I've seen a few posts speculating on what might have happened in Shen Yuan had transmigrated into Mu Qingfang instead of Shen Qingqiu. Many fun ideas, but it got me thinking about how I would do this scenario.
The first thing that would happen would be that SY would declare that since MQF is not doomed by the plot/is only an NPC, he therefore doesn't have to make any changes and indeed shouldn't get involved with matters of import at all since he's only a minor background character. He can just kick back and relax in his new xianxia life, and get a front row seat to Luo Binghe's rise to power and conquest.
That would last approximately two days.
If we're still assuming that SY was a NEET or (even worse) a business major in his first life, then he would have no relevant medical expertise whatsoever. While I do think having a vague understanding of human anatomy and modern sanitary practices would help him, in the same way having a vague understanding of modern education helped him as SQQ, that is really not a substitute for the level of expertise Mu Qingfang is supposed to have. The first time he gets confronted with a severely wounded patient he doesn't know how to save, he goes into a panic and has to beg the System for a skill patch/easy mode/universal cheat elixir to pull them through.
After this, he starts to take his position as Medical Peak Lord more seriously and goes into a major skill grind/level up montage. He emerges from it with enough of an understanding of the applicable medical theory, plus whatever he knows from the modern world, plus what he remembers about flora and fauna and bullshit magical elixirs from the novel, plus his own problem solving skills, that he can at least get by as Mu Qingfang without putting patients in danger.
(Honestly he probably could stop there, but will he? No! Mu Qingfang is not just a decent doctor, he is the best doctor! Never mind that MQF was only brought up in the book in order to show himself useless against the power of Luo Binghe's miracle blood slash healing D. No, he absolutely must be The Best Doctor In The World or else he will not get a good grade in transmigrating, a thing both possible to achieve and normal to want.)
At any rate, SY eventually emerges from a study-fueled haze after a period of months or years to realize that Oh Shit, He's Invested Now. How is he supposed to live up to his self-assigned achievement not letting any of his patients die if Luo Binghe razes the mountain?! He's got to intervene now.
Fortunately, SY knows exactly what he needs to do. He's gotten to know Cang Qiong enough to know that it's pretty decent, actually, it's really not the corrupt institution that justified burning it down in the book, it's full of ordinary people just doing their best. There's really just one little tweak that needs to be made, one little alteration, one minor edit is all that stands in the way of Luo Binghe having a happy life and career as a Cang Qiong cultivator.
He just needs to kill Shen Qingqiu.
(cont...)
Method is not going to be a problem. A doctor knows all about poisons, and Shen Qingqiu is already known for his frequent qi deviations; Mu Qingfang knows the exact ratio of ingredients he needs to drop Shen Qingqiu in his sleep an untraceable month or so from the time of application. It would look indistinguishable from the qi deviations he's already prone to, and Mu Qingfang would be in charge of the medical investigation afterwards anyway. Easy peasy.
No, the problem is going to be opportunity. Shen Qingqiu doesn't come to Qian Cao for medical treatment for his qi deviations. Shen Qingqiu doesn't come to Qian Cao for medical treatment for anything. He's a reclusive, antisocial jerk with paranoid tendencies which only coincidentally in this case happen to be warranted, but either way: Presents a problem for our newly determined Mu Qing-yuan.
So he starts on the campaign to win Shen Qingqiu's trust. Teach him to rely on others sometimes, to come to him when he needs help. Small things at first, with the intent of building up that trust over time. Peeling back the spiky carapace of the prickliest Peak Lord of their generation is tedious, often aggravating work, but Mu Qingyuan is patient and determined. He can make house calls, if Shen Qingqiu doesn't want to leave his Peak. He can mix medicines for headaches and nightmares and insomnia. He can talk for hours about this or that book that one of them borrowed from the other.
Slowly, bit by bit, he begins to form something approaching a friendship with Shen Qingqiu. All to plan.
The only problem is -- he begins to form something approaching a friendship with Shen Qingqiu.
And the more he gets to know the bastard, the more fond he's starting to become.
In a funny, exasperating, adopting-a-feral-tomcat sort of way, he's coming to like Shen Qingqiu.
Shit.
In one of his patented "My body just moved to protect him on instinct, I had no idea that would happen, not a single thought in my head" moments, Mu Qingyuan gets a little too in the zone during a healing session and manages to completely cure Shen Qingqiu's qi instability. Well! Crap! This completely scotches his murder-SQQ-through-qi-deviation plan. Well, it wasn't a great plan anyway, everybody knows that if a highly ranked cultivation individual dies of a qi deviation the obvious suspect would be the man who was treating him for said qi deviation. Time to find a new approach.
At this point, a sensible person would abandon the murder-Shen-Qingqiu plan entirely. But reader, we are not talking about a sensible man.
Mu Qingyuan is still determined to kill Shen Qingqiu. He still thinks it's the best way to not only protect Luo Binghe from Shen Qingqiu, but to protect Shen Qingqiu (and Cang Qiong) from Luo Binghe. Shen Qingqiu's death is a hard-coded part of the narrative, after all! An inescapable part of the world! It's just that now he's determined to find a way to kill him before all the abuse and torture and tragedy stuff happens, and bring him back to life afterwards once the plot is safely past. Simple!
My outline gets fuzzy from here on out but I think it mostly consists of Mu Qingyuan going through a series of increasingly convoluted shen-anigans to try to get hold of the Glass Coffin of Stasis or the Ruby Apples of Mortal Seeming or the cursed five-pedal spinning wheel that puts whoever touches it into an enchanted sleep or whatever other Disney princess device Airplane shamelessly plagiarized into his narrative so that he could have another arc about a beautiful love interest trapped in a deathlike trance that Luo Bingge would have to go on a quest to save but didn't require him to come up with a new personality or background.
#this is the correct amount of deranged commitment to the bit that sy requires - @waitineedaname
You understand my vision.
