#RIP CANG

[agnessmadness]

i need to make cang a vollstandig for this reply LMFAO

[rox-of-iu]

doodled some disciple era peak lords because i needed to take a break and chill out lmao

and also a little bit more aged up ↓

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.

[strewwwberry]

I'm obsessed with shen yuan being shen jiu's reincarnation for so many reasons

- finding out would lead to many mental breakdowns

- shen yuan being a born hater is suddenly explained

- shen yuans and shen jiu's personalities are actually very similar when you take away external factors:

Shen yuan is a hater and tends to do before thinking, especially if that's insults, so does shen jiu

Shen yuan gets oddly obsessed with things, so does shen jiu

possiveness in shen jius case would be learnt behavior from having nothing, which I can easily imagine shen yuan doing the same if he grew up with nothing (which he very much didn't experience having been second gen rich kid, which even having at the very least material things, he still shows signs of posseviness with Luo binghe at times, and again, even with his internalized homophobia!)

Being weird with relationships, im not elaborating

Trust issues brought on from ASSUMPTIONS, these motherfucks assume so much! And I can't even blame them because their assumptions make so much sense in the context they're given! But give it a bit more thought alongside action outside of just asking since they clearly love men who struggle to communicate (well done binghe for growing in that aspect) so thats just a no go

So much more tbh, and I'm not even doing this in a theory way because these two being parallels is probably (don't quote me on this coz I actually love this theory but also don't care enough to defend it in any way and them being parallels is a kinda gut wrenching shit I need lol) more canon accurate, with like everything that I'm not gonna get into rn or I'm gonna cry so sue me (don't actually, I'm broke)

But yeah I love this concept smm!! Which I find funny coz I'm a scumcum lover, sy is sj child/sibling/twin/parent/disciple/shizun/probably more, and I dunno what that says about me nor do I care 😙

Edit: also sqq(j/y) hating himself and not realising it is a different kind ironic I can't quite explain except to say its so amazingly angsty to a point is goddam hilarious

[vazanni]

DFQC is so incredibly emotionally intelligent. He hadn’t had experienced emotions for thousands of years and the last time he did he was a kid, yet he’s somehow better than a lot of other drama ML’s who are supposed to be fully emotionally developed.

Of course, he’s sometimes unreasonable and irrational. But he listens and he pays attention and he genuinely tries to figure it out. His gaining of emotions is not linear and he’s understandably frustrated and relapses sometimes. But majority of the time he puts effort into figuring out not only his own, but also others’ feelings. He tries to sort out what each emotion is exactly and why it’s there. He actually asks for help and listens to advice, from Xiao Lanhua, from Shangque, even from Jieli. And he reflects on their words and acts on them! Even before realizing that his Emotion Tree has been restored, he does it instinctually during his early time in Arbiter Hall with XLH. How rare that’s for a ML in Asian dramas?!

[bloopitynoot]

Reading SVSSS: Chapter 12

For those who don't know, I am reading SVSSS for the first time and sharing my thoughts!

If you have not read it, there will be spoilers! Consider this a warning.

Also- if you want to follow along, I am aiming to post updates daily. You can find all the posts in the tag bloopitynoot reads SVSSS. You can also check out the intro post for context on my read.

Heading into chapter 12!

It's been an absolute day at work, but I got to do a lovely walk with a friend afterwards AND Charlie decided to grace us with his presence (very briefly for head pats).

Tea today is peppermint! Dinner break midway through this little chapter was congee and I was very pleased with it- photo further down lol.

Let's get into it!

OMG I knew that the Dew Lake snake man would be back! I did not think they'd be here as a "handsome young man" though. I fear that Shen Qingqiu is absolutely fucked LOL. p265

oof. and now I feel like we are entering the territory for daddy issues. We have Luo Binghe's father's right hand man introduced pp266-267

Well. at least if he is likely going to suffer, the plot holes will be filled. thank you system for the points. p267

wait. Could Zhuzhi-lang be an ally? or will this guy brutally die later? (do not actually tell me this, I'm just planting my speculations). my thoughts are he could be an ally because SQQ DID save him and give him an unexpected boon by mushroom bod. but also, if Luo Binghe see's SQQ being close to another demon that man will surely murder the other demon. p268

WHY SO MANY SNAKES??? I hate that so much! p270

All I'm seeing from SQQ is kink shaming. This guy has got to stop yucking other's yums. First with the necrophilia now he's anti demons fucking snakes. it's the panicked "way too fucking hardcore" for me p271

SQQ: can you handle the snakes pls? Zhuzhi-Lang: nah they like you. p272

okay, but why is he asking for women? is it to do with the snakes? or is it because he is having a sexual crisis and needs to reassure himself?? p273

they're really going to this brothel? p274

LOL even the brothel ladies sing (very uncomfortable but I guess they enjoy it) love songs about Luo Binghe and SQQ's tragic love story p276

AHAHAHAHA SQQ's "summary" of their story on page 277 has me absolutely dying XD

Ah! that's why the women and the brothel -> the wine! p278

Cultivation wise I do really love that SQQ can just pick up any fan and start cultivating. that is honestly the coolest part of his cultivation. I love it so much. p279

LOL he really just made the snake pass out, rented a sword (idfk WHEN but he did) and dipped from the entire situation. p281

SQQ: this is a later problem, byyyyeeeeeeee.

I stated I would have congee pic earlier and here is me delivering on that. It's pork congee with eggs, tofu, pork, green onions and an ungodly amount of chili crisp.

I'm slowly turning this chapter-by-chapter read into a stay at home mom's recipe blog. I am not sorry.

That's a wrap for chapter 12!

Okay so thankfully nothing terribly tragic happened this chapter. It does feel like a big set up though so I am a little nervous about that.

AND. He still has all of this demon blood in him so he really is fucked. He may have escaped for the moment but I see all of the demons coming back for him.

We'll see what happens next chapter!

[waterlilyvioletfog]

[LOUD GAMESHOW ‘WRONG ANSWER’ BUZZER NOISE]

[strewwwberry]

More shitty cumplane shenanigans drawing

Found the concept hilarious, hears a shitty drawing of it (*￣3￣)

Shang Qinghua: Today marks the anniversary of when we lost our dear Peak Lord Shen.

Shen Qingqiu, just waking up in his plant body: *Muffled angry screaming*

Shang Qinghua: Sometimes I can still hear his voice.

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt my nuggets again. Explodes them.

[filialdisciple]

bingqiu au where sy is thrown into the unexpectedly female body of sqq. so when sy finds out, he gets carried away with the bright idea that the best way to avoid the terrible fate of the original goods is to take on the role of a mother-figure for luo binghe.

after all, in pidw there were only two roles for good-looking women like him (and really he didn't expect the original goods to look this good actually. no wonder airplane never posted official art for this man—woman?—the dudebros would definitely clamor to make sqq part of binghe's harem despite all the abuse and torment he—she??—put the man through) that won't end in getting his entire body ripped apart: a) fall in love with luo binghe and join his harem or b) be a mother-figure for binghe and tragically die.

his prospects were, at face value, not very promising. he wasn't female so he couldn't possibly fall in love with binghe so sy has no choice but to follow through with the latter.

the system is surprisingly silent when his mind races through the idea and doesn't raise any complaints about sy messing with the plot this way.

sy believes that, with all his stock knowledge of murim and fantasy worlds, he can avoid the fates that often befell these types of characters—often sacrificial deaths that lead to the protagonist's next power-up. he could gather all the artifacts for level-ups and give them to binghe at the right time!

another good way to lock in on the surviving mother-figure role is by promising to be present during the protagonist's wedding. so he does just that (not understanding the dazed look that enters his bun's face) and, to really make sure, also promises the same for all of binghe's wives (to ning yingying, luo mingyan, wife #124 a defected qiong ding disciple, etc.).

suddenly, everyone in cang qiong is abuzz over rumors of sqq wanting a wedding/looking for a husband/getting wedding fever/etc. the rumors have all jumbled up at this point into a massive mess at this point.

lqg and yqy are trying to figure out if sqq is trying to subtly shoot them a sign by approaching their sister/disciple.

meanwhile, sy thinks that he's totally got this and how on track he is with his plan when binghe accidentally slips and calls him, "mom" one time. unfortunately, all he did was stir up the hidden pseudo-oedipus complex in his poor bun.

[zirasposts]

Shen twins Separated in time au

So an au where in the og timeline Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu are twins. Everything is going surprisingly well for them too. They both manage to get to Cang Qiong mountain sect, And are doing fairly well for themselves. (Also there's a fun idea of when the twins get money they can use for shit that's not ecential for survival they both buy fans and exchange them with each other)

Anyways one day, during a night hunt Shen Yuan disappears (We blame the system, he ended up in the modern China as a baby) . No one knows what happend and that very well drives Shen Jiu nuts. Anyways years go by and its pretty much accepted that Shen Yuan is most likely dead. Shen Jiu does still keep looking for him thou, through the intelegent network he has through the red pavilon (a headcanon that can only be ripped off my cold dead hands) But all in all no luck.

So then the og plot happens pretty much exactly the same. Bing-ge happens shen Jiu ends as a pickel, you know how it goes... Except one day the little beast comes by to taunt him most likely... Why is he holding a fan? The beast has never came in with one of thouse before. So he focuses on it, better that than looking at Bing-ge. Its old little frayed on the edges but he regonizes it. He hasen't seen it or its owner in an age but he. Regonizes. It

what has this beast done to his twin!?

And then Bing-Ge starts talking about this nice shizun and ya Shen jiu is not enjoying listening Bing-Ge thirsting over Who hes pretty sure is his twin.

[lurkinginnernarrator]

YOUR WORDS ARE MAKING SWEET, SWEET LOVE TO ME RN.

OKAY, like YES chronically ill celestial beauty I CAN SEE IT SO CLEAR : wait WHAT if the reason he gets poisoned is the same as canon! Shen Yuan's Shizun had given him some errands or he was using Qing Jing's library or something, but he saves Luo Binghe from bullying, Ming Fan and co wanting to please Shen Yuan so so badly lay off on the bullying—cut to after Shen Yuan wins, maybe Binghe is picking up Shen Yuan's veil?

Anyway, Shen Yuan sees kneeling little white lotus Binghe holding his veil with Elder Sky Hammer barreling down on him, and can't help but take the blow. (His beast mount total chomps that trash to pieces afterwards)

He gets poisoned, everyone is upset etc,.

Cut to Qian Cao, they ARE SUFFERING. First of all, how can they work with literal sleeping beauty in their midst???

And then the unconscious Shen Yuan's numerous "visitors" that they have to beat away like fleas. Because Shen-shidi is not able to take visitors ! Go away !!

(They still end up finding people and gifts in Shen Yuan's room. It looks like a shrine.)

Liu Mingyan is the only one allowed in lmao.

Moving on, Shen Yuan is trying to live his life, but he'll just be doing errands around the peaks and it takes him HOURS. He gets stopped so many times just for people to say something like

🥺👉👈 "Shen-shidi exhibited such virtue and grace in saving Liu-Shixiong! Shen-shidi's moral character is truly peerless....and the way you defeated that demon! w-would Shen-shidi show this one that one move you did sometime..?.."

Not to mention all the times someone will just run up and shove a gift into his arms and s p r i n t away, Shen Yuan doesn't know where to put all it! If he ate all the sweets, cultivator or not, they'd have to roll him down the mountain...

Maybe sometimes him and Liu Mingyan go nighthunting and the villages SWEAR they were visited by divine nymphs or something

The first few times they did Cang Qiong actually got missives about heavenly beings walking among the commons and sent some disciples to investigate.. they wised up eventually and just stopped answering such letters if they knew the two had been in the area recently.

i am so fucking DOWN for the Devastating Beauty shen yuan headcanon

imagine he gets transmigrated as an Original Character (no System maybe or just a System thats less restrictive bc hes an OC) and he just cant understand why everyone and their mother are scrambling to get their hands on him (hes a once in a lifetime celestial-level beauty). then he gets picked up by Cang Qiong's Beast Peak Lord because of the rumors that he isnt human but is instead some kind of mystical creature ?

he spends most of his time worrying that the protagonist would murk him for being a man in his universe so he tries his best to be as much of a background character as possible. his peak lord insists on him wearing a veil a la liu mingyan and shen yuan is like THATS GENIUS.

idk where i was going with this but yes devastating beauty shen yuan. i want more of it thank u

[stiltonbasket]

If you do Bingyuan prompts:

Bingge discovering/realizing that his children’s beloved head teacher is the friendly Shizun from the other world would be a delight!

(Shen Yuan with a miniature army of tiny heavenly demon children who adore him is just super cute!)

By the age of twenty-five, Luo Binghe possessed—or thought he possessed—all the wealth and treasures in the world that a man could want. His vengeance upon the Cang Qiong Mountain sect was complete, the mountain range burned and its peak lords slain but for the master of Qian Cao Peak and Qi Qingqi, whom he had spared for Liu Mingyan’s sake—and he had long since established himself as Emperor of the demon realm, with no small amount of influence in the world he was born to by virtue of his marriage to the Little Palace Mistress, Hua Zhihan. 

But then—half-way through his twenty-seventh year, and three years after the construction of his great fortress close to Huan Hua Palace—he stumbled through a rent in the very skin of the world and found himself back upon Qing Jing Peak, cradled in the arms of a man who wore the face of Luo Binghe’s hated shizun. 

He had hardly been there an hour before he discovered that that Shen Qingqiu had been nothing like the jealous fiend who tormented Luo Binghe in his youth. On the contrary, he had welcomed Luo Binghe into his home and bed like a new bride reuniting with her husband at the end of a long day’s work; and for several months after Luo Binghe returned to his own palace in the demon realm, he found no satisfaction in his endless riches, or the tens of wives in his harem. 

He spent a full season hunting for that Shen Qingqiu in his own world afterwards, for he knew somehow that the living Shen Qingqiu who had married the other Luo Binghe and his own former Shizun were not one and the same. The Shen Qingqiu Luo Binghe knew had nothing in common with that man other than his face, and even that had been so altered by the spirit living behind it that Luo Binghe had not recognized him as Shen Qingqiu at first sight; but the other Luo Binghe reminded him a great deal of his own child-self, and how single-mindedly he had loved Ning Yingying in those early days at Cang Qiong. 

But years went by, and Luo Binghe found nothing—no shadow or trace of that gentle Shen Qingqiu, whether living or dead—and at last, he drank himself sick on dragon-blood wine and unburdened himself to Ning Yingying, confessing that nothing under the sun had brought him joy since that one jewel-bright day with Shen Qingqiu three summers earlier. 

Of course, he did not breathe a word about what had actually happened—for Yingying and the others believed that the strange, bewildered husband who stumbled into the hougong that day was none other than Luo Binghe himself, and he had never seen fit to disabuse them of the notion—but she seemed to understand that the better part of his life’s joy had left him, and said:

“A-Luo, if we sisters can’t make you happy as we used to anymore, do you think—do you think a child might make you happy? We’ve been married for nearly ten years, and I hoped…”

Luo Binghe thought for a moment, still dizzy from the six pots of wine he drank with his evening meal; and amid the soft haze clouding his thoughts, he realized that he would have died of envy if the poor imitation of himself from the other world had had a child with his Shen Qingqiu. 

But the only children he had seen on Qing Jing Peak that day were a handful of young disciples in their early teens, far too old to belong to that pitiful Luo Binghe. It struck him that this was something that other Luo Binghe could never have—must never have, lest Luo Binghe know what had happened and find his way back to that dream-world to quell his jealousy by ripping his other self limb from limb—and then—

“It might not be a bad idea,” he heard himself say. “What about Yingying? Would you like a child?”

“Very much,” Yingying whispered, taking Luo Binghe’s hand. 

Their first daughter, Suoxin, was born the next year; and when the head taiyi placed her in Luo Binghe’s arms, a tiny mote of the tumult in his soul grew calm, and never returned to trouble him again.

The birth of Suoxin’s younger sister Changying followed exactly a hundred days later, for Hua Zhihan had demanded a child of her own as soon as she heard that Ning Yingying was pregnant, and Luo Binghe saw no reason to refuse her. Several of his lesser wives had attempted to follow suit, but he was adamant that no children should be born to them until the children born of his five chief wives had safely reached the age of about three or four: especially after the tragedy that accompanied the birth of Luo Binghe’s first son. 

The taiyi later discovered that his mother—Qin Wanyue, who had suffered a miscarriage at Sha Hualing’s hands some six years earlier—had been born with a deformation in one of the chambers of her heart; and due to her general good health and the strengthening effects of her cultivation, Wanyue never noticed it. But her cultivation was not sufficient to protect her from the strain of childbirth; and scarcely five minutes after the baby took his first breath, Qin Wanyue drew her last, dying without knowing anything more of her child than a single, snatched glimpse of his small red face.

The infant was given the name Luo Nianzu, in remembrance of his mother, and handed over to Liu Mingyan to raise. Mingyan had not wanted a child of her own, though she was more than willing to bring Nianzu up in Wanyue’s stead. 

And in the wake of Qin Wanyue’s passing, Luo Binghe vowed to himself that he would never sire another child. He had been the instrument of her ruin, wittingly or not: and with three healthy heirs, of whom one was a boy, he refused to risk a second death in the harem. 

But his resolve had not hampered Sha Hualing’s plans: and in truth, Luo Binghe should have known better than to expect otherwise. One night, she took Xin Mo from the stand beside his bed and stabbed Luo Binghe straight through the shoulder—rather more ferociously than usual, he thought—and absconded from the palace with three phials full of his spilt blood, returning a fortnight later with a fat baby boy swaddled in one of her own silk veils. 

“Did you give birth to him?” Luo Binghe frowned, after he tasted the child’s blood mites and found that they were nearly identical to his own. “You were only gone for two weeks.”

Sha Hualing only laughed at him, and asked that he give their son a name. Luo Binghe named him Shunlei, with the shun for obedience and the lei for thunder; and though Hualing took the hint at once, she was so well-pleased with Shunlei’s name that Hua Zhihan spent the next month sulking about it. 

The three years that followed Shunlei’s arrival were peaceful ones, for the demon realm had been brought to heel with Sha Hualing’s aid, and Mobei-jun grew more ruthless towards Luo Binghe’s enemies with every passing day. Yingying and Mingyan governed the harem both kindly and firmly, calming any disputes among the lesser wives and punishing those whose bids for favor put their sisters in danger; and they never faltered in their duty to the little ones, so that Luo Binghe went untroubled by the children’s needs until Liu Mingyan declared that Suoxin and Changying were old enough to begin studying with a trained taifu.  

“I already have a candidate in mind,” she said to him over dinner one evening. “Will my lord permit me to look after the arrangements myself?”

“I don’t see why not,” Luo Binghe replied. “Do what you must. Only ensure that the taifu is well educated, and knows how to teach little children without frightening them.” One Shen Qingqiu was bad enough, after all.

And so, preparations went forth for the children’s education. Liu Mingyan wrote to the prospective taifu, who accepted the offer of employment and asked for a month to settle his affairs before moving to the palace; and Yingying began teaching Nianzu and Shunlei how to read, in the hope that the taifu would agree to instruct them alongside Suoxin and Changying. 

Luo Binghe, having nothing further to do with the matter, left for the northern desert with Mobei-jun and Sha Hualing. 

Linguang-jun had decided to rebel against his nephew’s rule again, and Luo Binghe was weary of indulging him. In the aftermath of Shang Qinghua’s betrayal, he and Mobei-jun had both decided that Linguang-jun’s continued existence was far more trouble than it was worth. 

All told, he remained away from the palace for over two moons. When he finally returned, in midsummer, he went straight to his own courtyard and slept for three days without moving a muscle. 

And then he awoke, and heard a soft strain of qin music issuing from the other side of the wall.

Luo Binghe froze.

That courtyard was meant to be empty; it had been empty since the day it was built, eight months after he met that other world’s Shen Qingqiu. Luo Binghe had filled its four rooms with books and bamboo furniture, and even the double bed in the inner chamber had been a replica of the one the other Shizun slept upon—and the courtyard’s little garden had a pavilion with a built-in table for a qin, since the construction of that Shizun’s house and garden made it plain that he liked to practice out of doors.

Who had dared set foot in that courtyard while Luo Binghe was absent?

Hua Zhihan? Qin Wanrong? Certainly not Yingying or Liu Mingyan; it resembled the living quarters at Qing Jing far too closely for either of them to find any peace there. 

Trembling with fury, he pulled on the robes he was wearing last night and rushed over to the adjoining courtyard, where he stopped short at the threshold of its white-painted moon gate and gaped at the spectacle awaiting him within. 

There was a man sitting at the qin table in the pavilion—a man, in the compound where Luo Binghe lived with his wives—playing a rearrangement of “Flowing Waters,” with Luo Shunlei on his lap. Suoxin and Changying were seated on either side of him, armed with child-sized guqins of their own, and Nianzu was nestled against the man’s shoulder, asleep.

And his face—

Luo Binghe had never seen such a face before. It was not the face of Shen Qingqiu—not the Shen Qingqiu he knew, at any rate—but the light in his eye and the warmth of his voice as he spoke to Suoxin were very like that Shen Qingqiu’s, though Luo Binghe noticed that there was a shade of difference between the two. 

He is older, Luo Binghe realized at once, as his heart thundered inside him. The other Shen Qingqiu was young, judging by his manner—perhaps forty, at the very oldest—and my Shizun never even reached the age of fifty. 

The other Shizun had worn green, he remembered. He preferred the same clean-cut style of dress that Luo Binghe’s shizun liked to wear, and of course their bodies and faces had been the same, as well; but this man wore s different face entirely, and his worn silk robes were a clean, stark white, like the garments of the wandering rogue cultivators who used to pass through Luo Binghe’s hometown when he was a boy. 

The trappings of his flesh made no difference, however.

Luo Binghe knew him for what he was at first sight. 

It struck him then that this must be the taifu Liu Mingyan selected for the children. He could not fathom why she would have housed an imperial tutor in the hougong, of all places: but now that he was here, Luo Binghe would rather walk through the Endless Abyss again than permit him to leave. 

Luo Binghe could have stood in the doorway and stared at him for a lifetime; but then the taifu looked up and clambered to his feet, tugging the little girls along with him. Shunlei remained where he was, gripping the soft front of the taifu’s gown like a baby monkey clinging to its mother’s back; and Nianzu, securely balanced on the taifu’s hip, slept on without noticing that the man had moved at all.

“My lord,” the taifu said, bowing. “This humble servant offers his—”

“Xin’er greets Father!” Luo Suoxin cut in, glancing up at her teacher for approval. “Did I do it right, Shizun?”

“Yes, except for the part where you interrupted me first,” the taifu laughed. “Go on, Changying.”

Luo Changying nodded and stepped forward. 

“Chang’er greets Father,” she said, rather more gracefully than Suoxin. 

“Well done,” said the taifu. “Now, Shunlei…?”

Shunlei blinked and tightened his grasp on the taifu’s robes. 

“A-Shun is hungry,” he complained, refusing to meet Luo Binghe’s eyes. “Shizun, snack time.”

Luo Binghe bit back a smile. This man was somehow more indulgent with his young charges than the other Shizun had been, and the sight of him holding Nianzu and Shunlei was so desperately sweet that Luo Binghe nearly reached out and touched him. 

“Daozhang is the new taifu, I suppose?” Luo Binghe asked instead, taking another step forward. “Your name?”

The taifu nodded. 

“This one is called Zhu Qinglan, my lord,” he replied, trying in vain to coax Shunlei down to the ground. “Now, A-Shun, my good little disciple…”

“Shunshun won’t look at him,” the baby insisted, his little voice muffled in the folds of Zhu Qinglan’s coat. “I want to eat cake, not see Fuqin.”

To Luo Binghe’s astonishment, Zhu Qinglan sat down on the steps below the pavilion and drew a wrapped package of sesame cakes out of his sleeve. 

“Your imperial father has come back to see you after two months, and you act like this?” he chided, placing one of the cakes on Shunlei’s outstretched palm. “Now, eat your cake like a good child; and then you must get up and greet your father properly, like Xin’er and Chang’er.”

Luo Binghe lifted his hand. 

“No need,” he said mildly, watching with half-crazed eyes as Zhu Qinglan stroked Luo Nianzu's fluffy hair. “Shun’er is always upset after this lord returns from his travels abroad. I do not see the children as often as I would like; but I try to dine with them at least once a week, and that little demon in your arms refuses to speak to me for days on end if I ever dare to arrive late.”

With that, he turned on his heel and swept out of the courtyard. He could not stand in Zhu Qinglan’s presence any longer, lest he do something that would terrify his children and turn their Shizun against him forever; and as it was, the little demon servant who brought breakfast to his quarters ten minutes later nearly died of fright at the sight of him. 

“Zhu Qinglan,” Luo Binghe said to himself, after the petrified lackey made his escape. “The name suits him, whether it is a false one or no.”

He drained the last of his tea, and smiled. 

“I’ve finally caught you, Shizun.”

[ohai-there]

post canon SVSSS x minato hokage era naruto crossover where it's scumplane (bcos i love scumplane) heading to the elemental nations on official business for some reason or another (maybe theres a barrier between their lands to prevent leakage of spiritual energy or somethign) SJ hates being alive purely because it means he's in SQH's debt for ripping him out of SQQ's body that Shen Yuan was inhabiting and reviving SJ (because SY decided to fuck off and live his best life as the demon emperor's wife and Cang Qiong NEEDS a peak lord for Qing Jing)

canonically immortals are extremely beautiful (even SQH is described as a 'proper' face iirc) and SJ is like TOP TIER beauty, but also immortals are sometimes described to have faces 'carved from jade' so I imagine when they step into immortality, they no longer have micro expressions and have like... crazy control over their facial muscles - so it kinda freaks out the ninjas, because the only emotions they can see is exactly what scumplane want them to see (SJ - disgust, usually. SQH - cowardice/flattery)

Scumplane also have 0 sense of danger when it comes to shinobi - they're immortals and old (lets say this is an indetermined amount of time after canon wraps up) so things like mundane steel and mortal poisons mean nothing to them when theyre so old. They also don't even bother holding back their tongues because what can these mortals even do to them? Worse comes to worse, they just seal up the worlds again, or just wait out for all these mortals to die (a strategy they use for troublesome emperors or politicians).

They also bring their disciples (Ming Fan specifically because I want him to have a redemption) and after canon had wrapped up the PIDW's story finished, everyone in the world actually bounced back into their rightful places (e.g. MF suddenly got a second puberty, his face improved to be beautiful as it should be and his intelligence returned to the level that the head disciple of the scholarly peak should be).

I want it to be during Minato hokage's short, short tenure - Minato is 23, a war hero and recently hired as ninja president, Konoha just came out of a war and suddenly the daimyo is paying WELL and hiring for the best teams of Konoha to escort these foreigners who are so otherwordly beautiful and so otherworldly RICH, like, the material of the clothes they wear puts the daimyos court to shame, they can pay in pure gold and stones thrumming with power.

SJ's whole thing is like... based on image. So imagine SQH bowing and being like 'ooh thank you for your hospitality' and SJ just grabbing him by the back of his collar and hauling him up like 'wtf dont even bother bowing to this guy. Have some face. he's only got the same rank as you AND he's a fucking child.'

(He's figured that Daimyo = weak emperor-ish, because what kind of a emperor only has control of such a small land AND has others in nearby lands with the same, competing title????. Hokage & Konoha is like the sects, and all the peak lords of CQS are of the same rank as a sect leader. Of course, they all defer to YQY officially, but tbh all the peaks run like their own individual sects, and SJ has never allowed himself to act below YQY in rank)

During Minato's reign, Orochimaru is still a loyal Konoha shinobi.... his interest in immortals makes him soooooo crazy invested in them....

SJ looks at Orochimaru who's questioning him on immortality and is like, 'out of all these people, you are the closest. Your mind is too unstable, however (ironic, coming from SJ) and you still cling too tightly to the material world. Abandon all worldly matters and immortality may be in your grasp, if the heavens deign it so.' acting like he's a good teacher or something, while SQH is in the background, the voice of reason like 'SHIXIONG WTF!!! WE'RE NOTT SUPPOSED TO BE GIVING UP THE SECRET TO IMMORTALITY TO THE MORTALS OF THE FORBIDDEN REALM????'

Maybe SQH does know they're in the naruto world, and knows what naruto is, (hc that the water walking we see YQY do in the donghua was ripped off from naruto, when SQH was still writing PIDW) but it's been like 200+ years! He can't remember shit!!! This is all new information to him!

[strewwwberry]

I had a random thought I now must share

So like I’ve had stuff like Cumplane parallels, tragic 79, differences between Bingge and bingmei

But like

One thing that gets to me is that like, Shen jiu wanted so little that for him was so much because he never had it (a rough over his head, sleep, food, etc) and Shen yuan wanted for nothing for he already had everything he could want material wise

Shen jiu tried so hard to get what he could because he had nothing, and Shen yuan didn’t really know what to do and wanted nothing more then to waste away in his room

Shen yuan died so young when he should’ve been able to live happily (sqh as well ofc but not taking bout tha rn) which (using context clues based on his death scene) he wasn’t really doing for himself

Whilst Shen jiu should’ve been able to pass in peace and comfort where no one can hurt him anymore, and this is probably going to sound wrong but like if yk yk, yue qingyuan shouldn’t have saved him from dying as a baby, because the only thing being saved did was force him to live a life of so much pain, with only the faint memory of what could’ve been

And I find that tragic, a man who should’ve been allowed to peacefully pass before the world could hurt him, and a man who should’ve lived to see the world for what joys his life could bring

A man who died after the pain had already dug into his very bones, forced to die with no one even knowing as someone else takes over his body and uses it freely, and a boy barely in his 20’s dies being forced to live in the skin of another, forced to forget the life and family he had once had and carve out a new life that could never truly be his or at least not just his, because he has a responsibility now to represent the life of someone else

And that is so interestingly tragic, I want to dissect their brains and look at them through a microscope stg im srsly tweaking out rn

[red-garden]

Yue Qingyuan talking with Madam Meiyin about Xiao Jiu and she takes pity on a poor soul and unleashes wife-megedon. Like, plagues of Egypt level wife plots.

Endangered moths swarm Cang Qiong and eat all of the sect leaders fine clothes right outside Peak Lord Shen’s door!

The sect leader was meant to retrieve an artifact from high security storage on Qing Jing but gets trapped inside with Peak Lord Shen!

Oh no, this foreign dignitary refused to acknowledge the sect leader as legitimate since he’s not married! Whatever will they do????

Kyaaaa, a plant beast just struck the sect leader, ripping his robes Captain Kirk style and making him lactate! Quick, someone needs to suck the milk out!