"Binghe, do you think the changes to lessons I have made these past three years have been appreciated, across the peak?" Shen Qingqiu asked over tea late one afternoon, as the bamboo rustled in the breeze outside their house. "The poetry competitions, the musical recitals, the sword form classes sorted more clearly according to ability with monthly exams, one on one meetings about cultivation progress, and my new 'detective' classes on proper investigation methods and identifying dangerous beasts… I know it has helped this teacher to bring more complexity to this one's peak, but do my students appreciate the increased workload, or do they resent it? Please be honest with this master; Ming Fan only sings my praises."
"There are in truth a few disciples – very few – who grumble, Shizun, but they are only the most spoiled young masters and mistresses who were previously used to an excess of leisure time," Binghe said. He was forced away from his first impulse to heap unstinting praise on his beloved teacher out of his desire to do better than Ming Fan. "Even they are proud of their increased accomplishments; they complain about the work but boast to their noble families about the results. Everyone also appreciates the gentler discipline methods of writing lines and running laps around the peak. Shizun is the best teacher, and students of other peaks are jealous of us for having you, Shizun!"
"The best teacher…" his Shizun murmured. His eyes gleamed brightly as he lowered his fan to gaze thoughtfully at Binghe. "This master has taught you as best I can to prepare you for… the world, but is it enough? Always I ask myself, as I ask again today… can I be a better teacher?"
His heart leapt at his teacher's intense gaze.
"This one is always ready for more lessons!" Binghe offered eagerly, setting down his teacup and kneeling at his teacher's side. "Does Shizun wish to instruct this one privately in sword forms, or guqin?"
"Shh!" Shen Qingqiu said, bopping his overeager disciple on the head with a closed fan. "This lesson is one of words, and hidden wisdom. This rather slow teacher hopes his smart disciple can puzzle out the hidden meaning from a hypothetical situation posed to him…"
"Yes, Shizun!"
His beloved teacher flicked open his fan, blue and green with a pattern of cranes in flight, and fanned himself leisurely as he began speaking.
"Let us say that hypothetically there was a cultivator with a curse that…" his teacher started, before abruptly stopping. His eyes were distant and vacant, flicking down and to the right as if seeing something that wasn't there. His lips were thinned in barely hidden anger, and his fan stilled in the air, his fingers clenched so tight that Binghe worried he might accidentally snap the delicate bamboo ribs of the fan in two.
"Shizun?" he asked worriedly.
"Patience, I need to think," his Shizun said, absent-mindedly. He stared out one open window into the groves of bamboo that creaked gently in the breeze, swaying to and fro.
Excluding his worry over his beloved teacher's peace of mind, it was no hardship to wait. With Shizun so very distracted he didn't notice Luo Binghe stealthily shuffling across to kneel a fraction closer to his side.
Shen Qingqiu let out a slow breath, and to Binghe's relief his eyes refocused on him.
His teacher's smile was strained as he said slowly, "Well, it seems a hypothetical won't do. Let me think of another way to… impart a lesson."
"An illustrative story, Shizun?" Binghe suggested.
"Mn, perhaps…" his Shizun said, and directed a small approving smile at Binghe – to his delight – before lapsing into a thoughtful frown.
His eyes went absent again, for longer than usual. Binghe had seen it before, this absence, this vacancy of mind. When it happened, his Shizun would glance to the side before he went thoughtful and still; unmoving and unspeaking. Before now it had always been brief and associated with happier moments. It brought his teacher joy. But now he was frozen with a worried frown for much too long. Was something wrong?
Those odd moments often came after missions when they'd defeated a demon together; sometimes his Shizun would look absent for just a brief moment, then beam a bright toothy grin of delight quickly hidden behind a fan, or he might give a quiet smile of satisfaction. It wasn't only a successful hunt that brought these moments out, though. Once he'd seen that vacancy, and then a quiet, surprised delight dawn on his Shizun's thin face after that pig-brain Liu Qingge had stayed for tea after cleansing his meridians, and had softly told Shen Qingqiu about his fraught relationship with his extended family, and his devotion to his sister. Binghe had brought tea and osmanthus cakes and hidden his jealousy as well as he could; his vinegar-drinking was hidden at least from his ever-oblivious master but he worried his shishu had caught a glimpse of the envy in his face. His shishu seemed bemused by his reaction rather than angered, however, and thankfully said nothing.
Once from a distance he'd seen Ming Fan bring that look of vacancy to their Shizun's face, and that was the worst. He'd badgered his shixiong for answers about what he'd done, only to learn it was over nothing more than a discussion about a new lesson plan that Ming Fan had designed with extra training for the Peak's students in the lead up to the Immortal Alliance Conference. His teacher was happy over a lesson plan? He could have written a lesson plan! Ming Fan wasn't the only one who could help with paperwork!
Those thoughtful ponderings and subsequent delighted smiles, Binghe thought, should all belong to him. Most of them already did, he was sure of it! Missions they did together, obviously, were the most common way to bring his Shizun joy, but so did softer things. A particularly delightful dinner that pleased his Shizun enough to lavish Binghe with gushing compliments (which brought a subsequent leap of joy to Binghe's heart) would sometimes make his teacher distant and happy. When they trained together and Binghe 'accidentally' tripped and needed his Shizun to catch and correct him, that too could sometimes bring a swift secret glimpse to the side and a quiet smile. His Shizun chided him for his 'clumsiness', but how could he deny his own eager hunger for contact and his teacher's hidden smiles? He did it more.
However, today something was different, and pain and fretfulness had replaced that secretive delight. And his Shizun was silent still, frozen in looking slightly to the side. Not looking at Binghe, or out the open window, or a wall scroll, or anything much. It was going on for too long now – was his Shizun alright?
"Did Shizun wish to tell this one a story about a cultivator with a curse?" Binghe asked carefully.
"No!" his Shizun said, almost hissing the word, abrupt with what almost looked like panic as he was startled from his reflections. "We will not speak of that. Do you hear me?"
"This disciple hears and obeys, Shizun," Binghe said worriedly, slow and careful. At least Shizun wasn't frozen anymore; light and life had returned to his body. "Does Shizun still want to tell this lowly disciple a story, or shall this disciple clear the table?"
Shen Qingqiu's fan started waving gracefully through the air again, fingers soft and relaxed once more.
"No, leave the table be for now, I have thought of a story as you suggested... a story told many times by others is permi… is fine to share. Now, the best stories always being with 'Once upon a time'," his Shizun told him, speaking low and slow, eyes half-lidded as he looked intently at Binghe. "You will remember that. That is how the best and oldest stories begin, the ones that should be attended to. The ones with a moral to learn. Perhaps you might like to write the story down later. And others this master will tell you on other occasions, once I have considered the best tales to share."
"Yes, Shizun."
Is Shizun suffering from a curse? Something more than Without-A-Cure? He is acting so strangely today.
"Shizun… is Shizun well?" he asked hesitantly.
"As well as I ever am," his Shizun sighed. "Now, this is story from long ago, I hope you will learn from it. Once upon a time, there was a… an Emperor. His Empress had betrayed him by lying with another man and he'd had her executed–"
"I would never betray you, Shizun!" It burst out of him spontaneously, leaving him pink-cheeked and embarrassed.
His teacher patted his hair, with a soft smile. "It's alright that you interrupted, you are welcome to comment as I tell this tale, but the betrayal is not the main point of the story. Please listen carefully?"
"Forgive this disciple, Shizun!" he pleaded, thick with relief that his wonderful but oblivious Shizun hadn't noticed Binghe betraying his romantic interest so clumsily with his crude outburst.
Binghe drank some cooling tea to soothe his nerves and to give him an excuse to look away from his teacher for a moment as he tried to still the rapid beating of his heart.
"So, embittered by his experience, the Emperor decided that all women were faithless and could not be trusted. Suspicious beyond reason, he took a new virgin to be his wife every night, and had her executed at dawn, so that there would never be a chance for betrayal again."
Binghe scowled. "What a horrible Emperor. What was his name?"
His Shizun looked thoughtful, his fan waving lazily. "It's just a story, not history, and I'm sorry but I don't remember his name. The name everyone remembers is that of his smartest wife, one in a long line of doomed women. Her name was Scheherazade, and she was the beautiful and intelligent daughter of one of his Ministers. Not being able to rely on anyone else to save her, this cunning young woman came up with a plan to save her own life, and that of all the other daughters of the kingdom.
"She was dutifully wed then went to the Emperor's bed, and afterwards she then begged to tell him a story. Pleased with her, he granted her wish, and that night she spun a tale to catch his mind and delight his curiosity. When dawn came, her tale was half-finished, paused at the most exciting part in the story. She apologised that she could speak no longer as dawn had come and her life was forfeit but promised she would tell him the rest of the tale the next night, should she be spared to live so long."
Shen Qingqiu leant forward, his dark eyes intent as he stared at him, resting a warm hand on Binghe's shoulder. It was a delicious warmth he could feel even through his tunic.
"She saved her life with her story," his Shizun said, then leant back and fanned himself again as he continued. "And the next night she told more of her story, and as dawn came the Emperor was left intrigued and unsatisfied once more as her tale went unfinished again, a new twist in the plot catching his imagination. For if her tales ever bored, if the King failed to be interested in them, she knew that she would die, so she had to choose her stories very carefully. And so on it went for years, for a thousand and one nights, until she ran out of tales and out of time. By then she'd born him multiple sons, and he'd learnt that not all women were unfaithful and untrustworthy. So, he spared her life and made her his Empress and they lived happily ever after."
"She saved her life with cunning and stories? Is that the moral?" Binghe checked.
"Mn."
"Couldn't she just plead her case to him more openly? Speak of her faithfulness and the honour of women, and of the harm the Emperor was doing to his land and his people?"
"Women had tried that before her. They had all died. Every night she told her stories, hoping her husband would learn, without her directly saying a word on the matter, what she needed him to learn. For the sake of her life and her Emperor's happiness. Every night she feared the coming of dawn and her possible doom, and hoped her story would be enough. What's the line she always says every morning? I think it went something like this: 'And Scheherazade perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say…'"
Binghe had the feeling his Shizun was trying to teach him something, and he felt stupid for not understanding it.
"Does… does Shizun fear for his life…?" he asked hesitantly.
Shizun's face was hidden behind his fan, but the tiny crinkles around his eyes hinted that he was happy, rather than afraid.
Is he amused at my blundering mistake, or pleased at my correct guess? Binghe wondered.
"It's just a story, Binghe, let us not speak of more than that. 'And Scheherazade perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say…'" his Shizun repeated. "I will tell you another story tomorrow night, my Emperor."
My Emperor. Binghe's heart leapt. If Shizun was Scheherazade in this tale, that meant Binghe was his husband. His heart beat wildly in his chest at the thought.
"Yes, Shizun! Your Binghe will look forward to hearing another tale, and will learn everything there is to learn."
His Shizun's eyes stared briefly off into space, and when he lowered his fan there was a thin, satisfied smile on his lips. Everything was right in the world once more.
Binghe transcribed the first story that evening, as well as writing down his best deduced clues on a separate piece of paper: Shizun may be under a curse he is afraid of speaking of. He is the doomed storyteller afraid of death or some dire fate, and I am his beloved husband, the Emperor. Betrayal by a spouse is perhaps a concern, but not the main point of the story nor something he is truly afraid of. He hopes his tales will save him. I, the Emperor, must learn to love him and learn a lesson about trust. Only I can save him.
He frowned at the parchment scroll. Some of it was probably right, some of it was probably wrong. He might need more stories to tell what parts were hidden flecks of gold in a pan, and what were just plain gravel. He hoped that the story was a shy way to flirt, to ask without words that Binghe would learn to love him. Still, so far his Shizun had never once looked at him like he dreamt he would… he still treated him like a beloved child, not a beloved partner. At least he was beloved! He mustn't read too much into it. Yet… it was promising!
My Emperor…
Shaking himself out of his wildest fantasies, Binghe looked thoughtfully at the parchment and added a final line. Are Shizun's vacant looks part of a curse, and not simple thoughtfulness, or a result of his qi deviation after all? Is he pleading for my help with whatever causes that?
-000-
A/N: With thanks to my SVSSS fact checker extraordinaire, beelzebaozi, and my fantastic beta, SavageCricket, for their assistance. Thanks also to many readers who've left me encouraging comments over the years, with special thank yous to Elizabeth_Schuyler and Gwenhyfer who are inspiringly persistent as appreciative re-readers of my works and cheerleaders for me as an author.