open post: in a carefully staged pavilion

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu is luxuriating in having his cultivation restored. He's also steeling himself for his next conversation with Luo Binghe, trying to engineer everything about it so he doesn't fucking die. The combination means he is being... maybe a little bit extra.

The Mansion's closets have a strange way of giving him the clothing he's used to; apparently both as Shen Qingqiu and—before that. He ignores the array of jeans and Naruto t-shirts and selects a set of fine silk robes in greens of deepening hue, so that the crossed layers at his throat imitate the sequential layers of a bamboo shoot: from forest green passing through spring green and jade to near-white as they reach his skin. He also takes great care with his hair and his guan—he can't look like a slob in front of the Emperor.

There are several beautiful Chinese-style pavilions on the Mansion grounds¹, and he chooses one in the shadow of a blossoming cherry tree. The sun is high, painting dappled shadows across the floor of the pavilion as the blossoms sway in the breeze. He fetches a small writing table and sets it up on one side of the pavilion. Under it he tucks the congee, rescued from the rice cooker, which is...well, it can charitably be said to smell like it might be edible. As long as Binghe doesn't think he's being intentionally poisoned, maybe it'll be okay?

He takes great care with the invitation. He considers writing it with the very expensive pen Crowley had conjured for him, but it feels wrong, not to grind his own ink for it; disrespectful, somehow. Thankfully he keeps an extra brush and ink stone in the qiankun pouch in his sleeve. He crumples up several drafts before he's happy with his calligraphy,² and decorates the edges of the page with bamboo leaves and elegant black lotuses.

If he were really doing this properly, he'd have taken the time to boil some cherry blossom petals, distill their steam into perfume, and then add it to the ink—but he'd felt like he was risking his life just going back into the kitchens for the congee. It's the most likely place for Luo Binghe to be, after all, since there's no throne room or audience hall here, and the whole point of the invitation in the first place is for them to meet on Shen Qingqiu's respectful and very much non-confrontational terms.

He folds the invitation and marks it with Luo Binghe's name and a small talisman that both seeks his former disciple and makes sure he's the only one who can open it. With a wave of his hand he sends it wafting away on the breeze, and then settles back. To wait. He has a small stack of parchment at his elbow, so when Luo Binghe arrives—or if anyone else should happen upon him—he can pretend he had something occupying him rather than just sitting here, paralyzed with anticipation.

¹ As established by Temeraire.
² This is definitely just him being obsessive and a perfectionist. As Peak Lord of the scholar's peak at Cang Qiong, Shen Qingqiu's calligraphy is impeccable. He's won contests.

Comments

[peaklordshen]

"I'm pleased for them," says Shen Qingqiu, and he is. He must be hungry, or something, because there's a strange hollow in the pit of his stomach. "That sounds nice."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina eyes him speculatively. “You know,” she says, voice with a hint of regret. “Luo Binghe is a great catch. It’s such a shame he didn’t care for me that way, but… that’s life. I’m just hoping he can also find someone to fall for after some light, tension-laden bickering.”

She’s drawing a bit on her natural acting skills, but at heart, she really just wants to see Luo Binghe happy.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu nods, thoughtfully. He's glad Nina has dropped the brother pretext. It was odd that Binghe wouldn't choose to marry her—if she'd shown up in PIDW, she would definitely have joined Liu Mingyan as his top favorite wives.

"I briefly thought it might be Claudius," he confesses, "but I'm afraid that's escalated beyond light bickering, and of course Binghe was only kissing him as part of his master plan." He considers. "Maybe Janet."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina has been highly doubtful that Luo Binghe's version of the blood curse is the entire, truthful version of the story. Even now, with Shen Qingqiu's short retelling, she remembers Binghe saying that he found Claudius charming and that they had a flirtation - most likely not part of any master plan.

"No, not Janet," she says, shaking her head. "She's already a Queen. It would be too much of a power struggle."

[peaklordshen]

"Only until they sleep together," explains Shen Qingqiu. "Sha Hualing was set to be Queen of the Southern Desert after she assassinated her father, but after—" he skips over the hundred of pages of lurid details, out of respect, "her wedding night with Binghe she surrendered her crown to him." In favor of constant schemes to supplant Liu Mingyan as his Empress instead, of course.

[ravkanwitch]

Hm. That doesn't seem fair, but Nina brushes the thought aside. "I just don't see it," she says. "I don't think there'd be any chemistry there."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu shakes his head. "No offense," he says, "but I think you're letting your experience with Binghe confuse things. There's always chemistry. Besides, if not her, then who? Tress? She doesn't seem like much of a bickerer."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina lets herself laugh a little here, a real laugh, and it feels good to do so. She truly likes Shen Qingqiu as a person, despite learning more about him than she technically should, but he's almost as much of a lost cause as Kaz was about Inej (both lost as in desperately in love and also completely turned around about it).

"No," she says with a little smile, "I actually think he'd quite suit that - demon, is it? - that I always see lurking around."

[peaklordshen]

"Crowley?" Shen Qingqiu demands. It's not that Crowley isn't attractive—he has an angular sort of appeal—but he's got no romantic interest potential at all. He's got, like, henchman energy, and not even a particularly competent henchman. Not to mention he's a man. Why on earth would Nina think he and Binghe—"has he said anything to you? About being interested??"

[ravkanwitch]

"Oh, is that his name? We still haven't been introduced." Nina frowns. "Interested? Crowley or Binghe?"

[peaklordshen]

"I meant Crowley, but since you haven't been introduced, I guess you wouldn't know," says Shen Qingqiu. "Obviously Binghe hasn't."

[ravkanwitch]

"I'm joking. I think that would be more disastrous than what happened in volume five of The Princess and the Barbarian." She gives him a little smile, but a warm one. "I'm just saying that... he's changing. It's good for him. And... it might surprise you. That's all."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu shifts, uncomfortable. Bingge, changing? But he'd already had all his character development, in the Abyss arc.¹ He's not sure he likes the idea of a Binghe who he can predict even less than he can this one, whose character traits and emotions he understands pretty well.² Still, Nina and Binghe really do appear to be friends, and he trusts her that whatever change is happening is good, so instead of arguing he gives in to his curiosity. "What happened in volume five of The Princess and the Barbarian?"

¹ That's how it works, right? One and done?
² Better than anyone else on weibo!^3
3 Definitely untrue.