"Excellent." He'll head off at a casual stroll.. he's not in a hurry, now that he has a reason to be dawdling. The usual Starskiff Haven crowd does separate around him despite his pace, meaning they don't have to push through the walkways to the tea shop. "So, Shang Qinghua, are you a fan of Immortal's Delight, or do you prefer more traditional tea? On a day like today, a cup of Immortal's Delight really hits the spot, I find." He chuckles. "Though the Healer Lady would give me a scolding if she heard that."
Despite being fairly sure he has the source of the disturbance in hand, he does keep an eye out for any signs of anything else strange. It's possible that this young man is just an innocent bystander with a taste for the classics, after all.
Edited (kept reading that sentence and wasn't satisfied lmao ) 2024-10-22 03:45 (UTC)
"Ah, this one enjoys most teas? This one has not had a chance to sample... Immortal's Delight." Is that suspicious? Oh well.
He can't decide whether he should talk more casually or not. The General is, but that could just be perks of position. Junshang can certainly talk to people in ways they can't talk back to him. He's going to err on the side of not offending a man who could fucking flatten him.
And judging by the way everyone gets out of his way as he walks, General Jing Yuan is a big deal and absolutely everyone in wherever the hell this is knows his face. So he would be a very useful friend or a very inconvenient enemy.
He really should just come out with it and beg for assistance.
It's a little suspicious that Shang Qinghua has never had the chance to sample Immortal's Delight, but on the whole it doesn't raise Jing Yuan's suspicions of him that much. After all, he can't get that much more suspicious. He just smiles and nods. "Well then, let today be the day you do."
It's a very short walk to the Sleepless Earl, just across a bridge and down a flight of stairs. Jing Yuan waves cheerily to the small foxian girl in front of the shop. "Mengming, two cups of Immortal's Delight for me and my friend here - we'll be at one of your upstairs tables."
He leads the way up to the quieter upper tables. With the lovely weather today the second floor is almost deserted, as he suspected it would be. He takes a seat and waves for Shang Qinghua to take the other. "Please, make yourself comfortable. Our tea shouldn't be long."
Indeed, one of the servers follows them up almost directly with two plastic cups of the sweet bubble tea, as well as a tray of light snacks, which she informs them are on the house.
this is the happiest icon of him I have help. he's looking at the boba like he looks at mbj I guess
This is a very nice tea shop, though the tech level and aesthetic continue to be sort of jarringly off. He follows the General, because what the fuck else is he going to do at this point, and appreciates that the upstairs tables are quiet and there aren't a lot of people. Since there's likely going to be some kind of something about who he is. Which is, he's sure, why the man asked for one.
Holy shit, boba? Boba!!! He hasn't had boba tea in fucking decades! Not since he died! His entire face lights up in open glee as he stabs the straw into the cup and sucks in a mouthful of tapioca, at which point he remembers what's happening and tries to school his expression. He chews the boba pearls and swallows.
...Okay, Airplane, just fucking do it, he's definitely noticed you're insanely suspicious by now. "So. Ah. This one... has no idea where he is?" ...well, that's a start.
Shang Qinghua's enjoyment of the boba makes an answering smile appear on Jing Yuan's face. It's adorable, if he's being honest - like seeing someone united with an old, beloved friend.
Clearly he should interrogate all suspicious figures with Immortal's Delight if it's this easy. He nods understandingly but without surprise, taking a sip of his own drink with a pleased noise. "You are on the Xianzhou Luofu, one of the world ships of the Xianzhou people. How did you happen to come here, if you didn't know your destination?"
Boba tea is absolutely an old and beloved friend. He cradles the cup protectively. So good...
World ships? Is this a fucking sci-fi xianxia setting? "That... did not actually..." He sighs. "This one fell through a portal and found himself here. He has never heard of a world ship outside of fiction, or of the Xianzhou at all."
"A... portal? How strange." They can be just as confused as each other, it's okay. Jing Yuan can't imagine the kind of power it would take to open a portal to the Luofu from some isolated world, and the thought of it happening unintentionally is vanishingly unlikely, but he doesn't read anything but honesty in Shang Qinghua's face or voice. "I will do my best to explain. Long ago, an ancient emperor, eager to secure his legacy, sent a fleet of starships out into the galaxy to search for the secrets of immortality. After many trials, the surviving ships found the Aeon of Abundance, Yaoshi, who 'blessed' them with marks of THEIR favour that gave them what they sought, but by then they had lost their way home and could no longer return." Please note the heavy irony on 'blessed'. "The six ships continued to travel the galaxy and enjoyed their newfound blessings, but before long they realized the hidden poison in the gift - overpopulation, lack of resources, and the curse of mara all began to blight the Xianzhou people."
He frowns, stirring the boba in his tea. "Ah, mara is a curse unique to the Xianzhou, a result of our long lives - a transformation that removes our humanity and replaces it with boundless madness and aggression. It usually strikes after three or four centuries, depending on the person, but all Xianzhou natives and others who try to achieve immortality the same way will eventually fall into it." He wants to be specific and detailed about this just in case Shang Qinghua starts getting some ideas about trying to find the Xianzhou secret, as so many have. "Anyway, in the greatest moment of our need, the Reignbow Arbiter, Lan the Hunt, arose and struck the Ambrosial Arbor of the Luofu, the source of our immortality and greatest emblem of our foolishness, and the Xianzhou swore to serve THEM and to hunt the other Abominations of Abundance, to render the cosmos free of Yaoshi's 'gifts'. Our ships have sailed the cosmos ever since, wiping out abominations as we find them."
Jing Yuan chuckles a bit sheepishly before taking a sip. "Well, you probably didn't need to know all that, but most visitors to the Luofu hear the story in one way or another. Best to get it out of the way, hm?"
He blinks. Worldbuilding loredump, handy. "I have never heard of an Aeon, are they gods? Ascended? I... this one is an-- a cultivator." Sounds like let's not use the word 'immortal' there maybe. "Of Cang Qiong Shan sect, lord of An Ding peak," he adds, which will convey as much nothing to the General as he has conveyed to him. "There is no space travel there, and the gods are ascended humans--and demons and spiritual beasts, I suppose--and they mostly... do bureaucracy and ignore the mortal realm? This one... thanks the General for his extensive explanation? It is appreciated." Has he fucking transmigrated somewhere goddamn else? Belatedly, he prods at his system. A screen flashes up with a low battery icon and the text [STANDBY MODE - POWER SOURCE NOT DETECTED]. Okay he is hell of not in PIDW anymore.
Jing Yuan can't help but be a little amused by Shang Qinghua's confusion, though it is totally justified. He dropped quite a bit of information on his head, after all. "An Aeon is something like a god, yes, and some say they were all mortal once. They embody a philosophy and walk the path of that philosophy no matter what. The Plagues Author - Yaoshi - cannot do anything but give out THEIR poisoned gifts, and the Reignbow Arbiter must hunt evil. Their followers attempt to follow their chosen Aeon's philosophy and if they tread that path closely enough they gain power from it."
He listens attentively to Shang Qinghua's description of his own world and gods, allowing his confusion to show on his face so Shang Qinghua doesn't feel quite so alone. "I'm familiar with the concept of cultivation - there are those who practice it here as part of their Pathstriding, including myself - but the rest of what you say is completely new. I've never heard of those locations... I'm happy to do a search in our archives to see if we can get you home, but I don't know what our chances of success will be."
"That sounds like... a terrible thing to ascend to, to have nothing else left of you." And here he thought PIDW Ascension was sort of shitty.
"I, there is-- an indicator, of sorts? Last time it displayed anything like what it does now, the person to whom it is connected was in another plane from me. I do not think where I came from would be... findable by conventional methods."
He pauses. Should he just go whole hog here? The system can't punish him for it if it's offline. "...Have you ever heard of 'transmigration' or 'isekai'?"
"Isekai... isn't that one of the immersia genres the kids like these days?" Oh, he's asking the wrong person. "Sorry, but I think I've only heard it in passing. I've never actually watched one." He'd ask Yanqing, but he doesn't think his ward would know either. He takes life so seriously Jing Yuan had a hard time getting him to relax enough to see his friends, let alone watch a great deal of immersia.
He is going to reserve his comments on Shang Qinghua's thoughts about Aeons for now. It's... pretty blasphemous, but sometimes Jing Yuan has had similar ideas. The Ten Lords Commission wouldn't like to hear that, so he keeps them to himself.
Hm. Well. At least it exists, he guesses. He's started this train, so he might as well keep going. "Isekai was a popular fictional trope in stories in my original world as well. Fictional. Stories where a person dies, and wakes up born anew into a world of fantasy." He pauses, frowns. "There was no cultivation, no magic, no gods, nothing supernatural, not in that world, it was all purely a thing of fiction. And then I died. And I woke up in the world of a book I had-- read." Good save, Airplane. "It's in that book where I was reborn into the role of Peak Lord of An Ding. I strongly suspect that this, your Xianzhou Luofu, is a different world entirely from either of those."
It all sounds impossible to Jing Yuan, but he also doesn't see any signs of deception in the tale that Shang Qinghua is telling. Well, almost none. He hesitates before saying he'd read the book, which seems like such a tiny thing to lie about as to be almost pointless. Interesting.
"Just so I'm understanding the order of events - you are originally from a world there is nothing supernatural, but when you died - I am sorry to hear that - you reincarnated into the world where you became Peak Lord of An Ding. And then you came here by falling into a portal - you did not have to die again?" He hopes not. Dying more than once seems like it would be terribly unfair.
"I, er, literally tripped and fell through a portal, yeah." Because that's not embarrassing. Though it's not as bad as how he died, so... could be worse. "But portals to other worlds aren't unheard of, in the book; m-- the ice demon king can create shadow portals, and the demon emperor has a sword that can cut portals through space that he's gone to other realities through before, and there are naturally occurring rifts to the Endless Abyss. But, um, no, I didn't die again. And I didn't wake up in the body of one of your citizens, I'm still... being Shang Qinghua. I've got all my stuff with me and everything. And my cultivation still works."
"So that sounds like an entirely different mechanism than your first, what did you call it, transmigration?" Jing Yuan muses. "I'll have the Divination Commission go through the records to see if there are previous anomalies like this, if they're not doing that already. Perhaps we've had previous visitors from your world." It's a strange idea, like something out of, well, a book or immersia, but he seems to have the walking, talking, boba-drinking proof of it in front of him. "And in the mean time, what to tell them..."
It's his opinion that Shang Qinghua is as close to harmless as it's possible for a cultivator to be, but he doubts Fu Xuan will be so sanguine, let alone the Ten Lords Commission. No, they definitely don't need to know about this - there's no sin being committed, just a strange event and to him that's more in line with the Divination Commission's purview. He can't imagine Shang Qinghua, who was made so nervous by him, of all people, handling the methods of the Ten Lords well.
And... ah. Generals are generally held to some kind of command structure, aren't they? Has he just made a horrible mistake? Should he definitely have not said that part about his cultivation working? At least he didn't say he was immortal. He sips his tea, anxiously. Maybe he should try the seal to summon his king? He was just so caught up in exploring... but a man with a spiritual presence like that would almost certainly be able to sense it, and then there would be questions that he really does not want to answer.
Jing Yuan sips his boba, deep in thought - the solemn expression on his face at odds with the rather silly looking straw he's sucking on. Eventually he puts the cup down with a nod. "We're going to need to tell someone that you're here or I'll be accused of concealing important information if it comes to light. My choice would be Chief Diviner Fu Xuan - I have her loyalty, and she has my trust, not to mention she's the one who told me about the incident in the first place. Her Commission will also be the best one to explore the prospect of returning you to your home." He isn't sure whether that's a priority for Shang Qinghua or not, but they should at least try. "While we work on that, you'll be my guest on the Luofu and we can tell the Chief Diviner you're under my supervision, which will hopefully satisfy any qualms she has about danger you might pose."
It isn't a foolproof plan, but it is at least the basics of a plan. It depends on Fu Xuan cooperating, of course, which is the weak point, but... he's sure he can convince her.
"...Thank you?" That seems like the only thing he can possibly say. The man is definitely putting himself out for him. Like he finds Shang Qinghua's inherent sleaze somehow trustworthy. "I, ah, this one will trust the honorable General's judgment in this matter, and thanks him for his forbearance?"
"I'm glad to hear it, but there's no need to thank me. At least until we see how this all works out." Honestly, he finds Shang Qinghua... adorable? Adorably old-fashioned, at least. "By the way, I haven't heard people speaking like that to each other in real life since I was a child. It really is all right to speak less formally, no one's going to think you're being discourteous. If you keep it up, they'll think you're even older than me."
Right. Okay. He can be casual. “You’re still putting yourself out on my behalf,” he points out. “You just met me.” Feels weird to talk normally to someone other than Cucumber-bro. “Man, I haven’t habitually talked informally in decades.” He’s curious how long ago ‘since I was a child’ is, but asking someone’s age is rude. And the man did say his people are immortal, so like any cultivator, he could be very old indeed. “Um. Thank you for the boba tea, too. Haven’t had one since I died.”
"You're a guest of the Xianzhou Luofu, no matter how involuntarily. It's our duty to ensure you're taken care of. Under the circumstances it seems I'm best suited to carry that out, so really, thanks are unneeded." This is a very polite conversation despite Jing Yuan insisting there's no need to be formal. It's fine, he's old and allowed to be a hypocrite occasionally.
"But you are very welcome for the boba tea. There's also a startaro variety, which... well, I can't recommend it but Diviner Fu is quite fond of it. I'll have to bring her a cup to sweeten her mood when we head over there." After all he's going to be very late for their meeting and bringing her a problem, he can imagine she's going to be a little irritable.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Despite being fairly sure he has the source of the disturbance in hand, he does keep an eye out for any signs of anything else strange. It's possible that this young man is just an innocent bystander with a taste for the classics, after all.
no subject
He can't decide whether he should talk more casually or not. The General is, but that could just be perks of position. Junshang can certainly talk to people in ways they can't talk back to him. He's going to err on the side of not offending a man who could fucking flatten him.
And judging by the way everyone gets out of his way as he walks, General Jing Yuan is a big deal and absolutely everyone in wherever the hell this is knows his face. So he would be a very useful friend or a very inconvenient enemy.
He really should just come out with it and beg for assistance.
Maybe when they get to the Sleepless Earl.
no subject
It's a very short walk to the Sleepless Earl, just across a bridge and down a flight of stairs. Jing Yuan waves cheerily to the small foxian girl in front of the shop. "Mengming, two cups of Immortal's Delight for me and my friend here - we'll be at one of your upstairs tables."
He leads the way up to the quieter upper tables. With the lovely weather today the second floor is almost deserted, as he suspected it would be. He takes a seat and waves for Shang Qinghua to take the other. "Please, make yourself comfortable. Our tea shouldn't be long."
Indeed, one of the servers follows them up almost directly with two plastic cups of the sweet bubble tea, as well as a tray of light snacks, which she informs them are on the house.
this is the happiest icon of him I have help. he's looking at the boba like he looks at mbj I guess
Holy shit, boba? Boba!!! He hasn't had boba tea in fucking decades! Not since he died! His entire face lights up in open glee as he stabs the straw into the cup and sucks in a mouthful of tapioca, at which point he remembers what's happening and tries to school his expression. He chews the boba pearls and swallows.
...Okay, Airplane, just fucking do it, he's definitely noticed you're insanely suspicious by now. "So. Ah. This one... has no idea where he is?" ...well, that's a start.
lmao amazing glad to bring a smile to his face
Clearly he should interrogate all suspicious figures with Immortal's Delight if it's this easy. He nods understandingly but without surprise, taking a sip of his own drink with a pleased noise. "You are on the Xianzhou Luofu, one of the world ships of the Xianzhou people. How did you happen to come here, if you didn't know your destination?"
no subject
World ships? Is this a fucking sci-fi xianxia setting? "That... did not actually..." He sighs. "This one fell through a portal and found himself here. He has never heard of a world ship outside of fiction, or of the Xianzhou at all."
no subject
He frowns, stirring the boba in his tea. "Ah, mara is a curse unique to the Xianzhou, a result of our long lives - a transformation that removes our humanity and replaces it with boundless madness and aggression. It usually strikes after three or four centuries, depending on the person, but all Xianzhou natives and others who try to achieve immortality the same way will eventually fall into it." He wants to be specific and detailed about this just in case Shang Qinghua starts getting some ideas about trying to find the Xianzhou secret, as so many have. "Anyway, in the greatest moment of our need, the Reignbow Arbiter, Lan the Hunt, arose and struck the Ambrosial Arbor of the Luofu, the source of our immortality and greatest emblem of our foolishness, and the Xianzhou swore to serve THEM and to hunt the other Abominations of Abundance, to render the cosmos free of Yaoshi's 'gifts'. Our ships have sailed the cosmos ever since, wiping out abominations as we find them."
Jing Yuan chuckles a bit sheepishly before taking a sip. "Well, you probably didn't need to know all that, but most visitors to the Luofu hear the story in one way or another. Best to get it out of the way, hm?"
no subject
no subject
He listens attentively to Shang Qinghua's description of his own world and gods, allowing his confusion to show on his face so Shang Qinghua doesn't feel quite so alone. "I'm familiar with the concept of cultivation - there are those who practice it here as part of their Pathstriding, including myself - but the rest of what you say is completely new. I've never heard of those locations... I'm happy to do a search in our archives to see if we can get you home, but I don't know what our chances of success will be."
no subject
"I, there is-- an indicator, of sorts? Last time it displayed anything like what it does now, the person to whom it is connected was in another plane from me. I do not think where I came from would be... findable by conventional methods."
He pauses. Should he just go whole hog here? The system can't punish him for it if it's offline. "...Have you ever heard of 'transmigration' or 'isekai'?"
no subject
He is going to reserve his comments on Shang Qinghua's thoughts about Aeons for now. It's... pretty blasphemous, but sometimes Jing Yuan has had similar ideas. The Ten Lords Commission wouldn't like to hear that, so he keeps them to himself.
no subject
no subject
"Just so I'm understanding the order of events - you are originally from a world there is nothing supernatural, but when you died - I am sorry to hear that - you reincarnated into the world where you became Peak Lord of An Ding. And then you came here by falling into a portal - you did not have to die again?" He hopes not. Dying more than once seems like it would be terribly unfair.
no subject
no subject
It's his opinion that Shang Qinghua is as close to harmless as it's possible for a cultivator to be, but he doubts Fu Xuan will be so sanguine, let alone the Ten Lords Commission. No, they definitely don't need to know about this - there's no sin being committed, just a strange event and to him that's more in line with the Divination Commission's purview. He can't imagine Shang Qinghua, who was made so nervous by him, of all people, handling the methods of the Ten Lords well.
no subject
And... ah. Generals are generally held to some kind of command structure, aren't they? Has he just made a horrible mistake? Should he definitely have not said that part about his cultivation working? At least he didn't say he was immortal. He sips his tea, anxiously. Maybe he should try the seal to summon his king? He was just so caught up in exploring... but a man with a spiritual presence like that would almost certainly be able to sense it, and then there would be questions that he really does not want to answer.
no subject
It isn't a foolproof plan, but it is at least the basics of a plan. It depends on Fu Xuan cooperating, of course, which is the weak point, but... he's sure he can convince her.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
"But you are very welcome for the boba tea. There's also a startaro variety, which... well, I can't recommend it but Diviner Fu is quite fond of it. I'll have to bring her a cup to sweeten her mood when we head over there." After all he's going to be very late for their meeting and bringing her a problem, he can imagine she's going to be a little irritable.