Hey. It's me. Got another angst hot take for you guys.
So like, what if one day after the end of the books and extras (feels like I said that like someone would say "100 B.C.")- actually, wait hold on.
Some years After End of Books and Extras! Yeah. A.E.B.E. (<-hopefully not an existing acronym) Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe are on honeymoon number...idk. Four? Eight? Wandering the big wide cultivation world. Then suddenly, a wild wife plot appears!
Look it's another cave or something, I'm not that creative. Or! Or. Maybe it's an artifact maliciously given to them by someone who just has no idea what kind of hell Binghe is going to unleash upon them for fucking with Shizun. Point being tho! Something happens. As usual, it happens to SQQ.
Bleh I'm just gonna get to the point. SQQ gets torn into, like, five pieces- not literally! I mean in a cloning way, not a human stick way! There are now, theoretically, five of him in the world! And I say theoretically because, like, Binghe can only see one in front of him. And this one is...very withdrawn. Quiet in an alarming way.
So now it's quest time! Binghe must now hunt down the lost pieces of his Shizun in key locations that have significant meaning to him! (So, like, buckle up if you're still reading because I think this might be a long one.)
Binghe is forced to leave the quiet shizun behind to find the others (for reasons I haven't got at the moment) and ends up trying a few locations around their Peak first. All end up pretty much a bust, though. No Shizuns there, which confuses and worries him a good deal, because wasn't their Qing Jing Peak very significant to both of them? So then he tries their other homes, but that comes up empty-handed too.
He ends up going back to Quiet Shizun and asking for help. A hint, or direction; just, something other than this blind patting down on locations because obviously there is some significant Thing- some criteria or item or memory- he is missing here that is preventing him from figuring out where the other four are.
Quiet Shizun suggests that perhaps he is thinking of things too positively. And that's it. That's the hint. Binghe leaves unsure and frustrated, feeling almost as if Shizun does not want him to find the others.
Protagonist I.Q. in full effect, he somehow stumbles on the idea of checking Jue De Gorge. It's just a hunch (a dread, really) but it ends up panning out because sure enough there be Shizuns here. Just the one though, sitting on the bare ground and hunched over. Shoulders shaking ever so slightly.
His husband is sitting alone in the same place he had stood when he'd thrown Binghe to the Abyss, and he's Crying.
Insert Binghe Panic Time. His poor husband! Crying! Why? Who did this? He'll kill them!
Insert here a heart to heart where Binghe realizes that 1) the split Shizuns are more than just clones, and 2) that Quiet Shizun was likely hoping Binghe wouldn't find them because SQQ's face is far too thin to ever reveal his harder to swallow emotions- because the new shizun in front of him very clearly represents some very heavy aspects of grief and heartbreak. (Introducing Sad Shizun.)
When he finally convinces Sad Shizun to return to the Quiet one with him, the journey is spent with his husband clinging to him. When the two shizuns meet, he expects. Well. He wasn't sure what he expected. A merger? Instead he got:
His Sad Shizun glances back at Binghe. "I...I am hurting. I am allowed to cry."
Binghe smiles at him and squeezes his hand- and Quiet Shizun snorts, unimpressed and sneering. "If you say so."
It's so callous and dismissive that for a moment Binghe feels as if he is looking at the old shizun. He ends up leaving with a pit in his stomach and a feeling like he needed to go back and take the Sad Shizun with him.
The next Shizun he finds wandering Jin Lan City, hiding in alleys and walking on roofs. This one flees at the sight of him, and when he gets close they yell at him to leave them alone and to stop looking at them- which confuses and hurts Binghe in turn. Lo and behold, this shizun represents shame, fear, and anger; and demonstrates all of it as if it were Only anger.
When he takes this one back, Quiet Shizun greets them with a cold, "Done throwing a tantrum now?"
Angry Shizun just looks down with a clenched jaw and doesn't reply.
Fourth Shizun was much harder to find. Much harder. Until, out of a sense of frustration and helplessness, and still thinking about Quiet Shizun and the other two, he makes his way to...a familiar rooftop in Hua Yue City.
He just stands there for awhile. Thinking. Watching the sun slowly set. And then Shizun greets him from behind.
"Reminds you of that day, doesn't it?"
"I think about this place sometimes. Others too. Sometimes I think about it all and I..."
His shizun trails off, and Binghe thinks, just this once, he can maybe guess what this aspect of his Shizun might be. Just a little.
This one is the feelings of regret. Guilt. Always just a few steps behind you, appearing at the littlest reminders. Or big ones, in this case.
This time, Binghe takes a moment to ask after the Quiet Shizun as they make their way back. He tells of how cruel that one is to the others, how cold and callous and derisive. How it disturbs and confuses him in turn, to see his kind husband go from speaking to him in polite tones to sneering at the other parts of himself as if they were dirt.
Regretful Shizun listens, then, once Binghe had run out of words, asks him what Binghe thinks the Quiet Shizun represents; and Binghe thinks about it all the way up till the moment they rejoin the group.
Quiet Shizun glares the moment he and Regretful Shizun's eyes meet.
Regretful Shizun hums, "Waiting for me? This one thought you'd prefer I never show my face again."
Oh. Quiet Shizun...hates the others, doesn't he? Which means...
Binghe has a quiet moment while the Shizun's glare at each other where it feels like he can't breathe, choking on the lump in his throat that is the realization that his husband...Hates himself. Really and truly.
(And that's about as far as I got. There's something about the hidden fifth shizun being the aspect of love, but really I just wanted Binghe to see how mean his husband is to himself where Binghe can't see. Because I really do feel that by the end of the books SQQ must have been beating himself up for everything and I think Binghe doesn't really get to see a whole lot of that, and he should. And also I like to put these two in emotionally intimate and revealing situations where SQQ can't hide :) )
annaxmalina
origamiaround
vaporwave
areudirty
snowghoul
izzy806
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
gummygunk
