Work Text:
The thing about transmigrating in early was that an early transmigrator, in theory, could change a lot of things about the original plot very easily.
The thing about Shang Qinghua was that he found that very hard and he liked to know what was coming for him even if that thing was certain doom, so he hadn't.
Well, that was a lie, he had changed one thing. The System had informed him, while packing up for another shitty outer disciple trip, that this was the mission where he would have to make big choices about his role in the plot going forward. That this was the mission where the original Shang Qinghua met Mobei-jun and became his spy.
After several seconds of intense panic, Shang Qinghua had chosen to trip on a rock, knock over and break three pots, startle a horse, and get his leg run over by a cart.
Technically none of that had been on purpose but he probably could have dodged the cart if he'd wanted to! The important part was that he was now officially a completely unimportant side character! Instead of going to meet destiny, his favorite character, and the plot arc that would have ultimately led to his death, he stayed back at the peak with a broken leg and got to sit around repairing pots (not just the ones he'd broken, apparently Bai Zhan had a backlog).
His System was less than thrilled about that whole series of developments.
"This is a change! You wanted a change!" Shang Qinghua protested. "Shang Qinghua lives his life out as an unimportant random disciple, never spies on everyone, and hopefully runs away when shit hit the fan thus avoiding a terrible death! That's a big change!"
[It's a nothing change! 0 detected climatic plot deviations!]
"It's a change for me! Think of it as a bystander POV!"
[Insufficient.]
"You haven't even given me any parameters that you want me to change." Shang Qinghua complained.
[Host created the plot. Host should be capable of adjusting the plot.]
"That's hard though! Aren't Systems supposed to have a meter to fill up with points or something?"
[This System has found points to be insufficient for organic host motivation.]
"Well I guess we're going to be going for quiet life points then!"
The System was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Shang Qinghua started to get nervous.
[This System has made adjustments and imported a helper. Host now has point values for Romance. These will reflect progress towards a change in the central romantic arc of the plotline.]
Well…that wasn't too bad! Maybe. Shang Qinghua wasn't really sure exactly how he could change Luo Binghe's romantic arcs without--ugh it was still trying to trick him into changing the main plot.
Whatever, at least he had a goal. And-- "Helper?"
The System flung up a [System Currently Unavailable] screen at him, having apparently flounced.
Maybe the helper could do all the changes!
Life was blissfully normal for a while, if busy. Just a constant turnover of chores at the peak and easy missions off of it. Thus was the life of a totally unimportant inner disciple!
Until it wasn't.
Normally, in a city, Shang Qinghua didn't have to pay much attention to anything other than not getting pickpocketed. His sect robes kept people away from him and he wasn't the type to attract the dramatic sort of plot triggers, so mostly things were uneventful.
This time he noted that a Huan Hua disciple was paying him just a bit more attention than normal, shrugged it off, and kept shopping.
At least until the streets kept shifting. He was certain that this alleyway had led out into the main shopping district, but suddenly there was a wall.
The next one he tried was also a wall. Something flickered and on a hunch, he stepped into--and through--the illusion. He stepped through into a garden, though, so that was less than helpful and he quickly backtracked to avoid being cornered.
Shang Qinghua caught sight of the same person in the distance for the third time and realized that the Huan Hua disciple was trying to herd him away from other people…just slightly too late to actually do anything to stop it. Whoever it was, they had a pretty good grasp on subtle cultivation for a disciple. Assuming that he was a young disciple? Maybe he was one of the older nameless disciples that were supposed to die fighting Tianlang-jun! Shang Qinghua hadn't bothered to give most of them faces so it would be very possible for that to be the case!
That didn't explain why the disciple was trying to cut him off with illusions though.
Shang Qinghua nearly ran into a wall that hadn't looked like a wall the second before, cutting him off from the bustling street he had almost been at.
….
He could climb? He was a cultivator and they were good at climbing!
A hand fell onto his shoulder, spinning him around to face the very annoyed looking disciple who had really had no right to be annoyed because he had clearly been using his illusions to get Shang Qinghua to exactly this spot! It wasn't fair to look annoyed then! Unless…maybe Shang Qinghua had it wrong and there was something else going on that was after both of them? It could be a misunderstanding!
"Uh, hi," he said, trying not to sound nervous. "There's something weird going on with illusions, I know this is neither of our sects territory but maybe--"
"They were my illusions," the disciple said in Mandarin, before suddenly switching to a different language. A language that no one in this setting should know because it literally didn't exist in this world. English.
Which would be great except Shang Qinghua could only sort of read English, could ask where a bathroom and a library were with low probability of understanding the answer, and definitely could not understand it when someone else was speaking it that quickly. What the hell. "Are you a transmigrator?" he asked in Mandarin.
The other disciple looked annoyed. Presumably because Shang Qinghua had ruined his 'speak in a language nobody local knows' plan.
"I don't know English that well but--I am too! So, it worked!"
The Huan Hua Disciple sighed, speaking in Mandarin again. "Whatever. At least it worked. I asked if you were a transmigrator, which you answered. And if you had read the novel and knew what a shitty character you'd gotten stuck as."
"No, I fixed that!" Shang Qinghua said. "Now I'm just boring and can avoid the whole thing!"
The disciple looked confused. "What do you mean you fixed it?"
"I fixed it! The trigger for the spy plot passed and I was stuck on An Ding with a broken leg preparing pots." Shang Qinghua beamed. "So, no more subplot for me!"
"..."
That look was significantly less proud of him than it should have been. Come on, fellow transmigrator, surely you realize that avoiding the death part of the plot is best!
The disciple sighed. "What's your name, anyways?"
"Shang Qinghua?"
"No, your real one! I got an OC so I got to stay Shen Yuan, but you replaced someone who already existed. What was your name before?"
"You got an OC?" Shang Qinghua puffed out his cheeks. "That's unfair!"
Shen Yuan shrugged, looking like he felt at least a little bit bad for him.
"Anyways--it was Shang Qinghua before too." Shang Qinghua sighed. If he had known that he would transmigrate into whatever character shared his name, he would have chosen more carefully.
"That's…really lazy of the System. I guess I should be lucky that it didn't put me into Shen Qingqiu, for all I know the names could match!"
"No, his name right now is Shen Jiu." Shang Qinghua explained. It did suck that he'd gotten stuck as this character just because he had lazily used his own name for it, but Shen Yuan was different enough that it probably wouldn't have ever done the same. Good thing, imagine transmigrating into the villain!
Shen Yuan's eyes narrowed. "He's already on the peaks then? What's our timeline? I thought I was further back."
"Uh…not yet. He should be there within the next year or so, though, Yue Qingyuan is in the caves right now."
"..."
It occurred to Shang Qinghua, a bit late, that none of that had been in the books.
"Airplane shooting towards the fucking sky," Shen Yuan snapped. "You fucking trash asshole. You disgrace. I can't believe I was worried about helping you! What sort of shitty author transmigrates into his own book and just wants to lead a boring life!"
Shang Qinghua pouted. "That's unfair!"
"This world is unfair, and that's your fault!"
"And that's why I want things nice and boring! I didn't ask to be a part of any of it--plus how am I supposed to change things! That's hard, and risky!"
"You are a disgrace." Shen Yuan sighed. "I guess you aren't the worst person to work with on this. At least you know what's going on. Even if you're a coward. I want to keep Su Xiyan alive, at least, and you're going to help me do that."
[Obtained: 1 Romance point! Total Romance points: 1!] The System chirped happily.
Shang Qinghua startled, confused. Who the heck had gotten a romance point?
Shen Yuan looked a bit cross. "I got a romance point all of a sudden. Luo Binghe isn't even born yet."
"It's tracking romantic changes," Shang Qinghua said, trying to remember if there was anything significant they may have changed that would lead to a wife having a development around now. "It thinks there wasn't enough proper romance in the novel."
"It's right." Shen Yuan snapped, before pausing a second to think.
"It wasn't that bad! It was a harem novel and there was lots of romance!"
"Shut up. We were talking about Su Xiyan." Shen Yuan pointed out. "Maybe the system wants a happy ending for the OG pairing? A lot of people like that sort of thing. It's like…fridge aversion or something. I forget the trope name."
"Fridge?"
"Because you fridged Bing-ge's parents." Shen Yuan said, sounding almost bored. "By fucking murdering them. You monster. Anyways."
Shang Qinghua puffed out his cheeks in indignation. "Well that's not fair!"
"I really have zero care for what you do or don't think is fair. What's not fair is me being stuck in this shitty book with the shitty author."
[Lost: 1 Romance point. Total Romance points: 0] The System sent, sounding sad.
"I think it wants us to start working on things instead of arguing?" Shang Qinghua suggested.
"I want us to work on things!"
"Okay!"
They stared at each other for a moment. Or, well, Shang Qinghua stared and Shen Yuan glared.
"How do you know Su Xiyan anyways?"
Shen Yuan gave him an incredulous look. "She's the head disciple of my sect?"
"Yeah but, I mean...."
"She recruited me." The other transmigrator shrugged, as though that sentence made any sense. "And therefore I would like her not to die or whatever led to her leaving an infant floating on a frozen river, thanks."
"Yeah that sucked for her."
Shen Yuan glared.
"And! Uh." Shang Qinghua hesitated. "Well, I mean, I guess the options we have depends on how much she knows you? We just need to tip her off before the Palace Master betrays her."
Shen Yuan glared at him harder, if that was possible. "Before the Palace Master what?"
"You know, imprisons her and then sends a message to lure the Saintly Ruler in! And then the poison stuff."
"No I do not fucking know, what are you even talking about?"
"I guess none of that made it into the books." Shang Qinghua took a deep breath. "So, what happened was, that happened, with the imprisoning and the fake letter luring, and then the Palace Master tricked Su Xiyan into either killing her baby or abandoning Tianlang-jun. And she didn't know Tianlang-jun was trapped so she took the poison to kill Luo Binghe. Except when she got there she found out that Tianlang-jun was trapped so she absorbed the poison instead and died."
Shen Yuan looked furious.
Which…made sense, if he was friends with Su Xiyan.
Maybe Shang Qinghua should have said it nicer?
"I can't fucking believe you had all of that happen and didn't even let Bing-ge find out the truth and take revenge! You just let the Palace Master play doting grandpa and advisor to the emperor for years! Why wasn't that a fucking subplot!
Or that.
"It wouldn't have made sense!" Shang Qinghua protested. "Everyone would have said it came out of nowhere! They would've been really mean about it!"
"You are the worst fucking writer. Not only for writing it, but for abandoning the plot and then getting into a place where it's real life and not doing anything to stop it."
"Well, I'm Shang Qinghua! I couldn't do anything about it!" Shang Qinghua pouted at him. "You can though, so, so it's okay right?"
"No." Shen Yuan crossed his arms.
"All we have to do is make sure that Su Xiyan doesn't get captured!"
"By her teacher who she lives with? I can't just tell her that the Palace Master is evil without proof."
"There'll be proof to find," Shang Qinghua said. "I had it all set up, even if I never used it. Lots of things got thrown out! You just have to figure out what point of the plot we're at and then we'll know what to look for."
Shen Yuan was silent for several moments. "Okay." Shen Yuan sighed. "We have a plan. A shitty plan, but it's a start. Can you arrange to meet back here in a month?"
"Two months? And a town west?" Shang Qinghua suggested. He was pretty sure he could do that.
"Done."
[Obtained: 1 Romance point! Total Romance points: 1!] The System chirped.
"I really fucking hate you," Shen Yuan said vehemently into the air. "Why do we have to get such a shitty, passive aggressive System?"
Spending time with Su Xiyan was easy for Shen Yuan. He literally lived in a building that contained nothing but her own staff and direct reports. He was, technically, her only permanent student, but there were always others stopping by or there for temporary teaching. Anytime she was home, she'd be there, and anytime she was there, they'd chat and have tea and she'd do some actual teaching.
He wasn't quite sure exactly why she'd decided to grab a fifteen year old kid out of the woods (freshly transmigrated, though she couldn't know that) and make him her first direct student. After years of no answers and a lot of confusion, he'd decided to file it under 'cultivators are fucking weird'. Lots of things went into that category.
Shen Yuan was aware that he probably was starting to get into that category, considering he was trying to protect his shijie teacher from being kidnapped by their shizun for sleeping with a demonic king in order to avert a future where their baby basically destroyed the world.
What a mess.
He didn't want to interrupt teaching time (That was important! He needed that!) but tea time was fair game.
"What do you think the Palace Master would do if he caught someone…spending time with someone he didn't approve of, from outside the sect?" Shen Yuan asked her, as casually as she could manage.
Su Xiyan looked startled for a moment, and he was worried he had tipped his hand too much. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was threatening her or something!
But then the look faded into a smirk. "I don't think he'll be mad at you for spending time with a Cang Qiong disciple, shidi," she teased. "As far as outside the sect matches go, that's a pretty good one."
It took Shen Yuan a moment to catch up with what she was saying, and he immediately flushed. "That's not--That's not what I was talking about!"
Su Xiyan took a sip of tea, still smirking. "Of course not. It's definitely not that. If you need money to be able to go to a play or something, let me know, I know your stipend is small."
"My stipend is fine, you don't need to be drowning in gold to go to a play and it's not like that." Shen Yuan had no idea how the conversation had taken this turn and wanted to get out of it as quickly as possible. Especially since all of a sudden the idea of taking Shang Qinghua to a play didn't seem like a bad one--Because it was a good cover and for absolutely no other reasons! At all! No other reasons!
"Okay shidi." Su Xiyan chuckled, taking another sip of her tea. "How is that composition you were working on coming along, can you play it for me yet?"
They were thoroughly off the topic that Shen Yuan had been trying for, but maybe that was for the best. He sighed. "It's almost there, I'm a bit stuck on the climax--"
She let out a sound that was almost a laugh and he glared at her.
She hid a smile behind her tea. "How about you play it for me and I'll give you some feedback?"
Shen Yuan didn't tell Shang Qinghua the contents of his conversation with Su Xiyan, but he did tell him that attempting to subtly talk about it hadn't worked at all.
Which meant they were now going off of Shang Qinghua's best guess at the timeline.
They spent literal years meeting up, waiting for something to seem to trigger. They kept their eyes out for it, waiting for something, anything, to tell them that it was go time.
Shang Qinghua even mentioned a few ways into the Palace Prison, just in case they missed it.
Shen Yuan suffered a lot of teasing because Su Xiyan was certain that he and Shang Qinghua were dating. Which, to be fair, he didn't work too far to disabuse her of because it made for a really good cover. He was pretty sure that it had gotten around--or maybe he and Shang Qinghua were even less subtle about their secret meetings than he had hoped. Either way, Shang Qinghua had mentioned nervously that for some reason Yue Qingyuan had stopped by to talk to him a few times and he didn't really know why. Shang Qinghua seemed to think the System was up to something, trying to force Shang Qinghua into the plot, but Shen Yuan would be willing to bet good money that the rumor mill had just turned enough to get back to the Cang Qiong head disciple. Yue Qingyuan was savvy enough to see that having a direct connection with Su Xiyan's direct student via the Cang Qiong inner disciple he was dating would be a really good thing if it worked out.
He still didn't tell Shang Qinghua about his theory and only felt a little bit guilty.
The tell, eventually, ended up coming from Su Xiyan herself.
"Stay away from the main palace while I'm gone," She warned him. "Shizun is in a bad mood."
"Are we in trouble?"
"I don't think so, he's just acting a bit off. Just stay here, or, better, go visit your 'friend'." She patted him on the head. "No sense poking the dragon when he's having an off day, mm?"
"If he's angry then he's gotten some sort of report about it," Shang Qinghua mused, trying to remember the order of things.
There were a couple other Cang Qiong disciples in the city and one of them was right across the street, but Shang Qinghua was absolutely certain that he'd be able to detect if they were being overheard at this point so he didn't know why Shen Yuan was looking so awkward over it. He was pretty sure other people on An Ding knew he was friends with a Huan Hua disciple--it was no big deal!
Ah, Shen Yuan was just jumpy.
Shang Qinghua pulled his mind back to the crux of things. "If I'm remembering right, a disciple named Dong Luan would have been the first one to give a report. It would have seemed sort of confusing and innocuous to anyone who didn't know a lot about the Saintly Ruler. That disciple definitely didn't realize what he'd seen!"
"Would Su Xiyan recognize it for what it is?"
"You know her better than I do!"
Shen Yuan glared at him.
Shang Qinghua tossed his hands up in defense. "What? It's true! She's your shijie! I don't know everything! Anyways, it's worth a shot."
"It might be blowing our shot, if it doesn't work."
"So if it doesn't you play the concerned shidi, admit to sending it, and ask her about it directly."
"And hope she doesn't see it as a threat and stab me."
"She's not going to stab you." Shang Qinghua said. For some reason Shen Yuan was really bad at picking up that him being Su Xiyan's direct student was actually a really trusted position? Maybe he was bad at tropes or something.
The report had been filed in the same place as all reports were filed. It had, apparently, been luck and creepiness that had led the Palace Master to even read that report himself--after all, it was about Su Xiyan flirting with some dude.
It hadn't been removed partially because nobody ever actually read those reports--they were marked as uneventful missions for a reason, the reports were really just recordkeeping--and partially because that would have been pretty suspicious if the recordkeeper had noticed it. The longer it was left alone, the less chances there were of anyone noticing anything.
Which of course meant that Shen Yuan was taking a risk stealing it at all. And he couldn't flee in the night or they'd know for sure it was him and just track him down pretty easily. He needed to send it off quietly, then go back and act normal and non suspect for a few days before going off to meet Shang Qinghua.
As long as nobody saw him it would work fine.
He ditched the idea the first day, because some little shimei had been rushing past well after her curfew hours.
The second day he snuck into the records room uneventfully. Finding the record wasn't hard--Dong Luan had only filed two in this section in the last few months--and as far as he could tell nobody had seen him going or coming. As long as that little shimei from the other day didn't make the connection (and why would she?) then it was really unlikely anyone would be able to connect it to him at all.
He didn't write anything on the report at all. Just folded it up into a crane and sent it off after he ducked into a storeroom to pretend to get some writing supplies. If anyone saw him from this point, he'd have an alibi. Even if they saw the crane coming from this building, it would look like he was sending something he had written.
If anything, the thing he was most annoyed was the lack of romance points from the suspiciously silent system. Did that mean that the report wouldn't get to Su Xiyan, or that she wouldn't understand it? Surely she would understand it, she was super smart! It literally mentioned her by name!
Unless it was an arrogance thing? Surely not.
Or maybe the System was just being stingy and he'd get the points when she got the letter. That would…that would be better, actually. It might actually be a really good sign of when he should leave, even! Everyone would be too distracted to notice that he'd been properly packed up--he could even pack up Su Xiyan's things and bring those with him to give to her!
In retrospect, Shen Yuan really should have fled in the night after the theft. He'd really thought that he had gotten away with it.
Being dragged out of bed by an angry palace master put paid to that theory.
Shang Qinghua waited three days before he decided something had definitely gone very wrong.
The problem was that he wasn't sure what to do about it! He didn't even know where Shen Yuan was, and he had nobody to ask for help! He could assume that Su Xiyan had gotten the letter and stayed away, since there were some odd rumors flying around, but none of those said anything about Shen Yuan so…so what was a random An Ding disciple to do!
[Host has a lot of knowledge about the Palace Prison!] The System chirped, helpfully. It had been pretty chipper lately, which was pretty mean if Shen Yuan was in the Palace Prison!
Unless he wasn't and the System was just trying to get Shang Qinghua to do things?
He really didn't want to do things.
He really, really, did not want to do anything dangerous. He wanted to keep avoiding that.
Shen Yuan was probably in the Palace Prison.
Shang Qinghua sighed and started trying to figure out how the heck he was going to pull this off alone.
Shang Qinghua had always been of the opinion that the hardest part of a plan was keeping it simple. The more steps a plan had, the harder it would be.
He was able to hack off a few steps when he got halfway through planning how he was going to steal a Huan Hua uniform and remembered where Shen Yuan had stashed his go bag. He wasn't sure how happy Shen Yuan would be with Shang Qinghua for going into that…but it was for a good cause! A specific rescue mission cause! Especially since by now it had been a few days.
The robes didn't quite fit, but a bit of cultivation was able to adjust them enough that they'd be able to pass at a glance. All that time spent doing chores mending shirts had paid off at least a little bit!
So that was that done.
And then he needed to find something to hold down the acid waterfalls. Traditionally this was done by leaving a body behind on the platform, but a large enough stone shoved into a sturdy enough spatial storage pouch would be easy enough to get in instead.
And he knew all the words to get through the wards he needed to pass and tricks for the others.
And it had been five days.
So…so he needed to stop procrastinating and just do it.
Shang Qinghua spent the whole way into the Palace Prison feeling like he was holding his breath. The secret passageway he used was old and run down--the sort of place that had been meant to flee through back when the Palace Prison was actually a series of vaults, before the Palace Master's time. There were a lot of cave ins and the doorways had been built over, but it wasn't a big deal to get past that when Shang Qinghua knew exactly where to go. After all, he'd written someone doing just this before!
Busting through the wall sent him into an old disused store-room, deep within the prison.
The hard part was that he wasn't sure where Shen Yuan was.
Probably, he guessed, somewhere with less other disciples. The Palace Master wouldn't want anyone to be able to stumble across him on accident. With Su Xiyan fled, they'd probably use Shen Yuan as the fake informant and try to use a fake letter from him to lure her back, which wouldn't work if anyone outside of those in on the plot knew that he was a prisoner. Or at least, that's what they'd try to do if Shang Qinghua failed here.
He really really could not fail here. That would suck.
Every second felt like a minute, and every turn felt like he was rolling a die with 'death' written on five out of six sides.
He didn't meet anyone, though. He didn't meet anyone, and before long he came to a cell that looked as old and disused as the others but…something about the dirt around seemed scuffed.
Shang Qinghua opened the doorway and there, in a huddled ball in the middle of the cell, was a Huan Hua disciple.
He ran over to Shen Yuan, kneeling down beside him and pulling him up slightly. The other transmigrator looked at him in surprise, seeming a little dazed.
Shang Qinghua was relieved that he looked okay. Roughed up! But okay! That was important! If it meant he kept looking a little longer than normal, still clinging to Shen Yuan in a way that probably made it impossible for Shen Yuan to get up, well that was just a normal way to react!
[Obtained: 100 Romance points!] The System chirped happily.
"Oh fuck off." Shen Yuan complained, voice sounding weak but no less annoyed than normal. "Guess that means Su Xiyan got the note at least. Please tell me we're getting out of here."
"I think she got it a few days ago," Shang Qinghua said, heart pounding a bit. "Uh--yeah! We can--we should go before anyone notices anything!"
He helped Shen Yuan to his feet. The other transmigrator seemed unsteady, and there was a lot of acid around them, so it was for the best and very practical for him to hold onto Shang Qinghua right now! Especially since Shang Qinghua needed to get his angle right to dump the stone out of the pouch.
"Really?" Shen Yuan said, a bit incredulously.
"It just needs weight."
"That's so dumb and easy to bypass though! No wonder it's a secret, it's a shitty mechanism! It should at least have to be a body!"
"Fleeing now, complaining later!" Shang Qinghua said, pulling him out of the cell.
It occurred to him when they were halfway out of the prison that he'd probably have to flee Cang Qiong as well. It wasn't like he was anyone important. In fact he'd gone out of his way to make sure he wasn't. So they'd have no reason to defend him if anyone from Huan Hua figured out who had rescued Shen Yuan.
Besides, he couldn't just send a fellow transmigrator out on his own!
…It wouldn't be that bad, though, being a wandering cultivator with Shen Yuan.