mu qing was staring in the mirror and judging himself hard. it's not like he suddenly lost confidence over his looks because he was damn sure he was one piece of a fine cake, but it's just that... he wanted to do something stupid.
his cultivation demanded that his mind stayed conscious all the time, meaning he couldn't blame alcohol or sexual attraction for his out-of-mind behaviour, which meant that every stupid thing he did was done consciously and it felt twice as good.
he swirled his brown ponytail around his finger and clicked his tongue. it was cute and all, but where was the fire? and so mu qing made his mind, stood up and ventured out to get himself some divine hair dye.
"what do you mean bleaching?" he said coldly, glaring at the official behind the counter. it was a woman, a god of hair. every time a girl wished to have great hairstyle for her wedding, she'd pray to her. mu qing decided he did not want to judge people's godly preferences, especially given the fact that he was pathetically asking the said god for help.
the woman watched him indifferently from above a scroll, "what colour, again?"
"silver."
"bleach."
mu qing slammed his hand on the counter, "i don't want to go bald!"
"well, i don't want to have an angry self-conscious martial big-shot assassinating my furniture but guess no one's gonna fulfill our wishes today, general xuan zhen.
mu qing's eyelid twitched, but he had to retreat. he wasn't going to fight a hair god. shrinking back his hurting pride, he asked, "how much?"
"twenty thousand merits and a promise to never see you again."
mu qing inwardly screamed, forced out a nod and the woman suddenly smiled cheerfully and manhandled him on the chair.
four hours later mu qing gawked in the mirror blankly as the woman collected her payment and requested that he thanked her and thanked himself out. mu qing did, because mu qing looked absolutely fire.
on his way back to the immortal city, many heavenly officials twisted their necks to double-take, some goddesses even squeaked and dropped their fans, shi qingxuan stood in shock, ming yi walked into him and cursed, and pei ming cried.
"my general, what have you–"
"silence."
mu qing knew he looked hot and that's what mattered the most.
stepping into the street leading to his palace, mu qing heaved a sigh of relief. all this sudden attention was giving him chills. he wasn't used to being the centre of everyone's focus and so hiding in his palace with a cup of tea was all he wanted to do.
of course his luck granted him the opposite, just how it granted that his palace was placed a hair's width from feng xin's. this caused an encounter mu qing really wasn't in a mood for, and he rolled his eyes even before feng xin noticed him.
but as soon as he did, feng xin dropped his bow, "the f-fuck?"
"no, just m-mu qing."
feng xin didn't like having his stuttering pointed out, but he was currently experiencing technical problems and needed to take a moment to recover. he was staring at mu qing with wide eyes and pale face as if he saw a ghost.
mu qing prepared to perform his classic eye-roll when suddenly feng xin picked up his bow in a flash and loaded an arrow, pointing it at mu qing's face and crying out, "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
mu qing snorted, "put your sticks down or you'll hurt someone. also, get out of the way."
feng xin blocked his path, the bow stretched out and ready to strike, "what. did. you. do."
"woke up, drank tea, ate br–"
"NO."
"ah, you mean this?" mu qing smiled coldly, wrapping his now silver lock around the finger. "i made an experiment."
"has the experiment hurt you in the brain?!"
"no, but it seems like it hurt you. general nan yang, go fuck yourself."
mu qing swiftly maneuvered past him, half-anticipating to be shot with feng xin's arrow. but for some reason the one wounded and distressed seemed to be feng xin himself.
mu qing was already opening the door when feng xin re-attacked and punched the door back close, driving mu qing absolutely crazy as he turned around and punched feng xin in the face.
"would you stop?" he growled, shrinking to the side as feng xin's muscle memory arose and they soon began their classic fist-to-fist dance. the entire heavenly realm got used to it like they got used to pei ming's affairs and jun wu's indifferent face wherever anyone who wasn't xie lian would approach him.
the fun thing about their fights was that once they started exchanging blows, they tended to forget the reason why they even started. but this time mu qing's furiously silver hair fled past feng xin's face all the goddamn time, and it only made feng xin's cheeks redder.
he blamed the hazardous beating of his heart on the physical exertion.
after a longer while when both of them finally scratched each other to blood and broke a fence, a statue and a tree, they finally pulled back and breathed hard. mu qing immediately pointed at him and muttered such a long and lovely phrase feng xin would be sure to punch it back down mu qing's throat, but the problem was...
mu qing's silver hair was now out of control as the hair tie snapped in the middle of their fight, leaving mu qing's hair in a loose disarray all over his face. he flipped it back behind and gave feng xin a disgusted look.
"assaulting people for no reason, you're lower than you were yesterday and yesterday was already cryworthy. grow up."
"what did you do to your hair?" feng xin repeated stubbornly for the twentieth time.
"what do you want from my hair? i know i look hot but you could stop being so obvious, it's unsightly."
needless to say this caused another round of punch-and-kick-until-jun-wu-snaps, and when this one was over, mu qing walked away without another word and smacked his door shut.
feng xin collected his bow and tail, showing a middle finger towards mu qing's palace, and walked on the main street in a mess. he stood next to pei ming and pei ming have him a side look.
"general looks like general just got banished twice."
"general looks like general knows the reason."
pei ming nodded, "and general looks like general really doesn't know how to deal with this new situation."
"beating him up always worked."
"general might be surprised to hear that usually when someone wants to compliment the other, they do not try to kill him in front of his house."
feng xin was furious, "what nonsense! absolute nonsense! unbelievable, unbelievable... NONSENSE!"
he left pei ming where he stood smirking and nodding, walking past two figures. one in green and one in black, they both stood and stopped talking when they saw feng xin.
"general" shi qingxuan squeaked.
"I WAS NOT TRYING TO COMPLIMENT HIM, LEAVE ME ALONE!"
shi qingxuan was so startled he jumped behind ming yi who only watched indifferently as if he was dead or something. feng xin decided to run away, and good for him that he didn't hear ming yi snorting.
"fucking gay."
"ming-xiong, how rude..."
"get lost."
"maybe i should dye my hair too? huh? ming-xiong, where are you going? MING-XIONG!"
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beefleef or i'm not writing it