#is that SQQ QHT and LBH all adamantly believe that they are the only normal one in the scenario

[cooliogirl101]

bingge is 50% plotting his shizun’s murder + torture and 50% just super baffled by sayuri and i love that for him

Sayuri just being herself unknowingly accomplishes the impossible task of distracting SQQ from his past trauma (helps that past trauma is significantly lessened by her killing WYZ) and Bingge from his revenge.

I think endgame for Bingge in this AU is for him to a. finally trust someone and b. make a friend (the first one he’s ever made) that c. is female and d. he views in a completely platonic way and isn’t trying to secretly marry/fuck.

It’s a lot of character development for him.

Ironically, by Sayuri rejecting Bingge’s advances over and over again (which is a wholly new experience for him, a woman not wanting him?? That literally never happens), she unknowingly restores a lot of his faith that true love and devotion occur. I mean you can’t tell me that witnessing so many women betray their previous lovers for him didn’t play a role in his own insecurity and cynicism. Qiu Haitang, in refusing to stray so much as a millimeter in her loyalty to her husband, in refusing to so much as glance his way in a lustful manner, models the way LBH wishes his wives treated him in his previous life but had never quite managed in reality.

Eventually it comes out that SQQ and Qiu Haitang’s marriage is completely platonic. This is primarily due to YQY and SQQ finally reconciling (through no small intervention on Sayuri’s part because she was so tired of their mutual unsaid past destroying the both of them). They start to spend more time together and Bingge witnesses one of their outings, with YQY shyly offering SQQ a hand-painted fan and SQQ accepting with the faintest hint of a blush on his face.

He immediately grows completely and utterly enraged on Qiu Haitang’s behalf (another new experience for him— sure, he’s sought righteous justice on behalf of hundreds of women before but somehow this seems personal). Because how dare he. After all that Qiu Haitang has done for SQQ, all the ways she has supported him and improved his public image and loved him (why, why, why did she never love him the same way), this is how that traitorous, undeserving scum repays her?

Which made him realize that a part of him actually believed that SQQ truly loved his wife back, and that just makes him angrier, he should’ve known that no part of Shen-fucking-Qingqiu was capable of true love and loyalty, how could he be so stupid as to believe that filthy lecher had a single redeeming quality?! But no matter, even if Qiu Haitang is no longer his wife in this world, she’s become something of a friend to him (despite her appalling taste in food and men), and so he’ll do her this one favor, he’ll obtain justice on her behalf and rip Shen Qingqiu limb-from-limb—

Qiu Haitang has to pull him aside and be like “yeah I’m touched you’re so angry on my behalf and all but you’re about to ruin my 33-step plan on getting my husband and his childhood friend to finally hook up, so I’m gonna need you to calm down.”