Work Text:
Shen Qingqiu had a problem.
No, Shen Yuan had a problem.
No, strike all of that. He had several problems. So like any good hater, he made a list of bullet points when endless internal ranting to himself no longer satisfied and just made the clamour in his head worse. It seemed too good to list his grievances on such fine paper with the highest quality ink and a calligraphy brush worthy of the master of Qing Jing Peak, but it was what he had and Binghe wouldn’t permit his beloved Shizun to use anything lesser, which led straight into the first of these points of contention that Shen Yuan scrawled out one warm morning while Luo Binghe was out fetching ingredients for lunch.
With a terrible pout putting a crease between those delicate, elegant eyebrows of Shen Qingqiu, the newest resident in his body completed his task and surveyed the first draft. Somehow, perhaps after all this time in cultivation of the four arts on Qing Jing Peak, it read like a morose piece of poetry.
- Not gay, but married a man?
- Worse yet, being a shou!
- Worst of all… he doesn’t know who I really am.
Strangely, Shen Yuan had imagined he would pour out an essay when he actually set these worrisome thoughts to paper, something to rival his greatest essay comments of everything wrong with Proud Immortal Demon Way. His mind had been so full that it seemed impossible this could be all there was, yet as he looked down at the artful lines Shen Yuan knew he had captured the essence of his turmoil, three horses pulling in uncoordinated directions.
Next, like a methodical hater capable of systematically demolishing everything wrong with the target of his fury, was prioritisation of the issues by significance.
Considering the list, Shen Yuan quickly decided that the middle one would go to the bottom of the pile, figuratively and literally, ha ha. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the whole situation there, but it went hand in hand with the first point, and more to the general point, Shen Yuan wasn’t actually interested in the obvious solution there. Not only would Binghe eagerly accept a reversal of their positions, he had actually requested it on more than one occasion!
It was Shen Yuan who declined, since aside from the dauntless nature of that particular task, if he penetrated Binghe it would hardly change what they were. It wouldn’t make him into the towering demonic overlord with the heavenly pillar and Binghe into the slender alluring beauty who men would go to war for.
Every time he looked at his own face Shen Yuan knew it, Shen Jiu had really been born with a seductress’s form. Even the original Luo Binghe, whose Shen Qingqiu had tormented him without redemption, had been eager to fuck Shen Yuan when he got the chance, and the original protagonist had never once been interested in a man in the Proud Immortal Demon Way. It was that or Shen Yuan’s very soul had the power to turn any Luo Binghe he came into contact with gay!
He digressed… Shen Yuan knew firsthand how much work Binghe put into fucking him, and as a dedicated poser and slacker he knew there was no escape from that hard work if they switched things around, and therefore this was not really a solution to the problem. Actually, the middle point was just a subsection of the first, which Shen Yuan indicated with an additional postscript on his first draft before setting the calligraphy brush down.
But on reflection, it was really the last point that troubled him the most, at least in respect to the first one, meaning his decision to accept Binghe’s recent proposal of marriage. Who could have declined those tearful black lotus eyes? Had Shen Yuan really become a teacher who doted so much on his disciple he would actually marry him, despite his sexuality?
Well, despite Shen Yuan’s sexuality from the life he’d led before he transmigrated. The person who’d been put on a shelf somewhere in the most private parts of himself, revealed solely to the only other person to share his fate, and even then not fully, since it was his shitty crowd-pandering writing that had gotten them in this mess in the first place.
Actually, the greatest problem was something slightly different than any of those original points. So Shen Yuan reached for the brush again and drew a fresh sheet of paper to craft a single grievance.
How can I marry someone who doesn’t know the real me?
Yes, that was it, Shen Yuan knew as he finished the final stroke. This was the root of his troubled mind lately, the weed that had been growing since he’d accepted Binge’s proposal and gone through with the marriage immediately afterwards. Binghe still wanted a ceremonial wedding too, to be held in the demon realm to make Shen Qingqiu his officially recognised wi… spouse. An act that Shen Yuan understood to be at least partly intended to stymie the flow of marriage proposals his disciple received constantly, or the perceived suitors that Binghe believed his Shizun received far too regularly.
Every mention of this upcoming event and the planning behind it had made Shen Yuan feel more sick and uncomfortable, which he’d thought until quite recently was about them both being men, but now he’d written it all down wasn’t really about that at all. It was a fear he’d never addressed openly, which was that if Binghe knew about Shen Yuan’s origins, about the system, and who he really was, it would change things for the worse, ruin what had been so hard won. After so much hurt and betrayal, all Shen Yuan wanted to do was stop hurting Binghe, to make his gorgeous crybaby disciple happy, and yet he bore this terrible secret.
Shen Yuan was lost in these thoughts and hadn’t noticed the time passing, so when he heard Binghe return and cheerfully call, “I’m back, Shizun!” in a panic he snatched up the papers and tore them to shreds with a flick of his fingers, raining anxious confetti down on his writing desk.
Binghe popped his head around the divider to set his gaze on Shen Yuan and beam that roguish smile of his, unchanged since he was a feisty teenager who clung to his Shizun’s thigh and drank in every word he said whether they made sense or not. Shen Qingqiu had always been a poser, a fraud, and Shen Yuan had somehow managed to redeem him by being an even bigger fraud and poser. The irony was typical of that hack Airplane Shooting at the Sky.
Shen Yuan must have been wearing these troubled thoughts on his face, because at once Binghe’s grin fell and he asked, “Shizun, what’s wrong?”
“Come here, Binghe,” Shen Yuan said seriously. “I… we need to talk.”
“Has this disciple displeased you in some way?” Binghe questioned nervously. “I rushed back as soon as I could.”
“It’s not that, sit down,” Shen Yuan directed, and Binghe did as he was told, sinking down to sit opposite from him with tears already welling in those puppy dog eyes.
“Shizun, you’re scaring me,” he said softly, and Shen Yuan wanted at once to gather Binghe in his arms, stroke that thick curly hair and tell him it was nothing, this teacher was just being silly and to go cook lunch, but he just couldn’t do it. Those words he’d finally set down now haunted Shen Yuan, compelling him to clear the bad blood before it got any worse. He’d learned the worst ways that keeping his true feelings from Luo Binghe only brought misery on both of them.
“We’re m–married now,” Shen Yuan began bashfully, “and still with another wedding to come, so there’s something important Binghe needs to know about your… husband,” he forced through his clenched teeth. Why hadn’t he written a script for himself for this? Why hadn’t he thought further ahead and postponed this conversation to another time, perhaps when Binghe was asleep and might not hear him while still granting Shen Yuan the relief of having confessed? Why did it have to be now?
Well, because it couldn’t be later, so it had to be now.
“Is there a problem– does Shizun regret it?” Binghe jumped to frantically, and before he could constrain himself Shen Yuan whipped out a hand to grasp Luo Binghe’s arm, squeezing his wrist firmly.
“Just listen, Binghe, this… isn’t easy for me to say, but if we… it’s because we’re married that I have to tell you, okay?” Layers of the formality and propriety that he hid behind melted away, leaving Shen Yuan exposed, the peerless cucumber… peeled.
Luo Binghe noticed this shift in his speech pattern, pausing as he made a face of concentration. He was silent, as requested, leaving Shen Yuan no choice but to continue.
“Do you remember when Shen… when this teacher’s behaviour towards you first changed?” Shen Yuan asked, going back to the beginning for lack of inspiration on exactly where else to start. At least if Binghe could also recognise the point when Shen Jiu disappeared and Shen Yuan arrived, maybe there was hope…
“It was… around the time I lost my guanyin,” Binghe answered effortlessly, lighting a struggling candle of hope in Shen Yuan’s chest. “That was when Shizun used his technique of empowered leaves to protect me in secret, wasn’t it?”
Not only the general time, but Binghe knew by heart the very moment that Shen Yuan had figured out a loophole in the heavy handed restrictions of the system. Found a way to protect Binghe as best he could before he unlocked the OOC function, then proceeded to be horribly OOC for… ever, basically.
Shen Yuan had never confirmed what he’d done that day, not openly but he rushed now to do so and said, “Yes, exactly, it was… before then, wasn’t this teacher very different?”
“I forgave Shizun alread–”
“No, Binghe,” Shen Yuan interrupted, suddenly finding himself in a position to say something he’d always wanted to. “This Shizun is not the person to be forgiven for what Shen Qingqiu did to you before then.”
Luo Binghe stared blankly at him as regrets started to rapidly pile up in Shen Yuan’s mind, meanwhile the system perked up with an alarmed set of pings.
[It looks like you are trying to break the 4th wall! Please be aware that this is an irreversible event and may impact your ability to earn B- points and protagonist satisfaction points from now on.]
“Shut the fuck up,” thought Shen Yuan vindictively, “You’re the one who got me in this mess in the first place!”
“Shizun?” Binghe said worriedly, looking at Shen Qingqiu’s hand on his arm and then up to his face as a fat tear spilled down his pickled crybaby cheek. “This disciple doesn’t understand what Shizun’s telling him.”
“I… I was reincarnated,” Shen Yuan suddenly declared, as wasn’t transmigration basically a form of reincarnation anyway? “I’m not the same Shen Qingqiu, not the Shen Jiu you knew before. I’m… I’m someone different, I lived in another world and when I died there I was sent to this one right around that time.”
Luo Binghe was no fool, so despite his despair, something clicked that he had talked about before.
“Is that why Shizun always seems to know things he couldn’t possibly have a way of knowing?”
“Yes!” Shen Yuan blurted excitedly, startling Binghe with his break from decorum. “Exactly, Binghe! Because in my original world, Binghe was the protagonist of an… incredible story that this teacher read.” Incredibly shit, but spare the poor child that much, right?
“I… what?” Binghe said, utterly lost.
“A… it was like a prophecy,” Shen Yuan fumbled, trying to find comparisons that made such a strange concept make sense in this very real world he’d lived in for over a decade. “In a previous life, this teacher followed a prophecy in which Binghe became a vicious and vengeful demon lord with hundreds of wives in his harem.”
“Isn’t that the other me who came here?” Binghe recognised immediately. “From the world I searched for Shizun in and couldn’t find him?”
“Yes, Binghe’s so smart,” Shen Yuan praised, which never failed to light up his disciple in moments of doubt and confusion. “In that world I never replaced the original Shen Qingqiu, to say, Shen Jiu, so he continued to abuse and be cruel to Luo Binghe without mercy, and he met the horrible end of a scum villain.”
“Then… you are?” Binghe murmured blindly, looking at Shen Yuan curiously, like someone else, someone new, for once.
With a deep sigh he confessed, “My name is Shen Yuan.” It felt surprisingly good, actually, even if he was afraid of that irreversible damage the system had referred to, of the risk that Binghe might not love Shen Yuan like he loved Shen Qingqiu. He had to try, though, had to have faith in his disciple instead of doubting him like he used to.
“Shen Yuan,” Binghe repeated wondrously, and what Shen Yuan had not expected was that hot throb in his gut at hearing his real name on Binghe’s lips. No, not at all. “So, since that time, Shen Qingqiu has been you?”
Shen Yuan nodded. “The sys… the god who sent me here gave me tasks, things I had to do or things I could not, and the… prophecy, there were parts of it that had to happen, even though…” with his heart pounding, Shen Yuan, still gripping Luo Binghe’s arm, met his eyes and confessed, “even though I never ever wanted to hurt Binghe.”
“Shizun…” Binghe spoke as if on autoplay, like the address came when he had nothing else to say. “Then, at the Immortal Alliance Conference…”
“It was my fault,” Shen Yuan said sadly, “If I didn’t fulfil the prophecy and ensure Binghe fell into the Endless Abyss I would’ve been sent back to my previous world and my soul would’ve been destroyed. But I… I handled it really badly.”
Binghe laughed suddenly, startling Shen Yuan, and then at his searching look remarked, “Shizun’s way of speaking is a little different, is this the true Shen Yuan?”
“I suppose so,” Shen Yuan conceded, “but I’ve lived as Shen Qingqui for a long time now too, so both are true to some extent. This… this teacher has been sincere with Binghe, when he could, but because of my own foolishness and belief in the prophecy, I got things wrong and misunderstood Binghe so many times… ah, you’re crying again,” he remarked dourly as fresh tears dripped down Binghe’s cheeks.
“How could I be unmoved after learning it wasn’t my Shizun at all who let me be beaten and bullied all those years?” Binghe declared passionately. “That my Shizun overturned a prophecy of gods to protect and nurture this disciple instead of hurting and betraying him?” Suddenly Binghe lurched at Shen Yuan and grabbed his face on either side, “It was you all along?!” he cried as if elated.
“It… was me all along,” Shen Yuan confirmed, and now felt himself becoming emotional, especially since he was watching his poor Binghe openly weep. Reaching for one of his tear tracked cheeks, Shen Yuan swept the back of palm over it and said softly, “I had selfish reasons as well, I was trying to save my own skin, but I also wanted to help Binghe grow up well, and without even realising it I also…” oh shit, Shen Yuan thought as the words bubbled up and spilled from his mouth like springwater, “fell in love with Binghe.”
Shit, so much for not gay. Until that point, the separation of Shen Yuan and his persona as Shen Qingqiu had allowed a flimsy protection of this belief. That Shen Qingqiu could love and marry Binghe, but Shen Yuan was still a straight guy.
But that wasn’t the truth, and hadn’t been to begin with. It had actually been Shen Yuan falling in love with Binghe all along, and it was being Shen Qingqiu that had gotten in the damn way.
“You did?” Binghe said preciously, cradling his husband’s face like a treasure. “Shen Yuan really liked me?”
Shen Yuan nodded, tearful, and leaned into Binghe’s hands. “I convinced myself I didn’t need to tell Binghe the truth, but we’re married now and… this husband couldn’t tolerate living a marriage built on a lie.” Oh fuck, it was all coming out now. Shen Yuan blinked and felt the tears streaming down his face, and Airplane Shooting at the Sky would be whooping and cackling if he could see him now. How the mighty peerless cucumber had turned. “I’m so sorry, Binghe,” he wept, looking down where he couldn’t turn his face away for the vice grip it was held in. “I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
Binghe slowly lightened his grip on Shen Yuan’s face, then released it entirely, drawing up his knees and wrapping his arms around them like a creature drawing into its strongest shape for protection.
After a while of silence punctuated only by Shen Yuan’s soft sniffing, Luo Binghe asked, “What happened to Shen Jiu?”
“In this world? I don’t know,” Shen Yuan admitted. “Maybe his soul was destroyed the moment mine replaced his in this body, or maybe he got sent to some other world to be an envious and traitorous fuckhead.”
Binghe gave another punched laugh, making Shen Yuan jump, and dared a glance at Binge’s face, where those demonic eyes beheld him with a calculating look. “You really hated him?”
“The worst scum villain!” Shen Yuan burst, then felt a little guilty. “Even though I learned about what had happened to him in his childhood to make him that way, what he did was unforgivable, and Binghe was too magnanimous to forgive him so easily.”
“It was for you,” Binghe replied clearly, and Shen Yuan’s gut clenched and slipped around his belly. “The kindness that Sh… that Shen Yuan showed me, the care you put into raising me…” he suddenly shot forwards into a bow, “Thank you, Shizun!”
“Don’t you dare!” Shen Yuan yelped as he shot his hands to Binghe’s shoulders, pushing him back upright. “Don’t you thank me after I deceived you all this time, Binghe! You– you really are too good, you know? You’ll get taken advantage of!”
“Shizun will protect me,” he beamed, “and even if you didn’t tell me about this strange world and gods who brought you here until now, it didn’t stop you trying your best to take care of me.”
“And save my own skin,” Shen Yuan added guiltily.
“This disciple would be lost without you, so that’s alright too,” Binghe said warmly, and shuffled on his knees a little closer. “Is this what’s been troubling Shizun lately?”
“You noticed?” Why did Shen Yuan even bother to assume Binghe would miss anything? Shen Yuan couldn’t pass gas without him noticing.
“I hoped Shizun was going to tell me in his own time, and he did,” Binghe said proudly. “This husband is honoured to know the truth of who he married.”
“Really?” Shen Yuan said blankly. “You aren’t angry?”
“This disciple knows it takes Shizun a long time to speak his feelings,” Binghe replied ever so gently, and with small, subtle movements gathered Shen Yuan into his arms. “Such a complicated matter, reincarnation and prophecy and the will of strange gods, Binghe understands why he couldn't explain this before.”
Those other two points Shen Yuan had written down at first were crumbling around him in real fucking time. As he was drawn into Luo Binghe’s arms, onto his lap, many inescapable truths came upon him. How his devotion to the original protagonist’s sexual conquests and exploits had so often oriented themselves in his imagination from the perspective of the woman he was bedding, and not of being the conqueror. How he had long ago convinced himself it was normal to find the same sex as attractive as the opposite, but he was just not supposed to act on half of those desires.
How he’d fallen in love with a strong, sensitive man that he would do anything for, and yet still tried to tell himself he wasn’t gay because he also liked women. Hello, bisexuality, anyone?
Overwhelmed by, well, everything, Shen Yuan quickly pressed his face into Binghe’s shoulder, and felt a powerful arm curling surely around his back.
“This disciple thinks he understands,” Binghe murmured softly next to Shen Yuan’s ear, “and this husband is very grateful than Shen Yuan chose to believe in him yet again.”
Shen Yuan gasped as another of those molten bolts shot through his body, and Binge was too entwined with him to miss it like this, the shudder in his lap at the use of his name. “Shen Yuan?” he tested again, and Shen Yuan made a muffled noise against him. It’d been so long since he’d heard anyone calling him by it, even Master Airplane called him cucumber bro.
Then, as if spilling liquid gold from his very lips, Luo Binge’s mouth brushed the shell of Shen Yuan’s ear and whispered, “A-Yuan?”
No good.
He moaned, a tiny, feeble thing while his face lit up like a brazier.
“B… behave,” Shen Yuan murmured. “This one is still your Shizun.”
“Aren’t you always correcting this disciple about addressing you as such?” Binghe replied, his mouth tickling Shen Yuan’s ear with every word, and this one most of all, “Husband.”
Shen Yuan’s hand locked into a fist around the collar of Binghe’s outer robe, and it was really inescapable now. He was… gay for Luo Binghe. As gay as he’d made Luo Binghe for him. They’d gotten married for fuck’s sake, could it get any gayer?
Wait, actually, it really could.
In some brilliant leap of logic that involved both the thoughts ‘stop Binghe talking anymore’ and ‘oh god I’m a real life gay’ converging in one, Shen Yuan turned his face upward hurriedly and covered Binghe’s mouth with his own. Forgetting the prim and proper restraint of Shen Qingqiu and just being, for once, the cringe Shen Yuan, he kissed Binghe like it was the admission of what he’d been denying for months, even years. That there were no extenuating circumstances or concessions being made to his disciple to bend a straight man to a queer lifestyle, just a closeted bi man finally tumbling out into the open.
It wasn’t often Shen Qingqiu initiated kisses, much less sloppy tearstained ones like this, so Binghe was startled, though not unpleasantly so. He squeezed Shen Yuan in his arms and dug his teeth into his master’s lower lip, only for Shen Yuan to tear himself away and scold, “Don’t bite, Binghe, like this,” before shoving his tongue quite entirely into the Luo Binghe’s mouth.
Luo Binghe was shocked by this and flailed in surprise, while beneath Shen Yuan a throb like an inflating tyre ran against his backside.
Being brave, or maybe just getting stupid and horny, Shen Yuan shifted in Binghe’s lap to slide his knees either side of Binghe’s waist, straddling him face to face, their mouths parting with an embarrassing wet noise. Only such a small space between their lips, slick with saliva, could accommodate something equally embarrassing, his voice small but sure as he said, “This husband wanted to be honest with Binghe for a while now, but didn’t know how to tell him.”
“This one understands,” Binghe reassured him with a nod, and explored this exciting new world of tongues by extending his own out past his mouth, which Shen Yuan met tip to tip with his own, twisting and sliding around each other while Shen Yuan squirmed in Binghe’s lap. Shen Yuan had fooled himself before by thinking things like kissing was the same for boys and girls, therefore kissing Binghe wasn’t that gay, and they’d done it with tongues before, but any time it got particularly heated he’d close up and turn away in embarrassment. It was a total self own!
So although he was still reeling, still functionally mortified by himself and this sudden admission of truth, of a lot of truth about himself, Shen Yuan didn’t pull away, and let himself have sloppy gay makeouts with his husband.
Very sloppy, actually. Binghe was a puppy drooling over the prospect of its dinner, so Shen Yuan felt his chin become wet, a trickle of saliva finding the column of his neck to slide down, but fuck it, he liked it. He’d always liked it, the grosser the better, but the deep shame of knowing that about himself had driven him to irrational places.
Binghe’s fingers wove through Shen Yuan’s long sleek hair behind his back, and he might have raised up some inches with what he was sitting on as it got bigger.
Ah, the heavenly pillar.
Only, this time, for the first time, there was no rush of guilt and denial hot on the heels of desire. No reminder in Shen Yuan’s ear to be ashamed, to be afraid of that monstrous thing going up inside him. To be humiliated at liking it.
Instead he mumbled, love drunk against his husband’s mouth, “Binghe, let’s do it.”
If it’d been possible, Shen Yuan might have been bounced up through the ceiling of the bamboo house with the force of Binghe’s cock achieving full dimensions in such a short space of time, launching him like a cartoon character skywards. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as that, but to hear his husband actually be the one to ask was an irresistible new thrill.
“You’re sure?” he asked, “It’s only been a couple of days since–”
Suddenly recapturing his poise and aloof, scholarly composure, very much the prim disapproving disciplinarian, missing only the fan he might unfurl across his face in order to look down his nose at an unruly disciple more effectively, Shen Yuan straightened his back and said, “Did I stutter?”
Shocked and more aroused than he’d imagined possible, at least while both of them were still fully clothed after only some kissing and dry humping his cock against his husband’s body, Binghe’s obedient student programming kicked in and he said with wide, dazed eyes, “No Shizun.”
“Exactly,” Shen Yuan replied authoritatively, wiping first his own mouth on the back of his hand and then dragging his fingers over Binghe’s jaw to mop up the glisten of moisture across his skin. “Then what are you waiting for?”
Binghe pounced with full permission, tackling Shen Yuan to the floor, which was of course when the system reared its ugly head again.
[Warning! Protagonist satisfaction points have exceeded the maximum limit!]
“Why is that a warning and not a congratulations?” Shen Yuan demanded.
[Protagonist satisfaction points cannot exceed the maximum limit, therefore future points earned will not be logged.]
“Fuck off,” Shen Yuan replied as he sprawled out on his back, lifting and twisting his body to help Binghe undress him without resorting to tearing his robes off. “I don’t care about your stupid points anymore, I just want to be with my man.”
A horrifying jingle suddenly blared in Shen Yuan’s head, and his vision shimmered as if glitter had exploded.
[Congratulations! CONGRATULATIONS! CONGRATULATIONS! You have unlocked the following achievements: ‘True (self) love’ and ‘no(t) bi erasure today, satan’. B- points have exceeded the maximum threshold.]
“What will it take for you to leave me alone?” Shen Yuan bemoaned, caught in a moment of respite from Binghe only because the ungulate they used for certain activities was in the bedroom and had never been permitted outside of it, until now, of course, when Binghe eagerly went to fetch it after an expressive flick of Shen Yuan’s eyes.
Even if the disciples of Qing Jing peak all knew exactly what happened in the Bamboo House, the last thing Shen Qingqiu would tolerate was any of them or visiting guests seeing lube just sitting around casually. Shen Yuan, however, didn’t care about that so much as he cared about fooling around with his man, as he’d just self proclaimed.
[Achieving max points in the two primary categories has unlocked ‘IRL’ mode.]
“And what’s that?” Shen Yuan asked.
[All points will be exchanged for complete shutdown of system interactions with the player. No further points will be awarded, return to the player’s original world will be closed and the player will proceed ‘in real life’ with the current settings from now on. Does the player want to activate IRL mode? Y/N]
“Yes! Yes!!” Shen Yuan screamed… out loud, just as Binghe had returned with the beautiful glazed pot that held such lewd contents.
“Shizun? But I’m not even touching you,” Binghe said bemusedly.
“No, it’s… the god, the god who did all this, they’re willing to leave me alone at last!” Shen Yuan told Binghe excitedly, who rushed to kneel beside him.
“It’s talking to you now?” Binghe guessed.
Shen Yuan nodded as he mentally attempted to smash the ‘Y’ option on the interface in front of him, only for a popup to shoot up.
[Warning! Enabling IRL mode cannot be undone, and the system will be unable to provide further support to the player. Are you sure you want to switch to IRL?]
“How much support have you really given me in the first damn place?” Shen Yuan accused. “Yes, yes I want IRL mode. I’ll be thrilled if I never hear from you again.”
There was a pause, and for a moment Shen Yuan could swear he thought the system was sulking.
[Very well. Good luck, Shen Yuan. It was a pleasure playing with you.]
For who? Shen Yuan had to think, but he almost felt a little bit bad getting rid of his bizarre tutorial companion at long last. It was thanks to the system he was even here after all, and that he’d survived this long.
More politely, Shen Yuan said, “Thank you, system. It’s been… well, it’s been something.”
Then of course the moment was ruined.
[How would you rate your system experience? Please fill out the following feedback survey…]
Shen Yuan quickly x-ed out of the last popup and waited miraculously for something else to follow it, but there was nothing, no one. He tempted fate by calling mentally for the system a few times, but it didn’t come running.
Kneeling beside him clutching a pot of lube with an ironically innocent expression, Binghe watched Shen Yuan’s face and asked, “Is it gone, Shizun?”
“I… think so,” he answered quietly, looking at Luo Binghe and realising the weight of what he’d done. Real life mode, huh? As it sunk in he murmured, “It’s just us now, Binghe.”
“Really?” Binghe seemed delighted, of course he did, he wouldn’t share his beloved teacher with the sun that shone on him if it could be helped. “Just A-Yuan and Binghe?”
Shen Yuan nodded, sitting up in the half removed pool of his robes, dick confused about what direction it was supposed to be going in, and reached a hand for Binghe’s face.
“This husband can be with you completely now,” he announced, and wow, that felt good. Not in a points way, that sensation was gone, hopefully forever. In a real way, in his heart.
Binghe, of course, burst into tears.
“Come, come,” Shen Yuan coaxed, sweeping his thumb under one of Binghe’s eyes and pulling him into an embrace. “It’s a good thing.”
“I know it is, that’s why this disciple is so happy,” Binghe sobbed on his shoulder. “All this time, Binghe sensed there was something about Shizun he couldn’t see, couldn’t understand, and wondered if he’d ever know what it was.” Binghe’s arms wrapped around Shen Yuan, only his inner robe hanging off one arm and draped partly across his back. But it was his heart that burst in gold and light when Binghe, wet face pressed to Shen Yuan’s collarbone wept, “It was A-Yuan all along, wasn’t it?”
Shit, now he was crying again. What pathetic gay losers they were, but for once, he felt no shame about that. The more pathetic and gay the better, actually.
“It was,” Shen Yuan confirmed, closing his eyes as tears streamed from them, looping his own slender arms around Binghe’s thick torso. Desire welled in him as they touched skin to skin, now he’d given himself permission to accept the part of his sexuality he’d run from for so long, since his teenage years when he wanted so badly to be ‘best friends’ with the biggest, toughest boy in his middle school, and convinced himself it was because someone so strong could protect him from bullies, and not because he wanted to be near him and look at him all the time.
Middle school crushes aside, Binghe was everything and more than that kid whose name Shen Yuan couldn’t even remember anymore. Best of all, Luo Binghe was Shen Yuan’s.
“Hey, weren’t we gonna fuck?” Shen Yuan remarked, and Binghe shuddered against him.
“A-Yuan, isn’t your mouth kinda dirty?” Binghe replied, but it was clear he was titillated all the same.
“Binghe would prefer I act more proper?” Shen Yuan teased, affecting his best Peak Master Shen Qingqiu disposition. “This husband is too dignified to let Binghe put it in, come back tomorrow.”
“No!” Binghe protested, and Shen Yuan cackled as he shuffled to slip his arm out of his remaining sleeve. “This husband likes it, it’s just different to how Shizun talked before.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Shen Yuan told him, reaching for Binghe’s chin to clasp and hold up in admiration. “I raised a quick and adaptable student.”
Binghe nodded eagerly, and pushed forward to kiss Shen Yuan still while having his chin gripped, more enthusiastic than ever, which was saying a lot given his historic levels of enthusiasm for his beloved Shizun.
Shen Yuan hadn’t even thought of it the way Binghe had, that he might be happy the person he loved wasn’t the same one who’d inflicted such torment on him when he was young and vulnerable. Shen Yuan had been so afraid of revealing that he hadn’t been who he said he was all this time, but really, he had been himself most of the time, he was just wearing the label of Shen Qingqiu while he did it.
Obviously Shen Jiu would’ve been a very different person, done things Shen Yuan never would’ve, so it hadn’t ever been him that Binghe had loved and fought with and for years and years, it was Shen Yuan. The Shen Qingqiu that he was today was more Shen Yuan than anything else, and now he was wholly and completely himself, freed even from the system and its infuriating ways.
All this passed through Shen Yuan’s head like the flowing of a fresh clear stream as he melted into Luo Binghe, stripping the rest of their clothes and resuming what had been interrupted until he was laid gently on his back on a bedding of his own cast off robes.
“A-Yuan’s happy,” he said simply as Binghe’s mouth graced his cheeks, neck and down to his collarbone and chest, “to be completely open with Binghe at last.”
“Not completely, Shizun,” Binghe remarked, and Shen Yuan was about to question it when Binghe’s greased fingers arrived between his cheeks. There might have been something else he was about to say, or that Shen Yuan might’ve replied, but they were both thrown off in the moment because Binghe had no sooner stroked a thick fingertip over Shen Yuan’s hole than it effortlessly slipped inside it.
“Ah!?” Shen Yuan sounded out in alarm.
“Shizun!” Binghe bolted, though he didn’t move his fingers. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, it– stop calling me Shizun when you’ve got a finger in me, for fuck’s sake,” Shen Yuan grumbled. “I’m just surprised it went in already.”
“So am I,” Binghe responded, formality also slipping from his speech the more Shen Yuan spoke like he actually thought, which was also nice, although he wasn’t going to give up his act entirely as Shen Qingqiu. He’d put a lot of work into that character! Who was going to respect a peak lord who talked like a loser who lay flat his whole life? No, this sort of thing was only for Binghe and Master Airplane, who Shen Yuan would get around to explaining to Binghe at some point or another, calling him the prophet who created the original prophecy, also at the whim of that same god or something like that.
“Did you do something different?” Shen Yuan questioned as Binghe started moving his finger again, circling the tip just inside the ring of muscle and seeming to marvel at how it gave way to him.
“No, did you?” Binghe responded.
“I don’t think so,” Shen Yuan said, then squeezed his eyes shut and shivered as Binghe’s finger pushed deeper and it was so smooth. Normally every time was a battle, an ordeal in which Shen Qingqiu’s locked tight body had to be persuaded to let Luo Binghe in, but now it was actually easy. Sure, it was only a finger, not even all of one, Binghe’s thick knuckle kissing the ring so to speak, but it was different enough they both noticed right away.
“A-Yuan’s body is a lot more relaxed,” Binghe observed, and maybe that was it. Had Shen Yuan keeping this secret from Luo Binghe and internalised gay panic been making him tense, fighting subconsciously not to be penetrated?
“It’s your imagina–aah–tion,” Shen Yuan moaned as Binghe’s knuckle slid into him with barely a stretch, and certainly without clenching down on the invasion like he usually did.
“I don’t think so, Shi… husband,” Binghe diverted. “Could A-Yuan be more receptive to this sort of thing?”
“No! I mean… maybe,” Shen Yuan fumbled, blushing furiously and throwing an arm over his face in the shame he couldn’t just dissolve with a single revelation.
Binghe cooed in disappointment, leaning over Shen Yuan as he twisted his single finger inside him a little and used his other hand to pry Shen Yuan’s arm away from his face. “Can we… kiss more? Like Shizun was instructing this disciple before?”
He was raising a monster. Shen Yuan had known that in some sense the whole time, but not like this, not a kissing monster. One who dove back over Shen Yuan’s mouth as he opened it and sought out his tongue to wrestle with as if they were two dogs playing in a field, tumbling over and around each other while Binghe’s finger pushed in and out of Shen Yuan’s body.
Covered in slobber again in no time, though it was better than his relentless biting, Shen Yuan found himself requesting, “M-more, Binghe, put another finger in already.”
“Already?” he echoed in surprise and awe. “Shizun is sure?”
“Why would I ask if I wasn’t?” Shen Yuan scolded, immediately provoking obedience from Binghe, which was to draw his hand almost out and line up another fingertip alongside the first.
Shen Yuan took a breath, expecting to feel himself clench, anticipating resistance, but then Binghe kissed him with soft, wet lips and purred, “A-Yuan will let me in, right?” and his asshole all but melted. Binghe’s two fingers dove in like synchronised swimmers as Shen Yuan let off one of his more embarrassing noises, a wobbly moan cut with gasps as he yielded unconditionally to Binghe’s intrusion.
“Binghe, ah,” he panted disconcertedly, squirming on his fingers and rolling his thighs a little further apart where they lay loose on either side of his husband. “It’s very… did you do it like this before?”
“I did, Shizun,” Binghe confirmed devotedly, unable to resist calling him Shizun given the nature of their interaction. “It’s your body that’s responding differently.”
Just then he pushed both fingers in a little deeper and they curled as they went in, crooking upwards to press against something soft within Shen Yuan’s walls, and as it happened he arched his back and let out a truly pornographic moan, too disarmed by the sensation to quiet himself.
Upon hearing that whorish wail he’d just made, the blinding flash of pleasure that’d shot through him fading away, Shen Yuan’s face turned even redder and he threw his hands over it to cover himself, stammering, “What was… wh-what was that?”
“I don’t know, was it when I did this?” Binghe questioned, repeating a part of the motion to stroke his two fingers across that area again, and this time at least Shen Yuan could muffle his scream into his hands.
“Fuck,” he groaned into the heel of his palm. He’d known, in a sort of, general knowledge kind of way, that there was a g-spot of some kind for men in their ass, and he’d felt pleasure while Binghe penetrated him before, along with the seemingly inevitable pain, but had foolishly thought it was an exaggeration. This was bottled lightning, radiating pleasure from within that made him feel moments from cumming only for the feeling to stop again as Binghe’s motion stilled.
“It feels good?” Binghe checked devotedly, and it was all Shen Yuan could do to stop himself angling his hips to drive himself down onto Binghe’s fingers for more of it.
“Y-yes… Binghe, it’s really good,” he encouraged, then screamed and arched as Binghe raked over it devilishly. “Gentle! Not so hard, Binghe, or I’ll go crazy,” he pleaded.
But then Binghe loomed back over him, those burning eyes heavy and lustful on Shen Yuan’s where he peeked out between his fingers, pouting as he said, “But what if I want Shizun to go crazy?”
He started to move rhythmically against the spot, fucking it with his fingers, and Shen Yuan buried his hands in his own hair and gasped as his hips shook uncontrollably.
It was nothing like he’d ever experienced before, and had he known it was there he might have tried harder to explore more with Binghe earlier, although perhaps it was the relaxation they spoke of that allowed Binghe to actually reach it so well this time.
“Shizun looks so beautiful like this,” Binghe told him adoringly, his own satisfaction seemingly derived entirely from wrecking his poor husband.
Shen Yuan could’ve tried to call him a demon, or accuse him of bullying his Shizun, but no sounds that would’ve made it out of his mouth would sound anything like words, so he kept his lips pressed tightly together to contain his moans as best he could. It was incredibly intense but he didn’t actually want it to stop, and when Binghe’s other hand wrapped around his hard, leaking cock it didn’t need more than a few tugs to go off.
“Fuck, fuckfuckfuck,” Shen Yuan jabbered as a powerful orgasm rocketed through him. This took them both by surprise, but Binghe didn’t stop his movements with either hand, amazed as Shen Yuan came apart in his hands so quickly, without even trying particularly hard to make him cum.
Binghe only slowed when the spend stopped squeezing from Shen Yuan’s cock, having painted himself quite thoroughly in semen, and left them both panting and awestruck by what had happened.
“A-Yuan’s really amazing,” Binghe offered in the stunned silence following such an unprecedented climatic event.
Shen Yuan ought to have scurried away with his dignity in tatters and refused to look at Binghe for the rest of the night lest he swoon with embarrassment. Or maybe Shen Qingqiu would’ve done that, but the cringemaster himself, the peeled cucumber A-Yuan didn’t want to do any of that. He wanted…
“K-keep going…” he mumbled, barely able to get it out and shutting his eyes but still saying it.
“Shizun?” Binghe questioned.
“More… you can do more,” Shen Yuan told him, “just give that particular spot a little rest for me.”
Luo Binghe couldn’t have looked more shocked if Shen Yuan had turned into an eggplant on the spot. Normally after Shen Yuan had cum, which was invariably after Binghe had finally taken his pleasure, he was exhausted and desperate for rest. Except this time he’d gone off before Binghe had even got his cock in him, on just being fingered and a squeeze of his boner. It’d be embarassing if it hadn’t felt so fucking good. If this was foreplay, what the hell had they been doing before?
“You want me to keep going?” Binghe checked one last time.
“And put in another finger,” Shen Yuan ordered, feeling he regained some strange prestige as Binghe’s eyes widened.
He didn’t check a further time, just added more grease and adjusted his hand to slip back in with another of his thick digits bunched together. It was a stretch, sure, but Shen Yuan wasn’t sure he had a bone in his body at that point, much less the strength and fortitude to resist and clench down on Binghe’s fingers as he worked them into his ass.
“The way A-Yuan’s body is taking me…” Binghe marvelled, while Shen Yuan rolled his yead back and dreamily closed his eyes, body feeling light but by no means written off.
There was little sound for a while, only the lewd squelching of Binghe’s hand entering Shen Yuan, punctuated after a while by him murmuring, “More, another one, Binghe.”
A request that was granted, only for the same refrain to be repeated when Shen Yuan was still not yet full, could be more stuffed, yet to find a point where he burned from the stretch or felt any pain, only the hunger for more.
Binghe in apologetic confusion said, “There isn’t any more, Shizun.”
Shen Yuan’s eyes snapped open, looking down at the mess of his body to see Binghe with all four fingers stuffed into him.
“Un-unless Shizun means for me to use my other hand?” Binghe suggested nervously, as if panicked he couldn’t grant this request.
“I didn’t… I didn’t realise you’d put them all,” Shen Yuan said, flushing awkwardly at his shamelessness. Clearly, there was only one thing for it, and Binghe had been waiting so patiently. “Don’t bother,” Shen Yuan said, setting his gaze upon that heavenly pillar. It wasn’t just that he was ready for it now, he wanted, couldn’t wait to feel that fat, long cock settle into him and fill him in ways Binghe’s hands just couldn’t. “Come fuck me already, Binghe.”
“A-Yuan,” Binghe gasped, and Shen Yuan’s asshole fluttered around his fingers at being called such, for no one else had the mouth to dare. Indeed, even Shen Yuan hadn’t the mouth to do it until Luo Binghe dragged him kicking and screaming out of the closet, but there was no going back in now.
Binghe didn’t need telling twice, his cock deeply flushed and weighed down with its own proportions. He slicked himself quickly but heavily, and moved between Shen Yuan’s legs with clumsy excitement.
“Now, Binghe,” Shen Yuan urged, raising his knees even higher to present himself as conveniently as possible for Binghe to penetrate in the hopes he would do it faster.
“Yes, Shizun,” Binghe replied diligently, taking his cock in one hand, his own were big enough to wrap all the way around it, which Shen Yuan’s weren’t, and bringing the tip to Shen Yuan’s hole.
There hadn’t been a time yet that this step hadn’t come with some pain, but the Shen Yuan of that moment was so out of it that he couldn’t remember the bad, only the good, the memories of Binghe being in him and wanting them again. It wasn’t anything at all like other times anyway, because when Binghe pushed the head of his cock against Shen Yuan’s entrance it slipped straight in.
For the first time since they started, Binghe let out an animalistic moan, then whined, “A-Yuan’s so warm, this… this husband can’t stop himself.”
“Don’t,” Shen Yuan demanded. “I can take it, Binghe, give me more.”
Maybe not all at once, sure, but Binghe didn’t just slam the whole thing in, thankfully. Not necessarily for care of Shen Yuan, but to savour the best penetration they’d ever managed. Before pushing deeper he moved the tip of his cock over Shen Yuan’s hole several times, testing it, fucking playing with it until Shen Yuan gave a warning, “Binghe,” and his disciple proceeded deeper.
Letting go of secrets and internalised prejudice and denial certainly did wonders, because while Shen Yuan’s body did adjust, couldn’t just swallow up that heavenly pillar as if it were nothing, it yawned and stretched around him without the burning pain of before. A stretch, yes, but satisfying, making Shen Yuan shiver and sigh as he was filled as much as he desired. He’d been taking the monster cock for months already, so it wasn’t like his body couldn’t handle it, he’d just been his own worst enemy and made it hard for both of them.
“Shizun, oh… fuck,” Binghe moaned, mimicking Shen Yuan’s curses as he slipped into his husband’s body like a hot spring. “It’s going in so well, A-Yuan’s incredible.”
Shen Yuan couldn’t speak, had no sage words or praise to give his disciple, only his body and soul, wholly.
All Shen Yuan murmured at the end of Binghe’s careful inching descent, until he pressed up against Shen Yuan’s backside, buried to the root, was a dreamy, “So full.”
Binghe’s hands settled around his hips, lifting his lower half easily, and the pressure within him was amazing, especially on that magic spot, though it wasn’t a direct assault like before.
Trained well, Binghe moved slowly at first, but the ease of the glide, and the blissed out, docile look on his Shizun’s face gave him confidence to pick up the pace, to fuck into Shen Yuan with increasing fervour.
Shen Yuan was limp as a ragdoll by this point, eyes rolled back and breathing deeply as if the shunt of Binghe’s huge cock in him was working his diaphragm manually. But rather than just pound away at it, Binghe began to change his angle of attack, raising or tilting Shen Yuan’s hips, enough that he eventually asked groggily, “What’re you doing?”
“Trying to reach… the place from before, that made Shizun feel so good,” Binghe replied with intense focus.
“Oh, try… hm,” Shen Yuan mumbled, lifting his knees even higher, almost folded in half as suddenly Binghe struck right against it, “Ah! There,” Shen Yuan signalled. It wasn’t the full depth of Binghe’s cock, not at that angle, to press up and stop where it did, but it was at least half of it, and his disciple was on a mission.
With incredible precision he fucked against Shen Yuan’s prostate, steadily at first and then harder and faster as his husband writhed and moaned on his cock. It had been good fucking his Shizun, of course it had, how could it not, but this was something else. Seeing him so wrung out, beyond care for his dignity or pride, reduced to quivering hot flesh wrapped around Luo Binghe’s massive cock. For the first time Binghe didn’t feel apologetic or sorry for his dimensions, like he was too much and his Shizun had to bear with him.
For the first time it felt just right, like only Binghe was made to stir Shen Yuan’s insides so passionately, like they were made for each other. Shen Yuan clutched his hands in the loose robes underneath him and moaned from his chest and throat, occasional wails escaping his mouth when Binghe hit him exactly right.
Shen Yuan’s cock had softened for a while there but now was heavy and hard again, swinging over himself as he curled up and over to let Binghe angle into him just right. Their eyes met, both their gazes hazy with pleasure, flushed and astounded by the sight of each other like this, of their bodies finally finding harmony after seeming always at least slightly out of tune.
That was Shen Yuan’s fault of course, not Binghe’s, but he’d made good on it at last.
“Binghe, husband, I–” Shen Yuan warned, switching one of his own hands to fist his cock and beginning to pump it as Binghe thrust into him. “I’m going to– ah, cumming,” he blurted, filth spilling from his lips as he talked through his own orgasm, shooting over himself again while Binghe fucked him through it.
“Shizun actually did it while I was still inside,” Binghe said desperately lovingly, stalling his pace as the climax subsided and allowing Shen Yuan to flatten out under him again, though still kept his pillar buried, even slid back down to the root as he crawled down over his husband to lie pressed chest to chest with him, smearing his semen between them and layering a greedy kiss over his mouth.
“It was… because Binghe was inside that I did it,” Shen Yuan panted between messy licks and bites, which he didn’t mind so much now he was two blinding orgasms deep and had forgotten who Shen Yuan even was, much less Shen Qingqiu.
Binghe shuddered and pressed his face against the side of Shen Yuan’s, his cock throbbing within the deep pit of his body.
“I’m so happy you chose to tell me this today,” Binghe said soppily against Shen Yuan’s face. “I want to marry A-Yuan all over again even more.”
Shen Yuan nodded, draping weak arms around the back of Binghe’s neck. “I feel the same way,” he affirmed gently, but his voice caught an edge again as he pressed against Luo Binghe, austere and professorly as he said, “Now, are you going to be an obedient disciple and fill me up or not?”
“Shizun!” Binghe barked, pushing up to look at Shen Yuan directly in outrage. Who said Shen Yuan was immune to the charms of a teacher kink anyway? He might try to discourage it, but only because he knew what madness and mayhem lay down that path. They’d never leave the bedroom again.
Binghe took his instruction in earnest, setting Shen Yuan’s body to accept him most freely, which was with his legs resting up over Binghe’s shoulders, and began to thrust into him powerfully, each stroke long and deep, pressing stars to the back of Shen Yuan’s eyes.
It was fucking amazing now that his body no longer fought the heavenly pillar, and a spiteful, petty part of Shen Yuan thought that none of the original’s three hundred wives would’ve been able to take it like this, to appease their husband’s appetite so thoroughly.
Luo Binghe’s stamina might be legendary, but what kind of a Shizun would be worn out by his own disciple? Shen Yuan held strong until the very end, cooing and murmured praise as Luo Binghe’s ascent reached that terrifying peak.
“A-Yuan, I’m almost…” Binghe whined, the wet slap of their skin filling the Bamboo House, perhaps the whole of Qing Jing Peak. Maybe they should’ve waited to be in Luo Binghe’s palace in the demon realm for this, or could disappear to it without having to see the other disciples after this marathon midday fuckfest.
“Do it, Binghe,” Shen Yuan urged, readying his final weapon, the ultimate hack, “Cum in this wife of yours.”
Binghe never stood a chance. The moment the word ‘wife’ touched his ears he was cumming, thick, pulsing waves rolling down his huge cock to force gush after gush of his semen into Shen Yuan, a moan like a mortally wounded beast as it struck him.
Shen Yuan grinned as it happened, his little victory as his annihilated disciple filled him to the brim. It lasted the better part of a minute, Binghe whimpering as every last drop squeezed out, and he stayed plugged in Shen Yuan for another minute longer.
“I’ll… what should I do?” Binghe asked, lost as he eased his deflating cock from Shen Yuan’s ass and saw it gape hungrily in his absence, seed spilling from him freely. “I was going to prepare lunch, but Shizun wanted to tell me something, and now we’re…”
Shen Yuan sat up, combing a sweaty palm through the sprawled wisps of his ebony hair that scattered across his face to sweep them back.
“Forget about lunch for now,” he instructed. “Draw a bath, and we’ll eat something simple after that.”
“I wanted to prepare something special for Shizun today,” Binghe mumbled as if trying to reconcile his original plan with this terrific derailing that had put a crater in their afternoon.
Looking down at himself and then back to Binghe with a wild grin, Shen Yuan said, “I think this counts, Binghe.”
At the sound of his casual speech, Binghe softened again, helping Shen Yuan settle an inner robe around himself, just something to cover his body until they made it to the bath.
“A-Yuan,” Binghe said reverently, and Shen Yuan smiled, tilting his head as he met Luo Binghe’s gaze. As it turned out, all he’d needed to do in the end was be himself, his real self, and not an idea or compromise based on fear or being thrust into a familiar yet unfamiliar world.
“Yes, love?” Shen Yuan replied, the address feeling perfect for the moment, a final syllable of a poem that brought it to a beautiful point of completion.
Binghe smiled a mile wide and threw his arms around Shen Yuan all over again.
“Don’t start that again,” Shen Yuan teased as he patted the top of Binghe’s head where it pressed against his chest. Gods, they were both filthy, cumstained and sweaty messes. “We’ll be here all day and night, go get the bath started.”
“Yes Shizun!” Binghe barked like a seal, releasing Shen Yuan and bouncing to his feet to scamper into the other room, still buck-ass naked and swinging that half-hard trunk of a dick. Shen Yuan almost couldn’t believe he’d taken it so painlessly, had cum his brains out on it and even kept going, but the proof was undeniable.
“System, are you there?” he checked one final time, feeling for the space something had once been that was now smooth and unbothered. No response came, just the peace of Qing Jing Peak, wind playing through the bamboo forests and rustling a million leaves.
“Perfect,” Shen Yuan said to himself, getting shakily to his feet and feeling an ache that was all levels of satisfying as he limped over to the room where Binghe was eagerly preparing a bath. “IRL here we go.”