Chapter Text
“How the hell,” Liu Qingge slams his hands on the desk, staring at Shang Qinghua with an intense and rather terrifying look.
Shang Qinghua backs away, waving his hands back and forth. “Shidi, please, it’s not… I don’t…”
Liu Qingge gets up in his face and points at him, glaring. “You,” he says so lowly it’s almost a growl, “know things that you really, really should not.”
“I can’t help it!” Shang Qinghua immediately wails. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You think I asked for this?!?”
He presses a hand over his mouth and stares at them all with wide eyes.
“Shang-shidi…” Yue Qingyuan begins gently. “What do you mean?”
“I….” Shang Qinghua peeks out at them from over his sleeves like a deer before a hundred headlights, with nowhere to run. The eyes of the other peak lords stare back at him, waiting. “I, uh….”
Liu Qingge leans back. He crosses his arms over his chest and raises an eyebrow.
Shang Qinghua crumbles.
Shen Yuan is drinking tea, minding his own business, when the door to the bamboo house is nearly kicked in.
“Bro!” Shang Qinghua bursts in, frantic. “We have a fucking problem!”
Shen Yuan closes his eyes.
“What.”
“I mean, maybe it’s not a problem?” The man mutters as he crosses the room to throw himself down onto the other cushion. “Maybe it’s a solution? But it sure as hell feels like a problem!!”
“Bro.” Shen Yuan sips at his tea and sets the cup calmly down on it’s tray again. “What is it this time?”
“So, uh.” Shang Qinghua presses his fingers together sheepishly, not looking at him. “I may have, accidentally, totally not on purpose, told all the other peak lords… that, um… that basically I….?”
“Spit it out.”
Shang Qinghua’s face screws up, and he spits out “They think I’m a psychic!!”
Shen Yuan blinks. He looks at his bro, certain he’d misheard.
“Excuse me?”
“They think I have visions of the future.” Shang Qinghua slaps his hands over his own face in horror and drags them downwards, pulling at his skin.
“Bro.”
“You have to back me up! Okay? Since we’re close, they think you already know!”
A vein bulges in Shen Yuan’s forehead. He whips out his fan and smacks Shang Qinghua in the head.
“Who is close to you?!” He blusters, disbelieving. “Not me!!”
“Bro,” Shang Qinghua wails pitifully. “Bro, c’mon!”
“I’m not doing this.” Shen Yuan says.
“Bro, please!”
”Get lost! This is stupid!”
“Broooo!”
”I can’t believe you! No! Not in a million years!”
“Of course I knew,” Shen Yuan waves his fan serenely in front of his face, not a hair out of place.
Yue Qingyuan looks almost doubtful. How dare he? “You did?”
“Shang Qinghua is my best friend.” Shen Yuan rubs in the man’s face, just to see him wilt a little bit. Vindication is sweet. “Why wouldn’t he tell me everything?”
“I see…” the sect leader sighs. And then, continues to mumble under his breath, “So it’s like that…”
Shen Yuan ignores it. He closes his fan with a snap.
“Anyway,” he finishes. “Leave him alone. It’s an exhausting curse more than a blessing, and if any of you cause any extra stress for him then obviously you’ll be answering to me. So, don’t go asking about the future, now.”
Already, he can see several of their martial siblings looking guiltily or sheepishly downward.
Shen Yuan sighs deeply.