Chapter Text
“You are a hideous creature.”
There is blood on the dirt. There is blood coating each blade of grass, soaking into the soil. There is blood dripping from the branches of the tree like red rain.
The bodies of the demon’s victims are torn and scattered around the clearing. The body of the demon is flayed open, pinned to one of the looming trees, stringy purple viscera still coating the trunk. It is coating Shen Jiu’s blade too, mixing with the dribbling red of his own blood sliding down the blade.
He was too little, too late. The bodies have already started to rot.
Mrreep.
Shaking fingers slide into the stomach of a human child. Lifeless eyes look up at the grey sky. Shen Jiu will not be the one to close them.
“Disgusting.”
A tiny prick. Shen Jiu barely feels it. The demonic beast rent the flesh of his arms and chest with its claws, and the wounds have shifted from burning pain to a dull ache and growing numbness. It is probably a bad sign. He can’t bring himself to care.
He pulls his hands free of the child’s ripped intestines. A tiny lump clings to his fingers by the fangs. It is red as blood, slimy and shivering and barely as large as his fist. It keens. He snorts.
“Hideous.”
He’s pretty sure there is a she-cat crushed under the cart. He thinks there may have been more children, too. He does not look. His arm shakes as the numbness spreads. He thinks, I’m going to drop it. And, weakling. He pries its jaws apart, ignoring the noises it makes, and slips it inside his robes, letting it huddle against bare skin. The trail of the child’s blood it leaves on him is barely noticeable amidst his own.
He sinks against the trunk of a tree, lays Xiu Ya unsheathed across his lap, and lets his eyes fall closed. He feels a tiny flutter against his sternum.
“Wretched fucking thing.”
He wakes up to hissing. He doesn’t bother to open his eyes.
“Get out.”
The bed under him feels clean and rough. The air smells strongly of dried herbs and strong soap. There is a shifting noise, and the hissing gets louder. Something pricks against his chest.
Shen Jiu cracks his eyes open and looks up at the ceiling of the Qian Cao patient room.
“I don’t hear you leaving.”
The sound of fabric rustling, and a distinct pop of a joint cracking. The hip, he knows, and curses the sound for its familiarity. He curses its owner harder.
“Your little friend needs milk.” Yue Qingyuan says. Dark brown eyes and furrowed brows appear in his vision, leaning over the bed.
Stupid.
Shen Jiu flings himself into a sitting position and relishes the way his forehead cracks against Yue Qingyuan’s. It makes his vision split into stars, but it’s worth it for how Yue Qingyuan yelps and tumbles back from the bed. There is a little meep , and tiny claws scramble for purchase on his robed chest. Too bad, he has no intention of making himself a comfortable bed or a spectacle for Yue Qi to gawk at.
When his vision clears, Yue Qingyuan is on the ground, pulling milk-splattered silk away from his chest with a put upon expression. A small bowl and a puddle sit at his feet. He looks down at him and sneers.
“What friend? I only see two annoyances.”
The ugly little creature clinging to his robes yowls. He turns his sneer onto it. “Shut up.”
It yowls louder.
“Xiao Jiu, don’t be cruel. It’s hungry.”
“Who?” he asks.
Yue Qingyuan winces. “Shen-shidi.”
Shen Jiu slides his legs out of bed. The creature holds on by its claws.
“Here,” he says. “If you care so much, you take it.”
He peels the thing off of his robes and chucks it at Yue Qingyuan like a children’s ball. He gasps and flails to catch it. The creature, displeased by this turn of events, immediately begins to scream and claw.
“Good cat,” Shen Jiu says. He stands, waits until there are red scratch marks welling across Yue Qingyuan’s stupid, perfect face, then plucks up the beast by the scruff and makes for the door.
“W-wait!” Yue Qingyuan says. “Shidi, what are you going to do with it?”
He kneels stupidly on the floor. No dignity. The future sect leader, defeated by a street rat and a wretched little cat still red with a child’s blood.
“Drown it.” Shen Jiu says, and relishes seeing Yue Qingyuan’s face fall.
He leaves Qian Cao with the creature in his sleeve. He reports to his shizun with his hands folded to hide it from sight, and bears the lecture for his failures by softly squeezing and releasing it, imagining wringing its tiny neck. He returns to his inner disciple quarters and lets it tumble from his sleeve onto the floor.
Myaaah, it says.
“Stupid.”
Myyee, myaaaah .
“I hate you.”
He wets a towel with water from a jug and the gentle soap he uses on his hair. He goes through two rags before the thing is only tinged pink around the ears and feet. Under the blood and viscera, it is… still ugly.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks softly, holding the kitten up to the light.
Its legs are stumpy. Its fur is uneven, and the white is tinted yellowish. The remaining blood mottles it like a bruise. When its little green eyes squint open, they cross and then wobble in opposite directions. He has to stifle a snort in his sleeve. It is really, truly, hideous.
He shoves open the doors of his quarters. The first junior disciple he sees pales, drops the books he’s carrying into the mud.
“S-shixiong!”
“Go get formula from Meng Shou peak,” he barks. “A month’s supply and a strong stasis talisman. Quickly!” He narrows his eyes. “And pick those up, if I see so much as a speck of mud on a library text, you’ll be filling holes with An Ding at the next disciple selection.”
“Yes, Shixiong! Of course, Shixiong! But, um—”
“ What ?”
“It’s just, w-what kind should I ask f…or.”
There is a little mmmyah from Shen Jiu’s feet. He blindly shoves his foot back and feels a tiny warm body slide across the floor.
“Never mind!” The junior squeaks and bows, “This shidi understands.”
Shen Jiu slams the door shut.
The ugly kitten won’t eat.
He offers it formula from the jug, from his hand, from a little ceramic bowl. The kitten stares with its ridiculous buggy eyes slit, barely open. It makes no move towards the food. When he presses the formula to its lips, it doesn’t drink—the liquid pours down its chin and mats its fur.
Shen Jiu is used to making people bend to his will through wit and force of personality. He shouts. He cajoles. He threatens and insults, at length.
“Stupid fucking ugly ungrateful creature,” he hisses, “you WILL drink!”
The kitten hisses back. Shen Jiu throws the bowl to the floor in frustration, and it shatters into pieces.
The disciple who brought the formula from the beast peak also brought a neat note with simple instructions. A kitten under four weeks old must eat every shichen or so. A kitten under seven weeks old must eat every three shichen.
If it goes even one day without eating, it will die.
Rain is streaming down in sheets. Yue Qingyuan lies on his bed with his hands folded neatly and looks up at the black lacquer latticework of its frame. It’s zǐ hour, so he is sleeping. He just needs to wait long enough for his body to get the message. It might be helped by banking the candles or undoing his complicated braids or changing into comfortable sleeping clothes, but all that is so many steps, and if he allows himself to begin unwinding them, he will keep himself occupied until morning.
It’s a relief to hear a rapid knock on his door and have an excuse to lever himself up and answer it. He is even more relieved to be fully dressed when he slides open the door to reveal Xiao Jiu standing outside in the rain, although he has to blink at the sight a few times to convince himself of its reality.
Xiao Jiu looks pale and drawn as ever, the permanent pinched look to his eyes and mouth no better or worse for the late hour. His soft green and white disciple’s robes are wet at the hems, but a paper umbrella held up under the storm has kept his hair neat and dry. Yue Qingyuan’s hands move without his permission to quickly smooth out his own hair self-consciously.
“Ah… ah! Come in!”
Shen Jiu barely waits for his invitation, already pushing into his room as Yue Qingyuan gathers his wits to speak politely. He drops the wet umbrella on the floor without folding it, and it begins to drip a puddle on the hardwood.
Yue Qingyuan watches his… watches Xiao Jiu observe the place where he lives. He has never been in his rooms before. He has the urge to straighten something, even though there is nothing out of place. The space is immaculate. If he thought Shen Jiu might ever enter it, he would have made it… more.
But Xiao Jiu obviously doesn’t care about that, or even notice. He gives everything a single harsh once over and paces around the receiving room before whirling on Yue Qingyuan. He marches up to him, extends his hands, and Yue Qingyuan braces for a shove. Instead, he feels something small, warm, and shivering pressed to his chest.
“Fix it.”
He lets go before Yue Qingyuan has fully registered what is being given to him, but thankfully, his own hands come up to catch and cradle the small body before it can be dropped. He looks down at the little kitten. It is unmoving in his hands.
He delicately taps one small ear with a finger and watches the way it twitches. The kitten is clean of blood, but it is damp and limp. He raises it to his nose—it smells of urine and fear.
“What does it need?”
Xiao Jiu’s face is contorted in frustration. “The stupid thing wants to starve. I’ve been trying to feed it anything for half a shichen. It’s going to die.”
He drops down at Yue Qingyuan’s tea table and looks up at him. Something like fireworks set off in his lungs. He cups his hands around the kitten and nods.
“It won’t,” he says. Xiao Jiu scoffs and turns away.
The kitten, indeed, will not eat.
That’s alright. Yue Qingyuan is experienced at keeping little, starving things alive.