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Shen Qingqiu’s fan arced out to hide his face with a flick of his wrist. “You better be joking.”
Shang Qinghua shrugged, like he was a blameless spectator in all of this and not the mastermind behind Shen Qingqiu’s latest humiliation.
“You.” Shen Qingqiu’s complexion shot from bone white through several alarming shades of red, as his body attempted to speed-run death by sheer embarrassment. “Why would you— where did you even—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s a feature, not a bug! I mean, not a bug in this case, but you knew that.” Shang Qinghua chuckled. “You’d know that better than anyone, even this humble author, wouldn’t you! Haha. Well, you’ll get used to it. The anatomy would have to be so much weirder to be a deal-breaker, bro, be real.”
What kind of pornography had this author watched during his former life, if this was his definition of not too strange? Shen Qingqiu’s stomach had started wiggling! His abdomen had doubled in size in a week, skin stretched tight over a rounded intrusion. This was straight nightmare fuel!
Since it wasn’t possible to go back in time and pull the plug on Airplane’s unsupervised internet access during his formative years, Shen Qingqiu at least tried to know enough about the dark and twisted maze that was the author’s inner psyche, in order to protect himself from whatever side plots that vivid imagination had baked into his work.
Unfortunately Airplane’s mind was a rat’s nest, and there were side plots and fun little details scattered through the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way like easter eggs in an old RPG, or (more often) exploding tiles in minesweeper: difficult to predict and each stranger than the last.
Of all the ridiculous side plots to encounter, though, why did it have to be egg-laying demons?
Mobei-jun looked like this might qualify as one of the worst days of his life, and as much as Shen Qingqiu didn’t envy him being dragged into the assembly hall to explain basic Heavenly Demon biology to a gaggle of grown men, at least Mobei-jun wasn’t the one carrying a surprise egg in his guts!
Shang Qinghua had slapped on his best wide-eyed responsibility-shirking expression, like he hadn’t known that Shen Qingqiu didn’t know, so how could any of this possibly be his fault?
The final nail in the coffin was the lovely Sha Hualing, who laughed uproariously, right in Shen Qingqiu’s face, and only quieted at a look from Luo Binghe. “Ling-er can’t believe my Lord wasn’t aware. Even hatchlings know they come from eggs!”
(The side-eye she gave Shen Qingqiu when Luo Binghe looked away, narrow and full of animosity, said god, I wish that were me. As much as Shen Qingqiu loved Binghe, he silently agreed. Anyone but me!)
“It’s not a big deal, Cucumber-bro. Bing-me– My lord is only half Heavenly Demon. You graduated from limes to lemons ages ago and this is your first time dealing with an egg? Lucky, if you ask this humble servant. If it’s not fertilized, you can just lay it and get on with your life.”
Shen Qingqiu’s world tilted a little to the right.
What do you mean I have to lay it?
What do you mean, if it’s not fertilized?!
Luckily Shen Qingqiu kept his mouth shut, up to that point, because his voice would have come out shrieking like a boiling kettle.
After a few deep breaths, he finally managed to squeak out, sotto voce: “Fuck my life.”
Shang Qinghua opened his mouth.
Shang Qinghua (wisely) closed his mouth and said nothing, though his wince was as loud as a shout.
Before their… arrangement… Luo Binghe had been the purest white lotus (read: a virgin), unfortunately tainted in some deep recess of his mind by being a product of Airplane’s imagination (read: a virgin who, having found a partner, had activated some breathtakingly vivid and imaginative ideas about sex like a sexy sleeper agent).
Liu Qingge, War God of Bai Zhan Peak, had been ignorant of the pleasures of the flesh unless those pleasures involved punching someone in the jaw, but was somehow an upstanding cultivator and ascetic beyond reproach despite also being a product of Airplane’s psyche. (Also a virgin).
Shen Qingqiu had been innocent in the flesh, though not of mind, a helpless victim of Airplane’s trash pornography (and sure, he'd paid the subscription, but only to stay on top of how awful the latest update would inevitably be, you understand). Three for three for virgins in their trio, and from a world where eggs were the domain of birds and reptiles, of which Binghe was neither, so how was he supposed to know?! How could he have guessed!
The point was, no one had thought to have the egg talk with Shen Qingqiu, Liu Qingge, or even Luo Binghe, who’d been, ah, a little more into it than usual that night. Shen Qingqiu had been clinging to coherent thought by the skin of his teeth when it felt like that heavenly pillar swelled inside, dismissing it as a demon sex thing, maybe even an orgasm-induced figment of his imagination. It hadn’t been painful; he wouldn’t have even noticed if it hadn’t set off the strongest simultaneous orgasm of his life, leaving Binghe gasping and panting in his ear and Shen Qingqiu’s entire body tingling with pleasure.
Never the type to be outdone, in battle or in the bedroom, Liu-shidi had turned Shen Qingqiu over on his front on the low bamboo table, oversensitive and wet and open, and–
Shen Qingqiu didn’t want to think about it.
In any case, none of them had thought anything of it until Shen Qingqiu's flat stomach started to grow. And squirm.
“Surely,” Shen Qingqiu began, the gears of his mind already spinning to formulate a reasonable explanation that would hurt his brain a bit less than what he was beginning to suspect as the truth, “a Heavenly Demon’s… ovum… would need to be fertilized by another demon in order to…”
Shang Qinghua, the rotten bastard, forever Shen Qingqiu’s mortal enemy from this day forth, looked at Mobei-jun and Sha Hualing with wide eyes, guilty as hell. Finding no support in that corner – only two demons who looked like throttling a Peak Lord might improve the strange day they were having – he took a few steps back toward the empty hall of the demon court.
Shang Qinghua put a decent head start between them all before he bowed behind his cupped palms. “Haha, well, the only way out is through, you know the saying! Good luck, bro!”
Luo Binghe spent the evening in contemplative silence, staring out the cottage window into the bamboo grove.
Shen Qingqiu wasn’t fooled. He sometimes misjudged Binghe’s moods, but he knew a sulk when he saw one, and knew the cause as soon as Binghe turned those big wet doe-eyes his way. How can you possibly be jealous of an egg? Your egg! Ridiculous man!
Liu-shidi knelt at the low table – the very same table where the… fertilization had occurred – in a meditative state that looked suspiciously catatonic. So. He was handling the news as well as could be expected.
Shen Qingqiu felt like the most composed of the three, and he was the one who would have to lay the damned egg.
The idea was beginning to grow on him. He wanted to have the squirming thing out, of course, but also, wasn’t it normal to feel intrigued? He was going to have to lay the egg either way, and this wasn’t something the average human body could do.
It could be worse. At least it wasn’t a chestburster.
Liu-shidi snapped out of his stupor at the sound of Shen Qingqiu chuckling to himself, glaring like his shixiong had lost his wits.
As for what would happen after their egg was laid– their fertilized egg, which was already wiggling with signs of life as his body prepared to push it out– Shen Qingqiu would worry about that later. One world-altering revelation at a time.
At least he could be in control. He was a cultivator, after all, cool and collected like a cucumber, capable of meditating and powering through the worst this hellish world had to offer.
Ready to lay this egg like a majestic crane, in a body built for this task by Airplane's porn-brained logic, he knelt at the table with his robes fanned out. Even a common chicken could lay an egg daily, so why would Shen Qingqiu have any difficulties doing the same?
Half an incense-time later, Shen Qingqiu buckled over the bamboo table, cursing Airplane to the worst imaginable hell.
Liu Qingge snapped into action, though Shen Qingqiu was genuinely surprised he hadn't flown off for Bai Zhan Peak at the first sign of distress. Working together with Luo Binghe, they bullied Shen Qingqiu upright, kneeling again with Liu-shidi pressed to his back to brace his weight. Strong hands supported Shen Qingqiu’s rounded stomach, while Luo Binghe rucked his robes up his trembling thighs.
Luo Binghe’s free hand reached between his legs, palming his balls aside to trace his stretched rim, stroking where the narrow end of the egg had peaked and refused to move.
“Shizun,” Binghe said, wondering. Shen Qingqiu would have recognized that tone and the mischief in it if he wasn't distracted. “Try to relax. If it comes too fast, won’t it hurt more?”
Innocent words, followed immediately by pressure, the ache of being stretched wide by something thrust in as Binghe forced the egg back inside–
Shen Qingqiu sobbed, broken and beyond embarrassment, and spilled over Binghe’s sleeve.
For a long while he was insensate, except for brief flashes of what was going on in the room. Footsteps. The light had moved across the floor. Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge, hissing and growling back and forth in stage whispers. Of all the fucking times to argue!
The whispering stopped abruptly. Huh. Shen Qingqiu must have said that out loud.
Shen Qingqiu’s awareness narrowed to their hands: Liu Qingge’s hands, strong sword-wielding palms massaging his stomach, while Binghe worked oiled fingers into his hole, focusing on the rim while the egg was pushed inside.
When this is over I'm going to leave An Ding without a Peak Lord, Shen Qingqiu promised himself.
Binghe's eyes darkened; he looked no less intimidating with his lower lip pushed out. "Why are you thinking about him right now?"
That- was something that couldn't be explained without breaking the fourth wall- but Shen Qingqiu was saved when something wider than Binghe's significant heavenly pillar finally crested, helped along by gravity and oil– and the relief, after it was out, was euphoric, so sudden and intense that he could only cling to the hands holding him up and shake.
Shen Qingqiu could feel that his crown had been knocked askew. Sweat was beginning to dry, tacky on his skin, damp in his hair, and his body ached with the satisfaction of relief after pushing oneself to the edge of endurance and exhaustion.
Three grown men - a half-Heavenly Demon and two immortal cultivators - stared down at the wiggling egg in Shen Qingqiu's lap. The wet membrane had already begun to dry, encasing the shell in a speckled protective layer.
Shen Qingqiu eventually broke the - awed, shell-shocked, aghast - silence. "What are we supposed to do with it now?"