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That night, during Shen Qingqiu's drug-induced exhaustion, he ruminated about the little beast's claim that talking about the sect upset him.

Of course it did.

After all, as much as he couldn't stand his martial siblings and hated just about everyone there, it had been the safest place he'd ever lived. He had food and shelter (even if he chose to reject it in favor of sleeping in the brothels, back when he was still a disciple himself), and if somebody hurt him, he was able to fight back. In his days as a peak lord, before Luo Binghe had shown up on his mountain, he had been bitter but peaceful, powerful and admired. He wasn't happy, but he was as close to happiness as someone like him was capable of.

And it had all been taken away.

XXX

Ning Yingying was back. This time, though, Luo Binghe was with her again, and the little beast had given him half of the sedative already to keep him calm. It had already kicked in, and it left his head feeling fuzzy, though it wasn't enough to put him to sleep. His thoughts were slow, and his tongue was a bit looser than he would like. It didn't feel right. Shen Qingqiu had always hated feeling vulnerable, and this loose haziness certainly made him feel like he was.

"I'm sorry about yesterday, Shizun," Ning Yingying told him. "I wasn't trying to make you think of uncomfortable things."

Perhaps she may not have intended as such, but he certainly had. He wanted to hurt her. He hoped she wouldn't return, that she'd finally figure out that he was irredeemable and a lost cause anyways. He just wanted her to leave.

But here she was again.

"Hm."

He didn't really care to respond. He was tired.

"Please let me know if I'm upsetting you in the future, alright?" she added.

What, so even this naive little girl was treating him like a child, now? He didn't need her to be careful with her words, he needed her to go away.

"Who cares what you do," he said, the drugs making it come out softer than he'd intended.

It was annoying. He hated this damn sedative.

"Shizun," Luo Binghe said.

Just as he opened his mouth to spit some harsh word (or try to, at least), Luo Binghe shoved something in his mouth, and in surprise, he swallowed it.

Luo Binghe just smirked at him as Shen Qingqiu realized the demon lord had tricked him into eating a bite of food without being controlled by the parasites. In response, he leveled a glare at him, and then pointedly shifted it to Ning Yingying, at which point he switched to a bright, wide smile.

"Yingying?"

"Yes, Shizun…?"

"Tell your husband to go fuck himself."

At that, Ning Yingying choked on nothing, shock painting her face.

"Shizun!" she gasped. "You said…!"

Of course, she had never known him to be vulgar. Even when he was full of spiteful rage during his peak lord days, he kept himself poised and elegant, and his word choice had matched. He would use subtle insults and sting with a barbed tongue. Now, he had been reduced to petty insults and coarse language, but he wasn't all that motivated to do better anymore.

"I've known how to curse as long as I've known how to talk, Yingying," he laughed.

Actually, this was a little funny. He wondered what it would have been like to curse in front of his disciples back when he was a peak lord. Would they look as scandalized as Ning Yingying did now? He'd never really had any fun being a teacher. He'd really just wanted the status of being peak lord.

He laughed again, barely noticing the glance shared between husband and wife.

"You know, if you expected to find the same Shizun you once knew, you are mistaken," he continued. "That Shizun died already. Actually, he never even really existed."

That wasn't really funny. But it felt like it was.

"… A-Luo, I think a half dose makes him act a bit… odd."

XXX

Luo Binghe had never seen his Shizun act so… giggly before. And for once, he was amused, for a reason that wasn't at all malicious. Shen Qingqiu had tried to be harsh and rude, but his voice was so soft that it was hard to take it seriously. And then the man smiled, and Luo Binghe found his heart skipping a beat. The laughing was a little weird, but really, it was close to charming if he could forget that it was due to drugs.

For a few minutes, the demon lord wondered whether he should switch to giving Shen Qingqiu half a dose from then on- he'd be more awake, and it appeared that he was in a much better mood like this. Except he eventually started laughing at nothing, and within a split second, he suddenly burst into tears without warning.

"Oh!" Ning Yingying gasped while Luo Binghe just stared for a second.

"Shizun, what's wrong?!"

His wife scooted a little closer and put a hand on Shen Qingqiu's back. Whatever Shen Qingqiu's response was, Luo Binghe couldn't understand it. Based on the look Ning Yingying gave him, she hadn't understood him, either.

Okay. So, a half dose was maybe a bad idea.

Shen Qingqiu was full-on sobbing now, hiding his face in his knees. He wasn't as shocked as he was the last time the older man cried, but it was a rather abrupt switch in his mood.

"I hate you!"

Well, they certainly heard that.

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He didn't know why he was so distraught all of a sudden. Why could a drug make him embarrassingly silly one second and then just as embarrassingly sad? He didn't know, but he just felt suddenly overwhelmed with the despair of his situation. He was brought back from the dead, being held captive by the man who ruined him in every way possible, and now, the disciple he had once been the most fond of had joined in on the little game, too.

Luo Binghe must be lying to her. She wasn't a good enough actor to seem so genuine in what she said. If she didn't think her husband had actually chosen to not torture him anymore, she wouldn't have been able to offer her sympathies without giving the truth away. Ah, but Ning Yingying was the kind of woman who believed her husband, now wasn't she? Or maybe she had worked on her deception since she left their sect. He didn't know anymore.

Regardless, he felt like he was being crushed by the weight of reality. There was no way out of this. He was only a toy being played with.

He just wanted to put an end to all this, but he was so controlled that he couldn't even make such a decision. The entire sect, every disciple, the mountain itself, Yue Qingyuan- all of it was gone and destroyed.

He couldn't stop himself from crying harder as he remembered the former sect leader. Ever since Luo Binghe threw the shards of Xuan Su at his feet, he resisted thinking anything about the man as well as he could. He didn't need to remember those soft, gentle smiles or the way Qi-ge would hold him close on cold nights. He didn't need to remember the endlessly calm presence that balanced out his old rowdy behavior. He didn't need to remember feeling like he had a brother. He didn't need to remember being endlessly indulged or being left behind for a reason he still didn't know, and he didn't need to remember trying to push him away enough that he'd accept Shen Jiu was a lost cause. He didn't need to remember silently begging that stupid idiot to ignore the letter, no matter what it was written in or what accompanied it, because it was so obviously a trap, but Yue Qingyuan knew that and went anyway, all to save someone who had never deserved it.

He didn't need to remember those shards or the way Luo Binghe's cruel face reflected in them, copy after copy of cruelty, reflecting back their owner's killer.

He really wished he'd never found Qi-ge again for the rest of his life. He wished he had never encountered him that day, that he just continued on with his life believing the man must have died in a ditch somewhere. He wished he had killed Yue Qingyuan that day, just so his betrayal was all the more clear, just so that, if he was going to die being betrayed by him, at least it would be by his own hand. He wished he had never joined the same sect as him, wished that he could have done something awful enough that Yue Qi would have been forced to punish him. He wished Yue Qingyuan would have stayed away from him.

He wished Qi-ge could have just learned to hate him.

XXX

After Shen Qingqiu was done crying, he ended up falling asleep on the floor. Still a bit shocked about what happened, Luo Binghe moved him to the bed and led his wife out of the room. Later, he questioned the doctor, who advised him not to alter the dose on a whim, especially since Shen Qingqiu's mental state was already unstable. Apparently, there was a difference between a drop given to an unconscious man and a half-dose given to a conscious one.

He didn't get angry, since he'd seen the evidence himself.

That didn't mean that Shen Qingqiu wasn't angry, though. His behavior had embarrassed him, so now he was sulking.

"I already said I was sorry," Luo Binghe huffed. "I just thought it would make you a little tired instead of falling asleep."

"Well, maybe you should stop drugging me," Shen Qingqiu spat at him.

"I'll stop drugging you when I think you don't need to be," Luo Binghe replied. "But I might ask the doctor if there's something else I can give you now that you're not dying."

"I'm not some rodent for you to experiment on!" the older man hissed.

"I said I'd talk to the doctor!" Luo Binghe argued. "I'm not just going to randomly change things again."

"And then you'll make me take whatever your damned 'doctor' decides on!"

"Yes, Shizun, that is the point."

The older man looked at him incredulously.

"… One of these days, I'm going to find a way to kill either you or myself," he swore bitterly.

"You've tried both, and neither has worked thus far," the demon lord reminded him.

"How many times did you fall off your sword before you learned to fly?"

It actually hadn't taken him all that long to learn how to fly on his sword once he got it, but he didn't want to spark his Shizun's rage/jealousy by saying that. He got the point anyway. Instead, he smiled at him, pointedly meeting the older man's eyes with his own.

"I won't let you have as many opportunities to try as that," he promised.

He really wouldn't, and though Shen Qingqiu would obviously interpret this as an act of cruelty, he was really just trying to keep the man alive. How odd it was that promising protection would be seen as violence to this man.

"You'll slip up at some point. Or your servants will."

"We'll see about that," Luo Binghe sighed before deciding to change the topic away from Shen Qingqiu's murderous/suicidal intentions. "So, why exactly did you start crying yesterday?"

"As if I would tell you."

"Was it for a reason, or was it just the drugs?" Luo Binghe persisted.

"Why would I cry if it wasn't the drugs?!"

"You have before."

"Shut up!"

Luo Binghe leaned on his hand. Even if the man didn't say it, he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

XXX

Shen Jiu's adventures in being drugged are not over…

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