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[fic] Practicum and Applied Theory

5 April 2024

This fic is also on AO3, if you find it easier to read there

Fandom: SVSSS
Focus: Luo Binghe pov, Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu (pre-relationship)
Setting: Canon divergence, Abyss arc
Length: 5139 words

Themes:

ghost (????) sqq; dream-sharing; t4t, transfem lbh and transfem sqq; the characters being trans isn’t made a big deal of

Summary:

While Luo Binghe is in the Endless Abyss, she keeps having these shared dreams with her Shizun. She can’t figure out what it means.

Foreword:

Written for Antaresia for the MXTX Remix Exchange 2024. A remix of Dead Horse Theory.

thank you to my cheerleader and beta verity, couldn’t have done it without you! <3


Fic:

It was oddly bright in the Endless Abyss, as if the sun shone down from every direction, though the sun was nowhere to be seen in that strange sky. Day or night, it was always the same. Luo Binghe found herself wishing she could hide from that never-ending light. It felt as if she were being constantly watched.

Shizun had rejected her, had pushed her away, down here to her certain death. Luo Binghe was determined to prove Shizun wrong for judging her. She had to survive, so she could return to Shizun and ask why. But in the meantime, she had nowhere she could go to cry privately to herself. Not even a woodshed.

Everywhere she went, the merciless light pressed on her. Everywhere there were dangers waiting. Luo Binghe had only been in the Abyss for a day, but she had already learned that relaxing her vigilant attention for even a moment could leave an opening for death to claim her.

So her eyes roved the stark landscape, and if she blinked back a few wayward tears, that was only to be expected in this kind of light.

She missed Zheng Yang desperately. She had a few other minor weapons in her qiankun bag, two daggers and a chef’s knife she'd brought to the conference in hopes of finding a spare moment to cook for Shizun. But adept as she was with these other blades, they did not have the reach of a sword.

Right now, Luo Binghe was crouched with her back to a rocky cliff, cleaning the last of the corrosive blood of her latest kill from her longer dagger before it could eat through the metal of the blade. The creature itself was dead before her, a small and woeful broken corpse. Its deceptively silky fur still hid the poisoned spurs it had on all six legs. Luo Binghe had barely managed to twist out of the way when it had ambushed her from a well-disguised hollow.

She rubbed her eyes to clear them of tears again. What was her next move? The light felt like it was piercing her soul. She was exhausted and could barely think.

Between one breath and the next her eyes fluttered closed for a moment – then snapped back open in a jolt. Shizun! Shizun’s crumpled body, as motionless as that horrible little creature. No. Luo Binghe was imagining it. Shizun wasn’t dead, couldn’t be dead, Shizun was surely grumbling over an inferior book as she made the long journey back home to Qing Jing Peak after the Immortal Alliance Conference. Eating snacks and making notes. Shizun was always Shizun, and always would be. She had to be.

Luo Binghe shivered.

***

There was only so long Luo Binghe could go without proper sleep. She was long used to getting up early to make breakfast for Shizun, and staying up late at night studying privately in her room so that she could be sure to meet or even occasionally surpass Shizun’s expectations of her. Her demonic heritage helped, she was sure. She hated it.

But her limits were tested in the Endless Abyss and she couldn’t be her own night watch forever. Even Luo Binghe had to sleep sometimes.

In the harsh light of the Abyss, she couldn’t track day or night to tell how long it had been, but there came a point where her body made the decision for her. She was perched high in a tree, keeping out of the reach of an enormous lizard-like beast which had been following her for too long, when her eyes closed and didn't open again.

Luo Binghe’s control over dreams was well established at this point. For years Luo Binghe had drawn comfort from quietly watching Shizun’s dreams from the edges, where Shizun couldn't notice her. With the ease of habit she reached out for Shizun’s mind, as if Shizun were still in the next room over. As if Shizun’s mind could be trusted to hold nothing but comfort.

Now, in response to her delicate reach, she found herself tumbling immediately into the very centre of a shared dream with Shizun.

Shizun’s dreaming mind was more insistent than Luo Binghe had ever experienced before. Luo Binghe didn't even try to push back against the way the dream wanted to mould her. Shizun's mind shaped Luo Binghe like the gawky child she hated to remember that she’d once been, but it allowed her to stare up huge-eyed at her impossibly beautiful Shizun in the soft glow of candlelight.

Benevolently, Shizun smiled at Luo Binghe, who immediately wanted to shove the table at Shizun and scream.

“The most important thing is to be yourself,” Shizun had said firmly to Luo Binghe when she was much younger. “Nobody else can tell you who you are. Why, I myself – well. Be true to who you know yourself to be, and how could anyone tell you that's wrong?”

Yes, Shizun had said that about Luo Binghe tentatively telling Shizun in a fit of tears that she thought was a girl, actually – but shouldn’t the principle hold true about her demonic heritage as well?

Shizun clearly found it different.

Luo Binghe could barely keep her desperate questions inside. Why did you do it? Did you never care about me after all? Am I unlovable? Can I stop being a demon? How can I fix things? Please let me try again!

Instead of saying anything, Luo Binghe’s awkward childish hands clutched at the teapot. And she carefully poured tea for her master.

“Thank you, Binghe,” Shizun said, her voice low and sweet. She held her cup of tea with elegance. “Now, what have I taught you so far about the Endless Abyss?”

***

Luo Binghe woke with a start, heart thumping and fingernails digging into the bark of the tree. A heady-scented sap dampened the tips of her fingers.

She blinked against the onslaught of the ever-present light and pressed one sap-sticky hand to her forehead. She almost wished she were developing a headache, because it would at least make sense of how awful she felt.

That dream.... it couldn’t be a real dream of Shizun’s. Luo Binghe had been rejected by Shizun so comprehensively, yet in the dream Shizun had treated her as a beloved disciple. Luo Binghe was weak; she sat obediently at Shizun's feet and listened to the lesson Shizun taught. Luo Binghe was Shizun’s, every bit of her. It didn’t matter what Shizun had done.

But now that Luo Binghe was awake again, she found herself burning inside at the knowledge that Shizun had deliberately pushed her down here into the Abyss, relegating her to a misery that might yet prove to be her death. She fit in here, she thought fiercely, despairingly. She was ablaze with righteous anger, bright enough to defy the light of this strange sunless sky. She would survive here as she’d survived Shizun’s coldness when she’d first been accepted onto Qing Jing Peak. She would master this awful place and she would emerge and make Shizun understand – make Shizun admire her – make Shizun regret –

She sucked absently on her fingers to clean them before wiping away her tears. The sap tasted sweet.

Then she leapt down from the tree to move on. She needed to find whatever it would take to escape the Endless Abyss. Besides, it wasn’t safe to stay long in one place. The land itself here would soak up the sense of your essence and advertise your presence to any passing beast. Luo Binghe wasn’t so naive as to let that happen.

Hours later, when Luo Binghe was lying face down on a dusty path, jerking in uncoordinated movements as she tried and failed to get up, she remembered the sap. What a stupid mistake for her to have made.

She thought frantically through the things she could remember about types of tree sap and their uses. Before she could identify what she must have consumed, she lost consciousness.

***

Luo Binghe opened her eyes right back in the quiet intimacy of the same dream. Shizun continued to talk as if there had been no interruption, opening in the midst of a lecture on the types of dangerous birds of the Abyss.

Even here in the dream world, Luo Binghe was constrained by the effects of the sap. She sat perfectly in quiet stillness and could do nothing but listen to Shizun talk with enthusiasm about the hunting strategies of the crested tiger-tern. Her hands grew animated in her gestures, long fingers elegant as they sketched an emphatic path. The warmth of the candlelight made her luminous. Luo Binghe took mental note to avoid tiger-terns if possible.

When Shizun emptied her tea and set her cup down, Luo Binghe couldn't reach out to refill it instantly the way she always did. Shizun absently took the cup back up. Luo Binghe watched silently as Shizun tried to sip from her empty cup and blinked in surprise.

“Binghe,” Shizun said after a moment, “are you not attending?”

I always am, she wanted to say. She couldn't even part her lips to make a noise.

Shizun's eyebrows dropped in disappointment. Her eyes lost their sparkle. “Well, perhaps this old master has been rambling on for long enough. Binghe is a dutiful disciple to listen to all this. Of course she is perfectly capable of handling the Abyss without this master’s comments.”

Luo Binghe was in agonies. Shizun’s dreaming self was openly referring to what Shizun had done to her, and this was all she said!

But Shizun was continuing. “Binghe will succeed and triumph, of course, no question. Ah, it was beautiful to watch you fight today, even with the numb-flower tree sap slowing you down.”

Wait, Shizun was watching her?

Shizun patted Binghe’s head in her old way. “Such a good child,” she sighed. “This master wishes – well, it’s no use wishing.”

Wishing what, Binghe desperately wanted to know. She strained against the paralyzing forces acting on her every muscle. She could almost feel how she needed to direct her demonic qi to wash it away. She needed to master it! Her weak-willed hesitation to learn to properly cultivate demonic qi was pointless. Hadn’t she been rejected by Shizun solely for being born part-demon? What did it matter what she did, in the end?

Shizun was willing to act as her Shizun in the unreal world of these dreams, where they both could pretend that Luo Binghe was still an ordinary human girl. The real Luo Binghe, the demonic Luo Binghe, was unacceptable except as a spectacle.

Shizun shook her head and stood up. “I shouldn’t detain you longer. I’m sure you have other dreams to share with certain interesting people.”

Then she walked out of the room. Shizun actually walked out of the room! In Shizun’s own dream!

Luo Binghe continued to sit in a perfect, respectful posture. She could do nothing else. Inside, she was simmering with some enormous emotion that needed to burst out of her and yet had no avenue.

She wanted to run after Shizun, clutch at the pristine hem of her clothes, and beg to be taken back. She wanted to make Shizun listen to her. She wanted Shizun to apologize and mean it. She wanted to be patted on the head again, and she wanted to hold Shizun close in a tight hug and never let go, and she wanted to bury her face between Shizun’s legs and stay there giving Shizun pleasure with her tongue until she and Shizun were both completely wrung out.

Instead, Luo Binghe continued to sit in the same place as she listened to Shizun go outside into the courtyard. She sat in the same place for hours.

When she finally awoke in the Abyss and found herself able to achingly drag herself to her feet, Luo Binghe felt cold and empty. Her head was muzzy. It was hard to think.

She rubbed the tracks of dried tears from her face and looked up at the painful sky despairingly. “Shizun, are you still watching?” she said. “You’d better watch.”

***

Luo Binghe threw herself into cultivating. She might not know exactly how to master her demonic qi, but her work with Meng Mo had taught her one aspect of it. She could extrapolate.

The Abyss was a helpful training ground. There were so many demonic creatures whose qi she could sense; she soon learned how to follow the paths of their qi manipulation and emulate it for herself.

She grew stronger.

Each time she snatched a few odd hours’ sleep, Luo Binghe found herself back in the same dream of Shizun’s. Shizun herself couldn’t be found in these dreams, no matter how Luo Binghe searched. It took weeks for her to wonder how Shizun managed to always be asleep at the same time as her. She couldn’t stop the thought that followed: how was Shizun watching Luo Binghe while she was awake?

Her memories of her first days in the Abyss were fractured from the panic that had enveloped her at the time. The fragmentary waking dream of her Shizun collapsing in front of her eyes haunted her. She tried to believe it had just been a hallucination.

Luo Binghe spent all of her dreaming hours on edge and desperate, surrounded by the sense of Shizun but unable to find her. Each time, Luo Binghe woke with her eyes gritty and her head aching. She wished she could do away with sleep entirely. She wished she could find Shizun.

***

The first time Luo Binghe encountered any demons in the Abyss who could speak, she was astonished. She had thought the Abyss was a place only of mindless beasts. Sometimes she felt like one herself.

The encounter began with Luo Binghe falling into a cave.

It had been set up as a deliberate trap, Luo Binghe was immediately sure. A handful of some kind of beetle demons skittered towards her to check what they'd caught. They weren’t even knee high against Luo Binghe. Not a real threat, she thought disdainfully.

Luo Binghe leapt neatly into the air as the beetle demons approached and flung a gout of wind in their direction. They went flying as expected. Luo Binghe was preparing to jump out of the cave when her ears caught the muttering behind her.

“Our first catch in weeks, and it has to be such a strong one!” “Unfair!” “It looked so tasty....”

Luo Binghe paused.

The beetle demons, wary after the strength of Luo Binghe’s attack, didn't take advantage of her hesitation the way many creatures of the Abyss would. Luo Binghe turned slowly in their direction, wary herself.

“What are you?” she snarled at them. Her voice was creaky with disuse. There was a whole colony of the beetle demons in the back of the cave, purple-blue carapaces gleaming even in the dim light.

She didn’t get an answer to her question. The beetle demons stopped talking amongst themselves the moment she opened her mouth. Luo Binghe reached for the knife at her waist and raised it in a show of threat. Nothing.

The moment stretched. Luo Binghe glared. The beetle demons huddled together in a writhing pile and appeared to ignore her completely. There was complete silence, other than the continued faint tapping of beetle shells against each other.

“Answer me!” Luo Binghe insisted. She strode toward the beetle demons, leaving behind the filtered beam of light coming through the far-up hole in the cave roof.

There were hundreds of them, she estimated. She could take them all if she had to.

As she approached, her sense of the demonic qi of the colony of beetle demons grew more refined. It confused her at first. She couldn’t tease out the differentiations between each demon’s qi. She nearly tripped over her own feet in shock when she realised: the colony shared qi so freely amongst themselves that it was as if they were able to work together as one. And yet each demon was still an individual, capable of acting alone, as she’d seen in their earlier attack.

“What are you?” she said again, without quite meaning to.

Here, in the Endless Abyss, these demons thrived and cooperated, spoke intelligently, made plans. How long had they lived here? Were they trapped in the Abyss like Luo Binghe, or did they make their home here deliberately; had they lived here for generations?

But the beetle demons refused to respond. Luo Binghe stared at them for several long minutes. Her breathing and heart rate calmed from the way they’d spiked when she'd fallen into the trap, and she began to wonder what she was doing.

What could she learn from these miserable, cowardly creatures anyway? Luo Binghe would never be found hiding in the face of a threat. They weren’t special, either. In the demon realms there were demons with astounding varieties of forms who all had intelligence enough to talk. Just because these were the first ones she’d found in the Abyss didn’t mean anything.

She turned in disgust and left the cave through the same hole she'd fallen in through. There was nothing worth staying for.

***

The next time Luo Binghe slept, she was back in the same dream as always, in the bamboo house on a desolate Qing Jing Peak.

Luo Binghe refused to give up on seeing Shizun in these dreams. She was tired, though, of constantly searching. This time she stayed sitting at the little table with its gently steaming pot of tea. “Shizun?” she called. “This lowly disciple begs forgiveness for any offence she has caused.” She poured two cups of tea, leaving one on the other side of the table for Shizun. Her own cup she held gently between her hands to savour the warmth and the delicate aroma. The Abyss was not a place of delicacies.

The cup itself was finely worked. Luo Binghe was considering the details of the dark iridescent glaze when a quiet noise at the doorway startled her. In her haste to set down her tea and stand, she spilled a few drops of tea on her white and green disciple’s clothes. She ignored the stain; there were more important things happening.

Luo Binghe bowed deeply as Shizun stepped through the door. “This disciple greets Shizun!”

“None of that, none of that,” Shizun said as she raised Luo Binghe up from her bow. “Come, sit, join me for some tea! You can tell me about your latest experiences.”

She was not going to trouble Shizun with awkward questions about where she had been, Luo Binghe was determined. Like a proper and obedient disciple she sat down again at the table, across from Shizun, the way it was supposed to be.

In the manner of dreams, the tea in Shizun’s cup was as hot and fresh as if Luo Binghe had just poured it. Shizun’s eyes looked soft as she picked up her tea. Luo Binghe, desperately and miserably glad, began to cry.

“Binghe!” Shizun said, her tone shocked. She lifted her fan a little to hide her face. Luo Binghe cried harder. “Binghe,” Shizun said again, quieter. In control of herself again. “There’s no need for this behaviour, just tell Shizun what the matter is.”

Luo Binghe could hardly explain it to herself. She couldn’t explain it to Shizun, this awful mix of feeling comforted by Shizun’s presence and affection while always knowing that comfort could be stolen from her by Shizun’s inscrutable changeability. Luo Binghe was greedy. She wanted to hoard Shizun’s every gesture of care like precious jade, wrap herself in it like lavishly embroidered silk, cultivate it until it pervaded every vein in her body, swallow it down whole and let it nourish her. She needed Shizun.

“This disciple is simply happy to see Shizun again,” Luo Binghe got out eventually.

Shizun sighed. “This master is the one who is lucky to be visited by Binghe. Does Binghe have nowhere better to go when she sleeps?”

“No!” Luo Binghe said, indignant. “I come here every time. I always hope –” She paused. It was selfish of her to press but she couldn’t stop herself. “I always hope Shizun will be here to instruct me again.” She looked at Shizun with pleading eyes, an expression she knew Shizun was weak to. Or at least, used to be weak to. Before Shizun pushed Luo Binghe into the Abyss. But Shizun liked the cute little bun of a disciple who Luo Binghe still looked like in these dreams; maybe it would be enough?

Shizun’s beautiful dark eyes crinkled a little, above her fan. “Ah, Binghe,” she said, fondness in her voice. Luo Binghe exulted; Shizun was still moved by Luo Binghe.

“If that’s so,” Shizun said, serene once more, “then of course this master is pleased to do her duty. Does Binghe have particular questions about anything she’s encountered in the Abyss?”

Some of Luo Binghe’s tension left her. Shizun would continue to act her Shizun in the safe falsity of these dreams after all. This was far better than Luo Binghe had feared. “Shizun has been watching my progress, I hope,” she said.

Shizun coughed lightly. “Binghe is doing very well, of course. As expected! Such strength, such control, with excellent instincts. Nothing Binghe has met has been a match for her.”

At this praise, Luo Binghe felt like she was filled with an explosion of sparks. “Shizun really thinks so?” she said eagerly, leaning forward.

“Ah, you know it as well as I do!” Shizun said. “What could get in the way of Luo Binghe?”

That last statement rang through the room. Luo Binghe pictured the moment when Shizun had stabbed her at the edge of the Abyss. Shizun took a sip of tea behind her fan.

“At any rate,” Shizun said with an odd hoarseness, “you are doing well at developing mastery over your demonic qi.” Her voice strengthened, then grew eager. “For example, those beetle demons you fought today! What fascinating creatures. I’ve seen references to them before, but I’ve never personally seen anything like them! What did you think of them?”

Luo Binghe scrambled to get her thoughts in order again. “Shizun is insightful,” she said slowly, always a safe beginning. “This disciple has never seen such creatures either. What does Shizun know of them?”

Shizun waved her fan dismissively. “Only trifles, really. The use of their secretions, the strangeness of their death-throes. Nothing of importance. None of the books I’ve read have had comprehensive details.” Shizun’s disappointment was clear. For many years now she’d had an unusual level of interest in demonic beasts. The human world didn’t have many experts on the topic and Cang Qiong’s library was not up to Shizun’s exacting standards. Luo Binghe had heard her complain about it many times before.

“Perhaps you can write a book including more of their details,” Luo Binghe ventured.

“Hah!”

Luo Binghe faltered. “Apologies, Shizun, for the presumption.”

“Oh, no, no, I wasn’t laughing at you,” Shizun said hastily. An odd expression crept onto her face before smoothing out again. “I’ve never considered myself a writer, that’s all. Besides, isn’t it you who is becoming the expert on so many demonic beings?”

Shizun had loosened her hold on her formal speech. Luo Binghe loved it, as she did every time. “I know next to nothing, compared to you,” she said boldly. Shizun laughed, a sweet little giggle that was at odds with her austere serenity. Another thing Luo Binghe always loved.

“Well,” said Shizun, “why don’t you tell me what you noticed about the beetle demons today?”

Luo Binghe recounted the things she’d seen during the brief encounter: size, colouration, behaviour, weakness. Speculation on their lifestyle based on what she’d observed. She didn’t mention what they’d said, or that they said anything at all. Talking with Shizun about demons felt dangerous. Shizun loved monstrous creatures – loved her human disciples – but the middle zone had unclear boundaries.

Luo Binghe hoped that Shizun's obvious desire to pretend nothing was wrong would keep her from raising the subject. Shizun might have been able to see everything Luo Binghe was experiencing, but that didn't mean they needed to talk about it.

The respite of sharing a dream with Shizun was worth everything while Luo Binghe was struggling through the Abyss. She didn’t want anything to interrupt it.

Shizun listened carefully as Luo Binghe talked, nodding with each point Luo Binghe made. “Well done,” Shizun said when Luo Binghe drew her observations to a close. “You paid excellent attention, even in a situation that wasn’t ideal. You might be the only person to have ever seen these creatures and survived the experience to talk about it!” She hesitated, and Luo Binghe had momentary hope she’d made it through the topic safely. Shizun continued: “But wasn’t there something else you noticed?”

Luo Binghe, in the cute younger disciple’s body these dreams always put her in, was shorter than Shizun. She felt smaller than ever as her Shizun looked at her steadily from across the table. Tears began to well in Luo Binghe’s eyes.

“Ah, Binghe, Binghe, what a crybaby you still are! None of this, now.” Shizun came around the side of the table in an instant, sitting down again by Luo Binghe’s side and patting her head. Luo Binghe cried harder. “To still be brought low by a remark from an old master like me!” Shizun continued, her gentle tone at odds with her words.

Somehow Luo Binghe ended up with her head cradled in Shizun’s lap, with Shizun softly stroking her hair, as she sniffled through the remains of her tears. “There now,” Shizun said. “That’s better. Luo Binghe should have more confidence.”

Luo Binghe nodded awkwardly in place. Her fingers clutched at the robe on Shizun’s knee and she couldn't convince herself to let go.

“But what’s this about, hmm?” Shizun’s voice was soft, cajoling. Luo Binghe couldn’t bear it.

“Why are you doing this?!” The question exploded out of her, only partially muffled by Shizun’s legs where Luo Binghe was still curled up. The elegant silk robe beneath her face was damp with a combination of tears and snot. Luo Binghe felt completely disgusting. “You would never push away one of those beetle demons if it was your disciple. You think they’re cute. I can still be cute!” Her last word was almost a wail.

The muscle of Shizun’s thigh tensed under Luo Binghe’s cheek.

“Ah, what the hell, I’m dead already, I probably can’t get more dead,” Shizun said, shockingly carelessly. Luo Binghe’s breath caught. Shizun continued, in Luo Binghe’s stunned silence: “I tried to avoid the Abyss arc, but it’s a non-skippable plot point. I really did try! You shouldn’t have to deal with any of this miserycore grinding just to get your power-ups. You’re cool enough as it is! You’re Luo Binghe, of course you’re cool!”

Shizun sounded like she was getting warmed up for a proper argument. The things Shizun was saying were...a lot. Luo Binghe focused on the important part. “Shizun – you’re dead? You can’t be dead! Is there any way – your spirit is still here – can you be reunited with your body? Or enter a new body? Could Mu-shishu build a prosthetic body? Or –” Luo Binghe subsided at the sound of a sigh from Shizun.

“Such a good disciple,” Shizun said with another sigh. “So filial to this old master, even now. I had hoped I had found a way around it, but with my death so early...I don’t think so, Binghe. My story was always going to end in death.”

“No!” Luo Binghe said, sniffling in the wake of more tears. “You can’t be dead!” She sat up so she could properly look at Shizun. Shizun, predictably, had her face behind her fan again.

“Ah, isn’t it inevitable? I pushed you into the Endless Abyss.”

“What does that have to do with you dying?”

Shizun’s fan fluttered. “Is this the most important thing? Binghe, it’s fine. You don’t need me anymore. I’m lucky to get to watch you succeed.”

The insistent sound of birdsong could be heard through the windows of the bamboo cottage. Morning was coming, in this dream world. Luo Binghe felt like maybe she was dying herself.

She had been so focused on needing to understand why Shizun had pushed her away. But every interaction she’d had with Shizun in these dreams had shown that Shizun regarded her with the same pride and affection as she always had, since the day Shizun changed her mind about Luo Binghe and welcomed her in. Even though Shizun watched her every day now as Luo Binghe honed her demonic skills, Shizun still wanted nothing but to praise her and pet her. Shizun had even said directly that she didn’t want Luo Binghe to have to experience the miseries of the Abyss!

And Shizun was dead.

Had there been some unavoidable threat at the Immortal Alliance Conference? Something so powerful that Shizun couldn’t stand against it? Something must have made Shizun think Luo Binghe would actually fare better in the Endless Abyss than facing that threat. And so Luo Binghe had survived, and Shizun hadn’t.

Luo Binghe felt breathless at this realisation. Shizun had sacrificed herself for Luo Binghe, Shizun regretted what Luo Binghe had to suffer, Shizun thought Luo Binghe was cool. And Shizun, her beloved Shizun who was the best master any disciple could hope for, was dead.

A new goal was planted in Luo Binghe’s heart.

“I'm the lucky one to have Shizun watching over me,” she said. “This disciple will not abandon Shizun.”

Luo Binghe was no longer interested in escaping the Abyss as quickly as she could. She would talk to every demon she met. She would collect samples from every promising plant or animal she came across. So much of what lived in the Abyss was completely unrecorded; who knew what mysterious properties she could discover. Maybe one of them could help her bring her Shizun back to life. She would search until she found it.

And in the meantime, Luo Binghe would get to share dreams with Shizun. She understood now that Shizun would not force her to be alone if she knew Luo Binghe truly desired her presence. Every dream would be with Shizun, and any waking misery could be survived with the knowledge that Shizun was watching her.

Luo Binghe was bursting with energy, with a kind of odd, backwards joy. She had a goal and a purpose and her Shizun's love. “Tell me, Shizun. What other demons do you know of who live in the Endless Abyss?”

And she sat back on her heels, with Shizun by her side, to listen carefully to Shizun's ensuing lecture.


Afterword:

don’t worry, sqq isn’t dead! as antaresia’s fic makes clear, it’s just an aspect of the system losing its access to its battery during the abyss years. so as soon as lbh makes it out of the abyss and beelines to sqq’s corpse with all sorts of plans and resources to try to revive her, SURPRISE! time to experience embodiment again immediately!

the fic doesn’t get into it so you might be wondering: what is the deal with sqq’s gender? oblivious amab shen yuan transmigrates into trans woman sqq (whose transness is part of the backstory that never came up in pidw), shen yuan is like: cool I guess og!sqq is pretending to be a woman for reasons? and then shen yuan settles comfortably into her role and never thinks about it again. multiple opportunities arise that would have been reasonable times for her to change back to presenting as male if she wanted to and she doesn’t even acknowledge them. she’s happy as she is. :)


Comments:

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