiu had kind of gotten the shorter end of the stick here. He probably wouldn’t take it all that well himself if he was the one who had to watch a stranger do a bad job of piloting his body…. 

More than that, though, Shen Jiu kind of wasn't as bad as he’d been expecting him to be. Don’t get him wrong, after spending an entire day together, he was basically Shen Yuan’s least favorite person on earth, but even so, in all of that time, he hadn’t done anything particularly evil or villainous. Maybe it was just that there hadn’t been opportunity for it, but Shen Yuan had low key been expecting to fend off more attempts at petty sabotage and child abuse. 

Honestly, the whole Luo Binghe thing wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting either. Maybe Shen Jiu was lying, but it really seemed like he rarely interacted with the junior disciples and didn’t have any involvement in the details of their care. 

Obviously, as the peak lord, if there were disciples being abused on the mountain, he was still ultimately at fault, but the crime of negligence was a lot less severe than all of those crimes he’d been purportedly committing in Proud Immortal Demon Way. The situation was not at all what Airplane had implied it was, but Shen Yuan had been thinking about it all day and — strictly speaking — it wasn’t an inaccurate reading of the original novel. 

The world he found himself in was so much more complex, so much richer than the PIDW he’d read about. The degree of foreknowledge he had from reading the book was helpful, of course, but even so, he was flying completely by the seat of his pants here. 

A small, vindictive part of him wanted to treat Shen Jiu and all of his mean bullshit like the two-dimensional scum villain he’d had so much fun hating. The much larger, survival-oriented part of him knew that that would be counterproductive and, dare he even say, misplaced. 

No matter how he looked at it, Shen Jiu just wasn’t the character he’d thought he was. He’d only known him for two days, but he just… wasn’t that simple. Airplane had never revealed his backstory, but it obviously went a lot deeper than Shen Yuan had imagined. Maybe even deeper than Airplane had imagined. 

With what felt like ten thousand different thoughts vying for his attention, Shen Yuan found himself lying awake in the darkness for a long time. 

Even after a poor night of sleep, Shen Yuan woke up feeling a little better than he had been the night before. He walked out the door to Shen Qingqiu’s bedroom feeling magnanimous and tolerant, ready to meet the challenges of the new day. That all dissolved the moment he locked eyes with Shen Jiu. 

“...”

He hadn’t even said anything! How could a person project such rancid energy without even opening their mouth?

“What’s your problem?!” 

The glare Shen Jiu shot back at him was one of pure hatred. He was back in his kitten form, and he looked like he had slept even worse than Shen Yuan had. He sniffed the air with a snooty expression, literally turning his nose up at him, clearly deciding that it was beneath his dignity to respond. 

Shen Yuan inhaled a deep, angry breath. He closed his eyes and exhaled with a huff. Instead of picking a fight with this horrible man over nothing, he forced himself to let it go. He turned on his heel and marched into the kitchen to make tea. 

When he sat down at the table five minutes later, Shen Jiu meandered over and reluctantly hopped up into his lap. Even as annoyed as he was, Shen Yuan allowed it without comment. 

Instantaneously, the growing knot of tension in his chest relaxed. Looking down at Shen Jiu, he saw that physical touch was having the same effect on him.

There was really no avoiding it. They were stuck with each other. 

To keep his sanity, Shen Yuan didn’t try to make conversation as he finished his tea. He didn’t ask Shen Jiu any questions over breakfast, either. 

After breakfast, that teenage disciple with the tree frog daemon showed up with the report of recent Qing Jing peak activity that Shen Yuan had asked for. 

Shen Yuan didn’t say anything as he brought it over to his desk and read through it, not even when Shen Jiu started reading over his shoulder. The report didn’t say anything interesting. With how relatively unharmed he’d been by the qi deviation, Shen Qingqiu had only been off-peak for three days. Shen Yuan was done reading within ten minutes.

At that point, he finally had to confront the fact that he didn’t know what to do next. 

“Shen Jiu.” He started, unsure. At once, the kitten’s sharp green eyes were fixed on him. He gathered up his resolve. “How do we start figuring out how to reverse the transmigration?” 

For a long moment, Shen Jiu didn’t say anything. Sitting on the desk, he looked up at Shen Yuan silently, studying him. It was a little disconcerting. When he didn’t speak, only the intelligence of his eyes belied the fact that he wasn’t truly a cat. 

“Books.” He answered eventually. His voice had taken on a thoughtful hue. “We need books. I’ll dictate a list. Have someone fetch them from the peak library.” 

Shen Yuan nodded, already reaching for his brush. Shen Jiu wasn’t done, however. 

“Why do you want to reverse the transmigration?” He asked, meeting his eyes. Shen Jiu’s gaze was piercing. It felt like he could see down to his soul.

“I– I get to go home if I do. Home to my real world.” 

Shen Jiu tilted his head. “Your real world where you died, you mean.” 

Shen Yuan nodded. 

“You don’t think that if we’re successful, you’ll simply end up dead?” 

“I….”

In all truth, Shen Yuan was actually trying very hard not to think about that. Of course he was worried that if he got sent back to his original body, he’d die. There was no guarantee either way, but it certainly seemed like a logical conclusion. But if he let himself think about it, then he’d have to face the fact that his only other option was to stay in this body, in this world where he clearly didn’t belong, with Shen Jiu breathing down his neck. 

“I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know?” Shen Jiu repeated, unimpressed.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Shen Yuan repeated. “In my world, we tell this sort of story all the time. Usually, the transmigrator dies to go to the other world, and sometimes they are able to return home like nothing ever happened.” 

Sometimes being the operative word there. 

“But you— you’re right.” He continued. “I’m not cut out for this world. I don’t know how to be you, how to do everything that you have to do. I don’t belong here, and I won’t be able to pretend forever. I….” 

Shen Jiu was looking at him very intensely now, carefully evaluating every word he said. 

“Well, if I can’t stay here, then all I can do is try to go back. Either way, I don’t have any say in whether I live or die, do I? As you say, we’ll get found out eventually. There are no good options for me, then. None at all. All I can do is try to make things right, try to return everything back to how it should be.”

If Shen Yuan couldn’t fake it til he made it as Shen Qingqiu, then there was no point in trying to improve the story. He couldn’t save the protagonist from his horrible childhood. He couldn’t stop Cang Qiong Mountain Sect from being destroyed, or Liu Qingge from dying, or do much of anything at all, now, could he? 

And even if he could, what good would any of that actually do? What would even happen to Luo Binghe if he didn’t have the motivation of his miserable past to push him forwards into future glory? It wasn’t like Shen Yuan was happy knowing that he was being bullied and abused on the very same mountain he was standing on, but looking at the bigger picture here, the protagonist was going to end up being fine. 

If Shen Yuan had learned anything at all, it was that this story was ten thousand times more complicated than he’d been led to think. He… he wasn’t stupid enough to meddle in something that he clearly didn’t understand. 

Shen Jiu was silent for a long time. He was still staring at him, studying his expression, like he was trying to pick out whether he was being honest or not. The intense scrutiny made Shen Yuan itch. 

“Well.” Shen Jiu sighed, at last. He stood up on his four paws, tail swishing behind him. “I suppose it’s about time I took on my first personal disciple.”