#abandoned yue

[fairsweetlonging]

have been in a qijiu/qiyuan mood lately, and i was thinking about an au where shen yuan, upon transmigrating, actually loses his memories. he wakes up and has no idea who he is, where he is, who the man at his bedside is. not a clue. the only thing he has is his muscle memory, his sharp recognition senses (he's experiencing a lot of déjà-vu), and blurry fractions of memories that he can't quite make out.

thing is, the memories of both shen yuan and shen jiu aren't actually gone, they start to intermingle, to mix up, a little sister in princess pajamas beside an older brother wearing dirty rags, a bright screen that displays mountain peaks and glittering caves. he's kind and generous the way someone who has never had to worry about food or money is, but he gets vicious and defensive when someone gets too close. sometimes he says cruel things and doesn't even understand why himself.

neither identity fits anymore, both names right and wrong at the same time. it's just... shen qingqiu.

and while everyone else might adjust to this just fine, yue qingyuan does not. because that is shen jiu, but it isn't, but it has to be, but not always. he gets flashes of his childhood friend when shen qingqiu gets viciously defensive over nothing, when he scowls and scoffs and rolls his eyes when he thinks people can't see, but then he smiles, and laughs, and tilts his head in a way that is completely foreign. he likes beasts. shen jiu never liked beasts. but he loves tanghulu, like shen jiu. sweet sugary things. the first time xiao jiu cuddles up into his hug, he cries.

the way he sometimes clings to yue qingyuan when he has a bad day can't be him, but then he says "qi-ge" exactly like shen jiu would and damn near snarls at anyone who gets too close, and he's aggressively possessive the way he was when they were kids. but then he pulls away and apologizes, like shen jiu would never do.

and he never demands anything, scrubbed clean from roughness and filth and selfish want, will act perfect and smiling and pleasant, never burdensome. like he's completely forgotten where he came from, what he was. like the pampered nobleman's son who could afford to be kind. the only time his old self comes fully back up is when he feels threatened or scared or angry, like a trauma response that kicks in to protect himself. and then yue qingyuan starts to wonder if maybe it is. maybe the shen jiu he knows was only ever fear and self-preservation, and the one he is now is a shen jiu without the chains and shackles and scars.

yue qingyuan doesn't know if he's happy for him, if it's for better or for worse. he does know that he feels protective and responsible for this new version xiao jiu has become.

meanwhile shen qingqiu, even when he regains enough of his memories to realize he was once a different person, doesn't know who he is anymore. both, maybe. or neither. he feels bad for taking away yue qingyuan's friend, but in his heart he can't help but think qi-ge is his brother, and no one else's. when he manages the peak he feels like he's taking credit for another's accomplishments, but he remembers suffering for it, he remembers what it took to get there.

[sunderwight]

Bingyuan modern ABO AU where Shen Yuan tutors sweet white lotus Luo Binghe and dutifully sends him off to university all prepped and ready to take the world by storm, and then three years later Omega Binghe shows up on his doorstep with a baby, all washed out with his prospects ruined and the father in the wind.

Beta Shen Yuan, furious, is determined to look after Luo Binghe and his adorable baby whilst tracking down the feckless Alpha involved and then... castrating him? Forcing him to step up? One of the two at least!

Only it turns out:

-Baby isn't actually Luo Binghe's

-Luo Binghe isn't an Omega

-Binghe also didn't wash out and in fact just came into a massive inheritance

He didn't even know Shen Yuan was living at the apartment he went to, he was bringing the baby to Shen Jiu in order to blackmail him. The baby is SJ's and Omega Yue Qingyuan's, and had been quietly sent away to avoid scandal. As the next phase of Luo Binghe's hundred-step plan to marrying Shen Laoshi, cuddling the baby in a vaguely sinister fashion while making thinly-veiled threats was vital to blocking Shen Jiu's inevitable attempts to interfere with Binghe's pursuit of his younger brother.

But then Shen Yuan opened the door and promptly drew all the wrong conclusions, and now Binghe is rethinking his entire strategy, furiously googling Alpha-to-Omega transition options and making Mobei Jun make Shang Qinghua find out how to fake a birth certificate for a stolen baby.

[noswordinourlake]

If Shen Jiu got a terrible little dog he could displace his feelings onto would this make him better or worse. Second question would he definitely train the dog to bite people and how many dog bite scars does Yue Qingyuan have on his ankles that he will never ever heal

[scumvillainess]

au where the entire plot of pidw gets derailed when shen qingqiu shows up with a baby and announces to the rest of the world that yue qingyuan got him pregnant.

(i think there’s a fanfic where sqq babytraps yqy but i just can’t find it for the life of me)

[even-butter-than-you]

YQY: Your pride is going to get you killed.

SJ: heh. Better than dying knowing I abandoned what's important.

YQY: And what on earth could be so important that you have to die for it!

SJ:...

SJ: You

[dawndelion-winery]

could not for the life of me find the leaks so do tell 🙆🏻🙆🏻🙆🏻

We have Kaiser's back story. It's horrible.

[pinkniz]

Im sick and bed ridden so I've been thinking about Freddy and Heng Yue but with ANGST

Ok so imagine Freddy insists on asking Heng Yue out and she finally accepts except she decides to leaving hanging.

Freddy dresses his best, makes sure his fur is perfect, he even buys her flowers and..he waits..

He waits for HOURS for her, he tries to convince himself she might've just gotten late, he has been good right? She wouldn't do that him right?

Like imagine how he reacts when he realises he got abandoned. Would he get angry? would he be sad? Would he keep waiting? Would he keep trying for her?

[gaywarcriminals]

Me: Eat the rich

Me: ... Except Qi-ge.

[centuryberry]

Hey there! Been mulling over these questions for a bit, so I thought I'd ask.

When Wukong held baby!Yue for the first time, what was his reaction? Shocked at how tiny and light/heavy she really is? Emotional because he got immediate protective Baba instincts? I can just picture him just sitting in place, blubbering and all emotional as he continues to stare at this tiny baby with huge water filled eyes and a heart that suddenly felt intensely full of love directed towards said baby.

Also, would you agree with me that when Yue had gotten used to seeing everything with her eyes open, Wukong had invited the Brotherhood and DBK's family over to see her? Azure and Peng probably just gave a glance at her and were 'meh. I'm done and leaving.' Yellowtusk, I'm not sure what his reaction will be, but I can easily see DBK and PIF cooing over her and admiring her big blue eyes. (DBK would probably be very gentle while holding her close enough to let her touch his face, Imma be honest)

I like to think that given how Yue's usually portrayed as a prodigy/child genius, she's still a quick learner as a baby and quickly understands when someone's being insulting or not appreciative; like, Red Son looks at her eyes and (being the brat he sometimes is while also not failing to see what the adults are talking about) goes "big deal!" And just when PIF was about to reprimand him for being rude, baby!Yue responds back with a deadpanned raspberry! I personally think Red Son would be so offended by her response and would do the same thing back but it only starts his first ever sibling fight with Yue (it's what I call when two really young siblings try to annoy the other, but it leads from one thing to another until it results in them both going at each other 😜🤣)

But, I also can imagine Red Son barely holding her with both arms (he's roughly the same size but obviously bigger) and he's allowing Yue to touch his face after they'd both calmed down from their baby fight. It's cute to imagine both Monkey Dads and DBK finding Red Son trying to rock a sleeping Yue in his arms and she's nuzzling into his shoulder.

All these scenarios are adorable. You pretty much answered all of the questions yourself. Wukong would be completely blown away by how small and precious Yue was when he held her for the first time. Yellowtusk and DBK would be the most affectionate and caring out of the Brotherhood to their sworn brother’s new daughter. And yes, Red Son and Yue would squabble like siblings.

[hel-phoenyx]

"Oh I'm gonna burn in hell for sure. Here he is talking about all his mental trauma and I can't stop wishing his hands were unbuttoning my shirt-" Emerens, 2019

[tempo-takoyaki]

From an anonymous freeform prompt for SVSSS Action, may I present to you... Delicious in the Abyss! A SVSSS x DunMeshi AU!

More info about the different characters (with some sketches) under the "read more" :

In Delicious in the Abyss, we follow various groups of adventurers as they explore the "abyss" a mysterious place filled with various fauna and monsters. No matter their race or age, most of them have the same goal: becoming the master of the abyss... However, some have a very different idea of how one should explore the abyss. Take for example a certain group led by an elf named Shen Yuan who desires one thing only... eat as many different monsters as possible!

Shen Yuan's party :

Shen Yuan: Elf, 87 y/o, Mage. His wish is to eat and study as many monsters as possible. He started exploring the abyss about twenty years ago, but had to stop abruptly after taking in Luo Binghe. On the surface, his studies seem to merely be for the sake of curiosity... But are they?

Luo Binghe: Tiefling, 63 y/o, Tank (and cook). Thrown into the abyss at the age of 38 (since tieflings are a long-lived race, it means he was about 14), he got stuck in the lowest levels for few years before Shen Yuan saved him. He regards him as his savior (and one true love) and would do anything for him... even if it means cooking the monsters (he hates it, he hates it so much).

Shang Qinghua: Gnome, 87 y/o, Healer. Shen Yuan's oldest friend and the author of many infamous books. He stopped writing them about twenty years ago though, after he started to explore the abyss with Shen Yuan. He seems to be looking for something in the abyss, or rather: someone.

Liu Qingge: Tallman, 26 y/o, Swordsman. One of Shen Yuan's friends. He used to be part of the Cang Qiong guild but left it after a disagreement with one of his colleagues. Now he works for Shen Yuan with his younger sister, Liu Mingyan. "Uh? My goal? Get stronger. Mh."

Liu Mingyan: Tallman, 24 y/o, Swordswoman. Liu Qingge's younger sister, she accompanies him on each of his missions. She got an offer to work with Cang Qion mountain once but refused it once she learned her brother had left the guild. She's quiet but efficient, however, Shang Qinghua suspects that she might stick around for other reasons...

Cang Qiong Guild:

Yue Qingyuan: Tallman, 48 y/o, Tank. The leader of Cang Qiong, he's a respected individual amongst adventurers. However, he seems leniant on the vices of his vice-leader: Shen Qingqiu.

Shen Qingqiu: Tallman, 40 y/o, Swordman. Vice-leader of Cang Qiong. He's the reason Cang Qiong is exclusively made of tallmen, as he has a strong distate for any other races, especially elves. The only exception to this rule is his adopted daughter: Ning Yingying, a dwarf. He's the one who abandoned Luo Binghe into the abyss after discovering his true nature.

Mu Qingfang: Tallman, 29 y/o, Healer. The group's medic.

Qi Qingqi: Tallman, 31 y/o, Swordswoman. She wanted to create a branch specifically for women in Cang Qiong Guild's but because of Shen Qingqiu's veto on recruiting other races she couldn't make it work.

Ming Fan: Tallman, 19 y/o, Mage. A cowardly young adventurer. He has a crush on Ning Yingying.

Ning Yingying: Dwarf, 51 y/o, Tank. Despite being older than him, she's Shen Qingqiu's adopted daughter whom he took in when she was merely 30 y/o. She likes her father a lot, however she can't forgive him for what he has done to Luo Binghe. (She'll leave Cang Qiong to join Shen Yuan's part at some point).

(Side note, Cang Qiong is still specialized in cultivation, hence why most of them look so young)

The Tieflings hideout:

Tieflings are a race that I made up for this AU specifically, inspired by D&D. They're inhabitant of the dungeon, tall and sturdy, with pointy ears akin to elves, horns of various shapes and tails. They can also use magic like elves, tallmen or gnomes, however their magic rely on its own set of rules.

Mobei-Jun: Tiefling, 92 y/o, King of the Northern tribe. Leader of one of the numerous tiefling tribes hidden in the abyss, he met Shang Qinghua twenty years ago in the abyss and has made him swear his loyalty to him since then. He has sensed change in the abyss since Luo Binghe's arrival, and decided to trust Shen Yuan's party to solve this issue... With the compensation of Shang Qinghua.

Sha Hualing: Half-ogre half-halfoot, 15 y/o, Princess of the Eastern tribe. Adopted daughter of the king of the eastern tribe, she's a bastard born from the forbidden union between an ogre and a half-foot and was abandoned into the abyss at birth. Of short stature, with a short life spawn, she makes up for it with her keen senses and her strength. She later on joins Shen Yuan's party.

The first Tieflings:

Tianlang-Jun: Tiefling, ??? y/o, Master of the Abyss. The master of the abyss, his powers are beyond anything imaginable. He claims to have eaten what has given him those powers and since then has known hunger beyond what any mortal could endure. He has once fell in love with a tallman woman by the name of Su Xiyan, but she has left the abyss years ago, and he doesn't know what her whereabouts are... The only thing he knows is that she's the only one capable of satisfying this hunger that eats him from the inside.

Zhuzhi-Lang: Beastman (snake), ??? y/o, Guardian of the abyss. Tasked by the Abyss' Master to protect its inhabitants, he'll kill anyone who gets in his ways indiscriminately at the exception of Shen Yuan, who saved him years ago when exploring the abyss for the first time. He only obeys the Abyss' Master orders, and because of that, has forced the Tieflings deeper and deeper into the abyss regardless of how they felt about it. As a chimera, he's more snake than the tiefling his soul has been mixed with.

Other groups:

Huan Hua's guild (the governor's guild): The one guild financed by the governor of the state in which the abyss is located. Its members are from various races. Despite the guild stating they're open to anyone, only those from a wealthy background can become a part of it.

Zhao Hua's guild: Specialized in magic. They have rounds to reanimate unlucky adventurers in the abyss.

Tian Yi's guild: Specialized in training new adventurers.

And that's it for now! What awaits them in the abyss? Many adventures and delicious cooking, that is, if Luo Binghe can handle it.

"Freed from the abyss at long last... Forced to cook the monsters with seasoning this time. I've been cursed there's no other way to explain it... Damn it, it's good though, I really am a great cook."

[doveywovy]

au in which shen yuan got transmigrated as a kid, a few years before binghe's on the peak, and shen jiu sees this little guy who looks exactly like him, sharing a name with him, digging a hole desperate to get in- and is filled with incandescent rage.

just like with binghe, for shen jiu seeing a parallel of himself at his weakest makes him furious. he wants to smoosh this creature like a bug. he resolves to do the mature thing and ignore it and hope it will die of starvation when it fails to get into a sect; but then the worst imaginable thing happens.

Yue qingyuan tries to save it. Unacceptable. Yue qingyuan abandoned him as a child, and is now trying to rescue this creature? What's so special about Shen Yuan that he's earned the rescue Shen Jiu never received himself? What's so good about it? Shen Jiu can already tell that Yue Qingyuan will spoil it rotten on his peak, give him exactly the life of safety and support that Shen Jiu always secretly wanted and never got. So he claims the beast first.

In five years, when Lou Binghe arrives on the peak and is begrudingly accepted as Ning Yingying's newest shidi, Shen Jiu barely pays him any mind. He already has a little beast that he despises and takes out his frustrations on. Binghe's similarities to himself (And his perceived blessings that young Shen Jiu never got) pale in comparison to Shen Yuan's, and thus go entirely unnoticed.

Shen Yuan feels- complex, about it, because truthfully he's been holding out hope for Binghe to save him. If not in a protagonist's manner, then in the age-old method of a bully choosing a new target. instead...nothing changes.

Binghe doesn't interfere. He's a scared child who's just secure the better future he promised his mother he'd aim for before she died. He's got steady access to food and shelter, and he doesn't want to risk that. Shen Yuan can't blame him. But ah, as the years pass.... Binghe starts to rise in the peak. Without Jiu targeting him, his natural talents allow him many successes. More important, his skill at manipulation develops at a younger age- he knows how to win over his peers, how to appeal to the peak lord. He quickly becomes head disciple, respected and somewhat trusted.

He still doesn't save Shen Yuan. It's not that he joins in bullying him; that would be too OOC! Even Yuan would protest if something like that occurred! But he turns a blind eye to it all. When the other disciples steal his food, Binghe doesn't ensure he gets to eat. When the other disciples run him out to the woodshed, Binghe never demands they give him back his bed. He doesn't even bring Shen Yuan a blanket. To Binghe, it's like Shen Yuan doesn't exist at all. It's the only way Binghe can feel secure that it won't be him in such a position if he speaks up.

It's hard for Shen Yuan to not get a little resentful. Not just because- because of all his hopes he'd pinned, maybe, on the protagonist he'd admired so much saving him. Not just because it feels like he's taken on Binghe's suffering for him and an unwitting Binghe is ungrateful. (he knows this is a foolish thing to think, but it's how he feels regardless.) Not even just because Binghe is *head disciple* and that makes it literally his job to fix this sort of thing. But specifically, because if Binghe was the one suffering, there's a guarantee that at the end of this it would end. He'd get out from under Shen Qinqqiu's thumb and he'd go on to get his revenge and become a powerful and respected cultivator, and have lots of wives and lots of money and lots of food and a safe place to sleep... Shen Yuan is background fodder. He'll never amount to anything.

But he doesn't hate Binghe. He could never! He knows, deep down, that Binghe's just scared and he's adapted to survive this way and besides, Binghe is still really really cool. Shen Yuan likes getting to see how cool Binghe is up close, with his growth so unhampered. Binghe is amazing at fight, so clever in classes, an excellent musician already, a detective as clever as sherlock holmes on missions, a warrior without equal on monsterhunts. When he gets to see Binghe in action, as opposed to Binghe on the peak failing to save him- he can forgive anything, really.

Eventually Shen Yuan decides he's got to get out. He'll do the conference, try really hard, and see if he can transfer to another sect. Probably not, because his skills are awful; but even so he'll leave and become a rogue cultivator. It'll be hard, and he might starve, but anything is better than staying on the peak forever.

He assumed that Binghe, with all this unhindered skills-leveling, wouldn't get caught as a half-demon. Or that if he was, perhaps his relationship was close enough with the peak lord that it would spare him his fate from the novel. Instead- instead he sees exactly how it plays out. Binghe's control slips at the edge of the abyss, and the truth is revealed to the small group of disciples he was protecting (including shen yuan, for once!) and to a furious Shen Qingqiu.

The Peak Lord forced his head disciple to the edge of the cliff and goes to stab him through the heart.

Shen Yuan does something he'll regret, entirely on instinct: He tries to interfere. He tries to call out and save him. isn't this your respected head disciple? isn't binghe only here because he was trying to protect the disciples in his care?

It's pointless. Binghe still falls into the abyss. But it leaves shen yuan behind- already hated, already mistrusted, and now he's just defended a demonic spy who'd been hidden in their sect. His chances of living to see Binghe claw his way back out of the abyss are extremely low- at best, he'll see it through the bars of a cell at the water prison.

-------

au discussed with @slurmdog :)

[disgracefulthings]

Shang Qinghua is one of the most interesting characters in svsss, and one reason for that is that you can see pieces of himself in the characters that he has wrote .

Luo Binghe has his abandonment issues

Yue Qingyuan has his fake smile

Shen Qingqiu has his sharp tongue

Mobei-Jun has his shitty family

Tianlang-Jun has his love for trashy novels

And many of his characters died alone and unloved.

Just like Airplane.

[sunderwight]

Demon Shen Jiu is such a fun idea though.

Especially if he himself doesn't know. Like imagine, Yue Qi finds this abandoned baby and the baby is REALLY OBVIOUSLY not human. But this also enables Shen Jiu to survive being abandoned at such a young age -- a human baby would die without adequate nutrition or care, but demons are a little more resilient. Baby Demon SJ has a way more forgiving digestive system and can move under his own power from a much earlier age. By the time he's a year old he's hunting his own rodents and small birds, and has to be stopped from biting and mauling anyone he doesn't like. Which is most people. Qi-ge develops amazing reflexes.

Why do the slavers tolerate a demon baby hanging around? Maybe it's really not all that uncommon. Demons come across the borderlands from time to time, and are as liable to abandon their kids or die or etc as anyone else. It's maybe an open secret among slavers that demon-blooded kids are a better investment, even, because they can survive for longer on less. The only downside is if they don't ever look human enough to pass as human, because that limits potential buyers, but that's only relevant when the slavers are trying to sell them. For the purposes of having a network of street kids stealing and grifting and spying and etc, it's fine. A lot of the slavers themselves started out as demon-blooded street kids with no other options.

But in SJ's case, he pretty quickly starts passing as human. Mostly because he's quite strong, and he's convinced that he's the same as his Qi-ge, so he makes himself the same. Makes his hands look the same and his teeth look the same and etc. It's largely subconscious, and once he starts doing it, it becomes automatic. SJ forgets that he's a demon in the way that most people don't retain their earliest childhood memories -- although he remembers that some of the slavers were demons.

Then of course there's the question of why didn't the Cang Qiong cultivators notice?

A few options. One is that whatever kind of demon SJ is, it's really good at mimicking humans. Another is that he's only part demon, and like Luo Binghe, fully capable of handling both kinds of cultivation. So once he starts learning spiritual cultivation, even from a heretic like Wu Yanzi, he doesn't seem different from any other recruit with a patchy education on the subject. Anything else odd about him could be easily attributed to his exposure to Wu Yanzi and his wicked practices.

Although full demon SJ is a fascinating idea. (Also, it could contribute to all those qi deviations -- he's trying to cultivate AND "fake" human cultivation at the same time, I doubt Qing Jing's techniques are totally compatible with everything going on there even without the psychological turmoil.) Like I'd imagine Airplane wrote that SJ was abandoned on the streets as a baby, and the system was like "hmm he probably wouldn't survive that?" and then in some nine billionth wife arc, Airplane also creates a variety of demon that can fully pass as human (for some identity conflict with a prospective wife), even to the point of fooling human cultivators and demon-detecting tools. So the system just ties these two disparate pieces of world-building together in order to patch a critical plothole (Airplane doesn't know anything about babies). Which has the side effect that Shang Qinghua doesn't even know that SJ became a demon!

And SJ himself doesn't know. The only person who knows is Yue Qi.

Obviously this wouldn't come up much in PIDW, but it could be pretty funny in the SVSSS timeline. YQY just sitting there through the whole Luo Binghe being a half-demon reveal, wondering if he should say something. Subsequently being the most absolutely chill about the whole demon reveal thing anyway. Like he's definitely not upset that Luo Binghe is a demon, or part demon, and the multiple people who try to make a point about it just run afoul of his impenetrable smile and get nowhere.

Then eventually Yue Qingyuan decides that he should probably tell Bingqiu that Shen Qingqiu is a demon. For like, safety purposes if nothing else. He's kept the secret so long also for safety purposes (even if someone put Shen Qingqiu under a truth compulsion he wouldn't be able to admit to being a demon, because he himself doesn't know!), and he's done tons of stuff to prevent anyone ever finding out (although Xiao Jiu is so talented that he didn't have to do much), but Luo Binghe is the demon emperor. That changes things. If Shen Qingqiu is going to be visiting the demon kingdoms regularly then there's a chance something could reveal the truth unexpectedly, and that would probably be worse.

So Yue Qingyuan sits down and has a very serious discussion with Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe about how Shen Qingqiu is actually a demon, was just the cutest little demon baby in fact, here he drew a picture from memory of what Xiao Jiu used to look like before he learned to look more human, and also how a lot of slave kids and slavers and people who fall through the cracks in society have demon ancestry, some more recent than others, and Shen Qingqiu always retained a certain discomfort around his own kind because of the adult slavers who sold him off, and etc etc.

[yoyowrites]

shen jiu loves yue qingyuan. like even though sj is brash and rude to everyone, he LOVES yqy. he held out hope for yqy until the very end. he truly thought that yqy was either dead or somehow incapable of searching for him until they met. sj never considered the idea of yqy abandoning him until they were reunited and he seew yqy doing well. that is part of sj's hurt. he held out hope that yqy was searching for him or died in the process so he feels extremely stupid when he sees (thinks) that yqy is not only living but thriving without him. sj was the one who got them food and supplies because he was willing to cry and beg and plead. yqy, as he got older, didn't want to do that so he was look out and sj spent so much time worrying about whether yqy survived. like right up to them meeting again, he was worried about him because despite sj being younger, he always viewed himself as having to protect his qi-ge. then all of the sudden their positions are reversed with yqy no longer needing and (sj thinking) no longer wnating him.

as a fandom i think we always talk about how yqy loved and wronged sj but sj loved him too. very passionately

[sun-and-moon-mushroom]

AU where, after dying in PIDW, Yue Qingyuan wakes up in the past when Luo Binghe is still just 14… and of course, he immediately goes to kill him.

Unfortunately, he still has his protagonist halo, so something interferes, and YQY ends up being confronted by the other peak lords about why he suddenly decided to try and murder a random Qing Jing disciple. Now, YQY can’t just say that he’s a demon, because he’s not sure what methods will work to reveal that, since he doesn’t know how LBH hid his his heritage the first time around — so he comes up with excuses, ones that he hopes will at least get LBH out of the sect before he becomes too powerful. He’s a poor cultivator, he always gets into fights, the other disciples always accuse him of stealing things and he doesn’t get along with them, so they should just throw him out of the sect —

What he forgets to account for is the fact that Shen Jiu is there, listening to all of this, and hearing YQY list off all the traits he sees LBH as sharing with his younger self as reasons he doesn’t belong at the sect. He knew YQY didn’t care that much about him, not after he’d abandoned him when they were children but… it still hurts to hear it spoken about so explicitly. If YQY didn’t owe him a debt for saving his life, would he be saying the same words about SJ?

So, SJ stands up to defend LBH. Sure, he might have been silently hoping the kid would quit or get himself killed, but SJ is nothing if not spiteful, and YQY? He just made things personal. LBH is his disciple, not YQY’s and by the time SJ is done with him, he’ll be fit to be his successor.

YQY is now faced with an impossible situation — use his authority as sect leader to go against SJs wishes and get rid of his future torturer… or wait and see what happens. Surely he’ll get bored of Luo Binghe eventually and start hating him again… right?