Forenote:
Focus pair: Mobei-jun / Airplane-bro | Shang Qinghua (Fa Xinghua)
Fa Xinghua was washing the hallway floors.
A punishment duty, because his Upper-class shixiong was annoyed and Fa Xinghua was unlucky enough to be passing by at the time and his curly hair meant he always looked a bit scruffy, which was apparently annoying to look at for his 'superiors'.
Thus, punishment duty: go scrub the floors of the Chrysanthemum Palace! Kneel until it shines and you've learned to respect your betters !
Yeah right.
Still, he had to do it, because even though that stuck up Upper-class would forget about Fa Xinghua's existence as soon as he left his line of sight, there were others around at the time that definitely heard and with the level of petty spite and sadistic malice polluting the Palace disciple ranks, at least one of them would definitely check that he'd done it, if only for the excuse to punish him if he skimped.
On the plus side, he was almost done! Only two more floors and he could get back to his room and get some moving meditation sequences in before he fell asleep. If he skipped dinner, he might even have time for some actual martial arts practice and a wash before everyone else came back to the dorm cells! His wings fluttered in anticipation.
That's right! No matter what tasks of physical labour were heaped upon the Lower-class disciples, they were still disciples of the Sect! Not actually the servants, no matter what the Upper-class thought.
Sure, they came from rich backgrounds and were given personal training and cultivation-boosting materials. Sure, they had barely any chores assigned them and wore silks in silvery white and shining gold with real gold and silver thread embroidery, but that didn't make them more promising cultivators than Fa Xinghua!
Even though the reason he was able to check out those cultivation manuals from the Amber Library was because no one bothered to check who was doing what with low level common manuals as long as they were checked out with the proper array and returned within the time limit. That and no one seemed to have clicked that as a Lower-class disciple he wasn't actually technically allowed to do it, before he got his squirrelly hands on enough high-class gear to pass off as an Upper-class cultivator at a glance.
Probably the only reason he hadn't been found out yet was because none of his peers in oppression had the knowledge, nerve or actual will to sneak around to and from the library and voluntarily study and work out in their vanishingly little free time. He left them alone and they left him alone, he didn't go forming cliques or preforming noticeably well in anything and they didn't keep a closer eye on what exactly he was doing.
And, well, Fa Xinghua wasn't going to go out of his way to advertise the path to learning he'd stumbled into. It was selfish, but Huan Hua Palace really was a snake pit on every level, pushing someone down and stepping on them was the only way to reliably climb up higher. If no-one knew he was training then they wouldn't try to sabotage him, if no-one knew about the library accessibility, then they couldn't snitch to the higher ups to hoard it for themselves! Like he was doing!
Except instead of climbing the ranks, as soon as Fa Xinghua had the chance he was gone.
He didn't have a particularly established position anywhere, so it was just a case of finding a way through the ward arrays around the Sect and getting the array identifying him as a Lower-class indebted 'disciple' off of his stomach. Maybe leaving a fake last-ditch-escape-attempt/suicide note so his superiors in the Print-Press and Finance offices in charge of him didn't look too hard for him.
He'd have to let his honorary Big Sis know too, of course. Shame she was too high profile to get out with him when the time came. Too high up in the food chain to get her disappearance written off without an investigation.
Fa Xinghua stood up and stretched put the aches, clutching the damp cloth and staring blankly at the intricate tapestries covering the walls ceiling to floor, feathers fluffed in disgruntlement. He shook himself and sighed.
Yeah. At Huan Hua Palace, to succeed, you didn't have to have talent as long as you had the money to reach the Upper class, just like to be safe as an indentured Lower disciple you didn't have to be invisible.
It just really, really helped.
Technically, Fa Xinghua was a cultivation disciple.
Alas! Like so many Lower-class disciples, he had been given into Sect service by his parents when he was too young to run away, to cover the deficit for the sum of the taxes Huan Hua Palace extorted every inhabitant of their land with i n the name of providing 'protection' and living in a spiritually rich areas improving the chances of a child 'becoming a cultivator' when they eventually, inevitably, ended up within the Palace halls. Scrubbing them, usually, like Fa Xinghua was supposed to be.
Really, being a 'disciple' just meant he lived on Sect grounds and wore the Sect colours, though his uniform made sure that his Class was visually demonstrated.
Fa Xinghua's uniform was more ochre yellow than shining gold, because rough canvas didn't take the dye as well as silk, his vambraces were boiled leather instead of finely crafted metals and his boos were the thick, heavy kind made for tromping through ground of all kinds instead of delicately embroidered because they didn't have to worry about marsh stains or grass snakes high up in the clouds flying on a sword.
He let himself lull into the familiar daze of monotonous, menial labour, leaving his mind free as a bird~!
Though seriously, whose idea was it for this weird spirit animals AU huh?!
He probably didn't even need a sword to fly, he had freaking wings! He hadn't written that! Ever!
(Except maybe that one weird curse scene to make one wife see like an angel-figure to milk his audience's widespread purity kink when certain black powder vegetables raged about every damn female introduced miraculously being a virgin no matter their backstory and other commenters started agreeing... But that was literally a one off just to piss Peerless Cucumber off!)
He absolutely, definitely, 100% hadn't written humans being born with a spirit animal secondary state. Or soulmates for that matter! How exactly could a stallion protagonist amass a harem of hundred is the max limit for actual destined soulmates was, like, three.
The only therianthropes he'd written were the standard 'cute girl with cure insert-animal ears and tail' variety and only under curses or as demonesses or spirit servants to animal-aligned deities or...
Okay, so he'd written it a few more times than most stories had, but he had a word quota to fill and a twenty-four-hour deadline, okay?! He had rent! And it was still very different from everyone everywhere being an ani-person of sort.
Not that it was all bad, though.
Fa Xinghua's secondary species was a Northern Pygmy-Owl, which gave him silent flight (supposedly, because he... hadn't actually taken flight. Ever. Would draw too much attention to try learning so...), really, really good vision, including night vision and depth perception (though his eyes were almost eerily large and rounded in proportion to his face and his pupils apparently got huge when he saw something he liked and it creeped people out), plus fantastic hearing! Plus, the slight scaling on his hands and feet gave him ready-made callouses! Saved his poor hands a thousand blisters and sores over the years!
The downsides were the wings (that got caught on everything and needed so much preening and gave away his every feeling- urgh ) and the feathery ear tufts sticking out between his temples and the start of his ears, which perked up like stupid, fluffy, useless antennae when he got emotional. He also had three eyelids to work with and couldn't actually move his eyeballs much, weirdly, so he had to compensate by turning his head on an also weirdly rotatable neck, like something out of those horror movies from his first life.
Freaked himself out a bit to do it, to be honest.
Caught up in his inner monologue, he almost missed the sound of footsteps a few corridors over. He almost dismissed them- could be anyone, right? Then his super keen hearing picked up the sound of voices... specifically the nasal snigger of one of the most infamous Huan Hua cultivator to the Lower-class ranks, a bully so prolific you'd have thought he couldn't even get his rocks of without making someone else feel bad.
Low-level IQ 10, Minor Antagonist: Gongyi Mo!
But thanks to his handy super ears, he had warning! Now all he had to do was find...
Brown eyes caught on one of the floor length tapestries, just slightly down the hall, all intricate, ostentatious things like everything else in the Sect, all silks, precious thread and high-quality jewel beads, but the little clusters of silvery white chrysanthemums scattered along the bottom edge were a sure sign, if one was once the Author God of this world and knew what they meant.
The heavy metal doors of the Chrysanthemum Palace were slammed shut, the boom echoing from down the halls and around two corners like a death knell, the scrape of the deadbolt like a whetstone on an executioner's blade.
Heart pounding in his throat, he grabbed up his bucket and cloth and pulled the tapestry out enough to reach behind and grip the chrysanthemum carved into the stone wall and twist-
The stone wall swung inwards and Fa Xinghua hurriedly stepped in to follow it, feather tufts twitching involuntarily from the unholy glee that crawled up his throat in a full cackle he was working hard to suppress. Ha! And all PIDW's other black powder fans were so critical of Fa Xinhua's secret passageways! Especially that Peerless Cucumber; the sheer rage that guy had expressed when Luo Binghe had first discovered these hidden corridors with what Fa Xinghua liked to call his 'revolving door' openings...! Apparently calling them that was bullshit because revolving doors don't work that way and other such nonsense in the face of qi arrays and general cultivator xianxia PIDW bullshit.
Also that Luo Binghe then did nothing with the discovery except sneak around to different soon-to-be-wives among the Huan Hua disciple pool. Which, yeah, Fa Xinghua was upset about that too to be honest, but porn plots paid better than detective/mystery ones, so Luo Binghe never went further in than the periphery passages. Just like Fa Xinhua now.
… except he had never actually used any of these passages before and never properly mapped them out as the Author because that was difficult and took a lot of time for almost no reward except a smidge of continuity that no one cared about anyway so...
An indeterminate length of time later and Fa Xinhua was thoroughly lost.
The exhilaration of evading Gongyi Mo had long since faded and something about the faint echoes of dripping water from an indeterminate direction raised all the gooseflesh everywhere on Fa Xinguha's body.
It got darker and darker, the further he went. The air took on the smell of old, cold stone and seemed to start to whisper. A soft susurration, like the murmurs of a crowd of ghosts somewhere beyond the cracks and shadows lit in the dim bluish-grey light of a simple array, feeding off the ambient qi of the dragon vein meridian (literally a confluence of his xianxia leylines) Huan Hua is built on. Just enough murky light for Fa Xinghua to see by.
Or for something to see him.
He shivered, a chill racing down his back like damp, dead fingers. Ethereal, unnatural and hungry.
His wings fluffed up, making him look twice his size and half as intimidating, especially wielding just a bucket and a dirty cleaning cloth. What would be say, if some sort of secret corridor nasty appeared, looking for a Xinghua-shaped snack? 'Stay back, or I'll wipe you!' Bone chilling.
Then the walls started closing in.
Light flared an intricate web of complex array formulae raced across the floor, the ceiling, the walls, shining a bright and heartless gold. They bloomed like flowers of a thousand petals, but instead of sweet nectar at the centre, each array bloom held a statement of its purpose- his eyes darted around, squinting in the growing light, flicking from one shining sequence to the next, catching core identifiers for Movement, Lightness, Silence and most damningly, unfurled right beneath him feet, a nasty looking spiky array with the core tenant of Intruder Defence.
There was an electric crackle behind him and answering white lighting
Shit. He'd walked too far in and tripped the xianxia-magic wire.
The way back was automatically blocked (of course it was, it would be too easy otherwise!) when the array triggered and he knew that the same extremely lethal lightning/electric fence/barrier would have sprung up at the entrance of every immediate passageway opening in his immediate vicinity.
Because the one time this happened to Luo Binghe, he's jumped through the barrier to escape being crushed, the lightning burned off his clothes and his Heavenly Demon bullshit blood healed him of damage immediately, leaving him Yin charged (from the lightning, and thus very horny to 'regain balance'), mostly naked and Artfully Scorched.
Fa Xinghua would not be able to get out of this with some mere sexy singing. Going through the barrier would leave a Crispy Xinghua very definitely dead. The walls eased closer. The motion smooth, silent and inexorable.
And slow.
Staying would leave a very definitely non-living Xinhua Pancake. Eventually. Because he'd written Huan Hua Palace to be the snake den of sadistic fucks, through and through.
The light from the arrays was growing steadily more blinding. He jumped as cold stone touched his wings, the walls were very, very close now and still encroaching,
No way forwards.
No way back.
He couldn't'- he couldn't fly up, there was a ceiling, an array, there was nowhere to go and his wings weren't strong enough to-
He reared back and threw all he had into a punch to the floor beneath him, right to the heart of the largest array.
(His wings were weak and useless, but his arms and legs were not.)
Light shattered.
Stone crumbled.
Fa Xinghua fell, the passageway grinding closed above him.
The darkness swallowed him whole.
- End Part 1 -
Notes:
Planning to post these in installment sections, just to try and get more written (...and clear my docs out...) 'XD