Based on a comment I made on this TikTok:
MLP! SVSSS where Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu have extremely similar cutie marks. There’s only one detail different. When SY transmigrates into SJ, his cutie mark replaces Shen Jiu’s.
In PIDW, they only mention Shen Jiu’s cutie mark once It was an off handed comment about how Luo Binghe scarred the mark before stuff Shen Jiu into a pickle jar. There’s no description of the design at all.
Shen Jiu hid his cutie mark for decades. When he joined the Cang Qiong Sect, he kept it hidden at all times. No one in the sect knew what his cutie mark was. There was a lot of judgement due to that.
Some whispered that if much be some blasphemous mark related to how he visits brothels often. Others thought he never received one and that’s why he hid it.
The only person who knew was Yue Qingyuan. In fact, he immediately noticed it when Shen Yuan transmigrated. When he questioned Shen Yuan, SY gave him a confused look and claimed it was always like that.
That statement sends Yue Qingyuan into a spiral. It was true that Shen Jiu refused to show his cutie mark for anyone, but YQY had seen it when they were children. A-Jiu was the first to receive his cutiemark and Qi-ge was overjoyed. They celebrated with a small, half-finished dessert found in the trash.
Yue Qingyuan swore it was a white fan with a design of nine bamboo stalks. And there were four leaves surrounding the fan. But when Shen Yuan appears, the number of bamboo stalks is eight with only three leaves.
Yue Qingyuan begins doubting himself. How could he believe there was one extra bamboo shoot and leaf? Did he always thought wrong? Could cutie marks change? He spends many nights thinking about this. Turning it around in his head and questioning how he could miss such a detail.
What if his memories were altered due to having a qi deviation when obtaining Xuan Su? Could he have experienced such a traumatic injury that his memories now fail him? What he had forgotten some other crucial detail that could’ve helped him save A-Jiu all those years ago?
Waves of bitterness consume him. Qi-ge failed A-Jiu in even more ways. How could he be so foolish?
What’s worse is that Shen Yuan has taken to showing his cutiemark unlike Shen Jiu. Yue Qingyuan has to continuously be reminded that he did not know A-Jiu as well as he thought.
