“Qingqiu-shidi, in the first place, the behavior of the demon race has no logic to speak of, and moreover, Shang-shidi only just managed to escape a terrible catastrophe. Even if there are questions to ask, why not wait until he recovers a bit?”
And he appears! The god-tier summon, do-gooder, and future sect leader: Yue Qingyuan enters the battlefield!
Shang Qinghua silently began to count.
Shen Qingqiu raised his hand. “Fine, fine. Since you find my words so unpleasant to hear, I won’t say any more of them. Yue-shixiong, as you please.”
One hit.
“Our shidi from An Ding Peak descended the mountain to help handle affairs for Qing Jing Peak. Why must Shidi be so reluctant to grant him even a bit of sympathy?” asked Yue Qingyuan. “Shang-shidi, why is your coughing growing worse? Do you need me to call Qian Cao Peak’s Mu-shidi to take a look at you?”
Two hits.
Shang Qinghua shook his head at Yue Qingyuan, shedding tears of gratitude. He continued to count.
Shen Qingqiu sneered. “The twelve peaks all oversee their own duties, and each has their own expertise. An Ding Peak is supposed to do this sort of thing in the first place; why must Yue-shixiong speak like they’ve been wronged in some way? As if An Ding Peak is the only one with things to do in Cang Qiong Mountain. Besides, don’t tell me Shixiong believes they really do work hard without complaint. You think they don’t curse us out behind our backs every day?”
Three hits.
Yue Qingyuan’s expression was unerringly patient from beginning to end. He was just about to respond when Shen Qingqiu cut him off.
“Stop. Thank you for your instruction, Yue-shixiong. Qingqiu will continue to listen in the future. I’m going.”
Four hits. Combo!
Shang Qinghua knew in his bones that if these two struck up a conversation, they would inevitably part on bad terms by the fifth exchange.
After Shen Qingqiu walked away, carrying Xiu Ya, Yue Qingyuan finally turned around. “Shang-shidi, you’ve suffered a scare.”
“No, no, no…” Shang Qinghua said hurriedly.
Compared to the exhaustion and exploitation he’d suffered these past few days, a little scare was nothing at all.
But all things had a silver lining. After this incident, perhaps because the old An Ding Peak Lord wanted to console Shang Qinghua or whatever, he was promoted to an official inner disciple.
Shang Qinghua sang happily the whole way, returning to the large common dormitory to pack up his things before arriving at An Ding Peak’s highest-level dormitory, the Leisure House, to report for duty.
That’s right, you didn’t read that wrong. On An Ding Peak, the disciples who ran around here and there all their lives like exploited servant girls lived in a dormitory called the “Leisure House.”
Leisure, my ass! “Great Master” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky swore he hadn’t come up with this name with any satirical intent, but nowadays every time he saw those words, he was overcome by the incredible malice of this world.
Shang Qinghua found his own small room. Exhausted in both body and soul, he persevered and laid out his bedding, then turned around to pour himself a cup of water. But as soon as he turned back, there was another person lying on his bed.
In an utter cliché, the new teacup he had just received from the steward’s office dropped from his hands right onto his foot. His legs softened, nearly sending him falling onto his rear. “My king.”
Mobei-Jun turned to face him. He was expressionless, but his voice was cold as ice. “You’ll follow me for the rest of your life, hm?”
Shang Qinghua was going to cry in fear.
Mobei-Jun had even followed him back here. He’d never thought… No, strictly speaking it wasn’t like he’d never thought about it.
After all, Mobei-Jun had a special ability: “Mysterious Phantom: Come and Go Like a Shadow.” Shang Qinghua had thought it up in the first place so Mobei-Jun could help Bing-ge slaughter and pillage, and so he could move under the cover of darkness anywhere and at anytime.
Shang Qinghua proceeded to babble nonstop. “My king, allow me to explain. That day, as soon as I went outside, I just wanted to drink some congee and come back, but who could have known that fate was messing with me—I ran into a familiar shixiong. I was afraid he’d ask too many questions and I’d let something slip, and that he’d take people to look for you, my king, and pick a fight with you, which wouldn’t have been good. In addition, your injuries weren’t causing you serious trouble anymore, so I thought it through from different angles and decided that for my mission, I had to endure disgrace and follow them back here, from where, if I saw an opportunity, I would—”
The hand Mobei-Jun was using to prop up his temple seemed to have gotten tired, and he switched to the other. “They told you to return, and you just followed them back.”
“What else could I have done?” Shang Qinghua asked, aggrieved. “Refused to submit on pain of death? Show my hand and fight? That wouldn’t do. Aside from the fact that I can’t defeat them, the important thing is that I still have to be an undercover agent for you, my king, so how could I ruin my reputation with Cang Qiong Mountain now?”
In the midst of this wildfire burst of enthusiasm, he struck while the iron was hot. “A report for my king: I’ve already become an inner disciple. Doesn’t that demonstrate ample drive to succeed? Doesn’t that show I have a lot of potential?”
Kissing up. He was kissing up as hard as he could.
However, no matter how much it looked like he was kissing up on the surface, “Great Master” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky’s inner heart was as placid as a spring day. He had always firmly believed:
1: There’s gold when a real man kneels (yes, in that order);6
2: A real man doesn’t cry for no reason—but if he doesn’t cry at times like this, then when will he?!
These two major life principles told him that in times of great need, kissing up a bit wasn’t anything remarkable. If you thought about it another way, Mobei-Jun was a character Shang Qinghua had created, and as the author, Mobei-Jun was like his own son. For a father to concede a bit to his own son, to show a bit of love—that clearly couldn’t be called anything strange. What was that saying? “Children are the debts parents owe from their previous lives…”7
Ping-ping, pang-pang.
Shang Qinghua suffered another good beating and thereafter hugged his knees, crouching in his chair, where he adeptly fooled himself into taking this as a pyrrhic victory.
After stretching his muscles and joints, Mobei-Jun lay back down on the bed, where he sprawled out and turned his back to Shang Qinghua. He spoke in a sleepy voice, neither loud nor soft: “We’ll continue tomorrow.”
Shang Qinghua was struck silent.
Continue?!
He had an urge to scream and shout, to call down the entirety of Cang Qiong Mountain to accompany him to his death.
Of course, the reason an urge was an urge was because it could usually be checked, and because it shouldn’t actually be carried out.
Not even removing his boots, Mobei-Jun lay upon Shang Qinghua’s brand-new, not-once-slept-on bed. Shang Qinghua’s heart was as desolate as a winter wasteland.
“My king, this is Cang Qiong Mountain.”
A highly lethal pillow flew over and struck Shang Qinghua, making him grimace in pain.
Shang Qinghua picked up the pillow. He attempted tact. “My king, that is my bed.”
Mobei-Jun stuck up a finger and waved it at him. Cool and aloof, he said one word: “Mine.”
Understood.
Because Shang Qinghua’s whole person belonged to Mobei-Jun, his things also belonged to Mobei-Jun. Naturally, this included his bed.
Did the reverse also stand? At this kind of time, that one saying applied but with a twist: What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is also mine.
Shang Qinghua rolled off the chair with a huff and silently went to pick up the broken pieces of teacup at his feet. He began to hum a little tune as he did, “You’re on the bed and I’m on the ground, / I get radish husks and you eat meat by the pound…” while tidying his new room.
At least a single pillow had been kindly bestowed upon him. Before, he hadn’t even had that.
Know how to be content with your situation and you’ll always be happy. He cuddled his pillow; it was finally time to retire after a long day of service.