Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Luo Binghe had many regrets in his life.

His worst regret was also his first, and its way, his simplest one - he regretted not being able to bring his mother even a mouthful of congee before she died.

It was a childish regret. As a grown adult Luo Binghe knew that even if he had made it back with the congee requested, it wouldn't have changed very much. Such humble food couldn't cure such serious illness. But as a child he had felt the helpless despair to his very core. His mother had worked hard all of her life - she had been kind and generous, and encouraged him to be the same, but the world had repaid that sweetness by stomping down on her until she broke.

There was something cruel in the fact that as an adult, Luo Binghe did have the means to save his mother. There were countless rare medicines kept in his myriad palaces throughout the realm, invaluable treasures that even the wealthiest of lords were forced to come begging for, and any number of them could have saved his mother. In his harem he had dozens of wives with complex knowledge of various healing arts, their skills at his beck-and-call alone; he knew of at least a hundred hidden springs, secret realms, and blessed shrines with abilities that would have prolonged his mother's life immensely.

Such things sat useless to him now, barring the occasional incident when some wayward opportunity to forge a new alliance or deal with a new threat managed to arise. Luo Binghe had risen despite the world's efforts to crush him, and stood on top of it - yet, he was not satisfied.

For this, as well as other reasons, Luo Binghe also regretted killing his old teacher.

He didn't regret Shen Qingqiu's suffering. He never would, not when he had suffered so much at the same man's hands, but he regretted that Shen Qingqiu had died in the end. Maybe if he hadn't, then he would be able to answer some of Luo Binghe's questions. Looking back on it all Luo Binghe really could not deny that Shen Qingqiu had been his truest teacher in life. Loathsome, but effective. Through him, he had learned that the only thing respected in this world was power. The only way to avoid being crushed was to become the boot stomping downward. Kindness and compassion were expensive luxuries, and could only be spared by those who were otherwise rich in indomitable strength and means. The Endless Abyss and the Demon Realms had honed Luo Binghe, burning out his weaknesses with blood and pain and the grim realities of survival, but Shen Qingqiu was the one who truly set him upon that path.

As such, he was perhaps also the only one who might be able to explain why it had not brought him true satisfaction yet.

The world was at his feet. Luo Binghe wanted for nothing - he had the adoration of his wives, the fear of his enemies, the envy of countless men, he had even achieved what had once seemed impossible and combined two realms into one. He had literally reshaped the world, but... somehow, it still felt as if he had not changed it.

His death came as a surprise. He wasn't sure if he regretted dying or not. Things in his life had not felt right for a long time, but ever since his visit to that other world - the world with the strange copy of himself and the even stranger copy of Shen Qingqiu - it was worse. The hollow feeling that had once only been a distant ache became something more. Time seemed to drag pointlessly on. Nothing really happened? Where once Luo Binghe could not go more than a few months without some incident dragging him into peril or adventure or the arms of a new woman, after the universe-switching incident, nothing more seemed to come. Years passed and though 'things' still happened in the everyday and mundane sense, events of the sort he had known for all of his life did not. It was difficult to describe, but it felt almost as if the eye of some god he had never known was watching had turned away from him; as if his life up to that point had been a ballad, but then the ballad had ended. No matter how many times he attempted to re-open a portal to that other world, he failed. No new opportunities arose. No great inspiration struck him. There wasn't even a scantily-clad woman to appear and offer him the solution to his dilemma - in fact, not a single new woman seemed at all interested in coming into his harem.

Many actually left him. It took him some time to even realize that they had done so, by which point tracking them down again proved too much hassle. No one he missed was among those who left, so it was more the idea of disloyalty that offended him than the reality of their absence. They probably only went in hopes that he would track them down anyway. He had no time for such nonsense.

Five years into this state of affairs, Luo Binghe contemplated matters one early morning. He drew Xin Mo and stared at his reflection in the naked blade. Something in him twisted. It didn't feel like the hunger for violence or burning of lust, so he didn't recognize the danger of it. Instead what he felt was a profound malaise; a sinking apathy, tinged with sorrow and bitterness, shaped like the self-loathing he had never truly rid himself of. That ugly feeling that had first taken form under the cruel words and callous hands of people long dead. The despairing knowledge that no matter what he did, there would never be any point to it. It sank through him like a leaden weight. It made his blood feel like sludge, and his own skin feel as though it were suffocating him. His spiritual veins churned with acrid misalignment.

The qi deviation wracked through him.

Such a strange way for him to die. Luo Binghe knew more than a few means that could have saved him, but he had none of those means at hand at the time. No one rushed into the room at precisely the right moment to intervene. No clarity of understanding broke through the haze of the deviation to enable him to stagger for help, or retrieve one of those hundreds of rare cures from his treasure vaults, or even forcibly drop himself into a coma to preserve his life.

He just... died.

But of course, in the end, things were not simply left at that.

As Luo Binghe drifted in a space that wasn't a dream, but certainly wasn't consciousness either, a scroll seemed to unfurl before him. The scent of the paper threw his senses backwards in time, shockingly, and he felt as he hadn't since he was a disciple at Qing Jing Peak; fumbling through lessons, trying to hold his brush properly while Ming Fan and his cronies snickered at his uncultured attempts.

It wasn't precisely a welcome feeling. Yet it was more nostalgic than he might have guessed.

Characters spread across the open scroll as if being written by some invisible hand.

{Greetings, esteemed patron - this Luo Binghe who has died with many regrets. For the sake of those regrets, we offer an opportunity to live a second life.}

Luo Binghe considered the words distrustfully. At that point, he did not truly believe that he had died - he had come close to dying on many occasions, and had drifted through many realms and states of dreaming before. He had also encountered many beings keen to manipulate and deceive him. How, then, could he then simply take such a scenario at face value?

"Who are you?" he asked, turning in the darkness. "Where is this?"

{To answer the patron's question - we are that which facilitates the transference of souls to various points of place and time, where otherwise they would not arrive on their own. Where we are now is not a space, but merely a moment of perception.}

"A dream state, then," Luo Binghe concluded. He scoffed. "I'll find my way out."

And he attempted to. For an untold length of time, Luo Binghe - master of the dream realms, the most powerful manipulator of space and time to have lived in his world - did everything he could think of to escape the strange place with its self-writing scroll, and evade or discover the unseen beings communicating with him. But no matter what he did, nothing worked. He could not escape the darkness. He could not even manage to destroy or damage the scroll. When he questioned it, it mostly reiterated that he was dead and that he could not leave until he chose to either accept or decline the deal he was being offered.

The first sense of true disquiet made itself known in the face of his futile actions, but also this strange being's seemingly limitless patience.

It was the kind of dismissive nonchalance that spoke of either a ridiculously skilled bluff, or... power.

A lot of power.

Power enough to not even blink at holding one such as Luo Binghe captive.

Luo Binghe had been in tenuous circumstances before, but this felt different. It filled him with a sense of vulnerability that he hadn't experienced since the Abyss.

He did not care for it.

Inevitably, however, his dislike was meaningless. It seemed the only way forward was to either accept or reject the deal being offered.

"You call me 'patron'," he finally said, turning back to the scroll which endlessly erased and rewrote itself. "As if I am somehow soliciting services from you? Yet it seems you are the one seeking something from me."

{Esteemed patron, past transactions have rendered our relationship as such.}

"We've had dealings before? When?"

{Regretfully, we cannot offer such information to patrons who have not achieved sufficient fulfillment to unlock full knowledge of their past lives.}

Luo Binghe frowned.

"You're claiming I made this bargain in another lifetime?"

The scroll did not offer further reply, apparently holding to its assertion that it wouldn't tell him more.

Yet.

Despite himself, however, Luo Binghe's interest had been captured. He had never really contemplated the possibility of past lives. But he had given much thought to notion of alternate lifetimes - and the different choices and possibilities therein. If he had truly lived other lifetimes himself, then this scroll implied that there was a way to regain knowledge of them.

Maybe in one of those lifetimes, Luo Binghe had answered the questions he couldn't answer for himself right now.

Relying on himself had always proved more effective than looking to others. Perhaps this was simply a more elaborate means of doing so?

But there were other implications to consider. If this entity was offering him a deal to live out another life, and if he had taken such a deal in the past, then was his previous lifetime a result of... what? Some kind of bargaining? It might explain the odd sensations he'd had, that something was pulling him along a particular string of fate, leading him to outcomes both painful but ultimately successful. Was the disappearance of that sensation, of the events which acted as catalysts to various incidents, a sign that the old bargain was done?

Luo Binghe did not care to think that he owed his fortunes to some outside hand of fate. However, when he really considered the matter, he decided that this didn't imply that. Just because something was constantly throwing him into situations, that didn't mean he was without autonomy or recourse to handle them himself. He had always done so, in fact. No other entity had fought his battles for him - though it might have presented him with some tools to help. Or hinder, for that matter. For all he knew, any hand of fate that interceded in his life was equally responsible for its tragedies as it was for his successes.

In that case, declining the bargain might be his only chance at escaping such interference.

For a moment he was sorely tempted. He was so tired - failures burned and success felt hollow. Peace, even ceasing to exist altogether, was not the repugnant idea that it should have been.

Of course, that weakness only lasted for a moment.

Luo Binghe had never yet abandoned a goal when it could still be achieved. He had questions. He wanted answers. He wouldn't rest until he got them.

"I will consider negotiating this deal," he offered.

{Esteemed patron, there is little room to negotiate. In a lifetime one accrues debts and builds credit. The weight of these things alone shall determine the nature of the next life.}

"You described this state of being as a moment of perception. How long can such a moment be maintained if I choose neither to accept nor decline your offer?" Luo Binghe wondered, with narrowed eyes.

The scroll did not seem cowed.

{Should the esteemed patron fail to either decline or accept the offer before the window of this moment finally collapses, the decision will be made for him.}

That did not sound desirable.

After a tense stand-off that was painfully one-sided, Luo Binghe forced himself to do something he hadn't done in decades.

He admitted defeat.

"If I accept, what will that mean? What must I do?" Was there any point in accepting another life if he lost all of his memories of the previous one again?

{To answer the patron's question - with the current factors influencing our arrangement, the esteemed patron will be sent to a lifetime with a suitable role available. A life to adopt from one who has abandoned it. Certain advantages and disadvantages will be conferred as determined by the nature of debts and boons acquired from actions in the patron's previous lifetime. We shall accompany you, to offer our services and guidance, and to aid the patron in abolishing his dying regret.}

Luo Binghe let out a breath. If only this thing were a woman - he'd have it seduced and complying with his wishes by now.

As if detecting his resignation, the scroll changed again, outlining a suspiciously simplistic contract which more or less detailed what had been described before. At the bottom was a place for Luo Binghe's signature. Beside the scroll, a brush appeared.

Without losing any of his unease, Luo Binghe took the brush and made his mark.

An instant later, the darkness bled away and the world turned harshly bright.

~

It all happened both very quickly, and very slowly.

Shen Yuan – layabout sickly third son of a wealthy family, chronic novel reader and notorious complainer, origin of several infamous copy pastas – had finished his latest web novel obsession in a fugue state of rage. Getting up from his chair, he had gone in search of something to eat to at least give him something to gnash his teeth around. He’d fumbled in the fridge, and ended up knocking over his last packet of promotional dessert treats from the convention he'd attended two weeks ago. The contents splattered onto the kitchen floor.

Shen Yuan turned his nose up at the mess, and the sour smell.

Fuck it. Fine. He didn’t have anything left – maybe a walk would help him figure out how to channel his rage more constructively, so he could leave another comment and properly eviscerate that hack writer, Airplane-Shooting-Towards-the-Sky.

Muttering the whole time, Shen Yuan hastily cleaned up the mess, then grabbed his coat and headed for his door instead.

Outside the weather was unseasonably cold and slippery. A group of kids dashed past him, all dressed in cute rain coats and boots, laughing as one of them held up some toy or other at the front of their procession. Shen Yuan had no idea what their game was, but his mood lifted a little bit. They were a cute bunch, some he even knew as his neighbours. Not by name, or anything, but just from seeing them around.

Innocent children, unaware that they were living in the same world as trash fiction by hack authors. He almost envied them.

His uplifted mood carried him all the way to the corner shop, where he loaded up on snacks and bottled drinks. Arms burdened with two bags, Shen Yuan headed back the way he came.

The children were still playing in the puddles near the building when he got back. But things seemed to have taken a turn. Two of the older children had grabbed a colourful doll of some sort from one of the smaller ones. They were tossing it back and forth between them, while the little one – obviously distressed – struggled to try and reclaim it.

“Give it back!” she cried, tiny voice breaking.

Shen Yuan frowned.

Bullying?

He looked around, wondering where the adults were. None seemed to be within sight. Should he...? But he wasn’t really responsible for these children, if he intervened then it would be just his luck if the parents happened upon them and decided he was some weirdo, messing with their kids...

Just as he was deliberating, one of the older children threw too wide. The other fumbled the catch, and the doll bounced off of his hand – towards the road.

Shen Yuan’s eyes widened in horror. He saw how things were going to happen at once, as the little girl cried out and then rushed towards the doll. The street wasn’t empty. There were several cars coming, driving slick across the wet pavement, and there was no fence or barricade at all on this part of the street. Time seemed to slow down. Some part of Shen Yuan thought ‘I am going to watch a child get hit by a car’.

Except even as he had that thought, he was already moving. With a speed he hadn’t known he possessed, hadn’t used since he was thirteen and watching his little sister about to tumble down the flight of stairs at his parents' main house, he surged forwards and closed a hand around the back of the young girl’s jacket. He yanked backwards, pulling her clumsily – but safely – away from the road.

Shopping bags clattered on the walkway. The doll bounced off the hood of a passing car. Breaks shrieked.

Shen Yuan wasn’t a healthy or athletic person. His shoes weren’t right for the weather. Even as he yanked the kid back he himself slipped, slid forwards, and hit the pavement.

The last thing he saw was a tire heading right for his face.

~

{Assessing... assessing... Factor: Noble Death Parameter has been detected...}

{Dying Lament Levels Achieved}

{Dying Lament Words Not Detected}

{Password Not Detected}

{Soulmate Passkey Detected}

{Passkey Type: Platonic}

{Passkey match processing... processing... processing...}

{Passkey Target Identified: Subject – Shen, 9, Worlds: PIDW89SVSSS0IWYWMH9231, Iterations 0001C-2056C}

{Passkey match processing... processing... processing...}

{Suitable match not found, Factor: Noble Death Parameter precludes all available matches due to High Instability, High Tragedy Quotient, HE probabilities below minimum threshold, Factor: You Can You Up, No Can No BB not found, Factor: Instant World Associated Match found but not applicable due to conflict, Factor: Bingge's Quest, Unattached found}

{Auto system disengaged, please standby for a customer service representative...}

{...}

{...}

{Thank you for your patience! Redirecting...}

{Processing claim...}

{...}

{...}

{...}

{Claim has been processed!}

{Initiating Custom Character Protocols}

{Populating Inventory}

{Establishing System Interface}

{Please standby... estimated processing time 11000 hours... 12 minutes... 1546 hours... -15 hours... 5 minutes... 132 yellow... 8 billion lightyears... 4 coins... 2 birds... 1 stone... 6 American minutes... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...}

{Process complete! Thanking the user for their patience! We hope you enjoy your transmigration experience!}

~

When Shen Yuan woke up, the first coherent thought he could manage was:

I hope those kids weren’t traumatized too badly.

He didn’t imagine there were very high odds of they go out mentally unscathed, though. While it was definitely better, objectively, that his skull went splat instead of a little girl, he also couldn’t imagine that was the sort of thing most children would shrug off witnessing. At least if they lived in his neighbourhood, their parents could probably afford therapy? Ah, but what was he thinking, none of them had gotten their brains splattered on the pavement so it was still better than the alternative! Meanwhile, poor him, whose head had gotten pancaked!

Sitting up, Shen Yuan winced at the phantom feeling of a headache. He didn’t remember the experience of his skull being squashed like a ripe melon, and for that he was grateful. It probably wasn’t the kind of memory worth hanging onto.

He didn’t doubt that it had happened, though. He still remembered the voice that had gone through his head quite clearly, and while he wasn’t entirely sure of all the particulars, he had read enough transmigration novels to be confident of the basics. He didn’t waste a lot of time wondering if it was a dream or something. One quick look around the room he was in confirmed that it wasn’t a place he had seen before. He didn’t feel any disorientation about the matter, apart from his headache and a crick in his neck.

Shen Yuan sat with the idea for a minute. No one else was around, and he needed that much time, at least, to process some things.

He’d died.

Well. He’d always knew he would. Technically everyone knew they would, but in his own case he’d been expecting it more or less whenever. So actually, he was... he was pretty fine with this. Probably would have been better if he could have given his family an open-casket death, he thought, with a wince for his poor face. But, dying to save somebody? An innocent kid? At least his death had some kind of meaning. He remembered what that strange automated voice had said before he woke up, as well – ‘noble death parameter’?

Shen Yuan almost wanted to laugh. Was that really noble? He supposed it at least wasn't bad, but he hadn’t even thought of it. A kid was in trouble, who wouldn’t have reached to stop it? He didn't mean to sacrifice his life for hers, he'd just slipped! Who got bonus points for incompetent buffoonery? But hey, yeah, it was noble right? He wouldn't contest the claim. At least his family could also say so, and wouldn't have to be embarrassed about him dying in a puddle of puke or something. The thought conjured up images of his parents and siblings at his funeral, being able to accept condolences and having friends and cousins call Shen Yuan heroic and praise his parents for raising such a person - which made for a nicer event than the funeral they'd probably expected, where everyone would have to talk around the fact that Shen Yuan had died on the toilet or something.

After a strange moment where he wasn't sure what he felt, the laugh he held back actually did escape him. He moved a hand to his head, and blinked as a shockingly long strand of hair fell into his field of vision.

Ah, right! He’d transmigrated as well! That was interesting. Was he the hero of some grand story now? Could he actually pull that sort of thing off?

System? he mentally inquired, testing.

{Welcome, new user! System 407 is ready to assist!}

Shen Yuan laughed again, and resettled onto the hard bed he'd woken up on. With keener eyes he looked around himself. Definitely some kind of period piece, by the looks of things. The room he was in seemed kind of nondescript, though. It was very tidy, and there weren't many personal touches. More the kind of plain decorations which made him think of a spa or hotel? His gaze landed on a silver bag that was settled not too far from the bed. A sheathed sword leaned against the wall beside it. On top of a chest at the foot of the bed were some folded up squares of silky material - clothing, maybe? Shen Yuan himself was dressed in a single, thin robe.

The body underneath the robe looked a lot more fit than the one he remembered. It also didn't feel... bad. It didn't feel like much of anything, in fact. But what he meant was, he could feel it if he pinched himself, there was no numbness or such, yet, there was... nothing? No aches, no throbbing, no discomfort when he moved, no lethargy, twinging...

It was a little strange. He felt so light.

Oh, was he a cultivator?

Shen Yuan closed his eyes and attempted his best approximation of inward meditation. Almost as soon as he did so, his awareness lit up a new sense of himself. Spiritual veins! He had spiritual veins! And a golden core!

System, what's up? Whose body is this?

{Answering user query: this body is the user's physical form.}

Okay. Either a very literal or somewhat snarky system, he could work with that. Shen Yuan settled down again and rephrased.

Is there an introductory packet available?

{Processing... processing... introductory packet has been downloaded.}

{Welcome, user, to the world of (File Not Found)! According our records, (User Shen Yuan No.8737) has died with a (Noble Death Parameter) active. In light of user's (total wasted lifetime as a layabout whose only significant contribution to the world has been several online rants), user was deemed suitable for (Ironic Transmigration) by local monitors. However, with the benefits of a (Noble Death Parame-?! how'd this self-absorbed fucker stumble into such a thing?!) active, user's account has been upgraded to require (Baseline HE Probability 50%). Therefor, system management has unlocked a new timeline to meet user's unique status! (User Shen Yuan No.8737) has been matched with the earliest possible placement to intervene in a fantastical world where a (Platonic Soulmate Typematch) exists, to reach requirement of (Baseline HE Probability 50%). In order to further reach requirement of (Baseline HE Probability 50%), (User Shen Yuan No.8737) has additionally been equipped with the following: (Custom Body: Cultivation Level Low)(Revised: Custom Body: Cultivation Level Medium)(Revised: Custom Body: Cultivation Level High)(Custom Background: No Detail)(Equipment: Sword - Rusty)(Revised: Equipment: Spiritual Weapon - Sword)(Equipment: Basic Supplies)(Equipment: Wallet - Extra Small)(Revised: Equipment: Wallet- Small)(Revised: Equipment: Wallet- Medium)(Revised: Equipment: Wallet- Large)(Equipment: Fine I'll give him clothes too I guess are we at 50% yet?)(Equipment: Hand Fan - Basic)}

Shen Yuan mulled this information over quietly. That seemed a lot like some kind of form with the blanks filled in. And filled in by some 'monitor' who didn't sound as though they liked him very much. But the monitor didn't appear to be the same entity as his system itself, thank goodness, and he didn't think this system of his was terribly intelligent. Or, if it was, it was sneaky - which might be more trouble. He'd read a few novels where the systems caused as much trouble as they solved. But he put that thought away for the time being.

In all fairness, he supposed that the assessment of his life was accurate. Scathing... but accurate.

Apparently he had even more reason to be glad that he'd saved someone else's life before he died! Phew! Seemed like he'd dodged a bullet, if not a tire.

And from what he could glean, he'd been transmigrated into a world that needed to give him at least fair odds of getting a happy ending? That was good! Plus it sounded like he'd been given a whole new character to embody. And... like he had a soulmate? Shen Yuan felt his stomach flip at the thought, before his mind caught up to the other detail: the system had said platonic soulmate.

So... not some beautiful maiden for him to romance?

It was hard to feel too disappointed at that, when he'd still managed to get a cool sword, a healthy body, and what seemed like a whole entire adventure out of the deal. Platonic soulmate? Also sounded good, actually! Some bro to become bosom eternal companions with! He was basically a novel character! How neat was that? Just so long as he wasn't in some dogblood novel like 'Proud Immortal Demon Way' then this was the best outcome he could have ever hoped for. But according to this system, the world he was in didn't even have a name! So it probably wasn't anything he would recognize anyway - it was just a world that happened to have his soulmate in it.

Shen Yuan ran a hand down his face thoughtfully.

Hmm. His face didn't feel any different? What was this 'custom' body of his like?

Searching around the room, Shen Yuan eventually turned up a polished bronze mirror.

The face in his reflection was definitely his own face. But, before he could get too disappointed, he noted that it wasn't exactly the same. Gone were the sunken eye sockets and hollow cheeks, the skin so pale that it readily showed the blue of his veins like bruises beneath rice paper. This skin he had now had a healthy amount of colour in it. Long, fine hair fell out of a messy braid he'd obviously slept in, and the eyes that stared back at him were an unnatural shade of green.

Cool!

He also definitely had more muscles than before, though to his chagrin he wasn't beefy like a bodybuilder, and he didn't seem to be any taller either.

System, can I request modifications to this body?

{Answering user query: negative.}

Worth a shot.

When he was satisfied with his reflection, Shen Yuan put the mirror away again. He then set about inspecting everything else he had. The squares of fabric on top of the chest were indeed clothing - robes, some hair ties, and a set of socks and silver boots. The material was fine but the designs were also pretty plain. Well, it was 'default' stuff according to the introductory packet, so that wasn't a surprise. It was better than being naked for sure. There only seemed to be the one set of clothes as well, and he was unsure of how he was supposed to put them on - they looked traditional, obviously, but not like any of the traditional clothing he'd actually worn. There were a lot of periods to go through, but he had the niggling suspicion that this was more of a 'different world' or 'fantasy world' type situation than that. This being a cultivation setting loaned further credence to the idea that he wouldn't be able to place himself in a specific era.

Luckily, the system had a tutorial on how to dress himself. And do his own hair.

After handling all of that as best as he could, Shen Yuan turned to the bag and sword. The sword he saved for last. The bag appeared to be some kind of magical storage pouch - too big for the usual qiankun pouch, but also not infinite, he discovered, after he tried and failed to fit several random things from the room inside as an experiment. It looked like it could hold slightly more than a couple backpacks, but it was still pretty cool! Inside already he found a plain white hand fan, a hefty purse, a small bottle labelled 'emergency medicinal pills' with three pills inside, a single flask full of water, and a package with a couple of mantou wrapped up in it.

Satisfied that he'd examined everything, Shen Yuan finally let himself look at his sword.

His! Sword!!!

The sheath was very plain, but the handle looked quite beautifully carved to him. It wasn't too ornate, but there was a gracefulness to it that he would have preferred anyway. Flashy weapons usually just meant that their owners died really stupid deaths. When he drew the sword from its sheath, he immediately felt a sense of connection click into place.

{Sword Activation Detected. Finalizing Soul Sword Sync, please standby...}

{...}

{...}

{...Sync Completed! What would user like to name this sword?}

{Tutorial Mode: Fields that appear in red are Required Fields and do not have Ignore functions}

A text input screen blinked into existence in front of him. It was, indeed, red. The world around him seemed to slow down as it popped up, almost as if someone had hit 'pause' on the universe.

Shen Yuan considered for a moment, stumped. He'd never actually thought about naming something like a spiritual sword before. He'd read a lot of books with swords, of course, but for some reason he'd never really entertained the daydream of having a moment like this personally. He couldn't have even said why - he'd definitely daydreamed similar things many times. The closest thing he could compare it with was, of all things, the scum villain's sword in Proud Immortal Demon Way.

That Shen Qingqiu character sucked - he was one-dimensional, a shitty child abuser who had heaps of ludicrously evil actions to his name. The kind of character who would just burn down an orphanage to make himself extra hate-worthy. But for some reason, Shen Yuan had just really liked his sword? He'd liked the descriptions of it, as if he could see its beauty clearly in his mind's eye.

The sword in his hands now didn't look quite like the one he'd imagined, but with its gleaming silver blade, it wasn't far off either.

However, Shen Yuan couldn't just steal the name 'Xiu Ya'. What if he also stole some of the scum villain's shit awful luck in the process? He put the idea aside.

As he looked at the sword again, feeling at something of a loss, his eyes caught on a subtle detail. At the middle of the blade, the silvery weapon's material took on an unexpected green hue. Less striking than the colour of Shen Yuan's new eyes, but still distinct once he was looking at it. His mind turned again to the unnecessary tragedies of Proud Immortal Demon Way.

"Qing Long," he decided. "Qing Long Sword."

The name seemed to be fitting.

...Or else really really tacky?

Before he could overthink it or change his mind, he put the characters 青龙 into the window in front of himself, and hit 'enter'.

The sword in his hand shimmered briefly.

When Shen Yuan looked, he noticed that the hilt and pommel had taken on a scaled motif, like a dragon's claw.

Cool!!!

The temptation to test out this new toy was very strong, but Shen Yuan fought it back. A sword like this wasn't really a toy, and he wasn't a big enough idiot to start swinging it around inside some unknown building. If what the system told him was true, then he had some considerable cultivation ability in this body. Based on what he knew, that meant he could potentially level a whole block if he wasn't careful! He had been given a good sum of money to start with, by the looks of things, but in this world he also couldn't assume he had any family to fall back on - and it was probably better not to blow his funds on paying for needless building repairs just because he got over-excited.

He would find other, better things to blow all of his money on. He doubted this world had web-novels but surely it had novels of some kind, right?

System, what can you tell me about myself? Do I know anyone in this world?

{Answering user query: this user has been provided with a custom background of the lowest possible detail settings. Low detail backgrounds provide enough legitimacy to exist in the world without accruing undue suspicion, but come with no relationships or familial connections.}

Ah, okay. That made sense. So, he was basically a rogue cultivator? No sect? He prodded the system and got an affirmative.

A little more prodding revealed that he was located at a simple, average inn, which in turn was located in a large-but-not-terribly-grandiose city. Basic stuff all around, it seemed. Before he finally left his room in search of further clues, the system offered him another red prompt box - this time with a demand that he input his name.

Shen Yuan thought about changing it. He could have any name he wanted - he could pick something cool! But in the end, he'd always actually been really terrible at coming up with names for characters or personas. His online names were almost always bad jokes that weren't even original. And then he got attached to them and never bothered to change them, leaving him using logins from when he was thirteen.

So, after delaying another moment, Shen Yuan simply put his name in as 'Shen Yuan'. At least it would be easy to answer to!

Outside of the room, the inn he was at did indeed look pretty... inoffensive? Bland and kind of forgettable, but clean and serviceable too, he supposed. A woman greeted him once he got to the end of the hall, and asked if he would like breakfast or tea. Shen Yuan thought about it, but his stomach wasn't grumbling, and he had a strong suspicion that anything a place like this served him would be very plain and boring. He declined, and instead slung his bag over his shoulder and set out to explore the rest of the world.

Yunping City was not a place he could recall hearing about in any of the novels he'd read or games he'd played, though of course, he could have just forgotten it if it wasn't any kind of big deal. The city around him was large and busy, and felt very much like a living set from a period drama. Except that every so often, something bigger than most birds would fly overhead.

Shen Yuan had to swallow back a giddy laugh at the thought.

People flew on swords here! It really was that kind of setting, huh? Did they have sword rentals, too, like in a certain crap novel?

He had a notion to draw his sword and give it a try, but much like swinging the weapon around, it seemed more prudent to do that when he wasn't in the middle of a populated area. He didn't want to make a fool of himself on his first day in his new life.

Which reminded him.

System, is there anything I'm supposed to do now? he wondered, as he made his way down the biggest streets. A carriage went by, rather fancy looking; riders on horses gave anyone too close formidable looks to clear the way. Around him, the local pedestrians just gave it a wide berth as if it was ingrained habit by now.

{Answering user query - would user like to accept a quest assignment?}

Shen Yuan considered.

I'm not sure, he admitted. Then he considered a little more. What about my soulmate? You mentioned that earlier. Shouldn't I go find them or something?

{There are no related quests at this time.}

He decided to rephrase.

Where's my soulmate? Who are they? What's their name?

After all, that was the best 'lead' he had for securing some kind of happy ending at this point, right? He didn't want to wait around for anything to just come up and blindside him. Apparently, he'd been sent to a point in time that gave him the earliest possible chance at a good outcome - Shen Yuan wasn't stupid. If that was the case, then he probably needed to take some kind of action, or else who knew what might happen to screw him over? Or screw his soulmate over?

{User has not yet unlocked the system function 'Soulmate GPS'. Would User care to purchase this function for 300 FU Points?}

Wait, wait, wait.

This was Pay-to-Win?

Shen Yuan made a face. When a passing pedestrian gave him an odd look, he took the hand fan out of his bag, and used it cover up any stray grimaces that he might be making as he carried on.

What are 'FU' Points? Do I have any?

{Answering user query: FU Points are a form of system currency that can be used to purchase tools and cheats. Earn points by completing quests and accomplishing goals! User's current FU Point Total is: 1}

One?!

One?!

That cheapskate in upper management with a grudge had definitely stiffed him on that!

{Would user like to accept a quest?}

Well, it didn't seem like he had much alternatives if he needed points, now did it?

Fine. I'll do a quest.

A screen popped up in front of him, and the world around him slowed down again. Curious, Shen Yuan watched as the hustle and bustle nearby also slowed to a crawl. It didn't stop completely, but it was as if everyone had been placed on extreme slow-mo. The colour also leeched out from the world somewhat. In a fit of experimentation, Shen Yuan attempted to move around a little, but as soon as he got more than a few steps the system buzzed angrily at him and he got a feeling as if he'd just smacked into an invisible wall.

Okay. So. No abusing the 'pause' function, it seemed.

Shen Yuan sighed, then took the opportunity to scroll through a short list he'd been provided. Just like in a video game, apparently there were a few 'quests' he could choose from. Next to them were point totals - one in green, which was always smaller, and one in red below it. The first quest had a green 50, and a red 100.

System, what do the green and red numbers indicate? he asked, though he had a strong suspicion.

{Answering user query: green numbers indicate points gained for successful quest completion. Red numbers indicate points lost for failure.}

Uh-huh. And, what happens if my point total drops below zero?

{Answering user query: point total below zero will first cause a warning. Failure to restore points above minimum threshold within three days will activate Penalty functions. Possible penalties include but are not limited to: loss of equipment, corporal punishment, and removal from the transmigration program. Suitable penalties will be decided by system monitors based on the severity of infractions in conjunction with user records.}

Hmm.

So if he got negative FU Points, the asshole who hated him could choose how to punish him? Including beating him up or just booting him out of the world altogether? Would that last thing kill him, if they sent him back to his body - aka the crushed melon head?

For a moment Shen Yuan was sorely tempted to toss out the idea of doing any quests at all. He could probably live an okay life just like this, right? He seemed pretty strong. As long as he stayed away from big trouble, he could wander around, see some sights, spend the money in his big wallet...

...But then his odds of finding this soulmate of his or getting an actual, happy ending would probably be less than zero.

Shen Yuan had never thought of himself as the ambitious or even idealistic type. But, well, it wasn't every day a person learned that they had an actual soulmate, was it? He would probably never get a chance like this again.

He turned back to the list of quests.

The first one had simple parameters, at least - it only said 'attend a nighthunt'. Shen Yuan prodded at the system some more and confirmed that, so long as he attended the event, the requirements would be considered fulfilled and he would get the points. If he accepted the quest and didn't manage to attend the nighthunt within the allotted time frame (two weeks, according to the system) then he would lose points instead.

Since attending something seemed to have a pretty low chance of failure, Shen Yuan decided he'd start with that one.

In hindsight, he definitely should have asked more questions first.

~

See, the thing about quests was this - there was never just one part.

Accepting a quest actually locked him into something called a 'quest chain'. Once he accepted the first part and completed it, there was a chance that the completion would initiate another quest. Only, unlike the first part, Shen Yuan wasn't at liberty to accept or decline; completion of the first part automatically meant he got roped into the next part. And the next, and so on, until he got to the end of the quest chain. And each segment of the quest chain offered points as rewards and took them away as punishment - points deducted for failure were inevitably higher than points offered for success.

He felt like he'd been suckered into an online scam. 'All you have to do is this itty bitty quest! It's easy points! Just use my referral link, and-'

Shen Yuan's expression was stony and furious as he slashed through his twelfth variety of spider monster of the night.

Qing Long responded to movements from his hands that he had never learned, but knew anyway. The novelty had worn off somewhere around the fifth update in the quest chain - part of him still felt like this was very cool, but most of him was now exceptionally tired. He had been doing this for more than twenty-four hours, though the particulars were also lost to him. He didn't have a digital watch or anything after all.

First it had been 'attend a nighthunt'. Shen Yuan needed to find out where one was occurring in order to attend it, of course, but luckily he was an avid reader; he'd gone back to the inn and asked if anyone knew of anything. The proprietor hadn't, but had known the name of a tea house where cultivators were known to frequent, located in one of the richer parts of the city.

Sure enough, at the tea house, Shen Yuan had found a group of youngsters discussing a particular spot where they were planning to go rout out some walking corpses. He had listened in long enough to ascertain where the spot was, then gotten directions from some of the locals. Not being sure how long it would take him to get there, he had then headed out of the city and set off.

Sword flying was, he discovered, something he already knew how to do. It certainly wasn't something he'd known how to do before he died, seeing as how Shen Yuan had never even been able to balance on a skateboard or ride a bike, but apparently his new body had the muscle memory for it. He found himself holding the right position without even thinking - the trouble, in fact, was when he did think. Instincts were one thing, but his mind was still his mind, and Shen Yuan had never flown anywhere in his life.

It took some getting used to. The less said about the number of times he had tripped himself up and nearly fallen off, the better.

But he still managed to get to the foot of a nearby mountain before nightfall.

Well before nightfall.

Shen Yuan loitered around, vaguely regretting his haste until it occurred to him that he was alone with no one else around. And if he was to 'attend' a nighthunt, even if he didn't participate much, there was a chance he'd be expected to fight.

Summoning Qing Long (that was so awesome) he examined it again; then he started to practice.

The first few times, he held the sword in his hand and swung it. Qing Long made an elegant swoosh sound as it cut through the air. Even without Shen Yuan doing anything, the sword seemed imbued with enough spiritual energy that it left a faint trail of sparkles. It gleamed in the sunlight, but the energy coming off of it felt cool, almost like water.

When Shen Yuan let go, the sword hovered in place. As if waiting patiently.

Since he was alone, Shen Yuan gave up and gave in, and let out a squeal of delight. He bounced from one foot to the other, clapped his hands, then reached out and took the sword again. As a proper cultivator, the best way to wield it wouldn't even require holding it, but he was trying not to get ahead of himself. He had read too many books about stupid young men who rushed headlong and discovered their actual limits the hard way. Every time, Shen Yuan thought to himself 'if that were me, I'd never be so dumb!'

Time for this ancestor to put his money where his mouth was on that, right?

Birds chirped and wind rustled in the trees. The environment wasn't bad. Shen Yuan tried using his sword with some spiritual energy, and discovered he had enough to easily slice three trees in half without breaking a sweat. When he let go of the sword and tried to manipulate it, the gestures came naturally to him - but, much like with flying, it was also very easy to trip himself up. He had to not think too much about what he was doing, more focus on what he wanted to do and trust his own instincts - that was harder than expected though. Shen Yuan was not accustomed to trusting his body.

After more than two hours of practice, he went back to using his hands to wield the sword. It seemed he was less apt to make mistakes that way, even if it wasn't the ideal method. Oh well. The group he'd listened in on were young - if this was the junior leagues of nighthunting, as it were, then he'd probably be fine even at this stage. Just so long as he didn't expend too much energy on practising beforehand.

With that thought in mind, Shen Yuan headed over to a nearby log - not one he'd felled; those were still sticky with sap - and sat down. He rummaged in his bag until he found the mantou that the system had packed for him, and carefully snacked on one while he looked around a bit more.

He wasn't even tired.

If this was what being a healthy person felt like, no wonder everyone used to get so impatient with him in his past life.

After he finished his snack he meditated for a while, and tried to figure out more about his brand new cultivation. It seemed to him that while he definitely appreciated having the work done, as it were, this also meant he was liable to make a lot of mistakes - were qi deviations a thing in this setting? He prodded at the system again and interrogated it for a bit to confirm that yes, indeed, he could fuck himself over by not knowing what he was doing. Then he went back to meditating with renewed conviction. Maybe finding some cultivation manuals would help - most likely, anything that would actually him help him make further progress would be very valuable and a closely guarded possession of some sect or other, but there was a chance even the basics could help him get a better grasp on what he had been given with this new body.

Though there was also a chance that anything he could find would be worse than useless. In many cultivation settings, there was no such thing as 'one-size fits all' for cultivating. Different styles clashed, some things that worked for one would not work for another, sometimes people just hit walls and could never break through - it was why the 'remarkable' cultivators who usually formed the protagonist's inner circle (and populated their enemy circles too) were so special. It was also why so many settings had such 'hands off' teaching as the standard. To some extent, every cultivator was a prodigy who was just handed a manual that might as well read 'if you're so smart, you figure it out'. You can you up.

Meditation could really eat up some time when one was into it. Shen Yuan did as best he could, and after a point he blinked his eyes open to find that the sky was dark. He was abruptly aware of a presence somewhere at the periphery of his sense. A presence, and something else. Something... foul.

A soft chime sounded through the air.

{Congratulations! User has completed the Basic Nighthunt quest stage one. FU Points have been awarded. Quest updated: assist the overrun cultivators.}

Wait, updated? Stage, what 'stage'? Assist who?

The sounds of terrified screaming reached his ears. Shen Yuan froze, utterly uncertain of what to do.

{Warning: quest will fail if ally cultivator numbers drop below 50%.}

What do you mean? I didn't accept another quest! Shen Yuan thought, frantically.

{Warning-}

Oh, fuck off! Fine! The screaming was really disconcerting anyway. With a muttered curse under his breath, Shen Yuan took off in the direction of the ruckus. He would deal with the system and its nonsense later, he decided.

Except a few minutes later he reached a small stream, and found the same young disciples he'd listened in on at the tea house, now busy being beaten up by a pack of horrifying spider demons. Shen Yuan felt horror too, but not entirely for the same reasons - while it was definitely different to see real, in-person monsters, and to watch a bunch of highschool age kids being attacked by them, the bulk of his horror was reserved for the fact that he was pretty sure he recognized the monsters.

With the false faces of humans on their abdomens, the creatures shrieked and lunged for the youngsters' heads, hunting in packs. Their wails sounded like the cries of infants, making the whole thing that much more jarring.

System?! Is this the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way?! he demanded hotly.

{Answering user query: no.}

Then why are there Human-Headed Spiders here?!

{Answering user query: demonic beasts are rife throughout the world. These are hostile encounters.}

No shit. Well. Fine. That was another thing to sort out later - Shen Yuan's decision was further cemented when one of the spiders suddenly jumped out of the shadows of the nearby trees to his left, and attacked him. Fortunately, there wasn't even time to think, so Qing Long moved before he could second guess the reaction. The Human-Headed Spider was cleaved neatly in two.

Not too far off, a trio of spiders were on the verge of overwhelming one of the kids he'd eavesdropped on at the tea house in Yunping. With a sigh of resignation to cover up the way his heart was hammering in his chest (this was real, this was real), Shen Yuan sent his sword slashing across the woodland to bisect another of the spiders, then spear a third.

The fight was on. The spiders were numerous and the kids were very clearly overwhelmed, but luckily it seemed they weren't without skills of their own either. Though they appeared very surprised to have an unexpected third party interrupt their near-massacre, it wasn't long before they rallied and then decided to group around him. A young lady with steely dark eyes erected some kind of barrier - Shen Yuan let Qing Long sweep out around the perimeter and slash down spiders as they approached. Though several more spiders actually flung themselves into the barrier, and found gaps they could breach, the remaining youths were able to take care of them now that there was no longer one overwhelming swarm.

The wave of Human-Headed Spiders wasn't unending. After a few messy hours, all that remained were body parts and errant strings of webbing, waving eerily in the night air. If there were more spiders, they had finally given up a direct assault as too suicidal to bother with.

The girl who put up the barrier gave it a moment more before dropping her arms. And then dropping her stance, too, as she immediately fell to one knee.

"Shijie!" a younger girl cried, hurrying to her side. "Are you alright? Did they get you?"

"Fine," the elder said through heavy breaths. "Just... did too much. I never held a barrier that long before."

Qing Long flew back to Shen Yuan's hand. He opted to keep a grip on it, just in case any more spiders came back, and took a closer look at his new associates.

There were six of them. Four girls plus two boys, which matched up with his recollections from the tea house, though he hadn't actually counted them then. The girls were all dressed in dark colours, mostly black with plum-coloured accents and veils on three of them. All of them carried swords except for the youngest, who had no veil and a whip at her belt instead. Shen Yuan couldn't recall seeing her actually use it yet.

The two boys were a little different. They had a similar look to one another, but the younger boy couldn't have been more than thirteen or maybe even twelve - the youngest of the group, he judged. He was dressed in white, and also had a veil for some reason, and in the night air his hands trembled around his sword. The older boy wore robes in a dark violet ombre, fading to lavender, and was likely the reason his companion looked so pale - the spiders had clearly gotten onto his face at one point. The young man was bleeding from his eyes, ears, and nose, and had been slumped up against a tree trunk ever since the kids converged on Shen Yuan's location.

Since none of the girls looked to have any worse injuries than some gashes and scrapes, Shen Yuan let Qing Long return to its sheath for now, and knelt down next to the older boy.

Lucky thing he knew some first aid, although this was pretty extensive head trauma. He took the boy's pulse, which was still there, thank goodness. Shen Yuan had gone to a lot of trouble to avoid watching one kid die, he wasn't eager to be present for the gruesome end of another, slightly older one! He'd never really considered it before, but it was pretty dark the way that settings like this had people so young being constantly in peril. Having spent a lot of time in children's wards in hospitals in his own youth, Shen Yuan knew the names of more than a few children who hadn't gotten better.

The boy's eyes fluttered.

"Master, can you help him?" one of the girls asked. Shen Yuan glanced over and realized that the rest of the children were watching him with an odd mixture of hopefulness and wariness.

He was a strange adult in their midst. The wariness was probably merited, but come on, hadn't he only helped so far?

Shen Yuan scratched his head. What was he supposed to do for multiple puncture wounds caused by demon spider legs? That would undoubtedly require different methods than a simple concussion, but maybe if they carried him back to the city and found a healer...?

Another chime resounded through the air, and the world 'paused' again.

{Congratulations! User has completed the Basic Nighthunt 2 quest. FU Points have been awarded. Quest updated: attempt to aid Young Master Yu.}

The system didn't precisely point anyone out for being 'Young Master Yu', but he still felt he could make an educated guess on who needed medicine the most right now.

At least he had some.

Reaching into his bag, Shen Yuan pulled out the emergency pill bottle.

Could it actually be that simple?

A sigh escaped him.

"These are all I have. He'll have to swallow one," he explained. "Someone help me keep his head in the right position, his nose is still bleeding, I don't want him to choke..."

The younger boy moved shakily, but after a moment, the girl who had asked for help patted his shoulder and then took his place. Though she could have only been a few years older than the boy, her hands were admirably steady as she helped keep hold on her senior. Shen Yuan had never force-fed anyone a pill before, but unfortunately the patient didn't seem coherent enough to take it himself, so he worked with what he'd seen from television and popped the pill in, then held the older boy's mouth shut until he swallowed.

Blood smeared his hands.

After a moment the boy's bleeding eyes rolled back, and he slumped.

Hurriedly, Shen Yuan checked his pulse. And - oh, right! Spiritual energy! Maybe he could share some? Though, that could be very a dangerous and reckless approach in the hands of anyone who didn't know what they were doing. Which was certainly him, in this case. Opting not to try it, Shen Yuan focused on confirming instead that the boy was still breathing and his heart was still beating.

"We should-" he began.

A chime brought him up short.

{Congratulations! User has completed the Basic Nighthunt 3 quest. FU Points have been awarded. Quest updated: fend off the next wave of the nest.}

Shit.

Standing up, Shen Yuan drew his sword once more.

"You need to get out of here. Can all of you fly?" he asked the kids.

"I can't," the younger boy admittedly softly. "I don't have good balance yet. Shixiong brought me on his sword, but he..."

His voice trembled.

In the distance, between the trees, several long silhouettes - like the legs of giant spiders, moving in the moonlight - caught Shen Yuan's notice.

He did a quick assessment. The eldest girl was still obviously exhausted beyond measure, and couldn't get back on her feet yet. The other three looked better off, but all of them were bleeding. The eldest boy was still unconscious, and the youngest couldn't fly and was a clear rookie fighter. He also wasn't sure the three remaining girls could safely carry the incapable kids away, especially since one of those girls also didn't appear to have a sword.

"Oh, we shouldn't have done this, we should have waited for Shizun and Shimu..." the youngest girl murmured, from where she was still crouched next to her shijie's side.

"Do you have any emergency flares? Anyone to come and get you?" Shen Yuan tried, with sinking dread that he already knew the answer. Something cracked within earshot; his senses flared, and Qing Long shot out - there was an eerie cry from between the trees. A shadow slumped to the ground. Shen Yuan's sword returned, the blade doused in black blood.

"No," the eldest girl answered him, between deep breaths. "We were just supposed to attend a festival, but we heard about people and livestock going missing near here. We thought... we thought it would be good to help, and to do our sect credit..."

Or impressive and very grown-up to handle it all on their own, probably.

He remembered listening in on them after all.

The two armed girls still on their feet moved a little closer around him.

"Qianbei," one of the girls said to him. "May we have your name?"

"This one is Shen Yuan," he provided.

She ducked her head, though didn't salute him - understandable, considering that he'd also prefer it if she kept her eyes on the trees.

"We're from the Meishan Yu clan. I am Liu Miaoshi, my seniors are Yu Xingbei and Yu Xingli, but I can speak for us until they are no longer exhausted. If you can help us, we'll be grateful and won't forget it."

Liu, huh? Like Liu Mingyan? And some of them were wearing veils... Shen Yuan pushed the thought aside. The system said this wasn't Proud Immortal Demon Way, and even if it was, they still had to deal with rampaging spider demons. Now was not the time to ask anyone if they'd heard of Cang Qiong sect or were related to anyone with the courtesy name 'Mingyan'. Besides, he was sure he'd never read about any 'Meishan Yu' clan.

"Of course I'll help," Shen Yuan said.

That was all the exchanges they had time for, then, because the first giant spider demon dropped out of the tree and at that point fighting was more important.

Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on one's thinking - Shen Yuan recognized these monsters also. Giant Batwing Spiders. They'd shown up in some of the early Abyss chapters of Proud Immortal Demon Way, when Luo Binghe stumbled into a nest they were building out of the corpse of a much larger monster. 'Batwing' spider was something of a misnomer, since the spiders actually had no wings but rather large, flat bodies, which they angled towards their prey. When they dropped down, their aim was to wrap their targets up in themselves, and immediately cover their bodies in potent digestive acid. But they were dangerous even at range, since that same acid was something they could also spit. Their bodies were nearly indestructible, but the joints where their legs connected were not, and once the legs were cut off they were both considerably less dangerous and also doomed to more or less bleed out. The eyes were also vulnerable.

Shen Yuan shouted this tip out in hopes these things worked like the Proud Immortal Demon Way monsters. Then he drew the youngsters away from the trees, the better to prevent any spiders from dropping down onto them.

And, this was when things really became intense.

Because one wave of spiders swiftly became another, and then another. The system updated his 'quest' each time, like it was some nightmarish level grinding in an RPG, while the teenagers clustered around him. After the Giant Batwing Spiders it was Wolfhound Tarantulas. The younger Yu clan girl eventually did start fighting with her whip, and revealed that it was a spiritual weapon of some kind that lengthened and crackled with energy - but when she nearly hit him with it, Shen Yuan also understood why she'd kept it in reserve up to that point. It was powerful but clearly she had not yet mastered it.

Dodging enemies and also the occasional rogue strike from an ally was exhausting - the first time he'd felt tired since he died.

As tired as he got, though, the poor kids were worse off. Eventually the eldest girl got back up resumed fighting, but her break had not been long. There were injuries. One of the Wolfhound Tarantulas bit Liu Miaoshi's leg - not poisonous, but enough to hobble her for the rest of the fight. Then several small, deadly Dart Demon Spiders showed up, and one of them smacked into the youngest boy's shoulder before Shen Yuan could intercept. Though the wound wasn't severe, the kid fainted straight away.

When the sun came up and the waves of spider monsters showed no signs of stopping - only switching to Fire Imp Spinners, of all things - Shen Yuan changed their approach. The last remaining kid capable of standing on a sword was the second-to-youngest girl, the one who had barely spoken at all this entire time. She hadn't had a chance to give her name yet. Shen Yuan put her on her sword and sent her to fly back to the city, as fast as she could, to try and get some kind of help.

It was a risk, since the same girl was also the most capable - by then - of helping him fend off the spiders and defend the rest. But it also seemed like only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed regardless, if nothing changed.

The girl stubbornly refused to go at first.

"I can still fight! I'll fight to my last breath!"

Shen Yuan had to physically lift her up and put her on her sword.

"Young miss, please, we're relying on you," he said, and that finally seemed to work. She looked at him with huge eyes. More spiders were already closing in, so Shen Yuan didn't have much time to cajole her. He settled for putting his hands on her shoulders and trying to just stare his intentions into her eyeballs. Please cooperate, unruly child! "We can't keep this up indefinitely. You're the only one who can go for help."

Well, Shen Yuan also could, perhaps, but frankly he wouldn't bet that he was faster on his sword than even this child, and also what kind of adult would leave behind the kids in this situation? Shen Yuan had always been terrible at adulthood but he wasn't that terrible.

The Yu clan girl's expression finally hardened into resolve - though she also looked like she was trying not to cry.

"I'll go as fast as I ever have!" she promised. "I'll fly faster than lightning strikes!"

Before Shen Yuan could admonish her to still be careful, she finally took off.

"Go, Shimei!" Liu Miaoshi called after her. Before she had to focus on killing spiders again.

It was rough work. Too many times, the injured children nearly caught fire, and Shen Yuan was beginning to feel the weight of it. He wasn't sure how much of it was actual physical strain, how much of it was spiritual exhaustion, or how much was emotional stress because every time he turned around, it seemed like someone was getting injured, assaulted, or nearly dragged off into the woods.

Luckily, not too long after the youngest girl flew off, the eldest boy woke up.

Or rather, he shot up like a rake someone had stepped on, summoned a sword, and immediately began cleaving spiders apart with a furious expression on his face.

...Alright then!

So long as he was helping. It looked like the medicinal pill had actually worked; he wasn't pouring blood from every single orifice anymore at least.

Unfortunately, that was the only good piece of news their small but valiant band of inexperienced cultivators managed to get for a while. Within hours, the twelfth wave of spiders managed to overrun their position, and they were forced to move back into the woods to keep from being dragged off by the Serpent Silkweavers and their projectile webs. This was very bad news, as it meant that they ended up essentially being chased through the woods - the eldest boy grabbed his junior brother, while the girls helped Liu Miaoshi hop along with her injury, and Shen Yuan focused on defending their backs.

It was an unstructured retreat, and they were at a disadvantage. In the trees, ambushes came more readily. It wasn't long before Shen Yuan realized that he had no idea where they were relative to where they had been. But they couldn't stop moving, either. Any time they tried there would be monsters dropping onto their heads. At the very least he didn't think the spiders were coordinated enough to be driving them into a trap, but even if they were, he couldn't have evaded it.

Hours later they finally managed to stumble into a clearing next to a cliff. It gave them a more defensible position, since they could put the cliff to their backs and just focus on fighting spiders from one direction. However, they still had to fight.

Shen Yuan reeled as several attacking Frostbite Spiders managed to latch onto him. He sent them flying again in short order, but the bites burned cold. They weren't his first wounds either, though they were the first his cultivation didn't seem to be able to handle swiftly. His clothes were a mess of monster blood and his own blood, rips and tears and ragged spots where spider mouths had chomped down. At this rate he was going to break his top ten 'grossest moments' with a new contender.

The kids weren't much better off.

Worse, the system kept 'helpfully' informing him that he could absolutely let some of them die without incurring any penalties or failing the quest, as long as it was less than half of them. One or two was apparently fine.

What kind of fucking bullshit...?

Shen Yuan ignored it in favour of trying not to get pinned against the cliff and have their 'defensible position' turn into them all falling off and dying instead. Every so often he spared a glance towards the steep drop, privately terrified that spiders would start swarming up the rocks, like extra spawns in a video game.

It was dark again when a shout broke through the chaos of the spider hordes.

Shen Yuan, addled and exhausted as he was, did not properly see what happened at all. One moment he was fighting. The next, a strong and loud voice rang out from above - what it said was lost in the screeching cries of the monsters - and then a column of lightning slammed into several of the creatures nearby.

While the attack was aimed at the bulk of the spiders, unfortunately, the ground near the cliff wasn't as stable as it looked. Shen Yuan experienced a horrible lurching sensation as it trembled, and then started to slide.

There was a moment where he was keenly aware of the fact that he was falling. It seemed to last for long enough that he wondered if the system's pause feature had activated, but it hadn't. Instead it was simply adrenaline and awareness. Shen Yuan thought to himself, I'm falling. And then, actually, the ground is falling, because it wasn't actually him, it was the earth beneath his feet. Then he thought ouch, because the Frostbite Spider nearest to him had bitten his arm. The world tilted. The night sky was in a different position, which was bad, probably, because there was a cliff and a long drop and Shen Yuan was very definitely angled down towards that long drop.

I should do something to not fall, he thought, and also fucking spider bastard, though the spider was very shortly dislodged. Nothing occurred to him, though. His mind was amazingly blank of any possible means of saving himself for a horrific eternity that was, in reality, just several seconds long.

Wait, I have a flying sword! Shen Yuan finally thought.

This thought came very shortly before a rock smacked into his head, and therefor did not help him very much.

~

It was still dark when Shen Yuan managed to pull himself out of a mess of rocks that he'd landed in, at the bottom of the cliff.

{Condolences! User has failed to successfully complete full questline Basic Nighthunt. Points deducted.}

The voice of the system was somehow more terrifying than the fact that Shen Yuan had just plummeted what should have been a fatal distance off a cliff and into a dark forest, with several rocks smashing into him along the way. His left leg burned and he felt like one giant bruise, with a persistent ringing in his skull, but he still hastily smacked his bloodied fingers against the system's pop-up window to try and find his points total.

At first he let out a breath of relief. Despite the deduction, he still had some. He wasn't dead! Thank goodness!

Then he looked at the actual total, and spat blood.

Eleven?! After all that, he only had eleven points now?!

System! What the fuck!

{Would user like to view the accumulated point tally?}

Did the kids die? Was that why he failed? His heart sank into his stomach as he accepted the offer, and his eyes scanned urgently over the notes that suddenly appeared in front of him. The world was paused right now. Maybe it wasn't too late, if he could fly back up to the top of the cliff...

The tally showed his first point gains. The largest was for the first segment of the mission; the 50 point reward. Then each additional task he completed only seemed to add five points to the total. All of the notes were in green until he arrived at the final update, in red:

{Basic Nighthunt Quest Failed. Terms of Failure: did not greet Yu sect leader, did not perform final flourish, did not discover source of demonic spider incursions. Deduction -200 FU Points.}

Well, at least he hadn't failed because all those youngsters were dead. That was something. On the other hand...

System, I object! Shen Yuan thought, furiously. When I took this quest it said I would only lose one hundred points for failing!

{Please consult the FAQ before filing a support ticket. Support tickets regarding questions already addressed in the FAQ will be discarded.}

Where the fuck was the FAQ, then?!

{Processing request... retrieving FAQ page 1 of 6,075...}

No, no, nevermind. Fuck that. Cancel. He'd deal with it later. His head was still ringing, and he was starting to suspect his leg was broken. Which probably ought to have hurt more than it did, but his cultivation was apparently top tier, so, it just felt very painful and deeply wrong, rather than leaving him to weep on the ground and clutch at himself.

When the system unpaused, Shen Yuan looked back up towards the wrecked cliff that he had just taken a painful trip down. Flashes of light indicated that a fight was still going on. Maybe it wasn't too late to salvage his quest? Was the system trying to rip him off or what?

But there was no way he was going to manage his amateur sword flying with a broken leg.

In the end, getting back up the cliff proved impossible. He had to go around, which took hours, and the forest was still crawling with spider monsters. Shen Yuan was ashamed to admit that he gave up. His clothes were wrecked, his body felt like trash, and he was not accustomed to hiking even in his own time - navigating unfamiliar wilderness wasn't his strong suit, and before long he wasn't sure what direction to even go in to try and get back to the top of the cliff.

Sorry, young people!

He hoped that whoever had blasted him off of his feet had rescued the kids. And also that they felt really bad about inconveniencing Shen Yuan this much.

As a testament to how terrible his wilderness navigation really was (especially when he had no directions and couldn't bring himself to fly up on his sword and get an aerial look at things), when Shen Yuan finally did emerge from the woods, it was three days later. He was very glad that his cultivation level meant that he didn't suffer much from hunger or thirst, and that his wounds got better - particularly once he figured out how to circulate his spiritual energy to help. But his leg still hurt, and the trek hadn't done anything to improve his appearance. Moreover, he didn't return to civilization in the direction of Yunping City, but rather found himself stumbling into some small village.

The villagers were not terribly receptive to a strange man in tattered clothing, covered in filth, rambling among them - at least, not until Shen Yuan started coughing up some coins. Then a rather sketchy-looking guy took him to his house and exchanged him some food and fresh clothes. Shen Yuan took the food to be polite, at least at first - by the strange sensations in his body, however, and from certain context clues, he was able to guess after a while that the food had been drugged.

Did this man plan on robbing him...?

Rather than spending the night, Shen Yuan concluded their business as swiftly as possible, then got a move on. He didn't try and stick around to ask for directions by then, just feeling eager to leave. Though the drugged food had no effect on him, the entire encounter left him wary and disquieted.

He walked until his leg began to feel better. Then he risked flying. A few villages over, he finally found a good-sized market doing some business, and at last stopped there to ask for directions.

It wasn't that he was particularly attached to Yunping, but unconsciously he had decided that place was his base - if only by default. And some of the system's remaining quests seemed to have starting points at or near there as well, much like in a video game, though Shen Yuan was now incredibly leery of taking on any more of those. The little old lady he approached at the market seemed perplexed at the contradiction of the homespun village clothes he was wearing, versus the shining sword and fancy bag he was carrying, but before anyone could try and accuse him of being a thief he got the directions he needed and was on his way again.

Back in the city, Shen Yuan promptly bought a room from the same inn he had woken up in. Sure, the place was boring and basic, but they hadn't tried to rob him! And after so many up-close and personal encounters with some cool but definitely hostile monsters, he felt he could do with some peace and quiet and boredom again for a little bit now. Shen Yuan had not led an exciting life in the past. He didn't know what to do with this much adrenaline.

The inn keeper seemed neither particularly excited nor put off to have him back again, and didn't comment on his abrupt downgrade in attire. Shen Yuan paid for three nights in advance, and spent one night and one day just sleeping. Even if he didn't need it, it still felt good. When he woke up again, some of the sense of impending doom and agitation had abated, so he went out. The clothes he'd bought off of that creepy villager had bad associations for him already, and he decided to replace them in a hurry.

Luckily, the city's market was very active, and the atmosphere was celebratory. Shen Yuan caught three would-be pickpockets, thanks entirely to his body's reflexes - his hand just shot out without much thinking and caught the fingers reaching for his bag. The first two would-be thieves were adults, who promptly talked their way out of trouble and then hastily took off. The third was a scrawny little street child. Shen Yuan, unthinking, accidentally lifted the girl clean off of her feet when he caught her.

She stared at him with wide eyes. For a moment there was just mutual, stunned silence, as neither of them seemed to know what to do with this development.

Then the girl started crying.

"Pervert! Pervert! Let me go! I don't care how much candy you have, Mister, I don't want to go back to your place!"

Some passersby looked askance at them. Shen Yuan hastily dropped the child, who seemed far too young to know what she was implying with her shouts, and she ran off lightning quick and vanished back into the crowds. He looked around then, prepared to have to explain himself to a bunch of upset onlookers - but to his surprise, apart from those askance glances no one seemed to care very much at all. A nearby vendor even waved him over.

"Brats like that are an epidemic," the woman said, sympathetically. "You must be new to the city. I can sell you a map, and show you which areas to avoid..."

Shen Yuan murmured his thanks, disquieted, and ended up paying probably too much for the map, and for some directions to a clothier. Most of the market stalls were selling fabric, but not actual, ready-to-wear clothing. He supposed that in an era like this, mass production wasn't a thing, and so the most practical option was still for people to have things custom made. Especially for nice clothing. Luckily, Shen Yuan had been to tailors in his past life too, though the last time he went to one was when he was eighteen and needed a suit for his eldest brother's wedding.

And, as it happened, most clothiers did have 'ready made' pieces of a sort - they were just the sorts of things that could be easily refitted. The first tailor recommended to him even had a set of robes that had been a cancelled order from a different customer, and the fit was fortunately good enough that Shen Yuan was able to put his peasant garb away in his spatial storage bag, and change once again. Though the bright orange and cerulean ensemble was flashier than he was used to, it was more comfortable and seemed to go over better with the random people he passed - apparently, cultivators in this world didn't usually go around wearing shabby clothes.

Shen Yuan would have thought that dressing nicer would mean that the pickpockets got more numerous, but actually, it seemed to have the opposite effect. The random beggars and scrawny children gave him a much wider berth, maybe less inclined to guess that he was just someone who had some nice things on him? He wasn't sure, but now that his attention had been drawn that way he couldn't help but notice that there were indeed a lot of street kids and downtrodden folk milling around the periphery of the otherwise lively city atmosphere.

Cultivators were, for the most part, upright people with a strong sense of responsibility to help those in need and to be charitable and above petty, worldly problems. Shen Yuan was not such a person, he knew. He had spent most of his life just looking after himself, without ever contributing very much to anyone else's happiness or survival. And as for being above petty, worldly things? Uh, definitely not. No. But that was then - a new life surely meant a fresh start in the most dramatic way possible, right?

He mulled this thought over as he sat outside a small tea house off one of the main streets, sipping mediocre tea and munching on some frankly dry and subpar snacks. Hey, just because a person couldn't starve to death, that didn't mean it wasn't uncomfortable to have nothing to eat! Though he was currently wishing that he'd managed to find something a little more delicious to indulge in.

Not too far away, a few wide-eyed urchins were lingering - probably thinking themselves to be out of sight and notice, and watching every time Shen Yuan lifted the single pastry he was working on off of his plate to nibble at.

Discreetly, Shen Yuan pulled out his wallet, and for the first time really took proper stock of his funds. The system had been generous in this aspect at least, though it seemed the nature of his death obliged it to be - he had a lot of money. But the amount had still decreased from his spending, so it wasn't an infinite or self-replenishing purse. Sooner rather than later he'd need to start figuring out how to get more. He had no family to rely on - no fallback, no security. For the first time ever, he was going to have to earn his own keep. Especially if anyone actually succeeded in robbing him.

That in mind, Shen Yuan decided that the first thing he would do when he got back to his inn would be to move some of his money around. Keeping it all in one place was probably a bad idea; he'd get a smaller wallet and maybe figure out how to put some of it in his boots or something, he was fairly certain he had seen characters on dramas and in novels do that kind of thing...

For the time being, he pulled out another coin and stowed the rest of it away, and then called the server from the tea house to bring him several meat buns. The maiden shot an uncertain look at the nearly-untouched tea tray, but seemed to decide that inquiring was just going to bring more trouble than it was worth, and obliged him without further hesitation. Shen Yuan sat for a few more minutes before he wrapped up the leftover snacks and buns and then set out.

When he passed by the little ones' hiding place, he set the food down - careful to try and keep it from touching the ground.

Then he made his way back toward the inn.

In the end Shen Yuan bought several more nights of stay at the same place, for as long as it took for his clothing to be ready. He decided to get several outfits, so that he wouldn't be caught out again if they got ruined, including some sturdier clothes for travel. In the meantime he acquired a smaller coin purse, discovered that he had no idea how to hide money in his shoes, acquired instead a qiankun pouch that he could tie to his belt (much more subtle than the big shiny bag, really), bought three hand-painted fans that he really liked the look of, and invested in a few quality trinkets that could be bartered even if all of his cash was stolen. In his past life Shen Yuan had never been much for jewellery, but a lot of the men he saw on the street were adorned in finery, and a hair pin or bracelet seemed like it might make him less conspicuous.

When he was finally able to pick up his clothing order, Shen Yuan decided that he couldn't put it off any longer, and finally went back to the system screens and menus.

It seemed the only way to earn points was to complete quests, and the only way to find his soulmate was to earn points, so - at least until he managed to get three hundred - he would have to either give up entirely, or play ball.

Giving up entirely was tempting. It was probably the smart thing to do.

He wasn't sure why he didn't just do it, then.

It took another day of attempting to download the FAQ, giving up after four hours of loading a single page, attempting it again, then reviewing all of the quests before Shen Yuan tentatively selected one to try this whole thing over once more.

{Optional Side Quest: The Traveller. Requirement: meet the stranger at the Warm Red Pavilion in Yunping City.}

Shen Yuan's reasons for choosing this quest were threefold. Firstly, it was expressly labelled a 'side quest' - which made him hopeful that it would be shorter than the other ones, and less exploitative. Secondly, though the reward was only 10 FU Points, the penalty for failing was only 15; which was the smallest possible amount listed, even if it was still larger than his existing point total. And finally, it was close by; all of the other quests required him to leave the city.

The only immediate downside was that the Warm Red Pavilion was definitely... hrm. Well. It was... an establishment, for sure.

Shen Yuan was unsure if he ought to wear his nicest clothes or his most nondescript ones for such an outing. In the end, he decided to compromise, and just wore the bright orange and cerulean outfit he'd been favouring since he got back from his first disastrous quest, since it matched well with one of the fans he had bought - and that gave him ample opportunity to hide his face. Which he felt he would probably needed to do a lot, if he was going to a brothel.

Don't get him wrong! Shen Yuan was a redblooded heterosexual man who was absolutely interested in sex. His lack of experience with women was a result of the unfortunate reality that, in his past life, he was a shut-in with bad health. Couldn't be helped. And, of course, now that the situation had changed he was very eager to start picking up women and... um, well, gaining more experience. With them. Right.

But!

Shen Yuan was not a pervert! Nor was he any sort of salacious or unsavoury character, and now that he had a fresh start in a new life, he didn't have any interest in developing a reputation for those sorts of things either. A brothel could be a perfectly respectable establishment, of course, but he had no idea where this Warm Red Pavilion fell on the spectrum of things - if they were widely regarded for providing good company and entertainment, or if they were more of a seedy sort of place, just putting on the perfume of finery whilst in reality only catering to the most base sort of transactions with little care for their working women.

He also didn't know who this stranger he was supposed to meet was, or what sort of person he might be, given that his starter location was apparently a brothel.

And, and! Shen Yuan wasn't even sure if his cultivation required abstinence or not! So he definitely couldn't be doing anything with any women until he knew for 100% certain that it wouldn't damage his cultivation. He absolutely depended on his cultivation in these circumstances, already he'd have been dead a dozen times over if it was even a little less good than it currently was.

So all that meant that he was especially wary as he followed the directions which the innkeeper had given him (without the slightest hint of either judgment or interest), and found himself standing outside a rather nice looking building at the cusp of the seedier sides of the city.

At the gate, two women were busy at work encouraging people inside. They were both beautiful, though one looked barely out of her girlhood, while the other was too petite for Shen Yuan's type. He approached them cautiously, yet was surprisingly put at ease in short order as the younger maiden's eyes lit up at the sight of him.

"Daozhang!" she greeted. "It's the daozhang from Contemplation Inn, isn't it? Ah, that place is so boring and dull! Has Daozhang come to finally find some entertainment? Our girls are very good, and our food's much better as well!"

Shen Yuan blinked, and couldn't decide if he was more surprised that he'd apparently been recognized, or that he didn't need to explain away his presence at an establishment such as this. Was there some other cultivator staying at that boring inn? Surely he'd have noticed by now...?

Before he could even formulate a response the young lady had taken his arm and glued herself to his side, not the least bit wary it seemed. She shared a look with the older girl, then winked, then at once began steering Shen Yuan towards the pavilion. She couldn't have been more than eighteen, if she was even that old.

"Miss, you have me at a loss. How do you know me?"

The girl laughed.

"Xiao Ting and Wan-er run errands for the brothel sometimes, they've mentioned the nice Daozhang from that drab inn a lot! Wan-er described you so well, so A-Shi knew straight away, it must be you!"

Shen Yuan just felt more confused. Who were Xiao Ting and Wan-er? How had he earned a reputation? Had the system programmed one in for him or something? So far as he knew, he hadn't really met anyone in the city - the person he talked to the most regularly was the innkeeper, and he didn't even know the man's name.

In the interest of caution, Shen Yuan decided to just roll with it. At least it didn't seem like he had a bad reputation.

"I'm looking for a man," he admitted instead. He wished the quest information was more forthcoming about who he was supposed to find. Some kind of traveller, but... that wasn't a lot to go on, and didn't even give him a description to ask around for. Especially at a place like this, where even the locals were bound to probably try and pass themselves off as 'travellers' sometimes!

A-Shi's eyebrows went up. However, her stride didn't falter, and she grinned at him as if delighted by this strange request.

"We can certainly help with that!" she said.

What, really? Not even a protest about client confidentiality or anything?

"What sort of man does Daozhang seek?" she then inevitably asked him, in a playful tone of voice.

Shen Yuan was forced to sigh.

"I admit, I'm not entirely sure," he said. "I realize that isn't much to go off of, but is there any possible way I could just discreetly see some? I wouldn't need to disturb them, I feel I would know who I am looking for when I saw him..."

"Of course, such a thing can easily be arranged," A-Shi agreed. How accommodating! She patted his arm, seemingly almost big-sisterly despite the fact that she was definitely younger than him. Way too young for him to be interested in. What a shame that the first pretty girl he met at such a place was thus! "Let's go get a room and then this one will see to it. Would Daozhang like any women present as well, or just men?"

That was an option?

Shen Yuan was once again relieved. He was sure that in a place like this, he'd be expected to have to at least have some of the women present in order to justify his presence in the building - but apparently even that much was optional. The pay had to be at a rate for the use of the rooms or something in that case. Still, he would pay a lot just to avoid the awkwardness of declining some women's 'services', so with a lighter heart he easily requested men only.

A-Shi led him to a nicely appointed room, then apologetically informed him she'd be needed back out front, but gave assurances that she'd speak with one of her older sisters and have some men discreetly brought to the room.

It was only once she left that Shen Yuan thought to wonder what might entice any men to the room he was in if he had turned down the presence of the brothel's women...?

Hmm, maybe he should have thought that through better. But, A-Shi must have already considered the matter on his behalf, because barely any time passed before another woman came in. Except, this young lady only brought a vibrant array of snacks and drinks, and then left with a wink and a giggle a few moments after that. In her wake a young man also entered the room, carrying an erhu.

Before Shen Yuan could think to say anything, the young man settled down at a further corner of the room and began to play. He was very good, though he couldn't have been any older than Shen Yuan himself was. His features were the type to seem deceptively mature, however, with a strong jaw and jutting cheekbones, broad shoulders and deft hands. He was dressed almost entirely in a gauzy red outfit that exposed most of the front of his chest, all the way down to his navel.

So, he was a musician? Did the brothel hire men to play music if they were very good, or something...?

Shen Yuan felt a sudden sense of something being off, but he opted not to interrogate it, and instead resettled onto his cushion. The system was disappointingly quiet, but somehow the atmosphere wasn't bad. He didn't have long to observe the erhu player before several other men came into the room.

There were three of them, and at the sight of him they all seemed to inexplicably light up.

"When A-Shi said there was a monk in here, I didn't picture this!" the first one in suddenly exclaimed.

Shen Yuan felt his cheeks heat up self-consciously. He lifted his fan up to hide.

So what, even with a custom body he didn't particularly look the part, somehow?

Wasn't that just his luck?

"This one is a cultivator, but not especially ascetic," he ventured.

"Of course not!" the second man declared, muscling past the first and coming to sit closely beside Shen Yuan. He offered Shen Yuan a bright smile. "Would an actual monk be in here, of all places? They only pass by on their way to the temple or to give out porridge to the poor. Here, Daozhang, let Gege pour your wine..."

Before Shen Yuan could muster a thought greater than 'oh he's handsome', the young man who'd spoken first all but plastered himself to Shen Yuan's opposite side.

"Who are you to confidently call yourself 'gege'?" this one demanded of the other guy. "For all we know, this master is an immortal many centuries old!"

"Ah, I'm not," Shen Yuan admitted, before he could think that better of it. "I only turned twenty-two this summer."

The second young man's expression lit up again, eyes practically sparkling.

"Then I'm your gege too!" he declared. "It'll have to be like this - I'm your Fu-ge, and that over there is Jian-ge, and playing the pipa is Wu-ge, and hiding by the door is Baoguo. And how would you prefer to be addressed?"

Shen Yuan hesitated. This 'Fu-ge' had a clear and bright face, earnest but a bit over-eager, and apparently no sense of personal space. He'd known a few other guys like this when he used to attend school, and nearly all of them had ended up being very mean to him, playing weird pranks or bullying him with little to no provocation. But though he kept close this Fu-ge also had a charming sort of atmosphere, so after a moment he was able to calm down and collect his wits.

"This one's name is Shen Yuan," he offered. "Just... Shen Yuan is fine?"

Fu-ge winked at him.

"Master Shen," he teased, but it seemed more like playful banter than a prelude to cruelty.

Jian-ge finished filling Shen Yuan's cup with some fragrant wine, then, and handed it to him with a kind sort of smile. His features were more akin to those of Wu-ge on the pipa, Shen Yuan thought - he was very... chiselled. And likewise under-dressed. In fact, looking around, Shen Yuan was given to the sudden impression that maybe he was in fact over-dressed - none of the other men at this brothel seemed to have put on a full set of robes, instead favouring what had to be some kind of local party style. Though they wore a lot of ornaments, both Fu-ge and Jian-ge were in gauzy, light outfits that probably felt really nice with the seasonal heat. Fu-ge's even had a long slit up one side that exposed almost his entire leg, whilst Jian-ge's upper robe was sleeveless, and revealed firm biceps that were decorated with winding bronze bangles.

Only Baoguo, over by the door, seemed to have more covering him. Judging by his face, Shen Yuan wasn't even sure if this one qualified as a 'man' yet. Just like A-Shi couldn't have been older than eighteen, probably younger, with round cheeks and a dusky pink outfit that made his blushing more apparent. He had the least amount of ornaments on him, though, with just a simple rose quartz hairpin keeping his loose hair back.

Catching the direction of his gaze, Jian-ge leaned back and then motioned at Baoguo.

"Come and sit," the older man beckoned.

With decided nervousness, the youngest member of the group slid down to settle at the table across from him.

"Forgive his nerves, Master Shen, it's his first time you see," Fu-ge explained. "We figured we would bring him in here to get him a reprieve from all the attention he has been getting for his 'debut'. Private rooms are quieter, and a guest of your distinction isn't liable to get ahead of himself."

Oh!

So they brought their younger brother to the brothel to hook him up, hm?

That was common practice in a lot of novels. Shen Yuan nodded in understanding, and felt a jolt of sympathy for the boy in front of him. Wasn't he still a little too young...? Ah, but, in a setting like this, sixteen or so was probably considered 'of age'.

"No one's been pressuring you, have they?" he asked, before he could think the better of it.

Poor Baoguo's entire face turned bright red. He hid behind his sleeve.

"Don't worry, we're looking after him. This is a classy place, anyone who misbehaves will get thrown out," Jian-ge assured him, settling a hand on his shoulder. Something in his countenance seemed to soften a bit, and Shen Yuan felt put more at ease also.

It was surprising how pleasantly the evening passed, then. Pleasantly enough that Shen Yuan almost forgot about his quest. He figured the system would alert him as soon as he 'met' the relevant man, so probably he ought to have moved on or tried to get more to come into the room, but for a while it was just nice to have good company and actually eat good food. The food at the inn and nearby teahouse wasn't nearly as tasty, A-Shi had been right about that. Wu-ge played soothing music, if nothing comparable to a modern band on a CD, and after a while the wine left Shen Yuan with a gentle buzz beneath his skin.

At some point Jian-ge and Fu-ge decided to get up and perform some kind of dance. It seemed as though they were competing with one another about something. They were both very gifted dancers, it was a shame that there were no ladies around to witness the performance. While Shen Yuan was watching, he didn't notice Baoguo moving carefully around until the young man in question was right beside him.

He glanced over questioningly. But Baoguo seemed so painfully shy, it was little wonder that his brothers had decided to try and buy him a night with a girl - he couldn't even seem to look Shen Yuan in the eye, though he did appear determined to refill his cup as he reached for the wine and carefully poured.

"You did a good job of that," Shen Yuan murmured. And the boy had, the pour had been almost silent - these things were kind of important in period settings, right?

Baoguo blushed again.

"Thank you, Shen-gege," he murmured.

Ahh!

'Shen-gege'?!

What a cute kid!

Reaching over, Shen Yuan patted him on the head. If this kid wanted to keep hiding out in this room here and put off popping his cherry, well, Shen Yuan could certainly understand that.

"You know," he ventured quietly, beneath the sound of the music and dancing. "If you don't want to... you don't have to do anything tonight. Some people might be disappointed, but that kind of thing should be your own decision, not theirs."

Baoguo glanced up at him uncertainly.

"I... thank you, but, this one is of age, and... can't be a burden to everyone forever."

Shen Yuan frowned, but still, he felt he understood. People were supposed to grow up, and certain things seemed to come hand-in-hand with that. Probably even moreso in a world like this. His heart twisted and he suddenly felt deep sympathy with the boy next to him. He had spent most of his life feeling like a burden, like he was inconveniencing everyone else with all the things he hadn't accomplished, with the person he couldn't be and milestones he never reached... ah, there was a lot of pressure in being a man...

"There is a difference between 'not yet ready' and 'never ready'," he ventured.

Baoguo averted his gaze again, but he seemed to relax a little bit more, and Shen Yuan felt glad. Those Yu-gege and Jian-ge characters had helped him feel more at ease, so it was good to know he could return the favour. After a while Baoguo even began to lean into his space, and started picking treats up off of the table to offer him.

At that point the older brothers concluded their dance and came back to the table, bickering with the poor kid over something to do with 'poaching'. Shen Yuan watched their antics, but gradually began to feel unease with the ticking clock of his impending quest. He poked at the system, and watched the world grey out into a pause while he scanned through the menus to see if there was any more information. Some kind of quest trail or something, surely?

It was only as he rifled through the quest menu again that he noticed, in very very tiny print, underneath the objective:

A date.

Shen Yuan blinked.

Oh.

The date was two months from now?!

Lifting a hand he smacked himself on the face, then gradually dragged his palm down, and sighed.

So coming to the brothel tonight was pointless. He should have guessed that - after all, though there seemed to be quests everywhere, the world also still seemed to be operating independently. People existed and went through their lives. Most likely, then, if he didn't accept a quest before the date for it came and went, then he wouldn't be able to just take it on whenever like it actually was a video game. Events weren't just sitting on a shelf, waiting for him.

Something about that thought bothered him.

Shen Yuan considered it before exiting out of the system's universe pause.

If all the quests could be subject to not being completed if he didn't take them on, then what was the difference between a regular quest and a 'side' quest? In most games, side quests were optional, while regular quests weren't. So if that was also the case here, then... if the clock ran out on a regular quest, did he fail it by default?!

{Answering user query: correct.}

FFFFFFFF!!!

Hastily, Shen Yuan went through the quests back on the quest page. The one nearest to expiring was done in... three days?! And it was outside of the city. Where in the heck was Lindong Village?! No no no, wait, okay no he knew that, he just needed to calm down - Lindong was definitely the creepy village he'd passed through with the would-be thief who tried to drug him. He remembered that now. Okay. He could get there in three days, easily, now that he knew the area better he knew for sure how to fly there - he'd flown over there to get to the spider-infested forest and the doomed nighthunt in the first place. And there was no point in getting there early since nothing would happen until the specified date.

Phew.

By the looks of things, Shen Yuan had caught this disaster just in time.

Pressing a hand to his chest, he checked the quest's actual requirements.

...'defend village from demon spider infestation'.

Shen Yuan stared silently at the screen, then finally exited out. Something about his demeanour surely changed, because the trio around him all gave him questioning looks.

"I have decided," he declared.

A sense of anticipation filled the room.

Shen Yuan lifted up the wine jug.

"I have decided, we are all going to get very drunk."

Fu-ge cheered, and Jian-ge let out an uncharacteristic bark of laughter that seemed to surprise even himself, while Baoguo looked... a little wistfully disappointed, of all things. The disappointment lifted when Shen Yuan personally poured him the first cup for this round, and he apparently took that as his cue to get all into his personal space again.

What followed was the longest, most entertaining bender of Shen Yuan's life. Though his body never seemed to get much further on the way to drunk than 'delightfully buzzed', he decided the fuzzy feeling was vastly preferable to thinking about fighting another horde of evil spiders. His regard for spider-monsters might never recover. At some point Wu-ge put down his erhu to join them, and turned out to have a borderline crass sense of humour but a nice smile. Baoguo relaxed enough that by the end of the evening, he was hanging onto Shen Yuan's arm like a spoiled kid, and only Jian-ge seemed to hold his liquor as well as Shen Yuan's new cultivator body could. Though that was probably because he didn't actually seem to be drinking as much.

He ended up leaving some time after midnight, having inadvertently kept the other men from their own pursuits at the brothel for that entire time - yet none of them seemed to mind it. Jian-ge escorted him to the front, and it occurred to Shen Yuan that, in the spirit of things, he ought to pay for the other men's evening too. Since he'd kept them from enjoying any beauties themselves, and all. Wu-ge seemed to actually work as a musician though, but the other three, he'd definitely ruined their chances of getting Baoguo laid. And he wasn't even completely sure about Wu-ge. So after he paid the fee for the room (it was expensive, as he knew it would be), he pulled out four times that amount, and put it in Jian-ge's hands before he left. That would surely cover it, at least!

"For you and the others," he explained. "I'm sorry to have kept you all, it was fun for me but it probably bored you by comparison."

Jian-ge didn't say anything at first. Then he recovered from his surprise.

"It wasn't boring," he insisted. "Master Shen, no, it wasn't boring at all, we had a wonderful evening! We can do it again any time you like. It's not that uncommon for guests to come looking for many things. Sometimes just company. We don't mind in the least, I promise you."

Shen Yuan took a moment to fuzzily try and process what Jian-ge was saying, and then smiled.

"Okay," he agreed. "I'll definitely be back."

He had that side quest to do, anyway, now that he'd accepted it so even that wasn't 'optional' anymore.

Although, now that he was thinking of it, was there any real reason why they all ought to hang out in a brothel if they weren't even going to use the services?

Nevermind, he'd already said it. And Jian-ge seemed very happy. And anyway, he did have to come back, and the food was tasty and the wine was good, and frankly he didn't know any other good places to meet-up in this city except for the shitty tea house. And he only went to the shitty tea house because it was cheap and close to the inn and because an ever-increasing number of little street kids seemed to hang around there at midday, and Shen Yuan was beginning to feel obliged to feed them.

Sure, it was expensive, but he could still easily afford it. He wasn't in trouble yet.

Nodding to himself, he turned and managed to make it back to the inn without any further dramatic revelations.