AN:

Hi hi~
So, fair warning: entirely self-indulgent. The idea just. Kept. Nagging. do with that what you will.
This is also messy. If you want a lil' bit of context, maybe check to the end notes, but tbh im not entirely sure even that will be super helpful hahaha...


Summary:

Shang Qinghua is an over-worked, over-wrought and under appreciated succeeding disciple for An Ding, Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. He is also the Author-God of this world reincarnated into his trashfire disappointment of a novel. He's trying to fix things okay?! It's not like missing one measly milk-run mission because he got a summer cold really matters. Right? Right?!

Shen Jiu goes on a dull courier-run mission to 'build connections' with his Sect-mates and meets a demon. A demon who just escaped from Haun Hua, where the glittering gold hides an oozing rot and slaves and orphans disappear in the shadows, where San-jie was sold to a wealthy old man who doesn't exist.

Mobei Xuemao is just enjoying his intriguing human suitor, who is obviously deliberately courting him in the full traditional manner while he reclaims his rightful place in the North and they both establish their positions and power. And if some things are a bit strange… that's just humans.


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For the hundredth time this week, Shen Jiu cursed Shang Qinghua. Both for his mousey shixiong's weak cultivation leaving him susceptible to such a mundane thing as a cold and then for the An Ding Lord's weakness to the glistening tears and pointedly sniffling red nose on his pathetic Head Disciple's face.

Then furthermore, because four on a team invites bad tidings and the 'mission' was retrieving an order of books for Qing Jing, Peak Lord Du Qiongchao should also hold some blame for Shen Jiu's suffering by coming to Qing Jing's Lord and Shen Jiu's... Shizun, Zhang Qionglan with his frazzled ramblings asking his 'benevolent Zhang-shixiong to pleasepleaseplease loan this poor shidi a disciple to accompany my sweet cabbages and sign off on the requisition form at the same time! To build connections across different branches of our martial family! It's good to see where your Peak's goods come from right shixiong? Right, shixiong? Please shixiong!'

Unfortunately, 'building connections' was the most recent thing Zhang Qionglan had been distantly expressing his cool disapproval for Shen Jiu not doing.

So now here he was, stuck on a cart with four whiny, petty, envious An Ding meatheads who wouldn't know the value of a book if he smacked them around the head with one- an impulse his fraying restraint would be helpless to resist if not for the potential damage their thick skulls would do these precious vessels of knowledge.

Still, at least they were only a week's distance to the Sect at the pace they were carrying. Only. Ha! And these imbeciles who mutter and moan about having a 'prissy paperweight' on their assignment would have voluntarily endured a week's worth longer in his company, on top of the fortnight already wasted on this asinine bonding activity, had he not insisted on them continuing to travel at night instead of renting room at an Inn or camping. And then they moan about that too!.

Just one week left. Ten days.

Ten long, torturous days with a pack of small-minded cretins banded against him. Even their insults and 'subtle' slights were dull as mud. The open road didn't hold anything much of interest either. Other than one small incident with a particularly voracious Virgin's Blood Creeper (that expressed his frustrations to by incinerating it with an admittedly excessive plume of fire qi) when he had given in let them camp for one night and minor bandit attack (that he got sneered at for using his knives on. He didn't have a spirit sword yet and he didn't see any of those louts being at all of use in the situation) ...there was nothing but the wobble of the cart on the uneven dirt track, the patterns of clouds in the halcyon sky, roadside weeds of no particular usage and the faint impressions of this or that beast or that off in the distance.

Nothing...

An odd glimmer caught his attention. Off to the side, one off the large boulders on the opposite bank of the deep river gully the road followed, one of many randomly scattered about the grassy plain, glittered oddly catching the sun almost like mica... or frost.

The cart jolted to a sudden stop.

One of the An Ding drudges, the one that had been cursing Shen Jiu in a perfectly audible undertone for the better part of the morning for being a 'slavedriver' (as if they knew anything-!), threw his lumbering bulk out onto the road and rounded on the two up front, "You morons! you can't even drive a cart properly! Go already, what are you stopping for!"

Drawing a pair of long knives from his boots, Shen Jiu leapt off the cart, eyes catching immediately on the wheel stuck in a puddle frozen solid and whipped up to scan their surroundings. There was a figure approaching. Tall. Lithe. Dark cloak concealing all but a flash of electric blue from the shadowed depths of the hood, the same blue subtly coating the ice on the wheel.

Unfortunately, the imbeciles saw the figure too. One of the drivers drew his sword as loudly as possible and shouted with vigour "What sort of evildoer dares to cross us!" Which, of course, stirred up the rest of the cretins and drowned their common sense under the pack mentality of aggressive unity against the outsider, prompting jeering yells like "You dare to appear in front of Cang Qiong Mountain disciples-!"

And the situation deteriorated from there.

The frigid wind and crackling ice spreading around them immediately killed their confidence. Shen Jiu paid them no mind, reaching out with his qi into the grass around them, carefully imbuing the green blades and meadow flowers with a careful balance of his fire and water qi affinities. A hand roughly shoved his shoulder and he staggered forward. He just barely kept the knife from flying out of his hand and into the halfwit's chest. A familiar, obnoxious voice quivering with fear shouted behind his ear, "Qing Jing! Why aren't you going! Go! Defeat the demon!"

Shen Jiu locked eyes with a set bluer than the sky above but void of its warmth. Glowing blue-white irises like glacier hearts recounted in old travel journals slit with feline pupils like dark cracks, slowly spreading wider.

Everything happened very quickly. Movement in his peripheral had his qi flex sharply, a hurricane of grassland plants swirling around him to intercept one-two-three needle thin ice shards reaching for his heart while muffled thumps and desperate whip cracking on the horse told him his Sect-brothers were attempting to flee using his 'sacrifice', before short screams, wet gurgles and softer thuds indicated their deaths. He surged forward towards the demon, wicked blade edge leading, his other hand yanking at the qi remaining in the vegetation to send it shooting towards his opponent's chest and face. A fierce surge of biting wind buffeted the grass blades and Shen Jiu to the side, he followed the motion, whirled around, blade meeting... air.

He looked down.

The demon lay collapsed on the floor, hood falling back to reveal a youthful face with slightly sunken cheeks, an ashy greyness to skin tinted an otherwise delicate blue and expression tight with pain for an instant before smoothing out into unconsciousness, and with it the demon's lacklustre qi-veil disguise. If there was any doubt as to his species, dual set of antlers protruding from his temples and smoky mottle of spots and flecks arranged in various sizes across all visible skin thoroughly dispelled it.

He nudged him in the side. No response, but the cloak shifted, revealing a glint of gold. Street rat avarice and Wu Yanzi's training had him kneeling for a better look before he realised it. Parting the dark cloth, it was a weapon, a golden flower bud decorating the end of a slim rod streaked blue where it embedded in the demon's flesh. It was probably poisoned. Something so ridiculously ostentatious could belong to only one Sect, especially with the design and material. The question was, what was an infamously anti-demon Sect like Huan Hua Palace doing using non-lethal and underhanded tricks and tactics like poisoned darts on their sworn enemy? He would have expected such techniques more from demonic cultivators, to subdue and incapacitate their prey ready to rip out their hearts and feast on their power.

With the Old Palace Master having stirred up the Cultivation against the Southern Demon Emperor and Su Xiyan completely silent... Shen Jiu needed information and this demon might just have some kernels of gold to share.

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Shen Jiu was sat in a room of the Scarlet Veils House, sewing qiankun pouches on the opposite side of the room from the demon passed out on the bed. It was necessary to make the pouches to validate the narrative of events he was spinning in his mind.

Firstly, of course, he and the An Ding group were attacked by a powerful demonic cultivator wielding ice talismans and skilfully manipulated water qi. This explained the dead and looted disciples.

Shen Jiu had injured the attacker with his grass blades to the point of retreating but was exhausted and could only stagger to the town, find a place to recuperate and tend his wounds instead of performing funeral rites for his fallen Sect-mates. His recovery and for fear of the demonic cultivator returning had prevented him returning and doing so himself later, instead of just notifying the town Official and letting common folk protocols see them settled in the mortuary. Shen Jiu had already spoken to the brothel Madam, handing off the cart and horse to her as payment for her cooperation and to make them disappear. She would confirm that he had arrived with wounds and had spent days asleep/meditating if questioned.

Finally, with the qiankun pouches he was busy stitching, he had a reason to have all the books in the order with him and he could claim to have made them earlier in the trip to allow a faster return to the Sect and aid his fellow disciples in transporting them up the mountain. (Ha! Fellows indeed. Those ignorant, cretinous cowards who basically tried to outright murder him and had thrown the books on the floor.)

An unsteady gust of qi-cooled air brushed against his leg.

Shen Jiu sighed.

It had been two days and the demon fawn/kit had proven such high maintenance, even unconscious, that Shen Jiu had at certain point seriously contemplated whether the frustration of tending this fussy, demanding brat was really worth the information he might have on San-jie.

Almost.

Especially when the demon's qi ruffled and his eyebrows furrowed severely, sending ice skittering across the room and steadily increasing gusts of wind blowing about their small, shared room until Shen Jiu poured some qi into his system. Like now for instance. For the sixth time this shichen.

Rolling his eyes, he moved over to the bed, setting one hand between the lines of spots and speckles arching over the demon's forehead and the other on his stomach by the wound, then carefully separated his qi natures to let a steady stream of his yin water qi flow.

He'd never transferred qi to anyone before, but from the medical texts on it in Qing Jing's Great Library, he was relatively sure that demon spiritual anatomy was comparably similar. The texts described spirit veins like rivers with lakes forming at the chakra points and progressively smaller pools across the meridian system, but also explicitly warned of the dangers of botched transfusions from poorly controlled qi initiating a detrimental cycle of action within the patient's system. With this knowledge, Shen Jiu had been careful to only provide water natured qi to the lake and wind natured demon, drawing on Wu Yanzi's teachings on the demonic equivalents to human qi natures. Even though the demon would most likely be completely capable of metabolising any qi nature he threw at it into something beneficial, as is the demonic talent.

Still, it seemed to be working at any rate. The wound was slowly closing, blue blood clotting into thick scabs, no signs of discharge or infection that Shen Jiu was familiar with. The nightmares were more of issue. He suspects the poison might have given the demon a fever, as he had been lukewarm to the touch when Shen Jiu first hauled him onto the cart and set off towards the town, but had gotten progressively cooler as time and the qi transfusions progressed. Direct application to the crown chakra point had settled him quite effectively in that regard as well.

This time however, the qi flows under his palms were slightly different, the circulation faster and more... active.

He blinked.

The demon stared up at him.

Mobei Xuemao blinked up into the human's face and frowned. The lingering drowsiness of qi depletion and the golden scum cowards' poison left him unable to do more than blink and slowly try to analyse what was happening now, pupils widening and narrowing to sharpen irritatingly blurry lines of the person-prey-threat-ally-unknown above him.

He smelled of pale scents like faded blood, paper, fermented substance humans use to bathe and some sort of sweet flower. Unthreatening. Unimpressive.

But this human's qi was in Xuemao's body and the taste of it filled his mouth. Harsh ocean salt. Bitter pine sap. Strong, distinctive, wild, familiar. Like he was stood at the cliffs on the Great Green Needle Forests border as the cold winds screamed in from the sea.

There was a sharp blade, mortal metal, digging into the skin under his throat and tilting his head up.

The human's face was young and hard, carved in thin lines and sharp angles, bared teeth disappointingly prey-dull, but Xuemao remembered the eyes clearly- green as the fragile springtime plant growth but brimming, burning, with power. Shifting red, blue, purple fires and waves contained within wide circles of black and green.

He had been young when the Kin-Traitor cast him out to the mercies of the human world, but Xuemao of the Mobei remembered staring across vast plains and jagged mountain spines dressed in Winter's death-white cloth, watching them glow in the odd silvered-blue tones of the moon and the ethereal reflections of the sky-fires. Great waves of eerie qi flame crashing against each other, flowing, fighting, merging, parting. An endless battle of colours and natures, the ancient dance of the Earth, painted against the pristine canvas of the North.

This human was not wearing gold or gloating at him.

He had not killed him when he had opportunity and instead healed Xuemao, given some of his power with him and was now displaying his ferocity despite that weakness.

…Were he a demon, Xuemao would have assumed this was a Courtship initiation.

He had incurred a life debt: forging connection.

Shared qi: displaying power, showing confidence in ability even actively strengthening Xuemao and weakening himself by it.

Shown aggression: proving battle lust, willingness to fight for the courtship recipient, invitation to cross blades and taste each other's battle flavours.

Confusion prickled through him and made his tail lash from side to side. Which it shouldn't have because Xuemao didn't have a tail in his regular form.

Which meant his cloaking shields had dropped and his skin was exposed-!

He jerked involuntarily, eyes narrowing to slits and focused on the face of the threat above him-

The edge of the dagger dug deeper. The sharp bite of cold metal resettled Xuemao's mind.

There was power building behind his eyes, making the shine bright. Whatever the human's equivalent of the mountain and lake qi alignments lent them fleeting shades of his soul colours, flicks and flecks of reds and blues, purple flaring where they mixed within darkening green. Dazed from the surge of energy leaving his injured form achy and stiff from tension, Xuemao stared.

Pretty.

"What do they call you, demon?" His voice was hard and sharp, cold crystalline enunciation like ice shards. Asking after Xuemao's reputation and status in the names he'd earned.

This human was definitely initiating a courtship proposal to him.

This human also didn't know who Xuemao was, to call him 'demon' while following the traditional route lightly dancing through the three stages as a preliminary test of compatibility and suitability of them. The Strength in holding a blade to his throat as a tease of the Summer Year challenges, establishing Xuemao's Station in query for his name as an indication of what to expect during the Winter Year, and the Soul he had been brazenly flaring throughout the entire thing with his eyes and the power humming in Xuemao's veins.

…He must have been impressed by Xuemao's power in killing the cultivator group. Enough to ignore weakness and injury afterwards and to propose courtship so immediately.

(A vague, unacknowledged tension relaxed in the back of his mind; the human didn't know who he was. This wasn't another ploy by his Uncle, that pale smiling betrayer trying make a weakness and wound where nothing had since his mother died.)

It was unfortunate that his suitor was human... but at this point Xuemao had spent more time amongst humans than his own kinsmen and had learned that while the majority of humans are scum coward and most others wilfully blind, deaf and dumb, some are alright, either with an odd, unnaturally open kindness or more familiar demon attitudes of debt and favours.

Still. This human wasn't dressed like the scum who sold their souls to gold, nor did he wear the cheap 'riches' they enjoyed flaunting or made any mention of selling Xuemao back to that dark, dank pit of misery like 'Liming' warned him of.

He had spared Xuemao's life, shared power with him and proposed courtship with respect for the traditions. It would be dishonourable of him to deny the human a full and proper chance to present his suit.

With qi so complementary to Xuemao's own, if the Dances went well, any heirs begot together would undoubtedly be fierce and bright and perfect to leave the mantle of the Northern Kingdom once Xuemao returned and reclaimed it at took up his rightful Name and Title to be able to tell to his suitor an maybe-someday-possible-Queen.

…And if not, then he could always eat him later anyway.

For now he would begin steps of the dance and see if the little fox-faced human could match his pace... or if he would be better fit for prey than hunting partner.

He felt his pulse quicken with the thrill and promise. After seasons past spent locked away from the moon's light and more before that spent hiding in shadows to escape notice as much as hunt as he slowly built his power... such swift recognition of his potential as a mate was...

Flattering.

Exciting.

This was new and he would do his suitor the proper respects and honour of a formal Dance.

Xuemao bared his fangs and spread ice up the metal, seeking to freeze the simple metal until shattering, but his suitor shone brighter, flooding the blade with burning heat. Challenging him, qi to qi.

Only to freeze himself when Xuemao's black claws settled at his throat. Narrow eyes burning with pulsing fury like the Aurora of Celestial Soul Lights.

His own lips pulled back further, more of a wild grin than a snarl that would properly show off the strength and edge of his bite. "This Prince is Heir of the Frozen North, Descendant of the Zuizei Ghost-Fur Leopard Clan, Legacy of the Crystal Frost Fuzhu, and blue blood of the Mobei. I am Xuemao. Who are you?"

The water and fire qi hissed and crackled within the weapon at his neck, pressing deeper and burning lightly. He shivered at the taste of that power, the perfect blend of immediate gratification and eventual enrichment. The perfect compliment to Xuemao's lake and wind qi. The steam to his ice. Bubbling hot springs to his freezing blizzards.

His movement jarred the knife just enough to make a cut.

First Blood drawn.

Their Dance of Strength would be sung of in ballad to the history of epics, long after they had grown and lived and perished.

One way or another.

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Shen Jiu was incandescent with rage.

So the baby snowflake was a prince was he? Royalty. Of a truly noble lineage. Blue-blooded as he said himself.

Well his very name may carry more gravity than the weight of Shen Jiu's corpse in gold and spirit stones, but right here and now he was beneath Shen Jiu, both in physical state and personal situation. He had saved this demon's life and healed him with his own qi besides. He knew from Wu Yanzi that demons guard their qi from each other jealously, for fear of being betrayed and eaten for the power they stored in their mortal flesh.

That Shen Jiu had shared so much qi with him? That he'd healed his wound and restored his body without stealing anything back for himself? He knew enough of demons that they don't let that sort of debt go unpaid and that the more powerful the demon, the truer that was. This little icicle? With his blue blood and bright eyes and qi-rich flesh all on display?

Mobei Xuemao's life was his.

"I am Shen Jiu. Know me well, demon, because you owe me, Xuemao of Mobei blood. You're mine."

Spirit wisp irises, luminescent and inhuman, remained locked unwaveringly onto his own even as those claws flexed and pierced skin, drawing up to Mobei Xuemao's own neck and smearing the sapphire blood there with the crimson droplets decorating the tips.

In a burst of deadly, predatory speed and strength, positions flipped and black claws skimmed his neck threateningly, pausing slightly before roughly scraping sharp lines in blood above the artery fluttering with his pulse.

Glittering fangs as pale and merciless as winter's snow glowed in the evening light. "This Mobei Xuemao acknowledges the actions of Shen Jiu and accepts his Approach." those intense eyes filled his vision as the demon leaned in close, pupils widening into dark pools trapped in turquoise, "Assuming he is Match for me."


Notes:

Hiii, congrats for making it to the end! Welcome to my worldbuilding spiderswebs gone wild! If anyone wants them, heres some qi mechanics and cultural explanations Cliff Notes:

Cultivation
So I'm mix & matching wuxing and I-Ching in my unholy headcannon world so here we go:
• Human: Wood/Fire/Earth/Metal/Water
• Demon: Wood/Mountain/Heaven/Thunder/Lake
Both exist in cycles (as listed), have fun interactions with each other and also have yin/yang spiritual/physical inclination to each element because extra complication~

Demon culture
• 3 Dances: Strength, Station, Soul. The stages of demon courtship.
• 1- Summer year: spent fighting and hunting with and against each other.
• 2- Winter year: staying in the home and territory of the stronger partner to assess social power and ability to maintain a stable territory and provide for their mate/partner beyonnd physical strength or hunting prowes.
• 3- Soul stage: showing each other your 'true skin', meaning the base state (most demonic/non-human) which has the demon's qi closest to the surface. Usually most of the power is tucked away in the core under 'cloaking shields' and not as immeadiately accessible. This is because demons store their power more in their flesh more than their souls (like humans), which means it can be stolen/inherited by another demon (or demonic cultivator) by eating their flesh or using a more specialised method such as sex (like succubi). The shields are half-illusion half-modification spell, making qi-rich extra appendages intangible and invisible, sort of tucking them onto another plane with the soul kinda thing? The stronger the demon, the more they can afford to lock away and the more human they look.

Please feel free to ask questions, I know it's all pretty vague about... pretty much everything really hahaha