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saintone · 2 years

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@everyonesfavoritebastard left this quesiton on my latest post and i decided to answer them instead of studying!

We could say sqq goes from hero to villan bc its something very common in fiction, that the villan is a failed hero. I think this hapoenes to og-lbh too.

BUT sqq wasnt a villan, he WAS MADE the villan by others.

Everyone saw him as one. Like he was given that lable. But i dont think he was a villan, per se. He wasn't evil, he didnt do evil. He tortured Binghe as a child, that's true, but outside his wicked obsession with hurting Binghe bc of his trauma, he wasnt going out and doing evil. He was actually pretty good, taking in consideration that he still was a cultivator who helped others, that in any situation in the novel where he had to choose wether to save someone or let them die, he choose the first option, even at his sake (In contrast, at the end og-lbh was truly evil, and didnt care about anyone if he didnt get something in exchange. Women were prices, people were subjects. He was god).

Outside of having a sharp tongue, Sqq didnt hurt others (except binghe, oc). Like, he could have been much more worse. We are talking about a smart, cunning, maybe not the strongest, but he still was strong- with a SHITTON of trauma on his back. Shen Jiu could have been a real menance, and that's something i would like to see bc i think that if he set his mind to it he would have been unstoppable.

Like someone with Sqq's background could have been crazy. A compleate psycopath. Even with his mental problems, he had some real solid mental streght bc WOW. Everything he went through? Sometimes fans talk about what sqq could have been if he grew above his trauma. He was GREAT. His trauma didnt break him. He was standing, he was kinda good, kind, he was still alive.

He could perfectly have cursed the world like binghe did and use his powers to destroy it.

But he didnt.

First if all I dont think he cared enough. Like at the end he barely cared about his martial brothers and what they thought of him. And that's bc, and we always forget, that at that point of the story Sqq was heavily depressed. He suffered from insomnia, from trauma, his insecurities, his fears.

The man didnt even care when he was taken by lbh.

About sqh decision of making him the villan, we kinda know he didnt want to. We dont know the og story, but sqh said shen yuan and bingmei's relationship was "closest to what he had pictured at the beginning". So no, Sqh didnt want to make sqq a bad guy. He was supposed to have a relatevely good relationship with binghe, or maybe at least a good ending, or a better story.

The problem is at some point, sgh stops making the decisions about the story. It slips through his control. Sqq becoming the villan is like him being misunderstood: maybe, his martial brothers are nothing more than a reflection of the fans, who despice sqq without trying to understand him (and sy is our examplary fan).

The other day I saw a video that called shen jiu "the villan of a wrongly told story". And thats it. Thats the key of understanding SVSSS to me. The story had to be told THREE TIMES bc it kept failing (sqh's original story, PIDW and SWSSS). Inside SVSSS, there are three stories intervined. But the only one we dont know about is the first one: we only have some snippets.

And reflecting abput the way our enonomic system shapes the way we tell stories or force creative works to adapt to the rules of capilasim is also a greaat thing to analize.

Even better than that, how authors lose control of their stories.

At that, MXTX probably wont agree with my theories. She has said that Sqq deserved what happened to him and that he wont reincarnate. So sj is dead, dead dead, gone. In my very personal opinion, bc Shen jiu is a not a villanous villan, in MDZS she made Jin GuangYao undoubtely evil (like yeah, he was mistreated, but THATS an evil character who doesnt care about others! Thats selfishness! Sqq doesnt have a drop of selfishness in his characterization). To make sure her villan wasnt idealized this time.

The thing with SVSSS is: the story went wrong. The characters went wrong. Something happened. It was not supposed to go like that, but it did. Sqh didnt wanted it, but it happened.

Wtf is the system? Good quesiton. I have no idea. Is it fate? No, bc fate according to the creator was something else, a different ending for the story.

I think, the system its the narrative. The plot. Something there to keep the story going. Some people have theoriziced that it was evil, and that kinda could make sense, and then we would have a true villan in the story.

Though Im not sure we have arguments solid enough for that one.

Maybe the OCC warnings, and now im just guessing, could be bc the og MC was Shen Jiu, so the system wanted a protagonist the most alike to sqq.

I also have this personal theory, that the reason everyone accepts Sy so easily is bc they already wanted to get along with Sqq. Like the guy was pretty asome. And undoubtely attractive. This sounds basic, but it is centifically proven that we like drawn to good looking people. Cang Qiong peak lord had truly no reason to reject Sqq from tje begining. The werent that bad either. Its just the mistook him, and then they hated him, bc instead of the person THEY wanted him to be, the person THEY wanted to get along with, Sqq didnt give shit about them. Pero lords were bitter tm.

So maybe the system wanted to prove that his sqq could fit. That sqq didnt need to CHANGE to be accepted.

But i also think this is too daydreamy thou.

If the system is the plot, assuring the story continues how it should, but with a protagonist that hopefully wont fail this time, there are also some things that it has to make sure are fulfilled. Missions, arcs, and the correct flow of the characters. Nobody likes it when a story makes a 360° with no reason.

So yeah. Idk if i answered anything hahaha. At this point im just wordvomitting my SVSSS theorys bc I think its a great work.

Also i should be studying.

#scumbag system #svsss novel #scumbag self saving system #shen jiu #luo binghe #yue qingyuan #shen qingqiu #bingjiu #liu qingge #shen yuan

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shinebrightlikeanarwhal · 3 years

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I don't understand how are people who say "Shen Jiu was so horrible that the Peak Lords were happy to have him replaced" when, with the slag that the Peak Lords are, is that nothing special? Like, why would that be humiliating? Literally in An Ding Peak disciples die every mission, Peak Xian Shu should have a harassment problem but instead Qi Qingqi's main disciple writes the worst case of objectification in the whole novel, Bai Zhan doesn't have Shizun or Dashixiong, Mu QingFang was useless and all his work was done by demons. Their Peaks didn't even survive in PIDW. And were they still shit with Shen Yuan anyway? How exactly does leave a bunch of cultivator disciples to a amnesiac person make someone believe that they are decent people? Could all have died for that stupidity. I don't understand what part made them believed they shouldn't help someone with amnesia. They were also unable to stop mentioning Shen QingQiu's late cultivation when supposedly believed that he didn't remember. They weren't even good with Shen Yuan, I have no idea where people get that supposed good relationship when all they did was think on themselves. There's nothing strange that people like that don't care somebody

YES! Thank you!!

These people quite literally said fuck all about most things. We’re they strong, yes to get to where they are. But oh my GOSH the choices they made were so stupid I started questioning xianxia sects from other books!! Like “?? Is this normal??”

LQG literally died from a Qi deviation. It’s no ones fault but his own. This isn’t victim blaming he literally died because he was in this blind Qi deviation!

YQY is so incompetent his Shizun should SMACK him in the next life. He fucked EVERYTHING up because he couldn’t LISTEN. He literally refused to listen and follow with people’s simple options for simple problems and ultimately made everything worse!!

SY has to be the luckiest lil bastard in history. He too was useless because all he focused on was LBH to save his own skin. This absolute tool did fuck all with the other disciples. Fuck all aside from ogling “future wives” and had the nerve to assume SQQ was a predator when he was EYING UP LMY!!!

The only person that made any sense was GYx and HES A SIDE CHARACTER! Everyone else can burn in hell they were useless and if I had to be forgotten by people like them I would GLADLY do the Cha cha in hell. These same fuckwads would rather bully and harass their own fellow disciple and ignore when something is clearly wrong with him, than put in the effort to build a relationship. Their sects were going to burn with or without LBH they just got lucky no one was around long enough to see their disgraceful end

Gosh, the PLs and SY make me so angry when I think about their wasted potential.. (well except SY he just annoys me that people love him so much and slander SJ whom is the lesser of all evils in PIDW SQH IS A FUCKING MURDERER and LQG ABUSES SO MANY DISCIPLES but no one wants to listen to that ❤️)

#svsss #shen jiu #scumbag villain self saving system #scumbag villain #shen qingqiu #I will slander every peak lord because they can all rot in hell ESPECIALLY YQY #I’m sorry to all YQY stans #that’s YOUR king

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tossawary · 3 years

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Chapter 29: “The Ringing Bells” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” quotes and commentary. Not a full list of favorite quotes or full commentary.

It’s just been him, Yue Qingyuan, and the not-so-modest Qiong Ding entourage befitting Cang Qiong Mountain Sect’s leader. Shang Qinghua and Yue Qingyuan still haven’t talked about anything personal (Shang Qinghua kind of hopes they never will!), but putting up a united front and then putting up with other sects seems to have brought them closer together again.

If Shang Qinghua had given in to his idea of bringing a flask of emergency wine in his sleeve, they could have made a drinking game or something every time someone managed to “casually” mention that Zhao Hua Temple Sect’s barrier techniques were the best in the world. With that face Yue Qingyuan made after the third, ear-gouging hour of listening to a long line of Zhao Hua experts condescend to them about security measures that will surely stop invading demons in their tracks, Shang Qinghua would have bet the man could have been talked into it. Big Bro would have been down, he’s sure.

AN: There is something immensely amusing to me that Yue Qingyuan and Shang Qinghua of all people run this sect (like, sure, SQQ and WQW and the other peak lords do stuff too, but YQY and SQH seem to be the ones who actually deal with worldly affairs and interact with people). To me, they both have such “I don’t want to be here” energy. YQY would rather be thinking about his slow reconciliation with Shen Qingqiu, and SQH would rather be daydreaming about the sexy ice demon he’s been betraying the sect for for 20 years.

But nooo, they have to be responsible.

Yue Qingyuan nearly dying at the end of SVSSS to me had such... vibes of relief? This man is carrying SO MUCH stress over his position and his responsibilities and appearances, that his reaction to dying seems to be at least a little bit: “Oh, time to put everything down. I can give up. I don’t have to be the invincible sect leader above it all anymore. Thank goodness.” You can fit so much trauma and unhealthy ideation in this man!

Which is, I think, why this connection between SQH and YQY was a little inevitable in this story. They’re both carrying so much stress and trauma, and doing their best to not let anyone see it, so they really relate to each other but... in a way that’s kind of one-sided on both parts? Because SQH isn’t supposed to know shit about YQY’s past or pressures. And YQY doesn’t have the full picture of what SQH is dealing with at all. After their fight after SQQ died and SQH coming forward about their invasion, SQH and YQY are finally getting to have some more direct connection, but neither of them are willing to put their masks down yet. It goes against their natures and their perceived duties (as sect leader and a transmigrator/traitor) to honestly confide in each other.

YQY and SQH both kind of have a “I know better than you” thing going on here. Yue Qingyuan because he’s the sect leader and he’s been taught that he has to manage himself and everyone else. Shang Qinghua because he’s a transmigrator and also... the fallen creator god of this world?

Yue Qingyuan is apparently just as eager to make it home as Shang Qinghua is. Their travel pace puts them a full day ahead of schedule, and Yue Qingyuan courteously sends his youngest personal assistant ahead via flying sword to warn the sect.

“Shen-Shixiong and Wei-Shixiong will need time to hide the mess from all the parties they’ve been throwing in our absence,” Shang Qinghua jokes.

Yue Qingyuan looks at him with polite but concerned bemusement.

“Aha, never mind, I’ll just… go check the last report my head disciples sent me again.”

None of them are expecting the assistant, who flew off with all the energy and eagerness of youth, to return only a little over an hour later. The assistant is red in the face and panting for breath. He collapses in front of Yue Qingyuan.

“Shizun, I-! I turned back as soon as I saw- in the distance-! The sect was on fire! Qiong Ding Peak was on fire!”

Yue Qingyuan and Shang Qinghua exchange a look of shock. When Shang Qinghua joked at the beginning of their journey that the sect would probably set itself on fire without them there to do damage control, he really was only joking! He’s had way too much of the shit he says coming true on him!

AN: I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but Yue Qingyuan’s youngest assistant is the kid that Shen Qingqiu shoved on him from the House of Rejuvenation mess. Qi Qingqi and Liu Qingge picked up Luo Fanli from that, Shen Qingqiu picked up Fu Qiang from that, and Yue Qingyuan got this kid.

He doesn’t have a name yet, but he’ll probably get one at some point. Probably in Part 4 when Shen Yuan and Fu Qiang’s story comes to the forefront.

“Shishu!”

Shang Qinghua turns and gets an armful of nephew. Binghe’s arms wrap around him with no care for the bandage around one of them and Binghe’s warm face is buried into his neck - he’s so tall now - to share his dirt stains.

Shang Qinghua has no idea what to do. He wants to hug his very huggable nephew, of course, but in front of so many people?! He can’t just shove Binghe away either! Luckily, Binghe seems to realize his mistake about two seconds after contact and launches away from Shang Qinghua, bowing deeply enough to hide his face completely.

“Apologies for tripping, Shishu!”

Shang Qinghua nearly laughs. “Ah, ah, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

This is probably one of the worst kept secrets in the sect, anyway.

AN: This is absolutely a reference to Binghe pulling this trick in SVSSS canon, only unlike SY, Shang Qinghua recognizes the excuse.

Luo Binghe clears his throat and intervenes before his friend can accidentally kill Shang Qinghua with kindness or something. “The demon saintess Sha Hualing and her followers attacked.”

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, relaxing a little.

“Is that all?” he thinks. “Phew! Earlier than I was expecting, but okay!”

AN: It’s very funny to me to have CQMS going, “Demon attack! Demon attack! Totally unexpected demon attack!” And Shang Qinghua going, “Shit, I think I put that down on my calendar wrong. Did I put that down on my calendar...?”

This apparently prompted Liu Mingyan and Luo Fanli to volunteer at the same time.

“They looked like they were going to argue over it, at first, or even fight over it,” Luo Binghe says. “Qi-Shigu and Liu-Shishu didn’t seem to want to let them fight, but they just ignored them and almost started a quick hand-game over who would get to fight. And then the demoness said… she said… she...”

“What?” Shang Qinghua asks.

Ning Yingying lifts her nose to the sky and declares, “She said: ‘If I get a say in this, I want to fight the pretty one in the veil, and not the old lady!’ So rude!”

“...Ah,” Shang Qinghua says again.

That explains the awkward grimace Binghe is making right now.

“Liu-Shijie and Luo-Shijie froze, then Luo-Shijie just looked at Shizun and Qi-Shigu and Liu-Shishu,” Ning Yingying continues. “ Snap! And then it was really quiet. And then Shizun said, ‘I’ll allow it.’ And Qi-Shigu and Liu-Shishu and even Liu-Shijie didn’t say anything.”

“Of course not! Shizun outranks them,” Ming Fan says.

As though that has ever honestly mattered to Liu Qingge or Qi Qingqi.

“So she got to fight the demoness,” Luo Binghe says, like it was a foregone conclusion that his stubborn auntie would get what she wanted. Who’s surprised about this? Not this long-suffering nephew!

AN: So, Sha Hualing made the “old lady” joke in front of 1) Qi Qingqi, Luo Fanli’s teacher who knows about her student’s past with the House of Rejuvenation, 2) Liu Mingyan, Luo Fanli’s friend who either knows about it or recognizes that LFL is touchy about her age, 3) Liu Qingge, LFL’s brother-in-law who also knows, and 4) Shen Qingqiu, who was THERE and that’s how they met.

So, there’s sort of a collective, “If we don’t let Luo Fanli try to beat the shit out of this demon girl, we will never hear the fucking end of it,” here.

Also, as soon as I made Luo Fanli into Liu Qingge’s apprentice of sorts, there was no way that she was NOT going to want to fight Sha Hualing, and it seemed a good way to shake things up from canon while also doing some stuff with the Fanli & Binghe relationship. I’m really trying to breathe new life into all the scenes that I’m redoing from SVSSS.

“She kicked that demoness’ ass!” Ning Yingying squeals.

“Ning Yingying!” Ming Fan hisses.

Shang Qinghua snorts. “Oh? Really?”

“It was rough,” Luo Binghe says, while Ning Yingying and Ming Fan both turn bright red realizing what she just said in front of a Peak Lord. Binghe, however, has totally heard Shang Qinghua say way worse than that. “The demoness was really good and really mean, and she kept getting up even after she got slammed into the ground, but eventually she got pinned and had to forfeit to keep her head. Fanli is still mostly in one piece. She’s over there right now with Mu-Shishu and Liu-Shishu.”

Shang Qinghua follows his nephew’s finger, then winces. His little sister-in-law looks pretty roughed up, her face is beginning to swell and she’s got a lot of claw marks, but she’s grinning up at Liu Qingge. Liu Qingge looks totally fine, besides some flecks of blood that must belong to other people, and is smiling down at her.

Mu Qingfang looks less than enthusiastic about all this as he treats Luo Fanli’s injuries of victory.

Aha, yeah, Liu Qingge is definitely the one explaining this to Luo Jiahui later.

AN: I really like building and having built up all these relationships. I like giving Binghe friends, even if they’re friends that he kind of runs rings around given his manipulative tendencies (NYY and MF rely on just grabbing him at this point and relying on sheer force of obliviousness/authority). I like giving Liu Qingge more connections in the form of Luo Fanli and Mu Qingfang too.

This cast is... so big at this point. I didn’t really expect this when I started.

Inside the cell is… a bloody demon girl who looks about fifteen-ish (sixteen-ish, maybe?), with dark hair in many braids, a sharp face and a sharper stare, and clothing that looks like it was made out of not nearly enough silk ribbons. Ah, wow, that’s way more skin than Shang Qinghua ever wanted to see of Sha Hualing. No jewelry at all, though, not even a belt. Not even boots or even slippers. Just lots of blood splatter.

Both Sha Hualing’s arms and legs have been restrained. She’s also been muzzled, though that doesn’t stop her from showing off her teeth in the least happy-looking smile anyone has ever smiled. There’s blood in Sha Hualing’s teeth! That’s blood there smeared around her mouth!

Qi Qingqi is in the cell too, utterly unimpressed, making sure that Sha Hualing is properly restrained and even treating an injury on the girl’s thigh. Demons are pretty tough, Sha Hualing would probably be fine, but Shang Qinghua supposes they can at least be a little kind toward the poor disciple who’ll have to mop the floors here later.

“So good of you to finally join us,” Shen Qingqiu says to Shang Qinghua. His voice is dry, as usual, but it might be missing its worst sharp edges? The man seems pleased at having caught himself a demon.

“Ah, I didn’t want to show up the sect leader with my speed,” Shang Qinghua replies.

That gets an amused look from Yue Qingyuan. “Let us speak elsewhere,” he says, politely admonishing everyone to shut up in front of their guest. “Qi-Shimei?”

“A moment,” Qi Qingqi says.

“Oh, don’t leave me all alooone,” Sha Hualing says, only slightly muffled by the muzzle, her eyes going wide and scared. “I’ll behave! This is really too much! These restraints are hurting me. Please… it’s making it hard for me to breathe, please…”

Qi Qingqi ignores her and finishes up her work.

Yue Qingyuan lets the Xian Shu Peak Lord out and then seals the cell behind her. Shang Qinghua is familiar with those seals and yeah, there’s very little chance Sha Hualing is getting out of there on her own. The demoness complains loudly about being left behind in a cold and lonely cell. Shang Qinghua can still hear her wailing as Yue Qingyuan instructs the guards on, mainly, not letting anyone in and not taking any of Sha Hualing’s bait no matter what lies she tells.

If anyone gets “seduced” by that teenage girl - a trick pulled many times by the wily Sha Hualing in Proud Immortal Demon Way - Shang Qinghua is going to be so disappointed. Surprised? Not really! But still… depressingly disappointed!

AN: It was... hm... important to me that none of the characters here actually sexualize Sha Hualing or disregard the fact that she’s very young to them. In his narration, Shang Qinghua mentions her skimpy clothes and the possibility of her seducing a guard, but it’s with the casual detachment of someone who was writing a stallion novel and knows the tropes.

I wanted to focus more on the fact that Sha Hualing is not just a “wife character”, but an extremely dangerous non-human individual and already a minor political player, if currently trying to play outside her league. She’s an enemy. Also, just because she is currently playing outside her league doesn’t mean that she’s not dangerous and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

All she needs is someone to get close and she will inflict life-long injuries.

I also wanted to use her here for some Mobei-Jun stuff, which I’ll talk about later when I get to the Mobei-Jun part.

“Shang-Shidi, do you recognize any of these materials?” Shen Qingqiu asks next, like he’s reading Shang Qinghua’s mind now! He looks so unimpressed by Shang Qinghua’s startle. “You are, after all, one of our experts on tracking down the source of such strange things.”

“Aha, off the top of my head? I couldn’t say! But… I would suspect part of this weapon came from the far north of the Demon Realm...”

Wei Qingwei finally looks up. “I would make the same guess,” he says, like a real bro. “If only this weapon hadn’t broken, we could have tested its limits of disruption! But our plans have been disrupted there… I’d like to see how something like this would go up against the different types of barriers out there.”

“Zhao Hua Temple’s barriers, perhaps?” Shen Qingqiu suggests.

Yue Qingyuan audibly sighs.

“Of course, they won’t wish to see proof that there are demon lords preparing to invade,” Shen Qingqiu says icily. “How remiss of me to forget that fact. What does it matter if a demon lord’s daughter was swinging around a previously unseen weapon like a child’s favorite new toy?”

AN: So, when I say that I want to breathe new life into the canon scenes that I’m redoing and reinterpreting, my goal for this one was to really... build up the upcoming Immortal Alliance Conference and actually connect Sha Hualing’s invasion to... well... anything.

In SVSSS, Sha Hualing’s invasion happening is just following PIDW events apparently, and SVSSS in my opinion isn’t... really too interested in PIDW worldbuilding or Sha Hualing’s character from the standpoint that this really is a real world now. It’s all about Shen Yuan reliving the PIDW plot.

So, if I’ve put 200,000+ words at this point into actually trying to establish that this is a real world, these are real people, there are real long-lasting politics and sect relations, that world elements aren’t just spawning into existence when the plot needs them and exist now, even if I’ve been doing so kind of as a joke because I think it’s funny to make Shang Qinghua deal with that, I wanted to actually try to place and connect Sha Hualing’s invasion to other story elements and place Sha Hualing’s character in relation to the others.

Here, Sha Hualing’s invasion is a spoiled and violent child looking to make herself look good and cause trouble, as it is in SVSSS, but here it’s emphasized that Sha Hualing really is 1) a child, 2) a demon lord’s child, and 3) a future demon lord herself. And Sha Hualing is showing off her family’s inventions in preparation for the Immortal Alliance Conference. This is a move that has consequences for her and for Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, and will continue to have consequences for her (partially indebted to MBJ’s clan) and for Cang Qing Mountain Sect (it makes them look bad in front of the other Great Sects).

“Aha, off the top of my head? I couldn’t say! But… I would suspect part of this weapon came from the far north of the Demon Realm...”

“Zhao Hua Temple’s barriers, perhaps?” Shen Qingqiu suggests.

Yue Qingyuan audibly sighs.

AN: Me to myself: “...Is there canonical evidence that Mobei-Jun can read and write???” Because, like, the impression I get from this guy is that he basically raised himself and barely survived, so the System could interpret that to make an AU in which MBJ never learned to read or write.

Mobei-Jun can read and write in “pride is not the word I’m looking for”, Shang Qinghua is just exaggerating here because he’s a little miffed.

But it’s kind of tempting to write an AU now in which SQH realizes early-on in knowing MBJ that... his king can’t really read or write... his upbringing was so shitty and his father was so careless that MBJ never learned more than a few words that he picked up from context. That’s fucking horrifying. MBJ’s poor socialization and communication levels reach new heights!

“It’s just that something like that happened before, remember, Uncle?” Binghe presses. “With the skinner demon? That same light and that same warm, almost burning feeling! It was different this time - that weapon wasn’t going to hit me, I was blocking it; I know that I was blocking it the right way - but it’s too similar, isn’t it?”

“It’s… very similar,” Shang Qinghua agrees slowly.

“System?! Bro?! This is your fault!” he thinks. “Why the fuck are you leaving these explanations to me?! If you take points off me for any of this, you piece of shit, I’m going to find a way to strangle you, I swear! Preemptively: fuck off!”

Shang Qinghua lets himself visibly think about, trying to figure out what the fuck to say here. Binghe looks up at him like he’s trying to see into Shang Qinghua’s head to watch his thoughts come together. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a man all of a sudden! Binghe is too clever to be easily fooled by weak bullshit! How is a man supposed to come up with a decent lie under these circumstances?

“Well, ah, it’s happened when you’ve come into contact with demons who are trying to kill you, so it seems like it’s… some kind of unique reaction between that demonic energy and your spiritual energy,” Shang Qinghua says finally, because it’s better than explaining that there’s some shitty, no-good god-like being invested in a predestined plot. “Strange things happen sometimes in life-or-death situations, you know. Cultivators can accidentally pull off great feats sometimes when they’re desperate or panicked, without knowing how they did it.”

Binghe doesn’t look very reassured. Which makes sense, because a long-winded way of saying “I don’t know, it sounds like a freak accident to me” isn’t really reassuring.

AN: This, plus Sha Hualing’s invasion, is about Shang Qinghua’s coming up against the consequences of his choices. He can’t really have everything at once! He’s managed to have a lot all at once so far, but the time for Binghe’s demon reveal is coming closer, and Shang Qinghua is going to have to make some tough decisions and live with them. He’s going to have to deal with the people in his life having opinions on his tough decisions.

Shang Qinghua is trying to keep the System happy, with his eyes on the end goal of keeping Binghe out of the Abyss, which makes him unwilling to take certain risks deviating from the plot. But, if you’re looking at it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know about the System or the plot, Shang Qinghua’s decision-making seems completely illogical.

Binghe is too clever not to at least notice that there’s some bullshit happening here. He doesn’t know what his uncle isn’t telling him, but Shang Qinghua isn’t the greatest bold-faced liar, so he knows there’s something.

At the end of the day, Shang Qinghua leaves his fellow Peak Lords (Shen Qingqiu, Qi Qingqi, Liu Qingge, and Tang Qingling) arguing in circles over cold trails (Yue Qingyuan is stuck refereeing, poor bastard). He returns to his Leisure House and finds a familiar ice demon lounging in his sitting room, eating some of his snacks.

“My king, did you help Sha Hualing escape?!” Shang Qinghua demands.

“She did not contribute,” Mobei-Jun answers.

Mobei-Jun looks good, like breaking in and out of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect last night was no trouble for him. Why would it be any trouble for him? He’s been doing it for years and years without getting caught, after all!

“How did you bypass the cell’s seals so cleanly?” Shang Qinghua wonders, as he puts some papers aside and kicks off his boots.

The cell doors hadn’t been ripped off its hinges, just… taken off like they were never attached… which combined with the ice-related injuries on the guards, plus the fact that the intruder slipped in like a shadow and left the same way, kind of gave the whole thing away.

Mobei-Jun raises his eyebrows. “You have shown me many such protections.”

“Ah… yeah… I guess I did do that.”

AN: Presenting Sha Hualing as I did: a dangerous and political figure even though she’s only a teenager, was also meant to reflect on Shang Qinghua’s relationship with Mobei-Jun. Mobei-Jun is the enemy. Mobei-Jun may be on Shang Qinghua’s side and his own side, but he is not on Cang Qiong Mountain Sect’s side and he has loyalties to people in direct opposition to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.

Sha Hualing is, in many ways, Mobei-Jun’s people. He’s completely unfazed by her violence. To him, Sha Hualing’s behavior is normal and expected, if the foolishness and arrogance of someone trying to act grown-up. He is not human. He is from a completely different world to Shang Qinghua.

And their separate worlds are now colliding.

Shang Qinghua really can’t have everything he wants here. He’s a traitor and, realistically, he can’t expect that not to come out sooner or later. He’s making decisions for the sect (releasing SHL to prevent another demon invasion (and also to keep the plot on track)) that Yue Qingyuan might have agreed with if he knew the full picture of SQH’s spying (all he knows at the moment is that SQH has informants), but that YQY doesn’t know about and so can’t agree with, so SQH is acting beyond his authority letting MBJ break SHL out.

It’s a mess! It’s not sustainable! Shang Qinghua’s old character role and his new character role can’t continue to coexist like this.

Thinking of worrying unnecessarily, desperate to change the subject away from the looming plot, Shang Qinghua brings up the very important subject of Mobei-Jun possibly, maybe, if he has the time, letting him know when to expect him, when he’s going somewhere, and when he’ll be back. He’s brought this up before, though mostly in a “my king, this humble servant would really appreciate it if you at least learned to knock, but if that’s too much to ask, it’s fine, it’s really fine, never mind, forget I brought it up” kind of way.

He only realizes just how daring it sounds after he says it! He’s always kind of figured that the proud Mobei-Jun would take offense to the concept of being at Shang Qinghua’s beck and call in any way. Why would Mobei-Jun need to explain himself?

“Why?” Mobei-Jun even says.

“...Why?” Shang Qinghua repeats, kind of hoping that he wouldn't have to explain the things he asks for. Mobei-Jun said he could ask for things, but he has to explain himself too? That's really too much. “I didn’t get to see you at all while I was gone! I got back and I didn’t know when I’d get to see you again, my king.”

This gets him another random pinch to the cheek, but it also gets him another surprising kiss. Mobei-Jun is apparently not even a little bit offended by this request. So it’s fine! This one thing, at least, is really fine.

AN: But Mobei-Jun is also becoming one of SQH’s rocks in many ways! This relationship is new and exciting and comforting! Giving up or betraying Mobei-Jun is completely out of the question for Shang Qinghua.

I’m kind of fucking loving these secret forbidden romance vibes.

If Shang Qinghua asked, Mobei-Jun would whisk him away from everything right now, but he understands that Shang Qinghua needs to be here for his nephew, his sister-in-laws, and his students. With his father as king, Mobei-Jun doesn’t have the position or authority yet to make any kind of peace with CQMS. MBJ’s relationship with SQH could get him in deep shit with his father, with his uncle, and with other demon lords.

Shang Qinghua is a filthy traitor and he’s dragging MBJ down with him.

#tossawary commentary #tossawary svsss #pride is not the word

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lesyah · 3 years

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moshang childhood friends to lovers au - final

Hello! here is a fic that was posted to my twitter. it has songs to go along with it from my twitter. If you’d like to look at the songs for each part, or just check out my twitter (where I have threadfics and other twitter fics not posted here), feel free to do so!

final [age 22]

Out of all the things Shang Qinghua had gone through over the past three and a half years, this was somehow the worst. He wasn’t sure why this was the one thing that had him on the verge of a breakdown. It seemed somewhat inconsequential compared to the other moments throughout his college career. Other moments like when he was truly on the verge of dropping out, or when he felt so lonely he thought he’d snap in half. He was able to cope with those things. But for some reason, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He stared at the program in front of him, gaze faraway and his mind even farther away. All the sounds around him seemed to muffle. He had only picked up the itinerary to double check the time to tell his mom. He realized, in a split second, that Mobei Jun was also graduating. He knew this, in theory, but he never really thought about it.

A painful feeling bloomed in his chest. Mobei Jun was graduating. He was graduating university. He was graduating and Shang Qinghua wouldn’t be there. Shang Qinghua was graduating and Mobei Jun wasn’t going to be there. He blinked a few times, the realization settling in, grabbing his heart like a vice, and squeezing until his eyes pooled with tears.

This was the first milestone they wouldn’t be a part of for one another. They’d done all of the rest together. Mobei Jun had been there for all of it, and Shang Qinghua had been there for him in turn. He had expected this to go on for the rest of their lives. He didn’t necessarily think they’d share the same milestones (though he wished), but he at least thought he’d be there for them.

He had always imagined Mobei Jun being on the other side of the room, a silent support, when he inevitably felt anxious about this huge change in his life. Now, he was going to have to walk across a stage, receive congratulations, hug his mom, hug Shen Yuan, smile in photos with his friends, and Mobei Jun wouldn’t be there. Even worse, Mobei Jun would walk across a stage, receive congratulations, stand with his father and uncle who wouldn’t hug him, and he’d hover with his friends, and Shang Qinghua wouldn’t be there for it. He wouldn’t get to hug him in lieu of his family. He wouldn’t be able to support him when he inevitably looked at the door, hoping his mother would walk in.

Shang Qinghua set his program down, pressed his face into his hands and wept.

[“The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a message.”

“Hi Mobei, it’s Qinghua. Um… You’re probably busy getting ready, so don’t mind this. It’s nothing important. It sucks we graduate on the same day, so I can’t go to yours. I wish that I could. Even though I can’t come, I just wanted to at least call you and let you know that I’m really proud of you. Don’t let your dad or your uncle bully you today, okay? I hope you have a good day. I, um…I miss you. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Hi! It’s Shang Qinghua. I can’t take your call right now, but please leave a message and I’d love to call you back!”]

“Have you thought any more about that job?” Shen Yuan asked, lightly pushing Luo Binghe’s hand away, where he was trying to dump more food into his bowl. “Binghe, stop. That’s yours.”

Shang Qinghua leaned back against the seat, letting his own food cool down as he thought of how to answer. It was just the three of them, thankfully, otherwise it would have been impossible to be honest. In fact, he was a little thankful that Luo Binghe was there. Luo Binghe would be kinder about it than Shen Yuan. “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

Shen Yuan looked up at him. “What do you mean you don’t know? It’s an amazing opportunity.”

“Yeah, and it’s also really far from home.”

Shen Yuan looked at him. Luo Binghe was also looking at him, but more in interest than criticism.

“Isn’t it exactly what you want to do?” Luo Binghe asked, taking a small bite of his food. “It’d be worth it to move far away, right?”

Shen Yuan looked back at his food, eating a huge bite of noodles in frustration. “He doesn’t want to move because of Mobei Jun,” he said, annoyed.

Shang Qinghua didn’t meet either of their gazes.

Luo Binghe was the one to speak next. “But…Do you know if he’s coming back?”

Shang Qinghua’s chest twinged. “No, I don’t know. That’s why I don’t know if I’m taking the job yet.”

“You’re really gonna determine whether or not you take your dream job based on whether or not Mobei Jun moves back?” Shen Yuan snapped. “Can you honestly tell me that you’re not setting yourself up for failure? Why did you switch schools? Because you made the mistake of following him to his school in the first place.”

Shang Qinghua couldn’t help but wince. He looked down at his food and picked at it. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to prioritize yourself for once!”

Shang Qinghua didn’t respond. He took a bite.

Luo Binghe was quiet. “I don’t know, gege, I kind of understand what he means.”

Shen Yuan looked over at him. “What? You’re saying you would give up your future for me?”

“No,” he defended, also not meeting Shen Yuan’s gaze. “It’s not like that. It’s not that simple.”

“How do you think that makes me feel, Binghe? That I’d be stopping you from doing what you want?”

Luo Binghe sighed and put his chin in his hand. He swirled his chopsticks in the broth in front of him. “But you’re what I want. What’s the point in having a job that I like just to be miserable in every other way?”

Shen Yuan looked at him for a moment, a complicated expression on his face. He looked like he was not about to let that conversation go, but was going to save it for just their own ears. He looked back at Shang Qinghua. “Are you really miserable?”

Shang Qinghua took a bite of some rice. “What gave me away?”

Shen Yuan said nothing. He looked down at his own food and began to eat. The rest of their celebratory meal was eaten in silence.

His mother was being a little overbearing. She was trying to hold onto him now that he was finally slipping away. She hadn’t tried to hold onto him his entire life, but now that he was finally going, she was ready to try. A part of Shang Qinghua thought it was a pretense. That in order to make herself feel better, she should cry and hug and reminisce about how much she loved him and how much of a good child he’d been. It only felt suffocating.

When she finally went to bed, Shang Qinghua went to his old room and looked at the boxes on his floor. He packed away a few more things he’d be taking with him when he fully moved out. He didn’t have a place yet, and he still didn’t even know where he was going, but it would be easier for both him and his mom to have his things packed up. That way it wouldn’t be a surprise when the time finally came.

Shang Qinghua sat on the floor in front of one of those boxes. It was full of haphazardly thrown in memorabilia, all without a category that could go into its rightful box. It was full of random things he’d kept through the years, random photos, random toys he didn’t want to part with.

He pushed himself away from the box. It was a box full of Mobei Jun, and Shang Qinghua was more and more averse to thinking of him at all.

He left his home, only bringing a light jacket. The summer air was just warm enough to not need anything heavier. The street he walked down was quiet, but he could hear the sound of the electrical wires crackling overhead. It was soft enough to not be distracting, and loud enough to help drown out some of the loudness in his heart.

He arrived at the park in what felt like a few moments, for this was a worn path, and a known journey. At the end was a familiar sight, with an intimate familiarity with the way the shadows from the moon would bend around each park bench, around each dark lamppost. Even more familiar, even more known, was the figure lying in the small patch of grass at the end.

Shang Qinghua’s heart lurched as he neared. Mobei Jun did not move when he approached. His eyes were somewhat blank as they stared up at the sky. Shang Qinghua laid down beside him and pillowed his head on his arms. The moon was right overhead, and cascaded them in white light.

“You’re here,” Shang Qinghua murmured, voice warm and desolate all at the same time.

“I thought maybe you’d come,” Mobei Jun said back, a similar cadence.

“How’d you know?”

“Because I wanted to come, too.”

Shang Qinghua smiled a little. He removed one arm from beneath his head and set his elbow on the grass between them. He kept his hand raised in the air and waited. Mobei Jun reached out and grabbed it. He lowered their hands to the cool grass, and the blades tickled along Shang Qinghua’s hand.

“What’s next for you?” Shang Qinghua asked. His eyes tracked the movements of the clouds—a practiced habit. Much of his life was habitual, and he was discovering that anything beyond those learned habits was immensely painful.

“Not sure,” he said honestly. “I’m open to anything, to going anywhere. I just…want to want it. Whatever it is.”

Shang Qinghua nodded. He understood that. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing next?” He asked. He turned his head to look at him.

With his gaze, Shang Qinghua felt like another moon entirely stared down at him, lighting him up from the inside out and revealing all of his secrets. An unnamed desperate feeling welled up with the question. He felt afraid. He was afraid of knowing what his options were and not knowing at all what to do with them. “No,” he whispered, voice weak. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

Mobei Jun squeezed his hand. “It’s ok. You will.”

“I don’t feel like I will.” He could already feel the hysterics welling up. “I…don’t know what to do. About anything.”

Mobei Jun’s thumb brushed along his soothingly. “Qinghua,” he said. “Qinghua, it’s ok. You don’t have to know right now.”

Shang Qinghua squeezed his hand back, like he was trying to keep him from running away. It was all very loud, and he was very out of practice. He hadn’t had Mobei Jun to help him come down when he got like this for a very long time. It even felt like he had forgotten how to listen to Mobei Jun’s soothing voice and his calm demeanor. That scared him even more. He felt untethered, like a balloon full of helium, with nothing to keep him down.

Mobei Jun released his hand and rolled onto his side to prop himself up on his elbow and look down at Shang Qinghua. The loss of his hand made him feel like he was about to float away forever. But Mobei Jun reached down with his other hand and grabbed onto Shang Qinghua’s again. He brought Shang Qinghua’s hand to his own chest. “Qinghua, breathe. It’s ok.”

Shang Qinghua looked over at him. “Is it? It doesn’t feel like it.”

Mobei Jun looked down at him, face even, heartbeat slow. His hand tightened on Shang Qinghua’s, and pushed it more firmly to his chest. He said nothing.

Looking at his face, Shang Qinghua counted the heartbeats, and tried to think of nothing else. Instead of calming down, however, the desperation in his chest only morphed into another kind of panic. “Mobei,” he said, gripping onto the fabric of his shirt. “Mobei, I missed you.”

His hand flexed around Shang Qinghua’s. “I missed you, too.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” he whispered, almost frantic. “I never knew what to do.”

Mobei Jun began to look sad. “Me neither.”

Shang Qinghua began to cry. He rolled onto his side the same time Mobei Jun shifted, and they pulled each other into their arms. Shang Qinghua pushed his face into his chest and clutched into the fabric of his jacket. It was such a relieving feeling, almost painful in the way it pulsed through him.

He only felt more afraid. Letting go would be so much harder, so much worse, now that there was no guarantee there would be another time for this. In that moment, he realized one thing: whatever happened, it would have to be final. Either he held onto Mobei Jun forever, or he let him go and never held him ever again.

Shang Qinghua felt a cold dread fill his gut. “Mobei, I need to tell you something.”

Mobei Jun’s arms tightened. When he spoke, he sounded afraid, like he was thinking of the last time Shang Qinghua had said those words. “What is it?”

Shang Qinghua shifted slightly, holding onto him tighter. He allowed himself one moment to savor it, just in case. He felt the way Mobei Jun’s breath expanded in his chest, the way his heartbeat could be felt from how close they were, the way his hair was long enough to fall down his back and tangle in Shang Qinghua’s fingers. He savored the way Mobei Jun held onto him like he would protect him from the world, and the way every embrace had only brought respite.

“Qinghua,” he said, somewhat fraught. “What is it?”

Shang Qinghua shut his eyes, drifted a hand up to brush through the knots in his hair. “I love you.” He let the sound of it settle into the air around them for a moment, and though he hadn’t noticed before, he suddenly became aware of the sound of grasshoppers chirping, and the sound of the wind rustling the leaves in the trees. “I love you in every way I possibly could.”

Mobei Jun was silent and still for several moments.

“I love you in the way that I want to be with you forever, never too far away and always close.”

Mobei Jun pushed forward slightly and rolled Shang Qinghua onto his back. He lifted, propped up over him on one elbow, his other hand pillowing Shang Qinghua’s head. Shang Qinghua looked at his face once, but couldn’t take it. He looked away. “Qinghua,” he breathed.

He blinked a few times, face flushed. “I mean it. Don’t ask me if I’m being serious.”

His hand shifted to caress the side of his face. He brushed his thumb along his cheek. “Qinghua,” he said again. “Look at me.”

Shang Qinghua really didn’t want to. He met his gaze and it was almost painful with how embarrassed he felt. He only felt more embarrassed when Mobei Jun did nothing but stare down at him. “What do you want me to look at you for? I’m so embarrassed.”

Mobei Jun dipped and pressed his lips to his cheek, soft and cool from the night air. “Why embarrassed?” He asked quietly, lips brushing against his skin. He pressed another kiss further down his cheek. Shang Qinghua’s face was on fire, and the grip he still had on Mobei Jun’s jacket only tightened. “What’s embarrassing?” He kissed further down, inward, towards Shang Qinghua’s mouth.

“Because you’re my best friend,” he whispered. “And you’ve been my best friend since I was a child. And—And I’m in love with you.”

Mobei Jun lifted slightly and hovered over him, only an inch away. “Still don’t understand what’s embarrassing.” He lowered, so their lips brushed when he spoke next. “You’re in good company, Qinghua. I love you, too.”

He kissed him, gentle and calming, the same way he was about everything else. Shang Qinghua’s eyes stayed open for a moment as his brain tried to catch up. But then he found himself clutching onto him tighter, eyes slipping shut, as his hand caught in Mobei Jun’s hair with the grip. Mobei Jun winced slightly, then let out a soft laugh against his lips.

Shang Qinghua loosened his grip to not pull on his hair, but only moved to cradle his face closer to his own. Mobei Jun tilted his head to the side, pushing further in to kiss him open. Shang Qinghua pulled back to breathe when he realized he had forgotten to do so ever since Mobei Jun kissed his cheek the first time. He kept his eyes shut, not wanting to wake up if this was a dream. He was breathing heavily, hands still on Mobei Jun’s face.

Mobei Jun was undeterred and pressed a light kiss to his open mouth, then to his bottom lip, then his chin, and down his jaw. “I’ve loved you for so long,” he whispered, breath washing down his neck. He kissed beneath his ear. “For so long that it seems odd that I’ve never told you. Why haven’t I?”

Shang Qinghua opened his eyes and the moon stared back at him, like it had seen everything. “I don’t know. I wish you would have. But it’s not like I told you either.” He swallowed, eyes scrunching shut when Mobei Jun kissed back up his jaw. “You meant too much to me to lose. That was why I didn’t tell you.”

Mobei Jun pulled back to look down at him. “You wouldn’t have. Even if I didn’t feel the same way. You mean too much to me to lose, too. There’s nothing you could do or say to change that.”

Shang Qinghua’s eyes filled with tears and he tugged him back down. Mobei Jun went pliantly, pressing their lips together again. He shifted over him, so his knees were on either side of his waist. He held Shang Qinghua’s face, kissing him so gently that it felt like kissing a cloud. Despite the gentleness, he still managed to coax Shang Qinghua open with it, and as soon as he opened up, Mobei Jun swept inside, head tilting to the side for a better angle.

Making an embarrassingly small sound in the back of his throat, Shang Qinghua wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him down. Mobei Jun went, shifting onto his elbows to hover over him. He pulled back for a moment, a quiet, wet sound hanging between them. Shang Qinghua looked up at him, felt his heart lurch, and pushed himself up to kiss him again. Mobei Jun’s lips turned up as he indulged for a few moments longer.

He pulled back and held his face again. His thumb came up to softly brush against Shang Qinghua’s bottom lip. He pulled down on it slightly, looking a little entranced at his red, kiss-bruised mouth. “I love you.”

Shang Qinghua let out a breath, like it was forced out of him. He reached up to grab onto his shoulders. “I love you,” he whispered, as if he was trying to convince him.

Mobei Jun smiled.

“You asked me what my plans were,” Shang Qinghua said, swallowing as he stared at the hollow of Mobei Jun’s throat. “And I really don’t know. I don’t know what I want or what I’ll do, but I do know that I’ll only be happy if you’re there with me.”

Mobei Jun bent to press their foreheads together. His voice was quiet, so quiet it felt like a feat that Shang Qinghua could hear him at all. “I’ve never really known what I wanted to do. The only plan I’ve ever had has been you.”

Shang Qinghua felt his insides collapse a little. He tugged him down and pressed his face into his neck. Mobei Jun hugged him back just as tightly. They stayed that way for a long time.

#moshang #Shang qinghua #mobei jun #svsss #myfic #mypost #moshang fic

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delicioussshame · 3 years

Text

Socialite AU, last part! I finished a thing! Also posted on AO3 now that it’s done.

Shen Yuan had expected that the beginning of the school year would have kept Luo Binghe too busy for them to see each other more than, oh, about once a month, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Luo Binghe is obviously very smart, so maybe that’s why he can keep up so easily. His studies sure don’t seem to stop him from having Shen Yuan over at least once a week.

Luo Binghe says it’s because he cannot trust Shen Yuan to feed himself properly, something Shen Yuan himself has profusely denied. First, he’s a fully grown adult, he can cook! Second, if he doesn’t feel like it, he can order in, or pay someone to cook for him. There are no issues there! He doesn’t need to be minded.

Not that he minds being minded. Shen Yuan has eaten more than his share of delicious food, and Luo Binghe’s stands above the rest. There are worst things than travelling to Luo Binghe’s apartment and eating a freshly cooked meal.

They don’t talk about novels as much though. This is an area where Luo Binghe had to step back in favor of reading assigned manuals. Shen Yuan has spent more than one evening reading trash by himself while Luo Binghe sat nearby, throwing the occasional question his way as he studied. Not that it seemed like he needed the help.

When does he see his college friends, Shen Yuan has no idea. Luo Binghe always waves away any concern of his on this matter. Seriously, Shen Yuan is a bit worried. Does he not fit in? It seems impossible that someone as charming, not to mention as affluent, as him would be ostracised. Even Shen Yuan had managed to gather a small group of friends during his college years. Luo Binghe must have done the same, no?

If he hasn’t, his fellow students are missing out.

In that case, Shen Yuan will take him out it their place. It wouldn’t do for Binghe to be lonely.

Not that that’s likely, considering how popular he is in their circle. As far as his female compatriots are concerned, Luo Binghe is now Beijing’s most eligible bachelor.

It’s a role that suits Luo Binghe’s public persona to a tee. He flutters between ladies as if he were born into in, flirting with one and laughing with another one with an ease Shen Yuan cannot help but envy, considering his own limited contacts with the other sex.

If those interactions often ended with a pretend fight between them, neither of them would complain about it. It was fun. Much better than insulting real people and wondering later if he’d gone too far, if he’d seriously hurt someone whose crime had only been to be born in a shitty family and raised in a similarly shitty fashion. He and Binghe sometimes rehearsed lines late into the night before a party, sentences that were meant to be biting insults turning into uncontrollable laughter.

Everything was going well. Shen Yuan’s reputation was becoming so toxic it had been weeks since the last time one of his fellow socialites had dared to speak to him, which is how Shen Yuan liked it. As for Luo Binghe, he was both admired for standing up to mean Shen Yuan, and pitied for always being the receptor of his ire. Binghe was more than talented enough to use all of it to his advantage.

All in all, everything was going perfectly.

Until now. “Excuse me?” says Shen Yuan with the coldest, most disparaging tone he has managed yet.

Sha Hualing, sadly, doesn’t seem impressed. “You can deny it all you want. It’s obvious. It must drive you crazy, seeing him with us and knowing you’ll never have a chance. He’s so good, too. Made me scream so loud I’m sure the neighbors heard. Not that you’ll ever find out yourself. Keep pulling his pigtails. He knows, he’s just too nice to tell how pathetic you are.”

Shen Yuan cannot convey to Sha Hualing how utterly from left field her theory is, and how completely baffled he is, without breaking his carefully maintained aura of disgusted condescension, but he really wishes he could. “You’re insane. How could I be attracted to… that.” He winces in his head. Too much? There are probably zero people that don’t feel at least a little attracted to Luo Binghe in this room.

But if there was one, it would be him. Luo Binghe is his cute disciple and friend, not his meal ticket. Leave that to Sha Hualing and her posse.

Her answering laugh is haughty. “Not even you believe that. Anyway, I just wanted to rub it in, but now that that’s done, I got better things to do than talking to you, like him. Fuck off.”

He flips her off as she leaves. Not his most elegant moment, but not the most elegant situation.

How the fuck did she get into her sick mind that he was into Luo Binghe. She should have thought they hated each other! That they wanted to tear each other’s throats open, not tear each other’s clothes off!

… Holy fuck their characters have ust, haven’t they? Danmei isn’t his playing field, but some things are universal across gender. There is an undeniable pull to seeing two hot people seeming like they’re two seconds away from punching each other when it also seems like they might be two seconds away from… something else.

It’s the only possible interpretation. They haven’t been careful enough, and now their roles are tainted by bad tropes!

Shen Yuan is going to have to adapt his persona a bit. Let himself run even colder. Less hate, more indifference, maybe? Or maybe he could just leave Luo Binghe alone for a few parties.

It wouldn’t work! It would seem like he chickened out after Sha Hualing confronted him! It would make it appear weak!

Could he make up a girlfriend?

Nah, no one would believe it.

Fuck, he’s going to need Luo Binghe’s help on this one.

_________________

“She what!?”

“Thinks I keep picking fights with you because I’m trying to get your attention and that I’d really like for you to bend me over something, probably.”

Luo Binghe blushes bright red.

Shen Yuan restrains his mirth. Nice to see he’s not the only one terribly embarrassed by the situation!

Yes, pinching those red cheeks would only make things worse, but he’s still very tempted.

Shen Yuan soldiers on. “Binghe shouldn’t worry about things too much. His reputation is safe. Considering how well he gets on with the fairer sex,” and yes, now Shen Yuan knows way more than he ever wanted to know about Sha Hualing’s sex life, but that’s life,” no one will doubt him. If he has no idea, I’ll think of something. It’s not his problem.”

“Shizun’s problems are my problems! He wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for me!”

Aww, Binghe, why is your indignation so cute!” Don’t blame yourself. We both agreed to the plan. It’s no one’s fault.”

Luo Binghe looks down, obviously still embarrassed. “I really have no idea where she got that. Shizun never appears to be attracted to me.”

“Who knows how Sha Hualing thinks. She probably watches too much porn.” He wouldn’t be surprised, considering how low-class she acted.

A second later, he catches his mistake. If Luo Binghe is… seeing her, he shouldn’t be that mean to her in his presence. “Sorry for insulting your… friend.” He doesn’t think they’re officially dating? Sha Hualing would never shut up about it, and anyway Luo Binghe wouldn’t have as much time for Shen Yuan if he was serious about someone. It’s probably just hormones raging.

Luo Binghe shakes his head. “Shizun shouldn’t apologise! She’s the one who was this rude! Implying Shizun doesn’t know how to court someone, or that he’d need such a ridiculous approach when a few words would be enough for him to have anyone! What a stupid woman.”

It’s Shen Yuan’s turn to be embarrassed. Luo Binghe is pushing the hero worship a little too far here. He’s got way more experience in that department than Shen Yuan will ever get, probably. “Well, if you don’t like her, maybe choose someone better as a partner? You could have anyone. I know it’s none of my business, and I guess she’s attractive, but really, so are many others who don’t share her… fiery temperament.”

If he were honest, he’d just tell Binghe he deserves better.

Much, much better. Didn’t he see her chatting with Liu Mingyan the other day? Now that’s a woman worthy of his Binghe, almost his equal in all fields.

Not that he needs to find someone just yet. He should take his time, and find someone he likes.

Luo Binghe snorts. “I would never choose her.”

Shen Yuan blinks. “Didn’t you?”

Luo Binghe looks wounded. “Why would you think that? I would never be with someone this cruel to Shizun!”

“But she said… oh.” Shen Yuan is an idiot. Why, why did he, even for a second, believe what that snake said? “Binghe must let me apologise. I’ve been stupid and have believed her when she said you and her were… involved.”

“Shizun mustn’t believe her! She lies!”

Shen Yuan pats Luo Binghe’s back gently. “I don’t! I don’t. She lied. I don’t believe her anymore. Of course Binghe has better tastes than this. I should have known.”

Luo Binghe raises his chin. “I do. I have the best tastes.”

Shen Yuan lets a smile appears on his face. “You do. After all, you have chosen me to guide you.”

Luo Binghe nods with almost comical vigour. “Yes!”

So! Cute! Shen Yuan wants to give him a hug!

He won’t, because he’s the dignified older friend.

Who reads bad online novels, but let’s not linger on that. “So, what do we do about her imagination? Because she cannot keep a secret to save her life, so I expect people will talk about it the next time we attend the same event.”

“…Does Shizun want… a girlfriend?”

What does that have to do with anything. “If I meet the right person, sure. Why?”

“Does it matter what they think? They never cared about Shizun to begin with. Who cares if they think he’s attracted to me. It doesn’t change a thing.”

Well, yes, but. “It makes me look pretty pathetic. It’s not exactly a fun reputation to have.”

“What does?”

“That I want someone and the best thing I can do about it is insulting them? It does make me look like a kindergartener.”

An unholy light appears in Luo Binghe’s eyes. “So what if that wasn’t the best thing you had done?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Shizun feels pathetic because he doesn’t like the idea that people think he wants someone and he doesn’t know how to get them, right? But what if he did?”

Shen Yuan is very confused right now. “Binghe?”

“We knew each other before that first party, right? So I let them know that. We could be bitter exes!”

Shen Yuan looks at him, completely frozen. “Binghe, no.” That is 100% a terrible idea.

“Why not? It would explain everything! Why we’re so mean to each other while I’m nice to everyone else, why you’re worst to me, and why there’s tension between us!”

There is no tension between them! They’re playing characters! “People would think you’re gay!”

“I’ve been flirting with women all the time. People would think I’m bi.”

“You’ve just told me you haven’t been dating! What if they think you’re hung up on me, who, by the way, is a man!”

“Is it that bad? I wouldn’t mind. Shizun is someone I would certainly be hung on if he had left me.”

“So I’m the one who left you now? That makes even less sense! Why would someone like me leave someone like you! Of course Binghe is the one who left!”

“If I were dating Shizun, I would never leave him! He has to be the one who left me!”

Shen Yuan rubs his temples. He knew the conversation wouldn’t be simple, but it has reached unprecedented levels of nonsense. “Let’s forget who left who. We’re not doing that. Binghe would ruin his reputation to only slightly better mine. That makes no sense.”

Luo Binghe pouts. “It would have worked. I would have made a very good ex-boyfriend.”

Shen Yuan pats his back again. “I’m sure you would have. I, on the other hand, would probably have been terrible at it.”

“Why?”

“How could I have pretended to not only have dated Binghe, but to have separated from him? No one would believe it. My talents aren’t up to the task. I can’t make myself look like a plausible boyfriend to Binghe.”

Luo Binghe sighs. “That’s stupid. Shizun might as well have been my boyfriend lately.”

Shen Yuan feels a headache coming. He can barely follow the logic of this conversation. “Binghe, I don’t understand.”

“Shen Yuan spends most of his evenings with me. I cook for him. He takes me out. We’ve been writing to each other for months. He’s been carefully curating my reading lists for most of those months. He has plenty of reasons why I would be dating him.”

Okay, let’s just ignore most of that. “Nothing you listed has anything to do with the character we play for those society functions? High society Shen Yuan probably only reads classic literature, when he’s not working his high-power job and, I don’t know, checking stocks or playing the guqin. Nothing appealing there. How would we have even met?”

“Via work? Maybe you had a meeting with some executive of my father. Considering my reputation, we probably just had sex and ended up dating later on.”

Shen Yuan tries to imagine being the kind of person who would see Luo Binghe and think he could just hit that.

Impossible. Does not compute. “Look, I’m just going to ignore it. It’s always worked before. We probably shouldn’t change it.”

“But things always staying the same is bad! They must evolve!”

Shen Yuan shrugs. “Not necessarily. My life has mostly remained the same since I’ve graduated, and it’s perfectly fine.”

Luo Binghe flinches like a kicked puppy. “Is my arrival so unimportant to Shizun?”

Fuck. “No! That’s not what I meant! I mostly meant my romantic life!” Not really, he meant his life his general, but it is quite insulting to Binghe to imply he had no impact on his life, not to mention just an outright lie.

“That, too, should change.”

“It sure won’t if everyone thinks I’m gay.”

Under Luo Binghe’s breath, barely audible to Shen Yuan, “It’s not exactly an impediment.” Then, louder. “Let’s tell them the truth, then.”

Shen Yuan instantly panics. “Binghe, they can’t know the truth, it’ll fuck everythin-“

And that’s when Luo Binghe’s tongue finds its way into Shen Yuan’s mouth.

Shen Yuan’s mind freezes completely.

Luo Binghe keeps on kissing him.

Shen Yuan’s mind keeps trying to reboot.

Luo Binghe pushes back and sighs. “Does Shizun understand now?”

Nope. “…We can’t be exes if we’re kissing?”

“Forget the exes. Let’s just tell them we’re having sex. That’ll be the true part. We’ll just tell them it’s hate sex. I’ll tell them you’re just that good and I can’t resist you. That way, you won’t be pathetic, right?”

Shen Yuan’s slowly rebooting mind cannot decide if the “reputation for being gay” part would outweigh the “reputation for having seduced Luo Binghe” part.

Wait. “We’re having sex?”

Luo Binghe falters. “If you want to? Because I want to. A lot. But we’re pretty much dating and Shen Yuan didn’t seem to realise, so I thought maybe he’s not attracted to me, but you keep acting like I’m the best thing that ever happened to you when really, the reverse is true, and can we date already? Please?”

Shen Yuan opens his mouth.

Shen Yuan closes his mouth.

Shen Yuan tries to understand that, apparently, Luo Binghe has been trying to date him? Him? Luo Binghe? And him? As a couple? That is a thing that is apparently on the table?

Wait, Shen Yuan actually is a person who could have looked and Luo Binghe and have hit that!?

Woah.

“I…”

Luo Binghe’s eyes grow even wider as he waits for Shen Yuan’s response.

As if Shen Yuan ever had the capacity to tell Binghe no.

As if he ever wanted to. “Okay. Let’s try it.”

A second later, he gets an armful of overenthusiastic Binghe trying to choke him with too much tongue.

“But we’re not playing bitter exes.” Shen Yuan really has no belief in his ability to pretend he left Luo Binghe.

That he had him and is devastated he doesn’t anymore, sure. But that he’d manage to be cruel to Luo Binghe about it? There’s no way.

“That’s fine. I like the one with the hate sex much better anyway.”

To be honest, so does Shen Yuan.

_________________

Shen Yuan positions himself in such a way that he can track Luo Binghe’s movements across the room without looking like he’s doing more than reading on his phone.

He can tell from Sha Hualing’s particularly vicious grin that she’s about to deliver what she considers to be a crippling blow to his reputation.

He thrills when the expression melts, replaced by horror as Luo Binghe’s face turn sheepish. He can almost hear his embarrassed tone as he admits to the moral failing that is sleeping with Shen Yuan, universal pariah.

He can distinctly hear the cries of dismay and what he knows are roars of utter jealousy.

None of it shows on his face, but Shen Yuan grins.

#The Scum Villain Self Serving System #Scum Villain #BingQiu #the AU where SY and LBH are both online friends and fellow socialites

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hinadoria · 3 years

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Title: like nobody’s business

Author: hinadoria / Twitter: @bunniepunk / AO3: bunnypunk

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Mild amounts of swearing

Summary: Shen Yuan had never known what to do about crying people, much less crying men asleep in his bed at ass o’clock in the middle of the night. God, if Jiu-ge knew about this, Shen Yuan would be six feet under. No, he’d be yeeted directly into hell’s abyss. Arguably though, this was all Jiu-ge’s fault.

AO3: Link

It started when his old roommate Shang Qinghua decided to get hitched at Shen Yuan’s 25th birthday party. Disregarding the fact that it was his birthday party in his apartment that he was paying for (Shang Qinghua was only there to keep an eye on him at Jiu-ge’s ever insistent demands), an increasingly hammered Shang Qinghua had decided it was the perfect time to propose to his disappointingly sober boyfriend.

“My LORd, have yOU EvEr ThoughT about Getting HitchED?!” he shouted in Mobei-Jun’s face. Shen Yuan saw the wince on Mobei-Jun’s face before he could smooth it away. Airplane-Bro had that effect on people. Even his boyfriend was no exception.

However, Mobei-Jun had silently pulled the biggest ring Shen Yuan had ever seen out of his pocket like it was a dimension to worlds unknown. Shang Qinghua yanked it out of his grasp, put it on, and immediately started sobbing loudly in his boyfriend's arms, effectively ruining the atmosphere.

If it wasn’t because Shen Yuan was already secretly plotting to escape to his room, he might have been significantly more miffed at this sequence of events.

After all, he had never been one for big, lavish events like a formal birthday party. He’d much rather spend it in the comfort of his room, maybe playing videogames with a few close friends. However, Jiu-ge had insisted, in that stubborn way of his, taking no arguments. As a result, Shen Yuan wasn’t sure he even knew half the people at his own party.

This all didn’t mean he was completely free of indignation, however. Shen Yuan cleared his throat pointedly, but was ignored by both the affectionate couple and the crowd of people politely applauding.

It was a testament to Mobei-Jun’s excitement, if he was a man that felt such emotions, that he leaped up onto the table, which creaked dangerously with his weight.

“I’d like to thank my dear friends and my soon-to-be best man who supported me through this time. Whom I wouldn’t have met without Shen Yuan’s recommendation to work at Cang Qiong’s internship program under Shen Jiu. So a heartfelt thanks to them both,” Mobei-Jun proclaimed.

The attention of the party turned to its host, who began to turn hot under all the attention.

Damn, it wasn’t as if he was Mother Teresa.

He had simply wanted to stop hearing Jiu-ge’s nagging complaints about a lack of competent interns at his company. And he knew that Airplane-bro’s boyfriend was just about to graduate. It was simple math.

Either way, he had to resolve this situation before Mobei-Jun broke the table or worse, made him give a speech. He quickly grabbed an abandoned glass from the table and raised it high. With raucous cheer, the party returned to full swing, and Shen Yuan strategically retreated to his bedroom.

The next day, Shang Qinghua had all but been moved out of his apartment (Mobei-Jun worked fast and efficiently. Shen Yuan had been begrudgingly impressed). In the midst of his soporific haze, a loud banging came from his front door. Reluctant to get up, Shen Yuan nevertheless used every last bit of his willpower to do so. When he opened the door however, he immediately found himself in deep regret.

A pale Jiu-ge, like Bloody Mary summoned from a dirty elementary school bathroom mirror, stood at his door, foot tapping a mile a minute. He stormed past Shen Yuan into his apartment and curled his mouth in distaste at the mess.

“This apartment is no longer acceptable. I’ve put up with it until now, but this is the last straw. It is imperative that you move out immediately to a place not infested by the stench of the poor,” Jiu-ge demanded. Shen Yuan would never tell him it was probably the week-old ramen stewing on his kitchen counter.

“But I don’t want to, Jiu-ge, please!” he whined. Like most things regarding his older brother, would eventually yield, but would put up a valiant effort nonetheless. No one had the right to accuse him of being a pushover, after all.

Jiu-ge sat down at his oily counter with a sigh, hands flying up to bury themselves in his messy hair.

Shen Yuan immediately felt guilty.

His brother looked a lot less put-together than he usually was, now that he was looking more closely. His shirt was unbuttoned and his makeup was smudged, both facets of his appearance he usually controlled with meticulous determination.

“Please don’t fight me on this, A-Yuan.” His brother looked back at him, and Shen Yuan could see the weariness in his eyes.

“Is everything okay?” asked Shen Yuan. He tapped his fingers nervously.

“It will be,” Jiu-ge answered immediately as if he had expected this question. “Once I get a good night’s sleep.” Shen Yuan moved to sit by his brother.

“Mobei-Jun proposed to Shang Qinghua yesterday,” he offered. This made the crease between Jiu-ge’s brows deeper further.

“At your birthday party?”

“I know, I was shocked too!”

“Rude bastard. I knew nothing good could come out of that tight-knit group of rascals the company foisted on me.”

“Don’t be like that. I bet you secretly appreciate their help, big softie.” Shen Yuan poked at his brother’s cheek, and giggled when Jiu-ge pretended to bite at him. A small smile appeared on his brother’s face, and Shen Yuan rejoiced at the sight. He felt like he deserved an award for Best Brother of the Year.

“I suppose they suffice at times.” Jiu-ge wrinkled his nose like he had thought of something particularly disgusting. “Well. Almost all of them,” he huffed. He shook his head when Shen Yuan looked at him in question. But Best Brother of the Year did not do things half-heartedly.

“I know how to cheer you up even more,” Shen Yuan decided then and there.

That was how Shen Yuan found himself moved into the expensive nouveau-riche apartment complex next door to his brother on the third floor. All things considered, it wasn’t too bad. Jiu-ge was too busy to check up on him more than once a week in person, although the daily calls to his office phone were still a requirement.

Shen Yuan had always been a homebody, there was no denying that. As long as he could coop up in his room reading and editing trashy novels, he didn’t care for the particulars of time or place, even if leaving his apartment and chancing upon another human made him feel like Oscar the Grouch having been caught outside of his trash can and committing a crime.

The point was: it had all been going just fine and dandy, until one day a shout disrupted Shen Yuan from his editing of one of Airplane’s terribly written papapa scenes. He roughly yanked open his curtains, hearing a rip in the plush blue velvet. Whatever, what Jiu-ge didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

The scene which greeted him was one of darkness, which okay, he wasn’t quite expecting that but fine, it wasn’t the first time he had lost track of time doing this and that. Shivering, Shen Yuan stepped out onto his balcony and peered over the rails to see a very attractive, very drunk man holding a broken bottle of what looked like Xin Mo liquor.

“Shen Jiu, there you are, you fucking bastard. Fucking coward! What, too afraid to come and see your disgusting student Binghe on this beautiful night? You always thought you were above us mere mortals, didn’t you? I hope both sides of your pillow are always ice!”

Yikes, Shen Yuan thought privately.

This dude was hammered. Despite everything a laugh bubbled its way up his chest. He didn’t know his brother was so unpopular at work but with a sour face like his, he should’ve expected. Briefly, the thought of pretending to be his brother just to hear more of the entertaining insults crossed his mind, but before he could open his mouth the man, probably named Binghe, went on.

“I bet you think you wake up just looking like an angel descended from the heavens! Well let me tell you, scumbag, that I curse you and your descendents to always have shaky eyeliner! Let’s see you keep up that hoity-toity look and scream at me when you come into work looking like a clown!”

Shen Yuan covered his eyes in horror. Not his eyeliner! He had to look sharp for the ladies.

“I fixed that stupid assignment one million times! Your nitpicking doesn’t even make sense anymore, you blind geezer! Come down here, if you’re not a coward and I’ll show you ...” Binghe paused, looking like he was gonna hurl.

“Show me what? You can’t leave me hanging like that, I won’t be able to sleep!” Shen Yuan shouted out, against his better judgement. He had already been collecting Binghe’s flavored insults to use against that traitor Shang Qinghua next time he saw him.

Binghe looked back up, with what seemed like confusion in his eyes, though it could have just been bleary drunkenness. To Shen Yuan’s horror, it looked like Binghe had tears in his eyes.

“All I wanted was for Laoshi to acknowledge me,” Binghe sobbed out. At this point Shen Yuan had missed his chance to tell the poor man that his brother was out of town on a business trip, and that Binghe was shouting at a stranger. He felt something in his chest squeeze at Binghe’s watery puppy dog eyes.

“Why does everyone look down on me?” Binghe cried. “I try so hard, over and over but all you do is scorn me … again and again! What do I have to do, just tell me, and I’ll do it. Anything! Just …” At this point the boy was choking on his sobs. Shen Yuan felt something shattering. He found himself walking down the stairs. He was going to go down and fetch him before the police were called, that was all, he told himself.

By the time he arrived on the cold grass ready to coax the drunkard, he found him passed out, clutching the broken bottle so hard his hand was bleeding. Shen Yuan sucked in a sharp breath.

“Alright buddy, let’s get you warmed up,” Shen Yuan said as he pried the glass from Binghe’s hand and used all his strength to haul him up and to the elevator.

He got several strange looks as he dragged an unconscious man across the fancy lobby, but Shen Yuan just snorted and ignored them. The people here had sticks so far up their ass they were getting free prostate massages. Shen Yuan stifled his laughter at his own wit in Binghe’s dead weighted shoulder and got a few more strange looks by the lady in the elevator. Halfway to Shen Yuan’s room, Binghe woke up and stared at Shen Yuan like he was an alien.

He struggled a bit and whined, “Laoshi, please don’t dropkick me into the Panama Canal, I promise I’ll be a good boy.”

Shen Yuan laughed and patted Binghe’s hair. “Go back to sleep, rowdy boy. We’ll talk in the morning.” It probably wasn’t because of his words, but Binghe managed to walk a few steps on his own before becoming dead weight on Shen Yuan again. He felt the breath knocked out of him.

“For someone who’s such a crybaby, you sure are … heavy!” Shen Yuan panted as he managed to drag Binghe into his apartment and throw him onto his bed. He shoddily wrapped up Binghe’s bleeding hand with several bandages. Novels may have taught him a lot, but he had surprisingly little practical knowledge when faced with a gash like Binghe’s in reality.

The fatigue of the night finally caught up with him as he saw Binghe’s peaceful sleeping face and he barely managed to do his nightly routine before sliding into his bed next to the unconscious person.

Shen Yuan was just about to drift away into sleep until he heard sniffling coming from the other man and turned around to see Binghe crying in his sleep.

And so was his current dilemma. Shen Yuan had no idea how to handle crying people. He stared dumbly for a few moments before kicking himself to do something, anything!

Shen Yuan wouldn’t do this for any random stranger that came knocking to his door, but luckily he had gleaned several useful tidbits of information from Binghe’s drunken speech. For example, he was likely one of Jiu-ge’s new interns at the large Cang Qiong Company he worked at, under the Qing Jing subsidiary. Second, Jiu-ge seemed to be giving the poor boy an extremely hard time, and Shen Yuan knew better than anyone just how sharp his brother’s acerbic tongue could be. Shen Yuan felt mildly responsible for cleaning up his brother’s mess.

Also, Binghe was terribly cute. He reminded Shen Yuan of the little puppy he used to play with in childhood, named Bingbing, after his favorite actress.

It was a combination of these facts, or none of them, that ultimately made Shen Yuan do what he did next; wrap his arms around Binghe and gently stroke his hair, murmuring comforting words to him until he stopped crying.

Somewhere along the way he found himself asleep as well.

Binghe awoke from his drunken stupor sometime between ass and fuck o’clock in the morning. His hand was covered in messily wrapped bandages.

When he saw the face of the person fast asleep next to him, he flinched backwards so hard he almost fell out of the bed.

What did I do last night? He wailed miserably in his head. A worst case scenario flashed through his head, and he made sure that both of them were clothed before exhaling a sigh of relief. That was the last time he let Mobei-Jun get him drunk, bachelor party be damned.

The last thing he remembered was accepting a glass full of alcohol in the bar he’d been dragged to, but everything afterwards was a blur. He didn’t remember how he walked all the way to his boss’s nouveau riche apartment, and he certainly didn’t remember how he ended up in bed with the man he was most fearful of.

There was one thing Binghe knew with full certainty, however; he had to escape this apartment immediately before he lost his job or worse: his life.

He had barely turned around and registered vaguely that the apartment was a lot sloppier than he’d expected of his avaricious boss before a sleepy hum made him freeze in his tracks.

“Mmm… Binghe?”

Binghe froze. Shen Jiu had never called him by name, it was always something along the lines of “scum” or “lad”.

Filled with trepidation, he turned to face his boss against his better judgement.

A sleepy smile stretched its way across the face of the person in front of him just as the morning’s rays peeked through the rip in the curtains and fell across his face.

Angelic, Binghe’s mind vaguely registered. Maybe he hadn’t come to his boss’s apartment after all. Maybe he had died and entered a realm different than the one he’d been in. Maybe he was already in heaven.

The angel’s face scrunched up cutely at the offending rays across his face. He glanced at the curtains before letting out a forlorn sigh.

“Jiu-ge’s gonna kill me for that …” sighed the angel across from Binghe.

Jiu-ge? Who’s that, I’ll fight him so you never have a frown on your pretty face ever again, Binghe thought blearily.

Mr. Angel noticed he was awake and smiled a crooked smile.

“Good morning. You were drunk and screaming outside my window last night, so I thought I’d do a public service and take you in before you hurt yourself, “ the angel laughed nervously. “Binghe is your name, right?”

Binghe nodded, feeling like his body was not his own. Then he had a thought.

“Wait … how do you know?”

The angel’s lips thinned, looking like he was trying really hard not to laugh. Oh, that was not a good sign.

“Well … You dropped your name in the middle of shouting about how you wished your boss’s food was too salty, among other things …”

The wave of relief that was about to pass through Binghe at realizing this person was likely not his boss aborted itself as it was overtaken by sheer waves of mortification.

Binghe covered his face with his hands, letting out an ungodly groan of embarrassment.

“Binghe… I’m saying this for your own good.” Mr. Angel looked into Binghe’s eyes seriously. “Do you know how to use swear words?”

Binghe immediately pouted, feeling like he was being made fun of. He couldn’t find it in himself to be truly annoyed, however, at the angel’s bell-like peals of laughter smothered by his hand. It was such a stark contrast to his boss’s restrained expressions.

“Ah! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Shen Yuan, Shen Jiu’s younger twin brother.”

And there was the horror again.

Just as Binghe was about to bid farewell to his short, inconsequential life, Shen Yuan continued chattering. “You’re lucky Jiu-ge’s out of town on a business trip, and that you weren’t actually serenading his window but mine. If he was here, I don’t know if I could have even stopped him from personally throwing you into a jail cell.”

Binghe felt like he had gotten off of a life-threatening roller coaster ride. Stiffly, he rose from the bed and bent ninety degrees into a bow.

“Thanking Shen Yuan for his kindness in rescuing this lowly one from his predicament!” Binghe grew so nervous he immediately started speaking as if he were in a period drama. “In order to repay my honorable benefactor, this one will prepare breakfast!” He rushed away before Shen Yuan could speak a single word.

Once Binghe found the kitchen, he allowed himself a mini-freakout session. He! Was in! His boss’s younger brother’s bed! And the younger brother was an angel! Even though Binghe was fairly certain nothing untoward had occurred between the two of them the night prior, he felt every inch of his nerves tingling. He was also fairly certain that any other person that lacked Shen Yuan’s generosity would have immediately called the police on him at the least.

This was the first time anyone had done something so selfless for his sake.

Unbidden, a flush streaked across his cheeks, and Binghe slapped at himself to get out of it. Shen Yuan was his benefactor, and it would be wrong to have indecent thoughts about someone so innocent. There may not be much Binghe was good at, as he had learned from his internship under Shen Jiu, but the least he could do was cook him a decent breakfast.

Shen Yuan was roused from his half-wakeful state by the smell of something good coming from the kitchen. Which was weird because last he checked, there was nothing in there but dust and half-eaten ramen. (Yes, he had a problem.)

Wait … Binghe!

It was a little belated, but the nagging voice in Shen Yuan’s head that sounded suspiciously like Jiu-ge berated himself for falling asleep again while a stranger was in his apartment. A cute stranger, but a stranger nonetheless.

Shen Yuan, the voice nagged. One of these days you’re going to get yourself murdered in cold blood …

Alright, shut up, you. No one wants to hear this in the early morning, Shen Yuan bickered back.

“Sir?” Binghe’s voice nervously called from the kitchen entrance.

Shen Yuan immediately relaxed back into what he thought was a cool pose.

“There’s no need for formalities, Binghe. After all, you’ve already slept in my bed.”

Binghe’s ears flushed red at his words, and he swayed back and forth like a maiden on the morning after her wedding night. Shen Yuan stopped this strange line of thinking once he realized how weird it was.

“I made you breakfast as a thank you for er… handling me last night,” Binghe said softly.

Well, that didn’t help his strange thoughts. The last conscious thought Shen Yuan had was that he’d better go and eat the poor shy guy’s food since he had made it already.

He didn’t recall getting up or sitting down at the kitchen table, but the next thing he knew he was staring down at an empty plate, stomach full of delicious food.

“I don’t know what to think. This is the first time this has happened to me.” It wasn’t, but Shen Yuan had always had a flair for the dramatic. “If you can cook so well, why are you wasting your time under my brother’s wing? You should go be a professional chef, and share this magic with the rest of the world.”

It wasn’t empty praise. Shen Yuan genuinely believed he’d be blessed if he could eat like this every day for the rest of his life. His terrible habit of crappy eating would be forever changed.

Binghe was so red he looked like a tomato.

Abruptly, the sounds of a phone ringing disrupted the nice atmosphere. Binghe’s face paled.

“Oh no, I left Mobei-Jun at the club last night. He must be wondering where I am. The bachelor party got kind of crazy.”

Hm? Mobei-Jun? Shen Yuan slapped his forehead in realization. Of course! Binghe was a part of Jiu-ge’s interns, of course he knew Mobei-Jun. Shen Yuan had no idea how he had failed to make that connection. He might even be the best man Mobei-Jun had mentioned, since he was pretty sure the third intern was a woman. Sha Hualing, he believed her name was?

Either way, Shen Yuan hadn’t realized he and Binghe were so closely connected. Besides, he hadn’t felt comfortable calling Binghe a stranger, now that they no longer were.

Maybe he’d get a chance to see Binghe in a tux at the wedding? That would be so cute! Of course, he’d have to help keep him away from the champagne, especially since Jiu-ge would also be there. That was a nightmare waiting to happen.

While Shen Yuan was off fantasizing, Binghe had gathered all his stuff and prepared to leave. He hovered nervously around the door.

Shen Yuan snapped out of it to bid him goodbye. Binghe smiled shyly.

“Maybe I’ll see you around again sometime?” he asked.

Shen Yuan hid a smile behind his hand, and adopted a lofty expression.

“This immortal does not often descend from his honorable peak. However, if fate wills it to be so, then so shall it be,” he said, imitating Binghe’s earlier style of speech.

Binghe laughed, but kept hovering near the door as if he was waiting for something.

“Alright, your friend must be wondering where you are. Go on, now.” A flash of disappointment crossed Binghe’s face, but he obediently left, looking back like a puppy several times as he did so.

It wasn’t until much later that Shen Yuan would realize he had forgotten to explain that he was friends with Shang Qinghua, and that they would likely see each other again at the wedding. By the time the wedding itself rolled around, it would prove to be an ordeal of its own.

But that would remain a story for another time.

#SVSSS #svsss fic #bingyuan #shen yuan #luo binghe #scumbag self saving system #bingqiuweek2021 #fanfic #day eight #fanfiction #my works

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threelivesthreeworlds · 4 years

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Donghua and Feng Jiu’s Relationship at the end of the book, how Fate Really Hates Them, and how it is Also A Little Bit Their Fault (with Citations, because My Main Schtick is Translating, ok)

Wow, it’s me, your friendly neighborhood fate enthusiast Admin Ro, here to comb through Donghua and Feng Jiu’s complicated choose your own fate adventure. This gets long, so it’s getting put under a read more! If you don’t want to read all of it, please at least read the last 4-ish paragraphs.

First, a brief foray into fate as it ties into Buddhist beliefs. Pillow Book is a Xianxia, and therefore draws on Taoist and Buddhist influence by nature of its references. 缘分 (yuan fen) in chinese, translates closest to “fateful coincidence.” Yuan is this concept of fateful coincidence to meet other people, circumstances, et cetera - i.e., being in the right place at the right time to do something or to meet someone. Fen, on the other hand, is the real tangible destiny of being able to hold on to that person/do something right or wrong/etc. once you’ve met them / done that something you were in the right place to do. Thus one could also describe a couple who are fated to meet but not to stay together as a couple that has fate without destiny (有缘无份).

Donghua and Feng Jiu, originally, were fated never to meet. So to speak, they had no yuan. Their fate was created when Feng Jiu decided to repay her debt to Donghua by taking half her shadow to create Aranya for Donghua’s shadow, Shen Ye. When Donghua asked for the Fate Stone, the Keeper of the Fate Stone told him about how Su Moye disrupted the fate of Shen Ye and Aranya, and how then the remaining fate between Aranya and Shen Ye was transferred from the shadows to the real people:

The old God said: "There are two perspectives to every matter, and one shouldn't discuss it only along from one perspective. Even if it was a sin here, it may be an achievement elsewhere. You shouldn't be so hung up on it. If we were only speaking of this, Dijun should thank you." He sighed. "The Fate Stone tied the remaining fate of the two shadows, who can have no next life, to Dijun and the Little Highness, and so there was the true meeting between the Little Highness and Dijun later. Without it, Dijun and the Little Highness have a fate to never meet in their lives."

However, Donghua asking to see the Fate Stone meant it would have to be rewritten. There was no telling if the fact that he asked after his fate with Feng Jiu was going to make their fate go a bad direction:

"Dijun and the Little Highness now count as having fate, but since Dijun has asked, tomorrow the Fate Stone must be rewritten, and whether or not Dijun or the Little Highness will have fate in the future, I can no longer tell. But I think it would be a pity if this weak fate which had not been easily come by was dissipated because Dijun asked after it."

Donghua said lightly. "So what if the heavens say we are fated? So what if we're not? I have never been afraid of destiny, and I don't need its generosity."

Donghua operates as if they have severely weak fate/his inquiry into it has messed up their fate, despite not really knowing what happens to their fate from that point on. He attempts to preserve this fate at every turn in the ways he knows how, for example, erasing her memory of him pretending to be Xize in Aranya’s Realm so she wouldn’t be mad at him:

Dijun lifted his hand to rub his forehead: "I called for the Fate Stone. The Fate Stone said our fate was weak and can't take much jeopardizing. Xiao Bai has always been....conflicted, when it comes to me. If I let her remember that I lied to her in Aranya's Dream right now, who knows what will come out of it? Only on this, I'll take no risks. I thought this was the best way."

Donghua doesn’t trust Feng Jiu to be able to forgive him, and instead of being honest and open with her, chooses to lie in order to “preserve their fate.” However - this comes back to bite him in the ass later. Donghua misses he and Feng Jiu’s wedding because he went to save Ji Heng, who was dying from poison. Though he wrote two letters, one for Chonglin and Feng Jiu’s mother, who were running the wedding, and one for Feng Jiu, explaining what happened and what he was doing, these letters never arrived. Yan Chiwu was supposed to run them to their intended recipients, but he encountered an old enemy and got knocked out for half a month on the way. After six or seven days of purifying the poison, he was on his way to Qingqiu when the seal on Miaoyi Chasm broke, and he had to go fix it.

Feng Jiu didn’t know what was going on - except at this time, she found out that her memories had been messed with and rewritten by Donghua:

Zhe Yan’s new pill was sent over the next day, and when the real memories were reintegrated into her mind, she was not as violently moved as she expected to be. Probably too tired.

She finally remembered that Dijun never told her why he switched out her pimpon fruit. Then, Ji Heng said she wanted it, and he gave it to her. He said there was nothing between him and Ji Heng, but how he treated Ji Heng differently from everyone, she could see clearly. She finally had the time to think about everything.

The series of coincidences that kept Donghua from going to Qingqiu to look for her until seventy three days later may have been fate, but what made her leave in the end was all Donghua. In the memories rewritten by Donghua, he explained everything to do with Ji Heng. However, he didn’t really, and when Feng Jiu found out those memories were fake she doubted even more the sincerity of everything he had ever said to her, every assurance he had ever made her. This led her to leave, as she was tired of being messed with. Later, when Donghua tries to explain, you can see that she doesn’t remotely trust what he has to say:

She said softly: "You didn't make it to the wedding. I was so anxious that something happened to you. And then, Grandfather said you and..." She paused, like she didn't want to mention the name, and continued. "It's not that I believe what anyone says. I was waiting for you to come back, to explain to me. If you said anything, I would've believed you. If you came back then and said to me that no one was more important than me, I would've believed you, but now..."

He closed his eyes. "Xiao Bai..."

She shook her head and smiled, interrupting him. "When I was waiting for you at Qingqiu, sometimes I thought, you said so many things to me - what was real, and what was fake? But it was only after that I knew - there was no use considering it. After all, even the memories in my head had been rewritten."

Feng Jiu’s breaking point wasn’t that Donghua left her to go to Ji Heng. Granted, Feng Jiu always thought Ji Heng meant more to Donghua than she really did. Feng Jiu has been chasing Donghua for so long without him reciprocating her feelings that she habitually expects to be rejected. Her self-awareness and self-deprecation at certain parts leads her to believe that because she’s not the strongest/smartest/most ladylike/etc. that it’s very natural Donghua might like Other Women more than he likes her.

However, as one can see from the text above, she was willing to believe there had to be a reason he couldn’t be there at the wedding and was prepared to wait for him to come back and explain. But then, she found out that he had replaced her memories. Feng Jiu’s breaking point was that he messed with even her memories, and therefore she couldn’t trust anything he said or did.

In conclusion, the question becomes: was their rocky relationship at the end of the book due to fate or through their own communication issues? And the answer is maybe - a little bit of both. Feng Jiu assumes without talking to Donghua that she knows what’s going on. She assumes he doesn’t love her as much as she hopes he does and that he messed with her memories simply because he can. Had she stayed to talk to him, she may have found out that Donghua had done it because he thought it would preserve their fate. Now, that wouldn’t make it any better of a thing to do, but at least it wouldn’t be for the reasons Feng Jiu thought of.

On the other hand, Donghua’s habitual ruthlessness when it comes to dealing with matters he wanted done right and the fact that he didn’t trust Feng Jiu to be able to handle the truth led him to lie to her to preserve their relationship, but only made her even more doubtful of the sincerity of his feelings. Had he been open and honest from the get go and simply explained and apologized for his past behavior, perhaps Feng Jiu would have stuck out the 73 days he was away when he missed their wedding to listen to him instead of leaving for 200 years.

The circumstances were bad enough, but the already present issues in their relationship compounded on the circumstances to make everything worse, and so they missed each other for two hundred years and almost missed each other for life, when Donghua went to his death in the starlight ward.

#eternal love of dream #three lives three worlds the pillow book #三生三世枕上书 #bai feng jiu #donghua dijun #admin ro posts

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natsunoomoi · 4 years

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Finished Main Story of SVSSS....

So yeah, I did that. I still really liked the story overall. Some parts are a bit problematic in a way, but also in a satisfying way that is complex and I think can refer to some real life relationships and complexities of that because not all relationships fit nicely into the little boxes and labels that we make and that’s my take away from the ending.

-Don’t like the in-story “original author” still, but also don’t dislike him as much as I did when I started the story now that I got more of his perspective. MXTX posted all of this for free not thinking it would go anywhere really, but it’s true that some people do have careers where they make a living off of their webnovels and fans buying chapters, so that pressure is there. I’m sure that because MXTX is also a fan of D. Gray-man, she’s aware of the similar pressures that even mangaka at JUMP face. Like BLEACH basically ended early because it fell out of popularity with the fans just as Airplane mentions happens to some novel works. To be fair, BLEACH also lifted an entire plotline from another popular supernatural manga including carbon copies of the lackeys of the villain for that arc, so some shade was also deserved. Like Yukio is just Amanuma Tsukihito with a PSP instead of an arcade system or Super Famicom. D. Gray-man itself has also been on hiaitus several times due to health concerns and such. Same as Hunter x Hunter and other prolific manga. The pressure is real and some ways the original author is kind of a mood. He’s also still a huge coward and that’s annoying.

-I feel worse for Shen Jiu than when I did when I was just reading his backstory off of the wikis and stuff from just wanting to see Shen Qingqiu’s beautiful face. Like I felt bad before, but after knowing more and witnessing some sentiments that would have been gut punches if Shen Jiu had heard them, I feel so bad for him. I don’t condone what he did, but I also get it and wish I could hug him. Basically about the same level of thought as I put into how much I like Emet-Selch, but I think overall in the end I love Emet-Selch more because the 5.3 patch update for FFXIV broke me. Man, that MSQ. Like I’ve never been opposed to liking villains and always thought some villains were cool. Like my sister worships Sephiroth from FFVII for instance, but like I was never really into Sephiroth’s motivations in that he’s cool, but his identity crisis didn’t quite strike me as like actually 100% believable that torching Nibelheim and trying to rescue Jenova was justified or a natural reaction someone in his position would have. I like him more than Cloud cuz Cloud is a hot fucking mess of a person and he’s overall just cool, but as a villain his motivations didn’t resonate with me. A lot of people also really liked Kefka because he’s just straight up insane and like chaotic evil, but that kind of evil just isn’t compelling to me. Emet-Selch though straight up broke me and I thought about him for like months after the initial end of Shadowbringers when you do the fight with Hades. His story is ripe with meaning and nuance and the Tales from the Shadows stories adding more nuance and color to his eternal living torture of seeing remnants of people he cared about constantly without a break or a way to really “forget” and heal. That just stuck with me because I’ve lost people in my life too, and I remember what that was like and how hard it was to even live the day after let alone the following few years. I remember it well even today because it fundamentally changed me as a person, but I was able to find some relief and escape from music and entertainment and going out to have new experiences and travel. Emet-Selch could not, so his story really broke me internally. I bring this up just to make a comparison because I love Shen Jiu as well, but for nowhere near as dramatic a reason as I love Emet-Selch.

Spoilers under the cut

Okay, so since I was just talking about Shen Jiu, and maybe it’s partly because I actually find him to be gorgeous as well, but just reading his story did genuinely make me sad. I found his child form to be a little bit jaded already only because he was an older child already by the time he was bought by the Qius. When Yue Qingyuan was parting with him through the door he was being kind of manipulative there for extra sympathy initially, which isn’t really great. How severely the brother beat him though was hard to take. It was so extreme, like wtf? And perhaps the part where Qiu Haitang said that he’d been “freed” and the part where he was engaged seems to be true-ish, but yeah her brother is kind of really fucked up in how he still talks to him even though he is supposed to be his brother-in-law soon? Like what the hell. But like, the summaries of what he did online and even what Haitang had said also made it sound even more cold than it was. Like once he got going yeah, the onslaught was kind of cold. But he still had a moment of shock where like he didn’t really realize what he’d done right away and needed a moment to process. But after that it was like, well, it’s already done and people came to try to help the young master and he had to get out too. So the other people on the way out after that don’t sound nearly as consequential and it was really striking that not only did he not attack Haitang, but he spared all the other women in the house. Like Jesus Christ, were *ALL* the men in the house including the male servants and other slaves they had assholes to him too? Just, wow. But we don’t get a lot into what else happened there, but if the head of the household is bad and hurts him, it’s believable that other people join in just as Ming Fan joined in because Shen Jiu was complicit in allowing Binghe’s suffering. Really key though is the commentary of both the young master and his first evil master about his age.

That is such a huge chip on his shoulder because everyone keeps bringing it the fuck up. Including Qingge in another memory later on when he’s already Peak Lord. I know they don’t like each other, but that was really mean. I realize Qingge probably doesn’t care and that was the point to throw salt in his wounds because they don’t like each other, but seeing how much it affected him by him breaking his fan with his hands after hearing that. I’ve had people do similar to me where they make an insensitive comment to try to hurt you without understanding the actual circumstances. My sister did that to me once and I reconciled with her for a bit, but decided not to talk to her anymore again because of some other bullshit with her friends being childish. But when she did similar to me, I never really forgave her for it either. My story is not nearly as dramatic, but basically I had quit a job where I was being bullied by coworkers at the start of the recession and I was looking for jobs, but no luck with anything I was qualified for even though I went on a few interviews. There actually weren’t many listings posted around that time, so I would only be able to find a couple to apply to and by the time my sister came home I’d be playing games to pass the time cuz I was bored out of my mind waiting for something to happen. So then we got in an argument for I forget the initial reason anymore, but she brought up how I “wasn’t looking” for a job and just seemed to be “being lazy” and I just got so pissed and yelled at her that she had no fucking idea what I was doing everyday and that I am looking and there isn’t anything fucking there. I also lost it and threw a stool at her. I’m not proud of it, but I totally get the mood of what it feels like for someone to use something that you are struggling with as a negative to throw in your face even though you are trying *SO* hard to do your best. I especially don’t want to hear that from someone who gave up on their desired career that they were actually good at and making a decent living at for money and also can’t tell when their friends are kissing up to them and crossing a line and won’t stand up to them for being shitty people. Teapot meet kettle, and don’t throw stones if you live in a glass fucking house. I don’t like low blows like that.

My personal family issue aside though, I felt a lot of empathy for Shen Jiu in that moment. Seeing how he interacted with Binghe on their first meeting after that though, like I was sad for Binghe too, but I can also see where his misunderstanding happened on top of his insecurity. I also kind of wonder if Qingge’s comment also kind of encouraged this situation to happen. I still like Qingge because he makes up for it a lot later, but yeah that was fucked up.

The gut punch later was when Qingyuan was seemingly dying and tried to apologize to Qingqiu, but all the words and the things Shen Jiu needed to hear. His years of misunderstanding and not knowing and being in pain and thinking he was abandoned. That was painful. Shen Jiu is gone. We don’t know where he is. Maybe he’s dead. No idea, but those are things he can never know. It’s already too late, and that’s crushing.

I still just really want to know more about Shen Jiu and I feel really sad that there wasn’t some kind of redemption for him or anything. Even if it’s like Shen Yuan going into the recesses of his own mind and finds Shen Jiu locked in a box somewhere so actually the both of them share the same body and he’s just watching in a tiny TV what Shen Yuan does with his body. He’d be really frustrated and would probably scream at him a lot with his screams completely unheard, but at least he’d get to see people liking him more and would be able to hear the words that Qingyuan spoke. I mentioned in an earlier post that I saw a theory about OG Qingqiu transmigrating into Shen Yuan when Shen Yuan takes over his body, and I think that’s possible because Shang Qinghua says that when he transmigrated he was born there and was since a baby? I was thinking maybe it’d be more like OG dies when OG Binghe kills him and then becomes Shen Yuan, but who knows.

I mean, also I just crave more information about him. He’s so unfortunate, and I like wish more went right for him so that he wouldn’t be so miserable. Like when you see a character where their life is just shit on, you just wish that you could do something to take away their pain.

And with that sentiment, that’s also why I found the ending to be satisfying but probably a little problematic. Like Shen Yuan is just a good guy and he has that same sentiment for Binghe just because he’s a poor kid with a shitty hand in life, but he’s also like really clearly not gay himself and not actually attracted to Binghe in that way. To be clear, the book does seem to discourage this kind of relationship in that it works in the way the narrative unfolded, but it isn’t one that would work in real life really. That’s part of the depth of it though. Like SY emotionally cares for him and he even remarks that he feels kind of more like his Dad, but the physical side of their relationship is more on Binghe’s side than his, and he acquiesces to it because he feels bad for him because this poor child has no one. And yeah, fine this works in an actual book that we’re all reading and this works within the system within the book where the MC is in a book himself with really screwed up logic rules, but I don’t recommend this method of getting with someone you like in real life. It will not end well. If someone you like is not into you, emotionally manipulating them and crying and also stalking them until they give their body to you out of desperation to console you is not the road to happiness. You also won’t have a pressure timer of life on earth ending by combining with actual hell to push them into bed with you. The fact that SY resorts to this in desperation in order to try to help Binghe to get control of the demon sword is admirable in the narrative of the story in that he’s doing it because he cares so much about this person and that’s fine, but it’s a red flag if anyone did this IRL and put their wishes aside to appease someone else. There will be a breakdown in the future as one person puts aside their needs for the other one completely. Partnerships that work are healthy and equal. That’s not what this is. In the story, the two characters have an understanding though that makes it fine, but I have second-hand anxiety for the idea that anyone would try to replicate this. This is not normally healthy.

But at the same time, the fact that the characters have an understanding to that is unique to their personal choice is also realistic in a sense that life is sometimes complicated and a similar situation could come about, but it is the choice of the people involved. With constant communication there’s a slim chance that maybe it could work out, but it’s hard. The main level of complexity I’m thinking of is that there’s different ways to care about other people or rather to just feel about other people. Like you can have like an intellectual attraction to other people in that you just like talking with them and you’re good friends with them because of that. You can be romantically attracted to someone, but also not feel sexual attraction too. Of course you can also feel physical attraction to someone, but not really care at all about them emotionally or even intellectually. SY has emotional feelings for Binghe, but it’s more on the parental side or even just human in not wanting him to suffer. If this were a points meter, his values for his emotions and just caring about him would be at max, while physical attraction and even romantic attraction are basically zero. Like he also just like cares about him in principle? Like as an all seeing reader you look at everything and are just like, wtf with this shit? How can one person suffer so much? As empthy or even sympathy you feel for them so then if the other person is more not asexual or aromantic that can trigger some feelings which is what happened between these two characters. The reason I say it isn’t necessarily bad, but some shakiness on execution too. But like say like an asexual person is romantically attracted to someone who isn’t asexual, but they still want to be with them. Like the non-ace person has some needs sometimes and even if the ace doesn’t feel it, because they care about their partner they acquiesce to their partner’s requests because they just want them to be happy. This kind of very personal choice situation I think is really similar to basically what ends up happening between SY Qingqiu and Binghe where SY isn’t really interested, but at the same time cares about Binghe’s well-being so much that he actually just wants him to be happy and reluctantly is okay with the situation. IRL though Binghe would be REALLY FRUSTRATING to be so unreasonably needy and like narcissistically abusive in wanting him all to himself an isolating him from his friends and being jealous of them. In comparison, Wangji and Wuxian are a great deal more balanced in comparison, but I also really like this book for the original idea and the complexity of SY’s ultimate choice because I feel like it’s also a bit more real that some people do make that kind of choice. It’s not healthy or guaranteed to be a success or happy experience, but it’s in the realm of possibilities for the kinds of personal choices people can make because the other person’s happiness is worth the minor discomfort.

Ah, I just have a lot of thoughts about this. Part of it stems from myself being ace also and what that means for me. But also getting to the end, I think Qingge is a fellow ace and also similar to me, just serious about his job and loyal to his crew.

I’ve read some of the extras obviously, but I haven’t delved that deeply into the extra materials.

Oh also, I laughed so hard when Mobei-jun just tossed Shang Qinghua over like a chicken. It said like a chicken and it was hilarious. XD Like imagining that panicked sound of hucking chickens in Ocarina of Time.

Oh and ho-shit the alt punishment system came up for SY Qingqiu for screwing up his points. Got to live through half the process of becoming a human stick very painfully.

I guess part of me is still kind of just wondering how Binghe grew to be SO needy. It’s to an unnecessary degree, but I guess without any real emotional or social guidance in the Endless Abyss that could happen?

Zhuzhi-Lang though is a really frustratingly annoying character, but I also like him at the same time. I’m confused by him.

The only other thing I’m like confused a bit about is like, so the 4 sects that are depicted with Cang Qiong Mountain being the top one are like the great four sects, but like...where are they? I’m just asking because of the kind of meta general landscape of what cultivation and Taoism is like some of the events that happen I would think actually would call down some interference from actual Heaven. Like in the classic lit, whenever there’s huge disturbances down in the Human World, like the Heavenly Palace and like the Jade Emperor are like, “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” and go send people. I find it really hard to believe that such a disaster as the combining of two realms would be ignored by the armies of Heaven and like Nezha, Erlang Shen, and other notable actual deities up there would come down and be like, “The fuck you guys doing down here with these shenanigans?” Also, Journey to the West is like one of the most like influential books in the canon of Chinese lit and is regarded as literally one of the Four Great Classics. But none of these fools in these “great four sects” know how to stamp a floor and call up the local deity to tell you what the hell is happening in Jinlan City instead of sending your disciples to die? Sun Wukung did that at like every damn city and then also threatened to beat them if they like weren’t doing their job properly. Those minor deities are on the payroll for Heaven, so like...use them? Like I feel like they would know this too because like the ultimate goal for cultivation is to be able to become an immortal and end up on the payroll? I know Qingqiu is supposedly like mid-level or something, but like I think they should like know-ish where they’re going? Like in the future they would become one of those minor gods making records? Are they like not high enough to even talk to them? Maybe not, but I do think like Nezha, Pagoda Bearer Li, or Erlang Shen would definitely come down and be like, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Also like, Shen Jiu isn’t a great character and how he treats his disciples is bad and what he did was bad. But like, also, what is the standard to judge him really? Like Nezha was a dick when he was a child too. When he was 3 he went to a river and was swimming and liked killed all the fish and then a dragon prince came out and was like, “WTF? Why are all the fish dead?” and then Nezha instead of answering him kills him and guts him and then takes his tendon home to turn into a belt. Then like his Dad gets a complaint from the Dragon King like, “Hey, my son is dead! Your son did it. Hand him over so I can kill him or I destroy your town.” So then Nezha’s Dad goes to talk to him and is like, “What’re you doing?” And then Nezha answers him and tells him exactly what he did like it was no big fucking deal that he killed the local Dragon Prince and made him into a belt. Obviously there’s an argument and like Nezha basically rage quits his life and is like, if you’re so concerned about this bullshit I return this body to you and kills himself to cut off his ties to his parents. He was a rude little shit. Then he went into his Mom’s dream and threatened her until she built him a temple so he could get prayer requests until he could be reborn again. His Dad found out and wrecked the temple, so then he went up to go find his master who had him be reborn using lotus flowers. After that after being reborn, Nezha’s first order of business was to go back to his family and try to kill his own father for fucking up his temple and chased him down EVERYWHERE until other powers in Heaven, decided to send down Nezha’s older brothers with a pagoda to give to their Dad that would trap and burn Nezha everytime he tried to murder him. Is this better or worse than what Shen Jiu did? This is an actual god that people worship. A quite prominent and very famous one. Nezha is also one of my favorite deities and I had a huge crush on the Nataku from Fujisaki Ryu’s Houshin Engi manga who has mostly the same backstory as deity Nezha, and I just loved him in high school. He was a good guy. What are the standards here people? I don’t think anyone in any story in China can really judge someone like Shen Jiu doing an understandable level of murder as a response to trauma and severe abuse when they worship a deity that suffered nothing and tried to commit patricide and had a severe disregard for other life. In the cultivation world, potentially, this could be their future boss. I think arguably, he could be worse than Shen Jiu, but he’s a canonical real deity.

The above tirade for me is like a thing I feel like I would have said if I was in the position to be alive in Jinlan City and wanted to defend Shen Qingqiu cuz WTF.

Further, I’m a huge fan of Jigoku Shoujo and Enma Ai did much the same after her cousin saved her from being sacrificed, the villagers found out, buried her a live, made her cousin help bury her alive, and then she came back as a vengeful spirit and set the whole village on fire and killed everyone except maybe her parents who had their souls as prisoners by Enma himself? Can’t 100% remember. But like, on the scale of characters I like that have done terrible things, Shen Jiu is actually relatively low and under some people that are good guys.

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neoblogcrying · 5 years

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“Let’s Play a Game” pt. 3

Due to me deciding, ‘heck, let’s make this an actual project,’ i’m celebrating by writing the next part of this series. I guess you could consider it a bonus scene? Thank you to all who are reading and enjoying this! Also thank you for all those who have voted!

The System Temp chose ‘Shen Yuan’ to main in this life simulation game!

Tch.

Though subtle among the reverberating sound of a chime playing upon the game acknowledging a choice being made, someone made a sound of displeasure.

“Oh? What was that, #1? Are you upset the Temp alluded the route laden with death traps?”

“As long as they chose every single option properly, it wouldn’t be laden with death traps. Don’t scare the temp, they’ll start fearing any option I throw out in the future.”

If it wasn’t obvious by now, System Moderator #1 was the one who was at the forefront of wishing evil upon everyone, whether they be other system moderators or the novel characters. In fact, it was #1’s doing that resulted in the System Temp being summoned to play this Life Simulation game.

Anyone who could plan such a thing shouldn’t be trusted.

“Anyways, pay attention to the screen. A new scene is starting.” The begrudging voice of #1 reminded the temp to pay attention to the screen to see: ‘Bonus scene!’ appear on the screen.

Shen Yuan opened his eyes to hear a tired voice asking him how he felt. In his surprise, he almost jolted up, but a hand pressed down on his chest, effectively keeping him down.

Though the hand kept him grounded, the hand was gentle, as if worrying he’d be harmed in the process. This gentle hand belonged to none other than Qian Cao Peak’s Mu Qingfan! His peak specialized in medical skill and medicine production.

Seeing him here, Shen Yuan sighed and shook his head. “Who was it?”

“Why don’t you guess? Guess correctly and you may get something out of it.”

Despite how cold he was, Shen Jiu cared a lot about him, to the point of being over protective. When one thought about it, it made some sense? Shen Yuan always rationalized it with:

‘If you have such a strong distrust for everyone around you except for one person, they’ll be like your life line and you’ll be damned before you let anything happen to them.’

Of course, he didn’t hate the idea that Shen Jiu trusted him and regarded him as important, but he did wish that his elder twin would relax a bit. There was many a time he would have Mu Qingfan secretly visit their peak to give him a check-up.

Whether it was because he truly worried, or he was trying to appeal to Shen Jiu, Yue Qingyuan had called for Mu Qingfan to give Shen Yuan a look over on more than one occasion.

Given their track record, he’d be willing to guess Shen Jiu… but… a gut feeling was telling him that Yue Qingyuan was the culprit.

As any logical thinking adult, he made his decision. “I’m willing to guess it was the both of them.” Shen Yuan sighed, casually searching for his fan. It was a force of habit to hide his face behind his fan, but it wasn’t next to him now, how unfortunate.

“Correct.”

While Yue Qingyuan made a request personally that he go visit Shen Yuan, the older of the two twins sent word for Mu Qingfan to look at his sickly brother. If he didn’t visit and Shen Yuan died because of it, he would be sure to curse the doctor for years to come (IF he lived that long, that is).

It was true that Shen Yuan fell ill easily when he reached a certain threshold of stress, his immune system wasn’t so compromised that he’d fall seriously ill at random. From what he could tell, most of the time Shen Yuan collapsed, it was due to heavy stress and him overworking himself.

He wished to tell the younger twin to relax, but it wasn’t so simple. He lived his life in secrecy, and he had a slower cultivation speed than his brother, so he always felt stressed to keep up. When Yue Qingyuan visited him in person, he was told about how the secret was out for the disciples of ‘Shen Qingqiu’.

That meant, aside from Yue Qingyuan and Mu Qingfan, only the disciples of this peak knew the truth. No one else knew the truth, but it was only a matter of time before the other peak lords learned the truth.

‘When the time comes, I will cover for them. I won’t let anything happen to Shen Qingqiu.’

That’s what he said before he left. Shen Yuan had an agreeable personality when you caught him alone, but Shen Jiu was difficult to deal with. He couldn’t understand why Yue Qingyuan was so considerate towards the twins. There had to be some hidden history between them, but he could never get enough information out of any party to gain an understanding of their situation.

“As requested, I’ve prepared some ‘medicine’ for you as your prize for guessing properly.” Mu Qingfan slid a small packet towards Shen Yuan, who in turn cast an evasive eye to the medicine.

Look, the medicine was super bitter, and he hated having to take it! He only collapsed from exhaustion! He wasn’t sick! There was no need for medicine! Feeling desperate to escape from being forced to take the medicine, his heart sank when he heard quick, but steady footsteps approaching the room.

As if on cue, he’s coming. Two faces dimmed with resignation as they waited for Shen Jiu to open the door casually. “Are you okay?” Shen Jiu asked, ignoring Mu Qingfan’s existence for a moment.

“I told you, I was only exhausted. There is no need to make me take medicine. I’ll be fine.” Shen Yuan grumbled, avoiding Shen Jiu’s piercing gaze. He was doing so much avoiding today! His neck is getting tired!

Stepping into the room, Shen Jiu picked up the medicine packet and sat himself down next to Shen Yuan imposingly.

The room went cold from Shen Jiu’s domineering pressure. “Listen to the Peak Master’s orders and take your medicine.”

Screw the image. He’s not ‘Shen Qingqiu’ right now! He gripped the edge of the blanket and covered the bottom half of his face in a silent show of defiance. You keep forcing all this medicine he doesn’t need to take on him. He doesn’t want it! “It’s my turn to be the Peak Master, and I don’t want to take it. I’m not sick, so this medicine will be worthless on me.”

When he says it’s bitter, you don’t understand how painfully bitter it is! It’s so bitter… that… that he feels like his tongue could fall off at any moment! It took everything he had to not throw it up! Have you ever tried chewing a pill of pain reliever? You would know how bitter that tastes, but this medicine was much worse!

It was grainy, bitter, tongue numbing, and it was so Ungodly disgusting!

They say the more effective a medicine is, the more bitter it tastes- well this really takes the cake!

“Who is the older twin?”

“…” You always use your age against him in matters like this! If he still lived on Earth, he would have loved to retort with something along the lines of ‘your mother!’ but they shared the same mother.

“Well?”

“… You are.”

“Good. Listen to your brother and take your medicine obediently.” Shen Jiu reached into the blanket to fish out one of Shen Yuan’s hands and placed the medicine in his hand.

DAMN IT! How about you eat it!? You are only 30 minutes older!

Resigned to his fate, Shen Yuan sat up, a ghost of a pout appearing on his face. He was really hoping to get out of it this time. He opened the packet and took a deep breath, downing the entire thing all at once and trying his best not to gag from the taste alone.

It wasn’t until he harshly exhaled that the other two in the room knew that Shen Yuan took his medication. “You did well.” Mu Qingfan patted Shen Yuan’s shoulder as a show of praising him, and he had his hand slapped away by Shen Jiu, and this hit was accompanied with a warning glare.

That was Shen Jiu’s way of keeping his twin safe ‘from harm.’ What’s the point of protecting your brother from the very doctor you called to check up on him?

Really, Shen Jiu is so unlovable and uncute. In comparison, Shen Yuan was quite lovable, and he had a likeable character. “Fine, I apologize.” He sighed, rubbing his temples in exasperation. “I’ll tell you how his body is doing, let’s go for a walk.”

This was a heavily implied, ‘give him some air,’ and Shen Jiu went along with it because it was for the betterment of Shen Yuan’s health. If you wanted the stubborn Shen Jiu to agree to anything, it was easier done if you applied it to Shen Yuan somehow—and the opposite is true for Shen Yuan. Both brothers could easily be twisted if you used their brother against them.

The two left the room, and Shen Yuan was left alone in the room to think to himself.

“What are his resentment points at now?”

[System: Luo Binghe’s resentment points are at 1050.]

FUCK!

Shen Jiu took the time while Shen Yuan was recovering to bully Luo Binghe again! He wanted to cry over how his brother seemed to love courting death. Is being a cannon fodder scum villain that deeply ingrained into your DNA? Will it kill you to be nice to Luo Binghe?

You’re cruel to everyone that crosses you, and even those who don’t do anything to you! Your jealousy is too much!

Shen Yuan cried deep in his heart. If he continued this path, Luo Binghe will turn Shen Jiu into a human stick and maybe look to him for round two!

That’s too frightening! Someone save him! He had to quickly remedy this and hopefully survive the blackening of the protagonist!

He had to treat Luo Binghe better (first he had to get better), and then he had to find a way to increase the protection guard of ‘Shen Qingqiu’. If he remembered correctly, Liu Qingge hadn’t died yet… so he would be an excellent guard against Luo Binghe!

Yue Qingyuan was an obvious member of the Shen Qingqiu protection squad. He was the Vice-president while Shen Yuan considered himself to be the President! Luckily, he was almost at 100% so he could soon start trying to reconcile with Luo Binghe!

You may think that Shen Jiu is overly concerned with Shen Yuan, and that it’s a one-way street, but that wasn’t the case at all. They were both very concerned about the other. If Shen Jiu ever returned to his room injured, Shen Yuan would nervously flit about him, asking him what happened.

Who dares to hurt his brother? Let him catch you outside and he’ll show you what happens when you touch his brother!

Shen Yuan was the type to directly attack someone by humiliating them, but Shen Jiu was the type to fight back with underhanded means. You would rue the day if you became the enemy of them both and they came at you with full force.

Sometimes, it seemed like Shen Yuan was a psychic because he could foresee things happening and prevent them from harming his brother. No one knew it was because he was a transmigrator who read the novel, so he knew what sorts of events to look out for and how to deal with the situation.

Of course, not all things could be stopped, but he did manage to put a halt to a few dangerous scenes here and there.

It wasn’t as though the brothers were blind to what the other was doing, but it did cause them to worry more, ironically enough.

Just like how Shen Yuan was willing to risk his life to safe Shen Jiu, his older brother felt the same way. If you asked Shen Yuan, he wouldn’t let Shen Jiu to throw away his life for his sake, and Shen Jiu would answer the same way about Shen Yuan.

Would they listen though? Absolutely not. Both of them were as stubborn as they come and were fiercely protective of those they cared for.

What? Was Shen Jiu jealous about the consideration Shen Yuan had towards Luo Binghe and bullied him because of it?

No, he wasn’t jealous. He hated the fact that Shen Yuan cared for Luo Binghe when he was trash. Caring for a potential-less disciple would only smear the honor of his brother. WHO DARES DISHONOR SHEN YUAN? You better wash your neck and hope he gives you a swift death!

If not for the fact that Shen Yuan had already told him, ‘If you kill any of our disciples on purpose, I won’t talk to you anymore,’ then Luo Binghe would have lost his life already by his hands.

His brother was such a goody two-shoes, but it wasn’t really a bad thing? If anything, one of them had to have a good character.

It was the brotherly feelings the two of them shared that made Shen Yuan think about his time on earth with his real family. He had two older brothers and a younger sister.

The family he had in this novel almost matched the family he had at home, except he only had one brother.

At least, that’s what he thought until he found out he had an older twin brother who was missing.

He missed his earth family. They must’ve been shocked when he died so suddenly. What an unfilial son he was to die so soon. He offered a silent prayer to his family, apologizing to his parents for his early passing.

Shen Jiu had finished talking to Mu Qingfan and he returned to the room to see that Shen Yuan was staring at his hands, deep in thought, almost unaware of what was going on around him. His younger brother would slip into these episodes of him dissociating if you left him alone for too long, and it worried him.

He always had the misunderstanding that the family he left behind in search of his missing twin brother had bullied him, resulting in him occasionally staring off into space, but the truth was that he simply missed his real family and was overwhelmed with regret.

It hurt knowing he couldn’t do anything to help his brother, and it further spurred his protective feelings towards Shen Yuan.

What neither of them knew was that because the System had split ‘Shen Qinqiu’ into two characters, they were connected by an emotional link. Both were impacted by what the other person was feeling.

So what Shen Jiu thought was a gut instinct that someone was bullying his brother was simply him being worried, or sad over something. That was why he would always come to swiftly question whoever was in the room with Shen Yuan as to how they were bullying his brother.

Even though Shen Yuan was raised by a loving family, he never got close to them, and he kept a cold disposition. It was because his older twin brother was going through such an arduous ordeal, he didn’t have the emotional strength to find happiness himself.

The reason why he’d often get sick was because Shen Yuan had the higher emotional bank of the two twins, so he felt emotions much stronger than Shen Jiu did. It was as if he was drawing in the excess emotions to keep Shen Jiu from going insane and murdering everyone in his path.

He would get overloaded from these intense negative emotions and he’d fall ill.

Those rare moments when Shen Jiu would show compassion to others, or strongly wish for family relations with another person, that was because those emotions came from Shen Yuan.

Their emotions linked them together and so they were easily impacted by the other. Shen Yuan’s dissociation hurt Shen Jiu not entirely because he knew he couldn’t help, he was getting the excess spill over from Shen Yuan.

Hearing his brother speak to him, Shen Yuan stopped dissociating. “I was just thinking about some things, don’t worry about me, brother.”

“Tell me what it is. Perhaps you’ll feel better if you talk to your elder brother about it.”

“I…”

DING!

Shen Jiu has asked what Shen Yuan was thinking about! He cannot answer honestly and say he was thinking about his life on Earth, so he must come up with another answer! How will he answer? Your choice will have an impact on what events will follow in the future! Do choose wisely, because the fate of the characters in the novel are in your hands.

[Thinking about Peak Lords Thinking about Luo Binghe I was just thinking about the past...]

[Previous Segment] [Table of Contents] [Next Segment]

A/N: Yay! A question that won’t be a life-or-death situation (for Shen Qingqiu)! Each question asked will impact the story in some way, and some have more impact than others. It would be unfair for me to say just how important each question is, but every now and again the System Moderators may give you very subtle hints to help you decide! Good luck and hope you have as much fun with this project as i’m having!

#Scum Villain #SVSSS #Scum Villain's Self-saving system #Neo Writes Drabbles #SVSSSLifeSimProject #((Yay for official project status and not experimental project!))#((In which I also had the urge to write something due to stress as usual aha))

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imperceptibility · 5 years

Text

清和 (Qinghe) -- by 来自远方 (Lai Zi Yuan Fang) -- ch. 1

Author → here

JJWXC → here

Disclaimer & summary → here

Translated by me

Index of characters → here

Ming Dynasty, year thirty-one of Hongwu, Beiping-fu

The third month of the year[1] should have been a time when the lakes and rivers were warming up and the flowers began blossoming, but instead, Beiping saw several snowstorms. The frigid wind swept along a skyful of snow. Like a knife scraping the bone, gust by gust, it blew against one’s cheeks until they stung sharply.

Dressed in hemp with his hands stowed in his sleeves, Meng Qinghe was squatting by the door, staring blankly at the patterns on the door bolt.

Half-chi-long icicles hung from the eaves. The northerly wind swirled. The window frames made noises, as if it were knocking upon a person’s heart.

The old cat lying by corner stood up with a meow, stretching and then licking its paw. With a couple of jumps, it reached the surface of the simple and crude table upon which rested some brushes and paper, ink and an inkwell. Leaving behind a few paw prints on the yellowing paper, it shook its whiskers in joyful satisfaction.

In the past, Meng Qinghe would have definitely stepped over to chase it away, but in that moment, he was not in the mood.

“The Ming Dynasty, during the reign of Hongwu, Beiping-fu...good heavens, you’ve got to be kidding me...”

When a person got unlucky, even the water they drank would get stuck in their teeth[2].

He had just been walking down the street, nothing out of the ordinary. Even so he ended up traveling through time — and six hundred years at that!

Just how in the world did he time travel? Was there a problem with the way he walked?

“How great would it be if this were a dream,” Qinghe gave his head a hard scratch, dejected and also helpless.

If he had known, he would rather have sold his body to entertain the masses by grabbing a pole and dancing the hula at his company’s annual dinner than sneaking out early.

What a shame that wishes were wonderful but reality was so often incomparably cruel. Cruel, just as the northerly wind blowing on him through the door crack.

Sigh...

His loose long hair flew. The hemp sack of a robe he was wearing might as well have not even been there.

It was so cold his teeth chattered. Rubbing his arms, Qinghe gritted his teeth. He was already here and his chances of returning to his time were slim to none. Even if he regretted things to the moon and back, it was futile. What he should be thinking about was how to keep living.

He did not require much much: three meals a day, a standalone house, no worries over food or clothing — that’d be enough.

Lacking in ambition? A good man not striving to accomplish things and win all the ladies?

He’d ask such a doubter to open their goddamn eyes. This was the reign of Hongwu. Beiping-fu was the Prince of Yan’s territory. Wanting to overflow with boldness in the presence of the likes of Taizu and Chengzu of Ming? Were they tired of how long their life was lasting?

As for winning all the ladies...sorry, he preferred men.

Undertaking heroic ventures and snatching up a beautiful woman might be a story to capture the imagination, but snatching up a man...well, better to forget about it.

Qinghe wiggled his fingers and pushed at the glasses that no longer rested on the bridge of his nose. As dictated by his profession, no matter what it was that he was going to do, he liked to lay out plans beforehand.

Right then, being a civil servant was a high risk job. The higher the position, the higher the likelihood of one’s head and neck taking their leave. The Hongwu Emperor’s bureaucratic reforms abolished the post of Grand Chancellor as well as the Six Ministries. On top of that, he set the record of ordering the execution of ten zu[3]. Jianwen Emperor, his grandson, was relatively good-natured, only intending to target his uncles. However, as it turned out, Jianwen’s military prowess was lacking and he would be usurped by one such uncle. Very few of the ministers who were adamantly loyal to him met a good end.

Thus, it was abundantly clear that taking the imperial exam to become a government official was not a viable path.

Becoming a merchant was also not a good way forward. For specifics, one could refer to the tycoon Shen Wansan, who loved to help others but who was sent away to Yunnan[4] by the Hongwu Emperor to experience life in the army.

Being a good, poor farmer was undoubtedly relatively safe, the prerequisite being that one did not encounter a year of calamities or run into a local tyrant or nasty member of the gentry with too formidable of a personal background.

Other than that, there was another path: enlisting in the military.

However, taking into account his actual situation, this matter was one that he needed to consider at greater length.

A noise sounded again from behind him. Qinghe turned his head to look at the old cat on his table, his lips cracking apart as he bared his teeth at the animal.

With his hair disheveled and a predatory glint in his eye, his thin face was exceptionally malevolent.

Meow!

The old cat bristled, leaping instantaneously from the table onto the roof beam.

Qinghe gave his hair a sassy flip. A perfect victory.

The satisfaction of a victory lasted all but two seconds before sorrow took its place. Gazing at the old cat that was chasing a mouse up on the roof beam, he was infinitely sad that even a cat was happier than him.

At least the cat could eat meat; he could not.

“Shi’erlang[5].” As he was drowning in the clutches of his sorrow, a quiet, hoarse call came from outside the door.

Qinghe did not respond. After a while, another quiet call came, peppered with coughing. No matter how hard his heart of stone was, he could not go on pretending that he had not heard.

Standing up, he shook out his limbs, an action of necessity due to the fact that he was frozen stiff.

Unbolting the door, he saw three haggard women dressed in hemp[6] standing outside. The one in the middle being supported was his mother. The other two supporting her were his older brothers’ wives.

“Mother, saozi[7].”

Going by the memories in his head, Qinghe bowed in greeting, letting the three of them into the room. When he had first arrived in this time period, the boy who was also named Meng Qinghe had already been gravely ill and soon breathed his last. The odd thing was, the memories of this body’s previous owner had remained in Qinghe’s mind.

“Shi’erlang, your datangbo[8] genuinely does not want us to live!”

His mother Meng-Wang-shi[9] coughed twice for each sentence she spoke. As for his sisters-in-law, Meng-Xu-shi and Meng-Zhang-shi, one stroked his mother’s back to ease her breathing while the other was busy consoling her. Their faces were pale and angry and helpless.

Their father-in-law was gone. Their men were also gone. Their xiaoshu[10] Meng Qinghe was only fourteen. What could he really do?

After listening to his mother’s lament, Qinghe’s brows also knotted together.

“What sweet words! ‘Lending a hand’, he says! He’s just scheming to get his hands on our measly family property!” Meng-Wang-shi took Qinghe’s hand in her own, her voice hoarse. “In order to pay for your father and your two brother’s funerals, we barely have anything left anyways! And now, he’s set his sights on even this...”

As she spoke, tears streamed down her face. “When your father and your brothers were alive, whenever something came up in the clan, we never denied them anything. To think their graves are not even cold yet and already your datangbo has turned hostile and is pushing us to the point of death! The fields that we sold, whose hands are they in now? And who took our ox that we used to plow the fields? And why did the teacher drive you out of school and back home? We all have Meng as our family name. How can he go so far? Does he not fear divine retribution?”

The more she spoke, the more stirred up her emotions became. Her wan face bloomed with pink and her coughing grew worse.

Before she finished her words, a cough sounded abruptly from outside the door. Qinghe looked over to find a short and stout man dressed in a dust-gray round-collared cotton padded jacket. The man’s face appeared simple and honest but his eyes carried a shred of shrewdness. It was his datangbo, Meng Guangxiao.

“Datangbo.”

Before Meng Guangxiao could open his mouth, Qinghe made his salutations and invited the man inside. After greeting him, Meng-Wang-shi sat to the side without a word. Qinghe’s two sisters-in-law stood behind Meng-Wang-shi with their heads slightly lowered, also keeping silent.

Meng Guangxiao indicated to Qinghe that there was no need to be so courteous. His tone was kind, as if he were genuinely a good-natured elder.

“Your father and brothers are gone. Your mother and sisters-in-law are women. You are still young. Whatever you need help with, I will not say no.”

Qinghe raised his clasped hands[11] and bowed deeply. “Thank you, datangbo.”

Gestures dictated by the etiquette of the ancients were still awkward when he performed them. Good thing most verbal communication consisted of vernacular language and not filled with archaic expressions. Otherwise, it was bound to induce a headache, no matter who was on the receiving end.

“However,” what Meng Guangxiao was saying took a turn, “Good nephew, you’ve seen the weather at the start of this year. After all these snowstorms, the springtime field-plowing will probably be delayed.”

Qinghe did not pick up the thread of conversation, not that Meng Guangxiao minded. He carried right on speaking. His words were not harsh but the meaning was clear: the weather at the start of the year was poor and everybody was having a hard time. Your family might be facing difficulties but nobody else was well off either. So should you not be repaying the money and food you had borrowed earlier?

“Putting others aside for now, your ertangbo’s family just added an extra member. He has a hard time saying the words so I have to play the part of the bad person,” Meng Guangxiao paused. “You know I have no other options.”

“Indeed,” Qinghe agreed readily, seemingly completely unaware of what Meng Guangxiao was up to. After a moment, a bit of an ashamed blush crept up onto Qinghe’s face, as if he had just recalled that there was no food at home. “Right now, we are truly in quite a predicament. Could I ask for a few more days?”

“Oh?”

“In a few days, I will definitely come up with some way to scrape together the money and the food. I will not make things difficult for you, datangbo.”

Meng Guangxiao eyed the boy suspiciously. He knew how things stood with this family. Ever since he was little, Meng Qinghe had had his nose buried so deep in his studies that he ended up growing into an otherwise clueless fool. After Meng Guangzhi and his two sons died, there was nobody else who could take charge of the household. Three funerals had exhausted pretty much all of their wealth, leaving behind a family of widows and orphans, guarding a big house and several mu of farmland. If it were not for the fact that he had his eyes on those three mu of top quality farmland and this house, Meng Guangxiao would not drop by so often, risking having all this bad luck stick to him for no reason.

It had yet to be twenty-seven days since the funerals. Ordinarily, Meng Guangxiao should have been in the mourning garment xiaogong[12] for his cousin. At worst, he should have been in dressed in sima. No matter how nice his words were, him paying a visit in his gray, cotton padded jacket showed that he placed no importance upon this family of widows and children.

So the saying went: one would be better off looking down on an old man with white hair than a youth in poverty.

One could look with disdain upon the enemy but should not view an opponent lightly.

Meng Guangxiao had committed both errors. To put it bluntly, it was going to serve him right to fall flat on his face at Qinghe’s hands.

“Datangbo, there are still a few mu of farmland and a house in my family’s possession. Once I find an intermediary to evaluate the price and manage to sell them, I should be able to repay some of the debt.”

Qinghe had carefully deliberated the words that made him want to wince and he barely avoided biting his tongue in the process of delivering them. Given that he wanted to dig a hole for Meng Guangxiao to jump into, his “act” had to be convincing. He was an expert at this sort of thing.

Meng Guangxiao barely kept down the rising corners of his mouth, but he was unable to disguise the contempt in his eyes. His oldest son’s earlier concerns were unnecessary after all, concerns about how shi’erlang was extremely intelligent to the point of not appearing so on the surface[13] and to not coerce him, lest it ruin the amicability between both families. As it were, this boy was but a fool.

But it was a good thing that he was a fool!

After sending Meng Guangxiao off, Meng-Wang-shi, who had kept her silence, tugged on Qinghe’s garment, her voice trembling: “Oh son, what has happened to you? How come you...”

What she wanted to say was: ‘Oh son, how come you have lost it? Why fall for the trap in a one-track minded fashion when you clearly know he covets our property? Besides, that bit of paper money that Meng Guangxiao, Meng Guangshun, and the others had lent us has already been taken back by them many fold through the sale of our fields. Moreover, they pocketed a significant amount during the planning of the funerals. Now, they dare to use this as an excuse to coerce us!’

Meng-Xu-shi and Meng-Zhang-shi’s expressions also showed confusion and reproach. If the remaining land and house were sold off, what were they, as a family, going to eat? Where were they going to live?

“Mother, do not worry.” Qinghe, on the other hand, was the image of ease. Helping Meng-Wang-shi rise to her feet, he spoke in a resolute tone: “Rest assured that I have a plan.”

They wanted his family’s land? He would give it.

They also wanted his family’s house? He would give that as well.

Them laughing at him for being a fool? Then let him be one.

Being a fool was a good thing. If a fool took things a little too far and acted outside the realm of normal logic, nobody would be able to really take issue with that, right?

Qinghe smiled. Meng-Wang-shi did not notice but Meng-Xu-shi and Meng-Zhang-shi exchanged a look, each with an expression showing the same befuddlement. Did xiaoshu just smile? And an eerie smile at that...

Chapter 2 ▶

T/N:

[1] This refers to the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which is the month following the spring equinox.

[2] This is a common saying about misfortune.

[3] Warning for violence in this note!!! In ancient times, family members often paid for the crimes of their (sufficiently close) relatives. The harshest punishment before executing ten zu was executing nine zu, considered as the eradication of an offender’s lineage. According to Baidu Baike, these nine included four on the father’s side (one’s family, those of one’s married paternal aunts, those of one’s married sisters, and those of one’s married daughters), three on the mother’s side (that of one’s maternal grandfather, that of one’s maternal grandmother, those of one’s married maternal aunts), and two one the wife’s side (that of one’s father-in-law, that of one’s mother-in-law). The tenth zu was one’s students.

Absolutely gruesome, yes, but that was what it was, the harshest capital punishment meted out. Just explaining this to drive home the point of what Qinghe, as a modern day person, knew of the Hongwu Emperor.

[4] Yunnan province, back then, was considered quite remote for the Han Chinese. And also, as it remains today, Yunnan was home to many ethnic minorities. Read: conflicts.

[5] Shi’erlang is literally “twelfth young man”. Sons were referred to as *insert number* young man, with the number corresponding to their age ranking within the family. In this case, no, Qinghe’s mom did not have twelve boys. It refers to him being the twelfth oldest of his generation within his clan.

[6] This is the second occurrence of the word hemp so I guess I should belatedly explain: white clothes made of hemp were worn in mourning.

[7] Saozi is how one calls one’s older brother’s wife. To note, though it is so in Qinghe’s case, it does not have to be one’s older brother by blood. Nowadays, it doesn’t even have to be legally such a brother’s wife.

[8] Bo is a paternal uncle who is older than one’s father. Tangbo is such an uncle who is a paternal cousin of one’s father. Da indicates this uncle is the oldest of such a generation in the family. Er (2), san (3), si (4), etc would label the subsequent such uncles.

[9] Taking Meng-Wang-shi as an example, this was how married woman were referred to back then, in the format of X-Y-shi, wherein X = the surname of her husband and Y = the surname of her father. They were rarely addressed by first names, as that was considered intimate.

[10] Xiaoshu is how one calls one’s husband’s younger brother.

[11] This was a gesture of respect.

[12] Of the traditional wufu or five mourning garments, whether one wears the zhancui, qicui, dagong/dahong, xiaogong/xiaohong, or sima (in order of coarseness of the fabric) depended upon the closeness of one’s relation to the deceased. Sima had the finest weave and were worn by the most distant of relatives that needed to wear mourning garments.

[13] This is an idiom, one of several of opposites originating from the works of Lao-Tzu. It means that the truly intelligent are so different from the average person that their actions fail to be understood, thus appearing stupid.

#Qinghe #Lai Zi Yuan Fang #novel #translation

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anarchistbitch · 3 years

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hiiii, I'm back, sorry I took so long, i was gonna reply earlier but i had hw and so that I wouldnt procrastinate I told myself I wouldnt reply until I got it done and then when I did it I was tired af and fell asleep and then it slipped my mind, sorry sorry sorry

first off, a song rec Quizás, Quizás, Quizás by Andrea Bocelli and Jennifer López

I'm glad you had a great republic day♡ love me those independence celebration holidays

thank you for the link <3 and yeah, you're right, she worked on it so it should be good, i just have trust issues lmao

ah mbj, mbj, it's the same with moshang bc you see the fandom constantly talking about them but then you read the book and ???? where are they???? goes to show our love for them ig

YES definitely, it was SO easy to forget how powerful he really was bc he was just kind of going around being ~annoying and quirky~ that also happens with the whole book itself I think, cause it has a lot more humor than the others but the things happening are just as fucked up and painful

new hc: there was another person involved when binghe was conceived

they should just exaggerate sqq's inner monologue about how binghe is gonna kill him and all that, if shen yuan could convince himself of heterosexuality I'm sure they can convince the censors

I become a puddle of tears whenever I think of gongyi xiao, he was just a good boy and yeah, your sibling had a galaxy brain moment, they're so right

they're literally the "bro get your dog" "it dont bite" "yes it do" vine, he's sqq's (and our) little meow meow

I adore cbaw toooooo, it's so beautiful and nice, def a comfort read, and SJSJSJS ikkkkk, I understand they were trying to show that they looked so much alike but damnbro sjsnznsnsn

noooooooo, I actually love the watermark??? idk I just think it's charming, I made sure it was still visible sjdjsjsj my editing was basically adding more sky so I didnt have to crop anything out

I did see and I couldn't agree more ksdjdjsjsjsj this week was so tiring???? I dont even know why but everyone I talked to seemed so exhausted already, on thursday we got the day off bc we changed president and the ceremony was taking place that day (we just got our first ever woman president btw, she had so many good campaign promises, here's to hoping she sticks to them) but we'd just been back for three days and everyone was celebrating the day off as if we were three months in, seriously

thanks to having our day off I didnt have my second class with ms devil, first day was just introductions and going over syllabus so thursday was gonna be our real first class but monday I wont be able to escape my fate any longer

dont apologize for rambling, I do love reading what you have to say 😌💖

about your ps, 😳💍 might be a bit soon but will you marry me??

good luck on your classes and make sure to rest and eat properly!!

-M<3

between the both of us i have a worse reply timing so pls dont apologize😭😭 also good for you for completing your hw!!

ive only listened to a few of jlo's songs and the song does give that vibe of wanting to be with each other but being able to due to whatever reason .the guitar in the song is really well played too!!

Song rec for ya: Never tear us apart by INXS (yea the song from euphoria s2 ep3😔 i dont know if youve watched it but this song is really so so good)

and yea i dont you blame you for the trust issues lol so many good books/comics have gone through.. tremendous changes when being adapted. but hey nellie is there!!

moshang is THE ship cause he really married his blorbo 😭😭 and isnt it enough? to create the perfect man? and marry him ?? speaking of sqh. whats ur thought on cumplane👀👀 i have a few hc's that they were together before transmigration but never told each other about PIDW. like a mr & mrs smith au but the being-agents is them hating each other on socmed.

ykw? su xiyan deserves two partners😤

gongyi xiao🥺🥺 when i tell you i cried when i saw him in the donghua. in another au where lbh is a disciple of huan hua i feel like they would been besties or at least have certain respect for e/o.

binghe is also sqh's meow meow <3

cbaw was such a great manhua and im so sad its ending but the drama is airing in a few weeks!!! also the next chapter is of their honeymoon 😳😳

heres hoping to a political term with no bad happenings and many progressive actions 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗

everyone is so tired and idk if its cause of the weather or its that the vibes™ . but so many things are gonna happen in a few weeks and then months including my graduation to the next year(my teacher is a little shit and im stubborn i will literally graduate just to spite her)

celebrate ur days off!!! its literally so cold and i havent been out at all(covid restrictions back on and also my family member is high risk)

school is depressing as fuck but one thing i kinda realized that they also set a precedent of "this is how school is supposed to be :(:(" and i think have a slightly optimistic look on ur situation definitely helps a lot

skds i love reading what you have to say

damn take me out to dinner first🙄🙄 but yes i accept💗💗💗💗💗

the same for you as well!! stay safe and healthy!!

#M for mwah

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tossawary · 4 years

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Chapter 27: “The First Day” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” quotes and commentary. Not a full list of favorite quotes or full commentary.

Right now, deep into the safety of darkness, Shang Qinghua thinks about how he never actually expected to be lying in his bed with Mobei-Jun. No, there’s a reason his sofa is comfortable enough to sleep on! That was by design too! Sure, Shang Qinghua had lots and lots of bed-related fantasies, but he had no expectations of those fantasies ever coming true. He didn’t dare to have expectations.

It’s kind of weird, lying in bed with Mobei-Jun. It’s definitely weird lying in his bed partially on top of Mobei-Jun. With the way things were headed, Shang Qinghua was admittedly fostering some hopes about those bed-related fantasies, but he still didn’t think to mentally prepare himself for the practical details. He really wasn’t mentally prepared for the softness of Mobei-Jun’s hair, for the thickness and the weight of the man’s arms, or for the coolness of his skin against the warmth of the blankets.

Fuck, now there is no way that Shang Qinghua is going to be able to see Mobei-Jun with a plunging neckline without thinking about touching the man’s bare chest. It’s a nice chest! It feels great underneath Shang Qinghua’s hands now.

He can feel a steady heartbeat beneath his fingers.

He can feel the gentle rise and fall of it with the man’s slow breaths, as the man’s eyes have fallen comfortably closed.

Shang Qinghua has never seen Mobei-Jun this relaxed.

AN: Moshang in bed together is very good. I loved writing Moshang cuddles. I think it’s really nice when they’re allowed to be soft and relaxed, and everything is understood between them. Mobei-Jun at this point has learned to treat Shang Qinghua like a particularly anxious cat sometimes - if he just stays still and relaxed, eventually Shang Qinghua will calm down and chill with him.

Shout out to Mobei-Jun and all those years he spent trying to get some hint as to how human social everything worked, only to get nearly no help from Shang Qinghua. In this fic, part of the idea is that Shang Qinghua has been a slightly better communicator. Mobei-Jun can be a good listener when he doesn’t feel hideously embarrassed over his fuck-ups.

“I had made plans to speak with you at some point about… this,” Mobei-Jun agrees. “But that was not why I had come to see you that day.”

“Ah, what… what was it, then?”

Mobei-Jun sighs. “I had come from a gathering of demon lords, hosted by my father at their request. They have loosely agreed to each contribute to an attack on the next conference of human cultivators,” he explains, apparently annoyed at just having to recollect this event. “My uncle encourages my father to force my involvement. He must have trouble planned… or see an opportunity for it.”

Shang Qinghua processes this, then sits bolt upright in bed. “What?!”

Mobei-Jun frowns up at him.

“There’s a demonic alliance to attack the next Immortal Alliance Conference?!” Shang Qinghua demands, leaning over the demon lord beside him.

“Yes.”

“And you waited to tell me this?!”

“There are years left before this event,” Mobei-Jun points out.

Shang Qinghua stares at him.

Sure! But he feels like he should start planning now! He already knew that there was going to be a demon attack of some kind - the seal on Luo Binghe’s powers has to be broken - but demon lords getting involved is bad news! Multiple demon lords who are important enough to be socializing with Mobei-Jun’s father is worse news! Demon lords potentially including Mobei-Jun’s shitty father and shitty uncle is the worst news of all!

“You should warn your people,” Mobei-Jun says, dryly.

AN: Mobei-Jun doesn’t care about the sects, but he cares that Shang Qinghua cares. Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua really are villainous in SVSSS. Shang Qinghua just so happens to sometimes be on the protagonist’s (Shen Yuan’s) side and Shen Yuan has romanced a budding tyrant who has MBJ as a loyal minion. But, oof, I didn’t want to go that route with this fic.

I mean, I considered it! I considered having Shang Qinghua be forced to bring a demon invasion down on the sect he’s come to care about and his own nephew, but that felt a little too angsty for me. It totally could have been good, I was just like, “I can’t handle that.” Plus, with the world update, it felt fitting to jazz things up a little bit - to up the ante by inviting more demon lords and also have a little role reversal by letting Mobei-Jun be the spy. This way, I think, it really feels like Mobei-Jun is on Shang Qinghua’s side.

Shang Qinghua isn’t on the demons’ side. Mobei-Jun isn’t really on the humans’ side. But they are on each other’s side. They’re a team!

Again, what’s more romantic than your demon boyfriend actually doing the work of growth on his own? Moshang can be a little rough and with a lot of sharp edges (on both sides, they’re both kind of mean people) sometimes, so it’s sometimes nice to remember that they can support each other too.

Also, I’ve always been kind of curious about what Mobei-Jun’s family thinks of his relationship with a human. Mobei-Jun’s father is still alive throughout SVSSS, so it’s fun to think about ice demon politics, power and influence and loyalty in that court, and whether that factored at all into Mobei-Jun’s extremely slow-moving courting timeline of a human.

The person at the door knocks a third time, and Shang Qinghua feels the person beside him stir. He can feel a not insignificant amount of weight shifting, a low and unhappy grumble, and cool skin brushing against his own as that person makes to get up. Possibly to handle the person at the door? Shang Qinghua here abruptly remembers many important details about his current situation that make the sect potentially being on fire seem like a not-so-bad emergency.

“Demon invasion,” Shang Qinghua finds himself thinking. “Mobei-Jun. Fuck.”

“No, no, no! Don’t get up! I’ll get it!” Shang Qinghua cries, throwing off tangled blankets and flying out of bed. “I’ll handle it, my king! Sorry! Ahhh, sorry! I’ll take care of it, you can just stay where you are-”

Shang Qinghua, now on his feet, pushes firmly down against Mobei-Jun’s chest. He’s not expecting the man - a very, very strong and very, very stubborn demon lord - to go back down under his hand without any resistance at all. This easy obedience, this willingly being pushed down, leads to a surprised Shang Qinghua overbalancing and catching himself hard on Mobei-Jun’s chest and shoulders.

As though Shang Qinghua is actually pinning the man down.

Mobei-Jun stares up at him, eyes low-lidded, and raises his eyebrows.

Ah.

Wow.

Shang Qinghua is going to… well, he’s going to think about this for the rest of his life, probably.

AN: Mobei-Jun is so self-conscious in SVSSS that it’s kind of hilarious. So it’s fun to let him be a little more confident (rather than arrogant and lashing out defensively). Mobei-Jun probably thought to himself here, “You know what’ll be funny here? If I just go down now.” I feel it in my heart that Mobei-Jun is a teaser, especially when he’s relaxed and happy.

Shang Qinghua takes the time to fix up his appearance a little more - to get rid of the “I slept with a demon” smell - because if the asshole at his door has kept it up this long, they can wait a little longer. It turns out that he didn’t really need to bother, because it’s his fellow transmigrator and most dogged critic, Peerless Cucumber.

“Bro,” Shang Qinghua says seriously. “Do you have a deathwish?”

Peerless Cucumber - Shen Yuan, Shang Qinghua has to remember to call the kid by his real name - lowers his hand with a scowl. “...One of your disciples told me to knock on your door and keep knocking until you answered,” the other transmigrator says defensively. “After I said you said to meet you in the morning.”

“...Which one?”

“Wen Shufen, I think?”

“Ah, just for that prank, Sticky Fingers is going to be hauling fertilizer for Long Sheng Peak for a month,” Shang Qinghua says tiredly. “Bro, do not believe half the things your martial siblings here tell you. They’re pretty much all liars, cheats, and thieves.”

“Then why keep them around?”

“Ah, well, sometimes you need someone to lie, cheat, or steal.”

“...It’s nearly not morning anymore, you know.”

“Eh, I guess you get a pass this time, since I did tell you we’d have a nice long talk about things tomorrow morning. Come on in.”

AN: I don’t know if this vibe is coming across, but Shen Yuan feels a little ignored and neglected. They just got back from a mission and Shen Yuan has already been shooed off like twice. Shang Qinghua is so busy. Shang Qinghua is so experienced and so established here. Shen Yuan has latched onto SQH as his lifeline, though he’s trying very, very hard to be independent, and yet Shang Qinghua kind of has SY on the back burner most of the time.

Not only is Shang Qinghua the author of this world, but he’s also an important figure in this world. Shang Qinghua really lives here and if the plot wasn’t looming over them, SQH would be very happy here. This place feels 100% like Shang Qinghua’s | Airplane’s world and brand new transmigrator Shen Yuan feels like an unwanted intruder. SY is still lonely and scared.

“...Are you going to try to activate it now?” Shen Yuan asks.

“Hmmm… no, not right now,” Shang Qinghua decides, standing up off the dusty stool he was sitting on. “Cucumber, bro, I’m just not awake enough for tackling anything serious right now. Let me get a few texts and tools together first to test this thing properly, alright? Some safety equipment! Aprons and face shields! Thick, fireproof gloves! I’m still trying to figure out how to safely ask Duan Tianyu what he knows about this map the System apparently made him send me, when he might not even know what the fuck I’m talking about! Maybe he can give us some hints.”

“Who?”

“One of my Huan Hua not-disciples,” Shang Qinghua answers. “I picked up some extras a few deadly missions back. They’re good kids. All grown up now! Less naïve than they used to be! Duan Tianyu is teaching back at Huan Hua Palace now, so maybe I’ll have to be the one to wander over there on some pretense.”

Shen Yuan agrees that getting as much information as possible is probably the better course of action. Shang Qinghua ushers the kid out of his secret basement and his fellow transmigrator goes easily enough. Shang Qinghua complains about his shitty, no-good System on the way up for forcing them to do all the work by themselves.

“It must think everything is more ‘authentic’ if I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Shang Qinghua suggests, removing his spiritual seal and causing the door to the secret basement to vanish. “Ah, I’ll admit that’s kind of cool to watch.”

AN: Throughout this conversation, SY is kind of reaching out, giving himself or Airplane excuses to let him stay. It’s not that he doesn’t want to cultivate, but SQH represents a sort of safety and familiarity SY doesn’t have right now.

In SVSSS, Airplane was always pretty direct with Shen Yuan, from what I remember, but he wasn’t necessarily open. He was direct about some potentially vulnerable or personal topics, like Luo Binghe’s insanity or his own general fear of his character’s planned death, but that’s not the same as actually being vulnerable. They snap at each other, they’re pretty direct about their personal goals, but they don’t actually get vulnerable with each other by confessing their personal fears and new relationship developments.

So I’ve tried to adopt that here, while making Shang Qinghua a little kinder and slightly more vulnerable, thanks to the efforts of Luo Jiahui. But Shang Qinghua still isn’t necessarily open here and neither is Shen Yuan. He’s just like, “Hey, it’s shit and I don’t like it either, but what can you do?” He’s not actually seriously talking about his breakdown or just how scared he is of his own plot.

For some people, there’s a certain kind of openness in confessing things to a stranger, so it’s kind of like that too. Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan have fallen into kind of familiar dynamics, because there’s nothing else to really do, and they are kind of acquaintances, but they’re still not friends yet.

I think I want to have SY and SQH actually address this soon. SY feels that SQH has been kind of dropping the ball when it comes to honestly helping his fellow transmigrator, though SY, being SY, can’t quite put his finger on the lack of emotional intimacy and affection that he’s starved for right now.

The day-in-day-out of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect can’t get him down today! He feels kind of like he’s walking on air! Sure, the work never stops and there are some fucking terrifying things ahead, but he just had a very successful mission overall! He just had a really, really successful conversation with Mobei-Jun! He and Mobei-Jun are romantically entwined and Mobei-Jun was very explicit about the fact that he expects them to be romantically entwined… pretty much indefinitely!

“There is no one else,” Mobei-Jun had said. “There will be no one else.”

Shang Qinghua fostered a lot of hopes over the years! More hopes than he felt that he should have reasonably fostered! And to have those hopes unexpectedly fulfilled like this is… really something! It’s really, really something! Mobei-Jun really isn’t the type of character to say that - to say any of the things he said, and wow, he said a lot of things back there - without meaning it completely.

Shang Qinghua doesn’t really know what to do with that.

Forever is a long time.

He understands, of course, that some things really do last an impossibly long time. He used to be pretty certain that all love matches faded eventually - that people were genuinely wildly in love… that people were sincerely in love with each other, sure… up until they inevitably weren’t anymore - but now he can’t really imagine Liu Qingge or Luo Jiahui ever getting tired of each other. Liu Qingge keeps bringing Luo Jiahui new recipes to try and rare ingredients to interest her, so she can make dishes for the two of them or her family as a whole, and Shang Qinghua can easily imagine the two of them doing that pretty much indefinitely.

Shang Qinghua can’t think about this for long, before he has to focus on greeting his disciples (it’s just Peng Hongpeng and Chen Xuan in here at the moment) and getting to work. “Good things last while they last!” he decides for now, because thinking about things not lasting kind of makes him feel like he’s dying.

AN: Shang Qinghua can’t quite bring himself to believe in a relationship lasting forever right now. Part of it is his commitment issues, but another part of it is his persisting inability to see past the looming plot. He’s still worried about Luo Binghe and the Eternal Abyss, so he’s having difficulty seeing past that hurdle, even though things like Luo Jiahui’s marriage and his new relationship with Mobei-Jun are forcing him to confront the fact that there’s still a life outside of and beyond the plot.

For Shang Qinghua, it’s kind of a “I’ll think about that later if we all survive” thing when it comes to him and Mobei-Jun.

“He made a mistake with good intentions and got a small injury for it,” Shang Qinghua says, as reassuringly as he can. “He’s fine! He’s in trouble with his shizun for it, though, but I’ll see what I can do about bringing you up to meet him or bringing him down here as soon as possible. I’ll do my best to make it happen!”

Luo Jiahui leans into Shang Qinghua’s side and admits, “I miss him.”

“He misses you.”

“I miss you too,” Luo Jiahui adds.

“...Ah, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” his sister-in-law says warmly. “I’d miss you even if you visited every day.”

Shang Qinghua is holding her hands, but it feels like she’s got an extra one wrapped around his heart. “Where’s that husband of yours? Doesn’t he come down the mountain every day? Should I be telling him off? Sorry I ran off with him for a little bit!”

“What does Qingge have to do with you and me?” Luo Jiahui demands. “It doesn’t matter how often I see everyone else, I still miss you and Binghe the most.”

“Hm, that’s a point! That’s a point.”

What else can Shang Qinghua do but admit that he misses her the most too?

AN: It was fun to follow up Shang Qinghua’s romantic developments with a return to his most important and longest relationship: the one he has with his “fake” sister. Luo Jiahui is and always will be important to Shang Qinghua and who he’s become. They have such a lovely relaxed feeling that’s nice to revisit. I’ve missed Luo Jiahui these past few chapters, as things get twisted up more and more in sect business.

It would feel dishonest to the rest of the fic if Shang Qinghua’s other relationships disappeared in favor of his new romantic relationship. They all have their own importance. Mobei-Jun and Liu Qingge don’t make Shang Qinghua and Luo Jiahui any less important to each other.

I am looking forward to making Mobei-Jun and Luo Jiahui meet again, and tackling some of Mobei-Jun’s thoughts on Shang Qinghua’s relationship with his family. Mobei-Jun has a really shitty family, so it’s interesting thinking about what family means to him and how loyalty/love plays into it.

While he's busy plotting around the plot, there’s a hum of power behind him, the cool whoosh and crackle of a portal opening, the faint hair-rising warning of demonic energy. Shang Qinghua finishes tapping at his own face in thought, looks up at the looming shadow standing behind him, and smiles. He kind of feels like he should run away, but it's too late for that now. He held on long enough that he made it too late for himself.

“Hello,” he says.

AN: I took this almost exactly from the first chapter of Part 3 of this fic. I can’t remember the chapter number, but it was the one titled “The Inevitable Plot”.

Parts 3 and 4 of this fic blend together a little. Part 3 of this fic kind of ends here, but I have a couple more chapters that I want to tackle before I feel that I can say we’re for sure in Part 4? I have some things I want to accomplish before we go into a slight time skip towards the Immortal Alliance Conference.

#tossawary commentary #tossawary svsss #pride is not the word

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