#when he first started living in the bamboo house and would watch sqq stare at the wall for hours in bafflement | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zykamiliah · 2 years ago

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One of @rippedorigami 's last posts made me remember a scene from vol.3 of svsss, about how sqq's love for binghe is something you have to look for because his narration hides it, disguises it as something else, or he mentally changes topic and thus distracts us readers from what he's actually feeling.

The scene is the one were they're at the inn just before they receive the summons to Zhao Hua Monastery.

The next morning, half-dreaming and half-awake, he sensed someone else in the room. This person’s steps and movements both were incredibly light. When Shen Qingqiu opened his eyes, he immediately froze.

The only one who’d be interested in slipping into his room first thing in the morning was obviously Luo Binghe.

Lbh sneaks quietly to start Sqq's morning routine. He doesn't wake Sqq up, but waits for him to wake up on his own. Nevertheless Sqq hears him come and immediately, without needing to confirm it with his eyes, he knows it's Lbh. And when he does look at him...

But it was a very different Luo Binghe. He had changed into a set of white robes, and his dark hair was neatly bound with a light-colored ribbon. Furthermore, he was hurrying about the room with a relaxed and contented expression.

This is something we already know, Lbh wants to go back to the golden days and play the attentive disciple, not to manipulate Sqq but because he misses it so much, and it brings him comfort to fall back in that old learned routine of attending his Shizun. Now keep in mind that Sqq is watching him.

His current attire and appearance was exactly identical to the Luo Binghe from before the Immortal Alliance Conference: the model of a flawless and pure disciple of a major sect, the image of a pretty, diligent, and competent young wife, it really…really…was…

The crossed part is from the novel. These are thoughts that the narrator is trying to deny, presumably to himself: "the model of a flawless and pure disciple", "the image of a pretty, competent young wife"; these are the thoughts he wants to suppress, and after that we're left wondering what he's feeling; "it really was" what, sqq? Whatever he's feeling, it's something he doesn't tell us about. Maybe because his feelings are incomprehensible to even himself, or because he can't bear to face what's going through his mind and heart.

This is the Binghe he came to love as his disciple, the one he lived with for three years, the one he thinks "died" at the Immortal Alliance Conference. And he's left mentally speechless for a moment, maybe a few minutes, until Lbh turns and sees he's awake.

Luo Binghe turned. At the sight of Shen Qingqiu propping himself up on one arm, he reached out a hand and said, all smiles, “Shizun is awake? Breakfast is on the table.”

Shen Qingqiu put a hand on his forehead, but his body reacted by itself to take Luo Binghe’s hand and get off the bed.

Two things about this part: one, Sqq was "propped up in one arm" while he was staring at Lbh. I would love to get fanart of this, specially of the look on his face. And two: Sqq takes Binghe's hand to get out of bed. This doesn't seem to be anything new about their morning routine. It's so instinctive that he says his body "reacted by itself".

In a way, they're reenacting a scene from the past.

Then we finally get the explanation of why Sqq is ""letting himself"" act like this:

If he had to blame something, it would be that the scene before him was precisely the standard service he had received every morning back on Qing Jing Peak in days long past. The whole breadth of morning activities—getting up, getting dressed, washing, doing his hair, serving the meal, eating—was all naturally done under the auspice of Luo Binghe’s mindful service.

If the setting were changed to Qing Jing Peak’s Bamboo House, he really would have had the terrifying misconception that time was flowing backward!

If he "had to blame something", because of course it's not his own fault that he reacts like that to Lbh. It's not that he feels something about what's happening. What "terrifying misconception"? All the subtle hints points to nostalgia for the past, for their domestic life at the QJP bamboo house. He doesn't acknowledge it, not even to himself.

In a flash, Luo Binghe had gone to make his bed.

The devil incarnate, making his bed! This was too fantastical a vision; Shen Qingqiu didn’t dare watch.

Here's one of his tactics to distract himself (and the reader): change the topic, and compare the current Binghe to the image he has in his head: the demon lord, the "devil incarnate", the blackened protagonist. In a way he's also struggling with this incongruity, that the Binghe he knows personally is not the one he read about and was afraid of. And he's constantly comparing his Binghe to Bingge, and asking himself why his Binghe is acting like a "purehearted young man who serves tea, carries water, washes clothes, and folds blankets for someone, who bashfully speaks only when his back is turned". Because he still hasn't quite realized that Binghe and Bingge the Protagonist are two different people/characters, and in doing so it's like he tries to put distance between himself and Binghe, himself and his own feelings. But he's just delaying the inevitable. He can't run from them forever.

This is all just to state the obvious: Shen Qingqiu misses Luo Binghe, and he constantly avoids thinking about it. He misses him as viscerally as Binghe does, because he can't even "voice" what he thinks when he sees Binghe attending to him in the morning, and it's like a vision from the past, a mirage he has to avert his gaze from.

They're both pining on their own way, it's just that Sqq's pinning is hidden under layers of self-delusion and denial.

#zykamiliah posted this #svsss #sv reread #svsss meta #bingqiu #bingqiu meta #long post #zykamiliah-svsss

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