Thinking about Shang Qinghua not transmigrating into the character of Luo Binghe (his protagonist), but still effectively becoming the character who must unite the human and demon realms and rule over them. And not realizing it.
Like it starts out and first he just has to become Peak Lord of An Ding (system mandated), and handling stuff in the demon realm is just part of his whole spy subplot and his efforts to both make himself useful to Mobei Jun and prevent Mobei Jun's death, even though he also thinks Mobei Jun will kill him one day. He's not pursuing ambition, is the thing, he's just trying to survive, but the stakes keep getting higher the higher his social status becomes, consequently prompting him to gain more status/advantages which in turn increases his authority. By the time of SV's start he's probably the second most influential political authority in Cang Qiong (after the sect leader) and fourth most powerful in the Northern Desert (after MBJ, MBJ's dad, and Linguang Jun), even though he is largely off of a lot of people's radar. Including his own.
Especially because at that point he's still doing everything with the full knowledge & expectation that Luo Binghe is going to come along one day and become Junshang and rule the world. After his ascension Shang Qinghua anticipates either being dead or on the run, or at the very least downgraded to being the servant of a lieutenant who is only nominally king, and the lord of a peak that's a big pile of ash.
In the SV route, however, while Luo Binghe does become Junshang, he forgoes conquering the world and doesn't particularly want to manage/keep most of the bits he did take over, not even really doing much with Huan Hua Palace let alone the entire rest of the cultivation world, or the ruling nobility beyond it, and whether he consolidates the rest of the demon realms or not is more a matter of what options present the greater impediment to him meeting his own enrichment needs than an all-consuming hunger and ambition to be The Best.
Which means that instead of the downgrade he's expecting, Shang Qinghua goes from logistically managing 1 peak and 1 kingdom, to handling a lot of practical affairs of Luo Binghe's entire roughshod empire. Whatever Luo Binghe delegates to Mobei Jun is either done by Mobei Jun or Shang Qinghua, and Mobei Jun usually just handles the combat-oriented stuff.
So, Shang Qinghua is managing the realm. Which is comprised of joint parts of the demon and human worlds. Which he will probably need to expand in some directions just to maintain stability or avoid certain plot upheavals from the latter portions of his novel. Now he's gotta figure out how to broker marriage alliances throughout the various territories and nearby fiefdoms to compensate for Luo Binghe's lack of harem, he's gotta handle trade and business oversight, tribute and taxation, he thankfully doesn't have to personally handle diplomacy (at first) but he's gotta advise and organize things for people who do, and so on.
Then, after he officially becomes Mobei Jun's consort, his political sway increases as does his visibility and the appropriateness of him handling things in public as well. He is officially the master of Mobei Jun's household, and this version of Mobei Jun has a taste for being the spoiled trophy wife, so despite nominally being the one who "married in" Shang Qinghua is doing most of the king's job. Or at least the parts that Mobei is bad at and/or doesn't like doing.
He says this stresses him out but it's also a hell of a power trip. He's not the ruler of the human realms outside of his position in Cang Qiong and his by-proxy management of Huan Hua Palace and thank fuck for that, he doesn't particularly want to be dealing with the extra headaches, but he is officially the third most powerful person in the demon realms and unofficially in fact the no.1 most powerful, at least by any metric that doesn't involve physicality. Obviously pissing off Luo Binghe and Mobei Jun is bad but you're way less likely to even be in a position to do that unless you're on an active battlefield or interrupting their spoiled husband routines, whereas you can piss of Shang Qinghua from half a country away by doing diplomacy wrong and suffer Consequences.
But while Shang Qinghua is aware that he considerably beats the rank-and-file NPCs of the world, he's still mostly operating like he's a twelfth banana and it would be absurd to think he was important.
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
annaxmalina
titsay
