Chapter Text
Shen Qingqiu is pretty sure he’s dreaming. Pretty sure because, while it’s not the usual placid forests of Qing Jing Peak or his little bamboo hut, there’s a hazy quality to the gray landscape surrounding him on all sides. He pinches himself, and confirms with a growing nervousness that it doesn’t hurt, barely even tingles. And Binghe’s not here, which can hardly bode well for him.
A disembodied voice echoes in its stupid fucking robotic drone, one he hasn’t actually had to listen to in years thanks to his completion of half a dozen side quests early on in his cohabitation with Binghe. It had tended to leave them alone for the most part, off doing whatever it was Systems do when they’re not harassing their poor hosts.
As if the voice wasn’t enough, a box materializes in front of him with the words of the System printed brightly across its interface like it wasn’t the most terrifying, stingy abomination Shen Qingqiu has ever had the displeasure to work with.
【Host is entering a special event：「Master of Two Worlds」 Automatically triggering System.】
“Oi! No, what the hell is this? You were definitely deactivated!” Shen Qingqiu snaps, his fists clenched so tightly they tremble. He completed that brainless main quest, and additional plots beyond even that! He endured countless humiliating wife plots just so Binghe could amass power! Why is there even more to torture him now, just when he started believing he was free!
【Correct. Host triggered special event.】
“When did I ever trigger a special event? And you were de-act-iv-ated, does that mean nothing to you?!” Shen Qingqiu hisses as his face rapidly pales, a cold finger of fear trailing down his spine. A bad feeling raises the hair on his neck, only intensified by the System’s ominous whirring chuckle.
【Host triggered special event 2.4 days ago. Please observe the following audio message:
[...what the **** is up with your scum villain’s brain? Was it sanded smooth from years of stupidity? Why the **** would he take for granted the privilege of having limbs just to abuse a cute white bun? Huh? And then continue to be a **** when he came back from the ******* Abyss— I mean, the man had two brain cells and both of them were fighting for third place! Airplane-bro, did you really think that tearing off that piece of ***** limbs would make up for all the pain that ******* put my Binghe through? And while we’re at it…]
Does Host believe this is sufficient evidence for activation? Y/N】
“...You really had that recorded? I said that to Airplane-bro in confidence. And wine was involved, you know how I get,” Shen Qingqiu viciously stabs at the [N] but to his dismay it blinks out, leaving a single [Y]. “Your machine’s broken. Can I get a refund?”
【Host may contact support. Availability varies. Next open appointment in [789] business days.】
Shen Qingqiu cries tears of blood. “Are you lying to me? That cannot be real.”
【Host may contact support. Availability varies. Next open appointment in [1065] business days.】
“Shameless.” Shen Qingqiu is really doing everything in his power not to haul back and punch straight through that mocking screen. It would just reform behind him, smug as ever. He wishes suddenly that he had his fan with him to snap open and wave lazily while he gathers his thoughts. It wouldn’t do much to deter the System but at least he’d feel more in control. He tries, picturing the wide green fan that he favors during Peak Lord meetings, but it fails to load. Looks like he doesn’t have control over this dreamscape. Stupid System.
He settles for shaking his head and picking at his sleeve. “I can’t refuse?”
【No. Special event has been processed and downloaded. This System has already put in a request for vacation. Host has no choice!】
The damn System doesn’t even have the self-awareness to sound vaguely regretful. Or, more likely, it takes some sort of sick pleasure in Shen Qingqiu’s suffering. Maybe his pain recharges its defunct circuit boards.
Shen Qingqiu flicks a finger in the general direction of the glowing [Y], which immediately pulses in acknowledgement. This sadistic System is the real scumbag. Taking a vacation while he does all the work. “What do I have to do?”
【Host must collect the shattered pieces of your soul. Host’s care will be left to <Luo Binghe> for the duration of the mission. Points are suspended for special event.】
Wait, hold on, shattered pieces? But… he was in one piece, wasn’t he? What the fuck did that even mean! “What the fuck does that even mean?!”
【No need to be upset. There is a reason Host was chosen for the role of <Shen Qingqiu>. Host does not have access to this information at the current Junior VIP level. Loading complimentary hint … … … “Understanding <Shen Jiu> as well as <Shen Yuan> is crucial to mission success.” System wishes Host luck. Jiayou!】
“Fuck off.”
The text box disappears in a malicious wink of light. Shen Qingqiu flips off the empty space out of spite. Immediately, the dream realm he’s standing in starts shaking, splintering the gray sky and splitting the equally gray ground through the fog.
“Wait, I didn’t mean it! System, come back, let’s negotiate! I don’t want to do more quests… Now’s not the time for a vacation!” No answer. “…System? You there? At least tell me how I’m supposed to—”
One tremor snakes directly underneath him, forcing his feet apart as a crack appears. Shen Qingqiu can’t step to the side fast enough and starts to fall. It feels a little like falling in a dream, except he knows he probably won’t gasp awake at the end before he goes splat.
Ah, shit, here we go aga—
***
Luo Binghe knows that something is wrong the instant he jolts awake, grasping for a form that is no longer warm and solid in his arms. He shoots upright, scanning the room in the hopes that his wayward husband just got up early. His wish is destined to go unfulfilled. Shen Qingqiu is nowhere to be found, the spacious area Binghe claimed as theirs in the most protected room of his underground palace devoid of the familiar figure.
Instead, his sudden movement provokes a choked whine that sounds eerily close to his body. Luo Binghe freezes and then turns his head very carefully to look at his husband’s side of the bed.
A set of empty sleeping robes greet him. No — not empty. A small squirming mass lies beneath the center of the white fabric, the source of the whimper that is steadily building in intensity. Luo Binghe lifts one trembling finger to prod at the mass, jerking away when the whining suddenly jumps an octave. Note to self: do not touch unidentified objects, even when they’re occupying previously known spaces. The whine stutters out, to his relief, and then comes back in full force, louder than before. It sounds, a little, tiny bit, like a—
Please, please tell me this is a joke, Luo Binghe begs the universe, and steels his nerves to shift the opening of the robes to one side.
There’s a baby.
There’s a baby in Shen Qingqiu’s empty robes, occupying the space that Shen Qingqiu stated with great conviction was the most comfortable spot on this gigantic fucking bed, Binghe, move, and it looks as if it’s about to cry. It pauses its fussing to blink at him, huge, dark, impossibly familiar eyes framed by long wet lashes peeping up at him from a tiny round face. It observes him, shocked, in the same split second that it takes Luo Binghe to realize what exactly it is, then it scrunches its button nose, squeezes its eyes shut, and lets loose the loudest wail Luo Binghe has ever heard in his entire cursed life.
Luo Binghe will never admit that while the child screamed bloody murder, his first reaction was to flinch away so violently that he ended up with his back to the unforgiving stone floor. Why are you crying, I’m the one who wants to cry!
When he finally gathers the courage to study the baby, its whimpers sounding pitifully lonely in the quiet of his chambers, he manages to scoop it up into an awkward embrace. He’s never held a child this small before! What is he supposed to do! And why won’t it stop crying — is it hungry? Sad? Lonely?
Pressing its tiny, steamed-bun face into his neck seems to help. Maybe it is lonely. Luo Binghe stares at the conspicuous lack of Shen Qingqiu and relates, hard.
It takes him an embarrassingly long time to come to the conclusion that the infant may in fact be connected to Shen Qingqiu’s uncharacteristic disappearance. It takes him even longer to remember that he lives in a palace, and sudden loud cries that sound as if someone is being tortured to death may prompt a guard to run for help. To be fair, he was just yanked from the depths of a pleasant dream featuring an enlightened new dessert recipe to discover that his husband’s presence was replaced by this little creature. Perhaps such an oversight may be forgiven.
By the time he shushes the infant gathered in Shen Qingqiu’s empty robes to an acceptable noise level, Sha Hualing is kicking down the door, undoing all his hard work. Luo Binghe glares at her and hugs the baby gently to his chest, its tiny body shaking and tears streaming down its face as it sobs its little heart out. It, at least, decidedly does not forgive his oversight. It cries so hard it starts coughing, and Luo Binghe hurriedly adjusts his positioning of its head.
“Shh, I know, little one, you’re all right.” Luo Binghe shifts it to his shoulder and bounces it lightly, patting its back with one huge hand. The infant melts against his neck again and rubs its face closer, the tears dampening his skin.
It’s an odd feeling, but somehow it manages to spark a fiercely protective feeling in Luo Binghe. He’s needed. This whimpering, vulnerable creature depends on him.
“What… what am I looking at,” Sha Hualing says in flat disbelief, and slinks closer only to stop when Luo Binghe bares his teeth at her.
“Have you seen Shen Qingqiu?” he asks, feigning calm for the baby clinging to his neck. He needs to be sure.
“Shen Qingqiu has not left this room. Lord Luo should know this much, he set up the arrays himself,” she pouts at him and then they both set their eyes contemplatively on the small form nuzzling Binghe’s neck. She slides forward to get a better look. Luo Binghe automatically releases a short burst of qi to warn her off but immediately regrets it, his ears ringing. Baby is sensitive to qi. Got it.
“How do I get it to stop?” Luo Binghe rocks the baby back and forth in hopes that it will calm down. It does not.
“Block its mouth?” Sha Hualing peers at it in confusion, completely serious. She even lifts a scrap of fabric, as if suggesting they gag it.
“I want it to stop crying, not kill it,” Luo Binghe says in disgust. He is getting really tired of being the only demon with common sense in this palace. “Does anyone else here know how to deal with infants?”
“Junshang, wait for a moment, this Sha will fetch it some swaddling robes. Xiao Wan has had kids before…” She rushes out to find one of her companions and is back moments later with five different colored options. Luo Binghe chooses the light green, and then it’s a struggle between the two of them to wrangle the squirming baby into the wrappings. By the time they’re done the baby looks like a silkworm, tiny red face squinting in dissatisfaction.
At this point, Luo Binghe has fended off several of Sha Hualing’s attempts to snatch the baby, so he sits in an unnaturally straight posture on the bed, Sha Hualing pushed a few feet away. She is vibrating on her feet with the need to pet the infant nestled in his arms, her usual seductive pose and catlike grin completely cast aside. Luo Binghe can see her, out of the corner of his eye, physically straining to suppress a high-pitched squeal in her chest, muffling it before it makes its way out of her throat and disturbs the baby— baby. There’s a fucking baby.
“Can you… stop that? It’s disturbing.”
“Apologies, Junshang. This Ling-er respectfully requests that she relieves Lord Luo’s burden.” Sha Hualing stretches out two slim arms, making small grabbing motions with her clawed hands. As if that act would ever work on him.
“I’m not giving him to you. Give up, this is quite unbecoming.”
Sha Hualing’s delicate, seductive features twist mockingly and she mumbles something along the lines of “you’re unbecoming.”
Luo Binghe ignores her and wishes, not for the first time, that his Shizun was here to take the reins and tell him what to do because he really is not ready for whatever this is. There’s an uncomfortable certainty growing in his chest the longer Shen Qingqiu doesn’t glide through the doors, tastefully printed fan at the ready.
After rocking back and forth and awkwardly humming a lullaby he barely remembers from his own childhood, the infant finally quiets. He snuffles and makes the occasional coo, his little face tucked into the side of Luo Binghe’s neck. As is, he can only stiffly rotate his torso to address Sha Hualing. She is still staring at the warm round lump, and he clears his throat with a pointed glare she can feel in the air. She reluctantly looks away.
“What is Junshang’s command?” She’s definitely sulking, Luo Binghe can feel it.
He smushes down the flare of possessiveness he feels toward the baby in his arms and keeps his voice low and steady. Calm, he’s calm, the baby is calm. Everything is fine.
“I think you know as well as I do what this is. Keep it quiet. Tell the palace that Shen Qingqiu has decided to take a trip back to Qing Jing Peak. I will be joining him in a few days.” He fights the urge to table the issue and go back to bed. Bed won’t help the child. “And keep Mobei-jun distracted, I don’t want his little pet getting involved.” He really does not need another, more annoying headache.
“Should this subordinate prepare a carriage…?” Sha Hualing glances at the baby for the sixth time through her lashes, yearning clear in her red irises, and Luo Binghe is filled with so much regret.
He sighs heavily, pausing when the movement stirs the child. “Yes. I doubt the little one will be able to withstand flying, yet.”
The little one in question sticks a thumb in his mouth and lets forth a deep sigh, as if the weight of the world is lifted from his shoulders with each stroke of Binghe’s hand on his back.
***
Shen Qingqiu never does show up. His absence contributes to the growing dread inside Luo Binghe, making his hands shake despite his efforts to keep them steady. Even though his suspicion seems to be more and more confirmed by the minute, Luo Binghe resolutely steers his thoughts away from the idea that Shen Qingqiu might, just might be…
Luo Binghe leaves Sha Hualing in charge of the palace affairs. He hopes that she doesn’t take the opportunity to redecorate as she’s been threatening, but the hope is squashed by the triumphant smirk he catches just before the carriage door closes on him and the baby. Goddamn demons.
“Have a safe trip, Junshang~” She waves enthusiastically, her red-tipped claws catching the morning sunshine and throwing it in all directions. They send little speckles of light dancing around them, the closest ones attracting the attention of the baby and making him stare, reaching a chubby, dimpled hand to grab at it clumsily.
It nearly dislodges him from Luo Binghe’s paranoid hold, so he glares at Sha Hualing and readjusts his grip. He’s going to get better at this, he just needs some practice!
The boy hasn’t cried since Luo Binghe calmed him down that morning. Luckily, he could sustain him with qi until they arrived at Cang Qiong Mountain, so he didn’t have to worry about milking any Six-Footed Scorpion Goats. Those stings bubbled like acid burns, plus he thought the retractable necks and massive pincers were a bit much. They’re perfectly suited for attack and defense, Binghe, that’s why they’re considered top predators even while domesticated, Shizun’s tranquil voice, often laced with an undercurrent of excitement whenever he gets to talk about monsters, echoes in his ears. Luo Binghe misses him. He looks down at the boy, nestled comfortably in his arms and blinking at him in fascination. He tentatively traces a finger down the shallow curve of that button nose. The kid sneezes.
There’s something about the child that Luo Binghe still prays is just coincidence. In the carriage, he monitors the boy with a thin strand of qi, tapping lightly against a smooth barrier covering where his meridians would be once he was of age.
A seal? Luo Binghe frowns. Tapping the barrier any harder than a light touch prompts the baby to make the warning noises he’s come to associate with a colossal melt down.
“Shh, shh, baby, shh,” he coos, feeling exactly like an overattentive nursemaid. The swaying of the carriage does wonders in calming the infant down and Luo Binghe settles back against the cushions to watch his new charge.
The child turns out to be surprisingly well-behaved once the carriage gets going, neither struggling nor whining. He stares placidly up at Binghe with curious dark eyes, and when Luo Binghe leans forward a little, he grins sweetly. There are the beginning of teeth poking through his upper and lower gums and shallow divots in the corners of his plump cheeks. Luo Binghe doesn’t even realize when he starts smiling back, and holds very still when the child raises one splayed hand to touch the huadian on his forehead. The caress is achingly familiar and Luo Binghe can’t help the tears that well up in his eyes.
“Shizun? Is that you? What happened?” he asks quietly, fully aware that the baby can’t answer. The little one lets out a tinkling laugh, his clear eyes curving into tiny crescents. Binghe feels his heart melt in his chest and drinks in the sight.
With his carefully controlled qi keeping the baby engulfed in a warm glow, it doesn’t take long for the boy to drift off. Luo Binghe watches adoringly as the baby goes through the same increasingly slow-eyed blinks that Shizun does when he’s fighting valiantly to keep awake.
Once the baby is settled into a deeper sleep, Luo Binghe brushes a kiss to his nose and, after double-checking that his array around the carriage is still unbroken, follows him into the dream realm.
Dream walking has never been so effortless. Luo Binghe spares hardly a thought to slipping between the folds of his consciousness. A sign of trust, maybe, or an indication of a mind too young to fight back.
While it is a trivial task to submerge himself, the dream itself does not behave like it should.
The realm materializes slowly, flickering between landscapes more rapidly than Luo Binghe can catch — he glimpses bamboo and the courtyard in Qing Jing Peak briefly, reinforcing his guess as to the identity of the baby.
When the dreamscape finally clears, he finds the baby in a soft, oddly shaped cradle. The sides of the cradle are high and it is set in an alcove below a window. He turns around to see the room fully.
It is an alien landscape. Small toys and blocks haphazardly decorate the floor. A painting of a flower adorns one wall while the other is covered by an image of an unfamiliar gentle-looking animal with an absurdly long neck covered in spots, two stubby horns atop its head. A tall rod emanates light from a bulbous dome in one corner of the room, connected to the wall by a string. There’s a storage area with a flat top next to the crib, cloth visible through the opaque drawers.
He’s studying the light-stick when the baby in the cradle lets out a short cry, catching his attention. As if in answer, the pattering of small feet against hardwood rapidly approaches the room.
Luo Binghe dodges to one side of the crib reflexively to avoid colliding with a child, a boy he estimates to be seven years of age. Hot on his tail waddles a toddler. Both resemble the adult Shen Qingqiu by five or six parts, though their cheeks are round and soft and they lack the graceful dignity with which Shen Qingqiu conducts himself.
The toddler scuttles to the crib, then stops and hollers toward the open door, “Mama! A-Yuan wants to play! Can I hold him?” Then he bends down and picks up a fluffy toy, waving it through the bars of the crib enticingly. The baby inside gurgles and grabs at it, catching the long ears between his chubby fingers.
The toddler tosses the soft toy into the crib, to A-Yuan’s delight, and turns to his brother with big eyes. “Gege, look, we can play knights and fairies again! You be the knight, A-Yuan can be the garden fairy with his faithful comp-onion, Xiao Tuzi!”
The older child lets loose a long-suffering sigh, to Luo Binghe’s growing amusement. These two brothers… were quite cute. “Didi, if I’m the knight, and A-Yuan’s the fairy, then what are you? Knight and fairy are only two people. What if you’re the knight, and I’m the king that employs the knight?”
The toddler thinks over this proposition. A-Yuan in the crib squeals at his brothers and tries to turn over. Luo Binghe wants to help but is thwarted by immaterially passing through any objects. Looks like he can’t touch anything in this realm. It’s not a dream in his control, after all — he’s more of a passenger.
“Pay me?” The toddler holds out a sticky hand to his brother with an imploring look. Luo Binghe puffs a quiet breath of amusement, catching the attention of A-Yuan, who burbles at him excitedly. Can the infant see him?
His brothers pay no heed to A-Yuan’s strange behavior of looking into thin air, more absorbed by the business transaction taking place.
The older child huffs at the toddler but presses a single shiny square into his sticky palm, which the toddler promptly unwraps and pops into his mouth. The older boy receives back the crumpled debris, tucking it into a pocket with a resigned expression. It seems this exchange has happened many times.
“Happy? Okay, then this king decrees that when Mama comes we will start the quest to take the garden fairy to the kitch— the Kingdom of Snacks.” With that decided, the elder picks up the younger and settles him on the side of the crib, one hand set protectively over the toddler’s middle for balance. They both peer into the crib and watch the baby hold a one-sided, incomprehensible conversation with them until Luo Binghe hears the light steps of a woman in the hallway.
“Xiao Bao, is A-Yuan awake? Sit down and let Mama change him.” The woman enters gracefully, her long skirt brushing past the non-existent stranger in their midst, and smoothly scoops the toddler off the edge of the crib.
“Then we’re gonna play knights and fairies,” the toddler explains to her in a serious tone. Then he adds, after a glance toward his older brother, “and kings. I’m emp-oyed, Mama.”
“Are you, now!” The woman chuckles and sweeps her hair over one shoulder in a move Luo Binghe has seen Shen Qingqiu do a thousand times. She picks up the baby and sets him on top of the drawers next to the crib while her sons sit obediently on the floor, the older one tugging the smaller one into his lap, to the toddler’s consternation.
A-Yuan, his face now so familiar to Luo Binghe’s gaze, can hold his head up on his own. He reaches around his mother to Luo Binghe but is gently patted back into place with warm hands.
The two older brothers watch as their mother holds their youngest sibling and rocks back and forth, humming a tune Binghe has heard before. Shen Qingqiu often hums that melody when he does paperwork, and once he’d plucked it out on his guqin, a nostalgic smile playing on his lips.
The children on the floor are just as enamored as Binghe is. That is, before a deep, distant voice rumbles, calling out a greeting from below. The children scramble up and out the door, just as fast as they had entered, while the woman shakes her head and lets the baby in her arms grasp her finger with a smile.
Luo Binghe takes a step forward, wishing to study the scene in detail. Unfortunately, his action seems to have disturbed them, the peaceful scene suddenly shivering with the rings of a pebble carelessly tossed into a serene lake. It dissolves before Luo Binghe can attempt to tug the pieces back into place. The last shard to disintegrate is the woman and the baby, cradled within the protective cage of her arms. Luo Binghe stares at her face, memorizes it, how the curve of her cheek and the hook of her nose resemble his Shizun. His mother is beautiful, as Shen Qingqiu is. Will be.
Luo Binghe is left in the darkness. Before he can move, or start to pull himself out of the dream, a whistling sigh cuts through the black. He squints, hesitant to take a step into the void opposite him.
What he’d assumed was an empty space, a plane of dreamlessness, is another dream.
As his eyes adjust, he can make out the sickly figure of a girl lying on a pallet, too young to be a mother, and the tiny, pale babe curled up next to her. The girl is panting, very slightly, her breaths huffing out unevenly, an empty medicine vial lying near her feet. One of her fingers is also clutched in the tight grasp of the infant at her side.
“My child, I’m sorry, Mother’s sorry,” a litany of apologies spill from her lips. She wheezes, her fingers lacking the strength to tighten around her baby’s iron grip. “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have… I didn’t have a choice, baby, I—” a pained groan cuts her words short. The baby squirms restlessly, and she’s able to lift her hand to pat him lightly. She doesn’t have the energy to pick him up.
The girl keeps apologizing. She doesn’t sound gentle or kind. She doesn’t sound anything like A-Yuan’s mother. She sounds scared. And she sounds repentant. Luo Binghe isn’t sure it’s enough to forgive her, for leaving this child in this condition, even if she claimed she doesn’t have a choice.
“I am going to be with your grandparents, baby, I will have to leave you, you understand?” The girl spasms, a soundless gasp. Luo Binghe can see her lips turning blue. “Baba? Mama! I’m sorry.” Her last act curls her body around the child before she stills.
The baby is still quiet. It takes minutes before he realizes he is alone. A tentative wail wavers in the air and then he is crying loudly, hitching breaths unable to relieve the aching in his lungs. Luo Binghe watches over him from the corner of the dark room, unable to touch him or relieve the child’s suffering. His presence alone is not enough, though he wishes it was. The sounds the baby is making are heartbreakingly familiar, down to the hitching breaths and stuttering coughs. He hates it.
Footsteps sound and the baby does not stop. The door to the dark room swings inward with a groaning creak and a man’s heavy gait stops before the body. He uses one boot to turn the woman on her side and eyes the medicine bottle.
“Tsk, Mingzhu, such a pitiful woman. And to leave such a child behind. Too weak, too weak.” The man mutters to himself, regarding the baby still sobbing on the pallet. Why won’t he pick him up, what is wrong with him?!
“How many years…? I guess I should… to repay her services… But my wife will… ah, two years repaid, then the Madam will have to take over. No more, no less. You hear me, Mingzhu? The debt is repaid.” He acts as if it were a business transaction, paid to him from a serious child in the form of a square candy. Luo Binghe tightens his fists. How dare he?!
Having come to a resolution, the man nods to himself and leans over Mingzhu’s body to grab the inconsolable baby.
“You are the ninth one this year! I guess she never got around to naming you. Xiao Jiu will do, eh? Ah, what will my wife say…” The grumblings continue as the dreamscape once again dissolves the minute Shen Jiu rests in the man’s arms, this time into the misty landscape Luo Binghe recognizes. Somewhere far off, a wall loses a brick, the newly created hole shining the light of the brightly lit nursery into the gloom of the shadowed room.
He pulls himself out of the dream realm and back into the carriage, where the baby is scrunching his little face. Luo Binghe releases his unconsciously clenched fists, patting the baby back to a peaceful slumber, his mind whirring and evaluating all he’s learned. It may just be his imagination, but the little one seems heavier, less fragile, than even just that morning. Luo Binghe contents himself watching his small, round, upturned face, curling and uncurling the finger the baby has grabbed in his sleep.
When the child wakes hours later, rosy-cheeked and hale, Luo Binghe stares into those familiar eyes.
“Xiao Jiu?” he tries the second name first. No reaction. The baby gazes up at him calmly while he tries to fit Luo Binghe’s finger in his mouth with a sure grip. “...A-Yuan?”
The baby’s eyes focus back on his face and he stops mauling Luo Binghe’s index finger with his newly grown teeth. Shen Qi— Shen Yuan grins at him brightly, dazzling, and answers with a burble of nonsense words, a tiny chick responding to its mother’s call. Luo Binghe can only cradle his head, feathery ink-black hair against the pitch of his robes, as a pit forms deep in his stomach.