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Mingyu lasted about four weeks in her temporary placement at Xian Shu before sending a paper butterfly to Shen Yuan asking to be picked up.
“I was expecting to hear from her last week,” Binghe admitted when Shen Yuan showed him the note.
Yue Qingyuan had come out of seclusion in order to meet them at the gates. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Mingyu was waiting with him and had her bag already packed neatly at her feet. She was back in the neutral hanfu Shen Yuan had prepared for her when she first arrived.
“I’m sorry to see you go, Shizhi,” Yue Qingyuan told her once they’d all exchanged pleasantries. “If you’re willing to try life on another peak then write to me and I’ll arrange it for you.”
“Thank you, Shibo,” Mingyu said, with absolutely no indication that she was interested in taking him up on his offer.
“What happened?” Binghe asked as they returned to the Underground Palace via portal. The riverside retreat house was more comfortable, but didn’t exactly have room for guests so Mingyu’s ‘home’ in this world was, by necessity, in Binghe’s most secure palace. “You seemed excited to be a part of Xian Shu Peak. What happened to that book club you were talking about?”
“No offense, Ge, but they’re just really into RPF there and I can’t even handle that when it’s about strangers,” she replied with total candor. “Much less when it’s about my own brother.”
“RPF?” Binghe turned a quizzical look on Shen Yuan and Shen Yuan knew that he was about to have to get into another awful explanation of the terrible things his terrible homeworld was capable of.
“You don’t want to know,” he grumbled.
It was nice, being able to share everything with his husband --except for times like these.