It was supposed to be a relatively straightforward diplomatic trip, but of course these things never were with demons, Shang Qinghua reflected. He could have been back at home in Mobei-Jun's palace, doing something normal and boring and safe, in a comfortable room with servants to bring him snacks whenever he wanted. But here he was trapped in an underground prison with his king, qi-suppression worked into the very stones of the cell, and a strange-looking device attached to the door in place of a lock.

Good thing he was the creator of this world and was pretty sure he knew what the device was.

On the other hand, he wasn't very happy with what this device was. Why did he have to write so many convoluted scenarios to convince beautiful maidens to join Luo Binghe's harem?! Couldn't he have made it easier for a few of them, let them just fall in love with his face and his power, and follow him willingly right away? Of course not. That wouldn't have been interesting to read hundreds of times over, and Shang Qinghua had to do what his readers wanted.

"My king," he said, a little quaver in his voice. Mobei-Jun didn't look up. His eyes were closed, and he was sitting with a serene elegance that Shang Qinghua could tell hid a deep well of anger.

"My king, I know how to free us from here. The lock on the door, it will open if certain conditions are fulfilled!"

Mobei-Jun opened his eyes. They seemed to pierce right through Shang Qinghua. Ahhh, his king was certainly handsome! And scary!

"This servant apologises that he was not able to save his king from being imprisoned!" Shang Qinghua fingered the edge of his sleeve nervously. "But I will take action immediately! The only thing you must do is listen while I speak. But tell me if you've heard it before! I have to tell you new things."

"Then speak," Mobei-Jun said flatly.

"Um!" he said in return. Oh, this was even harder than he had thought it would be! Telling secret truths, three of them! And he couldn't wimp out and share meaningless secrets. Wife #437 had tried that, and it hadn't worked. If you were trapped behind the lock you had to share with someone three secrets that lay close to your heart before that lock would open; and of course it was eventually her who did the sharing, so that Luo Binghe would be able to take advantage of the feeling of vulnerable intimacy that resulted. The papapa was only a side effect, not even necessary to open the lock.

But sharing real secrets was hard! He talked a lot, he knew, but some things were just weird to put into words that someone else might hear.

So he couldn't help trying the easy way out anyway, even knowing it wouldn't work. "I hated the musician you had at that banquet last week, she was trying too hard to sound sweet and it just made her sound insincere," he said.

He glanced over at the door. Nothing. No movement. No sign that the first of the three locks had broken with his words. And Mobei-Jun's expression looked, if possible, even less impressed. "Yes, I know." A pause. "You said."

Oops. Shang Qinghua had forgotten he'd said that! He'd...he'd told Mobei-Jun his opinions at some length after the banquet, actually, now that he thought of it. He'd told Mobei-Jun to never hire her again, and that whichever demon was in charge of procuring entertainment clearly had no taste and needed remedial lessons. Mobei-Jun hadn't looked like he was listening, but that wasn't the sort of thing that ever stopped Shang Qinghua from talking to him.

Hmm, maybe something from before he met Mobei-Jun, then? "I called my father a rude word in front of the whole family at my great-grandmother's funeral when I was six," he tried.

"I know."

"Um, I think you look super cool when you summon portals to walk through, and sometimes I find excuses to get you to do it more often?"

"I know."

Shang Qinghua sighed. It wasn't his fault that Mobei-Jun kept him around a lot, and never complained about Shang Qinghua's babbling! Sometimes it even felt like Mobei-Jun wanted to hear Shang Qinghua share every thought that was on his mind, which only encouraged him in these unfortunate habits. This plot device was discriminating against him personally! ....This plot device that he had personally invented. Was discriminating against him personally. He sighed again.

He worked his way through a series of progressively more embarrassing stories from his younger days, both his life as Shang Qinghua and--carefully redacted--the life he'd lived before that. It turned out Mobei-Jun had heard them all.

Slumping backwards against the cold stone wall of their prison cell, and looking around as if it might contain any inspiration, Shang Qinghua contemplated his options.

Mobei-Jun still sat immovable and elegant, as if he were choosing to honour this terrible little cell and his terrible little servant with his presence. Shang Qinghua shivered against the wall, then found his mind wandering to whether Mobei-Jun's ice-cold and presumably rock-hard abs would feel similar to lean against.

No! Not helpful, Shang Qinghua! Mobei-Jun already knew what his own abs were like!

Shang Qinghua really didn't have it as easy as Wife #437. She might have blushed and hesitated, but she wanted to share her secrets with Luo Binghe. She had been lonely and rejected by her family, and all she wanted was to be understood by somebody for once. This wife plot simply gave her an excuse to share things she otherwise would never have felt able to speak to another person, little things that she felt made her monstrous and unlovable but were really no big deal. Shang Qinghua couldn't relate.

But there was nothing for it. Time to go for the big ones. Hopefully his king would be understanding when he heard!!

"Perhaps my king might find it to be new information that this one comes from, uh, comes from another world, a very different world than here?"

He looked up, anxious to see how Mobei-Jun would respond. The intensity of his king's sidelong glance was palpable, and Shang Qinghua quailed.

But then Mobei-Jun spoke. "I know," he said, a strange tone in his voice that Shang Qinghua couldn't identify. Then the meaning of Mobei-Jun's words struck him. "You know," Shang Qinghua wailed in despair. "How do you know?!"

This was apparently sufficient to rouse Mobei-Jun to an explanation. "Sometimes you say things that make no sense. You refer to things that do not exist. You use words in a way I have not heard from any dialect in the human and demon kingdoms. When you talk of your childhood, it doesn't fit with the village you come from. You have told me, over and over again. You are from a different world than I."

Shang Qinghua really was the lousiest secret-keeper around! It was a wonder he ever managed as a spy.

TIme to go even deeper.

"In that other world," he said tentatively, "I was a writer." So far this would not be surprising. "And I wrote a book about a world I created, and characters I created. And then I found myself living in the world I created--this world, your world. I created you."

Mobei-Jun tilted his head. "Ah," he said.

"Ah? That's all??"

"It makes sense."

Shang Qinghua could despair, really! "No! No it doesn't! Why does it make sense!!"

"You know things you should not be able to know," Mobei-Jun said. As if it were that simple!

But. The locking device had turned one-third of the way! The implications didn't matter; Shang Qinghua had successfully found a secret Mobei-Jun didn't already know! Now....he just had to find two more. When it took the biggest secret he had to just accomplish the first. Shang Qinghua slumped further down against the cold rock wall of the prison, out of ideas.

Eventually Mobei-Jun broke the silence. "Tell me more about your other life." The words sounded stilted. Ahhh, his king was trying to help!

Did Shang Qinghua have any secrets, though, from his other life? Ones he hadn't tried already? "It's not very interesting," he said morosely, staring down at his hands. "I just spent all my time writing, and then I died and found myself here, in the body of a character I'd written to be nothing but cannon fodder."

He shivered. Had the prison suddenly gotten colder?

"Anyway! It's fine, obviously, since I'm here with you now. And you haven't killed me or anything yet!"

....The prison was even colder now. It was not his imagination. Oh no, his king was angry, and he didn't know why, and he definitely was not going to look up because he knew he could not handle the intensity of his king's glares!

He looked up.

Mobei-Jun didn't look angry. He looked.....Shang Qinghua wasn't sure how he looked, to be honest. Still intense though. Yikes. Shang Qinghua looked away again, swiftly.

"Is that what you think you deserve?" Mobei-Jun demanded.

Shang Qinghua squeaked, just a little, in alarm. "This unworthy servant has done his utmost to be helpful, ever since he first met the great Mobei-Jun! This servant has lived much longer than he expected, and is grateful!"

"You expected to die."

"Yes, my king? I've done my best to be more useful than the original Shang Qinghua, that asshole, but obviously you killed him for a good reason, and I had to take on his role, and I really wasn't sure if I could avoid it!"

"You expect me to kill you." There was a bit of a growl underneath Mobei-Jun's words. "Because I killed Shang Qinghua."

Why was Mobei-Jun being so weird about this! "Obviously? Even if I'm not him, I'm still a cowardly traitor!"

"No," Mobei-Jun said intensely, probably the most intensely Shang Qinghua had ever heard his king say anything, which was a high bar actually!

"I mean, I wrote you killing him? It definitely happened!"

Mobei-Jun stood abruptly and stalked away from Shang Qinghua, leaving Shang Qinghua quailing behind him in the wake of his swirling robes.

But their prison wasn't large, and it only took Mobei-Jun a few steps before he reached a wall. Shang Qinghua kind of expected Mobei-Jun to punch the wall or something, maybe as a Shang Qinghua stand-in, but instead Mobei-Jun just....stopped there, facing the wall, and drooped a bit. After a moment one arm came up to lean against the wall.

"This king has failed Qinghua, if that is what Qinghua thinks of himself," Mobei-Jun said, his voice low and a bit muffled.

Too much! Too much! No!

"It's been an honour to serve you for so long, my king!" Shang Qinghua said desperately. "I have no regrets! You were always my favourite."

Mobei-Jun's fingers caressed the wall as his arm came down again, and he slowly turned. "Your favourite," he said. His cheekbones were gloriously sharp in the uneven light of the miserable cell.

Shang Qinghua nodded vigorously, before he could even stop to think about it. "Obviously. How could you not be? I wrote you to be the perfect man."

"Qinghua thinks I'm perfect." Mobei-Jun took a single step back towards him.

"Um. Yes?"

Somehow Mobei-Jun was right next to Shang Qinghua again, looming over him, his magnificent figure on display in the frankly revealing clothes that ice demons seemed to prefer. Shang Qingua's eyes were drawn inescapably to Mobei-Jun's bare chest in the deeply open collar of his robes.

Mobei-Jun put his hand out. Shang Qingua took it gingerly, and Mobei-Jun pulled him up so they were both standing. Manfully, Shang Qinghua resisted touching the chest that was suddenly within reach. He pulled his eyes back up to Mobei-Jun's face with effort.

"My king?" he said uncertainly.

"Qinghua is valued," Mobei-Jun said with finality. "He will always have a place by this king's side. He must not debase himself any longer."

Shang Qinghua could not handle this kind of sincerity. He had to look literally anywhere else, and as his eyes cast wildly about for somewhere safe to land, he saw the locking mechanism. Which was -- open.

Somehow in all this unbearable conversation, the two of them had spoken enough secrets! They were free!

Shang Qinghua tried to pull away, but Mobei-Jun's hand continued to grip his own.

"Come on," Shang Qinghua said impatiently, "the door's unlocked. Let's get out of here."

"Ah." Mobei-Jun released Shang Qinghua's hand.

The way out involved a certain amount of bloodshed, but it was all on the part of the demons who had been holding them captive, so Shang Qinghua was completely fine with it. And his king looked so good in the ferocity of battle, his teeth bared and his sword dripping with blood as it flashed through the air. Shang Qinghua was perfectly happy to let him do all the work while Shang Qinghua stood back and admired him.

When they had no more opposition it was the work of a moment for Mobei-Jun to slash open a portal back home to his palace in the Northern Kingdom, Shang Qinghua along for the ride. Mobei-Jun took them straight into his own personal quarters. The familiar rooms had never felt so welcoming as they did in this moment.

Now that the excitement was over, Shang Qinghua was immediately full of thoughts of the political retribution he could inflict upon the clan that had dared to do this to his king, and he pulled back away from Mobei-Jun's hold so he could properly pace while he considered the appropriate scope and scale of destruction.

"Qinghua," Mobei-Jun said. Shang Qinghua stopped.

Mobei-Jun slowly, horrifyingly, was lowering himself in a bow towards Shang Qinghua.

Oh no. Mobei-Jun had clearly taken that conversation in the prison cell far too seriously! "Stop, stop!" Shang Qinghua said frantically. "No!"

Mobei-Jun did not stop. "This lowly one offers many thanks to the god Shang Qinghua for the favours he had blessed this one with," he said, and Shang Qinghua could cry, he really could. This was all wrong.

"My king," he said in despair.

Mobei-Jun lifted his head. "You are still willing to recognise this one as your king, despite his failures towards you?"

"You're everything I've ever wanted," Shang Qinghua said. His voice was small. "Of course you're my king, for as long as you'll permit me."

Mobei-Jun straightened the rest of the way. His dark eyes glowed in the warmth of the candlelight, a contrast to the glittering ice of the palace, and his mouth was set in determination.

Nope! Shang Qinghua was done! That was more than enough emotion for one day! He flopped down on Mobei-Jun's bed, with its many sumptuous furs, and closed his eyes. "I'm tired," he announced.

"Then rest," said Mobei-Jun gravely.

It didn't take long for Shang Qinghua to become drowsy in truth, but as he slipped into that hazy state that lies between wakefulness and sleep, he thought he felt a cool gentle press against his forehead. His eyes snapped open, instantly alert, as Mobei-Jun's face moved into view -- so close it was nearly touching his, its sharp lines so familiar and yet, in this moment of startlement amidst the warmth of sleep, no longer as remote as he'd always imagined. He raised a hand dreamily and ran one finger along that unreal jawline, then trailed it upward to Mobei-Jun's lips. The lips opened. Unconsciously, Shang Qinghua's did too.

Mobei-Jun began to draw back, but Shang Qinghua let out a quiet noise of protest, and Mobei-Jun stopped. "Tell me what you want," he said.

Shang Qinghua tried to collect his scattered thoughts enough to formulate words. "You value me," he said wonderingly. He hadn't let himself think about that earlier, but somehow now it was easier. "Well, that's only right, I've worked very hard to make myself valuable to you. But --" He paused. "My king, you like me, don't you.” His tone was accusing.

"Yes," Mobei-Jun said. Shang Qinghua's fingers were somehow still on his lips, and the puff of cold from his breath startled Shang Qinghua into pulling his hand back.

He began to laugh softly, then less softly. "I like you too," he said, between breaths of laughter. "If you didn't know."

"I know."

Shang Qinghua sat up then, blankets and furs sloughing off him as he rose, bringing his face close once more to Mobei-Jun's. "You know a lot about me, don't you," he said, and he closed the final remaining distance between them with a kiss.