Chapter 5: 5 Stalks: Balance, harmony, positive energy in the emotional, intuitive, mental, physical & spiritual.
As the sun rose over the Tian Gong Mountain Range, Shen Qingqiu calmly observed his dishevelled, sleepy disciples -who may become one day become Cultivators and thus gain Responsibilities- milling about, as Ming Fan grew increasingly stressed and harried at the sheer lack of preparation among the juniors, issuing instruction in every direction like a flustered mother of twenty
Zhang Hao and Luo Binghe were being useful at least; the tall boy stoically directing small groups to different tasks on Ming Fan's List and a scruffy head of curls bobbing to and fro tying up loose threads of odd jobs and stray item retrieval, such as Shen Qingqiu's white jade chest containing spirit stones and other useful qi charged items which, by their very nature, are incompatible with qiankun pouches.
When Ming Fan eventually noticed him, dressed for once in trousers and split-panelled robes (teal, with bamboo embroidery artfully disguising arrays against the elements, blunt force, stains and mortal blades), his face fell into something like despair.
He approached Shen Qingqiu with the walk of the damned and informed him, ashamedly, that the company was two horses shy of requirements and one still if the carriage took a second driver. He had been unsuccessful in borrowing one from another Peak as well; with the current shortage, every travel horse was in use.
Shen Qingqiu spread his fan, silk whispering between the metal ribs, face impassive.
"This old master is aware and has determined a resolution."
The relief on Ming Fan's face might have made a better man squirm with guilt for distressing him so.
Not so for Shen Qingqiu.
"With Zhang Hao driving as planned, Ming Fan and Luo Binghe will join this master in the carriage, Ming Fan may report on his plans for the investigation and his progress, or lack thereof, with the small beast over these two moon phases. If it pleases him to do so."
Now Ming Fan truly resembled the damned.
Luo Binghe, from where he was eavesdropping nearby believing himself to be unnoticed, clenched his fists and looked at Shen Qingqiu with something like a glare.
.
Once in motion, Shen Qingqiu received a progress report to which he carefully betrayed no reaction, other than to hold silence for along while and eventually state that, in light of this, he would discuss a matter of some delicacy with Luo Binghe upon his return from seclusion.
Ming Fan's plan was sound enough for now. With the barest information provided in the request for aid, the disciples knew that the victims were beautiful young women and the culprit was unlikely to be monstrous or plant based.
Thus, Ming Fan proposed that groups of three were to split to gather cover all of Shuang Hu City assessing the presence of demonic qi or resentful spiritual qi to better determine the culprit and also gathering information on the victims to the same end.
Ming Fan only approved mixed teams, which split up the female disciples as much as possible and ensured there was at least one more naturally yin sensitive member in every group.
He would be in a pair with Luo Binghe to interview Old Master Chen and then assign disciple groups to their areas and roles, distributing copies of maps, emergency flares and the evil sensing talismans drawn in cinnabar on yellow paper.
Shen Qingqiu approved the plan with some small reluctance.
He did not encourage co-dependency or trusting in others, but he knew from experience that an opponent of superior numbers was always harder battle. A larger group would therefore discourage scum from attacking them for whatever 'Immortal treasures' they may be carrying.
...Additionally, this kept Ning Yingying away from Luo Binghe during the investigation, which typically spares her from misfortunes such as kidnapping, entrapment, mysterious artefacts, yin-attracted plants such as the aphrodisiac variety or, as in one particularly memorable case, ritualistic sacrifice to a False God Lake demon disguised as a Carp preparing to cross the Dragon Gate, by a cult of demonic cultivator hopefuls.
(Shen Qingqiu had given her the orange hair ribbons she wore, embroidered with tracking and qi monitoring arrays, so that when her qi spiked with adrenalin he might find and save the girl before she finds herself dead.
It was why Shen Qingqiu first encouraged her visiting other Peaks and social tendencies, so that she might pick up other skills and abilities to keep herself healthy and whole. It was, slowly, working.)
.
Shen Qingqiu cursed himself viciously for tempting Fate as he leapt over a rooftop and onto the adjacent street, snarling with fury.
It had been going. So. Well.
They had a working system to canvas the area! Well formulated groups with the right equipment! Corpses! A RANGE of information sources that actually provided the information without deliberate misinformation, political obfuscation or straight out LIES!
It was the perfect low level investigation to build up field experience in juniors.
It should have been.
But no.
Not his disciples.
No, they just had to fuck it up.
Two groups crossed whose leaders had had a string of recent disagreements and obviously! They couldn't put that asinine horseshit aside for one Heavens lambasted mission.
So now Ning. Ying. Ying. Was captured. Again.
THIS WAS THE FINAL STRAW
HE, SHEN QING-FUCKING-FUCKING-QIU WAS GOING TO RETRIEVE HIS HEAD FEMALE DISCIPLE FROM BEING KIDNAPPED. AGAIN. AND HE WAS GOING TO TEACH THAT GIRL HOW TO FIGHT.
HOW TO ACTUALLY SURVIVE IN THIS WORLD THAT IS LITERALLY DOING ALL IT CAN TO SEE YOU DEAD.
SHE WAS GOING TO LEARN HOW TO WIN AT LIFE BY NOT DYING.
WU YANZI/ QIU MANSION/ CANG QIONG/ STREET STYLE.
But first, Shen Qingqiu needs to actually retrieve his 250 Head Disciple and the Sidekick Sprout.
Because they were kidnapped too!
BECAUSE HEAVENS FORBIT SU XIYAN'S SPAWN NOT BE INVOLVED IN EVERY UNLIKELY PLOT, SCHEME AND EVENT IN THE VICINITY OF ANYWHERE EVER.
Shen Qingqiu barrelled through Shuang Hu with all the burning wrath of the Vermillion Bird's Anger of Red Sparks, with all the looming portent of grief, murder, bane and war of his Patron of Fire, the Celestial Body of Mars.
Fire qi formed an invisible heat haze around him, billowing in the air, testing for the tell-tale recoil of Earth-rising demonic qi in the face of Higher Energy sources from the Heavens' Lightning.
...There. Got you.
A burst of qi and the wall crumbled; there was a pretty woman reeking of corpse rot leering over Su Xiyan's son.
He didn't bother to draw Xiu Ya, would not sully his spirit blade with tainted blood. A twist of water met his swooping fire and the frisson of vicious-whitehot-steam-DEATH took off the foul cur's head and authorized the wound for the convenience of his disciples' robes remaining unstained.
Shen Qingqiu, with great effort, smoothed his face from its riotous of fury and cooled his wrath to ice, cooling his spirit veins from molten fire to glacial ice.
He then strode silently around his disciples, cut the ties near the knot and collected the scraps.
Fa Bao had a standing request for Immortal Binding Cable from missions. He would trade it to them for a few disciple-friendly arrays. Defensive and offensive.
Just see if they denied him.
It had been a very eventful day for Luo Binghe.
First, he and Ming Fan had had to wrangle their fellow disciples into something resembling order following the living nightmare of collectively packing travel bags the night previous.
Ming Fan had been getting progressively more fraught as moment passed, so Zhang Hao stepped in to occupy their more excitable peers with banal tasks while Luo Binghe got the actual work done.
Then Shizun appeared, always so different in his expedition gear, warrior scholar standing vigil under the shimmering light and shade of the bamboo.
And he had taunted Ming Fan.
After two weeks of enforced closeness, Luo Binghe had learned to respect his shixiong. To actually like him underneath all the blistered arrogance.
And he did not like his shixiong being played with when he tries so hard to please their Shizun. For whatever reason.
He was so deeply hurt by being denied preparing tea for Shen Qingqiu. He kept muttering suddenly about 'broken trust' and it being 'all his fault'. He cried.
So to see those vivid green eyes over a swath of painted peach blossoms sparkling with subtle amusement-!
It only got worse from there.
The carriage trip in forbidding silence and suffocating anxiety from his shixiong and his own tendril of dread curdling his stomach.
The stench of the bodies, the feeling of wrongness that only abated once Shizun cleansed their spirits of resentment and lingering taint.
Ming Fan's dark, wood brown eyes going blank with horror upon learning of Ning Yingying's disappearance.
Waking up with a stuffy head and a strange taste in his mouth, tied up with scum threatening his friends and trying to make him feel like prey.
Shen Qingqiu bursting into the room like Divine Retribution made flesh, power rolling off him in waves, eyes gleaming scarlet and glimmering blue as a graceful fan movement decapitated their captor.
As Luo Binghe laid in his bed in the disciples barracks, a small thrill went through his heart as he remembered the power and grace in those movement, the life in those burning eyes.
They rode back that night same night. And in silence.
Usually, Shen Qingqiu would have let them sleep and ridden out the next morning.
But from tonight's upheaval, he needed to get to the Ling Xi Caves and balance himself immediately.
His qi was a mess of pain and collision, there were images flickering behind his eyes with every blink and he could feel the Earth qi of his root beginning to shift in the warnings of a Qi Deviation.
He had written a missive for Old Master Chen detailing the success of the mission and that the victims spirits and the demon den had been cleansed.
He advised a good burial for all the victims due to the small remaining chance of resentful ghosts returning. This was a lie. He didn't care.
So they rode.
The horses could take it.
The Qing Jing stables did not keep warhorses, work horses or more than a few messengers, but well rounded mounts in terms of speed, strength and stamina for travel.
The combination of living on a spiritual nexus, Peak training and eating fodder grown with qi by Jing Shen, developed their Beast Cores to transcend their ordinary, mortal counterparts in health, lifespan, intelligence and sheer capability.
(It was why he preferred not to ride. There was a knowing in their eyes that made him feel Seen in a very fundamental, very vulnerable, way.)
The disciples were tired, but they had Night Pearls and it meant they were quiet and obedient.
For once.
Leaving Ming Fan to oversee the unsaddling of the horses, Shen Qingqiu marched stiffly towards the Ling Xi Caves, more with his qi sense than the narrow scope of his blurred vision.
By the time he reached the entrance, he was staggering, but the soothing touch of rich, dense, neutral nature qi was a warm blanket in the harshest winter, a drink of water to one lost in desert sands under the blistering sun.
Shen Qingqiu swayed through the stone passageways until he reached his usual cultivation chamber and allowed himself to breathe.
Notes:
-Spirit stones: As taking the qi out of them makes them viable as currency, I thought it reasonable that SQQ would always carry some with him to replenish his reserves if necessary.
-Moon phases time: two weeks is roughly half the time of two lunar phases (new, first quarter, full, last quarter)
-250: Insult. Half of a halfwit.
-The eyes: high emotion or a powerful technique (dense/fast qi flow) makes eye colour change depending on qi nature. Because I have that image and it won't leave. *despairs*
So~ I bet u were expecting more details from this, I was too, but BAMF!SQQ said No.
