Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Luo "Bingge" crossed through the portal and left that chaotic scene behind because he felt like he was going to vomit. The veins in his neck were bulging and his head emitted a loud buzzing. It felt like his heart beat in his ears like an incessant hammer, without giving a truce. For the first time in a long time his hands shook, and he wanted to tear off particularly that hand he extended to this Shen Qingqiu, asking him to leave with him.

The look of incredulity and the manner in which the two conducted themselves, as if that were something that would never happen, provoked a reaction of revulsion in Luo Binghe. He was the original. He went through much more suffering than that copy, cheap and deviated. Why? Why was he still suffering?

He did not know the reason, but he was still not prepared to go away and abandon that. Recalculating the route in a very skillful manner, he merely molded a copy of Xin Mo with his spiritual power, took the true one while the two licked their wounds, and acted in the stupidest way possible. Asking Shen Qingqiu to go with him was not in his plans.

A little wounded by the battle against himself, he rested on a tree while putting some bones back into place.

The truth was that, if he had not made that version of Shen Qingqiu dream of the past, he would not believe the direction that story had taken. Worse still, he knew the truth. Upon analyzing that person in a minutely detailed way, he perceived that he was not just an alternative version of Shen Qingqiu, he was another person, receiving commands from something much larger. Luo Binghe managed to touch such a perception, but to dare to deepen it could awaken some reaction in Shen Qingqiu that would ruin his disguise. Whatever.

To be honest, Luo Binghe was bored. He had completed his vengeance, collected more than three digits of lovers, and, after all, had his ending.

But why did he feel this way? Always insatiable. Always lingering around that destroyed bamboo peak. Always unsatisfied. What? What? What was missing?

Clack! He put his collarbone back into place with rage. In this process, he did not sketch any reaction. Was that impostor being cared for by that scum? Probably.

"Tsk," he let out while licking a drop of blood from the corner of his lip. His wounds would not last long. If Binghe returned to his reality, he knew exactly what would be waiting. But this? This that happened here and now? This was interesting. This made him feel with a little bit of life.

He wanted to enjoy much more of that Shen Qingqiu. If necessary, he would amuse himself and kill him later. But for that, it would be difficult to discard the other.

"What to do…," he whispered in a low voice with a bloodthirsty gleam in his eyes.

Luo Binghe sat in the meditation position while curing his wounds and thinking of some alternative. Xin Mo demonstrated signs of life. It was as if several voices united in a single chorus in a desperate way, each of them trying to rip the nerves of his brain: "Devour him, devour him.."

Luo Binghe furrowed his brow. He must keep the demonic sword under control again.

He ransacked the memory of that scum villain, Shen Qingqiu, and saw everything he had lived with his pathetic copy. And then he perceived two things.

The first was that his beginning and that of that Luo Binghe had been equal. Only one change happened: Shen Qingqiu spent a time sick. This had not happened in his history, the beatings had never stopped. After that, the behavior of Shen Qingqiu altered.

The second thing he perceived was that Shen Qingqiu got strange from time to time. Luo Bingge got very good at reading his expressions in the course of those long infernal years. It was not his expression of coldness or arrogance, but as if he had disappeared. As if he were resolving matters inside his own head in a very slow way. It was there that Luo Bingge perceived something wrong. The soul of Shen Qingqiu was a mess.

Deep into the night, he emanated a cold air. Binghe looked paler than normal and his eyes, even closed, moved behind his eyelids as if he were dreaming. His demonic energy flowed more constant and there was a light purple aura in the particles of the air around him. The trunk of the tree where he leaned had begun to darken and wither, sucked by the proximity of that ancient power.

After a long time, he opened both eyes all at once. With the moonlight reflected in them, a red and purple gleam seemed to have run through his iris, and he smiled. In the distance, a wolf howled.

The power around him receded, gathering itself like a beast that obeys the owner.

He had a plan.

Chapter Text

Xin Mo emitted a loud, metallic sound and vibrated uncontrollably in Binghe's hand. The demonic energy he was circulating between his meridians and the sword was terrifying. The birds outside had flown far away, every living or dead creature had run for miles, and all crawling beings had dug deep into the bowels of the earth.

He stood on the sacred ground of his bloodline.

He began the ritual, which had no instructions; it would have to be done by himself. His demonic energy accumulated and gushed throughout his entire body, spreading to a considerable distance, and such power deformed him. He felt his bones breaking and reconstructing. His flesh tore apart while simultaneously fusing back together. He grunted and released hoarse screams that echoed throughout the mausoleum, along with the taste of blood from his vocal cords, which were injured and immediately rebuilt.

Luo Binghe felt he would die. He would definitely die. His eyeballs turned completely black, and the hilt of Xin Mo seemed to burn his flesh. Unable to withstand such backlash any longer, he fell to one knee.

The tip of Xin Mo pressed against the ground, as Binghe used it as support to remain in that position. With great difficulty, he lifted the tip of the sword slightly and struck it against the floor.

A black hole began to emerge and grow from the sword's tip. Its edges seemed to bubble, and points of light shimmered and crossed each other like shooting stars. The darkness seemed to take form in the twilight and advanced with small tentacles, trying to reach him. All of Luo Binghe's veins bulged, and his blood flow appeared abnormal. He screamed to the heavens, without restraint.

It was very different from simply crossing a portal. Luo Binghe was tearing through the entrails of spacetime.

Dark matter enveloped him without him realizing it or fighting against it. He had a corporeal sensation of being outside his body, and in an instant, it was all over.

It was dark. Very dark. Luo Binghe felt ghostly, even as he still had a great deal of demonic energy circulating within him.

When he opened his eyes, all he found were two small lights in the distance. Luo Binghe did not hesitate to walk toward those small forms, for he had no trace of fear left in his body. Only echoes of that unbearable pain still resonated in his body, but nothing his system hadn't already begun the process of homeostasis to handle. His footsteps made no sound as he walked. He was in the void.

Approaching those small lights, Luo Binghe realized they looked like small squares with projected images. It was easy to identify. Everything that passed there was his own life.

In one of them, he could see images of his miserable childhood. In another, an adult version of himself walking through the world with Shen Qingqiu at his side. It was easy to tell which timeline he wanted to enter.

Luo Binghe reached out his hand toward that flash of light and managed to fragment it into more than a thousand pieces. He knew exactly at which period of time he would enter that farce: it should be when Shen Qingqiu fell ill. Anything before that, he could not fragment.

But before he could grab that small fragment of time and open the portal, several other small lights lit up, and his eyes widened. Every single one of them, in some way, showed some period of his life.

"What is this about…", even as he vocalized every word, he could not hear himself.

"WHO?", he managed to hear a voice, loud and clear, inside his consciousness.

With a bad feeling, Luo Binghe did not stay to investigate further. He squeezed that small fragment in his right hand, circulated his demonic power in his left hand which held Xin Mo, and entered a new reality.

Luo Binghe stumbled into a strange environment, bumping into some shelves.

"Fuck…"

He intended to lean Xin Mo in some corner to dust off his clothes and get his bearings, but when he was about to set the sword down, he realized his hand was much smaller. He froze.

Letting go of the sword regardless, it fell to the floor with a heavy thud. He also realized he was much smaller, and his clothes were far too loose. He tried to circulate his demonic energy, and although it wasn't scarce, it was far from abundant. It felt as if he was straining his entire dantian.

Yes, his intention was to enter this world and watch this ridiculous master and disciple theater until he could kill that Luo Binghe and take his place. But for that, he would have to wait for the teenager to grow up. In the meantime, he would watch over Shen Qingqiu.

Perhaps forcing something so powerful had drained his core? Had he himself reverted to being a teenager?

Luo Binghe decided to look around to verify where he was. The situation had changed drastically. As he ran his eyes over the place, he had a vague sense of familiarity. But before he could complete that thought, he spotted a pair of eyes belonging to a child he knew very well.

That person was the Luo Binghe of this reality. He was tied up, with a bruise on his eye, staring at a version of himself that had appeared out of nowhere. He was very frightened.

Binghe stared at the "impostor" for a while. In the distance, he heard some footsteps. This current Luo Binghe had talent, but he remembered very well how he had stagnated in his cultivation as a child because his scum Shizun had given him the wrong practice manual. Therefore, even though he had lost a great deal of power in this transaction of going back in time and switching realities, what remained of his cultivation was still very decent. It was safe to say that he would lose to very few people on that hypocritical peak.

With that, he took action. He grabbed Xin Mo from the ground, advanced toward the teenager, stumbling a little on the hem of his robes, but managed to reach him and cut the ropes binding his wrists. The real Binghe fell to the floor with a thud, still too frightened to have any reaction.

Unfortunately, Bingge wouldn't give him time to recover. With a strike of Xin Mo, he opened a new portal, grabbed the youth by the collar, and threw him into another reality, smiling as he said, "My turn. Get lost."

The portal closed.

Because he had forced his demonic energy, his hands trembled and his dantian region truly ached. He had the sensation of fire being circulated through his acupuncture points. Fuck, why couldn't he exert his full strength?

Taking his time to recover and becoming aware of where he was, he made his way toward where the firewood was kept. He knew that exactly there he had his second change of clothes, which he used as a pillow to sleep on.

Luo Binghe quickly took off his black robes, which were far too large, to change into that junior uniform. Remembering that pathetic child still had some respect for those miserable people and was beaten day and night by his abusers, he grabbed the sword's hilt and aimed it toward his eye. Letting out his breath through his mouth, he struck his face with the base of Xin Mo's hilt. He didn't make a single sound of pain. He simply took further control of his spiritual power, accelerating the process of the beautiful bruise he had just given himself.

He hid his clothes, his adornments, and his jewelry together with Xin Mo behind some large jars of vinegar. The footsteps he had heard minutes ago began to sound louder and were heading toward the storage shed.

After a while, the door was thrown wide open.

"Wake up, you useless thing. Shizun wants to see you."

The boy standing on the threshold of the storage shed felt a strange sensation. He could see the figure of a teenager from behind, standing slightly bent over, and the pieces of cut rope in a corner of the floor.

Hadn't he tied him up? How did he manage to free himself?

He furrowed his brow. But he didn't have much time to think, because very quickly the boy turned half his face and looked at him very coldly over his shoulder, with a very sinister smile, saying his name.

"Ming-Fan."