#this was meant to be a silly little headcanon not a long essay oops

[optimisticmiraclefest]

This headcanon is kinda inspired by one of the arcs from the cnovel (A precious pearl in imperial city- aka one of the funniest novels ever with the sweetest characters especially the ml fl but with incomplete translation 😭) where *spoilers* a scheme against the crown prince ml was just basically just a smear campaign with 'good prince' and 'evil prince' and funnily enough the fl finds out and pays the storyteller to make the evil prince secretly a good person and all the women from the noble ladies to the palace maids ends up being obsessed with the bad boy stereotype (the ml's mother was so confused how her absolute brat of a son suddenly got popular among the common people lol)..........

And the point I was trying to make is imagine the same thing happening in mdzs. We already know jgs was purposefully badmouthing wwx and everyone else except a select few went along with it (I loved the part in the novel where lwj publicly calls him out for being a liar) and all the yllz rumours were pretty over the top so....

Imagine the juniors holding an intervention bc none of the sect leaders changed their ways after the second siege and just writing up an actual record of what happened........with new worldbuilding and slight changes in their names of course and jl is exempt from the process after his first few disastrous attempts,

Ljy and ozz write up the most sappy cheesy version of wangxian (bc both of them give the vibes of reading too many romance novels especially ljy in yi city arc),

All the primary antagonists die in ways more brutal than canon (and even the ones who didn't die get actual consequences of their actions) bc a certain young sect leader wants to vent up all his pent up frustrations of being related to way too many evil people and attending the most tedious discussion conferences with the rest,

There is an entire section about the wen remnants bc lsz and wn (who got roped into it) want to remember all their personal quirks and their life in burial mounds fondly and safely,

All the other juniors from many many clans pitch in by 'discreet' investigations and make a patchwork of many stories including contributions by various rogue cultivators who had left the jianghu in protest of their terrible decisions when it came to wwx and the wen remnants (there is a section about wwx being a terrible flirt thanks to one mianmian)

And sure enough even with fake names and swapped genders for minor characters to maintain plausible deniability, the jianghu's tendency to be disconnected from the common people means they don't realise that a story specifically with all their dirty little secrets exposed became the most popular story in the civilian world till it was too late.

Of course nhs was the one who ended up fanning the flames bc he found the entire thing funny especially after jl ended up asking him for any useful tips to spread rumours but if anyone asks he really 'doesn't know anything at all'

The storytellers have a fun time bc mdzs as a whole is entertaining enough to earn them a fortune, the civilians realise the main characters with the dizi and qin are a lot like yllz and hgy and.......

That's the start of their new obsession with the bad boy with a heart of gold stereotype with all of the over the top yllz rumours getting twisted to fit their new favourite story and wwx would definitely find the entire thing amusing even if his counterpart has a very different personality (and tease the juniors a lot after he finds out how the story started in the first place)