@jigglegigglez: #BingJiu regression story but ...

#BingJiu regression story but instead of going back to his childhood or time at cqm, sj wakes in the water prison, shortly before his trial.

except he has no will to live and just takes whatever abuse is hurled at him by the little palace mistress.

so when he is presented at the sham trial, he is beaten and broken, obviously hurt and starved.
he's so out of it, he doesn't realise lbh is missing from the trial. the trial commences as it did before, qht and others coming forward to accuse him.

sj just lets it all wash over him.
unlike the last time, he does not look toward yqy or his so-called martial siblings. he always knew he would find no help there, but now he had the image of the shards of xuan su burnt into his minds eye.

better to cut out even a chance of yqy sacrificing himself again. cut it like a festering wound and move on to the decades of torture awaiting him.

but at that point, everything turns on its head.
lmy is in the middle of giving her testimony, accusing him of killing lqg

"that's not what happened"

the voice that rings out is one sj hadn't heard in years.
lqg enters the courtroom. he looks like he did at his prime. a veritable war god with anger etched into his face, fists clenched.
the mob erupts in whispers at the sight of a dead man.

"sqq came upon me in the lingxi caves while i was suffering a qi-deviation. he tried to save my life, but failed due to his own lacking cultivation. my soul has been trapped in the caves until now." lqg turns to lbh following him closely

"this one managed a ritual to return me to life." the anger on lqgs' face mixes with disgust as he turns towards his martial siblings and his true blooded sister. "and i come to find you fools accusing an innocent man"

the trial falls apart quickly. lbh, in the time sj had been imprisoned, had investigated every single accusation.
he found the truth to the horrors of qiu manor, sharing his findings with the assembly.

he found the women of the warm red pavillion, how sj sought comfort away from men and his own mental scars, but never anything carnal.
lbh discredits the accusations of misconduct against female disciples, casting his baleful glare even at nyy, who had supported the lies.

in the end, the only accusation that stands is the mistreatment of lbh, and he withdraws his claim.
"shizun has suffered for these misdeeds. this one sees no reason to continue on with this farce."

instead, he turns his fury on the old palace master and hhp.

sj is freed from the immortal binding cables.
he is allowed to return to cqm, which he declines, for favour of returning to the pavillion with his jiejies. the only ones who never doubted him. the ones who had seen his scars when no one else had.

set up in a hidden pavillion, he rests, still unfamiliar in a body not torn apart, with intact limbs and tongue, his eyes both clear.
he does not cry, does not speak. the jiejies field all visitors.

yqy is distraught in his attempts to meet him, but sj is done letting them both suffer for their shared past.
unable to even look upon yqy, no longer his qi-ge, he lets the girls cut the worn thread connecting his former brother

months pass, the only truly persistent visitor being lqg, who will force his way past the ladies.
sj has not even the strength to argue with the man anymore, staring at lqg rage. why he didn't defend himself, why he never spoke the truth, even when they were disciples.

sj has no answers for the man. he is done talking.
he spends his days listening instead. and lqg becomes a friend, strangely
teaching the girls the four arts when his words return to him, scratching his throat with every syllable.

months pass like that, sqq turned sj completely

he hears of lbh taking over hhp and the demonic realm in one fell swoop. his former disciple and torturer now emperor once more.
except he has no wives. no bride has been welcomed to his court.

sj is teaching the younger girls to play the pipa when lbh arrives at the brothel.
the demons' smooth and deep voice cuts through discordant tunes like a knife, piercing sj.

he's no longer afraid, sending the girls from his pavillion.

still, slender fingers clench in the feminine robes he's clad in. sj feels the phantom pains of wounds this body never endured as he stares at lbh.
the man moves closer as if approaching a wild beast.
careful, slowly, hands in clear sight, held up in surrender.

"this venerable one has missed shizun. i have brought you an empire to lay at your feet. to make amends."
he sits, massive frame folding in to become as unthreatening as possible.
sj still feels unsure. he feels the calm of knowing that he would be unable to protect himself.

that fighting back is futile.

but all lbh does is talk. he tells sj how he found his corpse, in a future that never was. how he had screamed and wailed at losing sj. just as he had seen what they could have been in another world.
a softer world he wanted for himself.

lbh had sought his soul, but sjs' body had been too broken to even create a new vessel to tie it to.
at a loss for anything else, lbh had sought out truths about his shizuns' past. he'd travelled the razed cqm, met people who had painted a different picture of sj

servants, slaves and whores, who had told him the opposite of what he'd heard from nobles and cultivators. that sj had been a wretchedly sad man, broken by an unkind world.
a man lbh had wanted even more than the soft and kind shizun from that other world.

so, on the words of a hermit in the heavenly realm, lbh had destroyed xin mo, using the power to travel back in time. but not to a time where he himself would be helpless. to the time at the cusp of power, before the trial that sealed the fate of all.

he tells sj of going around once more, to the same people who told him truths everyone shut their eyes and ears to. he tells sj of going to the caves, using the ritual originally conceived to resurrect sj from his battered remains and instead raising lqg.

he confesses all and finally, he says "i did it all, loving you more than i could ever have hated you. and i don't expect your love in return. i only want you to know that i will do whatever i can. for you. all the realm is for you. my heart, my cursed blood is for you"

and finally, sj cries.

he cries and cries, falling into the arms of one who tormented him, who he tormented.
and their tears mingle, as their lips press together.

THE END

tbh i love the idea of time travel and regression for sj and lbh to cqm, but coming back to the trial, when sj and his reputation are already ruined is also good.

... also i like svss nyy, but pidw nyy is so not for me. she seems to have no qualms sacrificing sj for lbh