#svsss ficlet

[silentheiss]

AU, where Luo Binghe meets Shen Yuan under different circumstances. Precisely, when one of his wives comes to him to ask for divorce.

Because she’s kind of in love with Shen Yuan, as it happens.

It goes like this:

Shen Yuan is having a great time being a transmigrator. He had quite a safe landing with being an NPC who’s never been mentioned in the book, so he’s not about to be killed by Luo Binghe anytime soon, and he’s doing great avoiding him.

Until he meets Ban Li. She’s so pretty and feisty she bound to become Luo Binghe’s wife one day, and Shen Yuan doesn’t want to be seen next to her when it happens. He’s not a suicidal idiot, despite what Ban Li says the first time they meet.

“-an utter degenerate! To face a Venomous Flying Spider in your own! What the hell were you thinking?” She yells, after cutting two back legs of the spider in one sharp swing of her sword, rendering beast to a withering, scaly pile. “At least you had a presence of mind to cut the wings first! Idiot!”

Who gives compliments like that? Shen Yuan sighs and positions himself more comfortably on the ground.

“As this one already said, everything was under control.”

“Ha!” Ban Li barks out, her eyes glowing green. Ah, must be a demoness, then. “Under what control? Be thankful for this one’s grace or your legs will be cut off!”

Shen Yuan laughs and offers Ban Li some sweets he always carries in his pouch. Things go smoothly after that — Ban Li accompanies him for next week, claiming she has a task of exterminating beasts in the area.

“Husband will want a report soon, but this one has time to spare.” Ban Li mentions one day.

“Ban Li is married?” Shen Yuan freezes. “Isn’t it inappropriate to- I mean for us, to. Uh.”

“This one was unaware Shen Yuan was courting.” Ban Li giggles, twirling a lock of her hair around her thin finger.

“I’m not!”

Ban Li laughs and leans closer to Shen Yuan, eyes glimmering.

“If you were,” She says, low and intimate. “I would agree. I would leave my absent husband and runaway with you.”

Ah. Now Shen Yuan sees how it is. Ban Li is not infatuated with him. She’s just-

“Ban Li, are you unhappy in your marriage?” He asks, heart breaking for this feisty, sweet demoness.

“Will Shen Yuan make it better?” Ban Li asks pitifully. Shen Yuan nods.

He will talk to that good-for-nothing husband of her and make him let Ban Li go. She’s promised to Luo Binghe, anyway, for plot purposes. He’ll just help smooth the process.

Several days later Ban Li takes Shen Yuan to a camp. It’s big, obviously expensive, and Ban Li looks almost shaky as they near the biggest, most impressive tent.

“Ban Li’s husband is… powerful.” Shen Yuan notes.

“He is.” Ban Li nods. “But this one doesn’t need his power.”

“Of course you don’t.” Shen Yuan nods. “We’ll make him see sense.”

Ban Li smiles at him, teeth sharp and eyes sharper.

“Shen Yuan is confident even in the face of the Emperor.”

Shen Yuan freezes.

“Ban Li.” He says, very quietly and very slowly. “Are you married to Luo Binghe?”

“Not for long!” Ban Li answers brightly.

Oh shit. Oh fuck.

“Ban Li.” Shen Yuan groans. “What the hell? Why on earth would you want to divorce Luo Binghe?”

“To stay at Shen Yuan’s side.” Ban Li says.

“Have you gone mad?” Shen Yuan demands. “Are you completely, utterly crazy? Who in their right mind would want to leave Luo Binghe to stay with me?!”

“Shen Yuan!” Ban Li whines. “You promised!”

“I didn’t know you were going to divorce the best person in the whole universe!”

Ban Li gasps at him.

“Do you want to marry Lord Luo?”

“No!” Shen Yuan says. “I’m a man, Ban Li.”

“So what?”

Shen Yuan feels like he’s going grey from the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.

“Ban Li, we’re losing a thread of the conversations here.” He says. “You cannot divorce Luo Binghe.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s stupid! Have you seen him? He’s the smartest, strongest, bravest man ever. He’s extremely good looking. He’s lived through hell and persisted. He’s amazing, Ban Li! You can’t leave him to stay with me, are you kidding? I thought you were smart!”

Ban Li pouts at him, folding her arms like a petulant child.

“If Shen Yuan is in love with Lord Husband-”

“I’m not!”

“No? Then why are you praising him so?”

“Because I have common sense?”

“I don’t want to get back to harem while Shen Yuan is risking his life fighting dangerous beasts!”

“Ban Li, I’m begging you.” Shen Yuan says. “You will regret your decision.”

“I will regret not seeing Shen Yuan anymore.”

“Nonsense!”

“I will run away.”

“Ban Li.”

“Try me. I will.”

Shen Yuan sighs, hiding his face in his hands. He’s so going to die today.

“Do you suppose your Lord Husband might need a librarian?”

Ban Li squeals and drags Shen Yuan into the tent.

Luo Binghe, who’s been silently listening to the whole conversation, hires him immediately. He doesn’t claim to know Ban Li well, but they definitely agree on one thing: Shen Yuan mustn’t ever leave.

[ineffectualdemon]

Shen Qingqiu decided he wasn't going to spend the next 5 years moping!

He had the author up talk to! He could finally ask all the world building questions and get all the monster details he wanted!

With that in mind he grabbed his favourite bestiary and walked elegantly to An Ding.

He definitely did not run like a little kid eager to talk to their friend about the latest power ranger episode.

He let himself into the other's leisure house, ignoring the disciples who tried to stop him.

"So," Shen Qingqiu began setting the bestiary in front of a very startled Shang Qinghua, "I have questions." He continued as he opened the bestiary to an illustration of a creature made of darkness and tentacles. With too many mouth and even more teeth.

"Ah" Shang Qinghua began after squinting at the page "Would."

He smiled up at Shen Qingqiu as if he was happily playing a game.

Shen Qingqiu meanwhile went completely still. His face blank and his fingernails digging into to the wood of the desk as that word bounced around his suddenly void of a brain.

They say the cry of "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WOULD'!?!????!!!!" was heard all across the peaks and even into the foothills.

The sight of the Xiu Ya sword chasing the An Ding Peak Lord all across An Ding was reserved for the disciples of that peak alone.

They would have interfered but their Shizun didn't seem in any real danger and judging from the cackling was actually enjoying himself for once.

[lurkinginnernarrator]

“Shen Qingqiu! What is this nonsense about Qing Jing requisitioning a disguise for one of its members?! You would dare send one of your little disciples trussed up like a pretty young mistress! Even I thought you better than”–

Qi Qingqi’s voice cut off on an extremely strangled note. She and the other Peak Lords all seemed unable to capture an ounce of oxygen.

Cang Qiong’s finest were gathered in a elegant war room, massive tables shoved to the side, covered with maps and intelligence reports: A mind-numbing amount of information scattered across sheaves of paper and neatly written on large boards; they spanned the walls not open to the serene nature of Qing Jing’s outdoors.

The murmuring of focused and purposeful Qing Jing disciples hushed at Qi Qingqi’s outraged exclamation and the sudden appearance of a majority of their shibo.

In the midst of the room, Shen Qingqiu stood, hands frozen in the action of sheathing a dagger to his inner thigh. While normally, such a sight would be arresting enough, it paled in comparison to the vision Qing Jing’s Lord made currently.

His eyes caught wide and surprised were rimmed with coal and rouge, claret lips parted infinitesimally. Gentle strands of hair framed his face and cascaded down his curved back. Hair ornaments tinkled and glittered in the silken black waves.

Delicate, airy robes flirted with graceful wrists, red lacquered nails making a pleasing contrast. Carmine and the tones of blushing rose danced about Shen Qingqiu, gentle fabric draping from his shapely frame; soft skin of his collarbones an–and the rounded mound of his, hi-his bust? Exposed. As was the refined line of sinewy thigh.

S-sshink!

Shen Qingqiu’s hand leaves the handle of the blade, nebulous skirts falling back into place, his pale thighs veiled from sight once more.

“Qi-shimei, Liu-shidi, Zhangmen-shixiong?”– Shen Qingqiu's eyes quickly take in the numerous uninvited visitors, yet his lilting voice doesn’t quicken from its whiplike cadence –”To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from Yue-shixiong and my shidimen?”

For some unknowable reason, Sect Master Yue and the Bai Zhan War God forsook courtesy for silence.

“Rather, to what does this Master owe my beloved sect siblings appearance,” the polished voice drawled, “ whose purpose is no doubt to meddle in the affairs of a Qing Jing operation? Without, may I add, any proper knowledge of the purpose of this operation to begin with?”

Mu Qingfang, who to this point was standing unobtrusively to the side, stepped forward, courteously greeting the Maste– Lady? Of Qing Jing.

His fellow peak lords prayed blessings, to be gifted such a level headed martial brother!

“These shidi apologize for the discourtesy, Shen-shixiong.” Mu Qingfang’s voice may have hesitated, or stuttered, and almost uttered ‘shijie’ but no one noticed because they were too caught up in their own lawless thoughts.

A Qing Jing disciple helpfully handed Shen Qinqqiu a fan. With a crack! It met his open palm, a gavel descrying doom.

Haloed in light, the Qing Jing Master stood like a wrathful goddess, a holy judge tired of the sullying presence of mortals.

Qing Jing’s Master, when garbed in his usual attire, was a sharp, intimidating figure. Graceful in his execution of masculinity, not unlike a dagger. Moreso, then, donning the mantle of femininity. Some intangible attributes changed, that when masculine, repelled, yet when feminine compelled. Those certain peak lords were unprepared to handle such a thing.

Shen Qingqiu tsked, turning his back he subsequently ignored them after hand-waving a disciple into acting as the hospitality.

The wrong-footed peak lords were bundled off to the side and laden with tea and light victuals, being appeased into silence and unobtrusiveness by snacks. If some of the scholarly disciples secretly thought of it as the kiddie table, that's for them to know, isn’t it?

[svsss-brainrot-blog]

Luo Binghe and Shen yuan interaction where Luo Binghe can read Shen Yuans thoughts.

It comes with the dusk, after a long day handling strange flowers for trade, when Shizun deigns to allow his humble and devoted husband to bathe him, and run the teeth of his ivory comb through long, dark tresses.

“Ah, Luo Binghe,” echoes in the back of his mind, like a sacred whisper, something warm flowing within it. “You are far too good to this old man.”

His hands still for a moment, halfway through a stroke of devotion. With a curious hum, Shizun’s eyes open, catching his in the mirror, and a trace of confusion slinks through that place behind his own thoughts.

“Binghe? Is something wrong?” His eyes search over him in that way they always have, but there is nothing to see when his mind is where the curiosity lays.

The thing is, Luo Binghe is not unused to having another’s thoughts in his mind. But he has never had Shizun’s. Even more so, it seems his revered master and husband has no idea that he’s doing it. Perhaps one of the Tethered Thought Lilies from earlier had managed to cling some of its pollen to the demon’s sleeve without notice. A careless mistake, he ought to know better. He’ll have to scour the room to make sure he didn’t track anything else in by accident.

“Nothing is wrong, Shizun,” Luo Binghe assured him, resuming the task at hand. The lilies were not very potent, and with the level of cultivation he and his husband possessed, they could not garner an effect for more than a few incense sticks’ worth of time, if that. “This humble disciple was only admiring the beautiful view.”

Right on cue, a fetching trace of pink races to color the fine, soft pale skin of Shen Qingqiu’s face.

“I swear he’s trying to get me to explode some days! What shameless words! How much more must I be expected to endure before he makes his move?”

“Shizun must know,” Luo Binghe continues, setting down the comb in favor of nosing along his husband’s neck. “That he is the best sight this unworthy one could ever see, in any lifetime.”

“This is it,” come Shen Qingqiu’s thoughts, trilling with something like anticipation. “The part where he kisses me and whisks me away...”

Luo Binghe smiled, and, just to be contrary, pulled back to pick up the comb once more.

“Huh? He didn’t…?”

Luo Binghe twisted the long, luxurious hair into a simple braid. “May this lowly one accompany Shizun to rest?”

“What. The. Hell.” His Shizun’s voice nipped at his mind, filled with a buzz that the demon lord could only identify as the beginnings of irritation. “Where the fuck is my kiss, Luo Binghe?! All that talk all day of love and devotion and you aren’t even going to kiss your one and only fucking husband goodnight?! What was all that buildup today for if you were going to back off at the last moment?!”

“If it pleases Binghe, this master will permit it,” is what his husband actually says with grace and elegance, but Luo Binghe is struck dumb for a moment by the sheer intensity and vulgarity that just swept through his mind. Something sharp and unpleasant digs into his consciousness where he can feel their short, unplanned bond.

With a smooth motion, Shen Qingqiu stands from the vanity and slips away, and as soon as his hair leaves Luo Binghe’s hands, the thread that binds them snaps.

“Shizun wait,” the demon calls, quickly moving to hold the other around the waist, nearly melting as the feeling of connection returns.

“Stupid.” Shizun’s voice cuts through at the first brush, cold and cruel. “What idiotic thing was I thinking? He had his fill just this morning, he would not care enough for it again so soon. And why should I care? Not every word is meant to ply my willingness. Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

And then, a thought so quiet, it barely registers under all the other cacophony. “Did I do something to displease him? Is that why?”

“Shizun,” Luo Binghe calls, once more burrowing into his neck. Guilt cut thick through his heart, making the scar on his chest ache. Shizun would fret, and undo all the effort Luo Binghe had put into his relaxing bath, but he could not bear to let his most beloved think he was unwanted. “…Shizun could never displease this lowly demon.”

“What.” Shen Qingqiu’s thoughts echo his words.

“Forgive me, Shizun,” Luo Binghe asks, tightening his hold. “It seems this unfilial one had some pollen left on his sleeves from the Tethered Thought Lilies. I should not have pried.”

“FUCK,” his inner thoughts declare as he abruptly pulls away.

“Luo Binghe!” his master chastises with a scandalized expression. “You-!”

“Shizun’s thoughts are so straightforward,” Luo Binghe says, bowing his head. “And this one did not think the short duration would be of consequence. But this Luo Binghe was wrong.” Still, he reached out, pulling the other close once again. “But this one did not mean to upset his husband, whom he loves dearly and longs for with great affection.”

With as much repentance as he could muster, Luo Binghe laid a chaste kiss at the corner of his husband’s lips. The immortal master simply stared at him for several long moments, tumultuous emotions flittering through the back of Luo Binghe’s mind faster than he could decipher.

“Take me to bed if you’re truly so sorry, you foolish thing.”

“Shizun,” Luo Binghe purred, lifting the other easily into his arms for a proper kiss as he carried them to their chambers. “I love you.”

“Fool,” Shizun sighed, acting put upon even as a trill of pleased satisfaction rumbled through Luo Binghe’s thoughts.

“I love you too.”

[allpiesforourown]

Superstar Luo Binghe au. All the directors beg him to be in their movies because his fame will immediately assure success for anything they make. He’s handsome, charming, dedicated, and most of all, extremely talented. He even does his own stunts!! Women love him, and men who say they hate him will still watch his movies so they can figure out how to be more like him. 

The only weird thing about Binghe as an actor is that he refuses to star in romantic films. He won’t kiss anyone, won’t pretend to date someone on screen, won’t even let another actor take over his role for the scenes he doesn’t want to do. His reason? He’s completely loyal to his husband.

Everyone thinks it’s stupid, obviously. You aren’t “cheating” by pretending to love someone else, it’s literally your job! Luo Binghe still refuses and says even he’s not good enough an actor to make anyone believe he could ever love someone other than Yuan-ge.

His fans hate this mysterious Yuan-ge. Because of his (probably insecure and jealous) spouse, all of Binghe’s fangirls cant see him sweep some y/n character off their feet. It’s even worse because they don’t know anything about this guy. Whenever someone asks to see or learn about Binghe’s husband, the star says he’ll never reveal Yuan-ge to the public, because he’s too beautiful and he doesn’t want everyone falling in love with him. 

People kind of run with the idea that obviously this guy must be a total weirdo who Binghe is embarrassed to be seen with. That has to be the explanation, because no matter how perfect someone is, how can they have such a chokehold on THE LUO BINGHE??

Then, one day, years after Luo Binghe’s initial rise to fame…. He goes on a talkshow. With his husband Shen Yuan. 

Obviously EVERYONE tunes in. No one uses TVs anymore bc of the internet, but just for this show, viewer ratings are the highest theyve ever been. Everyone wants to know what the fuss is all about with this guy to have Luo Binghe so down horrible. 

And Shen Yuan isn’t a weirdo. He’s also not some pretty yesman. He makes jokes that make the audience burst into laughter. He’s opinionated, which is really refreshing when every other celebrity stays neutral on every topic to avoid losing fans. He’s polite, but he’s not a pushover. He’s likeable, but he’s not a try-hard about it. Referencing memes makes him an instant hit with the younger generations, and the calm gentle way he talks makes him a hit with the older ones. All of a sudden everyone is going, okay we see why Luo Binghe is obsessed with him. 

Except… while shen yuan was making jokes and charming everyone, Luo Binghe was at his side, pathetically pawing at his husband for attention. The actor keeps whining every two minutes to be reassured yuan-ge still likes him. Whenever Shen Yuan compliments the host, Binghe looks like he’s about to cry. Whenever Luo Binghe jealously wraps his arms around shen Yuan everyone watching just rolls their eyes. Seeing them together people realize… shen yuan is the one that’s out of Luo Binghe’s league.

In just one hour public opinion goes from ‘no one can be worth binghe acting like that for’ to ‘luo binghe is so annoying, let shen yuan talk!!’ 

The next day someone finds shen yuan’s twitter and it blows up. He has his own fan pages now. There’s no pictures of him online other than the footage from the talkshow, so the fan accounts just post that over and over again. Shen yuan retweets a post about him with the caption “i never realized she was holding a plate of corn in this scene” and everyone loses their mind. Everything he says immediately goes viral bc that’s luo binghe’s attic wife.

People start nagging Binghe to post about Shen Yuan bc theyre so attached after his one and only publicized appearance. Binghe is super possessive, but yuan-ge tells him not to worry, so he relents and posts pictures of him and shen yuan on vacation. They’re together, holding hands… but shen yuan’s face and body are blurred out. It’s HORRIFYING. He looks like an eldritch monster bc luo binghe refuses to let anyone look at his yuan-ge in a swim suit, go away you perverts!! His instragram is now just full of pics of shen yuan where his eyes are blacked out so noone else can see how pretty they are. It’s nightmare fuel

Shen Yuan is unfortunately too unbothered to post pictures of himself. Everyone’s tired of Luo Binghe for “hogging shen yuan all to himself” when Shen Yuan is practically an internet celebrity now. 

People go to watch movies and their theatre conversations sound like this:

“Oh, Luo Binghe’s in this one!”

“Who?”

“You know Shen Yuan’s annoying husband?”

“OH THAT GUY..”

[jiangyanlissidepiece]

(POV: little Ning Yingying overhears the peak lords gossiping about her Baba and corrects them!!)

—

“What?” Ning Yingying blurted out before she could stop herself, pure confusion on her face. “Shizun doesn’t sleep with women!”

Several faces blanched, and Yue Qingyuan rapidly began to look constipated at her bluntness.

“Oh honey,” Qi Qingqi said, pitying. “You shouldn’t even be hearing about this.”

Ning Yingying shrugged off the hand the older cultivator placed on her shoulder, now even more upset. “He doesn’t sleep with my aunties. That would be weird. And gross.”

“Your aunties…?” Mu Qingfang’s eyes cleared. It looked like he was rapidly putting things together in his mind.

“Your aunties are at the Warm Red Pavillion?” Qi Qingqi seemed stuck on that fact, eyebrows raised high.

“Yes!” She tried not to stomp her foot. Just because Baba didn’t mind when she acted childish, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t. “Why else would he go and visit there?”

Wei Qingwei coughed awkwardly. “Well, I mean…”

Qi Qingqi stomped on his foot, and he let out an unmanly screech.

“Why do your aunties live at the Warm Red Pavillion?” Qi Qingqi asked carefully, eyes narrowed.

“Ba—Shizun says it’s because he doesn’t have enough money to pay for them to leave.” The little girl looks sad, but then she brightens up again like a flower in the sun. “But he says he’s getting there, so they might leave soon!”

“Oh.” Shang Qinghua said, looking paler than usual. “Well that’s fine, then.”

“Did you almost call him something else?” Asked a female peak lord who Ning Yingying didn’t recognize.

“Baba says I can’t call him Baba in public…” Ning Yingying informed them glumly. “Because people might think he didn’t adopt me. And that they might treat me differently. I think that’s kinda stupid, though, but don’t tell him I said that…”

Yue Qingyuan put a hand over his entire face, and groaned.

[oh-no-its-bird]

Staring into the void thinking about my unloved little guy favorites and feeling the thoughts mix with my adoration for stupid niche crossovers. I want a svsss x Naruto crossover but instead of anyone especially notable from svsss who crosses over it's my favorite "really not as bad as he could be" award winner, Ming Fan

Squinting back at naruto and flipping a coin to decide if he lands in warring states era or modern konoha and deciding I like both of these options, so we're going to do 2 separate stories/timelines. Or maybe we'll have him land in the past then get flashed forward to future Konoha when he tries going home so he gets the best of both worlds, who knows— I'll decide when I get there.

With that said, buckle in baby because it's time for:

✨️ Ming Fans very unfortunate fall into the mess that is naruto canon ✨️

Ming Fan gets flung into another dimension due the ultimate possible sin in svsss: being a background character.

Some obligatory crazy adventure was happening to Luo Binghe and SQQ involving some magic artifact, and in your stereotypical "someone not too important to the plot touches the object and gets exploded, proving it's dangerous to touch + upsetting SQQ so LB can appropriately comfort him" (probably originally a wife plot) scene, Ming Fan gets zapped into naruto canon. Woops!

If it helps him feel any better, SQQ really is upset by this. Binghe is not. At all. He might think it's karma but also this guy doesn't know the first fucking thing about appropriate levels of karma so maybe he should keep his mouth shut.

(Neither of these facts make him feel better but do you know what does? Imagining SQQ yelling at Binghe for this. He's so fucking sure it's that guy's fault somehow. It's always his fault somehow.)

So boom, he gets zapped into the worst possible (and my personal favorite moment for inconvenient time travel) moments; The final battle between the Uchiha and the Senju.

Specifically, he gets zapped directly onto Tobirama's sword. Queue shocked Pikachu faces from everyone— including Ming Fan but with added dramatic blood and cursing in chinese. Bc hey!! They don't speak the same fucking language actually!!

Unfortunate.

So Tbrm and Izuna both jump back away from this unknown as Ming Fan continues to bleed and curse and be very fucking confused as to where he was.

He took the hit in the shoulder of his non dominant arm, it's a pretty clean cut and he's a cultivator so he'll be fine with some rest but MAN if it don't hurt like a bitch. On top of the motion sickness of being launched through time and space too, and wrapped up in a little bow of "surrounded by hostile looking strangers all yelling in a language I don't understand"

Yeah he's not having the greatest time right now.

So like, Ming Fan just sort of appeared out of nowhere, right? Which has Tobirama extra fucked up bc, yk, hiraishin.

Izuna doesn't know that he was just saved from death death, so he's appropriately grateful at avoiding being stabbed but also like. Who the fuck are you. How did you get here. You just interrupted my battle with my rival and I take a little offense to that actually.

Everyone is yelling and confused and Ming Fan is seriously debating hopping on his sword and flying off because fuck this.

Madara and Hashirama finally enter stage left and are both like "well he's not one of ours" so now everyone is eyeing him even more suspiciously and a couple people are for sure lowkey tensing to attack

Enter convenient svsss mcguffin! Because "idk it sounds like something SQQ would know how to do," Ming Fan knows some language technique that allows him to speak/understand a language for a certain amount of time.

So he grabs his sword and circulates his qi to prepare the technique, and everyone tenses up because hey what are you doing over there buddy

Tobirama, a really good sensor, can actually sense the differences between Ming Fan's qi circulating through his dantian vs how shinobi would circulate chakra through their chakra coils. So he's holding a hand up like 'wait let him cook' @ the Senju who tensed up for a possible attack, if only because he wants to see where this goes and is confident that if he tried anything fr, well, he's kind of surrounded on all sides rn by two entirely different factions

The Uchiha meanwhile don't want to be the first to strike, so everyone's just kinda cautiously gripping their weapons in this very odd battlefield stall

And boom: now he can speak their language.

I'd say the first thing he does is grab Tobirama and shake him while cussing him out about watching where he's swinging that sword of is but he's smarter than that. (For sure it's what he wants to do tho. He is picturing it. Oh man is he picturing it.)

So like, actual communication for now

Now. PIDW is fucking filled with all sorts of mcguffins, "I touched something I shouldnt have and when I opened my eyes I was somewhere strange" is alarmingly common, and the sect absoloutley has some sort of "teleportation checklist" to run through whenever your random, unfortunate disciple gets fucking zapped.

(I like to hc that Shang Quinghua had some sort of hand in making an "official" checklist taught across the peaks, and that different peaks treat this checklist with uhh,, different amounts of respect. (LQG thinks its useless but has simultaneously run the tally for peak lord whose gotten stranded by artifacts he shouldn't have touched the most. These two facts may be directly correlated.))

Anyways; Ming Fan gets to doing that checklist. He's demanding to know where he is, when he doesn't recognize the name, how close he is to the sea, what year and time of the year it is, where the nearest sect is, etc.

At first this is directed at Izuna and Tobirama both, but when Izuna fails to answer as directly as Tobirama does (with quick, flat answers) and also tries to return the questions ("who are you, how did you get here, etc.") he directs his attention soley to Tobirama. Even though hes a little BITCH and stabbed him

(Ming Fan can recognize he teleported directly onto his blade but this will not change him being butt hurt ab it)

For everyone watching, this is weird as all hell! Who is this guy? Why these questions? Ew why is he deferring to the Senju, our Izuna-sama would be so much better to ask—

Now, quick side note, the thing about Ming Fan is he's just like a dude. He's just a guy. But also he's really not, but also he really is? If that makes sense?

He's the senior most disciple and (correct me if I'm wrong here bc its been a while) SQQ's head disciple, which means he'll be the next peak lord in however many years when SQQ and his generation chooses to ascend. So he's definatley not a slacker when it comes to power or wit. Even if he does rank pretty low in the overall SVSSS canon, but also like, yeah, background character vs actual heavenly demons n shit.

So he's definitely a pretty impressive guy!! But also he's just a guy. And he's in contact with the power houses and freaks that is SVSSS main cast (*cough* Luo Bingghe *cough*) So his sense of self and where be ranks power wise is probably skewed to a degree. (Though I imagine that when left to his own devices and not having to defer to his shizun, he definitely suffers from "haughty bitch disease" (tragically not fatal, for now at least)

Thus; cultivator version of just a dude. I love him!!

(arguably the only better option for the "svsss just a dude award" would be Gongyi Xiao, who I also love dearly but he's not here right now, so, winner by default Ming Fan!!! (Story of his fucking life tbh))

Anyways, back to plot:

So, thinking that Ming Fan immediatley recognizes Tobirama's hiraishin design bc it was actually enscribed on whatever artifect got him sent here. Wwoahhh mystery or something idk but theres that

(Was Airplane thinking about naruto when he created this specific object? Did he maybe google "sealing design ideas" then copy paste the hiraishin directly into his work, knowing no one but him would know what he had done since there was no artwork to go with it? Maybe. Perhaps. Just possibly.)

I honestly dont really know where itd go from that, but like Ming Fan probably sticks around specifically to harass Tobirama in the hopes he can send him home.

He points at the Hiraishin and goes "Your talisman brought me here. Take responsibility."

Tobirama understands this as his activation of the Hiraishin in battle literally summoned Ming Fan (only half true) and the poor mans presence here is thus entirely his fault. (Ehhhhh not really)

Ming Fan will not correct this assumption.

Either way though, Tobirama would not give up the chance / excuse to interact with and help return an interdimensional traveler. Can you say science experiment?? Because Tobirama sure fucking can!

Tobirama ends up having a fucking field day trying to find ways to replicate Ming Fan's different techniques with chakra instead of qi, and just in general studying how the energy in their bodies flows and works so differently yet so similarly

Anyways !

Through convoluted reasons peace happens somehow

Ming Fan calls Izuna a dumb bitch to his face maybe, idk that sounds like smthn hed do. But also like more politely bc they have different ways of speaking and SQQ probably gets on his ass about 'if you're going to insult someone do it in a way that reflects well on your own and the peaks teachings'

Actually I love that and now I need Ming Fan and Izuna cat fights

Actually I need Ming Fan and everyone cat fights, Izuna just gets the worse of it bc in my heart he is diva coded in a similar way to Ming Fan

Tobirama also bites back but hes too interested in the opportunity to study Ming Fan to risk being proper rude like he usually would to like, pretty much anyone else.

"Did this guy call me and my entire clan useless warmongers with the collective IQ of a tree stump? Yes. Do I want to cut him open to see if his organs match my own? Also yes. And my chances of getting to do this are very slightly raised by at minimum not pointing out that he has the attitude of if chihuahua got fucked by the worlds angriest hairless cat and spat out a human shaped baby."

Madara is NOT safe from the Ming Fan bitchfest but hes too busy happily drinking with Hashirama at the prospect of peace to give him his full attention, so he lets Izuna handle the cat fights

Hashirama meanwhile thinks hes kind of a tool but is also too busy happily drinking with Madara to really care, and is also the sort of guy to think that bitchy people are funny (as long as he isnt the one who has to deal with the consequences they bring) so honestly? Hes also having fun watching him and Izuna fight

Ummm stuff happens, peace is achieved, Konoha is developed and Ming Fan is in the thick of it bc he still needs Tobirama to send him home. He's kind of just,, there. Hanging out. Doesnt really have anything to do here, isnt particularly invested in this city building shit. As head disciple he has experience with things like management and the like, but nothing on this scale. He is however familiar with the concept of government-esq bodies overseeing superpowered people in societies equivalent to something close to a village. So that might come in handy, idk

But yeah, Ming Fan is just kind of hanging around, maybe he's brought in as a fresh pair of eyes / consultant

When it comes time to elect a Hokage, it's Madara vs Hashirama, with both of their younger brothers obviously backing their elder brothers.

Ming Fan, who has taken many, many missions across many different villages, countries, kingdoms and more, has seen this fucking story go down a million different ways. Better yet, he's seen this story go down a million different ways, often with SQQ hanging over his shoulder providing live commentary and a fucking insiders POV on the mechanics of this

The thing about Madara is that he is clearly respected by his clan, and feared by others. But he's not really,,, approachable.

Meanwhile Hashirama is the same, but he is approachable

And Izuna? Well, he has a real charm to him that his brother lacks. A charm that could realistically stand pretty well against Hashirama's own charm. He's popular, genuinley, among his own clan and surprisingly among some Senju as well. Whereas Madara was 'the force to be reckoned with' Izuna occupied a sort of middling space, always standing against Tobirama. Plus, hes easy on the eyes and can rock a pretty effective 'open and friendly smile.'

Not to mention he was the Uchiha's spy master, probably would go on to be Konoha's in the future, so he's a pro at managing people

Between Madara and Izuna, if you want an Uchiha to run for Hokage and win... wasn't Izuna clearly the better option?

Ming Fan brings this up to Izuna one day and he's actually kind of blindsided by this. The idea straight up never occurred to him, too used to being in the position to back his brother and raise him up to ever consider wanting the position Madara desired for himself.

He considers it for all of 3 seconds, a noticeable hesitation, before he laughs and shakes his head, saying that he would never steal his big brothers dreams like that. If he has the skills to win the Hokage position, he'd just use them to make sure Madara does instead

(Madara, overhearing their conversation from the hallway, retreats silently to think.)

A week later, and right before the intentions of Madara and Hashirama are announced to officially begin running for Hokage are announced, and a switch is made. A strangely quiet Madara switches out with Izuna at the last minute, a surprise to literally everyone but Ming Fan, who huffs approvingly

(This... has been his dream for so long. The village, his clan, safe and at peace. To be able to lead that would be... everything. But if his own baby brother would be more likely to be choosen for that over himself... At the very least, Madara wants to see an Uchiha with the hat.)

It's worth mentioning also that at this point, Ming Fan has a decent amount of influence on his own. Like, obviously, he's hanging out with the clan heads and heirs, he isnt contributing too much to the village, but he is contributing. He's pulling his weight, and he often spends time just kinda wandering around, talking to people, learning about this different world and the things it has to offer— different food, clothing styles, stories, the culture, just all of it

And that on its own is enough to endear him to plenty of people. Plus, as Konoha grows and more clans join in, he remains at its center sort of by default of having landed in that position from the start.

I think he's especially popular with more common people, bc he'll often be wandering around, just kinda exploring and all that, and if you complain to him theres a chance he might take that complaint all the way to the top, and your complaint (if its serious enough) might actually be dealt with. And as Konoha grows and more and more people clutter the information train, that's really fucking valuable!

All of that is to say that when Ming Fan makes a mostly careless comment in public about thinking Izuna would make a better Hokage, well, it's an endorsement from a well respected person. Who knows if it truly impacts the outcome, and god knows Ming Fan isn't like, actively campaigning for either of them—he probably doesn't care too much on who wins, finds them both agreeable enough as leaders (they both annoy him in different ways but at least with Izuna he's clearly grown begrudgingly fond of the back and forth they have)

So! It's an incredibly close race, but in the end Izuna wins, becoming the first Hokage

(His dramatic ass is absolutely on board with Hashirama's idea for a carved face in the mountainside, even as Tobirama, Madara and Ming Fan both physically cringe at the idea)

Ming Fan ends up being stuck there for a couple year, which is... annoying, but he's an immortal cultivator and has had much longer missions, so overall he's mild about his displeasure. Clear progress is being made by Tobirama, who is open about each new discovery he makes between Ming Fan and a normal mortal of this world

("To discover what made the hiraishin bring you here from another world entirely, we must first map out exactly what makes you and me so biologically different that the seal would react so strongly")

Anyways, Tobirama finally figures out how to fuck with the hiraishin enough to send Ming Fan back !! Yay, the day is saved and everyone is different levels of sorry to see him go, ranging from mildly fond to 'oh thank fucking gone, LEAVEEE ALREADYYYY' from the many, many people he's probably annoyed while here

Izuna and Ming Fan say goodbye and "Ill almost miss fighting with your bitch ass" in the weird language of insults they've developed, which to others just sounds like "dont go missing me too much, even tho youll never find someone else on my level to talk with again 💅"

Izuna gets one last jab in as Ming Fan is teleporting away but literally right as he's dissapearing Ming Fan gets one back in, making him officially holder of 'Got The Last Word' and this will piss off Izuna for the rest of all time

And so Ming Fan is safely returned hom— OH FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHERE IS HE NOW?? GODDAMIT TOBIRAMA

Yeah, so, Ming Fan is instead zapped some decades into the future, into Kakashi's genin days

I mean, congrats to Tobirama, he just invented time travel, so, thats cool

Ming Fan doesnt actually give a shit though because this is not what he was promised, Tobirama you useless hack—!

He was sent back from the battlefield where he appeared, something about eliminating the chances of the specific location being involved in the act of breaking through universes, and reappeared in that same place.

He pretty quickly makes his way over to Konoha via flying sword, easily dodging the many patrols in the area who are at pretty much full swing due to the fact that we're nearing the start of the second shinobi war.

(Sakumo has not yet been assigned that doomed mission of his but will be any day now)

Ok so. POV you're one of the guys guarding the gates of Konoha.

And out of seemingly nowhere this fucking GUY. Just. DESCENDS FROM THE SKY FROM THE BACK OF A SWORD. Immediately starts angrily yelling at you about demanding to know where Senju Tobirama, the fucking nidaime who died years ago, currently is. And that he needs to get his bitchy little quack doctor ass out here RIGHT FUCKING NOW and do what he GODDAMN PROMISED

As Im sure you can imagine, the gate guards. Do not react too well to this.

I think Ming Fan received a konoha headband, and he usually doesnt wear it unless he's like, going into battle and needs to be able to be identified by his allies. And he wasnt wearing it when he was ready to hop on home, so he takes it out now and kinda shoves it in their face like THERE LOOK IM ONE OF YOU NOW WHERE IS TOBIRAMA.

They might have tried to arrest him but he was rocking with that "do you know who I fucking am, let me speak to your manager RIGHT NOW. Who is your hokage is Izuna still in charge I will ask him to light your ass on fucking fire if you dont bring me to him 5 goddamn minutes ago" swag and, like, he was just so confident about it the gate guards didnt?? really know what to do?? HE SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT GUYS AND THATS SCARY

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOULL ASK THE SHODAI HOKAGE TO (WHAT, RISE FROM HIS GRAVE?) TO GIVE US A SHAKING

(He wouldnt lmao, Izuna would probably have given them a gift basket for inconveniencing Ming Fan tbh. This fact however will never and has never stopped Ming Fan from using his name as a blunt force weapon against those who dont know better.)

So.

Ming Fan is brought to the Hokage.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE AS WE NOW INTRODUCE KONOHA'S SANDAIME HOKAGE IN THIS TIMELINE MING FAN HAS NOW LIGHTLY FUCKED UP,,,

KAGAMI UCHIHA !!!

Yeah so with Izuna as the first Hokage, the hat then went to Tobirama, who then passed it down to Kagami, who is currently looking at Sakumo as his possible successor

So, a very peeved Ming Fan is escorted to the Hokage's office. On his way over, he's taking note of the buildings and the clear passage of time. He looks at the mountain and finds 2 new faces besides Izuna's own annoying one, and catches wind of exactly what happened pretty fast.

Hopefully Tobirama isn't dead yet though, because oh man does Ming Fan have some words for him

(Ming Fan is annoyed to find his favorite little shop from before has been replaced by some stupid fuckin ramen restaurant. Ugh.)

Ming Fan finally arrives, and Kagami, who actually interacted with him more than a few times back in the day, does a fucking comedy spit take and blurts out, "Fan-dono?????"

Ming Fan does not recognize him at first and when he finally does, it's him going oh you're that hanger on brat who was always begging Tobirama to teach you.

Not. The most flattering take. But Kagami will take it.

So Kagami is like, Hokage now. But also he has memories of Ming Fan as both Tobirama's friend and also Izuna's friend and also just like. "Respected guy my mom told me to be good around."

So theres all sorts of things happening in his head rn on how to react to this situation

Ming Fan meanwhile has never interacted with a Hokage he wasnt allowed to call stupid to their face (to be fair Izuna would immediatley call him stupid back) so he is not giving Kagami the respect expected of like. Literally any ordanary shinobi to give him.

But he lucks out and gets a pass on it bc Kagami still has him slotted into the "sensei and Izuna-sama's respected friend" part of his brain that makes him feel like a kid again

(behind him, the ANBU squad does not like or agree with this turn of events. at all. who the FUCK are you to talk to the Hokage like this what the FUCK)

I think Danzo fucking despises Ming Fan, just because its funny. Ming Fan called him a nosey little brat one too many times as a kid and Danzo developed a childish grudge that he totally forgot about later in life— till he runs into Ming Fan again, years later, looking annoyingly exactly the same, and reawakens the rage of a slighted 12 year old

Sarutobi I dunno, I think hes somewhere between Kagami and Danzo on "this guy hits the buttons in my brain that make me feel like Im a kid being scolded by my sensei again" and also "holy shit FUCK this guy"

Anyways! Heres the thing:

When he left, Ming Fan absoloutley took some of Tobirama's research with him. It was probably some sort of exchange thing— way back when Ming Fan agreed to be a little science experiment in the first place, he probably made a deal of "yeah ok fine but I want every crumb of research you pull from me and I wanna take it home when I go"

Tobirama kinda shrugged and went "yeah fair enough, but were gonna have to agree on what kind of person is allowed to see some of it"

Shook on it, the end

So Ming Fan has this big ass thing of notes up his sleeve— filled with stuff about the differences between a shinobi and a cultivators bodies, some different fun notes Tobirama took while adapting some of Ming Fan's techniques to be used by chakra and vice versa w Ming Fan trying to use Tobirama's techniques with qi, notes on editing the hiraishin to try and get him home, etc.

Theres also probably just some other random stuff— mostly medical and jutsu / sealing guides, which Ming Fan traded information to bring home thinking the sect would benefit from it. If nothing else, his shizun will get a kick out of it

(oh boy would SQQ get a fucking kick out of seeing goddamn naruto lore written out in detail and refffered to as texts from another dimension)

^ so all of that is to say that Ming Fan has the traces of the seal to try to bring him back home, but he cant fucking use it himself bc he doesnt know how to preform the hiraishin, which is a major component of it

(and also part of why Tobirama let him take it to begin with, unconcerned of Ming Fan or someone else ever using it to come back bc they've already established his different biology somehow makes him physically unable of using the hiraishin)

So he just needs to find Tobirama again, or minimum someone who can use the hiraishin, and he can at least just try again. Maybe the last time sending him forward was a fluke? It probably only needs some minor tweaks, right? So just— get him Tobirama, and they'll sort it out

Learning Tobirama is dead, Ming Fan is,,, well, he was already prepared to say goodbye when he left the first time. And looking at the statues, Tobirama clearly lived an accomplished life. Same with Izuna— Ming Fan kind of resolves to just not think about it.

When he asks about Madara, Ming Fan is informed that a year after he left, Madara apparently turned traior and attacked the village. This is. A lot. For him to swallow.

Ming Fan has a moment of blaming himself for not having seen the darkness festering inside Madara, but brushes the feeling away. There was nothing he could have done, and he has been down the road of blaming himself for not catching a tell that hinted towards secret evil intentions one too many times during his missions to do it again here.

(Still, a complicated feeling rises in him. He'd spent years, at that point, by the founders side. To hear Madara had gone and tried to kill them all— If nothing else, Ming Fan had truly thought Madara loved his brother.)

BUT DO YOU KNOW WHO IS SOMEHOW ALIVE? FUCKING HASHIRAMA AND MITO !!!

Hashirama, having never become Hokage, was never poisoned! Instead he retired, now too old to fight even if he wanted to, and lives in the Senju compound with his aging wife and big family (including his granddaughter, Tsunade)

In the last few years, it's seems like he's become sick, only a few people allowed to visit him, and almost only senju. Very sad, he's expected to die any day now

SO !

Ming Fan hops over to the Senju compound, and though literally everybody expected he wouldn't be allowed to see him, Hashirama permits him to enter his rooms

(The list of those who can see Hashirama is as follows:

His wife

His children and grandchildren

The Hokage

and on one very memorable occasion, the current Uchiha clan head, Uchiha Hikaku)

Ming Fan being added to that list,, well, he may not realize it's weight, but its safe to say that once the fact gets out, it's enough to pretty instantly cement him as trustworthy to most of Konoha. Especially those in higher circles

So, Ming Fan goes to Hashirama's side, and Mito greets him. She explains that the Mokuton is as much as a curse as it is a blessing, and opens the door for Ming Fan to see exactly what she means.

For the past few years, Hashirama has been stuck in the process of turning into a tree.

There... isn't much more to say about that.

They had prepared a room for him to spread his roots in, open aired and protected by enough seals to blind a man if they attempted to look in. With grassy floors covered in wildflowers, and a small stream that Mito says they decorated with rocks from the Naka river.

Hashirama sits at the center of it all, more tree than man, asleep most days but having miraculously awoken just in time for Ming Fan's arrival.

Hashirama jokes that it must be fate, and Ming Fan, sobered in this moment, nods and says that his Shizun has often said that everyone is bound by the strings of fate. Whether they obeyed the strings was up to them, but so long as they walked, the strings would continue to guide them to the places they needed to be.

Hashirama laughs, and tells him that he half expected to be cursed out once he'd heard that Ming Fan had been stranded here by his brothers seal.

"Is that really how you wish for this reunion to go?" Ming Fan asks, and Hashirama only laughs again.

"I'd rather hear you curse my name than sit and suffer through you playing polite because you're too offput by this old mans condition to say what you're thinking."

Ming Fan sighs, laying on the grass and staring up at Hashirama's leaves and halfheartedly curses at Tobirama's name, lamenting his situation as Hashirama listens with a smile.

"You don't seem as distressed as I'd expected!" Hashirama notes, and Ming Fan only shrugs. "I'll figure it out, I'm sure."

"How uncharacteristically optimistic of you!"

"I suppose that's just you rubbing off on me then."

Hashirama and Ming Fan talk for quite a while, and it reminds Ming Fan of older nights, when Konoha was still young, before even the Hokage was elected. Nights occasionally spent drinking together, sometimes alone, sometimes with others— Tobirama, Izuna, Madara, Touka, Hikaku, an array of clan heads and heirs, people who've come to make a home, find some peace, and in that moment only share a drink.

To Ming Fan, it had only been a couple of years since those early days.

To Hahirama, it had been decades.

Ming Fan is invited to stay at the Senju compound for as long as he needs to find a way home.

When he stands, he turns to Hashirama, and offers a bow. Lower than any he's offered before, in this world.

"Thank you for your generosity."

Hashirama smiles, and accepts the gratitude for all that it means.

That night, Senju Hashirama falls asleep, and never wakes again.

SOOO ANYWAYS !!

Ming Fan is now staying with the Senju!! In this verse the family is a bit bigger than canon, due to Hashirama's continued survival throughout the years and how that impacted general Konoha politics. This is also before Tsunade left the village, with her little brother Nawaki still alive and Orochimaru's student (though much like Sakumo, their tragic fates are destined to happen any day now)

Through Ming Fan interference, both of these characters eventually avoid these fates, dont ask me how tho but just know that it happens, so.

Ming Fan has 2 goals!

Find someone who can preform the hiraishin!

Find someone who can alter the seals Tobirama used last in an attempt to get him home!

Luckily for Ming Fan, Mito knows just how to help in both of these cases! She can cover number 2, as Konoha's leading (and oldest) seal expert, and her darling grand-niece, Kushina, just so happens to be dating the only guy in the world who knows how to use the hiraishin, isn't that convenient?

With Mito agreeing to help alter the seal and someone to actually use it set in place, Ming Fan has nothing left to really do other than just,, wait.

The good news is that, since he brought Tobirama's research with him and the alterations shouldn't take nearly as much time as last time, it should only be a few months!

This is where we get Ming Fan once again fucking around the village, and how inevitable interferes with Nawaki and Sakumo's deaths

Maybe he's bored and goes with Nawaki on his mission? He's definitely interacting with him, they both live in the senju compound after all!

Nawaki idolizes his grandfather Hashirama, and Ming Fan is apparently a good friend of his!! So hes totally harassing Ming Fan to know more about that!

I think the "time travel" bit is kept secret from the public, just bc like, messyyyy, and Ming Fan's own involvment in early Konoha is pretty unknown in general just bc he was overshadowed by more relevant historical figures— plus its not like he had a clan to continue to remember him.

So very few people even know he existed, let alone that he's that same guy from history

Ummm Ming Fan and Sakumo friendship, I like to hc skaumo as being friends with the sanin so maybe hes around the Senju compound sometimes, idk

A panicked Sakumo is called in for a super last minute mission and tushes over to beg Tsunade to babysit only to realize shes also out, then somehow ropes Ming Fan into watching over Kakashi

Ming Fan ends up lightly making fun of Kakashi's use of chakra (his own pov of how to use chakra being heavily skewed due to experiments with Tobirama) and ends up being roped further into helping to train Kakashi using techniques, tips and tricks told to him by Tobirama

Ming Fan does NOT want to teach Kakashi, Kakashi is very much harassing him into doing it and Ming Fan is less teaching and more 'throwing techniques at him in the hopes hell go away only to find that Kakashi has figured out how to do it correctly on his own and wow thats really alarming actually'

I think Ming Fan would like Kakashi and also be a terrible fucking influence on him bc he is absolutely encouraging him to be as mean and bratty as possible (with other people)

Ming Fan is the kind of guy to teach his students to be evil under the table so they can get away with it, like, "ok so I heard you tried to sabotage someone. And Im really disappointed actually bc you chose such an obvious way and if you're going to sabotage someone at least dont do it in a way that will tie back to you, like, really" kind of energy

Minato receives Kakashi as a student around this time and has to beg Ming Fan to stop bc the things hes teaching Kakashi keep clashing with shit he's trying to teach him and also "did you really tell Kakashi to try and beat up Obito behind the ramen shop to establish dominance because he almost did and I can not express how bad this is for team moral"

Minato is STRESSED but unfortunately this is not Ming Fan's problem. Sorry. Do better.

Without Izuna around to shoot the shit with Ming Fan actually finds himself incredibly bored. He got used to having someone he can be catty around, now hes like. All bored. And maybe a little lonely.

LONELY? WHO SAID THAT? HES NOT LONELY WHAT THE FUCK SHUT UP !! YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOURE TALKING ABOUT !!!!

He goes to the stupid ramen place that replaced his old favorite shop and discovers he does not like ramen.

This does not improve his mood.

He's fucking bored is the thing, which is why he decides to take missions. And how he ends up with surprisingly high clearance (due to being technically a founder)

And how he ends up on the same team as Sakumo for a very specific mission.

And how, when the mission goes wrong, he sends Sakumo home saying that he'll rescue their mission partners bc at least he's not stupidly recognizable the way Sakumo is.

And how Sakumo never falls from grace

And how just a week later, Sakumo is announced as Kagami's pick for the 4th Hokage.

Sakumo is very grateful towards Ming Fan for the mission thing, considers him to be a good man. He is a little bit blind to the awful fucking influence Ming Fan is on Kakashi, much to Minato's despair.

ANYWHOOO

some months pass and the seal is now complete! Minato is brought in and let in on the secret, and agrees to help!

(getting rid of ming fan? holy shit sign him up!!)

Ming Fan says his goodbies, Nawaki and Kakashi are especially sad to see him go while the adults are all different flavors ranging from "understanding but fondly sad to YES GO GO GET OUT GET OUT LEAVE ALREADY GO PLEASE THANK YOU GOODBYE"

Mito is in general amused at all the shit Ming Fan has managed to start while here, she's a fan of watching him fuck around from afar, eating popcorn

So.

Third times the charm, right? Right???

As Ming Fan immediately realizes, no, no it is not the charm.

Ming Fan reappears on the fucking eve of Konoha's destruction by Pain's hand.

Now. As already stated: I love Ming Fan "just a guy but not really" so much! I think he is decently powerful on his own, just overshadowed by the general cast of SVSSS, and I also think that these past few years hes spent here in naruto, sparring with people like the founders, participating in experiments with Tobirama to see how far qi can be pushed in contrast with chakra, learning new techniques and adapting to the different levels of ambient chakra and qi in this world— well, he's not ready to split skies or anything like that but its safe to say that Ming fan was, and now is even more pretty fucking strong.

All of that is to say Ming Fan may be more attached to Konoha than he realized bc when he sees it being destroyed it isn't just the anger of a righteous cultivator seeing innocents be attacked that's lit inside him, nah Ming Fan is about to throw the fuck down

(It takes him not even a second to affix the konoha headband to his belt before he jumps into the fray)

So! Lets take a peek at the Hokage time line in Ming Fan's absence!

Kannabi bridge went unfortunately similar to canon, and Obito fell into Madara's hands.

With Sakumo still alive at the time, Kakashi was able to recover from this without the major personality shift, and due to a combination of Sakumo and Ming Fan's additional training, when it was Rin's turn on the chopping block, she instead survived and now continues to live as the Konoha's second jinchuriki

Obito attacked Konoha with the intention of releasing the kyuubi, and at the time Kushina and Minato were in the Senju compound for the birth

Mito got in his way, delaying him long enough for Sakumo to also arrive

In the fight, both Mito and Sakumo died (fucking thanks, Obito. I dont think Kakashi's gonna be able to forgive u for that one this time around) but Kushina and Minato survived, and Naruto was born healthy and without the fox sealed into him

Kakashi is understandable devastated, and as recovery efforts begin, he's taken in by Minato and Kushina. He offers little fight against this.

With Sakumo's death, Kagami was once again appointed as the Hokage. After only a year or two of stabilizing Konoha + preparing his successor, he quickly gives Minato the hat, and retreats once again to retirement.

Minato makes Kakashi and Rin both ANBU, expressing his desire to have them by his side (at least this time they're slightly older, with Kakashi at 15 and Rin at 17) and puts them on home guard, specifically as Naruto's ANBU guards. It's an easy job, and helps Kakashi in particular to heal some, even if he gets even more rigid about things like rules and formalities

With Izuna as the first Hokage and Kagami as the third (and technical 5th) Uchiha-village relations were actually very good! Thanks to this, the Uchiha massacre was avoided entirely

Kakashi is raised pretty much as Naruto's very protective older brother, with Rin in a similar boat but she still has her own family so there isnt quite so much trauma fueled dependency from her end.

Naruto grows up to be alarmingly talented, with Kakashi and Rin tutoring him, and Minato and Kushina obviously doing their best (though Minato remains mostly busy due to the unfortunate realities of being a Hokage. Meanwhile Naruto is absolutely a total mommas boy)

Kakashi and Rin end up actually fighting over who gets to be Naruto's sensei (Naruto wants NEITHER OF THEM!!!!! HES A BIG BOY NOW STOP CODDLING HIM!!!!!)

Canon then proceeds mostly the same, though with some very obvious major changes

Somewhere along the way, Itachi is convinced to ditch Konoha even without the massacre, and later down the like Sasuke also follows suit to investigate what happened with his brother— though this time he leaves with orders from Minato to go undercover, and investigate Sound

(fucking THANKS dad!! -Naruto, probably, when he finds this out)

COOL! SO! WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY!

Ming Fan fucking bodies Pain right before he kills Kakashi. (Sorry Kakashi, no fireside chat with your father for you)

Now, Ming Fan had a pretty lasting effect on Kakashi's life overall, but he was only around for like, idk, half a year maybe. And Kakashi was young during the time, so his memories of the man remain very blurry and overall half forgotten.

So Kakashi doesn't recognize him immediately— Though from Ming Fan's side, he's immediately mistaking him for Sakumo, then realizing no, wait it isn't him, doing the mental math and making an educated guess that this has to be Kakashi then.

But that doesnt matter rn bc it is THROW DOWN OCLOCK !!!!!

The overall battle goes mostly according to canon but w less casualties since Ming Fan joins in, but then Naruto does his talk no jutsu or however that goes, Pain agrees to revive everyone, boom there done.

So tbh my knowledge of Naruto gets HELLA blurry from here on out, so we're gonna keep it vague, but, like, MING FAN IS HERE AGAIN YAYYYYY

Unfortunately p much everyone who could have instantly recognized him is fucking dead now. Kagami, Danzo and Hiruzen got picked off in previous battles or smthn, Mito and Sakumo are fucking dead, the kids who grew attached to him were too young and the time they knew him too short to really remember,

BUT.

Despite literally only being around for like, 6 months. Ming Fan succeeded at being so annoying that Minato never fucking forgot his face <3

(also there are probably some Uchiha around w sharingan memories of him)

So Minato sees this guy and goes through all the stages of grief at once. Meanwhile Ming Fan is seeing the hat and raising his eyebrows and going no way Sakumo chose THIS bitch boy for the job.

Meanwhile Naruto is standing direcly next to Minato going DAD WHOS THIS WHO IS THAT DAD HEY DAD HEY DAD WHO IS THAT DAD—

(Listen this is a hard day for everyone. Minato included. But this. This. He could just. Really use a fucking break. Thanks.)

But anyways Ming Fan is here and even if he got the option to go home, like, right now, he honestly probably wouldnt take it bc now hes kind of pissed. What do you MEAN Konoha is under attack? What do you MEAN some masked figure killed Sakumo years ago and now is back and also claiming to be Madara Uchiha and theyre trying to fucking kill everyone??

So yeah he's on board to fight, Konoha headband equipped to his belt, he's ready to stick around some more before he tries to go home again.

(and then someone gasps theatrically at Pain's eyes and goes "omg the rinnegan,, the mystical eyes said to be able to traverse time and space,,," and Ming Fan goes WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY THOSE EYES CAN DO")

But also Pain is dead now. So.

(Distant Sasuke, who is still following the beats of his canon story but just undercover under Minato's orders now noises)

So like Ming Fan sticks around, battles happen, we get Kakashi and an older Nawaki remembering him. Nawaki falls back a bit into his old view of thinking Ming Fan is just the coolest, but meanwhile Kakashi kind of takes on the role Izuna used to have, and now him and Ming Fan are having little cat fights in the bg

(With Sakumo having lived so much longer + having been able to comfort his son after Obito's death, the lack of Rin, Minato, and Kushina's death, and just in general all the little things stacking up in a different way than before, Kakashi avoided his major personality shift and is a lot closer to being the strict, bratty kid he used to be than the lazy, perpetually late slack off we know and love in canon)

anyways, blah blah blah, stuff happens, lots of battles, drama, oh my,

Finally we get to the Hokage's being revived for the final battle.

For whatever reason, Ming Fan was occupied somewhere else, possibly getting wrapped up in Sasuke's shit, when they were brought back.

So like.

POV he enters the battlefield, intending to face off with Madara. Then just.

Tobirama, distantly across the battlefield: ᵒʰ ˢʰᶦᵗ ⁿᵒ ʷᵃʸ

Ming Fan, who can hear him just fine bc cultivator: OH SHIT YES WAY YOU USELESS HACK

Ming Fan spends way too much time shouting at Tobirama when he should be FIGHTING GET BACK TO WORK MING FAN

I need a Ming Fan > Izuna > Kakashi bitch fest where they all just fucking snip at each other actually, I think it'd be funny

Ming Fan probably winds up yelling at Madara too, who did not expect to see him here

"Didn't the Senju send you home??"

"Didn't you die after making a fool of yourself in front of all of Konoha??"

Ming Fan doesnt use chakra so he's able to help back up Gai in his fight against Madara, and Gai is able to leave the battle not crippled for life, which is nice

Kaguya descends, things happen, the fight is won and the day is saved, and the fighting finally comes to an end

Sasuke somehow manage to end up with the rinnegan, and instead of trying to use the hiraishan for the third fucking time, Sasuke agrees to try and instead use it (and Ming Fan's qi) as a homing beacon to try and find his original dimension w the rinnegan! Much more reliable method

And so, for the final time, Ming Fan says his goodbyes.

It's,,, an event.

The old hokage's, including Sakumo, are still around with the power of edo tensei, and he's able to give his goodbyes to them all once again, one by one.

Tobirama gives only a brief apology for the seal not working as it should before dissolving into mumbled theories of what might have gone wrong— then remembers himself and shakes his head, offering a curt goodbye

Izuna scoffs and says that at this rate, he expects to see Ming Fan again in a couple decades when the next chakra goddess tries to explode the world and the living are forced to once again turn to him for help💅

Ming Fan tells him to shut the fuck up, and if it happens then he'll just look forward to getting another opportunity to call him a fool to his face, instead of to a grave.

Izuna laughs, and waves him away

Kagami doesn't have too much to say, but thanks Ming Fan for his help. "You may be from another world, but you are just as much of a konoha man as any of us."

Ming Fan... chooses not to take this as an insult. Instead, he nods his head, and gives Kagami the full respect a Hokage would ordinarily deserve, for quite possibly the first time.

Sakumo, he finds holding his son as Kakashi clings to his shoulder. Ming Fan watches for a moment, and Sakumo catches his eye. He gives him a big, genuine smile, mouths thank you, and bows his head.

They already said their goodbyes once, and Ming Fan doesn't wish to take any of the time he has left away from his son. He nods back, and continues.

Minato, when he finds him, is hiding out on the battlefield, laying down with an arm covering his eyes. He groans, when he sees Ming Fan, but sits up.

"Don't despair, you'll finally be getting rid of me." Ming Fan sighs, and Minato snorts.

Minato is... Well, he's a lot more fond of Ming Fan than he once was. Even if the man is still a giant pain in the ass. They speak for a bit, Ming Fan advises him to go ahead and retire already, god knows its what his son would want, and Minato stares up at the sky.

"At this point? I really should have ages ago."

Minato shakes himself, and finally stands, offering a hand to Ming Fan.

Ming Fan clasps his risks, and they nod to each other, probably more civil than they ever have been before.

"Fighting with you has been.... a wonder." Minato seemed to settle on, and Ming Fan arched a brow.

"Not an honor?"

"I think we both know the answer to that."

Ming Fan rolled his eyes, but still smirked.

"Likewise. Take care of your family."

"May you finally return to yours."

And with that, they part ways.

He's walking back to Sasuke, when those who had been edo tenseid fade away. He's just in time to see Kakashi, back turned, as he watches his father go for one final time.

When he turns, he catches his eye. Eyes, plural, as it seems Obito had left him with quite the gift.

Kakashi nods to him, seeming still overwhelmed with his fathers departure, and not quite sure what else to say to Ming Fan.

It's a stark cry from their first goodbye, Kakashi so far from the young boy who once clung to Ming Fan's leg, huffing about him not being allowed to leave till he taught him just a little bit more.

It's Ming Fan, who takes the steps towards the man.

"I'm glad my lessons were ever of any use to you. You've certainly made better use of them than I ever could have imagined." He says, and when Kakashi goes just a touch red under his mask, Ming Fan thinks he might understand what Shizun was talking about, when he laments about the cuteness of his students even once grown.

"WHAT? Are you seriously gonna go, just like that?"

It's Naruto, who's apparently caught wind of Ming Fan planning to leave sooner rather than later.

"No way am I letting you leave with the bastard before he's given me an explanation!" Naruto grabs Sasuke, who with the pained face of someone who knows they're about to get what they deserve, just sort of lets it happen.

"You gotta stay for at least the celebration! We finally won, it's time to party!"

(Ming Fan laughs, and he decides that just for a bit longer— Just a night more, he will stay)

.

.

.

It has been one year to the day, since Shen Qingqiu's head disciple disappeared.

The exact allowance of a disciple to vanish, before you must consider declaring them dead.

Shen Qingqiu...

Doesn't like to talk about it. Binghe seems to realize he can only comfort him so much for this fact, and today has taken to giving him a bit of space, which he appreciates.

It's for this reason, when a swirl appears in his bamboo hut, depositing two men, that Shen Quingqiu is alone.

"Shizun, this disciple is reporting his absence for these last 6 years. I apologize for my lateness." Ming Fan cries, falling to his knees and bowing his head.

Shen Quingqiu is on his feet in an instant, reaching towards his disciple, already having to suppress the cry rising up in his throat as he falls to his own knees, taking Ming Fan's hands in his own.

"Ming Fan will not apologize for thing out of his own control, this one is overjoyed to see you home."

The man behind his disciple shifts, and Ming Fan gestures towards him.

"This Uchiha Sasuke has assisted in bringing me—"

Wait WHAT.

Fuckin. Lugh track. Roll credits. Idk. Boom. Done. Theres ur au. Fuck how did this end up being so long

[zarasu]

Cw depression, Binghe's depression becomes physical

***

The first months Luo Binghe is in the Endless Abyss, he's so busy fighting for his life and trying to stay sane that he wouldn't notice any changes in his body even if they did happen. Then, towards the end of his first year down there, he catches a break.

He is sitting in a cave, peeling his blood- and dirt crusted robes off of his body when he notices it. The scar right over his heart, where Shizun's sword pierced his flesh, is black.

First, he thinks it's dirt and tries to clean it as much as he can.

But it doesn't come off. Instead, as he scrubs the thin barrier of skin over it away, it breaks open and a strange, dark grey goo starts leaking out.

It doesn't look like anything that should come out of his body.

But Luo Binghe's body has changed so drastically over the last few months, has done so many things it isn't supposed to, that he can't muster up any fear for what could just be another demonic peculiarity.

He washes his robes in the green river running through the cave, cleans the grey goo off his chest and pulls his robes back on.

It keeps happening. Sometimes it heals just enough that he can go a few days without any... leakage. Then, he's in a fight and it breaks open again. Sometimes, it just builds up for too long and breaks open anyway.

Sometime during the second year, he finds the emotional capacity to be mildly concerned about it. Besides leaking, it also starts to spread. The black escapes the scar and starts to taint the skin around it in strange shapes, winding and curling like the long vines of a plant.

He begins to suspect that he has been cursed. Or maybe, one of the plants of the abyss has found its way into his skin and is now spreading inside his body. He doesn't know. Even if he did know, what could he do to stop it?

In any case, he doesn't get weaker. He can still fight and still flee and that's the most important part. And, in the privacy of his mind, he admits that sometimes, he kind of likes it. When the grey mud gushes out of his heart and stains his chest, when it runs down his arms and drips off his fingers.

No matter how he badly he gets injured, his body always heals, returning to a perfect, unblemished state.

The black scar and the way it stains him grey is the only thing that makes his outsides match how he's feeling inside.

The truth is, he doesn't try that hard to get rid of it. He gets used to it, even as it spreads further, until his chest is covered with curling black, possessively cradling him like thorny vines. He leaves a trail of grey if he doesn't keep his torso wrapped and clean.

It doesn't stop, even when he gets out of the abyss. The demons he fights and defeats don't dare mention it. Mobei-jun, when Binghe pins him to the ground and declares his victory, looks at his chest and frowns, but he drops the matter when Luo Binghe roughly pushes him away.

Then he's at Huan Hua Palace and, for once, has to truly hide his condition. He keeps his chest wrapped and vanishes now and then to change the bandages and clean up the goo. The drains of Huan Hua are flooded with grey and unbidden, Luo Binghe has to laugh.

He's reminded of women after they birth a child, desperately trying to keep the leakage contained.

Any child he fed this milk to would surely become a monster.

It was appropriate, in a way.

Then he's in Jinlan City, investigating a strange sickness. When he realises it's sowers, he knows he needs to be careful not to let them touch him. Anyone trying to treat him would pull up his long sleeve and be greeted by the sight of black, inhuman vines under his skin.

It's all manageable, all routine, until he turns around and there's Shizun.

Suddenly, he breathes in and, for the first time in a long while, feels something. It's not until the feeling brings a speck of colour with it that he realises his world has become entirely grey.

Shizun is as cold as stone towards him. His face doesn't betray any of his thoughts, he looks at Luo Binghe impassively and quietly while he talks and laughs with others.

Now more than ever, Luo Binghe feels like a child left in the middle of a large, grey sea, abandoned and forced to watch as he is disregarded.

Over the course of a few hours, the black vines creep down his legs. When he is alone in his room, he coughs and a string of grey drips out of his mouth onto the table.

He blankly stares at it for some time.

Then, he goes to confront Shen Qingqiu.

Things escalate quickly and Luo Binghe can't say he's sad about it. Finally, finally, Shen Qingqiu looks at him, shows some emotions other than disinterest on his beloved, hated face.

He chases him through Jinlan City on his sword and corners him in an alley. He knows he's frightening. He doesn't care, even when Shen Qingqiu points his sword at him.

It pierces his hand and Luo Binghe looks down, curious if it'll be blood or grey goo coming out of it.

It's red blood, surprisingly. Now that it's there, he might as well use it.

He pins Shen Qingqiu against a wall and pushes his bloody hand against his mouth, forcing the blood onto his tongue, down his throat.

Turns out his Shizun is only human, after all.

Shen Qingqiu swallows and his eyes dart around in fear. They catch on the front of Luo Binghe's robes and he abruptly stills. Luo Binghe realises that, during the hunt, the scar broke open again and stained his robes grey.

It must be a bemusing sight for Shen Qingqiu. Still, Luo Binghe doesn't expect him to care for long. He's all the more surprised when Shen Qingqiu seems to forget all about fleeing and, instead, gently grabs Binghe's wrist and guides his hand away from his mouth.

He thinks about resisting, at first, but he's becoming a little curious about what Shen Qingqiu is trying to do.

As soon as he can move, Shen Qingqiu is patting over his robes. "What is this," he asks. "Binghe, are you hurt?"

"Now, Shizun cares?" Luo Binghe laughs bitterly, but Shen Qingqiu doesn't seem to hear him. He's too busy parting Luo Binghe's robes.

He lets him. He's tired of hiding.

The black scar is uncovered, and the myriad of black vines spreading all over his body with it. They're all bleeding now, grey liquid flowing down his body in rivulets.

He looks like a broken cup, Luo Binghe thinks. Shattered and leaking everything that was inside.

"What is this," Shen Qingqiu asks, with the most horrified expression Luo Binghe has ever seen from him.

He touches the scar and his hand is immediately stained grey. He pulls it back and stares at it silently.

Luo Binghe wonders if he's disgusted.

Instead, life seems to return to his body and he suddenly grabs Luo Binghe by the shoulders. "Binghe, have you been cursed?"

He moves to touch the scar again and Luo Binghe grasps his wrist to stop him. He stains his wrist further with the touch.

"It's not a curse," he says quietly.

Shen Qingqiu looks up at him helplessly and Luo Binghe has the old, familiar thought that he is beautiful.

"What is happening to you?" he asks.

Luo Binghe is still angry, and hurt, and lost. But, right now, he finds it in himself to answer honestly. "I don't know."

Shen Qingqiu shakes his head. "This isn't supposed to happen."

A laugh escapes him. None of this had been supposed to happen. Luo Binghe feels that his life has stopped being anything like it's supposed to be from the moment he was pushed into the abyss.

But Shen Qingqiu seems more distressed about this, of all things, than anything else that happened.

He grabs Luo Binghe tighter and seems to barely resist shaking him as he insistently says: "Don't worry, Binghe, we will figure this out. We will find a way to help you."

Luo Binghe stares at him silently. Maybe he should feel more about this. He tries, but he just feels cold. He doesn't know if this is real. Shen Qingqiu cast him away so easily. Why would he be concerned now?

Shen Qingqiu seems to finally realise he might as well shake a stone with how little Luo Binghe reacts. He draws back a step, suddenly looks smaller.

"Unless... That is, I know you don't like me right now. Or rather, hate me. That's alright. I promise, you can hate me as much as you want to, but you need to be healthy to do it, alright? Just, let me help you this one time. I might know someone who can help you."

Luo Binghe shakes his head in denial and Shen Qingqiu grows fierce again, his eyebrows drawing together like elegant swords. "Binghe, don't be stubborn now! I swear, you can take your revenge however you want, later, when you're better again. But right now, nothing matters more than this."

He hesitates, looks to the side and back to Luo Binghe's chest. "Please, Binghe, let me help you."

Luo Binghe is standing on an island in the middle of a large, grey sea, and he knows he has been abandoned. There is no one coming to save him, he has been forgotten.

Except now, the one who abandoned him in the first place has come back, is reaching out towards him, is offering his hand to help Luo Binghe off the island.

Luo Binghe is afraid to take that hand. He's afraid to do anything. He doesn't know if he wants to be saved anymore.

But Shen Qingqiu is still looking at him with pleading eyes and Luo Binghe's biggest weakness has always been that he has a soft heart for the people he loves.

He doesn't know if he wants to be saved but, even after everything that happened, he can't bear to disappoint Shizun.

Slowly, slowly, he reaches out and grasps Shen Qingqiu's sleeve.

Shen Qingqiu exhales sharply and pulls him off the island and into his arms.

Luo Binghe takes a breath. The air tastes like spring.

[elf-kid2]

Listen to me. Listen.

Shen Yuan dies, and he reincarnates in the world of 'Proud Immortal Demon Way.' Fortunately, he's an NPC! A random extra! An Original Character!

That's right, he just popped out of the ground like a mushroom with a fully-formed body, a decent preinstalled cultivation base, and NO ties with any of the Main Characters! Score!

Wait, why is the treacherous Lord of An Ding Peak out for his blood?!

...Apparently, when he popped out of the ground, newly-transmigrated, with a fully-formed body, he was inadvertently stealing from the Peak Lord's secret patch of ultra-rare, valuable, hard-to-grow Sun-Moon Dew Mushrooms.

Shang Qinghua is super mad about it! And due to his status as a Scum Traitor, he has contacts in the Cultivation World, AND the Demon Realm!

So much for Shen Yuan's dreams of living an anonymous life as a Rogue Cultivator/Monster-Researcher and avoiding the Plot as much as possible; now he has a BOUNTY on his head!

Why did Shang Qinghua even have those Sun-Moon Dew Mushrooms?! Why was this never mentioned in PIDW?! When even ARE they, in the Plot? What's Luo Bingge up to, these days?

...Research indicates that these particular ultra-rare, ultra-valuable, hard-to-grow mushrooms have only a handful of uses. 1) Creating a New Body for someone-- a Dream Demon, for example-- who'd lost their original corporeal form. 2) Resurrection/Necromancy purposes. 3) World's Least-Convenient Method of Making a [Baby/Son/Daughter/Heir].

(The book also said that these mushrooms were considered too delicate and hard to cultivate to be a practical method Gardening Your Own Army of Thralls. If you wanted to do that, you'd use different ultra-rare herbs.)

So! Shen Yuan's got no backstory anyone knows about, he's made an enemy of a Peak Lord with surprisingly far reach, AND his new body may require some special maintenance!

It could be worse! At least he hasn't been in contact with The Protagonist yet!

...Oh No.

[levia53842]

Shang Qinghua wouldn't go as far as to consider them close friends. They're only martial brothers, and as Cang Qiong's resident scum rat spy, he is aware of exactly how meaningless such fickle relationships are.

But when Liu Qingge inevitable does something infuriating and destructive, it's Mu Qingfang whom he exchanges rueful, exasperated glances with behind the other Peak Lord's backs. They carry the weight of Cang Qiong's wellbeing -- Zhangmen-shixiong and the Bai Zhan War God carry their sect name to higher leagues, but it's Mu Qingfang and Shang Qinghua who ensure that nobody is dead or dying and everything is operating as it should. They're the invisible backbone; if they were to vanish for a week the sect would collapse.

None of his martial brothers noticed when Shang Qinghua was running on fumes and hasn't slept for two months straight, except for Mu-shidi, who slipped him a packet of what was essentially sleeping pills. In return, whenever a request for equipment or supplies arrived from Qian Cao, Airplane will rate it a 7/10 in urgency, making sure Mu Qingfang has what he needs as soon as possible.

Could that be considered favoritism? Perhaps, but why should he care? If Yue Qingyuan is allowed to be eternally biased towards Shen Qingqiu, he can do whatever he likes.

MQF and SQH friendship...

[xi-vz]

Cheat Sheet

The world was both larger and smaller than Shang Qinghua thought it’d be. But, then again, he was still only on one continent. He knew there were a few others—4 more to be exact. But that was neither here nor there.

He was staying at a…quaint (read: rundown) inn in a place called Fojiao Town, which was located at the foot of Mount Dafan. He heard there was a Heavenly Maiden on the mountain and wanted to check it out. The locals were all too happy to tell him, an obvious cultivator, about it.

Shang Qinghua hadn’t written much about gods and goddesses in PIDW. Martial and scholar gods were a thing, but they had been human before ascending. As far as he was aware, he was the only God™️. Capital G.

Mount Dafan was like any other mountain. Maybe with denser trees. Seriously, unimpressive all around…except for the cemetery that had plenty of ghosts floating around. He ignored them as he flew above the trees until he reached the cave where the Maidens alter was.

The Heavenly Maiden was a rock formation.

Yes, it vaguely resembled a woman dancing. If one were to squint and turn their head.

“Typical,” Shang Qinghua clucked his tongue before touching the base of the alter, only to jump back in surprise when a familiar blue screen popped up.

[Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! User 001 has unlocked “God Mode”. Would the user like to download now?] [Yes - No]

What the hell was “God Mode”?

After living so long with The System, he learned to be weary. Even if there hadn’t been any new updates or pop-ups other than the “Return Home” option that was now in his Settings.

He was debating on his choices when the Heavenly Maiden shook. No, it was the entire mountain shaking! Earthquake? Now? There was no such thing as coincidences in this cruel world of his. He should’ve known better. Still, as Shang Qinghua fell forward, he instinctually put his hands out to brace himself, accidentally clicking Yes.

And then something inside of him popped and Shang Qinghua felt his golden core explode.

TBC? Should I post on AO3?

[silentheiss]

When Shen Yuan transmigrates in his definitely-not-favorite novel, he’s ecstatic. Sure, dying sucked, but he got a second chance! In a body that looked exactly like his, only healthy and with a perfectly good golden core, too!

He’s a rouge cultivator now, with a cool sword, enough money, long-ass hair and zero actual responsibilities!

So, all in all, Shen Yuan hit a jackpot. He travels, makes notes of monsters he sees and sometimes fights, collects rare herbs and flowers and feels just great.

He feels decidedly less great, when after defeating a Six Eyed Spider Viper in some nameless, remote village, he receives a bride as a payment. It shockes him into a stupor for long enough for the villagers to think he actually agreed, so as soon as he can talk again, he blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind:

“This one is already married!”

It doesn’t work as well as he hoped.

“So Nie Rong can be a second wife.” An auntie, possibly Nie Rong’s mother, waves her hand dismissively at him.

“No, no,” Shen Yuan scrambles. “This one wasn’t being clear enough. This one is not in position to take wives! He is- is, uh.”

“Master is a wife?” Nie Rong chrips, her cheeks reddened.

“Uh. Sure. Yeah.” Shen Yuan would like to leave the village immediately. A thrill of defeating a cool fucking monster wasn’t even worth the embarrassment!

“Master’s husband must be quite powerful to get such a cultivator as a wife.” One of the villagers says, eyes glinting with suspicion. “Who’s he?”

“This one’s husband is indeed very powerful.” Shen Yuan squeezes out of himself, taking a step back. “Very possessive, too.”

“How come he lets his husband travel so far?”

“Oh! It’s easy, really. This one’s husband’s harem is big enough to slip away for a week or two!”

An agitated murmur passes through the small crowd. Shen Yuan sighs, feeling the control of the situation slipping through his fingers.

“He doesn’t sound like a very good husband.” One of the aunties says. “Maybe you should divorce him and marry our Rong-er after all.”

“This one’s husband is not someone one just divorces.” Shen Yuan takes another step back. “Thanking everyone for kind words, but-"

“Oh.” Nie Rong says, eyes downcast. “It’s the Emperor, isn’t it? That’s why Daozhang can’t leave?”

“Yes!” Shen Yuan yelps before he can really think. “So you can see how the situation is difficult for this one.”

It’s a shit solution to a problem. Might be the worst, actually. But then again, Luo Binghe would never know and Shen Yuan gets a perfect excuse if something similar ever happens again.

And it does happen. Quite too often, if Shen Yuan is honest — shouldn’t all the girls belong to the protagonist anyway?!

So, Shen Yuan uses his perfect excuse: No, he cannot marry your pretty little daughter, he’s an Emperor Luo’s husband. And: No, fellow rouge cultivator, he will not share your bed, he’s spoken for!

Everything works without a hitch, until one day Shen Yuan walks into an inn where he’s been staying for last couple of days and comes face to face with the Emperor of Combined Realms, Lord Luo himself.

Shit.

[ineffectualdemon]

(AO3 link)

Shang Qinghua arrived back to Cang Qiong and headed to report to the Sect Leader only to find himself pulled into an impromptu meeting with his fellow Peak Lords.

With a noticeable absence and more notably addition. 

"Zhangmen-shixiong, may this one inquire as to what is happening?" He asked nervously as he the yelling from his fellow peak lords explained nothing and Luo Binghe stood still with his arms crossed, his jaw clenched tight, but silent.

"Lord Luo seems to think we have hidden Shen-shixiong away," Yue Qingyuan replied with confusion clouding his eyes.

"Which is nonsense! Qingqiu is sitting in the next room plain as day!" Liu Qingge shouted, one hand on the hilt of his sword the other pointing to a side room.

"And as this Lord has explained that thing is not Shizun." Luo Binghe replied with the slow carefulness that precedes great violence.

"We all here have seen and spoken to Shen-shixiong daily while Lord Luo was dealing with demon matters this past week. We have seen nothing amiss. Maybe he just tires of your company." Qi Qingqi really liked digging the knife in which was a huge mistake.

Shang Qinghua watched Luo Binghe's hand clench his fist tighter as his demon mark grew in brilliance.

"Alright thats enough! I can confidently prove whether or not Shen Qingqiu has been replaced!" He said loudly, his casual tone cutting through the noise and tension better then the volume.

Before he could think better of it Shang Qinghua walked briskly over to the side room and walked inside, shutting the door behind him.

Hardly any time at all passed before he was back in the room, the door closed firmly shut behind him and sealing and silencing talismans stuck to the outside.

"Shen Qingqiu has been replaced." He stated firmly. The room went eerily quiet and Luo Binghe, thought not smiling, relaxed as his posture took on an amused lilt.

"How can Shang-Shixiong be so sure?" Someone spluttered.

"He said I was his closest friend." Shang Qinghua said grimly.

"...but you are?" Liu Qingge said, his eyebrows tight as if he was puzzling over paperwork.

And he was right. Everyone knew Shang Qinghua was Shen Qingqiu's closest friend and confidant. Something that pissed off and confused everyone close to Shen Qingqiu to some degree. 

Shang Qinghua huffed.

"Of course I am! I know that! You know that! Everyone knows that! Even Shen Qingqiu knows that! But would he ever say it?"

That got everyone to pause.

No.

No he wouldn't.

Potentially not even on pain of death.

"Then what is it and where is Shizun?" Luo Binghe demanded, pushing past Liu Qingge who just mad a disgruntled sound.

"This one's guess? It's a Cuckoo Spirit. They're a type of dream demon. They hunt by reading the inner thoughts of their victim and replicating their mannerisms and behaviours as closely as they can based on dreams and so on. They then keep their victim asleep and assume their life. Feeding off both them and the people around them. This one guesses Qian Cao has had a lot of people on Qing Jing come down with fevers or are strangely lethargic recently." Shang Qinghua turned his attention away from Luo Binghe at this last and directed it as Mu Qingfang who looked troubled. 

"For the last three days. And four days ago Shen-shixiong complained of feeling tired when we had tea, but his meridians seemed clear. The imposter also stood up to scrutiny when this one examined him." Mu Qingfang explained.

Shang Qinghua nodded.

"Did Mu-shidi feel ill after the exam at all?" Shang Qinghua asked, even as he pushed past the sect leader and the demon emperor to pull out paper and ink and start scribbling quickly. 

"...yes actually, a headache." Mu Qingfang quickly crossed to join Shang Qinghu, tension tight in his frame.

"It used it's abilities to change your memory and perception." Shang Qinghua looked to his upset Shidi and gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. 

"Don't be too upset with yourself Shidi! They are very dangerous creatures and extremely rare. The most important thing is Shen-shixiong is still alive. They can only maintain form if they still have a living connection." Shang Qinghua turned to look at Luo Binghe who had joined him on his other side.

"Meng Mo agrees and is impressed with your knowledge, he wouldn't have guessed or caught a Cuckoo. He thought his clan had wiped them out. He actually seemed afraid of them." Luo Binghe was still tense but knowing his Shizun was still alive was keeping him together. But it wasn't a surprised that the dream demon feared the creature. They had a terrifying ability, to make dream illusions work in the waking world. 

Their original feeding grounds were the dream demon clans, because who was easier to fool then those who were always half in a dream? 

In PIDW he had meant their inclusion to be a real horror movie moment but also a chance for character growth as Luo Binghe was forced to contend with something that shattered his confidence in his dream magic and made him face reality. 

In practice it was used to make a recent wife who was married "for political reasons" admit she actually did love her husband and wanted his pillar. 

Maybe Bingmei didn't need to know that. 

"If it hadn't flubbed so bad I wouldn't have caught it." Shang Qinghua admitted to distract himself before picking up his papers and turning around.

"Right. First off we must find Shen Qingqiu. Junshang? You search for disturbances in the dream realm. Something that feels off. But do not attempt to interact with it yet! Just use that to help us locate Shen Qingqiu. Liu Qingge? Mu-shidi? I need you to get these ingredients and turn it into an incense. Everyone else search every cave and grotto and outbuilding on this mountain to find Shen Qingqiu. If you find him do not touch him! We must break the bond first and we have to do that quickly before it realises we know. Right now this one has told it that Luo Binghe is unstable and we need to confine "Shen Qingqiu" for his own protection. It objected like Shen-shixiong would but not strong enough." Shang Qinghua was a little surprised they just let him take charge like that but Yue Qingyuan nodded.

"That Shang-shidi left the room on his own two feet after suggesting such a thing and Shen-shidi didn't break down the door and take Lord Luo and leave is even more proof than it calling Shang Qinghua its closest friend." Yue Qingyuan kindly pointed out for Luo Binghe's benefit, who was looking a little murderous. 

After that things moved swiftly. Shen Qingqiu was found in an old storage room on Qing Jing with help from Luo Binghe. One plastered with talismans to block the Emperor from tracking his blood.

Once the sleeping Shen Qingqiu breathed in enough of the cure to break the demon's hold dispatched the thing quickly, while the smoke from the same incense kept it from using its normal tricks to escape.

Shen Qingqiu once awake and finally devoid of a crying Demon Lord, due to said Demon Lord baking something, asked to speak to Shang Qinghua.

"Binghe said you convinced everyone but didn't say how." Shen Qingqiu, looking pale but mostly alright, asked.

"I walked in and asked if it knew who I was and 'you' rolled your eyes and said: 'um my best friend? Who else would you be you dumb hack author!' and I immediately knew because you'd never admit that." 

Somehow Shen Qingqiu looked more ill that before Shang Qinghua explained.

"Ew? Why would it so that? Bro no offense but I would rather kick in you in a well of dead fish then say we're friends." 

A different man would be offended but Shang Qinghua just chuckled. That's his tsundere Cucumber Bro! 

"I know bro "

Shen Qingqiu shifted in his seat at that, like what he said left a sour taste in his mouth and sand in his shorts.

"You're not..." Shen Qingqiu started before hiding behind his fan, "You're not not my best friend though." 

Shang Qinghua blinked at him before tearing up.

"Bro!'

"NOPE! I NEVER SAID ANYTHING!"

"You love bro!"

"I HATE YOU!" 

Shang Qinghua smiled as Shen Qingqiu loudly protested their friendship while also nudging his favourite treats towards him.

Ah, friendship was sweet when it was with your number one anti fan! 

[monroeknoxwrites]

"Keep your hands to yourself. Your assistance is unwarranted and unwanted," Shen Jiu spat with as much venom as speckles of blood.

Mu Qingfang recognized his shixiong's threshold for pain was high. With red seeping through the multiple layers of his green robes, hair matted to his forehead and practically bed ridden, he had energy left to rebuff him. His uninjured arm clutched the front of robes closed.

A beat of silence passed. Mu Qingfang straightened, hands on his lap where Shen Jiu could see them.

"There's nothing to fear from me."

"Fear?" The vitriol and outrage Shen Jiu poured into that single word drained him further, eyes shutting as his head hit the pillow once more.

Yet still his trembling hands held the collar firm.

"Shen-shixoing has always been careful to keep his distance from me. During examinations you hardly permit me to check your pulse."

Mu Qingfang laid his hand not on the collar but Shen Jiu's chest, smiled in return at the savage look with an edge of anxiety sent his way.

"But I have checked your pulse. I understand what it is you do not wish for me to see. And I say once more: there is nothing to fear from me."

[svsss-brainrot-blog]

Hiii I saw you were doing snippets so I wanted to drop by. Hope you're doing okay <3

Here's an idea: Shen Jiu adopting a spirit wolf. (It's the wolf who adopted SJ but shhh) Maybe SJ managed to get away from WYZ after burning the Qiu's and happened to cross paths with one.

It’s the eyes that he sees first.

Large. Silver. Peering from the shadows where even the hallowed touch of moonlight does not dare to sweep.

He should run.

He cannot.

After so long being deprived of everything but the bare minimum to keep him alive, his body is weak where it counts. He managed to escape the scene of his first murder. He managed to escape the clutches of the demonic cultivator that followed, hoping the drugging flowers he brewed into tea were strong enough to kill the man where his weak hands were not.

He is not stupid enough to believe he can escape the creature before him. Not when he hasn’t eaten in days, and the bones of his leg send fire through him with every jostle. Broken, after a tumble down the jagged ravine in the dark.

Shen Jiu always knew the world hated him- he did not think it so ironic to die like this. A pathetic beast, made a midnight dinner for a wolf.

That didn’t mean he intended to make it easy.

“Bring it on, then,” he hissed into the night, brandishing the largest stick his numb fingers could find. “Do your worst.”

A growl reverberated from the shadows, those bright, unblinking eyes moving as the creature stalked forward, its pelt shining as it stepped out into the light.

It was huge. From the wicked black claws on the tips of each paw to the glinting ivory of its teeth, the wolf was probably as large as a man. It tilted its head up, scenting the hair with a huff.

Even in the low light, Shen Jiu could see the hackles rise.

Shen Jiu braced to swing his branch as fervently as he could, and several things happened all at once.

A flash of steel came at him from one side.

An all too familiar shout echoed in the night.

And the wolf pivoted at the last moment, redirecting its lunge.

Wu Yanzi screamed as the canines of the beast tore into his skin, something dark splattering among the leaves and other debris of the forest floor. The sword he had attempted to fling at the young escapee thudded into the woods, thrown off course, and Shen Jiu pressed himself up against the trees until the painful howling of his latest captor fell to muffled struggles, and then silence.

His stick shook lightly in his hand.

He couldn’t run.

The wolf moved, hard to track in the darkness, with the low rustle of something dragging through the foliage. Away from Shen Jiu.

With a pained gasp, the teen rolled over, and began to drag himself away, claiming the sword that was left amid the roots along the way.

***

There’s a haze that comes with infection. Living on the streets, he’d learned to recognize it well, and now he can tell it’s come to visit him again.

His leg aches, angry and red with purple blotches after a day of struggling through the woods alone. So far, he has had no other trouble- only a brief encounter with a snake that was quickly handled with his stolen steel.

But he’s hungry. And it hurts, every time he struggles to push forward. If he laid his head down for just a moment, surely he can find the will to push further. Just for a moment…

Just… for a moment…

***

The branch whacks him in the face.

He startles awake with a curse, his leg throbbing in agony as he attempts to evade the attack, batting away his attacker with clumsy hands.

Something cracks in the brush above him, and Shen Jiu’s eyes dart up to meet another’s in the fading light of the sunset.

Large. Silver. Cloaked by swaths of sleek, white fur with a dark stripe down its ears and muzzle, and a patch on its forehead that looks strangely similar to a flower.

The wolf.

The great beast leaps from its place overhead, landing without hardly a sound, pacing a slow circle around him, its gaze too focused, too sharp.

“Come to finish the job, have you?” Shen Jiu snarls, baring his teeth. He has a sword now. He still can’t escape, but he could at least try to take the damn thing with him. Even with the dizziness that plagues him, he should at least be able to make it bleed.

He doesn’t expect to wolf to pick the aforementioned branch up in its teeth and throw it at him.

He splutters, throwing a hand up to guard his face even as something soft and smooth brushes against his wrist from within the bundle of leaves. Small white flowers dot the stems, and there, hidden in the center, is a cluster of plums.

Three of them, ripe and nearly bursting with flesh, practically begging to be eaten.

The wolf turns, and lopes away into the trees.

…The juice is sweet, and sticky where it clings to Shen Jiu’s chin.

***

His leg aches. He ignores it as best as he can, limping through the trees. Hunger does not gnaw at him so fiercely, but thirst has made its name known.

He finds a small stream, looking clear and clean enough. His body is weak as he all but dunks his head under, gulping down as much as he can stand without risking throwing it all back up.

After, he lays on the wide rocks of the bank, watching the sky wheel overhead as his body rebels once more.

He feels so hot, and cold, and sweaty, but it’s too dry and if he touches the water too much he’s going to die. Nothing quite makes sense and he can’t quite feel his own body anymore.

He’s so tired.

He wonders if this was the last experience he and Qi-ge would share- dying alone in the woods with no one there to care.

***

He wakes to something warm, and soft.

The scent of the woods surrounds him, pulls him close as his brother once did, whispering sweet dreams of far off freedoms and strength, and for the first time in a long time, Shen Jiu is slow to wake.

Let it be soft. Let it be warm. Let him have this, this one last mercy, before hell finds him once again.

The pulse of something safe, that latches on to that place hidden deep inside him, neither quite flesh nor phantasmal force.

Wu Yanzi had brushed against it, once, when he pretended to be a just and benevolent teacher. The roots that bound his spirit to his body.

His meridians.

He blinks his eyes open, one hand curling tight in the pale pelt that stretches next to him.

He blinks.

The wolf blinks back.

“If you’re going to follow me, that makes you mine,” Shen Jiu croaks. “That means I’m in charge and you have to do what I say.”

The pulse of qi he receives seems to be a happy agreement.

He allows the wolf to wiggle under him, lifting his small form onto its large back as it turns towards the heart of the woods.

He’s tired…

But… His leg doesn’t hurt anymore.

[allpiesforourown]

was gonna post this on ao3 but it's only 1.3k words and pure sillyness so here it is instead: bingqiu, post canon, time travel, misunderstandings.

shen qingqiu time travels, but no one tells him

Upon waking up to see his husband, the first words out of Shen Qingqiu’s mouth were, “Ugh, again?” 

Because the one at his bedside was not the tall handsome demon lord he saw every morning. A cute little bun in white robes blinked back at him. “Shizun?” 

Seriously? How many times was this going to happen!? At least this time he didn't look young enough to be mistaken for his child, but still… if Shen Qingqiu had a soul stone for every time Luo Binghe qi deviated into a younger version of himself, he’d have two soul stones by now…

Instead of waking his husband to tell him about his condition, the man (boy?) had run off to prepare breakfast. Going by the steaming congee on the table, he only woke Shen Qingqiu up to get him to eat.

Shen Qingqiu sighed as he sat up and ran a hand over his face. “Do you know how old you are right now?” 

“This disciple is sixteen, shizun. Is something wrong?” 

Shen Qingqiu gave Luo Binghe a glare. Something wrong? The audacity! He grabbed the fan off his nightstand and smacked the boy’s head softly. “Hasn’t this master told Binghe to tell me right away when something is wrong?” Binghe opened his mouth with a stricken expression, but Shen qingqiu cut him off. “It’s fine, it’s fine. You're still too young to dual cultivate. We’ll have to wait things out.” 

Papapa would have solved this matter instantly if it was viable. But when Binghe first brought up the idea of role-playing as their younger selves, Shen Qingqiu made it clear he would not partake in anything with the man if he made his appearance younger than 18! Even that was too low, but he had to draw the line somewhere! 

Luo Binghe’s face flushed red. “D-d-dual cu-cultivate!?” 

Shen Qingqiu narrowed his eyes. “What did I just say? Don't get any ideas, you'll have to wait before we can do anything.” 

“We?” Binghe’s voice went high. “Shizun… dual cultivate… with me!?” 

“Not until you’re older,” he repeated firmly. 

At this age, Binghe really did look too innocent… even with such a perverted interior, he really looked like this simple talk was flustering him. “How-how much older?” 

Well, while recovering from de-aging qi deviations, Binghe did grow back rapidly. It wouldn’t take that long before Binghe was old enough for shen qingqiu to feel comfortable touching. “Hmm, at the rate you usually grow… maybe we can do it a week from now?” 

Luo Binghe passed out. 

*

“Mu-shidi, how can you say this isn’t a qi deviation?” Shen Qingqiu insisted. “Just look at him! What other explanation could there be?” 

His martial brother must have gone insane. He grasped Luo Binghe’s wrist once more, looking over the unconscious boy. “Shixiong, this one… still doesn’t understand what you mean.” He released the arm and adjusted his glasses. “Though he seems to have suffered some sort of shock, it is minor and there is zero harm to his meridians. He will wake up shortly.”

No harm to his meridians? Then what else could explain why his husband was suddenly a head shorter than him? Luo Binghe did have some shape-shifting skills… perhaps they went beyond just hiding his demonic huadian and eyes? Could he also change his appearance to such a degree he looked like a teenager again? 

“Then I suppose this master will take his husband back to the bamboo house and follow up once he wakes.” Shen Qingqiu stood, scooping Luo Binghe into his arms. “Thanking shidi for his time.” 

He was nearly at the door when he heard a strangled “WAIT!” call out behind him. Shen qingqiu glanced over his shoulder impatiently. He didn’t want to be holding Binghe like a bride when he came to… Binghe would insist on it constantly and further tarnish his status as a stallion protagonist! 

Mu Qingfang’s eyes were bugged out, ink dripping from his pen onto his hand. “What did you just say!?” 

Shen qingqiu raised a brow, shuffling binghe into a more comfortable hold closer to his chest. “This shixiong thanked shidi…” Shen qingqiu said slowly. 

Mu Qingfang’s tense shoulders lowered slightly. “Right… that’s all shixiong said.”

“Yes? Thank you for checking on this master’s husband.” 

Mu Qingfang threw up blood as Shen Qingqiu exited the infirmary. 

*

Shen Qingqiu had just finished tucking Binghe into their bed when the door to the bamboo house was kicked open. He readied his ‘disappointed teacher’ voice to reprimand Liu Qingge, but was stunned into silence when he found Yue Qingyuan sprinting into his bedroom instead. 

“Zhangmen shixiong,” Shen Qingqiu said with a raised brow. “May this shidi help you?” 

Yue Qingyuan’s voice was choked as he called, “Xiao-Jiu!” 

Shen Qingqiu's lip instinctively twisted down. “If shixiong has something to say to this Qingqiu, he may do so.” He said pettily. “Otherwise, I’m busy taking care of my husband.”

“Husband,” Yue Qingyuan repeated. He squirmed nervously under Shen Qingqiu’s gaze. “Mu-shidi informed me you said something similar, I… xia- um, Qingqiu-shidi, are you alright? You… you’re not married… right?” 

…Sect leader Yue. You were at the wedding! 

“Is this a joke?” Shen Qingqiu answered coolly. “Luo Binghe would not take kindly to this kind of statement.” 

Yue Qingyuan staggered backwards, falling onto a chair with an anguished expression. His eyes fell upon Shen Qingqiu’s bed, where Luo Binghe lay sleeping and his eyes widened. “How…? Shidi, this is- he’s your disciple!” 

“This master does not understand,” Shen Qingqiu said irritably. “Luo Binghe and I have been wed for over a year, so why now are you making such a fuss?” 

“A year…?” 

More footsteps invaded the bamboo house, until half his martial siblings had invited themselves in. Qi Qingqi, Liu Qingge, even great master Airplane had arrived! Yue Qingyuan looked to Mu Qingfang with dread. “Mu-shidi…” 

The tragedy clear on the sect leader’s face said it all. Mu Qingfang grimaced. “Something must be done. Shen-shidi is having delusions of marriage!” 

…okay, that was it. Shen Qingqiu had allowed his martial siblings to subtly disapprove of his relationship with Binghe for all this time, but this was too far. 

“Enough!” He cried. “Luo Binghe is my husband, and that will not change! Everyone will treat him with the respect that is deserved of Qing Jing’s shimu!” 

The sound of something crashing to the ground pulled their attention back to the peak lord’s bed. It seemed Luo Binghe had woken up, gotten out of bed, and then immediately passed out again after taking two steps. 

“Binghe!” Shen Qingqiu cried. Seriously, what was going on? Did Airplane write a narcolepsy arc he never mentioned? 

As Shen qingqiu lifted Binghe back onto the bed, a younger voice joined them. “Shizun, why was everyone running into the bamboo house? Is everything okay?” 

At the threshold of his bedroom Ning Yingying had arrived, followed by the head disciple. 

Shen Qingqiu gawked at her small stature. What the-!? Did Ning Yingying also qi deviate? And Ming Fan, too? Why did all his disciples look about ten years younger- 

Oh.

Oh no.

Ha… hahaha… that was the trouble with immortals. Year after year, their faces looked exactly the same. 

System, Shen Qingqiu asked with dawning horror, what's going on? 

[Sounds like host has already figured it out! Limited event: Returning to the Peaceful Past is in progress!]

You bastard, you couldn't have said that earlier!? 

So Shen Qingqiu had temporarily returned to the past. He’d told his sixteen year old disciple they would dual cultivate and informed all his martial siblings he had married the boy at 15. For a thin faced man like Shen Qingqiu, something of this level… he couldn’t bear his fellow peak lord’s shocked and judging faces. 

“S-so…” Shen Qingqiu laughed nervously. “Um… that was all a joke, okay?”