#he is super pissed that his reputation now is ‘xianxia Helen of Troy’

[miss-bubblegum]

So I know everyone likes Shen jiu coming back at some point post canon and everyone has a lot of thoughts about how he would react/care about/be furious his life and body were stolen from him.

Allow me to open your eyes to a new possibility!

What if the system/gods offered him a way to fix his cultivation, to finally be rewarded for all his hard work. He would have to start life over again from a child but could remember his experiences and life.

Only catch is that he would be vulnerable around people he doesn’t trust. If the other peak lords knew about this they would want to coddle him and taunt him and hold this over him forever (since they will all ascend together, they really would have forever to hold this over him for)

So he asks the gods if there could be a decoy in place so none of them realize he’s gone. He can (have a healthy childhood and work through some things) grow up off the mountain and then just reappear on mountain and reclaim his position when he’s ready!

Shen Jiu is the reason Shen Yuan had the opportunity to get so close to the protagonist, and the world rewards him for it.

What I’m saying is, what if a freshly adult Shen Jiu shows up at the sect having fixed his cultivation and is at the level he was before the qi deviation that changed his life. His mental health is miles better than it was due to being the darling only son of parents who loved him. He realizes what he feels for yqy isn’t just familial because he doesn’t feel that way towards his parents from this incarnation.

So Shen Jiu shows up and explains super casually that he got a boon from the gods to be able to fix his cultivation and he doesn’t know how the stand in has been doing but he’s back for his job.