Shen Qingqiu deciding fuck it, he's going on a night-hunt to get off the peak and away from his overbearing overly concerned martial siblings and disciples. A harmless trip, just some rumored sightings of a peaceful rare spirit in the middle of basically nowhere or some other excuse. He'll be back by this time tomorrow Liu shidi, and don't you have some disciples to be teaching or something? He'll dress practically and take supplies and he'll even take a horse, if you're so worried about his ability to fly alone, jeez.
And while out there, he literally runs into Luo Binghe just after he escaped the abyss. Straight up doesn't see him and runs directly into him, no mistaking him both for the fact that the system awakens, and Shen Qingqiu could never not recognize Binghe. Judging by the state of his clothing/lack thereof, and the amount of dried and drying blood on him, he hasn't even made it to Huanhua yet. Maybe hasn't seen a single person since pulling himself out of hell.
What is a poor transmigrated scum villain to do? Like oh god, Binghe's SO EARLY he's not supposed to be out yet! He's not prepared at all! The mushrooms aren't ready and there's no allies nearby! Fuck! But also his POOR LOTUS looks so miserable and shocked and isn't attacking him YET so maybe he doesn't recognize him? So it turns into 'don't you worry Binghe your Shi- THIS ROGUE CULTIVATOR who is definitely not related to your Shizun in any way shape or form- will help you!' Cue him bundling Binghe onto the horse and taking him to the nearest Inn.
Binghe, who definitely clocked his beloved Shizun the second he saw him, isn't entirely sure this isn't some hallucination triggered by using the Xin Mo sword despite Meng Mo saying he wasn't ready. But is it so bad, to have such a lovely vision of his Shizun caring for him, in the meantime? To remind himself of why he must earn back his Shizun's love at all costs?
So he plays up his basically not existent injuries, and his exhaustion (less played up, he is so so tired) to have this 'mysterious not-shizun dote on him, trying to wrap his mind around what exactly he's missed and what changed between the Immortal Alliance Conference and now. Shen Qingqiu's plan is just to stay until the love interest shows up to take over, unaware that he IS the love interest that showed up.

















