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[fic] determination
15 August 2024
This fic is also on AO3, if you find it easier to read there
Fandom: SVSSS
Focus: Ning Yingying pov, Ning Yingying/Qiu Haitang, Ning Yingying & Luo Binghe, Ning Yingying & Shen Qingqiu
Setting:Canon era, Jinlan City arc
Length: 3,931 words
Themes:
re-evaluating past relationships (sexual/romantic and platonic)
Summary:
Ning Yingying goes to Jinlan City to find her shizun. She doesn’t expect to run into an old flame.
Foreword:
I don't recall what put the idea of nyy/qht in my head but once I thought of it I couldn't leave it alone!
eternal thanks to verity for cheerleading and betaing
Fic:
When the gates to Jinlan City open, Ning Yingying could cry from relief. Her shizun should never have gone into the quarantined city, given how lethargic and spiritless he is these days – not without herself or Ming Fan to look out for him. Shizun can't be trusted to take care of his own well-being.
But if the quarantine has been lifted, and so quickly, everything must have gone smoothly. She doesn’t need to worry. Shizun is fine.
Ning Yingying repeats this to herself as she hurries into the city plaza along with the other gathered cultivators, impatiently shifting her weight from foot to foot whenever her progress is stalled by the crowds. The city plaza is filled with residents gossipping happily with each other in unwieldy rafts of people, breaking and reforming in new shapes. More than once Ning Yingying is bumped by children darting unpredictably about.
Near the centre of the plaza, Ning Yingying can just make out Mu-shishu, undoubtedly distributing medicine. She thinks she catches a glimpse of Zhangmen-shibo, too, or at least what looks like his guan glinting in the light over the heads of city people. Ning Yingying curses her shortness; it’s so hard to see over the heads of the people around her. She can’t find where her shizun is.
“Did you see my auntie?” a high little voice says from around the area of Ning Yingying’s knees. A child is clutching a cloth doll and staring up at her with wide eyes. Oh dear.
Ning Yingying bends down to be closer to the child’s level. “Are you lost?” she asks. The child shakes his head emphatically. “Auntie is lost!” the child says. “Auntie said to wait for her at the corner where the funny dog likes to sit, which is right here, even though the funny dog isn’t here today, but I can’t see her! Did you see her?”
Dealing with small children below the age of discipleship isn’t one of Ning Yingying’s strengths. They’re cute, but so hard to manage. Helping this one will slow her down – but she can’t ignore a child in need. “What does your auntie look like?” she tries.
“She’s sooooo tall, even taller than you, and she wears yellow because it reminds her of sunshine, and she has a hat!” That’s the end of the useful information Ning Yingying can get out of the child, even after further prompting. She tries to look around for a woman in yellow with a hat but she can’t see much in all the bustle.
“Are you sure this is the right corner?" Ning Yingying asks eventually, in a desperate hope that maybe the solution could be as easy as leading the child somewhere else. The child is completely sure, and relays to her a complicated and meandering history of the funny dog.
Ning Yingying’s attempts to interrogate the child and to find the auntie take up so much attention that she almost doesn’t notice the hush that suddenly comes over the crowd. She glances around, distractedly. At the centre of the plaza, near where Mu-shishu is set up, Ning Yingying catches glimpses of other cultivators moving about, talking to each other quietly. With relief, she sees that one of them is her shizun. Ning Yingying’s feet start moving of their own accord, but the child tugs on her sleeve and calls out, “Jiejie! Wait! Don’t leave me!”
Damn it. Ning Yingying turns back and picks the child up. She doesn’t want to stray too far from the spot in case the child’s auntie shows up, but she also wants to run to her shizun’s side to support him. That’s where she belongs, as one of the Qing Jing Peak Lord’s most trusted disciples, not stuck dealing with a stray child of the city.
The child sniffles into Ning Yingying’s ear and wipes his nose on her shoulder. Then he bursts into tears.
Ah, the poor child, he’s undoubtedly having an even worse day than Ning Yingying. It isn’t his fault, after all. She pats the child’s back soothingly.
The missing auntie is becoming more and more concerning. Perhaps once the child is calmer she’ll try other approaches. Perhaps she can find out where he lives and return him to his home, or help him retrace his steps to where he was before he parted ways with his auntie.
Ning Yingying hugs the child close and tries to ignore the mess he’s making of the shoulder of her robe.
It’s while Ning Yingying is occupied with these thoughts that the fuss happening over by the cultivators suddenly becomes too big to ignore.
Someone new has arrived, a woman who is dressed differently than any of the other cultivators. Ning Yingying can’t see who it is, but as soon as the woman speaks, she knows.
That rich, penetrating voice is a nostalgic reminder of the past, of the carefree days before her shidi’s death and her shizun’s endless grief. Haitang-jie. What is Haitang-jie doing here?
Ning Yingying had a good time with Haitang-jie, that summer. She was on an extended mission to deal with a difficult yao, missing her sect siblings and her shizun but feeling proud of the responsibility she was trusted with. Haitang-jie was a pleasant distraction from her work. Oh, they talked some, certainly, but pillow talk is pillow talk. Ning Yingying never learned anything much about Haitang-jie’s previous life. But she doesn’t think Haitang-jie mentioned a connection to any district in the territory of Huan Hua Palace.
What is Haitang-jie saying, to cause such commotion? Ning Yingying focuses her hearing with careful circulation of her qi, and Haitang-jie’s voice fills her ears.
Ning Yingying’s lips curve in an involuntary smile, feeling close to Haitang-jie for the first time in years – and then she freezes. Haitang-jie is declaring that Shen Qingqiu is her fiancé. Haitang-jie once told Ning Yingying about her fiancé, a deceitful, backstabbing wretch whom Haitang-jie hated. But Haitang-jie never mentioned his name.
Her shizun – Haitang-jie’s fiancé? It can’t be. Ning Yingying has known her shizun for so many years, knows his kind and tender heart. He would never be capable of the kind of treachery Qiu Haitang accused her fiancé of. Shizun would sooner die than cause harm to anyone under his care and protection. Haitang-jie simply doesn’t understand shizun like Ning Yingying does.
But Haitang-jie sounds so certain.
“There you are!” a voice says beside her, startling Ning Yingying from her focus. The child in her arms screeches and wriggles. “Auntie! We found you!” he shouts.
Ning Yingying holds tightly to the child to keep him from falling, and rescues the cloth doll when it drops unheeded from his hands. She looks up to see a sturdy woman with a bamboo hat hanging around her shoulders, a broad smile on her face. Only a few moments ago, Ning Yingying would have been delighted to make the acquaintance of the famed auntie, but now her mind is blank. She can’t seem to think. What is Haitang-jie saying?
The auntie doesn’t seem to realise anything else of importance might be happening in the plaza. She has her own priorities: she holds out her arms to her young nephew and tenderly says, “Come here, my little one.” Ning Yingying passes over first the child and then the doll. The child clings to his auntie with a kind of desperate joy.
“Thank you, honoured cultivator," the woman says when the child is secure in her arms. “I don’t know how he got away from me so fast – but you know how children are! I’m glad he remembered our safe meeting place. The little rascal!” She tousles the child’s hair affectionately. “Please, here’s a token of my gratitude for looking out for him.”
Ning Yingying feels all turned around and tongue-tied by the woman’s brisk, cheerful, take-charge attitude. As Ning Yingying tries to collect her thoughts, the woman digs one-handed through a bag tied at her waist. “Aha!” the woman says with satisfaction, and pulls out a tiny, delicate wooden carving of a sleeping cat. “I made it with a friend in mind, but you must take it – no, no, I insist.” Ning Yingying tries to demur, but has to accept it in the end. This auntie is used to being listened to.
In another moment, woman and child are gone. Ning Yingying catches a few words from the child to his auntie as they fade into the distance: “Guess what I saw!” The child has regained his high spirits.
Ning Yingying is glad to see the child back where he belongs...and glad that he is no longer her problem. With the little carved cat held gently in one hand, Ning Yingying begins to try to push her way forward through the masses of gathered people. Forward to shizun.
What did she miss while she was occupied with the child and auntie? Haitang-jie spoke at length, but Ning Yingying wasn’t able to catch more than the occasional word. A pile of baseless accusations, undoubtedly. Now, as Ning Yingying tries to navigate past the lines of people crowding towards Mu-shishu for a cure, she wishes she knew back then who Haitang-jie’s fiancé was.
That summer, Ning Yingying of course mentioned to Haitang-jie her childhood crush on her shizun, giggling over the silly way she’d trailed hopefully after him. Haitang-jie, laughing too, thought the story was cute: the naive girl a-Ying had been, believing that surely one day her shizun would turn around and see how his devoted little disciple had grown up into a woman he could love. Of course, the reality is that Ning Yingying’s shizun is above such things. He never even noticed her interest.
But Ning Yingying failed to make the connection between her shizun and Haitang-jie’s fiancé. If she knew then, Ning Yingying could have investigated the allegations on her own without bringing it to anyone’s attention. She could have found out the truth of the matter and kept her shizun’s reputation clean, and brought peace to Haitang-jie’s troubled mind by finding the real perpetrator of the crimes against Haitang-jie’s family.
Zhangmen-shibo and the Old Palace Master are having a polite squabble with each other by the time Ning Yingying pushes her way to near the front of the crowd. Her shizun looks pale and upset, but there is a light in his eyes she hasn’t seen for years. Disbelieving, she follows his gaze – to see her little shidi, very much alive, standing in a forbidding pose by the Old Palace Master.
A-Luo! Alive! It seems an outlandish miracle, one Ning Yingying never dared to hope for. But this is a miracle that isn’t a miracle at all, because Luo Binghe stands next to the Old Palace Master of Huan Hua, making it clear which side he supports. As the Old Palace Master insists on imprisoning Shen Qingqiu in preparation for a trial, Luo Binghe remains, providing his unspoken support.
The boy who Ning Yingying remembers was as devoted to their shizun as Ning Yingying, had nurtured his own little hopeless crush on the peerless immortal who gives so much of himself to his disciples. Luo Binghe always made it immediately clear that the slightest implied insult directed at shizun would not be tolerated – but now he stands deliberately at a distance, his sharp gaze fixed on their shizun but his mouth closed in deference to the Old Palace Master’s words. In some fundamental way, Luo Binghe has changed.
Ning Yingying can’t bear it: a worse betrayal than she ever imagined Luo Binghe to be capable of, and all the more painful for how out of character it is. Ning Yingying feels herself grieving the loss of Luo Binghe all over again.
Haitang-jie was a summer fling. Ning Yingying liked her, but she isn’t that attached. And Haitang-jie’s mistaken accusations are understandable under the circumstances. But Luo Binghe was her little shidi, one of her dearest friends, someone she doted on and cheered for and studied with for years. His death was the first real loss in Ning Yingying’s life. And more than that, she saw how shizun turned into a hollow husk of himself, blaming himself for the awful events of that day, mourning constantly, unable to bear living in a world where his treasured disciple is dead.
Throughout shizun’s years of pain and grief, Ning Yingying supported him. How dare Luo Binghe suddenly appear again with no announcement, without reaching out to his old shizun, dressing like he belongs with another sect and letting a farce like this play out in front of him?
Ning Yingying clenches her hands in fists, and feels the tiny cat carving digging into one palm.
What can she do? Nothing. Shizun already has his sect siblings beside him, ready to defend him. Ning Yingying is good at making sure that shizun eats and sleeps, that he answers important letters, that he doesn't wander off unthinkingly into danger. She can take care of reports and teach classes, order supplies, arrange schedules, liaise with the other peaks. She can hold her own in a swordfight with her peers. But she doesn’t have the political influence or sheer force of qi that the Peak Lords do.
When she entered the city, Ning Yingying expected her biggest trials would be finding her shizun and convincing him to rest. Facing off against the head of a major sect to defend him is a task of a different kind.
Ning Yingying has no warning before she’s abruptly knocked to the ground by a blast of qi throughout the whole square, one that leaves her quivering on the ground with the resonance of it through every spiritual vein in her body.
Zhangmen-shibo. His qi is familiar, though rendered unimaginably powerful through the use of his sword. Zhangmen-shibo can always be counted on, where Ning Yingying’s shizun is concerned, and she is fiercely glad to know how seriously he’s taking the threat.
Other cultivators are groaning on the ground next to Ning Yingying, swearing and trembling. She lies still, and revels in the knowledge that her shizun is safe. Nobody can stand up to the Xuan Su Sword.
But that’s when shizun intervenes. Shizun insists on going into imprisonment, and for the full month the Old Palace Master wants. Ning Yingying, still in the dust on the ground, wishes she could believe it’s for some clever scheme that shizun has planned. But she’s afraid that it’s just another way of giving up, as he has given up over and over again, the last three years.
By the time Ning Yingying is standing up and brushing the worst of the dust from her robes, her shizun is gone, along with most of the high ranking cultivators who were clustered around during the confrontation. From Cang Qiong, Mu-shishu is the only Peak Lord remaining. He continues the work of helping to provide healing to Jin Lan city residents, regardless of the fuss around him.
Luo Binghe is gone too, as if he was never there. Ning Yingying could almost believe she imagined his presence, or saw her shidi’s likeness in the face of a stranger. He didn’t even speak. Didn’t do anything that the real Luo Binghe would have done.
The damning evidence is her shizun’s reaction. Shizun looked at that silent man with such raw, desperate, fearful joy. Nothing but Luo Binghe’s return could inspire that kind of passion to push aside shizun’s grief.
Ning Yingying’s hand is beginning to hurt from how firmly she’s gripping her cat carving, its sharp little ears pressing into the base of her thumb.
What to do now? Looking around the plaza, Ning Yingying sees nothing but an ordinary city centre going about its business. The press of eager bystanders watching the sect drama have dispersed, no doubt to spread gossip to their friends. People are going about their daily business with a lightness and energy, fear of the plague finally dispelled. For most of them, today is a day of joyous good news. Whatever happened to Qing Jing’s Peak Lord is merely a curious anecdote.
The only other person remaining who cares as much as Ning Yingying does is Haitang-jie.
Left behind by the prominent sects when shizun was taken away, Haitang-jie stands alone in the plaza, disconnected from the activity of ordinary life around her. Her face wears a fierce, faraway sort of exultance. Haitang-jie was a dreamy sort of person back when Ning Yingying knew her; the touch of distant sorrow that never left her eyes gave her beauty a certain gravity that Ning Yingying once found mesmerising. Now a cold-burning fire is overlaid on Haitang-jie’s well-worn sorrow.
Ning Yingying knows it’s a bad idea even as she does it, and steps out next to Haitang-jie. “Madam,” Ning Yingying says politely. She’s embarrassed to not remember Haitang-jie’s family name, and it would be far too forward to address Haitang-jie now in an intimate, familiar way.
Haitang-jie’s gaze sharpens on Ning Yingying, who wonders if Haitang-jie will remember and recognise her. But Haitang-jie’s attention is drawn instead by Ning Yingying’s robes, which mark her out as a cultivator of Qing Jing peak. One of Shen Qingqiu’s people.
With a tightened mouth, Haitang-jie says frostily, “I will not entertain any requests to go easy on the man who destroyed my family.”
It’s a fairly-thrust barb. Ning Yingying feels herself wilting in response. “This person named Ning has offended Madam. She begs forgiveness, and will leave.”
“Ning?” Haitang-er sounds startled, off-balance. “Wait.”
Carefully, without hurry, Haitang-jie studies Ning Yingying. “Could it be Ning Yingying?” Haitang-jie says slowly. She looks disbelieving. Ning Yingying actually feels a little offended. She hasn’t changed so significantly over the last years! Stress and sadness and new burdens of responsibility have been added since the last time she saw Haitang-jie, but she’s wearing them well!
“A-Ying,” Haitang-jie says. “My little A-Ying, are you really –” She breaks off, her beautiful face crumpling into tears.
Ah, Haitang-jie! Still so easily overwhelmed! Ning Yingying used to bring her to tears often, on purpose and with mutual pleasure, until Haitang-jie was sobbing out Ning Yingying’s name as she came. To see Haitang-jie crying in such a different context is disorienting. Fondness and anger war within Ning Yingying’s heart.
“Am I really what, jie?”
“You – your shizun, you – how could you?” Haitang-jie’s words come out barely-articulate between bouts of tears. Ning Yingying is abruptly exasperated.
“My shizun is the most admirable, virtuous person I know,” Ning Yingying snaps. “His kindness and compassion are unparalleled. He absolutely could not have done what you described. You have accused the wrong person, forced an innocent into imprisonment, done your best to tear down his good reputation. You deserve to find justice for your family, but this is no way to go about it!”
Haitang-jie’s face is wet from all her tears, but she’s no longer crying by the time Ning Yingying is done her tirade. Haitang-jie is angry.
“How dare you? Of course I couldn’t mistake him, my own fiancé, I know him better than anyone else alive!”
She sniffles a little, then continues, her sharp fury unabated. “A-Ying, you’re a sweet girl, but you’re being naive again. Always wanting to think well of everyone – hah! I was like that once, and this is what it got me. A dead family, an estate in ruins, and a murderous runaway fiancé. You need to grow up!”
Haitang-jie’s cruel words are only because she’s hurt and lashing out, but the accusation still stings Ning Yingying. Her cheeks burn with the humiliation. How can it be wrong to like people, to give them chances, to admire and appreciate what’s good in them? Taking that kind of mindset makes life so much nicer, and Ning Yingying has learned to be discerning about who she trusts!
Ning Yingying hates how blotchy and red her face always gets when she is upset. Haitang-jie is beautiful even when she cries; beside her, Ning Yingying is like a belligerent magpie harassing a crane.
“That’s not fair, and you know it,” Ning Yingying says. Her voice is thin and small. Haitang-jie lets out a puff of derisive laughter, but Ning Yingying continues, determined. If she has to be a magpie, then she will be. “You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and of course you want revenge on the person who did those things. But after all these years, how can you find the right person? You can’t! You haven’t! You’re just hurting more innocent people, who don’t deserve it any more than you did!”
With narrowed eyes, Haitang-jie says, “You really have changed, A-Ying. Still as naive as ever, but now you won’t even listen to reason from your elders. I expected better from you.” Her mouth has a cruel set to it. Ning Yingying thinks wistfully of how soft she knows that mouth can be. How inviting.
The past is a time you can never access again. Ning Yingying truly is a different person now. And Haitang-jie is revealing a side of herself that Ning Yingying never knew. Never let herself see.
Ning Yingying takes a step backward, then another. “You aren’t being fair, jie.”
Behind her, Ning Yingying can hear the loud, fast voices of a middle-aged couple engaged in a cheerful argument about what to plant in their garden. Nearby, Mu-shishu is still hard at work, patiently explaining proper dosages to the latest person at the front of the line for cures. Further away, a dog chases a flock of pigeons and a young man chases the dog. Somewhere, in the lowest level of Huan Hua Palace, Ning Yingying’s shizun is being demeaned and imprisoned.
What is she doing here?
Haitang-jie looks beseechingly at Ning Yingying with wet eyes. “You can do better than this,” Haitang-jie says. “My sect might not have as big a name as Cang Qiong but you would be very welcome. You have options, A-Ying! You don’t need to tie yourself to the reputation of a man like that.”
"I’m sorry,” Ning Yingying says with weary finality. Haitang-jie is so confident she knows what’s best for her A-Ying, but Ning Yingying isn’t even tempted by what she has to offer.
Being doted on like a sweet pet holds no appeal for Ning Yingying anymore. To Haitang-jie’s bewildered face, Ning Yingying executes a brief but polite bow, and walks away.
With shizun imprisoned and awaiting trial, Ning Yingying’s leadership is needed on Qing Jing. She and Ming Fan also need to assist Zhangmen-shibo in preparing for shizun’s trial in a month. And she’s determined to track down Luo Binghe to confront him about his behaviour. He’s still her shidi and ought to listen to her! If A-Luo can be brought back home, his presence and assistance will do much for shizun.
The sound of Haitang-jie crying begins again behind Ning Yingying. Haitang-jie hates to be left alone without attention, but she’ll have to rely on attendants from her personal retinue.
Ning Yingying knows where she belongs – where she is relied on, listened to, and has her growth fostered. Haitang-jie can’t offer any of that, and never has. Some fun in bed and the approval of an attractive older woman turned Ning Yingying’s head once, but Haitang-jie is stuck in the past and Ning Yingying has moved on, has grown up.
Tucking her little cat carving into one sleeve, Ning Yingying heads to where Mu-shishu is working. One of Mu-shishu’s disciples will be able to tell her where the Cang Qiong contingent is quartered. Then she can get to work.
Comments:
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