Chapter Text
That night in bed, Cai Zhifei wanted to continue where they'd left off in the morning. He scooted up to Liang Haiyun, who was lying on his back, and began to wrap himself around him, burying into his neck.
"Zhu~ren," he teased close to Liang Haiyun's ear.
Liang Haiyun pet his hair and Cai Zhifei invitingly ground against his thigh.
"Zhuren, tell me again what you told me this morning," Cai Zhifei requested in a low voice.
Liang Haiyun thought for a moment and then said, "..."I don't know what you're talking about"?"
With an exasperated smile, Cai Zhifei whispered into his ear.
"Not that... Tell me you're mine again." He felt himself starting to grow hard as he said it.
Liang Haiyun kept petting his head. "You'll get too excited, Zhifei."
Running his hand up Liang Haiyun's side, Cai Zhifei asked, "What's wrong with that?"
Liang Haiyun intercepted his wandering hand before it could reach his chest and intertwined his fingers with his own. Then he said, "Whatever you have in mind, your body can't take it right now. You only think it can because I am suppressing your pain, remember?"
"..." Right.
"Want me to lift the spell so you can see for yourself where your limits are?" Liang Haiyun offered.
"Hahaha, please don't," Cai Zhifei laughed nervously. But he hadn't given up. "Mh, then let's do something else... But I really want you, A-Yun..."
Liang Haiyun held him close and kissed his forehead. "You should sleep and recover your strength, Zhifei."
Cai Zhifei let out a displeased groan, but he gave up and stopped trying to seduce his husband. Nuzzling into his hair, he sighed. He wasn't quite ready to sleep just yet, so he started telling Liang Haiyun about this and that, about his day and how his lectures went... Then he remembered something.
"... A-Yun, I believe Instructor Ming can be trusted to hold his lectures without supervision," he said in a purposely professional tone.
Liang Haiyun raised an eyebrow. "That is a surprising assessment, coming from you."
"I thought about it and I'm sure you already have enough to worry about without keeping an eye on that kid," Cai Zhifei said evasively.
Obviously Liang Haiyun saw right through that, and he reassured him with a faint smile. "You're right. I am much too busy to monitor his lectures. I only gave him that talisman so he'd believe that he would be supervised; it was a bluff." Lowering his voice, he said, "Don't worry, Zhifei, you're the only one under my surveillance."
Cai Zhifei's ears went red and he buried his face deeper into Liang Haiyun's neck to avoid giving an answer to that. The smell of incense still lingered on Liang Haiyun's hair. Cai Zhifei found the familiar scent calming, and he noticed Liang Haiyun's breathing becoming softer, too.
***
In the morning, Cai Zhifei woke up in an empty bed. Puzzled, he looked around and found that Liang Haiyun had already gotten up and left the room. He quickly got dressed and began wandering Liang Residence to go look for him, and he finally found him on the private training grounds behind the main building, engaged in a sword meditation. Liang Haiyun's eyes were closed and he was balancing on one foot, his body moving slowly and with intention as he circulated his spiritual qi through Wuwang. Cai Zhifei stood still where he was on the covered walkway, watching Liang Haiyun with rapt attention, as he'd so often done in the past.
***
As soon as Cai Zhifei had become a tolerated freeloader of Liang Sect, and even before he was accepted as a disciple, he used to spend his days engaged in what one may unflatteringly describe as "stalking". If one was to be more generous, it could be said that the 9 year old orphan was quite attached to the boy who had taken him in, and would almost constantly follow him around the sect grounds and watch him from the shadows during his trainings and lectures. This was how he had become interested in cultivation himself, and he had eventually begun to ask Liang Haiyun to instruct him in swordplay, and to answer his questions about things he hadn't understood during the lectures he'd eavesdropped in on. Liang Haiyun always answered these questions patiently and with a smile, and if he found the time, he would show him some sword techniques, too.
One afternoon in early spring, Cai Zhifei had found Liang Haiyun on the private training grounds behind the Liang Residence – to get here, he had needed to climb the walls surrounding the residence, and he had made himself comfortable on the branch of a plum tree that was still in bloom, kicking his feet as he watched Liang Haiyun during his solo practice.
The boy with the ponytail was deeply immersed in his training, repeating the same technique over and over again. He would gather his focus, raise his sword to eye level, and then suddenly unleash a flurry of glowing strikes before returning to his original stance and coming to a standstill. Cai Zhifei was mesmerized by the sight. What Liang Haiyun was doing seemed complicated and wonderful to him, and he wished he too could handle a sword with the ease and composure this boy was capable of.
Breaking a twig off, he now tried to imitate the movements he was seeing using the stick in place of a sword, and in doing so, he almost fell off the tree. He managed to catch himself in time by grabbing on to the sturdy branch he'd been sitting on and dangling off of it, but that whole maneuver shook a whole rainshower of pink petals loose, and Liang Haiyun noticed him. Sheathing Wuwang, he walked over to Cai Zhifei and held out his arms.
"Come on down, Cai Zhifei," Liang Haiyun said with a soft smile.
Cai Zhifei let go of the branch and Liang Haiyun caught him in his arms – being two years older and noticeably taller than him, he didn't have any problems with the boy's weight and he easily set him down on firm ground. Cai Zhifei looked a bit embarrassed.
"Sorry, A-Yun, I didn't mean to disturb your training," he said.
Liang Haiyun didn't seem bothered. "That's okay. But I keep telling you, you'll be in a lot of trouble if the attendants catch you in here." He sighed with a smile. "Although they don't come here during my training, so you should be fine this time."
Cai Zhifei knew that Liang Haiyun was worried about him being punished for breaking the sect rules, and his heart felt warm. Liang Haiyun never scolded him, and he was always nice and patient – completely different from the stuck-up Liang disciples who would shoo him away and yell at him if they noticed him hanging around where he wasn't supposed to be.
"A-Yun, can you teach me the move you were doing just now?" Cai Zhifei asked.
"Hmm," Liang Haiyun thought it over. "I think that one is still too difficult for you, but I can show you something else."
Cai Zhifei beamed.
Walking over to a weapon rack, Liang Haiyun chose a light training sword for Cai Zhifei and handed it to him. Then he walked to the middle of the training area and entered the Liang style attack stance. Cai Zhifei stood across from him and mirrored his movements.
"You have to hold the sword higher," Liang Haiyun said. Cai Zhifei corrected his stance and Liang Haiyun nodded. "Okay, now do as I do."
After executing a much slower and simplified version of the strikes he had practiced earlier, Liang Haiyun paused and watched as Cai Zhifei attempted to imitate them.
"Hmm," Liang Haiyun seemed dissatisfied. "That sword shouldn't be too heavy for you at your age, but I guess you haven't trained your body enough to handle it well. There's not enough strength in your wrists."
"When I hold it too tightly, you always say my movements get all stiff," Cai Zhifei said. "Is this better?" He tried correcting his grip.
Liang Haiyun nodded and gave him a sign to do it from the top. Once Cai Zhifei had executed the strike, Liang Haiyun tilted his head, unsure how to explain what Cai Zhifei wasn't doing right. Putting these sorts of things into words didn't come easily to him.
He stood next to Cai Zhifei shoulder to shoulder and said, "Follow along with my movements and pay attention to the angle of the blade."
"Okay," Cai Zhifei nodded and did as he was told, but the result was worse.
Liang Haiyun scratched his head. "That was no good at all. You can't focus on your own movements when your eyes are somewhere else."
Cai Zhifei really had gotten distracted looking at Liang Haiyun's elegant and confident motions, and it had thrown his stance completely off.
Walking up behind Cai Zhifei, Liang Haiyun sheathed Wuwang to free up his hands and corrected his stance manually. He put his palms over the hands of the younger boy and gently made him raise the sword.
"This is the correct height. Now try again," he said next to Cai Zhifei's ear.
For some reason, Cai Zhifei's heart was beating faster, but he earnestly tried to focus on the lesson and repeated the technique.
"I see the problem now," Liang Haiyun said and put his hands on Cai Zhifei's hips, correcting their tilt. "You have to keep your core firm," he explained and put his hand on Cai Zhifei's upper stomach. "Do it again and don't move here. But don't forget to breathe, okay?"
Cai Zhifei nodded. His head was spinning a bit, but with Liang Haiyun's hands-on instruction, he was able to execute the technique flawlessly.
"That was really good," Liang Haiyun praised him. "Now repeat that for one hundred strikes, to memorize it."
He walked a few paces off to resume his own training in the meantime, and Cai Zhifei practiced what he had just learned. Once he knew how it was done, he didn't make any mistakes, and while he was counting the strikes in his head, his eyes wandered over to Liang Haiyun again.
The sun was starting to set, and the golden glow of Wuwang seemed almost red in the dusk as Liang Haiyun infused his sword with spiritual qi for each flurry of strikes he unleashed. But Cai Zhifei noticed something. Sometimes there would be a flicker, and the glow was not nearly as bright as it had been earlier.
"A-Yun, are you getting tired?" he asked.
Liang Haiyun paused between repetitions and sighed while shaking his head. "I can't afford to get tired, I am not done with my training for the day."
"But you already train so much more than anyone else here," Cai Zhifei wondered. "You're so strong, why do you have to train so much?" He knew that Liang Haiyun regularly kept practicing for hours after all the other disciples had already vacated the public training grounds and were enjoying their free time.
Smiling awkwardly, Liang Haiyun said, "It might seem that way to you because you are weak, but I am not strong either. The way I am now, I can't protect anyone, and I will only bring shame upon my clan. That is why I have to train a lot harder."
Cai Zhifei really couldn't understand that. From his perspective, this older boy seemed infinitely strong and wise. He never had to be corrected on his sword stance, and he was able to answer any of Cai Zhifei's questions with ease. But then, Liang Haiyun was the only son of Sect Leader Haifeng, and he imagined that such a position came with many responsibilities and expectations.
"You should take a break if you're getting tired, A-Yun," Cai Zhifei said.
Liang Haiyun smiled. "I won't overdo it; it'd only be harmful to my cultivation. Don't worry, I know my limits," he said and began practicing the technique once more.
***
In the present, Liang Haiyun was circulating his spiritual qi through Wuwang and it was glowing resplendent and clear. Cai Zhifei wondered why he had gotten up earlier than usual for a sword meditation, when he noticed something. All of a sudden, a dark flash shot through Wuwang, and the golden glow flickered for a moment before going out. Liang Haiyun groaned and dropped his sword, his knees buckling, but he caught himself.
"A-Yun?!" Cai Zhifei shouted and dashed towards Liang Haiyun. He steadied him and immediately pressed his hand on his chest to send a demonic qi impulse into it. It was as he had feared: Liang Haiyun's core was completely off kilter.
Liang Haiyun brushed his hand off and looked away. "It's fine, I've just been practicing the demonic arts too much and neglecting my orthodox cultivation. I will restore the balance."
Cai Zhifei was incredibly concerned. "How are you going to stabilize it? Your resentful energy has been feasting on your spiritual qi this whole time, hasn't it?"
Glaring at Cai Zhifei, Liang Haiyun said, "Exactly, so I just need to generate more spiritual qi than the resentful energy can consume. I'll be fine, Zhifei."
He bent down to pick up Wuwang, but Cai Zhifei grabbed his hand to intercept him.
"It's time you finally told me why you messed up your core like this, A-Yun," he said in a serious tone.
Liang Haiyun grinned joylessly. "It's not like I did it on purpose."
"...What happened?" Cai Zhifei asked, having a terrible premonition.
Liang Haiyun sat down on the ground to rest and asked him a question in return. "What do you think happens to an orthodox cultivator's golden core if this cultivator consumes a demonic core, Zhifei?"
Cai Zhifei felt a cold shiver run down his back and he also sat down, because his knees felt weak. "... The resentful energy within the demonic core would enter the meridians and consume the spiritual qi present there. It would then make its way to the golden core and cause it to crack. The result would only be a qi deviation if the resentment was weak, but if it couldn't be removed, it would poison the entire core and..." He went silent.
Liang Haiyun nodded. "I told you I elected to make you a permanent part of me, Zhifei."
Cai Zhifei's heart was beating out of his chest. "But... it must be hurting you terribly..."
"Only at first. I found ways to manage it," Liang Haiyun dismissed his concerns.
"Is that why you didn't leave your room for an entire month after, err..." Cai Zhifei couldn't find the words.
But Liang Haiyun shook his head. "No, that was because you gave me corpse poisoning. I was sick as a dog."
Cai Zhifei gaped. You gave yourself corpse poisoning, A-Yun! That's why you're not supposed to eat corpses! he complained internally.
Liang Haiyun chuckled. "Wen Shuhua probably saved my life, and she doesn't even know it. The rice wine she made me drink had a purifying effect on the corpse miasma."
"I'm glad it's funny to you in hindsight, but you really could've died, A-Yun," Cai Zhifei scolded him. "And now you might still lose your core! ...Why did you never turn it fully demonic? I understand that you had to preserve your orthodox cultivation while Liang Sect was still orthodox, but you could do it now and save yourself from having to manage such an unstable and dangerous core."
With a scoff, Liang Haiyun declared, "That is not an option. I refuse to surrender to you, Zhifei; I will never give up my cultivation. You won't take anything else from me."
At the same time, an attendant appeared at the side of the training grounds and so Cai Zhifei couldn't answer, but he wouldn't have known what to say to that, anyway.
Bowing politely, the attendant spoke. "Sect Leader Liang, Sect Elder Cai, there is a visitor at the gates who may fit the description of the Plague of the North."