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Mobei Jun had just been wishing he could stop worrying about whether the newly revealed Heavenly Demon wanted to usurp his throne, so he was pleasantly unsurprised when said Heavenly Demon came storming into his throne room.
“Explain your human,” Luo Binghe snapped, throwing the doors open without so much as a greeting.
Mobei Jun didn’t move, except to wave down the stupider of his guards when they started moving towards the intruder. Qinghua had just had the flagstones polished. He‘d be cross if Mobei Jun got blood on them.
The smarter of the guards hadn’t moved. They could feel the power coming in waves off Luo Binghe as clearly as Mobei Jun did, and knew there was no point in trying anything.
“What are you talking about,” Mobei Jun said politely, in recognition of that power, instead of any of the other things he might usually have said when someone barged into his throne room without invitation, like for example ‘Throw that body to the wolves.’
Luo Binghe glared at him. “Shang Qinghua. I don’t understand. As far as I can tell, he’s a sniveling coward with a mediocre talent for dealing with bureaucracy. But somehow he’s your closest advisor, and my Shizun trusts him with secrets he tells no one else. Explain it to me.”
Mobei Jun looked at him. Luo Binghe was beautiful in a cold and haughty way that Mobei Jun found off-putting. The sheer amount of qi pulsing under his skin made Mobei Jun’s teeth itch. There was something hungry in Luo Binghe’s eyes; he wanted this answer very badly.
“Come hunting with me,” Mobei Jun said.
Luo Binghe bristled. “Why? Just answer the question.”
Because it’s a big secret, and I want to be sure I can trust you with it, Mobei Jun could’ve said, but the thought of admitting even that much made him uneasy. He liked that people looked at Qinghua and saw an anxious little man they could dismiss from their thoughts. Made things easier.
He didn’t bother explaining any of that to the Heavenly Demon currently vibrating with impatience in front of his throne. He simply got up and started walking towards the stables. After a moment, he heard Luo Binghe fall into step behind him.
The hunt proved that nothing Mobei Jun had heard about the power of Heavenly Demons had been an exaggeration, and also that Luo Binghe was dangerously smart. Under other circumstances that might’ve been a problem, but it also turned out that he wasn’t quite as intolerably unlikable as Mobei Jun had first thought. This meant that he could now wish for them to be allies, so things were going to be all right.
They left the carcass of the Scaly Lionwing for Mobei Jun’s retainers to deal with and rode back to the Northern Palace in silence, with a brief pause to wash the gore off in a stream.
Mobei Jun was surprised to see Luo Binghe strip down and wade in right beside him. There was snow on the banks. Shards of ice floated in the water. For all their powers, he’d never heard of Heavenly Demons being impervious to the cold.
“Shizun said he might come by the Northern Palace to have a chat with Shang Qinghua later. I don’t need him to see me covered in blood and guts,” Luo Binghe muttered, clenching his teeth like he was trying to stop them from chattering.
Ah. Of course. Come to think of it, it might be nice not to be the only demon facing the trials of having a human mate anymore. The irrational human squeamishness was just one of many things it was hard to explain to someone who didn’t already have to deal with them regularly.
Mobei Jun touched his fingers to Luo Binghe’s wrist and shared a thread of his own qi to take the edge off the cold, as he’d used to do for Qinghua before regular dual cultivation had made it unnecessary. Luo Binghe gave him a startled look, because he didn’t yet know they were going to be allies.
Mobei Jun didn’t bother to explain. He’d figure it out soon enough.
When they were clean and fully dressed again, Luo Binghe grabbed the Scaly Lionwing pup, which had started wandering off but not gotten far on its stubby legs, and tucked it back into his coat. It flailed its big clumsy paws through the air and made a tiny squeaking noise before settling down to sleep.
Luo Binghe had said he wanted it for his Shizun. Mobei Jun wasn’t sure why. Lionwing pups didn’t produce the antivenom that made the adults so valuable. The pelt, while soft and warm, wasn’t even big enough for one glove. And while the pup might‘ve looked like it would be a good size for a snack, Lionwing flesh actually tasted completely rank to demons and humans both.
Maybe he’d ask later. If humans had some obscure use for the things, Mobei Jun might want to get Qinghua one.
They arrived back at the Northern Palace to find that Shen Qingqiu had not yet arrived, and that Qinghua was holding a meeting with the Southern Catgirl tribe.
“Don’t tell him we’re back yet,” Mobei Jun told the guard. This conversation would go easier without him.
Not that it would take Qinghua long to find out, regardless of what Mobei Jun said; the network of palace spies was Qinghua’s, not Mobei Jun’s.
He took Luo Binghe to the smallest of the dining rooms, where he only ate with close allies, and had the servants bring a human-style meal. Luo Binghe had been raised to the humans’ boring cuisine and presumably preferred it, and Mobei Jun, who usually dined with Qinghua these days, had gotten so used to the lack of rotting flesh he barely noticed the absence anymore.
They ate in silence. Finally, Luo Binghe set his chopsticks down and squared his shoulders. The background hum of his power, which Mobei Jun had finally gotten used to, suddenly grated against his senses again.
“So? Did I pass whatever your test was? Are you finally going to tell me about Shang Qinghua?”
Mobei Jun looked at him, youthful bluster and breathtaking strength and all. Yes. He’d do for an ally.
“Qinghua grants wishes,” Mobei Jun said.
Luo Binghe gave him the exact incredulous look Mobei Jun had expected. People never thought Qinghua was anything special until he proved himself. Mobei Jun had come to rely on it.
“What kind of wishes?” Luo Binghe asked, with the air of someone humoring a person who they suspected was either lying or an idiot, but didn’t want to offend just yet. A certain tension at the edge of his eyes hinted that offense wasn’t far off, though.
Mobei Jun shrugged. If there was a limit to Qinghua’s powers, he had yet to find it.
“I wanted to be emperor,” he said.
“And he just snapped his fingers and made it happen.” Luo Binghe’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“No,“ Mobei Jun said.
Qinghua had gotten four different warring tribes to unite behind Mobei Jun’s rule, and then convinced the human cultivators to lend their support. Mobei Jun expected that Luo Binghe knew as much.
That was often how it went. Mobei Jun didn’t bother to explain this, because it didn’t matter for this negotiation, but personally he thought that the fact that Qinghua generally fulfilled wishes through hard work rather than magic made his abilities more impressive, rather than less.
“What other wishes has he granted?” Luo Binghe asked, not letting up on the sarcasm at all.
That was a bit of a delicate question. Mobei Jun could’ve named any number of obscure artifacts and lost treasures Qinghua had procured just when they’d been needed most, but that was hardly going to impress. Anyone might find the odd magic herb or enchanted weapon, and Luo Binghe had a reputation for having stumbled on all sorts of treasures himself. The true miracles Qinghua had wrought were somewhat more fraught to explain.
Mobei Jun didn’t really want to reveal to a Heavenly Demon who might still try to usurp his throne that, once he’d become emperor, he’d found that he hated the job. Mobei Jun had wished he could stop having all those boring meetings and interminable negotiations, and so Qinghua had quietly taken all that on himself. These days, all Mobei Jun had to do was attend banquets, intimidate hostile representatives, and fight the occasional bloody battle: all the fun parts of the job.
Equally, he was not about to tell Luo Binghe about how lonely he’d once been, or how much he’d wished for a mate he could trust. And he didn’t think it would be wise to tell him about the wish he’d made on Qinghua’s behalf when he’d realized that Qinghua, too, was lonely. But it could hardly be a coincidence that Mobei Jun had wished for Qinghua to have a friend, and soon after, the famously aloof Peak Lord Shen Qingqiu had revealed himself to be a man who spoke Qinghua’s hometown dialect and liked to sit around Qinghua’s private quarters complaining loudly about books he disliked and animals he thought were stupid. (As far as expressions of friendship went, Mobei Jun found these ones particularly inscrutable, but the important thing was that Qinghua seemed to like it.)
He was definitely not about to tell Luo Binghe that, not four years ago, Shen Qingqiu had sobbed in Qinghua’s lap about how desperately he wanted to find a way to keep his “little bun” by his side. But now here was said little bun, stuck to his master’s side like glue, cooking and cleaning and jumping into frozen streams for him, even though it turned out the little bun in question was a Heavenly Demon who could’ve usurped Mobei Jun’s throne on a whim.
Thankfully, there was never a shortage of miracles when Qinghua was around.
“Yesterday, I wished to eat Chou Guiguai, and thirty minutes later he had it on the table in front of me,” Mobei Jun said.
Luo Binghe failed to look impressed. Come to think of it, maybe that hadn’t been the best example to use with a man raised to human cooking, who probably didn’t even know that the Luminous Lantern Killerfish had to be caught in a lake far south of Mobei Jun’s kingdom, or that it had to be buried in lava sand to ferment for a week and then transported by a courier on a flying sword, lest it spoil in transit; and that therefore it was a meal that could under no circumstances be had on a whim.
Mobei Jun sighed. It didn’t really matter. “I’m willing to trade you a wish for an alliance,” he said. Luo Binghe would believe it once he’d seen it working.
“Three wishes,” Luo Binghe said immediately, so apparently he was the kind of person who couldn’t help pushing for more even when he didn’t believe in the thing he was negotiating for. That tracked with what Mobei Jun had heard of Heavenly Demons.
Mobei Jun inclined his head in agreement.
“Seriously? You’re not even going to put conditions on it? What if I wish for your throne, or, I don’t know, Liu Qingge’s head on a platter?”
“If you wished for my throne, or for something that would cause harm to Qinghua or me, you would not be much of an ally, and the contract would be void,” Mobei Jun said. “If you wish for Liu Qingge’s head on a platter, we will need to consult Qinghua on how to limit the damage to our alliance with the human cultivators. Is that your wish?”
“No,” Luo Binghe said, looking faintly unnerved.
He paused for a long moment. Mobei Jun wasn’t ordinarily very good at reading other people, but he thought he could guess what was going through Luo Binghe’s mind. He didn’t really believe the wish would be granted, so he didn’t want to tip his hand and mention a true heart’s desire, something that might be used against him. But he wasn’t sure enough in his disbelief to waste a wish on something that didn’t matter at all.
Finally Luo Binghe quirked up a corner of his mouth, smirking at some private joke, and said, “What if I wanted to have horns for a day?”
Mobei Jun rang the bell on his desk. “Fetch Qinghua,” he told the underling that stuck his eyestalks into the room.
Qinghua looked appropriately unnerved to find a Heavenly Demon in their dining room. Mobei Jun would have to tell him later that he wished for them to be allies now.
“Luo Binghe wishes to have horns for a day,” he told Qinghua.
“Ummm,” said Qinghua, which was one of the good noises: it meant that whatever this wish required would not be more than moderately hazardous or stupid.
“Well, uh. I mean, you could—in the Cave of Transformation, on, uh, the third level down, I think it was, if you pricked your finger on a thrice-curled rose…. But, um, for a day? The amount of dual cultivation required to make them go away again… I mean, we’re talking twelve hours at the very least. It‘s really meant to be spaced out over like a week—“
“It will suffice,” Mobei Jun said, because Luo Binghe’s face had taken on the dazed and far-away expression of a man who’d been faced with the awe-inspiring scope of Qinghua’s power for the first time. Clearly, his wish had been answered to his full satisfaction.
All further discussion was side-tracked by the arrival of Shen Qingqiu and the reappearance of the Scaly Lionwing pup, which until now had been sleeping half-forgotten in Luo Binghe’s robes.
It turned out that what he had wanted it for was so that Shen Qingqiu could examine it and coo at it and pet the fluffy, not-yet-scaly pelt. Even Qinghua took a turn cradling the thing in his arms.
The visit was cut short at this point, because Shen Qingqiu thought the Lionwing pup looked hungry and wanted to try feeding it some Darkmoth livers he had at home.
Qinghua followed Luo Binghe with his eyes all the way to the door, like a rabbit watching a predator depart.
“Did you want a Lionwing pup?” Mobei Jun asked. Lionwings weren’t really a solo hunt, but he’d figure something out if necessary.
“God no. I don’t think you can even housetrain those things, and also it’ll grow up into an enormous deadly monster.”
Ah. An appropriate gift for a man who’d made a pet of a Heavenly Demon, then.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about? What was Binghe doing here? And what does he want with horns?” Qinghua asked.
“What anyone wants with horns, I assume,” Mobei Jun said.
Qinghua didn’t look any less confused at that; apparently this one was a demon culture thing.
“To impress his mate with,” Mobei Jun clarified. Or to fight with, but Luo Binghe didn’t seem to need assistance with that.
Qinghua groaned. “Cucumber bro is going to be so pissed. That was a deleted scene for a reason!”
Mobei Jun ignored that. Incomprehensible mutterings had always been part of Qinghua’s process, and Mobei Jun was no fool to interfere with a magical working.
He drew Qinghua onto his lap and slung an arm around him, one hand flat on Qinghua’s soft stomach.
“Wish for something,” he said, kissing Qinghua’s neck.
Like all great powers, Qinghua’s had their limits. One was his inability to believe that he had this power at all, no matter how many times Mobei Jun patiently explained the proof; the other was his inability to use it for himself. It had to be Mobei Jun making the wish for him. He tried to remember to keep track of Qinghua’s desires.
“Oh! My king! Um, I—well, do you remember the thing you did, uh, the night of the midsummer festival, with the, uh. You know?”
“I do,” Mobei Jun said, pleased. His favorite wishes were the ones he could fulfill right away.
He did not know whether Qinghua’s powers, like so many things, were fuelled by dual cultivation; he did not feel any need to know.
Some things were their own reward.
THE END