Chapter Text
“Hang on hang on hang on, okay, there!”
Shang Qinghua slaps the last of the anti-surveillance talismans he has onto the door and activates them. It is a truly staggering amount, to the point that Yue Qingyuan is certain that the man must have had them stored in a qiankun pouch. His pockets simply wouldn’t have been able to fit that many.
“Alright,” Shang Qinghua pants, wiping his brow. “Now our fellow cultivators definitely shouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on us! Probably. Almost definitely.”
“And why exactly is it that Shang-shidi travels about with dozens of such talismans on his person?” Shen Qingqiu asks, eyes narrowing suspiciously. He looks tense and unhappy, ready to turn that sharpness onto someone at the first available opportunity. “Does he often need to avoid detection?”
Shang Qinghua twitches, as if he’d been about to cringe away from the man but then caught himself.
“Well, I am the Peak Lord of An Ding,” he says defensively - nervously, too. “I don’t want people overhearing the details of our trade deals, do I? People are gonna be knocking my door down because I didn’t give them as good of a deal as the last guy!”
“Enough,” Qi Qingqi snaps. “This is completely irrelevant. What do we do?”
“Mu-shidi,” Yue Qingyuan speaks up, taking his seat at the head of the table. “Have you heard of this curse?”
The room they’ve sequestered themselves in to avoid the prying eyes and ears of the rest of the attending cultivators is slightly too small for comfort with all twelve of them present, some sort of meeting room with a long table and some seat cushions. People take his cue and begin to sit down at the table, instinctively sorting themselves into the usual order they sit by when they attend Peak Lord meetings at the mountain. They have to crowd a little closer this time, making the meeting feel more intimate and uncomfortable - covert, furtive.
“I’m afraid not,” Mu Qingfang says, shaking his head. “A curse of compulsion, with dire consequences for disobedience… I’ve heard of many similar things, but not exactly this.”
“For all we know, the perpetrator invented this little trap just for us,” Shen Qinqiu says, tapping his fan dangerously. “Tailormade to ruin us.”
“I have no secrets to hide,” Liu Qingge says, and lifts his chin challengingly at Shen Qingqiu, who bristles in return. “Do you?”
“Ah, Liu-shidi, if you don’t have any secrets then you should get some real quick!” Shang Qinghua says with bright, manic cheer, his smile and his eyes a little too wide. “The consequences for not meeting the curse’s requirements would be very very bad!”
“A true secret,” Wei Qingwei says, rubbing at his beard. “What counts as a true secret? Can it be anything? What about what I had for breakfast this morning? I didn’t tell anyone, so does that count?”
“Obviously not,” Shen Qingqiu says derisively.
“Try it!” another peak lord, Zhang Qingyang, suggests.
“Alright, I had… no breakfast at all, since I overslept and was rushed!”
Despite it all, they all wait for a beat to see if anything happens.
“Do you feel any differently?” Mu Qingfang asks curiously.
Wei Qingwei’s shoulders slump. “No, I’m afraid not. I can still feel the curse’s hold on me. Very uncomfortable, that.” He grimaces and rubs at his throat.
Yue Qingyuan understands. The foreign, malicious qi hovers around his throat, slowly squeezing tighter and tighter like a noose… It isn’t visible to the naked eye, but they all feel it.
“The Cang Qiong Mountain delegation has been undoubtedly sabotaged,” Shen Qingqiu says. “The question is, by who? The Old Palace Master? Sect Leader Wang?”
“I don’t think Wu Wang would do such a thing…” Huang Qingheng, Peak Lord of the twelfth peak, says quietly.
“How could we possibly find out? We don’t have the time. We have to satisfy the curse’s demands, before it’s too late,” Qi Qingqi says grimly.
“Doing as the curse demands would be giving our enemies exactly what they want!” Shen Qingqiu snaps. “To expose Cang Qiong’s secrets, to humiliate us, to mire us in scandal or gain the ability to blackmail--”
“What have you done that’s worth blackmail?” Liu Qingge demands.
“Enough,” Yue Qingyuan says forcefully, cutting off the brewing fight before it can start. There is no time for it, as Qi Qingqi said. The room crackles with stress and anxiety, everyone worried and high strung. This is the most they’ve ever been taken off guard, every single one of them cursed… “This does not have to be a disaster. Shang-shidi has been kind enough to secure us a private room. We simply have to meet the demands of the curse without letting any outsiders overhear and use whatever we reveal against us.”
“Would that work?” Wei Qingwei asks. “Just the twelve of us, sharing with each other instead of shouting it in public?”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” Mu Qingfang muses. “A secret revealed is a secret revealed, even if it’s only to one other person.”
“So we’ll still have to reveal something to everyone in this room?” Qi Qingqi says, and just barely has the grace not to pointedly look at Shen Qingqiu, even if obvious distaste drips from her words.
“We are martial siblings,” Yue Qingyuan says. “We have been made vulnerable by outsiders, and our ability to come through this situation unscathed rests entirely in each other's hands. We will swear not to expose any secrets that are revealed in this room. Agreed?”
The allusion to outsiders is deliberate. If there is one thing Cang Qiong Mountain is known for, it is their tendency to fiercely close ranks when one of their own is attacked by others. Old grudges and resentments are set aside and replaced by furious protectiveness, just like young siblings coming to each other's rescue in the face of a hostile interloper.
As hoped for, all of his martial siblings look at each other and then one by one they nod their agreement, some more slowly or grudgingly than others.
“We should take turns and satisfy the curse’s requirements, then. Qingheng-shidi, would you be good enough to begin?” Yue Qingyuan asks the twelfth peak lord.
Huang Qingheng blinks and looks mildly surprised to be singled out of the crowd at all, as if he were a ghost that has suddenly been spotted. This is always his reaction, however. A quiet, introverted man used to being forgotten or overlooked, Yue Qingyuan tries to make him feel valued without stepping over into the line of overwhelming him with too much attention.
“Certainly, Zhangmen-shixiong,” he says dutifully despite his surprise, as Yue Qingyuan knew he would.
Huang Qingheng was a deliberate choice, in that regard. By all appearances the natural choice to make, no one will question it, or wonder that perhaps Yue Qingyuan had made sure to begin with Huang Qingheng due to his obedient and unquestioning personality. They cannot afford to become trapped in a stalemate, people refusing to release their secrets until everyone else has done so first. There are too many stubborn personalities in this room.
That, and it will give Yue Qingyuan as much time as possible to find the least damaging secret he has to share. Too many disastrous options present themselves to him. He has to sift through them first. He feels painfully aware of Shen Qingqiu’s presence to the left of him.
Huang Qingheng furrows his brow and thinks deeply for a long moment, as all of his martial siblings sit and stare at him, waiting. It must be rather nerve wracking, but he doesn’t betray the mounting pressure on him in the slightest, as if he doesn’t even notice it. There is a growing restless, impatient tension in the air, thick to inhale.
“... Many options present themselves to me,” he muses slowly. “I am uncertain of what qualifies. Must it be important? Must it be from long ago, or still relevant? Must it be my own secret, or someone else’s?”
Liu Qingge shifts restlessly. “Just pick one. If it doesn’t work, tell another.”
Yue Qingyuan raises a quelling hand in Liu Qingge’s direction without looking directly at him, instead smiling encouragingly at Huang Qingheng.
“We all feel the urgency of our circumstances, but let us not rush Qingheng-shidi,” he says. “We should show each other the consideration and understanding we would like to be shown when it is our turn to speak.”
The noose around his throat is winding itself tighter. Slowly, but surely.
“Judgement is inevitable,” Shen Qingiqu says bitterly. “Or would you like us all to prettily pretend like the things we learn here won’t taint our views of each other?”
“Shen-shixiong need not worry himself,” Qi Qingqi says coolly. “An appearance that is already stained cannot be tainted much further.”
“It is Qingheng-shidi’s turn to speak now,” Yue Qingyuan says firmly, trying to smother the argument waiting to crackle into a flaring fire. The tension of the situation is making all of his shidimei sharper than usual, more eager to bite and nip at the slightest provocation, and they already aren’t a particularly harmonious martial family.
Huang Qingheng doesn’t draw it out any longer, thankfully.
“Our Ling Mu Peak uses Eternally Sleeping Orchid oil and Blissful Winding Lotus Root incense to prepare the bodies of our dead, as well as soothe their spirits.”
There is a beat.
“Is that it?” Tang Qingling asks skeptically. “Is that really a secret?”
“It is,” Huang Qingheng says. “It is a trade secret of our peak kept for generations, both to avoid possible sabotage attempts by the malicious, and to maintain our great reputation in burials and pacifying restless spirits.”
“I know that, though,” Shang Qinghua points out. “I have to order those items for you in bulk every season! I know it’s information we guard from outsiders, but…”
“Dozens of people on Ling Mu Peak know,” Yue Qingyuan says. The peak of coffin-makers and tomb-sweepers, it is one of their least populated peaks, with less than two hundred cultivators living upon it - happily. It would be an unfortunate thing indeed if there were a greater need for their services. “And, presumably, more people within the sect such as Shang-shidi. Even if it is a secret from some, it seems that is not good enough.”
“I see,” Huang Qingheng says, furrowing his brow and sounding gently troubled. He sits there and visibly mulls it over for a moment - Yue Qingyuan can feel the growing impatience from some of his martial siblings, Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu in particular. Luckily, it doesn’t take long for his shidi to try again. “Once… several years ago, I happened to observe one of my disciples after the first time that she prepared a body for burial. She was silent for a long moment before she slowly began to laugh, more and more. I’ve never heard someone sound so strange before.”
Another breathless moment, as if waiting to see if an arrow will hit its target. Only disappointment meets them when Huang Qingheng frowns and shakes his head apologetically.
“Enough,” Shen Qingqiu snaps. “Cease wasting everyone’s time with your halfhearted confessions. Give us one of your secrets - something which you have intentionally held back or hidden, known only to yourself, that you’ve intended to take with you to your grave. It is obvious that such a powerful curse will not be satisfied by technicalities or loopholes.”
“He is trying his best, Qingqiu-shidi,” Yue Qingyuan attempts to soothe, to soften his words for him - even as a part of him recognizes the truth in Shen Qingqiu’s words. In all likelihood, he is correct. This is a curse meant to reveal secrets. If it does not hurt to tell it, then it will not be enough.
His stomach sinks at the thought, grim dread crawling through his veins.
“We do not require his best,” Shen Qingqiu says disdainfully. “We require him to do what needs to be done.”
“My apologies,” Huang Qingheng says, not bristling with indignation the way some of their other martial siblings might in the face of such criticism. “This shidi will amend himself. When I was--”
He pauses, hesitating for only the briefest of moments before he continues.
“I loved my mother very much,” he says. “But when she passed I felt no grief for her and didn’t shed a single tear. I never have. I believe it is a part of myself that I must lack.”
There is a pause--
Huang Qingheng exhales sharply, then rubs at his throat as his shoulders slump.
“Oh, that is a relief. It’s gone.”
Excitement and tension courses through the rest of the table, as they all see that the curse can be satisfied - but that they will each have to offer something up to do so. Something raw and vulnerable, close and personal. One by one, each will have their turn.
“Good,” Yue Qingyuan says, smiling falsely. “Xue-shidi, it is your turn now.”
“Right,” Xue Qingming says with little relish, shifting uncomfortably. He doesn’t hesitate and ponder the way Huang Qingheng did, given time to think for himself. He avoids eye contact with all others as he says, “I initially didn’t pass the entrance trials by my own merit. My parents did my shizun a favor, and I was let in.”
“Bribery, then,” Shen Qingqiu says, and his voice twists like a knife between the ribs. “How unsurprising.”
Xue Qingming’s mouth thins and his shoulders hunch, but he doesn’t snap back at Shen Qingqiu. Not the aggressive sort, but he clearly simply doesn’t have the face to argue back in these circumstances. His confession is not particularly surprising. Xue Qingming is a competent cultivator and Peak Lord, dedicated to his peak, but Yue Qingyuan has gotten the impression that most of the higher placed cultivators within the sect are… well connected. It is the nature of things.
“Let us not comment on each other’s confessions,” Yue Qingyuan cuts in before any more regrettable remarks can be made. “We need to move on. Tang-shimei?”
Tang Qingling does not hide away from the gazes of her martial siblings the way Xue Qingming did, instead pointedly sweeping her hawkish gaze over all of them.
“My shizun had decided to replace me very shortly before he died at the ambush for the Demon Emperor,” she says. “It turned out he had told no one of his plans, and I saw fit not to correct anyone.”
“He always was a stupid pig,” Qi Qingqi sniffs, which is commenting but Yue Qingyuan decides to let it pass without rebuke. At least it is supportive.
Mentally, he can’t help but note that secrets shared with only a dead man are acceptable. Only the living invalidate it.
“Zhang-shimei,” Yue Qingyuan says. “If you would.”
Zhang Qingyan blushes and confesses to a love held for a woman that Yue Qingyuan (and from the looks of it, absolutely no one else at the table) has never even heard of. This seems to be suitable, however, because the curse releases its grip on her. Mu Qingfang goes next.
His eyes flick only briefly to Yue Qingyuan before he speaks, his expression held in a careful, blank, professional mask.
“When I am treating a patient that I believe is close to death, I stop thinking of them as a person. I see them as a doll, or an animal. It allows me to focus on treating them, and it is… easier for me. Less upsetting.”
The mood that falls over the table at this revelation is uncomfortable. As Peak Lord of Qian Cao, Mu Qingfang is the doctor of choice for most of the people present here. How many times has he treated Shen Qingqiu for qi deviation? He is generally well liked amongst his martial siblings, a mild and helpful person. Yue Qingyuan can remember--
“Thank you,” Yue Qingyuan says, for lack of anything better. As if he has said nothing of any particular consequence. “Liu-shidi?”
Liu Qingge is looking at Mu Qingfang, his brow furrowed. Some might think he looks angry, hostile, but Yue Qingyuan knows his martial brother well enough to recognize his confusion for what it is. He doesn’t understand how what Mu Qingfang just said could match with the rest of him, with the man that he knows him to be. But he belatedly looks towards Yue Qingyuan when prompted, then scowls down at the tabletop in front of him. Yue Qingyuan worries for a moment that he might not have anything, is going to refuse to offer anything-- but then he speaks, stiff and stilted.
“I… stole my sister from my family and put her in the sect,” he says. “I pretended like I had their permission. I didn’t.”
“Does that work?” Qi Qingqi asks after a beat. “Didn’t she--?”
“She thought I asked them. I just took her.”
“And your family?”
“Pretended like I’d asked them and they said yes.” A pause, and then he adds, “They don’t know that I did it because she asked me to.”
“Well then,” Yue Qingyuan says, and smiles encouragingly, “there’s no issue, is there? Mingyan-shizhi wants to be here and your family has come to accept the current circumstances. Everything is fine as it is.”
Thank the heavens. That sounds like a situation with the potential to become an absolute disaster. Accusations of stealing children with high cultivation potential from their parents-- there have been some unfortunate precedent there, amongst less well reputed cultivation masters or sects.
“... Don’t tell her,” Liu Qingge says, looking distrustfully at all of them - Shen Qingqiu most of all.
Shen Qingqiu for his part merely scoffs and then hides behind his fan. “As if I’m interested in your family drama. Hold onto your lies if you like.”
Liu Qingge bristles, but clenches his jaw rather than further the argument - a relief.
“It would have been a waste to put her anywhere but a cultivation sect,” Qi Qingqi says. Her tone isn’t warm or friendly, but Yue Qingyuan hears it for the reassurance it’s meant to be.
“She just didn’t want to be there,” he says, but it’s low and quiet. Yue Qingyuan takes the cue and moves on.
“Wang-shidi?”
Wang Qingjie has been growing paler and paler as his turn has approached, and now looks near ghostly.
“Th--this is,” he stammers out slowly, “this is something that happened a very long time ago. I have never-- I never repeated it, and I repented most strenuously--”
“Apologies and defenses typically come after the confession,” Shen Qingqiu interrupts sharply. He’s eyeing his shidi with distasteful suspicion. “What repulsive acts have you committed?”
The Ascetic Peak Lord’s face twists with guilt, to the point that Yue Qingyuan finds that he’s bracing himself for the answer, and then the words burst out a touch too loudly, “I dual cultivated with one of my martial siblings.”
Silence.
“Like,” Shang Qinghua says, “consensually?”
“What? Of course! What do you take me for?”
“Well I’m sorry, you were just acting like it was such a big deal I thought we were in for some real dirt! I thought you were going to confess to a secret family or a murder or something.”
“Shixiong,” Wang Qingjie says, sounding highly offended.
“Very good, Wang-shidi, thank you for your earnest confession. None of us will speak of it after this. Qi-shimei?”
Qi Qingqi’s brow furrows in a deep frown, looking as if she’s weighing her options very carefully. Unhappy to be in the position she is, reluctant to part with any secret at all. She is, Yue Qingyuan knows from experience, not a woman very comfortable with vulnerability. Like most of the people in this room.
It is nearly my turn, he thinks, and firmly puts the thought away.
“Is Shimei stalling?” Shen Qingqiu asks pointedly, tapping his fan deliberately on the tabletop. “Does she dread judgment so much, when she is always so quick to dole it out herself?”
Qi Qingqi shoots him a quick, scorching glare. “Your judgment, and your opinion for that matter, is something that I don’t care about one way or another. Please do not think too highly of yourself.”
“Then perhaps you should get it over with already.”
“Shidi, shimei,” Yue Qingyuan says, trying to make his voice pacifying, soothing. It is difficult, past the slowly closing fist around his windpipe. Staying calm at the moment feels a little like taking a leisurely stroll through a burning building rather than running for the nearest exit. “Please, let us not be distracted.”
Qi Qingqi and Shen Qingqiu both scoff out protests and retorts at once, overlapping - they both stop and bristle, glaring at each other.
“Please,” Yue Qingyuan repeats himself, with the exact same intonation as before.
“Fine,” Qi Qingqi says. “If I can speak without interruptions--”
“You weren’t speaking.”
“--then I will continue.” Qi Qingqi pauses for only a moment longer before she continues, her mouth briefly twisting in distaste before she continues. “My mother worked as a prostitute.”
There is a beat of silence as she does not elaborate.
“... Very well then,” Yue Qingyuan says at last. “Thank you for your--”
“Really?” Zhang Qingyan blurts out. “I thought you were from a rich family of nobility?”
“I am,” Qi Qingqi says, giving Zhang Qingyan an absolutely cutting look. “My father bought out her contract and married her properly. That is all.”
Zhang Qingyan cringes back a little from Qi Qingqi’s glare, intimidated. “I was just--”
“I do not care what you were just. Keep your questions and any comments to yourself.” Qi Qingqi is already a tall, statuesque woman, but seems to be drawing herself up taller and taller where she sits as she sweeps the entire table with a frigid, forbidding look. “I am not interested in defending myself to any of you, and none of you have a single right to criticize my mother.”
A moment of breathless silence passes, as if she’s waiting for the first person to step a foot out of line. Once it is over she seems to subside slightly, the bristling sharpness in every line of her body softening ever so slightly. Furiously defensive, ready to be insulted.
No one is foolish enough to do so. A relief, in more ways than one. There is very little time left - and there are enough grudges and burned bridges between his martial siblings as is. And he is, perhaps, a little fond of Qi Qingqi in particular and does not wish for anyone to dig fingers into her sorest spots.
All this, and yet a part of him also wishes that he were mediating an argument right now instead. Wants an excuse, any excuse, to drag his feet and draw this out as far as he can.
There are only three left before it’s his turn. Which secret will he sacrifice?
“Shang-shidi,” he prompts. “It is your turn.”
“A-ah, so it is,” Shang Qinghua says and smiles stiffly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “God, my turn came up so fast! Faster than I expected! Uh, does, does anyone else want to go before me…?”
“Cease wasting time,” Shen Qingqiu says, eyes narrowing dangerously. “You will speak now, and not a moment later.”
“Right! Sorry! This-- this one is just struggling to think of any secret that might suffice, I have so few, ahaha! Ah, not-- not that one, definitely not that one…”
“Shidi,” Yue Qingyuan says as patiently and kindly as he can muster, under such circumstances, “I would like to remind you that there will be no consequences for whatever you reveal here. If you have broken any rules, you will not be punished. These are special circumstances.”
“That’s,” Shang Qinghua says, and he gives a wobbly grin, “very kind of Zhangmen-shixiong, but totally unneeded! I really don’t break much of any rules, haha! I wouldn’t dare! I mean - does keeping a secret bottle of wine in my desk drawer count?”
He stops and holds his breath, as if waiting to see if that might, indeed, be sufficient.
“I’ve walked in on you drinking in your office before, Shixiong,” Mu Qingfang reminds Shang Qinghua apologetically.
“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, deflating. “Right.”
“I do that too,” Zhang Qingyan says, as if to reassure him.
“Pick something already,” Liu Qingge says impatiently.
“Don’t rush me! The more you try to squeeze something out of me, the less I can think of anything at all. There has to be something I can give up, come on…” This last he mutters frantically to himself, as if appealing to some higher being. Then, twitching as if physically struck by an idea, he blurts out, “I sabotaged the last Head Disciple of An Ding to steal the position! I sprinkled salt on all the flatcakes he made for the peak lords! I got him demoted on purpose!”
There is a brief silence as they all stare at him.
“Wait,” Shang Qinghua says. “Why doesn’t that work? Why doesn’t that work!?”
Delicately, Yue Qingyuan clears his throat before speaking. “Ah… I’m afraid I already assumed as much, Shidi. Pan-shidi always made the flatcakes properly, and then suddenly they tasted strangely every time. When he was demoted and replaced, it seemed natural to me that it must have been your doing.”
“I sabotaged the previous Head Disciple of Xian Shu as well,” Qi Qingqi says. “Is that not the norm?”
“Oversalting flatcakes is a rather quaint method, though,” Wei Qingwei says, stroking his goatee with an amused grin. “I just broke my rival’s arm in a spar and then made sure to take care of all of his usual duties as he was recovering.”
“Damn,” Shang Qinghua says. “The sect really is like one of those hypercompetitive schools… Urgh, Zhangmen-shixiong, why did you have to go and ruin my one good secret?”
“Offer up a bad one, then,” Qi Qingqi says. “Don’t think yourself so important that you can take up all of this time hemming and hawing over your own precious secrets - all of us have already given up ours.”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking--”
“Perhaps Shang-shidi is simply over thinking matters a little,” Wei Qingwei says, his tone kind but his smile a little strained.
“I just need a moment--”
“Quit stalling!” Liu Qingge snaps.
“I’m trying--”
“Are you?” Shen Qingqiu demands. “If this is--”
Yue Qingyuan is about to intervene, sensing his shidimei unthinkingly ganging up on Shang Qinghua in their anxiety - but before he can, Shang Qinghua himself slams his hands on the table and flies to his feet, shouting, “I’ve always wanted to fuck a demon!”
A speechless silence fills the room, with only Shang Qinghua panting from the force of his shout. If the door weren’t plastered with silencing talismans then surely everyone outside would have heard him loud and clear.
“Ah,” Shang Qinghua croaks, a hand going to his throat as his expression clears with surprised relief. “That worked! Nice.”
And he sits back down at the table, clearing his throat a little self consciously.
“... What?” Qi Qingqi says.
Looking from side to side at his martial siblings, Shang Qinghua hunches his shoulders a little defensively. “What? That was the best I could come up with!”
“That was the best?” Shen Qingqiu asks with incredulous disgust. He puts his fan up between him and Shang Qinghua, as if to ward off a leper.
“You were all cornering me! Don’t get mad, I did as you asked, didn’t I? Honestly, who hasn’t wanted to fuck a demon? Don’t act all high and mighty on me!”
“Ah, Shang-shidi, I’ve terribly underestimated you all these years,” Wei Qingwei says, and laughs disbelievingly. “You’re much braver than I thought!”
“Ahaha, please don’t get ahead of yourself, I only said want to. As if I’d ever actually do it! I-- I’m a righteous cultivator, after all, ahaha…”
“Thanking Shang-shidi for his contribution,” Yue Qingyuan says firmly. He’s as surprised as anyone else by the admission from a shidi that he’s always seen as somewhat meek and nervous, but there is no time to dwell on the revelation. “Wei-shidi, if you will.”
Two more.
“Not sure how I’ll be able to top that, I have to admit,” Wei Qingwei says. “Ah, very well, I’ve already come up with something, so I won’t draw matters out. When I was a mere disciple, I… helped one of my martial siblings break into the Sword Wall.”
Yue Qingyuan does not move, make a noise, or so much as blink.
Wei Qingwei does not do anything as obvious as glance at him as he speaks. “He was relatively new to the sect, and not very far down his path of cultivation even if he was talented and driven. It had been judged that he wasn’t ready for a spiritual weapon yet, even though he’d begged for it. In the end he turned to me, and pleaded for me to help him claim one anyway. I… against my better judgment, I allowed him to convince me and did as he asked.”
Any lingering remnants of a cheerful smile has faded by now, leaving him looking unusually somber as he continues. “The results were terrible. As bad as it could have possibly gone. It all got brushed under the rug and smoothed over. To this day, it… my part in that tragedy weighs heavily on me. I suppose I just didn’t want to say no and be a villain in his eyes, but I understand now that that was… a despicably selfish motive. I wanted more badly to be friendly than actually helpful at that moment, which I will always regret.”
Yue Qingyuan schools his expression into what it should be - serious, somber, a slight sympathetic furrow to his brow. Like he has heard something unpleasant and distressing, but not urgent or relevant. An unfortunate thing that happened to someone else, a long time ago. Like it has nothing to do with him.
It has nothing to do with him.
“A-ah…” Shang Qinghua stammers out, looking deeply and profoundly uncomfortable as his eyes bounce between different peak lords - Wei Qingwei, Shen Qingqiu, and Yue Qingyuan in particular. “That-- that’s a pretty heavy one, wow. That must’ve been… awful.”
“I was not the one who suffered,” Wei Qingwei says, and he looks at Yue Qingyuan as he says it, his mouth caught in a grimace that is only the distant relation of a smile. “--but no, it was not pleasant. That was… a bad time.”
“To think,” Shen Qingqiu starts icily, and Yue Qingyuan is hit with such a wave of desperation not to hear what he will say about this foolish, impulsive disciple who reached for more than he could carry, to flinch away from it and cover his ears, that he immediately speaks over him.
“Qingqiu-shidi, are you ready to speak?” he asks, and he wonders if he sounds too loud, too abrupt. He smiles, trying to soften any tone that might have slipped past him.
Shen Qingqiu looks at him askance, tense and bristling at the interruption. If this were any other day, in any other circumstances, then this feels like the moment he would spit out some sharp retort and then storm off. But instead he stays seated where he is, only giving him a venomous glare.
“Whether I am ready or not to speak is irrelevant,” he says. “I have no choice in the matter, do I?”
“No, you don’t,” Qi Qingqi agrees. “Especially after how you’ve needled and pushed everyone else into giving up their secrets with no hesitating or stalling until now - or are you going to act the hypocrite?”
“Shimei need not worry herself,” Shen Qingqiu says, eyes narrowing above a mockingly friendly smile. “This master has had plenty of time to prepare his own secret.”
“To find one that won’t get you thrown out of the sect, you mean,” Liu Qingge says, arms crossed in front of his chest. It feels almost obligatory, reflex hostility.
“So kidnapping a child from her family isn’t a serious crime?”
“You--!”
“Shidi, please,” Yue Qingyuan intervenes, smiling painfully at Shen Qingqiu. “We all promised not to use the secrets revealed here against each other, didn’t we?”
“We promised not to expose the secrets revealed here to outsiders,” Shen Qingqiu corrects him coolly. “A crucial difference. Do you really think that we will all walk out of this room with our skulls like sieves, forgetting everything we’ve seen and heard? We will all remember and know each other’s secrets, and we will judge each other for it. Pretending otherwise is foolishness.”
He is right. Of course, Shen Qingqiu is right. He is very good at taking the most inconvenient and unpleasant truths and jabbing them into people like needles. He is a perceptive, honest person who never hides behind comforting lies. A strength that he often uses as a weapon.
“Shen-shixiong is quite reckless, saying all of these things right before it is his turn to speak…” Xue Qingming says.
“Perhaps I could bribe you all to stay silent?” he says, pointed as a knife. Xue Qingming blushes--
“Qingqiu-shidi,” Yue Qingyuan says, feeling the delicate peace between them all threatening to tear at the seams and turn into a mess of chaotic shouting, thrown accusations, and spat insults. It would not be the first time a peak lord meeting has degraded in such a way. Just let it happen, some selfish part of him thinks. If they all begin to properly argue then they will forget about him, about his turn. It would never need to come at all-- but no, the curse pressing down on his throat (like a boot, crushing) will not allow it. He has no choice. “Would you please speak?”
Shen Qingqiu simply glares at them all in silence for a moment, as if seriously deliberating keeping his tongue out of spite, before he relents. Belatedly, Yue Qingyuan is overcome with an intense interest to know what he will say. Will it be about his past as a slave, or the Qiu Estate? Shen Qingqiu should not have to reveal such things to anyone if he does not wish it, but-- but it might, perhaps, convince some of his martial siblings to be a little more patient and understanding if they only knew--
“I walked away from an engagement, and there are nights I wonder how it could have gone if I stayed.”
He speaks clearly and deliberately, as if he has already rehearsed the words in his mind. Yue Qingyuan stares at him, then stares some more, waiting for it to make sense. Instead, his bewilderment only increases.
“An engagement?” Zhang Qingyan gasps, eyes lighting up with excitement. “You had a fiance? You abandoned your fiance? When!?”
When is also the main word running through his mind, closely followed by who. He has never heard a word of a fiance, when was this? Before or after he joined the sect? Was it-- was it one of the prostitutes--
“How deeply unsurprising,” Qi Qingqi says. “So you’re the sort of swine to make promises he doesn’t keep, leaving behind spurned women in the lurch. Was she pregnant as well? I wouldn’t be shocked.”
“I have said all I need to alleviate the curse,” Shen Qingqiu says, shameless and unapologetic where he sits, unfolding his fan. “I will not give up a word more than necessary merely to satisfy your curiosity.”
Several of their martial siblings throw disgusted or disdainful looks Shen Qingqiu’s way, but he doesn’t waver in the slightest, not looking at all interested in explaining himself or making any excuses. Distantly, Yue Qingyuan feels a familiar, deep vein of exasperation. Naturally, Shen Qingqiu would pick a secret that would cast him in the least flattering light possible, ignoring all the ones that might make him seem a little more sympathetic or even human. He has never relished exposing his weaknesses to anyone.
“Now,” Shen Qingqiu says, and he turns his attention onto Yue Qingyuan like a sword, “it is finally our Zhangmen-shixiong’s turn. What shameful secret will you offer up?”
There is challenge and threat in his voice, expectation and anticipation in his eyes. He must be wondering about what Yue Qingyuan will say as he did with him, considering all the secrets shared between them as possibilities. All of his other martial siblings, too, are now looking at him. Waiting.
It is his turn. There is no more time to hide behind. He must speak.
I was a slave-- Shen Qingqiu already knows.
I qi deviated upon forming my bond with Xuan Su, and was trapped within the Lingxi Caves for-- Wei Qingwei knows, as does Mu Qingfang.
I traveled to the Qiu Estate to rescue my friend, only to find ashes and ruin.
No one knows this. Some know that he escaped the sect the moment he was released from his long imprisonment in the caves, but not to where, or for what reason. Nobody knows this greatest shame and failure of his. It would qualify. Forced as he is now, a metaphorical knife at his throat, it might not even be selfish for him to offer up these paltry excuses before Shen Qingqiu. He has no choice.
The moment he thinks this, he knows that he cannot let himself say it. And so instead he reaches for the one secret that he knew from the start of this mess would be revealed, and speaks clearly and unflinchingly.
“At the ambush against the demon emperor, during a moment when I was unseen by others, I took the opportunity to murder my shizun.”
There is no immediate reaction. Everyone is looking at him and waiting, listening for the secret their mild and dependable Sect Leader will give them. It is as if the words he has spoken are so utterly unexpected that no one understands them for a moment, as if he has spoken in a different language. But then people do begin to understand. He watches the change come over their expressions one by one, confusion and dread and horror twisting their faces and paling their complexions.
Yue Qingyuan decides to elaborate.
“To be clear, I did not allow my shizun to die from wounds inflicted by our enemy. I crushed his throat. With my boot. To make it appear as if he was launched into a branch by Tianlang-Jun.”
He remembers the feeling of it - the brief resistance, before something vital inside of that man’s throat had caved in with a wet crunch and his boot had sunk an inch downwards. The widening of his eyes until the whites could be seen all the way around, how ghastly his gurgling of an inhale had sounded.
“I waited until I was certain he was dying, and only then called for help and ran back to rejoin the fight.”
Only a handful of seconds of waiting. The man had clawed at the dirt in his struggle, blindly grabbed at Yue Qingyuan’s ankle as if reaching for a raft in a storm. Too panicked, pained, or surprised to even glare up at his murderer with hatred.
“... what the fuck?” Shang Qinghua says, the first to speak. His voice contains only pure bafflement. Yue Qingyuan imagines chiding him for crassness, and an odd urge to laugh passes over him. He suppresses it.
Yue Qingyuan feels the curse lift off him. The slowly tightening vice around his throat vanishes, and he has ruined his standing in the eyes of all of his martial siblings forever. He feels light with relief.
“The curse has been satisfied,” he says. “Very well done, every--”
“You can’t be serious,” Qi Qingqi says. “Are you lying?”
“No,” Yue Qingyuan says. She knows very well that there would be no reason for him to tell such a lie. “It is the truth.”
“And it wasn’t an accident?” Wei Qingwei asks, sounding as if he’s bargaining with an executioner, his smile lopsided and truly strained - begging, almost, for Yue Qingyuan to agree with him. “Or perhaps some sort of misunderstanding? A mistake?”
“No. I murdered him knowingly and deliberately. I have never once regretted it for even a moment. I--” A brief moment of having to wrench his voice under control, a startling flare of long forgotten, dusty rage. “--hated him. And I was presented with an opportunity. In a moment, it was over, and the fight continued. I am glad he is dead.”
Everyone sits in helpless silence for a long moment, staring at him and then exchanging looks with each other as the reality of the situation dawns on them. That their Sect Leader is an unrepentant murderer - and what can they do about it? What should they do? Expose him, for a murder committed years ago by this point? For what benefit, except the complete loss of face and reputation that Cang Qiong Mountain Sect will forever suffer?
He dares to look at Shen Qingqiu, tilting his head just slightly. Is he disgusted with him? Horrified? But Shen Qingqiu is simply staring at him, unblinking and frozen, nothing but a sliver of his eyes hidden behind his fan. He is looking at Yue Qingyuan as if he is a stranger.
Yue Qingyuan looks away.
“I am sorry,” Yue Qingyuan says. “I have placed you all in a difficult situation. I know this must be… a very shocking thing for you all to learn. I understand if you see me differently from now on. I will not resent you for it. But now--”
There is a slam - Liu Qingge throwing his hands onto the long, sturdy table hard enough to make it jostle, pushing himself upwards. He glares at Yue Qingyuan, his face pale and his teeth bared as if he has been stabbed.
“How many?” he demands. “Did you kill others!? The rest of the Peak Lords who died that day--”
“Liu-shidi--”
“--did you have a hand in their end as well? To speed along the Qing generation ascending, you becoming Sect Leader?”
“No,” he says. “Apologies, Liu-shidi, but I did not have a plan. It was an impulse. All the rest who died that day, to my knowledge, died as the records indicate they did.”
There is a suffocating silence as his revelation settles inside all of them, becoming processed. How there is nothing to excuse or soften the shameless deed he has committed, that there is nothing that they can truly do about it. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. What can they do, but accept this fact and go on as if nothing has happened? He imagines the future, every meeting and conversation and interaction with this revelation always hanging over it like a shadow, all of his martial siblings keeping their distance and looking at him with cautious, apprehensive eyes as they speak. How uncomfortable and conflicted they will be, how little they will trust him.
He feels sorry for them.
“Our Sect Leader has always been an impeccable judge of character.”
It was Mu Qingfang who spoke. He has been very silent this entire time, especially since he revealed his own secret. But now everyone’s attention shifts towards him, which he doesn’t squirm or freeze up under.
“... And what exactly does that mean?” Shen Qingqiu asks.
“What I said,” Mu Qingfang says. “If Zhangmen-shixiong decides that someone isn’t to be trusted--”
“Mu-shidi,” Yue Qingyuan says.
Undaunted, Mu Qingfang continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “--or a threat, then this shidi will always trust his judgment.”
“How heartwarming,” Shen Qingqiu says, and then asks a little too intently, “and does this trust come from the heart, or something of actual substance?”
“Discretion is vital for a doctor,” he says. “Even when one sees injustice while treating injuries… injuries that should never have been dealt--”
“That’s enough,” Yue Qingyuan says, more firmly, even harshly.
Mu Qingfang is attempting to defend him, to defend the indefensible. He will accomplish nothing in his efforts but to tie his own standing to the anchor of Yue Qingyuan’s in the eyes of their martial siblings. And his implications--
Mu Qingfang does not apologize for slipping, but nor does he continue. Surprisingly, it is Shang Qinghua who speaks next.
“You know,” he says, “it’s not like our former Sect Leader had a perfect reputation to begin with.”
“What?” Liu Qingge asks, wrenching his betrayed, incredulous gaze from Yue Qingyuan for the first time since he confessed. “What are you babbling about?”
“Ah, An Ding runs on rumors and gossip! Especially amongst the disciples! And when we’re running around all over, no one pays any attention to tiny listening ears. I was accepted onto the mountain before… most of you? Wait, all of you? It can’t be all of you, can it? That’s--”
“Get to the point,” Shen Qingqiu hisses, his knuckles white as he grips his fan. He looks as tense as a statue where he sits at Yue Qingyuan’s side. He wonders if he’s frightened of Yue Qingyuan, now that he knows what he’s capable of. Not just disgusted or furious any longer, but scared. The thought feels like a knife shoved between his ribs.
“Right! Apologies! Where was I? Oh, yes! Whispers, rumors, complaining from senior disciples... I heard it all. A lot of it about our former Sect Leader. Some of it nonsense, some of it credible, some of it…” He trails off meaningfully, looking at them all. “But of course , all that dried up into nothing the moment he died sacrificing himself so nobly in battle! Who wants to speak ill of the dead? What's entertaining about shit talking the guy who died putting the Demon Emperor away for good? It was the best whitewashing anyone could have asked for.”
“What are you trying to say?” Liu Qingge says. “Speak plainly.”
“Ahh, I don’t know, I don’t know, just--”
“He was a very strict man,” Wei Qingwei says - slowly, as if he’s stumbled upon an old memory he’s never bothered to linger on before. “My own shizun would complain about this often. Strict and unforgiving.”
“Strictness is not a reason to murder someone,” Qi Qingqi argues.
“Whether or not it is, what is done is done,” Yue Qingyuan interrupts, not wanting to encourage whatever is happening. If this revelation turns his martial siblings against him, then that is fine. But if it turns them all against each other, creating a division in their ranks, then this could potentially turn into a disaster. “There is no undoing my actions, and arguing over the details won’t help anything. Now, we must--”
There is a knocking at the door plastered over with privacy talismans.
“Hello? Are the Peak Lords well? Do you require anything?”
“It should be fine,” Shang Qinghua says, his voice a hiss. “The privacy talismans are only one way, they can’t have heard us.”
“Then why are you whispering?”
Yue Qingyuan stands up and walks to the door, opening it. The poorly veiled curiosity on the face of the cultivator there - Tian Yi, high ranking but not too much so - at least confirms that he likely heard nothing. Yue Qingyuan smiles at him.
“We require nothing,” he says. “Our meeting is over - apologies for monopolizing the room. Pardon us.”
And he leaves without any parting words to his martial siblings, unceremoniously closing the conversation.
What more is to be said, after all?