Author's note: Hi! This is a cross-post of a 27 chapter story with the same name and username over at the AO3. That version has more details on the content/possible triggers etc, and is more likely to stay up to date if I add edits in the future.
Shi Qingxuan smiled cheerfully over the bubbling pot of soup. "Hi," they said, with a friendly tilt of their head in lieu of a wave. "I don't think I've seen you around the temple before."
The old man didn't reply. Well, if he was here he was probably having a bad day. "Lucky you, coming on Soup Night!" added Shi Qingxuan, not letting their smile waver.
Soup Night was a movable feast that happened whenever the cook, Ning Mo, could muster up enough ingredients, and predated Shi Qingxuan joining the ever-shifting collection of beggars who stayed here in the temple. Originally Ning Mo had demanded money or favours in return for a bowl: he'd been an ambitious young chef before acquiring the dramatic burn that had damaged the side of his face and lost him his job, and his business-like instincts had remained unaltered despite the change in circumstances. But Shi Qingxuan had negotiated a deal where Ning Mo gave away the soup for free in exchange for help with the cooking and a cut of whatever money or food Shi Qingxuan could wrangle for a week or so after each Soup Night.
Tonight's meal came courtesy of the Shen family, who were praying for their daughter to successfully become an Imperial concubine, and were hoping a little help to the needy might increase their stock with the heavens. Apparently the Shens donated generously any time they wanted something from the gods, though that generosity came with the expectation that its recipients would donate their time to praying to the relevant god in return. Shi Qingxuan had frowned on this sort of behaviour as a god, but as a hungry beggar could only wish this form of piety was more wide spread. And more spread out- apparently during the prefectural exams the temple inhabitants had been forced to throw out some of the more perishable donations, while for most of the year they subsisted on gruel that was more like water lightly seasoned with rice.
The old man glared and held out his bowl. Ning Mo still charged money for those, but this guy seemed to have brought his own, the glaze so dark it was like looking into a mirror, except where chips in the glaze revealed the white clay beneath.
"Fresh water's out in the courtyard," continued Shi Qingxuan, pointing with the ladle, "and slop buckets are over there. Don't get them mixed up haha! People can get a little territorial about sleeping spots, so if you want to-"
"Just give me some soup."
You won't last long here with that attitude, thought Shi Qingxuan, but some lessons had to be learned the hard way.
Shi Qingxuan had a sudden memory of standing here with Ming Yi a few decades ago, when the temple was new, and clean, and the fountain had a statue of them and their brother in the centre, instead of a pile of dirty washcloths. They had proudly admired their many worshippers, all in their best finery and on their best behaviour, and felt honoured to be the focus of so much respect and devotion. Ming Yi had said they were only 'devoted' to their own self interest, and at this point Shi Qingxuan had to admit he may have been right. How many of those devotees had come back to loot and burn this place, after everything went wrong and Shi Qingxuan was no longer able to be so generous? Would they be happy, to see their god brought so low, now that they were no longer of use?
The temple's new inhabitants wore rags, and tended to shout and swear instead of genuflect. But all they wanted of Shi Qingxuan was good cheer and a bowl of soup, and the price of failure would be nothing more than a few grumbles and Shi Qingxuan's sense of personal pride. Ming Yi probably still wouldn't like them, but...well...'Ming Yi' had never actually liked Shi Qingxuan either, had he?
Shi Qingxuan gave the man his soup, and turned to the next person in line. "Yu Yanli! I love what you've done with your hair!"
"Thanks," said Yu Yanli, smiling and patting her bun, which she'd carefully wrapped with a rough strip of brightly coloured fabric. "Hey, is that meat?" She pointed to the pot with the scarred stump of her handless wrist.
"Probably!" said Shi Qingxuan, who found they enjoyed Soup Night a lot more if they didn't think too deeply about the ingredients. "That or Ning Mo really burned some radishes."
Eventually Shi Qingxuan needed a break, and they got Ning Mo to take over serving. They decided to sit next to the new guy, something about the mechanical way he ate while staring into space gave Shi Qingxuan the sense that he was lonely.
Shi Qingxuan carefully lowered themself with, in their opinion, a remarkable amount of grace, without spilling a single drop from their bowl. After so many months, they'd almost regained the knack of living in a mortal body. It would have been nice if they'd regained that knack before permanently breaking half their limbs, but at least they still had the other half.
The man didn't look up when Shi Qingxuan sat next to him, and just kept eating. This close Shi Qingxuan could see the thick frown lines around his mouth under his scraggly beard, and the glitter of cold black eyes under a curtain of loose grey hair. He was actually pretty neatly dressed, in faded but clean black robes, and gave off an air of intense, quiet dignity that made Shi Qingxuan think he either hadn't been on the street for long, or had been here for so many years that it just felt like home. That or he wasn't on the street and had just come here for the free soup.
Shi Qingxuan opened their mouth to say something friendly and discovered that they couldn't think of a single thing to say. That didn't happen very often. Well, they could just sit here in companionable silence. Shi Qingxuan put the soup on the ground and used their good arm to tuck their bad arm in their lap and out of the way. The arm had lost a lot of sensation, so if they weren't careful it could get sat or stood on and they wouldn't notice until it was too late.
They took a sip of their soup, and discovered the brown bits really were just burned...something. Not one of Ning Mo's better creations, and their stomach rebelled a little when they tried to force down a second mouthful. For a moment, Shi Qingxuan thought sadly of the soups they used to cook for their brother when he was training on the mountain. They'd been so proud of themself back then, for making do with cheap ingredients and limited supplies. But they couldn't do what Ning Mo did, making soup for a crowd out of almost nothing. Shi Qingxuan sighed and choked down another mouthful. Food was food.
The old man seemed to have no such trouble. He'd finished his soup, and was staring out at the other inhabitants of the temple as if they'd all personally offended him.
"Looks like you were pretty hungry," said Shi Qingxuan. They thought about offering the man the rest of their soup, but they didn't get enough meals to be able to afford to give any of them away on a whim.
"Pfft," said the man. He flicked his eyes to Shi Qingxuan with an expression of disdain, but then his eyes widened. "Your hand."
Shi Qingxuan looked down, and then gasped. On the back of their bad hand was a large red spot- was that a burn? When the hell did that happen? They couldn't feel any pain but that really didn't make the situation less distressing. "Ahh, oh no!" they said. "Damn damn damn! Can you watch my soup? I have to..." They tried to pull themself up but didn't get the angle right and just ended up back on their ass. That pain they could feel, hooray.
"Give it here," said the man, reaching for their hand.
"Uh," said Shi Qingxuan. Even asides from knowing better than to trust random strange men off the street, there was something intense about this guy, the kind of intensity that sometimes led to an unexpected knife to the face. (So why had they sat next to him? They could hear their brother's voice in their head: Shi Qingxuan, you have to be more cautious!) "Sorry, uh...gotta go!"
"Suit yourself," muttered the man, and looked away.
"Hahaha this is just fantastic I bet I get a skin infection," grumbled Shi Qingxuan to themself, as their heart hammered painfully in their chest. Skin infections could get pretty bad when you were mortal and couldn't afford medicine: that was how Yu Yanli had lost her hand, as she was always reminding anyone she saw act complacent about a minor injury. Just because Shi Qingxuan couldn't do much with this arm any more didn't mean they wanted to lose it! Shi Qingxuan pulled themself up using a dusty wall decoration, and limped out to the fountain as quickly as they could manage. Yu Yanli looked up from washing out her bowl and made a sympathetic hiss when she saw Shi Qingxuan's hand. "Really got yourself there, kid! Make sure you take care of it."
"You know me," said Shi Qingxuan, "I never do anything by halves!" Feeling the cold water against the more functional of their fingers helped calm their thundering heart. Ok. This was ok. Cool it down in the water for a while, wrap it in a bandage. A healing salve would be useful, too, but hard to come by. After this, make sure to wrap the hand when handling anything hot.
"Someone tried to steal your food."
Shi Qingxuan looked up and saw the old man again, standing a little distance away and holding two bowls. He was pretty fast for such an old guy.
"My hero!" said Shi Qingxuan. "Just put it down over here for now, I'll get to it in a moment."
"I haven't got time for this," said the man. "Give me your hand." When Shi Qingxuan didn't move, he added, "I have medicine."
Shi Qingxuan hesitated a moment more, then used their good arm to hold out their burned hand. It was already paralysed, numb, and burned, it's not like this guy could make things much worse.
The man took out a little bottle and poured a few drops on the burn, holding Shi Qingxuan's hand steady with his other hand. Shi Qingxuan's palm tingled pleasantly, but then the back of their hand bloomed with excruciating heat. They pulled their hand away with an outraged cry. "That hurts!"
"Good," said the man. "Maybe you'll learn to be less careless."
"Hey!" Yu Yanli stepped between them and glared up at the man, fist clenched eyes and burning with fury. "Are you hurting ol' Feng?" Yu Yanli was a slight and not very tall middle-aged woman, but she knew how to defend herself, and never backed down from a fight. On the whole, this was something Shi Qingxuan liked about her, since she usually only got really angry when she saw someone being picked on or taken advantage of. But there was something off about this guy, and Shi Qingxuan didn't want to see her get hurt.
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" said Shi Qingxuan. They weren't, not entirely, but a fist fight would hardly improve things. "He was just trying to help." They rubbed their wrist above the burn, to distract from the pain. It did look a little less red, actually. But it hurt like crazy.
"That's no excuse for being an asshole," said Yu Yanli. "And I don't see him helping with the cooking."
"The soup was awful," said the man. And then he just turned and walked away.
"Well so was your medicine!" shouted Shi Qingxuan to the man's retreating back. But he just kept walking. What a jerk!
It was only later, when Shi Qingxuan had a chance to stop, and think, and feel properly sorry for themself, that they remembered that they hadn't felt anything on the back of that hand in months.
Shi Qingxuan never saw the man again. But they kept an eye on unfamiliar faces around the temple, and sometimes thought they recognised that same look of cold intensity- once in a young man, another time in a little girl. They all acted like strangers when Shi Qingxuan spoke to them, so there was no way to know for sure. Maybe the man had just been a passing cultivator who'd randomly decided to help a stranger in pain.
Still, sometimes they wondered. Was someone from the heavens visiting in secret? Shi Qingxuan wasn't banished, per se, so there was no reason their old friends couldn't visit, and after the battle in the capital everyone knew where they were. But so far no one had wanted to be seen around the old Wind Master, not now they were a mortal in poverty with no more merits to give.
Well, no one but Xie Lian. But he'd made it clear he probably wouldn't be back any time soon, and was hardly the sort to hide his identity to save face.
Another possibility occurred to Shi Qingxuan, one that made them rub the scar on the back of their hand with a mixture of feelings they couldn't define. But thinking about that possibility made Shi Qingxuan anxious, and brought up too many memories they didn't want to think about. So they put it aside, with all the other things they weren't thinking about. Like their brother, and their old life, and all the pain and death that life had been built on.
But they weren't thinking about those things! So it was fine!
And then, just when Shi Qingxuan thought they were done with the heavens, for good or ill, they saw a familiar face. Not one they had any interest in seeing, but life worked like that sometimes.
Pei Ming was arm in arm with one of the prettier temple girls, wearing the mild smile he reserved for well behaved women he had no interest in sleeping with. The moment he saw Shi Qingxuan he switched to the thin, pained smile Shi Qingxuan was more personally familiar with.
"There he is! Ol' Feng, this man says he's here to see you!"
"Ol' Feng, huh?" said General Pei.
"Nobody believed me when I told them I was Shi Qingxuan." They turned to glare at the rest of the temple. "EVEN THOUGH I AM."
"You are, what? Crazy?" laughed ol' Bao, as his head twitched away from bugs only he could see. "Join the club."
"I AM. FORMER WIND MASTER SHI QINGXUAN. WHOSE TEMPLE IN WHICH YOU SIT."
Pei Ming chuckled awkwardly, and Shi Qingxuan felt suddenly aware of the picture they made. They resisted the urge to straighten their unwashed, tangled hair. Pei Ming looked as flawless as ever, the greasy bastard.
They put their hand nonchalantly on their hip and held themself straight, trying to regain the aristocratic bearing their brother had painfully beaten into them, and a few months on the street had just as painfully beaten out. "To what do I owe the honour, General Pei?"
"Shi Qingxuan," said Pei Ming. "We haven't always gotten along, but you're my friend's little brother, and I should have helped you out before now. I don't know how much you've heard about the mess with Jun Wu..."
"Oh yes, even us mortals heard about that," said Shi Qingxuan. "And I saw the part where he set you on fire." It had been pretty funny at the time, seeing The Great General Pei coughing out smoke rings and refusing to sit down and be outshone by mortals and a woman. But Shi Qingxuan had a better idea of how much it must have hurt, now.
"Right," said Pei Ming, wincing. "I'm sorry I took so long to get to you, but...anyway, it looks like you've been taking care of yourself pretty well down here. I'm sure...sure your brother would be proud."
This was by far the nicest thing Pei Ming had ever said to them, and Shi Qingxuan felt tears sting at the corner of their eyes. "Thanks," said Shi Qingxuan. "I...I heard you organised the funeral. I'm sorry I couldn't be there."
"That was hardly your fault," said Pei Ming. "I never liked that bastard Ming Yi, but I never thought-" His voice trembled slightly, and then he coughed and regained his manly composure. "Anyway. You're a little prone to youthful high spirits, but you're a hard-working young man with a lot of potential. If you're willing to buckle down and take orders, there's a place for you in the Palace of Ming Guang. If you want it."
You've been treating me like a child for over two hundred years, thought Shi Qingxuan. How old do I have to be before you stop dismissing the parts of me you don't like as 'youthful high spirits'?
But becoming mortal had forced Shi Qingxuan to confront a lot of uncomfortable truths, and one of them was that Pei Ming saw them as a child because their brother had always treated them like one, and for the most part Shi Qingxuan had happily gone along with it. Shi Qingxuan had always resented Pei Ming for being a bad influence on their brother, but the more they thought about it now, the more it felt like it had been the other way around.
Not that Pei Ming wasn't the awful creep Shi Qingxuan had always thought him. But he had been a good friend to their brother, in his way. And right now he was trying to be kind.
"Thank you," said Shi Qingxuan. "That's very generous of you, I really appreciate the thought."
Pei Ming sighed. "...but?" He didn't look surprised, and Shi Qingxuan didn't think they were imagining the faint hint of relief.
"But I was never very good at taking orders. And if you and I had to work together...haha. Can you imagine?"
Pei Ming acknowledged their point with a wry tilt of his head. "We wouldn't have to work together directly."
"I'd still be working for you. I don't think that would suit me very well."
Pei Ming harrumphed. "And this does?" He glanced around the temple, distaste visible, and then sniffed in disgust. It wasn't even especially stinky today!
"It's not perfect. But nothing is. And it suits me better than you'd think."
"Always so damn stubborn..." Pei Ming shook his head ruefully. "Fine, it's your choice. I guess you're too proud to take my money, too."
"Oh, no, money would be much appreciated." Shi Qingxuan smiled brightly. "Small denominations are especially convenient."
Pei Ming laughed. "Right then, I'll see what I can do." He patted Shi Qingxuan on the head, and they felt the warm glow of spiritual energy entering their body. Not a lot of it, but enough to make life easier for a little while. "My verbal password hasn't changed. Let me know if you change your mind."
"I won't," said Shi Qingxuan. "But thanks."
"See you around, Shi Qingxuan," said Pei Ming, as he left.
No, I won't, thought Shi Qingxuan.
"This is illegible," said the customer.
"It's dynamic," said Shi Qingxuan. "To create truly great calligraphy, one cannot be constrained by conventional shapes and brushstrokes. In that piece I was capturing the fleeting beauty of a summer breeze."
"Dynamic my ass. You're just too lazy to-"
"CUSTOM CALLIGRAPHY," cried Shi Qingxuan, turning from the clearly-not-a-customer towards some possible-customers-to-be. "TRADITIONAL ELEGANCE MARRIED WITH DYNAMIC CHARM FOR A VERY REASONABLE PRICE."
Whatever Shi Qingxuan might think of Pei Ming, he'd stuck by his word about the money, and being able to finally afford calligraphy supplies had been very convenient indeed.
It was depressing sometimes, looking back on all the years Shi Qingxuan had spent 'refining' their cultivation when that 'talent' had turned out to be entirely fake. But their brother hadn't found any way to boost writing ability asides from hassling Shi Qingxuan to practice, and their calligraphy was genuinely pretty good. Not good enough to be accepted by those snooty literature gods, but with some cheerful patter and a few dramatic flourishes they managed to draw in a steady number of customers off the street. They even made up original poems sometimes, nothing very deep, but most people didn't want deep. They wanted flowery puns about their wife's name to celebrate an anniversary, or a dramatic turn of phrase to decorate their study, and Shi Qingxuan was happy to oblige.
Shi Qingxuan prepared themself to start writing a new piece. Maybe something melancholy? They could sigh dramatically and add a bunch of eccentric flourishes, that could be fun, for both them and their audience. But just as they were about to put pen to paper, they heard someone calling their name.
"Ol' Feng!"
It was Sha Lizhong, a quiet young man who'd started living in the temple a little after Shi Qingxuan. He mostly kept to himself, but was a good, sensible kid, and the less mobile members of the temple sometimes sent him to do errands on their behalf.
"Hi," said Shi Qingxuan. "Here for a poem?"
"No," said Sha Lizhong. "There's a man at the temple, says he's there to see you. He doesn't look dangerous, and too well dressed to be a yamen runner or anything like that."
Shi Qingxuan started packing up their things. "Arrogant slime-ball, 30ish, flirts with every girl in the room?" They weren't expecting Pei Ming to visit again, but stranger things had happened.
"No," said Sha Lizhong. "He's fairly young, maybe a little older than you? Definitely not flirtatious, he looked like we were all dirt under his shoe."
"Ha," said Shi Qingxuan. "Sounds like a god. That could be most of the guys I knew up in the heavens."
"Haha," said Sha Lizhong, who'd heard all about the human array and what a bunch of useless cowards the gods had been. "You're pretty popular these days, ol' Feng. Not going to forget us and be a god again, are you?"
If you think I'm popular now, thought Shi Qingxuan, you should have seen me in my prime. But they just patted Sha Lizhong on the shoulder and said, "You guys are so much more fun than those losers in the heavens. I'm not going anywhere."
As they approached the temple, Shi Qingxuan wondered if this mysterious visitor was Ling Wen. That would be kind of funny. But she'd never seemed to feel the same concern for Shi Qingxuan as Pei Ming, and as far as they were aware she was still under arrest for helping Jun Wu try to destroy the world. And to think, Shi Qingxuan used to consider her the boring one.
The man stood out in the temple like a sore thumb. It wasn't Ling Wen, or Pei Ming, or any one else they could immediately recognise. But he still looked kind of familiar. And he really was well dressed, albeit in the understated way favoured by members of the Middle Court.
"At last," said the man. He bowed briefly. "My name is Fu Yao, I'm from the Palace of Xuan Zhen." Fu Yao, huh? That name was vaguely familiar, too. Shi Qingxuan nodded politely as their mind tried to sort through the hundreds of Middle Court officials they'd met over time. "I've come with gifts from His Highness Xie Lian."' He gestured towards a pile of food and supplies. Were those spices? Ning Mo was going to be ecstatic. Good old Xie Lian.
"Thank you!" said Shi Qingxuan. "This is fantastic! Thank His Highness from me! Have you seen him recently? How is he?"
"He's fine," said Fu Yao. "Do you need anything else?"
"No, you're free to go," said Shi Qingxuan. This guy looked even more uncomfortable with the cheerful squalor than Pei Ming. The disgusted twist to his lips was kind of like...suddenly Shi Qingxuan put it together. "...wait."
He frowned. "What."
"Xuan Zhen-" Mu Qing winced. "-you're one of His Highness's oldest friends. Surely you can do a bit better than 'he's fine'."
Mu Qing stayed stoically silent for a moment, and then sighed. "But that's all there is to say. You saw him yourself a few months ago, yes? Nothing has changed. His health is good, his mood is fine, he's...still gathering scrap for reasons that elude me. And he still has the same awful sense of humour, as is proven by him turning me into his delivery boy."
"And still waiting for Crimson Rain Sought Flower?" Shi Qingxuan thought it was all pretty romantic, the god waiting patiently for his demon lover to return. Or...demon sworn brother. Or something. Shi Qingxuan had never quite figured out what those two meant to each other, but it was definitely something.
Mu Qing nodded, with a brief roll of his eyes. "I'm not sure what he'll do when he realises Crimson Rain Sought Flower isn't coming back. But for now...he's fine." He forced his mouth into a polite smile and then asked, as if at knife point, "And are you well?"
"Very well, thank you," said Shi Qingxuan. "Your heartfelt concern is much appreciated."
"I will pass that on to His Highness," said Mu Qing. "Now, is that all?" He looked like he wanted to leave as quickly as possible and then burn all his clothing. Didn't you used to sweep floors?, though Shi Qingxuan, in annoyance. But maybe that just made him more aware of how much he didn't want to be near dirty floors ever again.
The next time Shi Qingxuan noticed someone new with That Look, he decided it was time to investigate properly. At worst they'd think he was crazy, and anyone living here ended up with a pretty high tolerance for crazy.
It was a middle aged man this time, wearing patched blue robes and sitting in an empty corner reading a book.
"What are you reading?" asked Shi Qingxuan, taking a bite of a dumpling, which was only partly stale. Today's breakfast came courtesy of old lady Zhu from the dumpling store across the street, and had put Shi Qingxuan in a good mood.
The man didn't answer. Shi Qingxuan leaned down and peered at the title. It was a book of poetry.
"Hey, Ling Wen," said Shi Qingxuan. "You better not be thinking of horning in on my territory. I'm the poet of this temple." The odds that this was actually Ling Wen were practically zero, but that was the name most likely to get a reaction.
The man looked up at Shi Qingxuan over the top of his book and just stared. Shi Qingxuan felt a shiver go down their spine. That look was cold. But something about it made Shi Qingxuan want to tease this guy until they could make him crack a smile.
"Or is it Mu Qing?" continued Shi Qingxuan. "Everyone appreciated the rice you brought last time, but we're running a bit low on tea, so if you could run out and get some that would be super convenient."
"Never heard of him," said the man. He pointedly shifted his gaze back down to his book. "Get your own tea, I'm reading."
The guy was using an old altar as a chair, which was incredibly blasphemous, but made it a lot easier for Shi Qingxuan to sit next to them. It didn't count as blasphemy if you were the god the altar was dedicated to.
"What's you name then?"
"None of your business."
"Hi, none of your business. I'm Shi Qingxuan."
Not even a hint of a smile. Rude!
"Hey everyone!" shouted Shi Qingxuan. "This guy won't give me a name. What do you think I should call him?"
They got a wide range of suggestions back, most of them obscene. "Hey, there's kids here," they tutted. "Keep it clean!"
"Fuck you," said A-Zi, who was all of seven. "Poo-head is a great name."
"The people have spoken," said Shi Qingxuan. "I legally have to call you Poo-head now."
"Suit yourself."
"So, Poo-head..." started Shi Qingxuan, but that was as far as they could get before bursting into laughter.
The man currently known as Poo-head sighed. "Call me Nie Li."
"Ok, Nie Li. Whoever you really are, you're pretty good at disguises." Shi Qingxuan poked his cheek, and felt only cool human skin, or a very skilled facsimile. "Each of your faces is super different. I never got the hang of that myself, switching genders is fun but if I change the shape of my nose or chin everything feels wrong all of a sudden."
"You sound crazy," said Nie Li. "And I've never met you before in my life."
"You sure?" said Shi Qingxuan. They pushed down the book and leaned closer, their face so close to his they could see all of the pores and little hairs, as real looking as their own. "I have a very memorable face."
"Go away."
Nie Li refused to respond to anything Shi Qingxuan said for a while after that. So Shi Qingxuan just sat next to him reading over his shoulder. The poems were pretty good, written by some new guy Shi Qingxuan had never heard of. They mentally took note of a few clever turns of phrase they might be able to adapt for their own poetry.
"You any good with water?" said Shi Qingxuan, after a while. "The fountain's stopped working and I'm all out of spiritual energy."
Nie Li twitched in annoyance. Offended at being compared to civil gods, huh? Probably a martial god, then.
Shi Qingxuan pulled down the book again. "Come on! I'm super thirsty! The nearest well is all the way across town."
"How is that my problem?"
"Are you saying you don't get thirsty?" Shi Qingxuan grinned at him triumphantly.
"No," said Nie Li. Shi Qingxuan just kept smiling at him and eventually he closed his book with a sigh. "Fine. I'll take a look."
The fountain had always been popular. On hot days visitors to the temple used to sit by its side and enjoy the cooling spray, as an elegant dragon bowed and offered water to the noble Wind and Water masters whose statues stood in the centre.
Now the statues were rubble, and the dragon stolen to decorate someone else's garden. But the water still flowed, or at least it had until yesterday.
Sha Lizhong had spent the morning poking at the blocked spout, which was very sweet, but kind of pointless. Shi Qingxuan had poked around themself and the issue seemed to be somewhere upstream in the pipes, and thus only fixable by cultivation or digging into the city street. And a bunch of beggars were unlikely to get permission to break up the pavement.
"Good news, Sha Lizhong!" said Shi Qingxuan. "I found someone to fix the fountain!"
"Oh," said Sha Lizhong. "That's good." He bowed politely and walked back to his usual corner.
"I never promised I'd fix it," said Nie Li.
"Yes, but I believe in you," said Shi Qingxuan.
"You don't even know me."
"Sure I do! You're the guy who fixed my hand!" They held it up triumphantly, which required using their other hand to lift it.
Nie Li sneered. "It doesn't look very fixed to me."
"It's better than it was. I can almost wiggle my fingers now, watch!" Shi Qingxuan almost wiggled their fingers.
Nie Li sighed and bent down to look at the fountain, and then rolled up his sleeves.
"Ol' Feng, who's this," said Ning Mo, wandering up. "You actually find a plumber?"
"I have no idea!" said Shi Qingxuan. "He calls himself Nie Li but that's obviously fake."
"Nie Li? What kind of name is that?"
"Exactly. And his cultivation is pretty high for a plumber. I think he might be a god."
"I'm not a god," said Nie Li, his arm now elbow deep in the built up muck around the pipes.
"Yeah, gods dress fancy," said Ning Mo. "You one of those cultivators from the human array?"
Nie Li ignored him and kept poking at the fountain.
Ning Mo stared at him for a little while and then took a step back. "He's pretty pale...hey, you're not one of them ghosts are you? Not that I didn't appreciate the help, haha! But ghosts are a little, uh..."
Ning Mo had a point, this Nie Li was very pale. "Don't be narrow minded, Ning Mo," said Shi Qingxuan. "I've met some very nice ghosts."
"That's a contradiction in terms," muttered Nie Li.
That hit a nerve. Interesting. And while Shi Qingxuan had met a lot of ghosts, there were very few they'd really gotten to know. And of those, most had ended up... "You're not Crimson Rain Sought Flower, are you?"
Nie Li snorted. "What kind of shitty demon king would waste his time fixing plumbing for a bunch of vagrants?"
"What kind of vagrant has heard of Crimson Rain Sought Flower?" replied Shi Qingxuan.
"Everyone's heard of Crimson Rain Sought Flower," said Nie Li, darkly.
"That's true," said Ning Mo. "I even prayed to him a couple of times myself. Though isn't he dead now? Well, he's a ghost, I guess he was already dead, but..."
"He dissipated," said Shi Qingxuan. "But hopefully he'll come back."
"Why do you care?"
"Because he's important to my friend. And he sacrificed himself to save the world, even if I didn't always like him very much I think he deserves another chance at life after that. Well, un-life."
"Crimson Rain Sought Flower is a fucking cockroach," said Nie Li. He twisted his arm inside the pipe, creating an unpleasant squelching sound. "That's what a ghost is. A cockroach. They get crushed and battered but refuse to die, even when all that's left is obsession and pain."
Shi Qingxuan wasn't sure what to say to that, so just laughed awkwardly.
Ning Mo stood watching for a while longer, and then sighed. "Looks like this isn't going anywhere. If you need me I'll dragging myself halfway across town to the nearest well." Ning Mo was one of the healthier inhabitants of the temple, and couldn't be be much over 25, yet he cultivated an air of being Too Old For All This that Shi Qingxuan found by turns amusing and irritating.
"I'll let you know once it's fixed!" said Shi Qingxuan.
Ning Mo nodded and made his way out the door.
Meanwhile, Nie Li pulled his arms out of the pipe and stood back a little way.
"Don't tell me you're giving up," pouted Shi Qingxuan.
"No," said Nie Li, and then he kicked the wall beside the pipe. There was a truly disturbing squelching noise, and then suddenly the fountain burst back into life with a thick gush of dark muddy water. Shi Qingxuan had to jump back quickly to avoid getting splashed.
"I wouldn't drink from that for a while," said Nie Li, as the water ran black, then dirty, then clear. Before, the 'fountain' had been little more than a trickle, barely enough to drink from. But now it was a gushing stream.
"Oh my goodness!" said Shi Qingxuan. "Thank you! This is so amazing!"
"I thought you believed in me."
"I did! But it's still amazing!"
Nie Li just kneeled down and washed off his muddy hands in the rushing water. Washing! Shi Qingxuan was going to do SO MUCH WASHING. Clothes! Hair! As many body parts as they could get away with!
They leaned down to wash their own hands, just for the joy of it, and then smiled at Nie Li. "So," they said, "Are you any good at distance shortening arrays? You should take me to go visit His Highness, since he's not coming to me." Asking for favours seemed to be going well, so they decided to keep at it.
"No," said Nie Li, in a tone so decisive that Shi Qingxuan decided not to push back on it.
"Then tell me all the gossip," they said, changing tacks. "Has anyone taken charge of the Upper Court yet?"
"Who knows."
"How's Quan Yi Zhen? And Yin Yu?"
"Who?"
Shi Qingxuan slapped him lightly on the side. They missed being able to use their fan to hit people, but it was too precious now for every day use.
Nie Li flinched back. "Who gave you permission to touch me?"
"I did, as god of this temple," said Shi Qingxuan. "Are you really going to keep pretending to be a random human guy? You know I know that's not who you are."
Nie Li stood back up. Had he always been that tall? "Then who am I?"
"I don't know exactly. That's why I need you to tell me!"
"Do you?"
"Yes?"
"Are you sure you want to know?" His dark eyes glittered and Shi Qingxuan had a premonition of danger. Their brain shouted run run run, but that was ridiculous. This guy had been really kind, and helpful. And anyway, there was nowhere else left to run.
"Of course!" Shi Qingxuan laughed and tried to convince themself they meant it.
The man laughed, coldly. "I still can't tell if you're being deliberately disingenuous, or just stupid."
"Hey!"
"I think you already know," said the man. He stalked towards Shi Qingxuan. "Do I know how to manipulate water? Am I any good with distance shortening arrays?" He stepped closer, and Shi Qingxuan took an instinctive step back. "What do you think, Shi Qingxuan? Am I a god, or a ghost?"
Shi Qingxuan opened their mouth, but no sound came out. When they were afraid, they tended to babble their thoughts and flail in panic. But there was a place beyond fear: a cold, empty silence of the mind where they couldn't speak, or act, or think.
He Xuan just stood in silence and watched them struggle to speak, a twisted frown on his face. "The truth's never what you want it to be. I thought you'd have learned that by now." He shook the last of the water off his hands, and turned away.
By the time Shi Qingxuan came back to themself, he was gone.