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Dream demons were not a common occurrence, but as a royal scion of the Northern Desert Clan, Mobei-Jun had been trained to repel their attacks all the same, like he had been trained to detect most poisons, undo most seals, disrupt most talismans and counter most spells.

“Curse… you…”

Mobei-Jun looked dispassionately at the prisoner at the center of his mind. Meng Mo himself, the Elder Dream Demon, had been extremely powerful for one of his kind. Just not powerful enough. The elaborate illusion he had begun wreathing out of Mobei-Jun’s thoughts and memories was now dissolving into colorful threads around them, leaving only a blank void.

Slowly, Mobei-Jun tightened his own demonic qi like a fist around the blurry, faceless, desperately struggling shape.

“Mercy! Mercy for my life!” An illusion sprung a few steps from Mobei-Jun, three or four lovely demonesses with wide, adoring eyes and forehead marks of various colors. “I can reveal to you the secrets of women—aaaah!” he shrieked, as the futile vision dissipated.

“Try again,” Mobei-Jun said.

This time, Linguang-Jun appeared, with a devious, evil expression. “I can reveal to you the schemes of your uncle—”

“They are known to me.” Dispersing this second illusion took a stronger effort of will. Mobei-Jun was dominating his opponent out of sheer power, but the Elder Dream Demon was far more skilled, trying frantically to unweave the trap before it closed all the way. Better to kill him now, before Mobei-Jun’s control slipped.

Meng Mo seemed to feel his deadly intention, for he tried desperately: “I can reveal to you the inner workings of your servant’s mind!”

Shang Qinghua appeared a few steps away from Mobei-Jun, frozen in a fearful, guarded attitude.

Mobei-Jun paused.

The Elder Dream Demon immediately leapt upon the opportunity. “Yes! Yes! We can go to him now! I will grant you access to all that you wish to know, in exchange for my life!”

The dream trembled like a spiderweb. The longer Mobei-Jun dithered, the more he risked Meng Mo just fleeing from his grip. He had to either crush him now or take the deal.

Dealing with dream demons was unwise, not to mention beneath him. What need had he to know the minds of others? He had flawlessly ignored the previous lure, even though he would have vastly profited from knowing his uncle’s current plans. But, try as he might, this temptation… wasn’t so easily repressed.

“Your life,” Mobei-Jun said darkly, “and your oath never to enter my mind again.”

“Yes!” the Elder Dream Demon cried in relief. “My word is binding, Young Master Mobei! This slave will never approach you again, as long as he lives!”

Mobei-Jun scowled, then released his grip. The scene, which had been tightening in a spiral around the outlined figure at its core, sprang back into shape; the dream demon filled with color, details and life again, like blood returning to a limb.

“Take me there,” Mobei-Jun ordered. “Then forever leave my sight.”

“At once, Young Master Mobei!”

The world expanded in a flare of brightness, and—

*

Mobei-Jun was in a silent, dark, featureless room.

He looked around, perplexed. Had Meng Mo played him? Poorly rendered a new illusion before fleeing? But—no, for all its emptiness, this place was… strange… in ways that could not belong to Mobei-Jun’s own mind.

He couldn’t tell what the floor was made of, for one. What an odd material, perfectly smooth and yet sticky under his boots, with a slight give. Not stone, not floorboards, not tile.

There was a narrow mattress against the wall, without a bedframe or even a mat underneath, a sure sign of poverty: yet the messy, rumpled sheets were extraordinarily finely woven, in absurdly luxurious colors.

As the only source of light came from behind him, Mobei-Jun turned around. A desk and a chair stood beneath a narrow window. The outside was dark, pockmarked with rectangular golden glows like windows, only far too many of them. It was blurry with the distance of dreams. All he could tell was that the room seemed to be a vertiginous distance from the ground.

The light came from… a peculiar thing on the desk.

It was a rectangular object made of metal, in two parts hinged together. Its upper half was glowing a bright, aggressive blue. Its bottom half was divided into flat keys, some dotted with characters Mobei-Jun could read, others he had never seen before. A… writing device?

A strange paper cup had fallen to the side, chopsticks jutting out, spilling what looked like noodle soup. The broth had crawled stickily between the keys, dripping to the floor.

Nobody was sitting in the chair.

Yet Mobei-Jun felt a strong suggestion that someone had just been there. As the blue light flickered, he thought he could almost make out a hollow shade in a human shape. A slumping figure with its head on the desk, its hand reaching for something it would never reach.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in that small room became so oppressive, so claustrophobic that he walked irrepressibly towards the door.

When Mobei-Jun opened it, light washed inside the room, so blinding he had to close his eyes for a moment. As his vision adjusted, the new landscape resolved into An Ding Peak.

He had never seen it during the day—had never stepped out of Shang Qinghua’s leisure house with its carefully screened windows. The mountain paths weaving between the buildings and greenery were incredibly busy, industrious like an anthill, hundreds of cultivators going hurriedly about their business.

Mobei-Jun foolishly stepped back, alarmed at finding himself surrounded, and walked into a bush. The doorway behind him had vanished.

Just then, a cultivator walked right past him, engrossed in some papers; the rustling noise made him look up, and he stopped to stare. Mobei-Jun stared back. It was Shang Qinghua.

“Oh shit,” he said, and turned around to yell, “Hey! Mobei-Jun is here!”

All other cultivators that Mobei-Jun could see, down the side of the mountain, on the paths, on the terraces, and even on the Rainbow Bridge in the distance, looked up together. They all had Shang Qinghua’s face.

“Mobei-Jun!” he heard. “Mobei-Jun is here! Mobei-Jun!” and then, all of them speaking in perfect unison, hundreds of voices together: “He’s going to kill us.”

Mobei-Jun was speechless.

“Okay, people, look alive!” shouted the Shang Qinghua in front of Mobei-Jun, clapping his hands a few times. “Come on, think of something! Be useful! Do you want to die? You!” he yelled at a random Shang Qinghua down the path, “figure out how to defeat the Magnolia Beetle Clan! You!” he shouted to another, “isn’t it past time we dealt with Linguang-Jun’s second concubine? She’s way too clever for her own good, let’s get her cast out of the Northern household already! And you,” he called to a third, “did you make sure to steal more medical supplies from Qian Cao Peak? Our king was off to battle the Dream Demon Clan, he might return with serious injuries!”

There was a flurry of nods and “Yes! Yes!” and other Shang Qinghuas shouting ideas and orders at each other, all of them moving more hurriedly and busily than ever. Some of them, Mobei-Jun couldn’t help but notice, just kept doing what they’d been doing before, tending to the business of the peak. But now even those were occasionally stealing wary glances at him.

And yet, nobody was rushing to attend to him the way the real Shang Qinghua always did. The sleeping mind governing this place obviously thought he was only a representation of the real Mobei-Jun, just like this place and these people represented the real Shang Qinghua—their furious activity indeed perfectly in tune with that constantly churning brain, that constantly chattering mouth.

How could Mobei-Jun hope to make sense of it any better from the inside? Getting something out of this milling crowd would be harder than getting his real servant to speak clearly. The Elder Dream Demon had played him for a fool.

Scowling, Mobei-Jun did what he always did when confronted with an impossible problem: he decided to get Shang Qinghua to solve it for him.

He grabbed the one in front of him before he could escape, pulling him roughly towards him. “You will tell me—”

“Ah!” the man cried, dropping his papers. “Don’t kill me!”

Another instantly rushed close and… began talking quickly to the trapped Shang Qinghua, instead of acknowledging Mobei-Jun. “Distract him! You know he doesn’t manhandle us that much when he’s distracted!”

Suddenly, dozens of Shang Qinghuas were converging towards their trapped brother, showering him in more advice and comments: “Circulate your qi! If you do it in advance, it helps with the bruises!” and, “He’s going to kill you!” and “I know it hurts, but stay polite, we don’t want to piss him off even more!” and “It’s not even that bad compared to what we went through as an outer sect disciple, you can take it!” and “He’s going to kill you!” and “Compliment him! Praise him! Sometimes it gets him to stop!” and “Yeah, but sometimes it makes it worse!” and “At least we’ll have more fodder for those long sleepless nights, am I right? Take one for the team!” and “He’s going to kill you!”

“Enough!” Mobei-Jun snarled, shoving his captive away, breaking up the small mob.

The liberated Shang Qinghua leaped away and all the others dispersed like a school of fish, fleeing in every direction. They were still muttering Mobei-Jun is here, Mobei-Jun! and many of them sighed again, He’s going to kill us, but they were back to ignoring him and soon disappeared in the busy flow of their peers.

More baffled than ever, Mobei-Jun tried once or twice to grab a different Shang Qinghua, but the same scene played out again: the man he caught instantly started begging for his life, and a dozen others came over to crowd him, shouting ideas for him to survive. Then, the second Mobei-Jun let him go, things went back to normal—or what passed for normal in this constant flurry of activity.

Mobei-Jun closed his eyes a moment, then reopened them.

Fine. He was doing this wrong. He must remember the lessons he had used to defeat Meng Mo in the first place.

These people were not Shang Qinghua: they were parts of his mind. Obviously the industrious parts, working to fulfill his duties to An Ding Peak and to Mobei-Jun, dropping everything to prioritize his own survival when needed. It was clear to Mobei-Jun now that he should have asked the Elder Dream Demon to guide him through Shang Qinghua’s brain, instead of just dropping him in the middle of it.

Too late for that now. He could give up, or… he could stay a little longer, try and work the problem from a different angle. A mind could be at least partially understood, especially from the inside. Surely not all of Shang Qinghua was a busy crowd? It might seem so, but… That little room from before. It had been quiet.

Mobei-Jun didn’t know how to return there, and realized he strongly disliked the idea. He could not say exactly why. The strangeness of it, perhaps. Or the sinister sense that someone had been there and now wasn’t.

Well, that room had been empty anyway. He needed someone to answer his questions.

After another moment’s reflection, he turned around and made for Shang Qinghua’s leisure house.

Going there on foot was disorienting, and it was a long while before Mobei-Jun finally found his way, testing his patience. Despite his frustration, he did not dare try to rip through the shadows in this world: he was acutely aware that anything he damaged would cause damage to the real Shang Qinghua in turn.

He hadn’t come to destroy his servant. But Shang Qinghua was hiding something from him, that much was obvious in the sheer illogicality of his actions. It would have been utterly foolish of Mobei-Jun to ignore the matter when he had come to rely so much on this person. Betrayal from this side would mean losing… everything. He simply could not take that risk.

Finally, he reached the house he knew better than his own White Sea Palace, and pushed open the door.

Like he had hoped, there was a Shang Qinghua there, one that wasn’t running around. This one was wearing only one layer of robes, hair loose on his shoulders. He was enjoying a glass of Zui Xian Peak wine, engrossed in a small book with a yellow cover.

Mobei-Jun had never seen Shang Qinghua like this—or only briefly before his king’s presence transformed the scene in one of urgent flailing, frantic bowing and placating babble. Here, his servant looked up and… simply blinked at him.

“My king?” He didn’t sound alarmed or panicked. Possibly he couldn’t experience such emotions. This was the personification of Shang Qinghua’s capacity for… leisure.

Mobei-Jun was congratulating himself on his choice of location when his servant went on: “Are you going to kill me?”

“…No,” Mobei-Jun said through gritted teeth.

“Ah, good…?” While still not worried, exactly, the Shang Qinghua of leisure seemed at a loss. Clearly, his king’s presence could not be associated with relaxation in any way.

Mobei-Jun tried for caution. “May I come in?”

“Ah, sure! Sure!” Wide-eyed, the Shang Qinghua of leisure moved a pile of blankets off the other chair. “Sit down, my king, please!” Was he faintly alarmed now? Or was that just surprise? Maybe even… eagerness?

The chair he uncovered was sturdy and strong, more suitable for a demon lord than a human guest. Mobei-Jun blinked. A moment ago, he had reflected that he had no place here, and immediately Shang Qinghua had proved him wrong. He was… not sure what to make of that.

But it could wait. His goal had been to find someone who would talk to him, and he had succeeded.

He stepped inside and sat at the little table, ignoring how the chair didn’t even groan under his weight. Shang Qinghua carefully served him some wine, then sat across from him, looking nervous and hopeful.

“I… I didn’t think my king would ever visit me here,” he said. “Does my king like the wine?”

Mobei-Jun did not touch his cup. “I have questions for you.”

The Shang Qinghua of leisure deflated. “Ah… I’m not sure I can help with that… Unless it’s about, haha, my favorite books or what I like to eat. Has my king tried asking the people outside…?”

“They are all busy.”

“Ahh, yeah, they would be.”

This Shang Qinghua’s loose robes exposed more of his skin than usual. There were yellowing bruises on his wrists, around his throat.

“You are hurt,” Mobei-Jun said without thinking—only a second before he realized the bruises were the obvious results of his own large hands.

The Shang Qinghua of leisure laughed nervously. “I’m getting better, my king! You know, having some wine, circulating my qi and… relaxing.”

His idea of relaxing was finding some time to heal himself?

“My king is so tough, of course, he doesn’t even have to think about these things! Ahh, demonic healing… Things are different for this servant.” Shang Qinghua smiled at him as if he had simply forgotten who had hurt him in the first place. “It’s really nice that my king is here. Really… unexpected.”

Mobei-Jun felt suddenly worse than he had in the strange, sinister little room.

The Shang Qinghua of leisure’s radiant expression was eerie. If he realized—if the true Shang Qinghua realized—that the real Mobei-Jun had infiltrated the small, lonely part of his mind in which he dared to relax, he would not be smiling at all.

And then he asked again: “Are you going to kill me?”

Mobei-Jun brusquely got up, spilling some of the wine.

“Oh… leaving so soon?” The Shang Qinghua of leisure looked genuinely disappointed. “I hope my king can come again? I know it’s not really his scene, but… the door’s always open…”

Mobei-Jun fled.

Outside again, he took a few deep breaths, looking around. The Shang Qinghuas of busyness were still hurrying up and down the mountain paths. Once more, they gradually became aware of his presence and began alerting each other that he was going to kill them.

For a moment, Mobei-Jun was tempted to keep fleeing, to exit the dream entirely. He would only have to focus to return to his body, to open his eyes.

Then anger rose inside him, dissipating his humiliating distress. Was that how Shang Qinghua really saw him? A bloodthirsty animal, who might destroy him on a whim, for no good reason? They had met in exceptionally violent circumstances, but that had been almost fifteen years ago, and on that day Mobei-Jun had been defending himself.

He was often… brutal with his servant, it was true—his temper whetted by Shang Qinghua’s repulsive servility, by his incomprehensible reactions, his exasperating prattle. But were Mobei-Jun’s actions really enough to justify such absolute terror? Surely Shang Qinghua wouldn’t have expected expeditive murder at the hands of a human master, no matter how foul-tempered.

Although terror wasn’t the word. The people on the mountain weren’t running from him, which would have been the reasonable thing to do. Instead, they were just giving each other advice to survive Mobei-Jun’s presence. Trying to find solutions. This was An Ding Peak, Mobei-Jun suddenly realized: those weren’t just the Shang Qinghuas of busyness. They were the Shang Qinghuas of logistics.

Shang Qinghua was not just baselessly afraid that Mobei-Jun was going to kill him. He was treating it as an inevitable fact of life, something he could not escape or avoid. Something to include in his daily plans, hopefully to be worked around.

Even in his moments of leisure, the possibility never left his mind.

And yet… the Shang Qinghua of leisure had been astonished, yet pleased to see his king. He had made room for him. He had been disappointed to see him go.

Mobei-Jun was getting a headache.

Where to go now? Who could help him make sense of this? Neither the Shang Qinghuas of logistics nor of leisure would be any use. He needed a Shang Qinghua of… knowledge.

Was there not a library on An Ding Peak?

*

It took him a long time to find the building; his one misguided attempt to ask one of the Shang Qinghuas of logistics was a resounding failure, once again. Were they giving him more surreptitious looks than before? He knew that a dreaming mind, even completely untrained, would eventually spot and reject an intruder.

Finally, he arrived at the An Ding Peak Library, a building whose shelves were stacked with scrolls and books. Nothing precious like in the famed archives of Qing Jing Peak, or in the Ice Palace’s own library. This place was rather like another warehouse, practical and open, full of reports and accounting books. A great many Shang Qinghuas were wandering the place, filing documents and mumbling at each other.

“My king?” one of them said, spotting him. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” Mobei-Jun snapped.

“Ahh, you’re to be filed on the second floor anyway,” the Shang Qinghua replied cryptically, before wandering off.

Mobei-Jun blinked, then looked around until he spotted a steep set of stairs. They creaked dangerously under his weight, and the second floor turned out to be a long narrow hallway with a slanted ceiling, dotted with low doors. Attic storage rooms.

Gritting his teeth, almost bent in half, Mobei-Jun made his uncomfortable way forward and opened the first door.

It was a sweltering summer day. Shang Qinghua was there. Mobei-Jun was there, too—a much younger version of him, disheveled and bleeding, collapsed in the dirt. Around them lay the bodies of An Ding disciples. The ice freezing the wheels of the cart crackled gently in the warm sun.

Their first meeting.

The teenaged Shang Qinghua was holding a rock over the unconscious Mobei-Jun’s head.

“I—I can kill him? I really can?” He was trembling in every limb. “That’s allowed? What do you mean, that’s allowed! It shouldn’t be allowed! What the fuck!”

Mobei-Jun had always wondered why Shang Qinghua hadn’t killed him that day. He had concluded in disgust that the man was simply too much of a coward to attack even a defenseless enemy. That the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

Now the heavy rock in Shang Qinghua’s hand was proving him very wrong.

“Do it,” Shang Qinghua breathed to himself. “Just do it. He’s going to kill you. You can save yourself now. Do it. He won’t even know.”

His grip tightened on the rock. He took a sharp breath, held it higher. Mobei-Jun instinctively braced himself. He knew only too well there could be no murder; yet in this moment, he couldn’t fathom a different ending to the scene. Shang Qinghua was obviously about to—

The disciple dropped the rock, which rolled away in the dirt. He turned around and was violently sick on the side of the road.

When he was done, trembling, drenched in sweat, he wiped his mouth and looked at the unconscious demon on the ground. His expression was changing, exhaustion chasing the wild emotions off his face.

“Ah, fuck me,” he rasped.

His trembling hand came over the young Mobei-Jun’s face and brushed away a strand of hair stuck with dirt and blood. The gesture was so unexpected, so casually intimate, that Mobei-Jun felt his gut clench.

“It’s really you,” Shang Qinghua said hoarsely. “How could I ever hurt you, huh? It’s not fair.” Tears were rolling down his face. “It’s not fair.”

After another moment, he got up and went to work, breaking the ice around the cart’s wheels, soothing the mule, throwing out most of the goods, then bending down and inexpertly lifting Mobei-Jun’s younger self to hide him under piles of books. Undignified, yet efficient: that was definitely Shang Qinghua.

As the cart headed for the nearest city, Mobei-Jun let the door close, taking several steps back until he hit the wall behind him.

He… understood even less than before.

What had stayed Shang Qinghua’s hand?

What on earth had he meant by It’s really you?

At a complete loss, Mobei-Jun moved on and opened the next door. His younger self was lying on a bed, in an overheated room; Shang Qinghua was busy extracting the dart in his side. It was bloody, messy work, and he was swearing a lot. It took a long time, and when the weapon finally came out, it was hissing with heat and spiritual power, whirring with a life of its own, still attempting to burrow inside living flesh.

Mobei-Jun had never realized just how close he had come to death that day. Or in how many ways.

He moved to the third door. Shang Qinghua, horrified to find Mobei-Jun waiting for him back at the sect, was renewing his panicked pledges of loyalty in exchange for his life. Since he was so afraid, why not ask Mobei-Jun to leave him alone, arguing that this demon owed him a life debt?

Once again, Mobei-Jun had asked himself that question before. And once again, he had assumed all this time that the possibility simply hadn’t occurred to Shang Qinghua. That he had never imagined demons capable of honor, that he had attempted to handle Mobei-Jun like a wild animal from the start.

But if that were true, why not just leave him by the side of the road? 

How could Mobei-Jun watch all these memories from Shang Qinghua’s perspective, and still not make any sense of them?

He opened more doors, closed them, moved further along the corridor, growing more and more frustrated. He knew this story. He had lived through it! Shang Qinghua rose in the ranks of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect and unfailingly put all his resources and power at Mobei-Jun’s service. Shang Qinghua got him closer and closer to the once impossibly distant Northern Desert throne, neatly eliminating plots and enemies, paving the way for him.

Why? Why? Why?

It would have been so easy to set countless traps for Mobei-Jun, either in the Demon Realm or at the sect. Mobei-Jun had expected it, and now he rifled through years of memories looking for evidence of at least one aborted plan, one attempt at betrayal.

All he found was more proof of his own brutality, every time more grating to watch.

He looked so… foolish, throwing his servant around. A man who couldn’t, wouldn’t defend himself. A man who begged and pleaded and cried, but never made use of his constantly growing power over his own master.

This whole time, Mobei-Jun had been trying to get Shang Qinghua to make sense, but neither his exasperated questions nor his pointless beatings had ever yielded any results. His exploration of his servant’s sleeping mind was proving equally frustrating. Shang Qinghua was plotting neither his master’s demise, nor his own escape from this self-inflicted hell. He healed himself, mumbled insults or complaints, and wearily went back to work. His misery was increasingly obvious, increasingly unbearable to witness.

With a snarl of rage, Mobei-Jun gave up on the last doors—he was wasting his time here, and he was approaching the end of the corridor anyway, catching up to the present moment. Furiously, he turned around and made his way back, hating this cramped attic with that low ceiling bending his shoulders, hating everything that he had heard and seen.

And then, as he reached the stairs, he froze.

Upon getting to this second floor, he had opened the first door on the right, and made his way down from there. But there was also a door on the left.

One single door.

How could this be? Had they… met before what Mobei-Jun had always imagined was their first meeting?

It’s really you.

His heart started hammering in his chest. There was a possibility. A physical possibility, in any case. Mobei-Jun’s uncle had stranded him in the Human Realm when he was four. He had been captured by Huan Hua Palace, held in the Water Prison.

Could Shang Qinghua have been there…?

It was impossible. He would have been four or five years old himself, nowhere near a Great Sect, let alone one he wouldn’t even join later. Mobei-Jun didn’t know much about his servant’s past, but he had gathered that the man was from a poor family; not one of the privileged disciples who had cultivated since toddlerhood and entered Cang Qiong Mountain Sect as a favor to their wealthy, influential parents. The both of them could not have met before that fateful day on the road.

And yet…

Holding his breath, Mobei-Jun reached out and opened the door.

*

It was not Huan Hua Palace.

It was the strange, bare little room again.

But this time, Shang Qinghua was at the desk. He seemed to be around twenty years old. Certainly not four. Definitely older than he had been, holding that rock over Mobei-Jun’s head.

Mobei-Jun himself was nowhere to be seen, of course. He had never been to that unnerving place. He still didn’t understand what it was. So how was he connected to this memory?

Shang Qinghua was bent over the strange rectangle of metal, his fingers moving quickly, with a peculiar clicking noise. The upper part of the device was no longer glowing blue, but glaring white. Lines of text appeared as he hit the keys.

Mobei-Jun stepped into the room for a closer look—

Shang Qinghua startled around and slammed the device shut.

“My king?!”

Mobei-Jun froze.

Shang Qinghua gaped at him. His clothes were… beyond strange. Trousers of rough blue cloth, a soft, thick and shapeless sort of shirt with a hood. No robes. His hair was cut short.

“What are you doing here? How…?” Shang Qinghua looked him up and down, frowning. Then his eyes went wide. “Wait, are you actually here? You can’t be here!”

An unstoppable force shoved Mobei-Jun backwards, out of the room, against the hallway wall and—through the elderly boards: before he could quite understand what was happening, he was outside, falling, landing hard in the bushes and rolling down the mountain slope, pieces of broken wood bouncing around him.

When he finally managed to sit up, disoriented, a thousand Shang Qinghuas were converging on him.

Some were running, some flying on their sword, some absurdly riding horses. Shang Qinghua’s sleeping mind had definitely identified his presence now, and the efficient Shang Qinghuas of logistics seemed determined to mob him to death.

Mobei-Jun got up and ran away through the greenery. He could have opened a portal, but he still didn’t want to risk using his powers inside his servant’s mind. He did not want to exit the dream either, not yet. He refused to leave this place with even less understanding than before. There had to be something else he could find, an explanation, a solution…

He dodged and weaved away from his pursuers, but they were getting inevitably closer, simply too numerous for him to evade. Eventually, he spotted a service tunnel—the mountain was full of them, which, according to Shang Qinghua, was “both a logistical heaven and a security nightmare”. Of course his thorough mindscape would include them.

“No! Don’t go in there!” one of the Shang Qinghuas wailed behind him.

Mobei-Jun’s heart jumped in his chest.

The Abyss!

Miles under the mountain, the Endless Abyss gaped like a waiting mouth. Shang Qinghua knew it.

What would such a place represent in his mind? If Mobei-Jun headed underground, as deep underground as he could, what would happen?

What would he find, buried there?

“No! No! Come back!”

He ran into the dark, letting his abyssal sense guide him ever deeper. His pursuers were calling desperately behind him, begging him to return, which only spurred him on. They were losing ground, stopping to light torches, getting in each other's way.

Those were not service tunnels as they should have been. There were no carts, no signs, no people. The galleries weren’t going through the mountain. They were only getting deeper. And one by one, they were all flowing together, like streams gathering into a river, rushing towards the ocean.

Eventually Mobei-Jun found himself walking down a single tunnel, so steep he skidded and stumbled, catching himself on the damp, irregular walls.

At the bottom was another door.

It was made of glass, imperfectly transparent, as if covered in frost. All Mobei-Jun could see of the other side was light: a white glare stained with greyish, blurry shadows unrolling in fluid lines, then disappearing all at once.

Did it perhaps look like… more writing?

When Mobei-Jun touched the door, something inside chimed.

His blood pounding in his head now, he looked for the handle, and—did not find it. There wasn’t one. Frowning, he ran his hands over the glass again, looking for a groove, then lay his palms flat against it and attempted to slide it aside. Nothing worked.

What was worse, he now realized the glass disappeared smoothly under the stone at the edges, as if this was no door at all but the exposed side of a large… structure… caged inside the mountain, like a pearl trapped in layers of rock.

How was he supposed to enter this place? Did he dare break the glass?

“My king.”

He froze. Then he turned around.

The Shang Qinghuas of logistics couldn’t have caught up to him so quickly. And this one wore An Ding robes, but had short hair, like the one in the bare little room.

The sleeping mind had awoken.

Shang Qinghua, the real Shang Qinghua, didn’t look afraid, nervous, or servile. He looked… unreadable.

“That door won’t open,” he said. “Not for you.”

“Open it,” Mobei-Jun ordered.

Shang Qinghua snorted at him. Then he shook his head.

The darkness swallowed them both, like one of Mobei-Jun’s portals surging for them, and resolved itself into a sunny meadow. Mobei-Jun stumbled, whirled around, eyes wide. They were at the very top of An Ding Peak, under the clouds. The cultivators below tended vaguely to their business, ignoring them.

Mobei-Jun turned to Shang Qinghua again. “How did you do this?”

“It’s my mind,” Shang Qinghua pointed out.

“It takes decades of experience for such control over one’s dreamscape!” Mobei-Jun himself, with all his defensive training, had only been able to dissolve Meng Mo’s illusions, not create new ones. Keeping his body asleep despite the lucidity of his mind was a constant strain. Now that Shang Qinghua was awake, their surroundings should have fallen apart.

This… was most definitely not the case.

“Ah, does it? I guess I’m a natural.”

Another lie. He must have been preparing in secret. Expecting this invasion. He had been laughing at Mobei-Jun’s attempts all this time!

Snarling in frustration, Mobei-Jun resigned himself to a humiliating defeat, on this field at least. But as soon as he was awake, he would open a portal to Shang Qinghua’s house, drag him out of bed and—

“Hm? Did my king try to go somewhere just now?” Shang Qinghua said mildly.

Mobei-Jun gaped at him.

He… could not wake up.

This was beyond what even Meng Mo could do. And Shang Qinghua was still uncharacteristically… calm. Never before had he looked so directly at him, with such a steady gaze.

“My king would just leave like that?” he asked. “And after working so hard to come in here, too.”

Mobei-Jun had good instincts for danger. It was the main reason he had survived all these years. He tried again to exit the dream, putting all his considerable power into it. Again, he failed.

Shang Qinghua was watching him.

Mobei-Jun tried to open a portal; to summon a spear of ice; to wreathe himself in shadows. Absolutely nothing happened.

He looked at Shang Qinghua again. Somehow, he had found himself at his servant’s complete and utter mercy. Someone with such flawless control over the mindscape could kill him in any way he chose. Freeze his lungs, stop his heart. Set him on fire, drown him, make him live through any number of tortures.

His fear must have been obvious on his face, because Shang Qinghua… winced.

“Ahh, don’t look at me like that…”

The sense of danger lifted so abruptly Mobei-Jun almost lost his footing on the grass.

He heard, with incredible clarity, the sound of a rock falling from a disciple’s hand.

Shang Qinghua was rubbing his face now. “Do you have any idea what you’ve almost done?” he mumbled. “Of course you don’t.” He dropped his hand. “Invading my dreams? Seriously? What, did Meng Mo give you a ride or something?”

His blood still thrumming, Mobei-Jun didn’t even ask how Shang Qinghua knew about the Elder Dream Demon. They were well past such questions.

“Was it not enough to have power over this servant’s life? Did you really need his mind as well?” Shang Qinghua looked… tired. “That’s low even for you.”

Mobei-Jun said nothing. The ugly, twisting feeling in his gut had returned. He was thinking of the Shang Qinghua of leisure, his hesitant hope that he would be back. And the many, many, many memories of his servant suffering at his hands.

The Elder Dream Demon had tempted him with access to Shang Qinghua’s mind, and Mobei-Jun had crassly given in, after refusing to outrage even Linguang-Jun in such a way.

“Can we just… pretend this didn’t happen?” Shang Qinghua was saying wearily. “I’ll… ignore what you did… or I’ll try… and you won’t punish me for scaring you just now. Ahh, it was petty, I’ll admit that. But I’m just… so fucking pissed at you. Do you really have to be so—” He rubbed his face again. “I’m talking too much. Can we do that? Never mention it again?”

Silence.

“Okay, I’ll… let you wake up now,” Shang Qinghua said uncertainly. “Please don’t kill me.”

Everything inside Mobei-Jun snapped.

“Do not,” he barked.

Shang Qinghua jumped fearfully. “Ah? What?”

“I am ordering you to keep me here! Do not let me wake up! I forbid you to let me wake up!”

“M-my king?”

“I am in your power? Very well!” Mobei-Jun snarled, pacing like a tiger. “If that is the price to pay, I will pay it!”

“My king, what—”

“Ignore it? Pretend it never happened?” Mobei-Jun wanted to rip this world apart with his bare hands, down to the last blade of perfectly rendered grass. “Are you trying to drive me mad?”

“My king, I’m just trying to stay alive—"

“Why are you so convinced I will kill you?” Mobei-Jun roared.

Shang Qinghua fell silent.

“I have been everywhere! I have searched all I could! I have been—I have been—” He gasped for air, “—confronted with all the ways I have brutalized you… And even that was not enough to explain your fear of me!”

He started pacing again.

“Why did you never kill me? Even now, you choose to spare me! To put yourself in my power again! After I violated you so deeply!” He couldn’t remember the last time he had shouted in such an undignified fashion. “Have I gone this far, have I acted so shamefully, for nothing?”

Shang Qinghua was staring at him as if he had never seen him before.

With an effort, Mobei-Jun mastered himself. He was trembling, with rage, with confusion, with the remnants of that terrible fear. “There is a secret,” he challenged. “I have seen it. I was so close. You are keeping a secret from me.”

“…Yes.”

“Even now, you will not tell me.”

Shang Qinghua looked exhausted. “My king, I… cannot tell you.”

Mobei-Jun frowned.

“Cannot?” he repeated.

“At this point, I fucking wish I could. Ha, I wonder how you’d react, actually.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, I have to give you something… Okay, can you just… accept… that I’m under a curse? Yeah, that works. Let’s go with that.”

Mobei-Jun thought furiously as he regained control over his breathing. Eventually, he asked: “A curse that compels you to spare my life?”

Shang Qinghua laughed, not kindly. “No. Holy shit, are you really that—”

“A curse that compels me to kill you?”

The mountain became unnaturally silent.

All the cultivators down the slopes froze into place. The birds stilled in the sky. The insects quieted down. Even the wind stopped rustling through the grass. Shang Qinghua was staring at him wide-eyed.

“A curse that compels me to kill you,” Mobei-Jun repeated in wonderment.

If they had been in his own mind, the sun would have pierced through the clouds.

Finally.

“My king, don’t…” Shang Qinghua said, slowly, as if trying to tame a savage beast. “Careful now, we shouldn’t—”

“You knew. From the moment we met, you knew I was destined to kill you.” Mobei-Jun thought of the bare room again, that strange Shang Qinghua turning around to look at him. “Perhaps even… before that moment?”

“Fuck, I shouldn’t have made you—ahh, I mean, my king is too clever! Too clever!” Shang Qinghua flailed. “He needs to stop before he kills us both! Don’t make me mute you, ‘cause I will! I still control this world! Or—I’ll make you wake up! Holy shit, why am I not making you wake up?”

“Because I will just come to you at once and finish this conversation—”

“My king, just let it go!” Shang Qinghua wailed. “It’s not safe for me! I can’t talk about this!”

“Then kill me!” Mobei-Jun shouted at him. “You could destroy me with a thought! Why don’t you do it?”

“I don’t want to kill you!” Shang Qinghua screamed. “You infuriating, boneheaded, impossible bastard! Why are you making it so fucking hard for me?”

“I do not want to kill you either!” Mobei-Jun screamed back. “Why would I? You have been unfailingly loyal! Absurdly patient! Unbelievably useful! I know—” He faltered again, “I know I have tormented you. But you…” He took a harsh breath. “You have tormented me!”

Silence returned, though the sounds of nature were timidly rising again.

“That’s, uh…” Shang Qinghua scowled at his own rising tears, blinking them away. “That really didn’t give you the right to kick me around so much, my king.”

Mobei-Jun had nothing to say to that.

He wrestled with a dozen questions to which he probably couldn’t get answers. Eventually, he asked: “Does Shang Qinghua wish to be… released from this lord’s service?”

Shang Qinghua gaped at him.

“If this lord is dangerous to him,” Mobei-Jun went on, with difficulty, “we can… go our separate ways.”

Even as he said it, his heart sank. Shang Qinghua had become indispensable to him. He had saved his life countless times, directly or indirectly; and Mobei-Jun knew that Shang Qinghua was the only reason he was about to become king. Beyond that, he could not… fathom what his life would look like without his servant there. He was present in every part of it.

Shang Qinghua huffed shakily. “Ahh… I should… say yes, shouldn’t I…? But no, that’s exactly the kind of poetic bullshit that… It’d just happen anyway somehow… Like a genie granting wishes wrong…” He looked down. “My king, I… I’ve sworn to follow you all my life.”

“I release you from that promise,” Mobei-Jun said instantly.

Shang Qinghua kept staring at the grass when he admitted: “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Why?”

“Do you not know the answer?” Shang Qinghua said bitterly. “Have you not seen enough? I know that wasn’t behind a glass door.”

Again, Mobei-Jun felt something twist inside him.

That hand brushing his cheek, from the very first moment. From before the first.

The Shang Qinghua of leisure, shocked and thrilled at his presence, hurrying to make room for him. Asking him to come again.

“I… am not certain,” he said.

A slight breeze rose over the peak.

“If Qinghua allows me to wake up… I can perhaps endeavor… to find out,” he managed.

Shang Qinghua looked up at him.

Then he laughed, wetly. “My king, you’re one of a kind. Ahh, you are so much worse… and so much better… than I could’ve ever imagined.”

The world began to dissolve around them. Mobei-Jun felt as though he was ascending through warm water, rising to the surface. Despite the evidence of his own senses, the sheer physical relief of it, he couldn’t believe Shang Qinghua really was releasing him.

“Wake up,” his servant breathed in his ear, and the next moment Mobei-Jun’s eyes fluttered open to the solidity of the waking world.

*

He waited for the day to pass before opening a portal to Shang Qinghua’s leisure house.

His servant was not yet home, the sun only beginning to kiss the horizon. In the fading light, Mobei-Jun walked around the room, examined the chairs. No, of course the sturdy seat was nowhere to be found. It did not exist here. But Shang Qinghua often complained aloud about the difficulties of requesting custom-made furniture, even for peak lords.

When Shang Qinghua arrived, he froze on the threshold.

He was dressed for a day’s work, his hair gathered up in a practical topknot with a plain wooden ornament. Nobody would have looked at him twice in a crowd. Nobody could have imagined him with oddly short hair, with oddly cut clothes.

Mobei-Jun burned with the need to know the truth. He had meditated on that glass door. He had heard again that strange chime, attempted to read the characters writing themselves in the blankness. But he could make nothing, nothing of it.

Shang Qinghua closed the door behind him. More than anything else, he looked… uncertain.

“My king.”

Mobei-Jun realized that Shang Qinghua held onto the hope that his dream had been only a dream. That he had merely imagined the invasion of his mind, the plundering of his secrets.

“Has… my king… come to consult me over the Magnolia Beetle Clan?” Shang Qinghua said hesitantly. Faced with silence, he kept going, more eagerly, “This servant has thought the problem over. And, ahh, he has come up with a solution, maybe? You see, there exists a certain flower in the southern jungles—”

“Qinghua.”

Shang Qinghua stopped.

“This lord has another urgent matter for your attention.”

“Ahh…? Of course, my king, what else can I do for…?”

“My servant is cursed.”

Shang Qinghua went very still.

“He has been cursed for a long time,” Mobei-Jun said. “For a long time, he has been alone, trapped, and afraid.”

Tears sprang in Shang Qinghua’s eyes; he put his hand over his mouth.

“This lord would beg for assistance in breaking his servant’s curse.”

Shang Qinghua swallowed a few times before he answered: “M-my king, I can’t.”

“This lord cannot accept such a fate for his deserving servant,” Mobei-Jun insisted. “Something must be done.”

Shang Qinghua shook his head.

Mobei-Jun stepped closer to him, so slowly, so cautiously that Shang Qinghua nearly didn’t flinch.

“This lord has discovered this through ugly and shameful means,” he said quietly. “He has been… careless with his servant’s life.”

Shang Qinghua blinked rapidly to keep his tears from spilling over.

“Is this… the reason for your refusal?” Mobei-Jun asked, with difficulty. “Does this lord not… deserve… to be appraised of his servant’s efforts in this matter?”

Shang Qinghua evidently found it hard to speak as well. “This servant… this…” He swallowed convulsively again. “This servant… resents… what my king has done…”

Mobei-Jun’s gut twisted again.

“That is understandable,” he forced himself to say.

“…but this servant is… incredibly grateful… and really weirded out… that my king would preoccupy himself with… his… curse.”

“So how can it be lifted?” Mobei-Jun prompted. “That glass door...”

Instantly, Shang Qinghua shook his head. “My king cannot open that door. His servant cannot open it for him.” He sounded as frustrated as Mobei-Jun felt. “All we can do is wait for it to open by itself.”

Mobei-Jun blinked. “Will that happen?”

“I don’t know! My king, I don’t know. Please, please, don’t ask me too many questions. I’ve been working at it, but…”

“So there is a way?”

Shang Qinghua froze guiltily.

“Qinghua must tell this lord what support he can provide. Qinghua must ask this lord for any boon he can give.” After a moment’s reflection, Mobei-Jun added, “And Qinghua needs not offer… explanations that might compromise his safety. This lord will act blindly on his advice.”

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua said, briefly screwing his eyes shut. “How is this happening.” Trying for steadiness, he answered: “Yes, of course, I’ll… let you know… if there’s anything you can do to help. Thank you, my king, this is… incredibly… thoughtful and generous of you.”

Then, quickly, he added:

“But assisting my king in his ascension is an honor that takes full precedence for this servant.”

For a moment Mobei-Jun was ready to dismiss those well-worn words as empty of real meaning. But then he thought twice, with a slight shock. Was this also Shang Qinghua talking around the curse? Was he trying to explain that Mobei-Jun’s rise to power might favor his own rise to freedom?

Slowly, he said, “In that case, this lord will be troubling Qinghua for advice once more.”

Shang Qinghua nodded eagerly. “This servant wants only to follow his king for the rest of his life.”

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun whispered. “So he has said many times before.”

He was feeling dizzy with the scope of his ignorance. What power could have possibly bound Shang Qinghua’s fate to his own in such a way? What was the secret so eldritch, so unfathomable it would be represented by the Eternal Abyss in his sleeping mind? Or rather by that sphere of uncannily smooth glass encased in the earth, humming at the core of the world.

Knowing that there was a mystery, that Mobei-Jun’s instincts had not been misleading him all this time, did nothing to dissipate his frustration—since he was not allowed to know what this curse even involved, how it might be enforced. The thought of being compelled to kill Shang Qinghua was… terrifying.

It had to be terrifying to Shang Qinghua as well.

So much coded speech, so many mysteries. Suddenly Mobei-Jun was desperate to say something direct, something true.

“I will not lay a finger on you ever again.”

Shang Qinghua stared at him with stunned eyes.

“I will do all that is in my power not to kill you.”

A sob broke out of Shang Qinghua’s throat, shocking them both.

It was followed by another, and another. He could not contain them, despite his efforts, and after a while Mobei-Jun could not bear to stand there any longer, stepping forward to put a clawed hand on his shoulder. His servant grabbed the front of his robes—he had done so many times before, begging for his life. This time he simply wept.

Mobei-Jun let him.

Finally, Shang Qinghua caught his breath, wiping at his eyes. “Ahh, fuck—sorry, my king, sorry. This… this servant is just… Sorry.”

Mobei-Jun stayed silent. He was thinking about Shang Qinghua’s impossible mastery over his own dreaming mind. He was thinking about Shang Qinghua’s wealth of mysterious knowledge. He was thinking about Shang Qinghua’s words over his unconscious body, on the day of their meeting.

It’s really you.

Were the answers to all those questions behind the glass door? He could only hope Shang Qinghua would be able to tell him one day. He could only hope that the door really would open.

They must both live to see that moment.

Shang Qinghua still had a hand over Mobei-Jun’s chest as he gathered himself together. They had never been so close without him cringing in fear, not even the numerous times he had bandaged Mobei-Jun’s wounds. This proximity was unexpectedly dizzying, like wine.

He did flinch when Mobei-Jun grabbed his chin, but out of surprise more than anything else.

“Do not fear me again.”

Shang Qinghua huffed, shakily. “T-tall order, my king.” He swallowed again. “Ahh, but… my king has just promised so many sweet things, this servant cannot really fear him anymore, can he…?”

“This Mobei-Jun will endeavor to keep his promises.”

“Really?” There was an almost challenging glint in Shang Qinghua’s eye. “Then this servant will… endeavor to give satisfaction.”

“Mn.” Mobei-Jun released him.

Shang Qinghua immediately put some distance between them again. Mobei-Jun could not resent him for it. He was not so shamefully obtuse as that.

“Qinghua needs some rest. Tomorrow, this lord will return to discuss the Magnolia Beetle Clan.”

“Of course, my king.” Shang Qinghua did sound exhausted. The promise of normalcy, however fragile, was clearly appealing to him.

“And he will share the… other results of his confrontation with the Dream Demon Clan.”

“Hah. Of course, my king.”

Mobei-Jun turned around and wreathed his hand in shadow, preparing to leave. He too felt drained by this conversation, in need of solitude to mull it over. But, just before opening a portal, he stopped.

He could not put Shang Qinghua’s safety at risk again, certainly not so soon after promising to do all he could not to harm him, and… and yet…

Shang Qinghua knew him well. “My king has one last question.” After a silence, he offered: “Let my king ask, although… this servant might… prove unable to answer? I know this isn’t satisfactory…”

“That room,” Mobei-Jun blurted out, turning around.

Shang Qinghua blinked at him.

“That strange room high above ground, with the writing device.”

Now Shang Qinghua’s eyes were wide.

“I can’t… fuck, my king, I can’t believe you saw that, I… I really can’t tell you what… what it is, or…”

“Fine,” Mobei-Jun snapped. “That is… fine. But is there… Will you…”

He suddenly realized what he wanted most desperately to ask.

“Will Qinghua ever return to that place?”

Shang Qinghua stared at him for several silent seconds. Then he said, in a strange voice: “No, my king.”

“No?”

“I can never go back, my king.”

Mobei-Jun exhaled in relief. “Good.”