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I have a cold, so sorry if this is slightly less-edited than usual.

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In the end, she'd been able to convince her husband to let her go alone, though with the caveat that she would wear a piece of magical jewelry that would alert him to come if she tapped the pendant. She agreed, since it wasn't an unreasonable condition, and though she wasn't really very worried about her Shizun hurting her, it wouldn't hurt to simply wear a necklace.

Shen Qingqiu was pacing when she entered the room, only noticing her when he turned around. Upon seeing her standing in the doorway, he stiffened. Then, he straightened up into the posture of a proper peak lord, and though his clothes and hair didn't match it, he did somewhat look the part. She could almost think that she was bringing breakfast to her Shizun in his bamboo house. Though, she didn't do that often, and the few times she did, he was already dressed and put together, not a hair out of place.

She smiled at him and brought the food she made to the table, mimicking her husband's actions from the previous day.

"Good m-afternoon, Shizun," she said. "How are you today?"

His face was a hard mask.

"I am fine, Yingying."

"I made you some breakfast," she told him. "Would you like to try it?"

She hoped that he might be more inclined to eat it if she told him that she had been the one to make it rather than Luo Binghe. Ning Yingying had never been quite as good at cooking as her husband was, but it wasn't as though she was particularly bad at it. Her food was perfectly edible, even pretty good. Luo Binghe just happened to be very good at everything. So, perhaps the food would not be as good by comparison, but at least it wasn't food made by someone who tortured him, she thought.

"No, thank you," the man denied anyway.

She sagged a little.

"Please, Shizun? I promise that no demon has touched it."

He gave her an appraising look, eyes searching her face.

"You can't force me to eat like your husband does," he reminded her.

"I know," she nodded. "That's why I'm asking."

"Unfortunately, I must still decline."

So, he truly was going to be stubborn, even if it wasn't her husband sitting here.

"Please, Shizun? If you don't eat, a-Luo is just going to come later and force you," she requested. "I know you hate it. But denying me now isn't going to get you any closer to starving yourself."

He didn't move.

Perhaps it was time to revisit a tactic from her childhood.

She let her eyes grow teary, not entirely false as she was actually worried for him, and tried to look a little pitiful.

"Please eat, Shizun! Yingying is so worried about you, and I worked so hard to cook this meal for you!" she cried, pitching her voice a little higher. "I don't want to watch you starve!"

One of his eyebrows twitched, but his tension softened just a touch. He sighed, looking up toward the ceiling for a moment.

"If I eat a few bites, will you stop asking?"

She brightened.

"Yes!"

Begrudgingly, Shen Qingqiu approached the table, sitting down gracefully. Then, however, he went to grab the chopsticks. He only picked up one, and his hands shook. It was held oddly in his grasp, and he ended up dropping it onto the table with a small clatter. In response, he grabbed it again with more force than necessary and shakily stabbed it into a piece of food.

He then dropped that, making a flash of annoyance cross his face. Ning Yingying frowned, not able to help feeling a little bad. Shen Qingqiu had once been a graceful and powerful cultivator, and now, he was having trouble bringing a bite of food to his mouth. Perhaps, in addition to trying to starve himself, he also didn't want people to witness him like this.

"Do you want me to help, Shizun?"

"I am not a child," he returned sharply.

"Your arms are damaged," she reminded patiently.

"Yes, I've noticed," he spat. "And you know why they're damaged, don't you? I don't need you to remind me."

She almost flinched, unused to her Shizun raising his voice.

"I'm sorry," she said, trying to keep the situation from escalating. "I'm just trying to help. I… don't want you to suffer, Shizun."

His eyes narrowed.

"Is that so?" he spoke purposefully, enunciating each syllable clearly.

His voice told her to back off, surprisingly similar to Luo Binghe's when he was giving a warning. But even though she knew it would be better to drop it and try to lighten the conversation, she didn't want to. So much had happened in these years, and she hadn't been able to speak to him once after his trial, not until just two days ago.

"Yes," she eventually answered, voice quiet.

Ning Yingying put on a sincere expression and looked her Shizun in the eye.

"I know you aren't innocent, but I never wanted you to suffer as you did," Ning Yingying told him. "I… I've always thought the punishment was too harsh. But I wasn't someone you hurt, so I didn't think that it was my place to say anything."

He chuckled.

"Yingying, you spoke against me at my trial. You married the very man who made me suffer," he pointed out. "So forgive me for not believing you."

"I… I know," she sighed. "I didn't know what would happen when I testified against you. I… didn't know a-Luo would…"

"Do you even know what your husband did to me, Yingying?" Shen Qingqiu asked, some unrecognizable look in his eye. "Do you know what he did, or just that I was tortured? I have a feeling that you wouldn't be able to look at him the way you do if you actually knew. Then again, he is your husband. Perhaps you two are more similar than I would have thought."

A heaviness settled on her shoulders. She had never wanted to know the details. She didn't want to see, to hear, to know. Maybe she wouldn't be able to look at Luo Binghe the same if she had a first-hand view of how he treated his enemies. A man could be a wonderful husband as well as cruel to his enemies, all at the very same time. Luo Binghe would never hurt her that way. It didn't mean he wouldn't hurt others, especially those he hated, in ways more terrible than she could imagine. Even the hints she did know were pushed to the back of her mind, kept in a box to keep them away from her childhood crush, who had once been so sweet.

"Do you… want to tell me what he did?" she asked, even though she truly did not want to know it.

Perhaps it would help him somehow, to tell her. Maybe he wanted someone to know what he endured.

But Shen Qingqiu's breath hitched, and he shook his head.

"No," he replied, a little quickly. "Your little beast knows what he did to me, and so do I. No one else needs to know."

He smoothed his robe, though it hadn't even been wrinkled.

"I know I'm a bad person, Yingying. I know what I've done and why, and if I was given a chance to change it, I don't think my decisions would be any better than what they were," he continued. "I'm not sorry. Whatever illusions you have of me left over from your youth, I am not some graceful, noble-born scholar with pristine character, and I never was. I'm a bitter old man who hates everyone and who died a long time ago."

He was smiling now, but it wasn't a happy one. Rather, it looked just as bitter as he claimed to be.

"I hurt your husband, so he hurt me. It's not a novel concept. Revenge is about as basic a motivation as you can get. I was tortured. I don't care anymore. You'd be surprised how little you care about things after you've already been tortured once and already died, after everything you ever cared about was taken away and destroyed- there's little left to threaten you with," he kept talking. "You say that you think your husband's punishment was just but too harsh. That's fair, I suppose."

He looked away from her, glaring at the wall.

"But I do hope you understand that your husband is crueler than I ever was, killed more than I ever did," he stated. "Perhaps you're kind enough to look past such things, but being nice to those who are cruel is being unkind to those they have harmed."

One of his hands moved upward to his chest, and he pressed a knuckle into the center, rubbing it slightly. He didn't seem to know he had done it.

"Not wanting me to have suffered won't change that I did. It won't change that your husband tortured me. Neither will this game he's playing. It won't change a thing."

She didn't like this conversation. She didn't like hearing her Shizun talk like this. But it wasn't like he didn't have a point. She always sat by while her husband did terrible things and said nothing so long as she could pretend she didn't know. And she loved him too much to do otherwise. But now, even Luo Binghe himself regretted how harsh his punishment was, especially now that he knew about their Shizun's past. If only she had said something, maybe she would have been able to convince her husband that he was being too harsh sooner. Clearly, it had been possible.

"What would change things, then?"

He looked back to her, his gaze's sharpness replaced with something much more weary.

"Tell your husband not to revive the dead. It's unnatural."

"I… don't think I can do that."

He was essentially asking to die, wasn't he? She couldn't try to convince Luo Binghe to kill their Shizun. If Luo Binghe had been too harsh, this was his opportunity to have a life without such harsh punishment. There was no reason for him to die- it would not be merciful to kill him now, would it?

Shen Qingqiu just sighed.

"I shouldn't still be here, Yingying. You know that," he told her. "Once someone is dead, that is how they are supposed to remain, until they get reincarnated into someone else. There is no 'second chance' once it has gotten to that point."

"Why can't there be? You're already here," she tried to argue. "Why not take a second chance if it's already been given to you?"

"It hasn't."

"It has."

Shen Qingqiu's breath stuttered once more, a few unsteady breaths following it. He clenched his hands as much as he could and forced his face to be as blank as possible. Even still, she could see the hate in his eyes.

"… Tell me, Yingying, where were you when your husband destroyed your sect?" he asked, voice as falsely neutral as his face. "Most of your former disciples had no hand in his mistreatment, many didn't even know him. So, where were you when he killed all those innocents to fulfill a grudge he had against me? Did you watch? Did you beg him to stop? Did you turn away and pretend it wasn't happening?"

Her own breath began to quicken.

"How similar are you to your husband, Yingying?"

And though she knew he was trying to hurt her, it worked. He had taken one of her biggest regrets and thrown it right into her face.

The truth was, she had tried to beg Luo Binghe to stop. She'd begged to at least spare the disciples who had never wronged him. But all it had taken to get her to quietly allow it had been a single glare. After that, she had hidden with Liu Mingyan until he was done and never so much as looked at the remains of their sect ever again. She had barely tried, unsure of how her husband would react when he was in such a blind rage.

Feeling tears building in her eyes, she left the room, pressing the pendant around her neck.

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When Luo Binghe received the alert that Ning Yingying had signaled to him using her pendant, he immediately felt a sharp coldness spread through his body. What happened? Did Shen Qingqiu attack her? Had he hurt himself again? He would know soon, as he immediately dropped what he was doing to go to his wife, hoping that it wasn't too serious of a situation. Maybe she'd activated it by accident, or maybe she just wanted him to come.

He didn't know what he'd do if he found his wife injured.

Upon turning the corner into the hallway where Shen Qingqiu's room was, he quickly saw Ning Yingying standing next to the door. And as he came closer, he realized that she was crying, rubbing tears away from her eyes with her sleeves.

"A-Ying!" he exclaimed, gently holding on to her shoulders. "What happened? Did he hurt you?"

He searched his wife for visible injuries, but even if he couldn't see any, that didn't mean there wasn't anything hidden under her clothes.

"I… I'm okay, a-Luo… Shizun didn't attack me," she reassured him as he continued to wipe her face. "He just… Well, you know our Shizun can be harsh. He didn't say anything that wasn't true, though…"

Luo Binghe frowned anyway. He may not hate Shen Qingqiu like he used to, but that didn't mean he was okay with the man making his wife cry.

"What did he say?" he asked.

She looked away, guiltily, to his surprise.

"Well…," his wife hesitated. "We got into a bit of an argument, I guess. I was trying to see if I could help him somehow, and he insinuated that he… wanted to die… and I tried to convince him to accept that he was alive again. But then he started rambling about what he's done and what you did to him, and then…"

She sighed, her shoulders falling.

"He… He asked me where I was when you destroyed Cang Qiong Mountain," she admitted. "And I… I don't like thinking about that a-Luo, or what I did and didn't do. He pointed out that innocent people died, and I just… I couldn't take it, so I left. And I wanted you here, so…"

Luo Binghe pulled his wife close, hugging her tightly but not so tight as to be painful. He patted the back of her head as she buried her face in his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Yingying…," he apologized. "I suppose if I could find mercy for Shen Qingqiu himself, maybe I should have been able to find mercy for those innocents. But none of that was your fault. You couldn't have stopped me."

"I hardly tried…," she mumbled.

"You still did," he said. "I know that this is a difficult topic for you. I don't like seeing you upset."

"I know, husband," she accepted, pulling away from the hug enough to look at him. "But I'm okay. Just a little upset. Don't be mad at him for it, alright? He really didn't say anything that wasn't true; he just asked me a question I didn't want to answer."

He sighed.

"Alright, I won't be mad."

"Good," she brushed his cheek with her hand. "I think I need some time to think, a-Luo."

"If that's what you want," he said with a nod.

"I'm going to go sit in the garden, I think," she informed him. "Just so you know, though, he didn't eat. He actually agreed to eat a little, but he couldn't hold the chopstick, and he refused to let me help."

Well, that was certainly something.

"I love you a-Ying."

"I love you too, a-Luo."

And with that, they parted ways, leaving Luo Binghe standing in front of Shen Qingqiu's door. With a deep breath in and out to keep his anger at bay, he pushed open the door.

And found Shen Qingqiu hyperventilating.

Of course.

"Shizun,"Luo Binghe called out as he went over. "Calm down."

The food Ning Yingying had brought him had been pushed to the other side of the table so he could pillow his face in his arms. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, the breaths having a somewhat wheezy quality. Luo Binghe doubted he realized the demon lord was there.

"Shizun," he said again as he grabbed the man by the shoulders and pulled him upright.

Shen Qingqiu took in a particularly sharp breath. His eyes were closed tight, and his face was red. With his position forcefully altered, his hands were free, and one knuckle pressed into the center of his chest.

Obviously, he wasn't going to be able to talk with Shen Qingqiu while he was like this, so he was going to have to wait a bit. In the meantime, he decided to check the older man's qi, finding it to be deviating slightly. At first, it didn't seem too severe, but then a strange spike of discordant qi flared, only to settle back down again. That… was not normal.

As such, he started to transfer his own pure qi to clear his Shizun's meridians, hoping it would stop that strange fluctuation. Shen Qingqiu began to curl into himself as he did, his breath getting tighter and even more rapid. He seemed to really be struggling to get air into his lungs, so Luo Binghe diverted a little qi to see if he might be choking on something, but his airways were clear. He was just panicking again. Which meant that he was just going to have to ride it out, as Luo Binghe was pretty sure that getting him to swallow the sedative when he was like this might make him actually choke, even if he used the parasites.

At one point, Shen Qingqiu suddenly slammed his arm into the edge of the table, and Luo Binghe had to grab his wrist to keep him from doing it again.

"Don't do that, Shizun," Luo Binghe ordered, exasperated.

The man didn't respond, and at this point, he sounded like he could barely get any air into his lungs. Was he going to pass out?

… Should Luo Binghe make him pass out? Would it be better to just knock him out and put an end to this?

In the end, he decided against it and let the man calm down on his own, though he held onto his arms. He didn't speak again until it seemed like his Shizun was calm enough to listen, quite a long time later.

"Incidentally, this is why I've been drugging you," Luo Binghe pointed out. "Notice how I didn't do that today."

He received a shaky but no less harsh glare.

"Fuck off… bastard."

"I'm just pointing it out so you understand," Luo Binghe huffed. "The drugs are actually supposed to help."

"Ssstop… talking."

He gave him another few minutes of quiet to calm down. And then promptly started talking again:

"Can you breathe again?"

Shen Qingqiu glared at him, trying to pull his wrist away. Luo Binghe let him.

"Yes."

"Good," Luo Binghe said neutrally. "So, why exactly did you make my wife cry and then immediately have a panic attack?"

"They're unconnected."

"I doubt that."

"Then doubt."

"Yingying summarized what happened. She doesn't want me to be angry with you," Luo Binghe told him.

"You think I care whether you're angry with me or not?"

"No," the demon lord replied. "If you did, you would've stopped trying to provoke me by now."

Even still, Shen Qingqiu very well may have been panicking because he was afraid of Luo Binghe's reaction to him upsetting his wife. He might be expecting Luo Binghe to hurt him now.

Then again, he would be just as likely to have upset her for that very reason, wanting to provoke the demon. It was hard to tell with him, whether he wanted to be hurt or was afraid of it.

"Perhaps I don't like speaking to your wife any more than you," the former peak lord hissed.

And there was the secret third option: he was trying to make Ning Yingying leave.

If Luo Binghe had to guess, Shen Qingqiu maybe didn't want the woman to witness his panicking. And so, he had struck her where he knew it would hurt to get her to leave as quickly as possible.

"Considering how much you hate me, I have a hard time believing you would hate your once-favored disciple so much."

"Can't I hate her? She married the beast who destroyed our sect. Hating her would be one thing few could call me a criminal for."

Luo Binghe crossed his arms.

"Even still, I don't think you do," he stated. "And let me clarify something, Shizun: Ning Yingying tried to tell me not to destroy the entire sect. But she couldn't have stopped me. You know that. So don't blame her when she wasn't the one who did it."

"She's still your wife."

"Yes, she is," he agreed. "But if you want to be angry about that, we were married before I destroyed the sect."

Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes. A brief silence passed between them before Luo Binghe broke it.

"You don't like talking about the sect, do you?" he observed.

His Shizun gave him an incredulous look.

"Why would I want to talk about it?" Shen Qingqiu spat. "Do you think I relish the thought of what you did that day, that I spent my time imprisoned imagining how you killed my martial siblings and the disciples? As hateful as I am, do you think I'm so hateful that I would enjoy the destruction wrought by your hand?"

"Well, you never did get along with your martial siblings. Wouldn't you have been glad to know Liu Qingge died if he had still been alive when I killed the others?" the demon asked.

"Had I wanted them dead, I would have done it myself!" Shen Qingqiu shouted, offended.

Luo Binghe let out a breath.

"Alright, so it upsets you to talk about it. Good to know."

"I hope you impale yourself on your sword."

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Binghe is REALLY not helping…

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