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Hello Hosts! Today marks the end of #JiuYuanWeek2025, but not the end of JiuYuan! We hope to continue to see many more works of Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan for many years to come!
We'd like to thank the mods who made this week possible; @greeniegaes, who handled AO3 submissions and created many of the graphics and drew assets used in our posts! @tsiftor, who handled the Twitter submissions and drew many of the assets used in our posts! @drivebypainter, who handled the Bluesky submissions and drew many of the assets used in our posts! and a special thanks to; @sunccubus who brought this whole thing together in the first place, handled all the update posts (on all platforms) and the Tumblr submissions!
We'd also like to thank all of the lovely artists, writers and general participants who, with their immense enthusiasm, made this whole event possible! Thank you all for making #JiuYuanWeek2025 an absolute blast! We hope to see you next year with another JiuYuan Week <3 +10000 B-Points!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Jiu | Original Shen Qingqiu/Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu
Characters: Shen Jiu | Original Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu, Ning Yingying
Additional Tags: Shen Jiu | Original Shen Qingqiu and Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu are Not the Same Person, Rogue Cultivator Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Warm Red Pavilion (Scum Villain), Shen Jiu’s canonical distrust in men, girl dad Shen Yuan, First Meetings, JiuYuan Week 2025
Series: Part 3 of Jiuyuan week
Summary:
“Ying'er loves him you know, she’d want the two of you to get along.” Lian-jie coaxed.
“Are you holding Yinying’s feelings over my head?” Shen Jiu asked her in disbelief.
She laughed at his expression.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. The two of you are both our favorite people, that’s all. And who knows. He’s a cultivator too, maybe you have a lot more in common than you think.” She smiled.
“That’s even worse. Let me guess, he’s a rogue cultivator?” Shen Jiu scoffed.
“I won’t force you a-Jiu,” Lian-jie sighed, “but can you at least consider it?”
Shen Jiu clicked his tongue in annoyance. Lian-jie waited patiently until he finally gave in.
“Fine.”
* * *
Day seven of jiuyuan week! Feat the girl dad Shen Yuan fic that has been stewing in my brain for months now. He was just made to be a girl dad, you know. Nothing sexier exist and SJ is sure to learn that in the future.
the final day.... holy molyyyy... Jiuyuan Week Day 7 Bondage!
(originally i had an actual artwork planned but i got too burnt out to finish it, I'll probs post the sketch on bluesky- it is infact the actual nsfw artwork)
The history of Cang Qiong Sect is known far and wide. Every single historian praises the first twelve peak Lords, every single parent uses the story of the first generation of Cang Qiong to discipline and raise their children, every single peak lord after them tries to reach their grace and every single disciple is taught of their founder's teaching.
But who were they? Well, first and foremost, they were a family.
The first ever sect leader, Shen Shan, courtesy name Liwei, started the idea of founding a sect with his eleven younger siblings. They chose a mountain with twelve peaks and each sibling picked one and taught anyone who wishes to learn.
Their origins are unknown, but there is multiple speculation on how twelve siblings could have been so powerful. One of them is the peak lords who are children of the Jade Emperor and are sent to educate the mortal realm.
When Shen Yuan, courtesy name Lizhe, the founder of Qing Jing peak, heard people talking about his family, he chuckled.
What silly nonsense these NPC are spouting.
“What's so funny, shizun?”
Right beside Shen Yuan, was Shen Jiu, his first disciple in thousands of years. He smiles at him and closes his eyes, recounting what he heard.
But little did the scholar know, his disciple was gazing at him with such longing that perhaps he could finally understand what truly Shen Jiu felt for him. Love.
Alas even with that, Shen Yuan will once again be in denial and his siblings in heaven sigh in union, watching their second eldest go on about his day.
Ahhhh its the end of jiuyuan week unfortunately and this is my last piece! It was sm fun making all of this and learned new things so im rlly happy
Like all of my jiuyuan aus, I might want to breach this out into a fanfic (in this au sy umbrella is a gunbrella!) but has no idea how to do that lmao
Thank u @jiuyuanweek for organizing this week once again and ill probably disappear again until art hits me like a truck again
(CWs SJ's past and PIDW typical torture from LBH, mental health and impacts of SJ's trauma).
Shen Yuan was nervous as the camera crew followed him into the temple. Their talismanned cameras rattled with the intense energy coming from the infamous grounds. Various other cultivators from the federal army stood guard as he walked past them, only making his stomach drop further with nerves.
You see, Shen Yuan came from a very powerful and influential line of cultivators. His family held a global empire when it came to the production of talismans, literature, and convenient night-hunt equipment. And ever since he had developed a core, he had the misfortune of being able to see the incorporeal forms of ghosts.
Yes, yes, “I see dead people,” sort of powers that the ‘Normie’ population loved to consume, alongside the epics of historical figures such as the Yiling Patriarch, the dastardly Yan Wushi and the humble Shen Qiao (a distant notable ancestor), and the insane late emperor of all of the realms from eons ago, Luo Binghe.
In this day and age, no one truly questioned his skill, given the society that came from the forcible coexistence of humans and demons from the life-draining Xin Mo. A relic that you could go and observe its display at the Museum of Divinity in Shanghai, where it has been confined and guarded to ensure no other individual wielded it.
Shen Yuan was an avid historian when it came to Luo Binghe’s life and the chaos that followed after his sudden and still unsolved death back then. Many historians wondered if it was a suicide, but there was more evidence of the man having succumbed to his festering and untreated mental illnesses via a fatal Qi-deviation.
For his late journals that were able to be salvaged, read with the tone of a man having gone insane with power, grief, and depressive episodes. He spoke of seeing another world in his dreams, a world in which he– the husband of 300+ concubines and wives– had been happily married to a man.
Much else was unreadable as his writing grew excited and his thoughts scattered from his attempts at dimension-hopping with Xin Mo. But what had gone under many court members’ noses and the reports back then was the Heavenly Emperor’s final punishment for the original foe of his life.
His late teacher of the ruined, and still distasteful, Cang Qiong Mountain Sect’s Qing Jing Peak, Shen Qingqiu (10000% not related, Shen Yuan always angrily stressed out. Having been on live television with his ancestry records and pointing out how this Shen was one of the other million with a similar name, rather than a late immortal relative).. The history of this man was one of true wretchedness; any molecule of good rapport disappeared after the death of Yue Qingyuan, the sect leader and impassive accomplice of the time. And when Shen Qingqiu killed himself by swallowing the shards of Xuan Su, Luo Binghe had trapped his soul into a cycle of punishment in a testament to his power as one of Heavenly Demonic blood.
Yet before he had passed, accounts of Luo Binghe post-Gay Dream spoke of him growing even more deranged as he used his control over dreams to speak with this spirit. Shen Yuan hated the thought that the emperor had grown even more unstable after not getting what he desired from the child-abuser.
However, like a line of dominoes, that last interaction with the device had weakened the suppression arrays enough to the point that we descendants were dealing with a Calamity-level ghost brewing just a few cities away from the epicenter of China.
And that Calamity would be Shen Qingqiu, and the duty of subduing him with a ghost marriage was hoisted upon Shen Yuan… A well-known Luo Binghe apologist and a very straight man. And his celebrity sister thought it would be a good idea to have her agent arrange for a team to record the events.
When he was done crying blood, he was at least soothed to know that the team following him in was a collection of immortal masters and healers on the same caliber as himself. And Shen Qingqiu, the vengeful ghost himself, would very likely turn down the marriage for some other binding measure that Shen Yuan could use.
There was no way the ghost would agree to be bound to his lowly self. And Shen Yuan didn’t want to be bound to some child abuser, that was for sure!
Shen Yuan anxiously fingered the whip-and-sword combo he had decided to bring with him. Like himself, these pieces were a part of the more intensely Yang Qi variety of his collection of rare and costly weapons. And he was immensely grateful that he had selected them as the Yin energy pressed harder and harder upon him.
“Entering the fifth layer of the temple,” A voice radioed on the walkie-talkie on his belt, the voice crackling from the immense hatred and Qi that was trying to short-circuit it. “Master Shen is coming upon the doors after this last set of stares. Target should be in that main chamber there,” the man finished, the radio cutting out with a prompt buzz as he finished updating them.
Shen Yuan grimaced, wiping the sweat from his head as he nodded to himself. “All good back there?” He called out to the other cultivators, his head swiveling to look at the cameraman at his back. His lips pulled into a reflexive, polite smile as he caught sight of the camera, and then he distracted himself with prattling about the history of the temple.
Soon enough, his audience was saved from his nervous lecturing as they came upon a large, decrypted, and Qi-worn black door. The paint was curling up into the air with the pressure and at parts it was floating toward the ceiling in the Qi air cycle.
Shen Yuan carefully laid his hand on the door handle after exchanging some words with his team and the cultivator agent standing before him. A team of scientists sat at a station, monitoring the activity with sweaty faces and gaunt cheekbones.
Whether they were immortal monks, gaunt with the sacrifice of inedia as to keep watch of the Calamity for decades, Shen Yuan had no clue. But that was certainly what they conveyed with their harrowed gazes. With a determined nod, Shen Yuan pulled the doors open until he could squeeze in and closed them behind himself.
Containing the heavy Yin and trapping himself into the room.
Shen Yuan was lucky that he was a seasoned cultivator and young immortal, as he looked upon the sight before him. Yet, even with all of the states of death he had seen before, Shen Qingqiu was an immensely startling sight, and Shen Yuan’s hand shook as he subtly straightened the Qi-enforced camera pinned to his lapels.
This camera would capture the infrared signature of the spirit and their projected voice, but not their true image that Shen Yuan saw. And this one would haunt his nightmares, if he fled as his heart wished he would.
Much like the eyes, the spirit was a reflection of a person’s mind. Their soul, if they were passionate enough or wronged enough to remain on this earth, often reflected how the dead saw themselves, along with the injuries that had caused their death. A regular pedestrian, struck by a car, would look at themselves moments before that injury took place.
If they were fully intact, Shen Yuan would understand that they didn’t know that they were dead yet. But a well-learned immortal master enduring years of torture and traumatic injuries… Those spirits didn’t have the pleasure of forgetting that they were dead.
The thing before him was hard to contextualize as a man. As Luo Binghe’s journal had indicated before his insanity took hold, he had made the man into a ‘human stick. Incapable of doing further harm upon children and women. A thing that showed how much lesser he was, for Shen Qingqiu was a hellish beast masquerading as the common man,’ as the passage went.
And some pity did stir at this bleeding ghost before him. Begrudging as it was, since Shen Yuan despised those who harmed the innocent. But one couldn’t help but be moved by the ratted hair, the scentless, eternally pouring blood, and the incomprehensible mumbling.
Shen Yuan gently cleared his throat and the air stilled. As cold as ice, the molecules of moisture in the air solidified and pinged to the floor with the aggressive burn of Yin. Yang energy kept Shen Yuan warm and untouched by the destructive force, while his eyes met the red-lined eye staring at him.
Bones of grave-robbers and the foolish littered the entrance, and Shen Yuan navigated around them as he stepped closer to the budding Calamity before him. Within the mass of blue-tinged skin, Shen Yuan could see the man’s golden core. It was bound to some intricate device, a Soul-Containing bag wound in the coils. In the simplest of words, Shen Qingqiu was thoroughly tied to this realm through this mechanism.
And the man himself was silent as he watched Shen Yuan approach, his singular eye clear and brimming with a blue flame of hatred. Faintly unnerved yet steeling himself, Shen Yuan knelt before the peak lord with a good handful of feet between them and bowed.
“Shen Qingqiu, Master of Qing Jing Peak and the famous Xiu Ya Sword,” Shen Yuan greeted the ghost, his voice soft while his face was lowered to the ground. “This one is Shen Yuan, a Cultivator of the Mainland Spiritual Task Force,” he introduced himself,
Hesitant about overloading the ancient spirit with too much information from the modern period.
His robes were elegantly cut like those of the ghost’s time period, sky blue and white with markings denoting him as originating from his ancestral sect, Xuandu Mountain. Silence stretched between them as the ghost observed him, and then, with the clarity of one speaking with a tongue, a cold voice resonated through the room.
“LEAVE ME,” the man loudly ordered, uncaring of who Shen Yuan was and unwilling to hear whatever he had to say. The walls rumbled with his anger, and the air whipped Shen Yuan’s robes up into a graceful flap.
Unfortunately, Shen Yuan was always told that he could be a bit like a dog with a tasty bone when he found something interesting. So, he was unmoved by this spirit’s demand.
“I am here to–” A ghastly scream cut him off, chilling air and broken furniture flying in the air to hit the seated cultivator. With the lifting of his arm, Shen Yuan defended himself from the old, preserved furniture from hitting him in the head. The wood cracked around him, and the display of anger continued for a long while.
The air around him grew lukewarm as Shen Yuan was forced to cycle his Qi even harder to stave off the frostbite that wished to develop and the ice that wished to coat his mouth and creep down into him.
When Shen Qingqiu had tired himself, Shen Yuan patiently waited for the energy to lessen. He watched the ghost’s form heave and shake under an invisible weight, his gaze never leaving Shen Yuan’s form as though he was under a heavy vigilance.
“Master Shen,” Shen Yuan began once more, unamused as that being snarled and snapped at the stubborn sound of his voice. Shen Yuan inched closer and the feral noises grew louder, the sound of chains tinkling in a mimicry of past events. Instead of feeling like a hero sacrificing himself to sedate a horrible being, Shen Yuan felt nothing but a deep pang of pity and discomfort. From previous encounters, he could feel that this ghost wasn’t one born from a malicious need to spread their hatred for the world.
Rather, the man before him was held in parts because of a ruthless force and the weary self-hatred of– well, it was the um, the airs of a victim faced with a great injustice. Because Shen Yuan had met truly gruesome ghosts in the past, beings focused on destroying others for pleasure. This building display was one of self-preservation.
If Shen Yuan asked him, he was sure the ghost would have agreed that he didn’t wish to be on this plane anymore, as some theorized. Hell, his hatred for his state had probably continued to fuel his growth into becoming a Calamity-level threat to the world.
“I can end this, if you wish,” Shen Yuan desperately called out, his voice raised over the wordless shrieks and the crashing and splintering of wood against stone. With these words, the tantrum slowly faltered, indicating that the ghost was listening.
“Everyone has made you out to be a villain, yes?” Shen Yuan asked, his eyes beseeching as he brought himself closer to the spirit. He channeled a pure image of one only wishing to help, and he was! He wanted this painful sight to be cleared as soon as possible. The man has suffered enough, Shen Yuan determined.
“Your side of the story has been overlooked; this one can feel that coming through,” Shen Yuan spoke coaxingly, his hands spread out placatingly as though he was speaking with a mindless animal. Shen Qingqiu continued to stare up at him with that single eye, distrustful, yet contemplation sparked in his dark, keen eye.
A strategist through thick and thin.
“If Peak Lord Shen will allow this one to experience his story as one of the steps toward spirit consolation, this one will be able to help the Master move on with his death.” Shen Yuan paused, placing his hands in his lap as he halted a few steps from Shen Qingqiu’s side.
He then tilted his head pointedly at the device holding the spirit hostage, “With our working together, this humble Shen will be able to dismantle the device that is keeping the lord to this plane,” he told him. In the eyes of the audience, he would look insane speaking to a shaking bag attached to some sort of trapping device, but that corporeal voice showed the reality of the situation.
Instead of being filled with rage and demands, the voice that spoke was weary. It sounded suspiciously wet in a way that indicated the speaker was choking with a plethora of emotions that they wished to keep hidden. And the enraged shaking of the bag simmered into a gentle bob and push toward Shen Yuan.
“This lord’s interest is piqued,” the man stated, simply and then nothing more as he waited for further arguments for his cooperation. Further reasons why he should trust this stranger.
The air quickly grew stiflingly as that Yin Qi calmed into something more controlled, forcing Shen Yuan to halt his rapid cycling. Slowly, he stretched his hand out toward the ghost, watching his features as he moved to touch his shoulder as a means of allowing him to share his memories.
With this simple touch, enforced with his Qi, his hand rested upon the deathly still man. Under that simmering skin, Shen Yuan could feel the deep repulsion, the fear, and the pure rage that filled his soul. “Let this one help you move on to a better state. Master Shen doesn’t have to feel this pain anymore,” he spoke politely, an encouraging tone underlining his voice as he stared at the ghost with a beseeching stare.
The man continued to stare at him in grim silence. He then turned his head to face the ground in a pose of submission that was less like the quivering of a fearful underling and more like a depressed tiger. It brought to mind a tiger in a circus performance, submitting yet always prepared to attack its handler if the man stepped out of line.
“Thanking Master Shen for this trust,” Shen Yuan, and then he pulled a similar note from the tales of the (in)famous Wei Wuxian’s journals and performed a similar method of possession that allowed him to experience the spirit’s memories.
Like this, he went through the streets with the other slave children through little Nine’s eyes. He felt each whip strike and dehumanizing treatment from the Qiu estate, the gripping fear and the mind-altering Qi-deviation that helped bring their ruin. The tutelage of the Demonic Cultivator, who further sabotaged and brought even more blood upon those young hands. The aghast, long thought dead face of Seven that was almost cut down by his blade–
“No child deserves this– this horrible life!” Shen Yuan screamed out, both in this world of memory and the eerily quiet of the chamber that kept the spirit hostage. Tears wetted his face as he was filled with outrage and emotion, as much sympathy as he had felt when reading the accounts of Luo Binghe’s life.
“This one clearly did,” Shen Qingqiu’s voice surrounded Shen Yuan from where he was quivering and shaking in the memory of Shen Jiu being bullied and physically assaulted by the noble Shixiong of Qing Jing. When the modern man looked up, he found Shen Qingqiu’s fully grown yet unharmed spiritual form towering over him.
“Fate does not favor the weak,” Shen Qingqiu stated, his eyes brimming with that intense hatred, before he raised his foot and cruelly brought it down on Shen Yuan– no! He brought it down upon this teenage Shen Jiu’s head. That heeled boot felt as though it were made of steel and as heavy as an elephant’s foot, bringing a loud wail from Shen Jiu’s mouth.
“Stop! Stop this abuse!” Shen Jiu screeched, a reflection of his internal pleas, long since silenced and kept behind a gritted jaw when those pleas for mercy were unanswered. And they typically only drew further abuse and sadistic pleasure from the men who tore and ripped him apart.
Shen Qingqiu scowled and snarled at this weakness, his full body weight shifting onto the child, and then, when those cries only grew louder, he threw himself on the boy. Hands gripped around Shen Jiu’s neck and squeezed with the strength of an immortal master.
He bore his adult weight upon the sniffling, choking boy. Trying to kill him for once and all. If Shen Jiu died here, that would be a true mercy for the life Fate had crafted for him.
Instead of dark eyes staring up at him, he was faced with tearful green, and a youthful projection of that hopeful, almost innocent man was suddenly under him. The soul was strong, untouched by the sorrows and torture that had steadily chipped at Shen Qingqiu’s humanity.
His teeth gritted together with that deep envy as he looked upon this pure soul. His hands clenched tighter around that swan-like neck.
“This is what happens when you trust men. When you are completely and utterly weak to the mechanisms of the world,” the peak lord lectured as he used to, glaring down at the young man with disgust and disdain. He felt no pity as he tried to drain the cultivator of his vitality, to break free of his binds and go to Diyu and receive the redemption he deserved for his eons of punishment.
The physical sensation of nails digging into his ghostly flesh brought him out of his musings, the peak lord’s eyes narrowing in poorly concealed interest as he watched the man scramble and begin to fight him. “Leettt goooo,” Shen Yuan exclaimed, strained and shaking as he bucked and clawed at the man’s grip.
A fire, a passion for life, burned in Shen Yuan’s eyes as he fought the spirit. And soon enough, he was able to switch their roles. Instantly, Shen Qingqiu lost all of his cool loftiness and fought on instinct to get out of this position. He was no longer concerned with masking himself or his image when it came to positions of pain.
He would never allow another to harm him again.
A warm weight enveloped him, a sensation that brought a shiver as even more deeply repressed memories flickered to the surface. Sensations of being held down, touched, and–
“I’m not going to hurt you!” An annoyingly earnest voice yelled in his ears, shaking hands, and a wetness on his collar pulled the spirit from that torturous trap of memories. “Y-you’ve suffered enough,” this Shen Yuan, this soft-hearted fool, actually appeared to be crying for him as he hugged him.
Shen Qingqiu was motionless, emotionally numb as he watched someone other than Yu– other than that stupid fool, get upset for him. A shaking hand tried to comfort him by doing something as foolish as petting his head, his cheek. But Shen Qingqiu huffed and turned his head with disgust for this stranger’s pity.
“H-here,” Shen Yuan softly spoke with a shuddering breath, the two of them suddenly side by side in a beautiful ocean-side scene. They sat upon a cliff, the sea breeze softly stirring their bound hair and the sun setting in a glorious ball of fire upon the endless expanse of the sea.
“...That was a lot,” Shen Yuan murmured, a bit needlessly. Shen Qingqiu scoffed, his form perfect as he kneeled next to the cultivator’s loosely seated position. “And that wasn’t the end of it,” that soft, guileless face looked toward the restless spirit with a sad gaze.
But before Shen Qingqiu could grow enraged at what was assuredly more pity– and how he was done with being looked at with pity– the cultivator surprised him as that gaze grew heated with anger. His green spirit, fresh and soft compared to Shen Qingqiu’s frosted blue edge, gained a red tinge with a deeply righteous anger from the injustice.
A fist pounded upon his chest and Shen Yuan shifted to face him fully, “This Shen Yuan will do all he can to bring Shen Qingqiu’s spirit to rest! He will have all of the history books rewritten and the truth told!” He exclaimed, his soul burning at the memory of the disparaging biographies that had been written about Shen Qingqiu by figures such as Lady Qiu Haitang and the narratives that had been discredited when coming from First Wife Ning YingYing.
Shen Yuan didn’t do something as foolish as grabbing Shen Qingqiu’s clenched fists into some mopey, romantic scene between a hero and his love interest. But he was damn close to it with the familiarity that he looked upon the scholar.
“...” Shen Qingqiu stared at that earnestly determined face, that anger for him. No one had ever been angry for him– not even that fool, that man who had given up on him until he fell for that wretched trap. A fruitless loyalty that only brought further pain and heart-ache in his life.
But unlike him, this man didn’t look at him with guilt. He could sense that there was still areas in which the cultivator judged him, but there was an understanding there.
Shen Qingqiu turned to look at the ocean stretched before them. Waves crashed under them and he blinked as a tear spilled from his eye and down his cheek. It was a beautiful sight, one he hadn’t seen even when he was free. The air felt light here and something heavy and dark within him grew an ounce lighter.
“...Show this lord some of your memories,” he stated, an equal exchange of vulnerabilities and secrets. An unspoken wish for compromise, no matter how small of a step it was in the long road that they had ahead of them. But that fool scrambled up with a bright smile.
“Of course!” Shen Yuan exclaimed, his hands held back in his lap for a moment as he embarrassingly cleared his throat. “May this Shen touch the master once more?” He politely asked, his face once more professional as he offered up a hand, palm up between them.
Shen Qingqiu darkly glared at him, despite the small gratitude he felt at not being suddenly grabbed by the energetic man. “This master isn’t made of glass,” he hissed, bitter and looking down his nose in a straight-back pose that allowed him to tower over the other seated man.
Sufficiently cowed, Shen Qingqiu primly rested his hand in the cultivator’s and allowed them to get cartered off into the gentler memories of a rich, third son of a wealthy family.
And as much as the ex-peak lord wished to grow jealous and envious of this privileged life, he could sense that same self-hatred that tinged his own perspective. Behind supportive gazes of family gathered over his weakened state from various Qi-deviations, he saw the same pity directed toward this young man.
And then he saw the jealous sneers and saw the sabotage attempts from the man’s secondary education. The instances of otherness he experienced, given his different method of cultivation, were something that the fool didn’t give much thought. But Shen Qingqiu knew those looks of disdain for what they were.
The sly subterfuge was clear to the strategist, and it surprisingly stirred some mirth as he acted through the memories with that whimsical, good-natured perspective. If there were ever one who was simultaneously favored and toyed with by Fate, this Shen Yuan had Fate wrapped around his finger.
And Shen Qingqiu admittedly grew interested in each of these near misses and the charming solutions the man had to each challenge he was faced with.
He experienced that gentle yet frustrating life in the span of a few moments. And it left the wrathful ghost with a hesitant hope. So when they sat, cross-legged and holding hands, Shen Qingqiu’s gaze was neutral as he examined the youthful, charming face across from him.
“What plan did you come here then, to aid this master?” Shen Qingqiu asked, his voice finally quieted with a mild calm as he awaited the man’s thoughts. When he pulled his hands out of that warm grip, he was easily set free, yet the warmth lingered.
Shen Yuan’s gaze grew elusive, a nervous chuckle falling from his lips as he turned his head to look to the side. A hand ruffled his hair, and he lightly blushed as he looked upon the fine features of the Peak Lord’s face.
“W-well, this was only one of the possible solutions to release you from the mechanism Emperor Luo created,” Shen Yuan eased into the solution, something that drew instant suspicion from Shen Qingqiu. The cultivator raised his hands in the air as the spirit’s calm aura spiked with indignation at the side-stepping (and the mention of Luo Binghe).
“The mechanism,” Shen Yuan spoke loudly, before Shen Qingqiu fell back into that anger, his voice mellowing out as Shen Yuan’s energy pulsed that warm, yellowish-green serenity. “The journal speaks of the mechanism binding shattered spirits by using the main flaw of the spirit’s personality against it,” the cultivator spoke vaguely, as though they were solving a distant nighthunt or a riddle, rather than the mechanism keeping Shen Qingqiu on this plane.
The scholar leaned back with a thoughtful noise, his chest burning with irritation at the introspection that would be required to solve this problem. “Well,” Shen Qingqiu crossed his arms, pinning Shen Yuan in a sweat-inducing glare that challenged him to point out the scholar’s flaws.
“Whatever flaw does Shen Yuan think that this master suffers from?” He drawled out, unamused and looking as though he didn’t expect much from the lowly worm before him.
Shen Yuan hunched in on himself under that stare, grumpy and mumbling to himself as he turned to the eternal sunset to ponder on this posed question. His thoughts whirred and then he anticipation brewed in him as he realized the good ‘ol ghost marriage that was hoisted upon him probably was their solution.
But he couldn’t help but side-eye the ghost with a nervous energy.
Shen Qingqiu bristled with annoyance, materializing a fan from gods knows where, and hitting Shen Yuan on the head with it. Shen Yuan yelped and squirmed away from the onslaught, “Spit it out already!” The Peak Lord growled, his patience wavering as he grew unsettled with this peaceful environment.
How his body was reacting to the prolonged sound of waves crashing below them, the exhaustion lining his eyes, and the gentle breeze making the thoughts of resting in the presence of the man seem more and more appealing.
Shen Yuan yelped some more and grumbled before he cleared his throat. “You’re not going to like this,” Shen Qingqiu raised his fan higher in threat, rushing Shen Yuan to get to the point, “But– the, the most efficient means of soothing a spirit as yourself has been found to be… ghost marriages,” Shen Yuan all but whispered the last words.
But Shen Qingqiu didn’t need it to be repeated. That fan moved to cover his face, his eyes narrowed into a glare.
“Which– hear me out here, Master Shen,” Shen Yuan waved his hands out in a flustered display, “I, this one wouldn’t want that either– not because master is displeasing to the eyes,” a brow twitched in amusement. “Because this one assures you he has no interest in men! However, this solution would address the most probable flaw that comes to this one's mind,” he stated, earning a delayed, interested hum to continue on.
“...This one thinks that Master Shen’s biggest flaw would be his distrust for others. Or his distrust in humanity itself,” Shen Yuan hypothesized, his answer making Shen Qingqiu’s mouth open into a snarling shout before the man paused. He reflected upon himself for a moment, detaching his ego from himself to gaze at his immortal suffering.
His hand clenched around his fan guard. In every memory he had agonizingly looked over and fled into during his insanity inducing punishment, he had always looked at them through the perspective of a vindictive victim. Not this outsider view that Shen Yuan had brought with his fresh, rejuvenating energy.
He hadn’t trusted others in his life. Obviously, he knew that, and it was only an expected paranoia that came with the betrayals he experienced in his life. But his distrust and unwillingness to challenge others' perception of himself– his reputation as a lecher, his fear of men, the misunderstandings between him and Liu Qingge.
No one had truly known him back then. And he had never known why that– that stupid oaf, his Qi-ge. Why had he not come back then? Why had he not spoken out and attempted to defend him during that sham of a trial? How could he subject himself to what he knew was a trap for a Shidi, his Xiao Jiu, who deserved the pain?
A gentle hand rested on his cheek, making Shen Qingqiu flinch. But it didn’t rip out his eye or his tongue, rather it gently wiped away his tears and cupped his cheek. Without speaking a word, and being unable to with how tight his throat was, Shen Qingqiu agreed to the marriage.
If that Beast thought him incapable of trusting another, he would rather entrust his fate to this simpleton. And it brought a smug, cruel smile to his lips at the reminder of his denial of the Beast’s desperate plea for his forgiveness. That mindless, insane rambling of a ‘Kind Shizun’ loving a Beast in another world– the thought of that improbable picture brought another laugh and he felt even lighter as his soul was bound with this foolish young master’s.
He wasn’t going to go about this marriage business easily, but the change in scenery would surely be more interesting than these stones.
