Shen jiu is an impossible character or the problems you get when a character whos not supposed to suddenly gets a fandom
so i lurked a bit on twitter and saw some shen yuan vs shen jiu discourse and thought to myself - i don't have time today, i have to work on something that im procrastinating on for weeks...
lets procrastinate some more
anyway shen jiu vs shen yuan is what happens when you make the original goods to prominent in your novel while holding your characters to a weird double standard
and this shouldn't be a problem but judging from the extras that came after the novel it seems to be a problem for MXTX
lets begin (BTW its awhile since i read the novel and i interacted a lot with fanon - i'll try to stay accurate but i cant help my fanon brain
in every isekai where the mc replaces a character at some point the question will be relevant what happened to the OG-character
most stories handle that in three ways:
1) dont worry about it they were scum anyway (we will never speak of this again)
2) the mc is actually the OG character just in a time loop/a reincarnation (so dont worry about it, we will never speak of this again)
3) the OG character is a complicated character, a lingering ghost who will get some closure during the story or agrees with his/her non-existence (sometimes even playing a prominent role during the story)
so imo scum villain tried to be category 1 and somehow slid into category 3. you werent supposed to worry about it because the og was supposed to be scum you see. he didn't deserve his place in the world, he made everyone miserable, he's responsible for Binghes pain, he's lecherous, everything he does turns to ash etc etc.
and than plot and themes happened:
scum villain is supposed to be a story about the fact that noone is irredeemable and even the worst person can become loveble if someone good takes care of them at least on the surface. that is a theme it never managed to keep because everyone from huahua palace except gonji xao was irredeemably evil anyway but you get the sentiment (BTW if you want to read a fanfiction that manages to cash in those themes far better than the og story read tarnished gold from prim the amazing)
But the scum villain got the ~he's more complicated~ treatment. 1) because he's a mystery of the story that needs to be unravelled - he's the example that some things are more complicated than they appear on the surface. 2) because some things of his past needed to be not be true so they wouldnt tarnish shen yuans reputation: shen jiu couldn't be a sex pest so his body was virginal for Binghe, he couldn't be a cold blooded murderer so that Haitang didn't have a leg to stand on,
At the same time you needed to have challenges which couldn't just come from shen jiu.
something not a lot of people talk about is that in a story where the hero doesn't want anything, the antagonist drives the story. LBH was supposed to be a white lotus- a victim of circumstances - so he couldn't do anything. if shen yuan is in shen jius place he won't do anything. but we still need plot to happen- so the murder of liu qingge for example becomes a nearly fatal qi deviation, the system has to force shen yuan to throw binghe in the abyss.
But shen jiu isn't supposed to be a passive character. he's scum, he doesn't care. he will murder you if needed. So why would he stay in qing jing peak. Enter yue qingyuan and his very complicated relationship to shen jiu
before you know it you have a fully formed compelling character who looks very much like a pretty innocent victim that just got slaughtered by the OG Binghe (who it cannot be said enough is a legit bad guy - a rapist, a murderer, a tyrant, a world destroyer, an incel power fantasy - if you wanted to see scum look no further - i say that with love but it is what it is).
Shen jius's resentment isn't laid to rest (he never heard Yue Qingyuans confession and his enemies where never defeated) and he exists now as an unsolved tragedy in you little comedy you have to worry about. after all he got his life stolen by your supposedly good protagonist. leaves a bit of a bad after taste, doesn't it?
so what is an author to do: make the scum scummy again
enter the first extra which is very well written but on a meta level so fucking funny because it bends over backwards to convince us that a) its all shen jius fault that people misunderstood him, he was a cold blooded killer (hello wu yanzi) and he had legit beef with binghe and tried to kill this child out of jealousy multiple times (you see he did give LBH a faulty cultivation manual, not ming fan...)
it made the character even better imo - and not just imo -
people didn't accept the ~the world would be better without him ~ narrative and produced their fanfiction -
and quite honestly it could've ended here
especially because you could've argued at this point that shen yuan and shen jiu were the same person in different incarnations. it would've even made the story stronger as a whole because it would've fit right into to theme of how you grow up shapes what you becomes - shen jiu suffers abuse after abuse -> self hating abuser LBH suffers abuse after abuse -> terrible tyrant. shen jiu grows up as a lazy second son (something he's accused of in the story) -> becomes a pretty decent and nice person who in turn doesn't abuse LBH -> the scum villain self saving system saved the scum villain by putting a version of himself in the story whose decisions wouldn't turn him into a stick
the bing-ge/bing-mei extra wouldn't be a problem anymore. they are the same person. it also solves the problem that bing-mei never met shen yuan in his real body - shen jius body is in fact shen yuans body, - it also would explain why the differences betweeen shen jiu and shen yuan weren't so bad that the peak lords had to act -> - they are the same. you can even have bingjiu and bingyuan as parallel ships because they are in fact the same ship just in different iterations -> don't worry about it.
but instead MXTX spun the block and doubled down on shen yuan not being shen jiu but instead a really good ceo that binghe of course loved while shen jiu was a scummy abuser in all of his lifetimes because he didn't love OG-Binghe who of course is an innocent little bean and may not be judged for any of his actions ever. Shen jiu deserved his life to be taken away by someone better and also he secretly wanted it anyway and now i'm here and think:
so a slave who worked himself up from the dirt, who fought for everything he had, who got abused again and again only to be killed by an entitled heavenly demon who wants access to his body gets his live stolen by a rich ceo with a loving family who got everything he wanted from the start
Yknow what! I'm gonna make a fic reccomendation post!! Because I love reading fics! And I want to share the ones I love best!
We've got:
- One Wife Free With Purchase
Shen Yuan transmigrates as a rouge cultivator and ends up in a brothel to sleep for the night when the inn lacks room. He requests their sole male cortison, a man by the name of Shen Jiu, and after a short but interesting conversation reguarding cultivation he decides to buy out Shen Jiu's contract and Shen Jiu insists they marry. Shen Yuan must now deal with the fact that he just bought a wife, and is very quickly falling for him but wants to keep his feelings under wraps to prevent Shen Jiu from being uncomfortable.
Very cute fic, very fond of this one, I've read it 3 times and the sequel One Wife Two Many which adds Yue Qi to their relationship
- What If We Could
Shen Yuan transmigrates. And transmigrates. And transmigrates. And transmigrates. And-
A timeloop of sorts, except we're viewing what I assume is the final one. Honestly this fic upsets me in a way that makes me rant about it, but also not in a bad way. I'm upset on behalf of Shen Yuan, who's horribly tormented by everyone on Qing Jing Peak and it doesn't even exclude Luo Binghe who hates him. He has no respite except for the system who at this point in the loops feels bad for him and has grown rather attatched to the traumatized Shen, read at your own risk because it's honestly kind of a lot to me but I can't not reccomend it anyway!
- Maybe... Fourth Times The Charm?
Shen Yuan is Shen Jiu, abandoned by Luo Binghe post canon and regaining his memories of his first life as the Shen Jiu he dies of a broken heart only to be sent back in time for a fourth life, his third as Shen Qingqiu. He tries things differently this time.
Unfinished, likely won't be finished due to how long it's been, but honestly the ending point it leaves on doesn't particularly upset me
- Disciple... Are You Flirting With Me?
Shen Yuan transmigrates as a disciple on Qing Jing Peak in an a/b/o PIDW and is given the task of seducing the scum villain! He does not want to, but he keeps finding himself thinking about him in ways he wouldn't have expected.
BAMF Shen Yuan in an overpowered body, honestly it slays. Ongoing.
A year after Shen Yuan's death his siblings go over his comments on PIDW! But oh no. They died!? Now all three of his siblings are in PIDW with him! His Da-ge is Mobei-Jun, his Er-ge is Liu Qingge, and his Meimei is Ning Yingying!
Unfinished, likely won't be finished, but an enjoyable read that's inspired a few of my own wip fics of a Da-ge Mobei-Jun because I honestly especially liked him in this especially his relationship with Shang Qinghua
- Snow Hugs
Shen Yuan transmigrates as Linguang-Jun at birth! Fights the system because he can't BE ooc since he was born as him. Becomes a great uncle and father figure to Mobei-Jun. I love this one, I also love that the author teased a potential sequel that could have system x shen yuan which would make sense upon reading it, they have chemistry.
- Oroboros
Shen Yuan transmigrates as Zhuzhi-Lang and gets found out immediately by a still trapped Tianglang-Jun. He still goes about saving him, rescuing Baby Binghe, and accidentally seducing Liu Qingge
Ongoing
- The Rift That Keeps On Giving
Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua accidentally reset the universe and their husbands go after them. Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua know something is missing from their lives, but they can't remember what. They're researching a rift when they come across an unsuspecting food truck with two very attractive men working it, and heavenly food they keep coming back to.
Can their husbands make them fall in love again? Or will they remain so close and yet so far?
- Immortal Book Club
Shen Yuan transmigrates as Su Xiyan and immediately transes his gender to male by "accident" with the only cure being papapa with a heavenly demon! Good thing that'll never happen. He meets with a disguised noble and keeps in contact with him to rant about books. Tianglang-Jun, on the other hand, can already see him in red.
- Amidst A Golden Autumn
On the day Shen Jiu is to join the peak, Shang Qinghua awakens to find his system is GONE. Nowhere to be found. His first order of buisness is to guide Shen Jiu to a different peak, the beast peak, where he'll be treated much better than Qing Jing.
Not Yue Qingyuan friendly in this fic but it's a great one I legit think about this one all the time it's inspired several of the ideas still floating around in my brain.
- Dance In Dusk
Shen Yuan transmigrates as Wu Yanzi the demonic cultivator just before taking in Shen Jiu. As he has no idea what the man was like, OOC becomes forfit! Now he has a little scum villain following after him, oblivious to his own wife beam in action
- The Devistation Of Autumn
Shen Qingqiu refuses to push Luo Binghe into the abyss. The system, however, decides to punish him in a way he never could have expected or wanted. Now he's forced to live Shen Jiu's childhood, and Luo Binghe is forced to watch. They blacken together
Ongoing
- End Game
Shen Yuan transmigrates late. Very. Very late. Luo Binghe decides to take advantage of this amnesiac Shen Qingqiu and torment him like he'd been tormented in his youth by claiming he's his disciple
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Incubus
Shen Yuan transmigrates as an incubus in the abyss, but he has no idea that he's an incubus! Luo Binghe, on the other hand, is very aware he's an incubus and keeps waiting for him to turn around and do his incubus thing. He does not. Binghe is confused, but strangely attracted to this odd demon.
Contains very pretty art, one of my favorite Shen Yuan designs, and this one really pretty sky piece that was my discord header for like three months until I got Zhuzhi-Lang fever again
- Tip Of The Iceberg
Mobei-Jun does something he shouldn't and the system gets its hands on him because of it, sending him to a new strange world where he's a CEO tasked with keeping his company afloat within the year if he ever wants to return home. MoShang
- Another Time, Another Place
Liu Qingge dies at the hands of a different Luo Binghe trying to protect Shen Qingqiu and is transported into a dogblood drama that still has cultivation in it and is tasked with things that confuse him. An ex-girlfriend? Losing his apartment? All he wants to do is cultivate with Shen Yuan, who he finds immediately with the help of the system. Shen Yuan, now back in his original body, had no idea cultivation existed in his world, and Liu Qingge is determined to help him with it to extend his short lifespan.
Very good, honestly kinda beautiful I got very vivid imagry from this one while I was reading it and I don't get to have such a detailed imagining very often anymore
- Regardless Of The Hardships
Shen Yuan transmigrates as Mu Qingfang, who had searched him out after regaining his memories as a god and plucks the most fitting soul to take over for him so he can ascend to the heavens again. Shen Yuan suffers, because he overworks himself while acclimating and gets too attatched. Somewhere along the way, he and Shen Qingqiu get close and begin to fall in love.
Shen Yuan: oh no, I've blemished Luo Binghe's reputation and risked his future by seeming like a horrible pervert who is taking advantage of him, I must fix this disaster and hush it up as quickly as possible! How did this even happen? Was he so drunk he mistook me for one of his girlfriends?!
Sooo, a random au elaboration nobody asked for!! Go Mirror AU!! (cause i suck at giving names)
So, how would this work? The original concept was that Sy was a broken shard fragment that had been flowing along a river for who knows how long. He has barely any consciousness, and somehow barely just makes it into land. He is in a forest and is unable to do jack shit, and he has no system available to help him.
He hears a rustle from the bushes, and out comes a three-horned centaur, basically the regular centaur, but with an extra horn. These species in particular are fond of nature but unfortunately are mute. Sadly, Airplane wasted another opportunity for lore in favor of porn, so he doesn't know the exact reason they are mute. (and because of this, he realizes he's in PIDW) Anyways, this kind centaur picks Sy up and takes him to his studio Ghibli cottage.
Shen Yuan is then brought into a sort of blacksmithing room, and he slowly freaks out because?? He's going to be melted or something!! The room becomes hot from the heat of the furnace, and oh no, Shen Yuan is gonna die!!!! Slowly but surely, he loses consciousness...
When he wakes up, he feels...refined? He wouldn't know how to explain it, but he feels fancier somehow. He manages to somehow look at himself, and holy cow, he had a massive glow up! He was carved into an exquisite hand mirror!! Shen Yuan is picked up by the centaur and is held out to another centaur.
And oh! the male centaur is gifting the other hand mirror Shen yuan as a courting gift!!! How cute and romantic!! The other is happy, and despite both being mute, the other centaur envelops the other in a hug. She(??) accepted!! They spend their days together, being flirty and romantic that makes shen yuan feel like a third wheel.
Out of boredom, Shen Yuan decides to give them names. For the male centaur, he chose the name Bluebell, since they can represent gratitude and everlasting love. For the female(?), named them Columbine, because he simply felt like it was right.
Shen Yuan stays with them awhile, peacefully living each day to the fullest. Although he can't do much, just being around them brought Shen Yuan peace, and a bit of nostalgia. One day, Bluebell and Columbine leave for what felt like weeks. Shen Yuan gets a little worried, but he's simply a mirror. He can't do anything. Just as his anxiety spikes, the couple return, and oh, in their hands lies a baby.
Shen Yuan feels so, so happy for them.
And of course, their daily lives continue, with an adorable addition. Shen Yuan makes sure Columbine looks as pretty as usual, reflects the baby's appearance to entertain it sometimes, watches as the family gathers around the table to eat. And he thinks a year has passed.
Of course, good things aren't made to last forever.
It's the middle of the night, and Shen Yuan is about to doze off, but a sudden boom jerks him awake. The hazy blue night has turned into a blaze of flames, and he hears explosions going off. The couple is gone-and the baby is beginning to cry. He hears the shouts of people- cultivator's? Columbine bursts into the house, running to grab the baby, and Shen Yuan realizes he's going to be left behind and die. But Columbine also grabs him, and they rush out of the house.
Where is Bluebell? Shen Yuan wonders, but taking a look at Columbine's state, her(?) hair dirtied and matted, body covered with scars, and one of their antlers are broken. After running for some time, they reach some sort of cave, hidden by vines and bushes, he places the baby there, along with Shen Yuan. She gives her baby a final kiss, and places what looks to be a qiankun pouch? And then she leaves.
Shen Yuan wants to help, is desperate to help, but he hears the steps of people and fear instantly envelops him into a hug. Somehow, a rush of adrenaline and the need to protect the child gives Sy the ability to temporary hide the child (basically reflecting the empty cave). A slash from a sword cuts the vines that were hiding them and in comes a cultivator, disappointed that the only thing hiding in this cave is a hand mirror.
Beside him, Shen Yuan sees it. Columbine's dead body, lying on the ground. In the cultivator's left hand is Bluebell's head.
the difference between Kim Dokja and Shen Yuan and their respective protagonists is that while reading about Yoo Joonghyuk, kdj was like "this guy is so cool and badass even though he's kind of a jackass, I wish I could be like him, when I'm dealing with difficult things I ask myself what Yoo Joonghyuk would do" and then when he meets him he immediately is like "I need to annoy this man so much that he wants to kill me"
meanwhile Shen Yuan was like "Luo Binghe is so cool and badass and clearly everyone would want to fuck him, this is an unquestioned opinion everyone has" and then when he meets him he p much immediately decides "I need to act like his mother"
Ah, it's my birthday today? I'm turning 24. Do people still ask for reblogs for their birthdays on tumblr? Well, i will leave it here. Just saying. Casually.
Shen Yuan resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he endured more of his older sister's griping about the loss at Cang Qiong.
Give him a break, okay? He couldn't win that match! The stupid, worthless System that he had transmigrated with had perked up for the first time in literal years to start badgering him about how Luo Binghe had to win or else it would deduct enough points to guarantee him a one-way ticket back to being a corpse. He had tried to tell her that it wasn't his fault, but he supposed that from the outside, it probably did look a lot like he'd deliberately sabotaged her.
Oh well. That kind of thing really wasn't unexpected between demon siblings.
Actually, the two of them got along unusually well considering that they were expected to be trying to kill one another for their inheritance. Sha Hualing had never been Shen Yuan's favorite wife when he first read the novel 'Proud Immortal Demon Way', which was the setting for the world he had transmigrated into. She was just too mean and vicious and interwoven with all the stupid harem intrigue plots that he liked least about the story. But she was still a prominent character, a popular and even iconic one, and it had been exciting in a way to realize that he had transmigrated into a demon NPC.
Though, being a man in the world of a stallion novel was a dangerous proposition unless one was the stallion in question. Shen Yuan's only hope lay in that he was the male relative of a main wife, someone who could at least expect not to become the direct target of the protagonist's ire as long as he didn't make the mistake of becoming said wife's 'evil' relative. Given that, Shen Yuan had always gone to great lengths to make it clear to his older sister that he didn't want to inherit their father's lands or titles, that he was much too lazy and more interested in things like the arts and writing, and was additionally more interested in playing with frivolous things from the human realms than in conquering anybody.
For some reason, this led to many demons in their father's court to refer to in the same breath as the old Junshang, Tianlang-Jun. Luo Binghe's mysterious father. But at least Sha Hualing saw him more as a lackey than a threat, and only sometimes got suspicious of him or tried to sabotage his own doings.
In light of recent events, Shen Yuan knew to expect her to retaliate somehow. She had already mangled his hair piece, which was an emblem of his rank. Father would probably punish him for letting it be destroyed, though he wouldn't punish her for destroying it. Those were the kinds of standards that he had for such things. However, he knew she wasn't seriously rejecting him, because she'd still deigned to smack him around.
As counter-intuitive as it was to the human part of his brain, the smacking around stuff meant he was still accepted as 'didi' and hadn't moved to being a serious threat in Hualing's eyes. If he'd really fucked up, she would have begun ignoring him or else outright trying to kill him. Demons healed from injuries ridiculously fast, especially demons from the more powerful lineages. Shen Yuan's broken arm had all but completely fixed itself by the time they got back to the southern realms, and his sister's smacks barely even registered as painful when they'd landed. He supposed this explained why demons were generally more violent towards their loved ones. For them a few stab wounds or some broken ribs were little more than love taps.
He struggled to return that kind of affection, but he made a point to smack Sha Hualing's arm when she left an opening. She huffed at him, but she also (finally!) settled down after that.
"At least I saved us some shred of dignity by winning my match," she grumbled. “Even if I was the only fucking one!”
Their father's lackeys, the soldiers she'd hand-picked for her scheme, all but fell over themselves agreeing that of course the young Saint had been incredible, powerful, strong, amazing, blah blah blah. Shen Yuan wandered off to let them puff up her ego, escaping to his own rooms to go lick his wounds in peace.
It wasn't as if he didn't have any pride. That match had been legitimately harrowing! Figuring out how to let Luo Binghe win without just tossing aside his spear and forfeiting on the spot wasn't easy! The System had told him that wouldn't work, though, and even he could concede that it would have made no sense. He'd wanted to throttle Hualing when she'd suddenly decided to pick him for the third match.
Though... as he finally settled behind the door to his rooms and sealed it behind him, Shen Yuan could admit that it had been kind of cool.
He'd finally met the protagonist!
He did a little jump for joy.
Luo Binghe shone with the glory of a thousand suns! His aura was almost too much to handle. Not only that, but he was somehow too pretty for words. Still young, of course, but a promising figure on the cusp of his manhood, with beautiful features and a compelling aura of potential. Small wonder that the ladies would soon start falling all over themselves to win his favor. It had taken a lot of effort on Shen Yuan's part not to try and whisk him away from his scum master and the abuses of his disciple days.
Luo Binghe, come live in the demonic realms right now! There are still plenty of things that will try to kill you, but at least they're honest about it?
That was, of course, an absolutely ridiculous proposal, so he'd had to bite his tongue and ended up saying too many other things instead.
To think that poor kid was going to end up in the Endless Abyss in the near future! It really was unfair. Sure he was forged in the fires of that trial, but seeing him in person, anyone would seethe at the injustice of it.
Or worry about the results. After all, as soon as that kid got out of the Abyss, his next stop was the demonic realms. Specifically, conquering them. Shen Yuan wasn't exactly attached to his demon father, but he didn't look forward to the kind upheaval his death would cause either. But that would be how things would go. First Luo Binghe would subdue the North and win Mobei-Jun's allegiance. Then he'd turn his gaze out towards the rest of the realms, and form an alliance with Sha Hualing. Their father would die, Hualing would inherit, and through her Luo Binghe would take control of enough of the minor kingdoms and fiefdoms to be named Junshang. Only after that would he return to the human world and start ingratiating himself to Huan Hua Palace. Who knew how Shen Yuan would fit into that plot? Hopefully he could scrape by as an unremarkable side character, without also getting dragged into too many of his sister's schemes. His best bet was to remain her loyal subordinate, and yet, that put him in the position of having to back her up even when she was concocting frankly terrible schemes.
He would have to be careful not to cross the line from being the ally of one wife to the enemy of others too, considering that most of Hualing's targets were Binghe's other wives. Hualing would never be punished. But her disposable, adjacent male relative?
Shen Yuan shook his head. He wouldn't say his life as a demon prince had been easy so far, but it was probably going to be a cakewalk compared to what was coming next!
"So how did the glorious invasion go?"
The sudden intrusion of a familiar voice into his musings was startling, but Shen Yuan suppressed his reaction and did not show it. Instead he just sighed in exasperation.
How this development had occurred was still unclear to him. Granted, the novel hadn't gone into much detail at all about what state the Elder Dream Demon was in before he met Luo Binghe, but obviously he was incorporeal, and in some contact with the Sha clan of demons in order for Sha Hualing to set him onto Luo Binghe after his surprise victory.
Shen Yuan had known to be somewhat on the lookout for him, but in his defense he had been born into this new life as an infant. He had a lot on his plate! Relearning how to do absolutely everything, plus navigating the weird social norms of demon society, and trying to figure out how to be a 'good' brother despite his father basically throwing him and all of his siblings into a fighting pit and encouraging them to thin the herd. He'd had a lot more older brothers and sisters than just Hualing back then, and hadn’t done his welfare a lot of favors by throwing himself between his plot-relevant sister and all the bigger, meaner siblings who were out for her blood. But somehow he had managed to survive, despite being perfectly unwilling to murder baby demons. Well, to be fair most of them had only really died during the adolescent trials that started at age ten, which he tried desperately not to remember or think about at all.
It had only been a couple of years ago that he had to start worrying about the plot itself, and it was around that time too when he'd followed Hualing into sneaking into one of the fortress vaults, and picked up a weird looking statue. The statue drew his attention because such crafts were pretty rare in the demonic realms, and most commonly stolen from humans.
But this one didn't look like any of the usual human designs. In fact, it looked distinctly evil in nature. Shen Yuan couldn't have even said what it was supposed to be a sculpture of. It was a little larger than his palm and very abstract, depicting swooping whorls and eyes, grasping, clawed hands, and the implication of entwined figures. It reminded him more of modern horror art from the world he'd left behind than an ancient artifact, but a lot of 'demonic culture' items were pretty much ripped straight from anime and Hollywood aesthetics. Shout out to the hack author for his stunning originality.
The sculpture had begun to glow, and then it had spoken. And then Shen Yuan found out that he'd accidentally picked up Meng Mo's tomb.
Or anchor. Coffin. Totem? Whatever one wanted to call it. The sculpture was currently helping keep what was left of the dream demon somewhat connected to this world after losing his body, though it had been running low of energy to sustain him. The System had chimed in to let him know that he needed to ensure it didn't run out, and Shen Yuan had dutifully tried to foist the object onto his sister, but it hadn't worked. Hualing must have taken it herself in the original story. If he'd been smarter, Shen Yuan would have thought to pretend he desperately wanted the object. That would have had her stealing it from him in no time. But instead he tried to give it away, and she'd been instantly suspicious and refused to touch it.
Which left him saddled with the annoying old geezer.
Usually Shen Yuan kept him in his study, not the main room, but ever since he began feeding more energy into the statue, Meng Mo had gained a supernatural ability to move it around. He liked to spy on people even outside of dreams, and seemed particularly fond of turning up on Shen Yuan's desks and tables and demanding tributes or respect or attention. Like an ill-behaved cat that was also a cursed tchotchke.
"Why aren't you in your spot?" he groused.
The statue glowed faintly as the dream demon chuckled. Parts of it shifted around so that one of the eye-shaped pieces seemed to stare at him.
"It went that well, huh? What a shame, I thought that sister of yours might have a chance if none of the peak lords were around."
"One of the peak lords showed up," Shen Yuan admitted.
"Hm, I'm surprised you're not dead in that case."
"It was only one."
The System chose that moment to chime in, sounding fainter and looking a bit more flimsy than it had when he had been in Luo Binghe's presence, when it had opted to start yelling at him over point deductions. He wondered if it worked less well when the protagonist wasn't around. Yet another good reason to try and avoid the plot, he supposed. Though the System's intervention in his life had been minimal so far, almost all of it involved threatening him with death unless he cooperated, and saddling him with troublesome things like Meng Mo.
Plot Point: Luo Binghe's Demon Tutor is a necessary component of the narrative. Please ensure the Elder Dream Demon encounters Luo Binghe and accepts him as a student. Warning: failure to comply will result in loss of B points.
See? Like that!
At least this presented an opportunity to get rid of a certain freeloader, and get Luo Binghe the teacher he desperately needed in the same stroke.
"Say, Elder, do you know of any cases where a demon had their potential sealed, and pretended to live as a human?" he asked, suddenly very interested in the prospect of getting this plot going. Meng Mo wasn't really so bad, he supposed, but he'd be happier to send him off to help Luo Binghe and wouldn't weep for the number of inkwells no longer passive-aggressively knocked off his writing desk. Or the hassle of having to find stuff to feed the old bastard.
"That's a strange thing to ask," Meng Mo replied. Shen Yuan could hear the frown in his voice, but also an underlying note of intrigue.
"When the peak lord showed up at the invasion, Da'jie proposed a series of duels to resolve the issue without us all getting slaughtered. I fought a young disciple, but his power was strange. He fought more like a demon youth than the other humans did," he explained.
"Hm," Meng Mo replied. The statue twisted around in his perception, shifting in minute, eerie ways that Shen Yuan had never been able to concretely pin down. He couldn't have said which pieces went from one place to another. "Sealing demonic power happens, but if that was the case, such a person would be too weak and devoid of talent to ever be taken in by human cultivators. Humans can't just train any one of them up to potential. Most of them don't even have an ounce of ability to cultivate, which is why they're so weak. It's only a few who can ever be on the level of demonkind."
Shen Yuan rolled his eyes. Yes, yes, demon superiority, blah blah blah. It was a complicated social issue in its way, since demons, despite being overall stronger, struggled as communities. It might have been different if demons could live in the human realm, which was a lot less harsh, but there were enough human cultivators to ensure that they were always beaten back or hunted down any time they tried. Demon culture had a lot to say about the superiority of living in a region full of big hostile beasts and plants that would either fuck you or eat you or both, but given half the chance, most would probably love to live where the fortress walls didn't have to be meters thick or buried underground. The only downside would be potentially eating their way through the whole ecosystem and then accidentally starving as a result. But then again, it wasn’t as if humans didn’t routinely do that sort of thing too.
"Well what if he had some potential anyway?" he suggested.
"Ha! For that kind of thing to work, your little disciple would have to be a rare kind of halfbreed," Meng Mo mused. "Nearly impossible. I've lived a long time and even I only ever heard tales of such things."
"Nearly impossible?" Shen Yuan pressed.
"Extremely unlikely. Especially if he’s part human. Even strictly among different kinds of demons, most hybrids that survive infancy just strongly favor one parent or the other. Or else they turn out ugly freaks. Was this kid an ugly freak?"
"No!" Shen Yuan insisted. "He was beautiful!"
There was an awkward pause.
"...So your interest in this human disciple, it's...?"
For some reason he felt a little flustered.
"He just seemed weird, alright? I thought you might know. But if Elder doesn't-"
"Hold on, hold on, when did I say I didn't know? You're the one making snap judgments here, all this elder has to go off is some brat's description of another brat! If I saw him, I'd be able to tell you!"
Shen Yuan resisted the urge to pump his fist in victory.
"Okay then, you should go tonight," he agreed.
"What? Go where?"
"Into his dreams, obviously. How else are you going to assess him?"
The statue flickered a bit.
"Now wait just a minute, it takes a lot of energy to do that kind of thing," the old demon protested. "I'm not going into some brat's dreams on the whims of your say-so, just because he's got a pretty face..."
"What's his face got to do with anything?!"
"Kids these days, thinking they can just boss their elders around, there's no respect-"
"Are you telling me that the great and mighty Master Dream Demon, who terrorized generations of demons so badly that the mere mention of his name was considered a curse, doesn't have the strength to go spy on a simple human disciple? Even after all the tributes I've given? How pathetic. I guess I'll just throw this old rock out into the trash," Shen Yuan goaded, moving towards the table that Meng Mo had situated himself on.
"Mouthy fucking brat! You wouldn't dare!" the dream demon protested.
"What good are you to me if you're so weak?" Shen Yuan reasoned, well-acquainted with demonic cultural attitudes on this point. Such a shitty eat-or-be-eaten kind of a world. Didn't the author know these tropes were unenlightened and problematic these days?
"Weak, who's weak? Of course I can do it! But it's been so long since you gave me any energy at all, why waste it?"
"I fed you before I left!"
"And I spent that energy well, entertaining your mother in her dreams!"
Shen Yuan made a rude gesture at the sculpture, but the old demon just cackled. The jab didn't really land anyway. Shen Yuan didn't mind his mother in this lifetime, but she wasn't terribly maternal. Mostly she treated him like an investment which she expected to see pay dividends someday, and was disappointed in his lack of ambition or willingness to murder his older sister. But she was one of the lord's favored concubines, not his main wife, and also not interested in being killed by the main wife, who was Hualing's mother. So she was pretty diplomatic and circumspect about her disappointment in him, and focused most of her attention on keeping his father's favor. If she really was fooling around with Meng Mo on the side, he just didn't want to know.
"I'm dumping you in the trash," he insisted again.
"Alright, alright, calm down! I'll spy on this pretty boy of yours for you. But after that, you better bring me something good! Dream Jade or dragon scales!"
Shen Yuan made a show of disagreeing, mostly because those kinds of offerings, though rich in energy that could sustain the dream demon, were pretty expensive and hard to come by. No one would agree to that sort of deal easily. But of course, Meng Mo would not be able to collect once he latched on to Luo Binghe and started using his energy to sustain himself, so in the end he agreed and let Meng Mo gloat (as much as a disembodied voice and a weird sculpture could) before shoving him in a desk drawer as retribution.
"Disrespectful little ingrate!" the dream demon shouted after him.
Figuring that his rooms would be too noisy for a while, Shen Yuan headed out again and made his way to the eastern courtyard, where his youngest siblings could be found.
They were the children of less favored concubines. He felt badly for them, but there also wasn't much he could do without challenging his father directly, and if he did that he would have a hell of a mess on his hands even if he managed to actually beat him. Which wasn't likely, at least not at his current level. Even though he was smarter than the average child thanks to his memories, he was only thirteen years old. He still wasn't even as big as Hualing, who was quite petite, and despite his potential he wasn't the kind of thirteen-year-old that could beat up opponents more than twice his size. Not unless they were pretty weak. His father was built like an ox, in the standard fictional paradox of the big ugly man whose daughter was still somehow dainty and fair, and had crushed lesser demons to death with his bare hands.
In other words, his father wasn't a pushover and there was a reason he was acknowledged as one of the most powerful rulers around.
But in the meanwhile, Shen Yuan at least tried to make sure his younger siblings hadn't yet been completely poisoned by the might-makes-right nature of demon society. They were pretty cute in fact, despite that they all seemed to love biting him. And biting anything else that got within biting range.
"Da'ge! Da'ge!" the little voices chirped as soon as he finished passing through the tunnel that led to the above-ground courtyard. Over in this part of the fortress the weather was less kind, and dust storms had passed over the walls, making everything taste like ash and grit. He covered half of his face with his high collar, but let himself be mobbed by little demons.
"Did Da'ge bring snacks?"
"Treats? Treats for Meimei?"
"Did Da-jie get killed by mad cultivators?"
"Can we eat her bones?"
"Don't be stupid! Da'ge will have eaten her bones first! Right after her heart!"
"Wouldn't Ge save us a little of her bones? Just the bones! I'm sure he would!"
Shen Yuan sighed. Well, maybe he was deluding himself if he thought they weren't already vicious little fiends. He reached into the storage pocket of one of his sleeves, and pulled some live lizards and frogs out. With a mental apology to the poor creatures, he let them go. His younger siblings cheered like he'd poured out a bag of candy, and immediately set about catching them and trying to shove them into their mouths.
Back when he was such an age, Shen Yuan had worried his mother by refusing to eat anything that was still alive.
"Da'jie didn't get killed," he explained. "She's perfectly alright, so no one can eat any of her bones or her organs at all."
A chorus of disappointed groans greeted this announcement. mitigated only by the crunching of lizards between tiny, sharp teeth.
Honestly, Shen Yuan had no idea why they were so struck on the notion of Hualing dying. Did he seem like the kind of guy who ought to be in charge of a demon fortress? Not that he expected a bunch of feral demon babies to understand the burdens of leadership, but still. According to most demon standards they should have been bigger fans of Hualing. Then again, maybe she got these conversations in reverse whenever she happened to visit?
He wouldn't put it past his little siblings to play all the angles. Demon kids just grew up that way. Whoever was the strongest in the room, that was who you sucked up to unless you were the strongest in the room!
Shen Yuan watched as they caught the last of their slippery prey, and broke up a few fights over the legs, before he let himself be used as a jungle gym. The feral buns clambered over him and tugged at his sleeves and his spirit ribbons, chewing on his hair and biting at his ankles. He swung them up and tossed them into the air, and roughhoused with them for a while. Honestly even with demon instincts he didn't care much for hurting them, but if he didn't leave at least a few tiny bruises they got upset and confused, so it was a balancing act. And it did sort of satisfy something in his instincts to make playful growling noises and put on a big fake display of pain any time one of them jumped on him.
Sometimes not-so-fake after all; those little elbows were pointy, and the milk teeth were sharp.
Eventually their mothers came back from their hunts, bringing whatever spoils they could collect from the windswept wilds beyond the fortress. Sometimes low-ranking concubines and slaves tried to run, but the terrain outside was difficult to navigate and they almost always got brought back by one of his father's servants, so usually it was only the newcomers who made the attempt. And of course, sometimes they didn't make it back for other reasons. Shen Yuan lingered just long enough to be sure they'd caught something and that everyone had returned in one piece, then he pried his little siblings off and made his way back out again, not eager to intrude on the fullness of meal time. It wasn't pretty.
He'd tried not to make a lot of uncomfortable things that went on in the fortress his business. It was just asking for trouble. But it was easier said than done, when one spent their life being raised in such a place, and came to it with sensibilities forged by a different society.
Shen Yuan was the type of person who could easily settle in if he was reasonably safe and distracted, even if the circumstances weren't ideal. That was how he had managed most of his first life. But that approach depended on a certain minimum of comfort, a decent place to hunker down and hide from the problems of the world. The demon realms offered few such places, and those that existed were temporary in nature. A person couldn't become too comfortable or complacent or else they'd soon become dead. And as to distractions, well, books were not really all that popular among demons. He owned more than anyone else around, and the collection had taken a lot longer to build than it took to read.
So he found other things to keep him from dwelling on some of the ugly realities vying for his attention. But that meant getting involved, like it or not.
He probably shouldn't have gone along with Hualing on her invasion, even though she'd ordered him to. It was courting trouble to even look upon the protagonist. And yet, he couldn't resist.
Shaking such thoughts away, Shen Yuan pursued his next distraction. He headed for the fortress stables.
Demons mostly did not ride, and what they rode was not any normal type of horse. But his father kept a grand carriage for making processions. Until recently, that carriage had been pulled by decently strong slaves, who were themselves not treated much better than beasts of burden. Shen Yuan was no moral paragon but he found the situation intolerable, so over the past several years he had painstakingly trained some of the Dark Sea Hippo Oxen that ranged in the marshes to the southeast, and then convinced his father to give the slaves to Hualing and use the trained oxen to pull his grand carriage instead. The beasts looked a lot more impressive, and his sister was content to have big demons move her furniture and look cool whenever they flanked her on her diplomatic trips. Such trips were increasingly frequent, supposedly to secure her a good match.
Not that his sister actually put any sincere effort into that goal. Shen Yuan had no worries about Hualing being married off, and wouldn't have worried even if she'd shown the slightest interest in the prospect. She just went along with it because it let her take vacations away from their father.
The downside to this arrangement, however, was that the Dark Sea Hippo Oxen only ever really seemed to listen to Shen Yuan. He'd tried to instruct some of the servants in their care, but it was slow going. He wasn't sure if it was just the nature of the servants he'd been assigned or if all demons struggled with the concept of domesticated livestock, or if they just didn't want the job and knew he wouldn't have them executed for failing, but the end result was that he'd mostly put them in charge of cleaning the stalls and did everything else himself. Luckily the big beasts were pretty self-sufficient, as long as there was a comfortable place to sleep and food to eat they came back to the stables, and if they didn't then Shen Yuan needed to only go out with a bell and some treats and eventually they'd come back to him.
The Hippo Oxen had broad backs that could easily carry ten of him. Shen Yuan opened the gate from the stables to let them out, checking first that the dust storm had indeed passed over them, and then hopped up on the biggest to ride out. The two stable servants scattered as if they feared being trampled, even though there was plenty of room.
He sprawled like he was on a comfortable couch as the herd set out, watching the oxen to make certain none were limping or showing signs of discomfort. They'd all been stuck in a thicket of carnivorous dragon plants when he'd first found them, struggling and miserable as they slowly suffocated in the relentless vines. It had taken some doing to get them out, but they'd each made a good recovery, and being demonic beasts they were especially durable. The only real worry was if someone in the fortress tried to poison them or something, but so far no one had dared to.
The air tasted dry and the wind carried grit over to them. After a while Shen Yuan drew one of his war fans and waved it, channeling a thread of demonic qi into the motion. The gust cleared the air ahead of them. Senior Hippo Ox grunted in approval, while a couple of the younger ones made the earth shake as they hopped happily up and down and uncovered a big patch of mud.
That was his cue to get down!
He slid off of Senior Hippo Ox's back and moved away, letting the big beasts go splash around in the fresh mud pit and forage among the vibrant plants at the bank. When he was satisfied that nothing really dangerous was around, he took a seat on a nearby patch of earth and pulled some drawing tools and paper from his storage sleeve.
He mixed some crude ink (his own recipe), and then he sketched the oxen. It was his millionth attempt, and he'd definitely been no artist before his rebirth, but he thought he was getting better. He'd abandoned trying to make realistic looking renderings and instead focused on stylized versions, letting the kinds of strokes he could make with a simple brush and limited pigments dictate the form of his illustrations. After a while a Soul Biting Blister Beetle wandered onto a nearby rock and began doing one of its territorial dances.
Since Shen Yuan was still sat a safe distance from its venomous spittle attack, he switched subjects and started drawing the beetle instead.
He stayed out until he lost the good light. Another storm was threatening on the horizon. He didn't even need to call the oxen, as they'd also had their fill of the mud pit. This time he walked, of course, not interested in getting himself covered in mud as well. When they got back to the stables he left the oxen be; in the morning the mud would be dry and flaking and easier to clean off, and as he'd learned, they preferred it that way.
He was out of daylight by then, and with a deep internal sigh he headed back to the inner corridors of the fortress to try and escape to his room.
The main banquet hall was lit, sconces bright against the dark walls of the inner chambers, with smokeless fires burning blue, purple, orange, and black. Demons allegedly didn't really make a lot of artistic craft items in the way that humans did, and yet, they did still make a lot of art. Fires and lights were common displays, as were manifestations of qi. Jade was hard to come by, and wood was mostly reserved for structural uses, but bone carvings and chimes were common. Since demons healed quickly, piercings and tattoos didn't last as long as on humans, but that just meant they were constantly being refreshed or redesigned. Textile work in the demonic realms was often ludicrously difficult, due to a lack of supplies and stable supply chains, which meant that clothing was made to last as long as possible and imbued with as much protection as possible.
But, clothing was uh... pretty scarce. Especially in these warmer climates.
Shen Yuan averted his gaze from the nude demons settled in the banquet hall, and the ones who were nearly nude, the vast expanse of skin that he'd never entirely gotten used to. Men and women alike, no less! Hualing was no exception, lounging topless at the main table while she regaled some of their father's people with accounts of her singular victory at Cang Qiong. Next to her, a pair of her lackeys were busily doing one another's tattoos; baring their teeth and laughing through the pain.
"Didi!" she called, and he cursed that she'd caught sight of him. "Come join us!"
"No thanks!" he called back.
"Get over here!"
There was enough snap in her tone to know that she meant it. Kissing his hopes and dreams of a quiet evening goodbye, Shen Yuan reluctantly turned and headed into the hall.
At least their father wasn't there. Small mercies. He wouldn't be back from his latest campaign for a while yet, according to Hualing's own projections. She would know better than him, given that she was the favorite and held their father's ear, for all that she seemed to loathe every minute spent in his company.
Why couldn't she loathe every minute spent in Shen Yuan's company?
Oh right. Because he didn't want her future husband to kill him.
Hualing nodded approvingly as he navigated the minefield of the banquet hall and settled onto a cushion that was, with some shoving, cleared next to his sister. She plonked an empty bowl beside him, and he dutifully filled it with wine for her. Demon wines mostly tasted like either blood or vinegar, but their father had particular tastes for fruit wines from the human realm, so Shen Yuan poured some for himself as well. It wouldn't get him drunk the way that a demon wine would, but that was better off anyway. And it almost tasted nice.
"I was just telling everyone about my fight," Hualing said, as if her voice hadn't carried well beyond the banquet hall.
"You did well," he assured her, even though he honestly thought her match was idiotic. She did win it, though, somehow. Everyone agreed on that point anyway, even the other side, so it had to be true.
"Of course, of course!" Hualing agreed, thumping a fist over one of her breasts. "I'm the greatest of our generation! But what the hell was with your fight? Everyone's talking about it, even more than mine! It's a bigger mystery how you lost than how I won."
She sounded displeased with that. Of course she is, he thought. She wants them all praising her, not wondering about her weird brother's weird behavior.
That thought brought a nostalgic feeling, almost. His old meimei and Sha Hualing were like night and day, but he'd also used to overshadow his sister's accomplishments with bad news in that life. Not that he meant to do it, in either case.
He sighed, and accepted that he wasn't going to keep dodging her questions forever. He probably wasn't even supposed to. She should be getting interested in Luo Binghe around now, shouldn't she? Well she'd laid eyes on him so of course that would be the case. As long as he kept the attention there, it would only further the inevitable bond between the protagonist and his future wife.
"Didn't you notice? That disciple was really strong," he said.
Sha Hualing made a face at him. It wasn't a dreamy, 'oh yes he was' sort of face at all.
"You had him beat in the first few minutes."
"He wasn't really fighting in the first few minutes."
"But since when do you care about fighting? You've never been eager to see someone's 'potential' before! Not even mine!"
Hualing pouted, as if recollecting their own past matches. Shen Yuan would rather forget those. They were so unpleasant. He couldn't win, but he also couldn't lose so badly that his own sister killed him. It was like walking a tightrope covered in ice on a dark winter night. He was glad they were past the age where their father would throw them into a pit together and demand they prove that they were worth feeding and housing by ripping into one another until he was satisfied.
"I was just curious," he settled for saying. "Something about him was unlike the other humans."
"Unlike them how?" Hualing narrowed her eyes. But she looked like she was considering it.
"If I could easily say what it was, I wouldn't have tested it by challenging him," he bullshitted, quite reasonably.
"Hmm."
"I was right, though. He did beat me. He had a lot of power. That piece of shit master of his just didn't teach him anything about using it."
For some reason that comment made Hualing grin at him.
"You thought the Xiu Ya sword was a piece of shit?" she latched upon, amused. "I think that one's ranked second in the Cang Qiong hierarchy, isn't he one of their strongest?"
"Not necessarily. His peak has the second most authority, but the Bai Zhan War God is surely stronger," he said. Then he hesitated. Liu Qingge would be dead now, wouldn't he? Murdered by Shen Qingqiu. What a waste...
Sha Hualing shrugged.
"He still must be tough, though. Surely they only make the strongest ones successors? How else would they hold onto their power?"
"Lots of ways. Money, family connections, vital skills that the others can't replicate... but he did seem pretty strong, even if he had to use underhanded tactics."
"That's because the demon race is always superior! Even the strongest humans can't win otherwise!" Sha Hualing announced, and cheers went up.
Shen Yuan finished his wine.
"Good talk, I'll be going now," he tried, but Hualing rolled her eyes and yanked him down into the seat again before he could go, and forced him to endure more 'celebrating'.
The sky was fully dark by the time Shen Yuan managed to escape. Despite his having lost his match, he luckily didn't get dragged too hard by the others at the banquet. Maybe because only Hualing had won, or maybe because it was kind of a dull sport to try and make him feel bad over things that he didn't care about. He ended up drinking most of the fruit wine and nodding along to his sister's boasting before finally fleeing back to his room, and by then he was tired enough that he only stripped and fell into his bed, and was soon unconscious.
"Hmph. Took you long enough!"
Shen Yuan blinked himself to awareness, and found that he was standing back at the pavilion on Qiong Ding Peak. Or rather, that this was what the dream around him looked like at the moment. He knew the signs quite well, after looking after Meng Mo for this long. Contrary to his sleeping state, Shen Yuan was back to wearing the same outfit he'd worn during the invasion, complete with his weapons and all.
Near to him stood a projection of the dream demon; Meng Mo had the look of an esteemed elder, well-dressed and meticulously groomed, in a fashion that hadn't been seen in the demon realms since before the last big war with the human realms. He stroked narrow fingers through his white beard.
Shen Yuan made a face.
"What? Why am I here?" he protested. "I thought you were going to investigate Luo Binghe?"
"Is that his name?" Meng Mo groused. "You didn't give me much to work with!"
"I didn't think the Esteemed Elder Dream Demon needed much," Shen Yuan countered, irritated enough to let his distaste show. Just why was he being involved?! He didn't want the protagonist associating him with an awful nightmare! Shoo!
"I don't," Meng Mo snapped. "Insolent brat. You'd think you'd show a little more appreciation for the lengths I'm willing to go through at your say-so. If I'm going to delve into this random human's mind, I need to know what I'm looking for. I'm not going to waste energy all night just rooting around when there's probably nothing to find!"
Shen Yuan wanted to protest. Wasn't that what the dream demon had done in the novel? Why were the rules different if Shen Yuan asked him to do something instead of Sha Hualing? You shitty old bastard, this poor transmigrator is doing you a favor! Don't you realize that the protagonist is your last hope of living as anything other than some random decor item? That he's going to be your greatest student that you can pass all your teachings onto? A host with enough power that he can sustain your existence indefinitely?
"Just do it yourself," he protested.
Meng Mo glared.
"If it's not worth your time, why should it be worth mine? Useless."
The dream started to dissipate. Shen Yuan raised a hand.
"Okay, wait, stop. It's definitely worth the time," he declared. At the older demon's skeptical expression, he snapped. "Why are you being so difficult? Haven't I taken care of you all this while? And when have I ever led you astray? What an ingrate, do you want to spend the rest of your existence depending on me to keep you around? At this rate I'm going to get tired of you and let you rot in a cupboard 'till all your energy runs out!"
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Your statue is ugly!"
"It is art! High art! Like the kind not seen in this world for centuries!"
"It’s trash."
"You-!"
Meng Mo paused. For a moment Shen Yuan thought that he'd legitimately run out of comebacks, and was a bit concerned. He'd never seen that happen before. But when he opened his mouth, the elder raised a hand and stopped him. His dark eyes narrowed. Then the dream around them began to change, shifting like something out of Inception or a high-end video game. The Qiong Ding pavilion disappeared, stone by stone, to be replaced with the structures and buildings of a rundown city street. Not a modern street, thankfully, not something like the kind from Shen Yuan's past life, but one that would be perfectly at home in Proud Immortal Demon Way.
"Found him," Meng Mo murmured.
So he had been looking. Maybe he genuinely did struggle to pinpoint Luo Binghe this time, for some reason, and brought in Shen Yuan's memories of the invasion to help. He felt a bit chagrined at that. True, Meng Mo didn't seem to need much to try and stalk a victim, but he probably hadn't given as much detailed information as the Sha Hualing of the novel had when he tried to put him onto the protagonist. After all, Sha Hualing would have been gushing like a lovestruck girl, not calmly and objectively explaining the situation the way Shen Yuan had done.
A moment later, Meng Mo's appearance shifted to resemble one of the faceless NPCs that populated most dreams. This was a common trick of his for observing things without drawing notice -- just blend into the background like some other less-formed part of the dream.
Shen Yuan followed the direction of his gaze. Sure enough, he found himself looking at Luo Binghe. Ning Yingying was beside him, holding on to his arm.
Their gazes met.
The protagonist's eyes widened in recognition.
Then the dream faded away as Meng Mo unceremoniously booted Shen Yuan out of it. He wasn't sure if he felt more relieved or disappointed, though of course that was foolish. Like he said, it wasn't as if he wanted the protagonist to associate him with a nightmare!
But even with that mere glimpse, perhaps the damage had already been done?
Dear Meng Mo, haven't I done you a bunch of favors by now? Please go easy on that kid, don't give him such a harrowing trial that he blames me for all of this later on!
Luo Binghe had never been relieved to see his shizun suddenly arrive into a situation, but there was a first time for anything. And a bloodthirsty demon invasion was the kind of situation where anyone would want to have an immortal master turn up, even one as intimidating and unfriendly as Shen Qingqiu.
The demons had arrived some hours ago. Luo Binghe himself had only become aware of the situation recently, as panic spread and he and Ning-shijie were caught up in the chaos. He hadn't even been sure that it was a demon invasion, or what that might entail, until he found himself running for his life from a group of horrifying inhuman figures in mismatched armor, wielding fearsome weapons and clashing with the senior Qiong Ding disciples.
Ning-shijie had pulled him to the main pavilion, but that ended up being the central point of the troubles. A nymph-like demoness, who didn't look as though she could be much older than they themselves were, imperiously ordered the other demon warriors to claim Qiong Ding's sign and to beat up any cultivators they came across. She was dressed more scandalously than Luo Binghe had seen anyone dress before in his life. Not even the ladies who stood outside the Warm Red Pavilion had worn so little, her figure barely obscured by scraps of crimson silk and bits of silver jewellery.
To the right of her, there stood a boy who seemed even younger. He was dressed in red as well, but his clothes at least did more to cover him, particularly the large and hooded cloak he wore. The two demons looked very similar, surely close relatives, but where the demoness kept calling out orders and making a display of being in charge, the demon boy was quiet. His pale gaze cut through the crowd and then seemed to land on Luo Binghe. There was such intensity to it, it was almost as if he had been looking for him.
A chill went down Luo Binghe's spine. He wondered if that demon boy would attack him. Why else would a demon be looking for someone like him, except as easy pickings?
Before he could find out, however, Shen Qingqiu descended into the chaos like a gift from the heavens.
Luo Binghe wasn't alone in his relief. Even though his shizun looked deathly pale and murderously enraged, almost everyone seemed to be in a mood to praise his arrival with thanks and cheers. Finally, a peak lord had come! Even the demons had to sit up and take notice of that.
The young demoness came forwards, an assessing glint in her eyes as she looked Shen Qingqiu up and down. The other demons fell into step behind her. Well, sort of? Looking at the motley collection of warriors, Luo Binghe didn't really think they were capable of the sort of orderly formations that human soldiers used. There didn't seem to be any two of them the same size or shape, there was of course no uniform, and there was an atmosphere which implied that even though the little demoness was in charge of them, this was a situation that could change at any given moment.
Despite his fear, Luo Binghe was somewhat curious about the demons. He had heard a lot about such beings, but even at his age he knew that reputation and rumor were not always to be trusted. The demon race was a mystery to him. So these were the people that the righteous world deemed beyond redemption?
As the demoness put forward a challenge to Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe's gaze drifted towards the boy with her.
He couldn't help it. For some reason, that demon boy had not stopped staring at him even once! He had only just glanced at Shen Qingqiu, and then gone right back to looking at Luo Binghe! When Luo Binghe met his gaze, he finally did look away, but again only for a moment. Then it was back to staring, then looking away again, and then staring again. What could possibly be so interesting about Luo Binghe, out of all the people around?
The pattern only ended when Shen Qingqiu moved forward, and Binghe was jolted from his concerns by the realization that his shizun was going to fight.
Despite his master's harsh way with him, he was excited. He had never yet seen his shizun fight, and only knew his prowess by implication and reputation. A one-armed demon came forward to be his challenger. Shen Qingqiu did not wait to even exchange the usual courtesies, instead he moved at once, drawing forth Xiu Ya and sending his sword glint to carve through the air. When the one-armed demon dodged, Shen Qingqiu called up a cloud of dust and hit him directly in the face with it.
Luo Binghe blinked in surprise.
These kinds of tactics... weren't they a little... underhanded? Who was the demon and who was the righteous cultivator?
He probably should not judge. He knew that conventional wisdom held that demons were not truly 'people', and a demonic beast should be promptly dispatched. But the demons here spoke, and looked mostly human, and this match had been agreed to, even if under heavy duress. In a way it wasn't unlike a duel between cultivators. So why was his shizun fighting so dirty?
Regard for his master slipped further. Luo Binghe had been attempting to hold onto it, but he was increasingly convinced that it wasn't worth the effort. Even fighting an opponent who had only one arm, Shen Qingqiu was pressing every advantage he had and then some.
The outcome was lackluster and predictable, though the demoness still looked very displeased as her subordinate was killed. Demons probably weren't as concerned about dirty tactics as righteous cultivators, though, so she only announced that the next match would be against her.
Shen Qingqiu called for volunteers. The demon boy glanced at his senior, then looked out towards the group. His gaze lingered on the Xian Shu peak disciples just a few seconds before Liu Mingyan came forward to answer Shen Qingqiu's call.
Luo Binghe frowned.
Was it a coincidence, or did this demon boy have some kind of clairvoyance?
If so, what did all of his staring at Luo Binghe imply...?
But, no, it couldn't mean anything. Luo Binghe was nothing and nobody, after all. He didn't even have a spiritual weapon, and hadn't received any martial training yet. At this rate he would be lucky if he wasn't kicked off of the peak, and he knew it just as well as everyone else did. Liu Mingyan was just a bit older than him, but the differences between their abilities were like night and day. Luo Binghe was so behind that he could scarcely even comprehend her fight with the demoness. It didn't even seem like they were fighting to him, not really, but Ming Fan seemed to understand it and enthused about it to everyone nearby, and Shen Qingqiu only watched with narrow eyes until finally, it seemed, the disciple from Xian Shu lost.
Luo Binghe tried not to wince. That meant they were one to one, and there were no other peak lords or head disciples present to fight the next match. He glanced around, wondering which of the senior disciples might do. There were a few from Qiong Ding, and some elders from Zui Xian...
The feeling of eyes on him drew his attention back across the pavilion.
That demon boy was staring at him again. Even more unexpectedly, so was his shizun. He felt all the hairs go up on the back of his neck as Shen Qingqiu called out:
"Luo Binghe. Come forward."
His feet rooted him to the spot in genuine shock. That couldn't mean what he thought it did, could it? Why was his shizun calling for him? By name, no less? He couldn't mean for Luo Binghe to fight, could he? He'd lose his match and end up as a meal for demons! He didn’t even have a sword!
Shen Qingqiu stared at him, fierce and more terrifying than any of the demons so far, and before he could consider running away, self-preservation instincts compelled Luo Binghe to go over and bow in acknowledgement.
"Shizun," he said, trying not to shake.
Shen Qingqiu sneered at him.
"Since certain parties have insisted that you have some talent, let's put it to the test. My personal disciple shall go and handle the next match."
Oh.
So.
Shen Qingqiu wanted him dead, then?
At once, Ning-shijie raised her voice in protest. But she petered out as Shen Qingqiu shot her the kind of cutting, quelling look he almost never used on her. Even Ming Fan and some of the other Qing Jing disciples shifted uncomfortably. But to intervene, they'd have to volunteer in Luo Binghe's stead, and none of them would do that. He hadn't managed to endear himself to any of them, so of course they wouldn't stick their necks out for his sake.
"Shizun..." he tried, falteringly. He would die, but also, the sect would lose face. Shen Qingqiu couldn't really mean for that, could he? Maybe he expected Luo Binghe to run away, to leave and rid him of an incompetent student for good, but how could Luo Binghe do such a thing? He had nowhere else to go.
Shen Qingqiu glared impatiently at him.
"Is this the next champion?" the demoness asked, and laughed. "I'd feel too bad siccing one of our elders on the little creature. Hey, Didi! You fight him!"
The demon boy next to her shot her a startled look. It made him seem surprisingly human, even though the slight parting of his lips revealed a sharp set of cute little fangs.
"Me?" he asked, incredulous.
The demoness smirked.
"You don't want to? What, are you afraid of that shrimpy thing? How embarrassing! Our Sha family will never recover from the disgrace!"
The boy looked like he wanted to throttle his older sister for a moment. But instead of backing down, he glanced off to the side. There was nothing there, yet he stared intently at empty space for several seconds. Then his shoulders slumped, just a bit, and he strode forwards.
Standing across from one another in the middle of the impromptu fighting ring, Luo Binghe got a better look at the mysterious demon. Either he was small for his age, or he was in fact even younger than Luo Binghe had initially guessed. He felt almost sympathetic, because the boy was a full head shorter than him and pretty scrawny. Some of the other demons around had arms and legs bigger than him. His long hair was straight and loose but for a single ornament, which was only revealed when he swept the hood of his cloak down. He was dressed in crimson from head to toe, with silver embellishments that matched his pale eyes. Long black nails sprouted from his fingertips, nearly as dark and shiny as his boots. With one hand he motioned and called to his grasp a wicked-looking spear, adorned with red tassels. At his belt were a pair of folded fans. The metal kind used as weapons, rather than the frail type which Shen Qingqiu used to hide his sneers.
After a moment, the younger boy straightened across from Luo Binghe and then, to his surprise, offered him a polite bow of acknowledgement.
"Let's get this over with," he murmured.
Luo Binghe wondered if he would have to face him bare-handed, but someone whistled from off to one side.
Liu Mingyan, to his surprise, tossed him a spare sword from somewhere. It was no spiritual weapon, but it was definitely better than nothing.
He nodded in thanks, then turned back and awkwardly returned the bow to his opponent.
The demon boy let him, and did not charge first. He twirled his spear and circled around, as if assessing Luo Binghe's threat level. I have none, Luo Binghe thought to himself, half-hysterical, but at this point he realized that every second of delay was another second he could still live. He eyed the fans cautiously, knowing just enough to know that he would have no recourse at all over ranged attacks. But the demon did not reach for them.
In the end, it was Binghe's own sense of tension that got the better of him. Just as the demon side were beginning to jeer, he settled the sword as best as he could in his hands and lunged forward.
The demon boy parried him easily. Reflexively, he'd even say. The parry left him staggering and wide open, but instead of pressing the advantage, his opponent backed off.
"Come on," he thought he heard a soft voice murmur. "Get into a proper stance. You've seen them before, you know what it looks like."
Luo Binghe blinked and hesitated, confused.
"Didi, just beat him into the ground already!" the demoness jeered.
The younger boy didn't take his eyes off of Luo Binghe, however.
"If you want me to fight, you have to put up with how I do it," he called back.
His older sister visibly sulked. Even without directly looking at her, the body language was easy to read.
"So boring," she sighed.
They were toying with him. That was it, right? He was being mocked.
Luo Binghe couldn't even blame them, not really. He didn't know what he was doing in this fight either. But he wasn't entirely without some pride. The shame of his own ineptitude made him feel hot and shaky. Swallowing, he took the mockery as advice anyway and focused on himself. He did know, at least in theory, what the Qing Jing sword stance looked like. He'd even tried copying it on his own several times. Without a word he settled his posture into his best approximation of it.
Across from him, his opponent's lips twitched upwards in a baffling hint of a smile.
Luo Binghe decided to try defensiveness again, and settled in to watch and wait.
This time, he was rewarded with an attack. The demon boy circled once more before finally lunging with his spear. The move seemed obvious, almost too slow, but still Luo Binghe struggled to counter it. The edge of the spear slashed across his arm.
The demon boy winced the same time that he did.
There was a slight delay, then another attack.
It was obvious who the better fighter was. Luo Binghe couldn't think of any reason outside of mockery for the fight to draw on, for why he wasn't just being gutted like a fish, but after a few more lunges and awkward attempts at blocking had sent rivulets of blood down his sleeves, he wasn't sure if he was grateful for it or not. His heart picked up, and he decided that his only chance was probably to try and catch his opponent off-guard.
So he switched and went on the offensive again, charging with the sword and trying everything he could think of to just land a hit.
The demon boy evaded him like it was nothing at all, but he also seemed to approve of this approach more than the other.
"That's it," his soft voice said. "If you don't know enough of swordsmanship, you'll just have to use force. You have a lot of talent. It's a shame no one's taught you properly how to use it. But the energy's there, right? Come at me again, come on, there! Like that! You're strong. You are stronger than me. You're taller as well, use it to your advantage..."
Luo Binghe swung with all his might, but at the last moment he realized the blow might actually hit, and in a flurry of panic it suddenly occurred to him that he wasn't sure he wanted it to.
He pulled back, tripped, and stumbled into the dirt. The demon boy aborted a wide swing of his own, and somehow ended with the edge of his spear just a hair's breadth from Luo Binghe's throat.
The boy's eyes widened. He paled, as if something about this horrified him.
Luo Binghe closed his own eyes and dropped his sword.
"I yield," he said. Just as Liu Mingyan had done.
"Worthless! Fight until you have won, or don't call yourself my disciple any longer!" Shen Qingqiu snapped at him.
The spear swiftly withdrew. Luo Binghe hung his head. The silence that descended was filled with strange tension. He wasn't even certain he could name everything behind it, or if he even wanted to try. There was a ringing of panic in his ears, but the chief feeling in him was resignation. He couldn't win. He'd lost his place, this home he'd tried to find in the wake of his mother's death. His chance to become a cultivator.
But there was nothing for it. At least this way, he might still walk away with his life.
"No," the demon boy said. "Keep going. You can definitely win."
Luo Binghe blinked at him, bewildered.
Somehow the gaze that met his was earnest. There really did not seem to be a trace of mockery in it, in fact. The demon boy settled the butt of his spear against the floor of the pavilion.
"Didi, what the fuck are you doing?" the demoness called. "You won, just come back over here and we'll claim our spoils!"
"Don't interfere, this matter is between us two men," the little boy called back. Then he extended an arm. A red silk ribbon fluttered out from his sleeve and kicked Luo Binghe's discarded sword into the air, caught the handle, and gently tossed it back towards him.
Luo Binghe just barely caught it.
"What are you playing at?" he asked.
The boy smiled.
"No game," he said. "I just think you can beat me. Don't you want to see if you can? You haven't even really tried."
"But I don't know how to fight..." Luo Binghe protested, unable to keep the helpless despair from his voice.
The boy shook his head.
"Of course you do. Every living thing knows how to fight when it needs to. You need to defeat me, don't you? Your life depends on it. So fight me like it does!"
The spear jerked forwards, a quick flash of gleaming, deadly metal that carved a path across Luo Binghe's cheek. The pain was almost refreshing, somehow. Like a splash of cold, clean water to the face.
Fight like his life depended on it?
But it didn't. Not really. It was clear to him that this boy, strange though he was, demon though he was, harbored no killing intent towards him. Even the demoness hadn’t killed her opponent. Only Shen Qingqiu had done so.
And yet, he wasn't wrong, was he? If Luo Binghe lost this fight, Shen Qingqiu would finally have the excuse to be rid of him. His master must have long regretted choosing him in the first place, though Luo Binghe had no idea why he had done so, or why he had so bitterly despised his every effort afterwards. Regardless, without Qing Jing Peak, what was left for Luo Binghe? He'd be back on the streets, with little hope of making any kind of future for himself. He had lived that life just long enough to know the sorts of things that happened to people like him, and to know he wanted nothing to do with it.
He had loved his mother, but he did not want to live and die the way that she had.
The spear came at him again, and this time Luo Binghe let instincts take over and dodged out of the way.
He really was fighting for his life, wasn't he?
The demon boy pressed him, and his heart beat faster. He found himself answering the moves with less thought, less concern for form or structure. Soon he was smashing his sword against the spear with sheer brute force, animal intensity. He bared his teeth, widened his stance, and listened to the little voice in the back of his head that always wanted to roar.
Though he didn't actually roar. He didn't have the breath for it. His opponent finally wasn't giving him room to hesitate, and oddly enough it seemed to be granting Luo Binghe a strange sort of advantage. The spear had reach, but it was less dangerous when Luo Binghe got in closer. Though getting struck with the shaft was still painful. Red ribbons filled his vision as the demon boy left cuts and bruises in his wake, his clothing seeming to do almost as much fighting as he himself did, and yet Luo Binghe began landing meaningful hits as well. It was like fighting a bird, he thought. A bird and a hurricane. The boy's bones seemed light enough to break, and somehow after several intense minutes of skirmishing, something did break.
His opponent let out a hiss as the blow landed heavily against his arm, and the snap sound was loud in both of their ears. The spear dropped to the ground with a clatter.
Impossibly, Luo Binghe found himself leveling the blade of his sword at the demon boy's throat. Silvery eyes looked up at him, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say that the emotion in them was relief. But that made no sense. Didn't he want to win?
Did he... not approve of this invasion, or something along those lines...?
"I yield," the boy said.
There was the barest flash of visible fear, at last. Wariness. A moment where he seemed unsure if Luo Binghe would let him. It seemed so strange, considering how honorably he'd conducted himself, but then again... why would he expect Luo Binghe to be the same? He'd just seen his master, the lauded Xiu Ya sword, fight like a depraved bandit. According to humans, the demon race were creatures without integrity. Maybe demons told the same sorts of stories about cultivators, though. Brutal creatures with no pity, no mercy, who hunted down even children like animals and spared no courtesy unless threatened into it.
Hastily, Luo Binghe lowered his sword.
He looked back towards his master, and he felt a moment of irrational hope. He had won. He had won! There was no reason for it, and yet he had!
But Shen Qingqiu didn't even look back at him. The man was already moving stiffly away, as if he couldn't even be bothered to ensure the invaders kept their word. With his back turned, any number of demons could have rushed forward to avenge their comrade's loss. Luo Binghe was aware of being both abandoned and surrounded.
When he looked back at his opponent, however, the boy only nodded and then returned to his sister. He retrieved his spear with his off hand, and was careful with the arm that had broken.
As soon as he drew close to Sha Hualing, however, she smacked him sharply across the face. Then she reached to his hair and pulled out a silver ornament, a pretty thing shaped like the demonic huadian on both of their foreheads. Tossing it down, she stomped on it with her bare foot. Even with only the soles of her small feet, the impact was strong enough to break it.
"Useless!" she hissed. "What the fuck was that?"
"It was your stupid idea anyway, I told you I didn’t want to fight," the boy muttered back.
It earned him a hiss, and another smack.
Luo Binghe didn't even realize he'd raised a hand, as if to intervene, until Sha Hualing turned her sharp gaze towards him. He hastily withdrew, unwilling to get into another fight, even if he sympathized with his enemy's treatment. It seemed neither of them would get much in the way of congratulations from their superiors.
Sha Hualing’s expression was assessing, however. As if she too had seen something in him, though Luo Binghe couldn't imagine what.
He didn't have much time to bother trying anyway. His shijie started pulling at him then, visibly anxious. They were still surrounded and outnumbered, and now they were without even the presence of a peak lord to shield them.
Luo Binghe let himself be pulled away, and was moving through the throng of remaining disciples by the time the dishonorable demon hordes finally kept their word, and left.
If you liked any of this concept, go check out Love Bullet by inee! It's one of my favorite new mangas I read last year and this was very fun to think about :) The first comic here is based off two of it's pages. Here's the official summary:
Since the dawn of humanity, those who have never experienced love and meet an untimely end are granted a second chance at life as Cupids by the Goddess of Love. Present day Cupids have traded in their bow and arrow for modern firearms, but their mission remains the same: find suitable lovers for their targets and make them fall in love!
You can’t say the fic was like a drama novela without dropping it may we pls get a link
I'm outing myself so hard rn but please PLEASE go read A Song Of Twelve Springs by Hinu, fair warning rn it's explicit and make sure to read the tags first just in case, but I swear this is the best depiction of Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan being the same person I've seen in a WHILE
I also never read bingliushen cause I mostly like it only in theory (oops sorry) but this is making me feel INSANE, it's so good, please read if you can 🙏
