keep your headcanon and have fun with it! if for you SQQ knew because he knew then go for it.
that being said... the handle, girl. Swords have handles and the sects' ones aren't mass produced for an army. If everyone had the same exact sword it'd be able to know who died. Also they are fancy guys, I can't imagine them having the same model.
SQQ would throw a fit at least
But Luo Bingge only showed pieces of the broken sword blade, not the hilt. And since Yue Qingyuan never unsheathes his sword and only holds the hilt, it is almost impossible to know what Yue Qingyuan’s blade actually looks like.
Hmmm, I don’t really know how to explain it, but I want to believe Shen Jiu knew the secret 😭😭😭
The only thing I accept is that the book indirectly implies Shen Jiu did not know the secret. However, the book in question is PIDW.
Just like Shen Yuan is not a reliable narrator, OG Luo Bingge is not reliable either, and PIDW itself was written to satisfy a specific audience.
So even if Shen Jiu has an extra chapter, the extra is not deeply explanatory, and it does not have Shen Yuan’s narration. And Shen Jiu’s extra takes place in PIDW, meaning the idea that “Shen Jiu did not know the secret” comes purely from PIDW’s narrative.
Not to mention that PIDW is a world created from Bingzu’s original world. So even if, in PIDW, Shen Jiu may not know Yue Qingyuan’s secret, in the original story — the already destroyed Bingzu universe — we can still speculate that the Shen Jiu from that world knew the truth.
Another thing is that Shang Qinghua never developed the side characters beyond Bingge, so the “draft,” which is the original story of Bingzu’s world, can fill in those gaps.
Like I said, PIDW does not have a reliable narrator any more than SVSSS does. So in the extra that takes place in PIDW, it is never explicitly stated that “Shen Jiu did not know the secret.” We simply assume he did not know.
That is where PIDW’s unreliable narration begins.
And since the extra does not take place in SVSSS, there is no way to fully explain Shen Jiu’s life in detail, because in SVSSS there is no narrator besides Shen Yuan. And in PIDW, I think Luo Binghe is probably the only narrator as well.
So the narrator that appears whenever Shen Yuan is absent is just as unreliable as he is — and that can absolutely apply to OG Luo Binghe too
In the extra, it says the system gave Shen a “gift.” 𝙎𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙌𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙦𝙞𝙪 𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙞𝙙𝙡𝙮: — 𝙄𝙛 𝙄 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙮𝙤𝙪, 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣? 𝙎𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢: “𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖 ‘𝘿𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙂𝙞𝙛𝙩 𝙋𝙖𝙘𝙠’ 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢’𝙨 𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙞𝙣!”
That was when it became clear where everything came from. If the original PIDW (Bingzu) had merely been one of Shang’s drafts, the system would not have needed to give a “gift,” nor would Shen have needed to spend points to summarize all of that information, because he could have simply asked Shang directly.
If it were only one of Shang’s “drafts,” the world would not have come to an end. That means the original PIDW world was written by someone else.
Every story is written by someone. On top of that, everyone there possesses powers; there is no way a world could simply appear out of nowhere and sustain someone as powerful as Bingzun. A world cannot generate that kind of “energy” on its own, so the original PIDW story must have been another novel written by somebody else.
It says “the original world,” not “the draft world” or anything similar, so this confirms that the story behind PIDW (Bingzu) truly existed and was not one of Shang’s drafts.
This is where the important part begins: “His fate could no longer be changed.” That means the possibility of Shang’s PIDW being a “final version” of Bingzun’s story does not exist.
“Even if someone returned to the past, it would only create A NEW world.” This proves that there are not only three worlds: the modern world, PIDW, and SVSSS.
There is another one: the fourth world, the world of “Luo Binghe,” which we will now call Bingzun.
A draft could never create a fourth world. Not to mention that it makes no sense for one world to exist through a draft and then for another world to emerge later from the finalized version of that draft.
This is where I wanted to scream and tell everyone that Bingzun is already dead and no longer exists, because I constantly see comments and edits claiming Bingzun is the system, when in reality the system is only a “fragment” of him. Not to mention there is not just one system, but many; these spirits are the “systems.”
This is where the fourth world was destroyed; it no longer exists. And if that world no longer exists, then Bingzun no longer exists either, because the “Luo Binghes” are the very source of their worlds. That is why it makes no sense for Bingzun to still be alive and acting as a system.
If you think about it, when PIDW’s Luo Bingge traveled into the BL version of his world, the PIDW world was not destroyed.
That means even if Bingzun had become a system and left his original world, his world still would not have been destroyed. So yes, Bingzun is dead.
Another thing is that in the Bingmei vs. Bingge extras, Shen Yuan says something that fits perfectly here. He says he does not know what kind of catastrophe might occur if Bingge were killed by Bingmei, because Bingge is the “original,” and if he dies, the world might be destroyed or Bingmei himself might disappear.
That makes sense, but Bingmei would not disappear, nor would the SVSSS world cease to exist if Bingge died. Only Bingge himself would disappear, and the PIDW world would cease to exist.
Because Bingzun died. He is the original Luo Binghe, and even though these worlds (PIDW/SVSSS) were created after his death, the worlds remain intact because each one possesses its own Luo Binghe.
Okay, this is where they infiltrate the modern world: the systems, not Bingzun, okay?
“They sent that person to the point of Luo Binghe’s birth.” Further below (almost at the end), I explain that Shen is basically a non-playable player, because he transmigrated after Luo Binghe had already been born and at a point where he already possessed impure thoughts.
So this is where Shang appears. This proves that the original novel was not created by Shang, nor was it one of his drafts, and that the original PIDW story already existed. That is why the plot holes Shang left in his novel, PIDW, were filled by the original story itself.
This is where Shang receives the “fragments” of the original story, and I think this is where many people got confused, because they focus on “in his original outline” while forgetting that this outline consisted of the “fragments” he received and wrote down so he would not forget them and could finally change Bingzun’s fate by creating the “new” story he intended to write.
Shang abandoned his “original” idea, and this is where he creates PIDW.
It explicitly says he “abandoned everything and decided to take the risk” in order to “cater to the market.” That means that, at first, he was posting the original plotline (Bingzu), and then later changed everything. That was the moment our beloved Bingge was born.
So the beginning of PIDW would actually be Bingzun’s “new” life — the different destiny he always wanted. And this is precisely when Shen Yuan discovers Shang’s novel.
This also means that the essence of the original world (Bingzun) remains inside the world of PIDW, filling in all the gaps Shang left behind while trying to appeal to the market.
I mentioned earlier that when Shang received fragments of the original story, he wrote them down so he would not forget them. That means there really was a “draft created by him.” So if he wrote an entire outline corresponding to the original world, then it can be confirmed that when he later created PIDW from that outline, the “draft” — which is the original world itself — continued to exist as part of PIDW.
This part is a little difficult to explain.
But it’s basically like this: the “draft” Shang wrote already existed beforehand, because it is the original story itself (Bingzun). So this once again confirms that the original story was a complete and finished work, not a draft entirely created by Shang.
Second: a draft of a novel cannot create a world. Which means the “draft,” being the original world itself, continues to exist as part of PIDW and works as a patch for the final PIDW story.
So every plot hole that exists in PIDW is filled by the “draft.” And the draft is the original story without alterations. In other words, everything left unexplained in PIDW — and everything that happens there — is not simply because “the villain is evil” and “the protagonist is pitiful.” Everything has cause and effect, and that is where the “draft” enters the structure of PIDW, because it is what builds the entire logic of cause and effect within the story.
For example: in PIDW, Yingying is treated well by Shen Jiu because Shen Jiu is portrayed as a scumbag who likes women and frequents brothels. He hates everyone and mistreats Bingge purely out of jealousy toward his cultivation.
That is what is written in the novel. But it is full of holes, and that is where the draft fills everything in by adding cause and effect.
For example: Yingying is treated well by Shen Jiu because she resembles his childhood friend, and Shen Jiu wants to protect and spoil her (not romantically). Shen Jiu goes to brothels whenever he feels stressed because he is constantly surrounded by men; he feels more comfortable and SAFE around women. He does not hate everyone, but believes everyone hates him and sees him as a threat, so he acts cold and ignorant in order to avoid giving people any opening against him.
He mistreats only one disciple because he sees himself in that child. That boy’s past was exactly like his own. So why does this child deserve a good life when he himself was never allowed one? Why does this child get to have Yingying as a childhood friend when he could not stay with his own? Why is this child’s cultivation allowed to progress while his own was deliberately obstructed?
That is why he hates Bingge: envy, jealousy, and resentment.
This is the true “patch” of PIDW’s plot. And people need to remember that Shen Yuan is not a reliable narrator — but they forget that Bingge is not a reliable narrator either.
People say: “Bingmei suffered so much. Imagine what he must have gone through in the Abyss. He is not just a crybaby.”
And this is exactly where PIDW’s hidden “patchwork” enters the story, because Bingge’s past is the same as Bingmei’s. So we know his perspective is distorted by what he experienced and by everything he went through with Shen Jiu.
But that is not a plot hole, because this fact is actually stated in the novel. The only thing we need to pay attention to is the unreliable narration so we do not lose track of the truth.
PIDW, however, is different. Beyond the unreliable narration, the PIDW novel itself says almost nothing about the characters’ pasts or the reasons they behave the way they do. That is why the draft fills all the gaps in the novel without ever directly appearing on the surface.
I hope that made sense. This part is genuinely complicated to explain.
But seriously, a draft cannot create a world and then later have the finalized version of that same draft create another world. I think I’ve already repeated that a hundred times.
So, once again: the original PIDW is not a draft, but a fully completed work, because it makes no sense for a character that powerful to be merely a “draft” that can be freely altered.
This is where the whole “low IQ” aspect of the other characters comes in. Everyone around Luo Bingge loses IQ points, and this is mentioned multiple times in SVSSS because it is literally one of Shen Yuan’s genuine complaints.
That is why I say Shen Jiu is actually very intelligent. He is a well-written and highly clever villain. He only seems stupid when standing next to the protagonist.
This is also where Bingge gets mentioned directly. I absolutely love this part because Bingge basically became warped due to the stupidity of the people around him, and I find that hilarious.
So yes, for the people who say “Luo Bingge would never change because of Shen Yuan,” that is simply false. If he stayed in the SVSSS world long enough, he would gradually become more normal.
(Remember: Bingzu’s world no longer exists. If it still existed, the order would be: Bingzu’s world → modern world → PIDW → SVSSS. But since it has already been destroyed, the order becomes: modern world → PIDW → SVSSS.)
So the second world is created because Shang successfully transformed one story into something completely different. It is like taking inspiration from something and changing so much that it ultimately becomes your own original work.
And that is what caused the world itself to be created, because PIDW became an original story rather than merely an imitation of Bingzu’s world. So if Shang had continued following the “draft,” which is the original story, and had changed only a few things, a new world would never have been born.
This point is barely discussed, but we can see that there were more hosts besides Shen and Shang. And they had many more missions, activities, and protagonist favorability points to gain.
I only have one question: were these worlds with different hosts erased? Or did they always exist within the broader framework of the SVSSS world?
I imagine this and immediately think about what Bingmei must have gone through with multiple random people suddenly trying to “take care” of him. But I do not think it worked, because it is confirmed that in the end only Shen and Shang remained.
Still, I also think those worlds may have been erased, because it says Shang was Host Number One of the SVSSS world.
And remember what I said earlier about how a world ends when its Binghe dies? I think those multiple hosts ended up killing multiple Luo Binghes.
The new extra explicitly mentions that when Shen Yuan encountered problems during transmigration — because the timing was wrong and he ended up in the wrong body (Shen Jiu) — the systems did not want to erase/reset the world because it was too troublesome.
That implies that for a world to be erased, the Luo Binghe of that world must die. And that is not impossible, because the systems specifically send hosts into the world in order to save Luo Binghe.
Which means Luo Binghe needs to still be a child, at a stage where he has not yet developed malicious thoughts — or perhaps he has not even been born yet.
This is where it explains that Shen arrived at the wrong point in time and also possessed the wrong body.
Another thing confirmed here is that the systems treat their hosts like players.
Since everyone believed Shen was an “unplayable account” doomed to fail no matter what, none of the systems wanted to stay with him. So that whole part about “each system being tailor-made for its user” and “testing how much pressure the player/host could endure” does not apply to Shen, because the systems simply abandoned him to fend for himself. They also gave up on Shang.
And this is extremely important, because the systems were actively increasing the difficulty for their hosts. That is probably the exact reason why they were never able to save Luo Binghe.
Once again, this confirms that Bingzu is dead and that each system was originally assigned to a specific host. Which means there were multiple hosts before Shang and Shen.
This is where I talk about how the characters become stupid around the protagonist, and yes, Shen Yuan has enough influence to turn Luo Bingge into a normal person, which is honestly a very interesting concept.
“No one had ever managed to surpass.” Yet another confirmation that there were previous hosts before them.
Hashahhajah I wanted to put all the information in one place because this single extra chapter basically reveals all of it, and I also followed the order of the writing itself, so you can read the extra while analyzing it with me. Just keep in mind that I used a translation of the extra in my own language, so some parts might be slightly different :33
I can try to find the extras in English and include images of the lines if you want
i like the idea of shen jiu knowing more, but it IS super common in xianxia stories for characters to automatically assume a broken sword means the owner of the sword is dead
that's why seeing binghe's sword shattered automatically has everyone thinking he died too, it's a common trope
This is definitely something very common, but how did Shen Jiu recognize that the sword belonged to Yue Qingyuan? Like I said, no one had ever seen Yue’s sword because it was always sheathed. And as far as I know, whenever he slightly unsheathes it, nobody can even see it.
This happens in SVSSS when Shen escapes with Binghe. Yue slightly unsheathes his sword to maintain order and let Shen escape, but the narration says that nobody can see Yue’s sword because, besides how fast he is, he simply never fully unsheathes it. It’s as if he only draws out a grain-of-rice-sized portion of the blade. And besides the cave incident in SVSSS, there was never any other moment where Yue unsheathed his sword, and the same thing happens in PIDW, since Yue can basically be considered the strongest character after Binghe.
Yue probably never even unsheathed an inch of his sword in PIDW, because that’s what makes the story “interesting.”
“Binghe is so powerful that he made Yue unsheathe his sword, something he had never done before.”
That’s exactly the kind of thing that would please Shang’s readers, so I’m sure Yue never unsheathed his sword.
So how does Shen Jiu know the sword belongs to Yue?
Well, Yue is very open with Shen Jiu. He has no guard up around him. Everyone in PIDW knows that Shen Jiu is obsessed with cultivation, so it’s impossible that he never asked what material Yue’s sword was made of or something like that.
Like I said, back then, after Yue left the cave, he definitely couldn’t hide everything he had gone through. Shen Jiu definitely investigated him: who gave him the sword, how the sword was made, and most importantly, why it was never unsheathed.
Like you said, in xianxia and cultivation novels, a sword is like a cultivator’s life. If the sword is broken, it means the cultivator died. But then why would the sword, the most important thing a cultivator possesses, never be unsheathed even for self-defense?
Shen Jiu, who has known Yue since childhood, would never believe that “he’s just so strong he doesn’t need the sword.”
Not to mention that even if a broken sword means the cultivator died, Shen Jiu had been tortured for days and one of his eyes had been ripped out. I’m pretty sure his remaining eye wasn’t in very good condition either.
But Shen Jiu was certain that sword belonged to Yue Qingyuan. Even without ever seeing Yue Qingyuan’s sword unsheathed, he was certain it was Yue’s.
So that’s where the confirmation comes from that Shen Jiu knew Yue Qingyuan’s secret, because he knew exactly which sword belonged to Yue.
And besides, even in xianxia cultivation settings, it’s very difficult to identify someone’s sword just from fragments. Luo Binghe didn’t throw the entire sword at him; he only threw a few pieces, probably at least four fragments small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.
your meta is really interesting! I just had one question.
what do you mean by original story? from my understanding (which could be very flawed, considering the questionable translation I read for the last extra), PIDW was entirely guided by Xiang Fei and did not follow the life of bingzhu at all, which was what I assumed you meant, but that didn't quite make sense. Do you mean Xiang Fei's original outline?
I edited it because I only understood your comment just now hahahah
I’m talking about the original story (Bingzu).
Well, PIDW has a lot of plot holes.
Bingzu used his last remaining strength to create “spirits,” which became the systems, in order to change his story.
Xiang Fei received “fragments” of that story, and then wrote down Bingzu’s story, which eventually became Xiang Fei’s draft — the famous PIDW draft.
Xiang was not the one who created Bingzu’s story, but because he wrote down the entire story granted to him by the systems, it ended up becoming his draft.
At the beginning, while Xiang Fei was creating PIDW, he was following the draft in order to give Bingzu a happy ending. That was also when Shen Yuan discovered the novel.
But because of financial pressure, Xiang Fei decided to cater to the market and completely changed the story.
That was when PIDW was created.
However, the draft of Bingzu’s original life still remains, and the final PIDW was built on top of that draft. So every plot hole PIDW has is silently patched by the draft without directly appearing.
In SVSSS, everyone says Luo Binghe suffered terribly and that he is not just an innocent crybaby.
And that is exactly where PIDW patches the plot hole, because SVSSS never truly explored that darker side of Luo Binghe. Since it was never explored directly, the original story fills in the gaps by giving the characters cause and effect instead of just “the villain is evil” and “the protagonist is pitiful.”
So the “draft” of PIDW patches all the plot holes.
Not to mention that people always say Shen Yuan is an unreliable narrator while forgetting that Bingge is not reliable either.
Beyond PIDW having an unreliable narrator, the novel itself explains almost nothing about the other characters to the readers. The characters besides Bingge are barely explored, so the “draft” fills those gaps without necessarily appearing on the surface.
That creates an actual chain of cause and effect explaining why things happened the way they did.
Because Bingzu’s original story still acts as a reference point for PIDW. Even though Xiang Fei changed everything to the point of creating an entirely new world, fragments of the original story still remain through the draft he wrote so he would not forget the fragments sent to him by the systems.
Another thing is that if Xiang Fei had continued following the draft the systems gave him — only changing a few details and finally giving Bingzu a happy life — then the PIDW world would never have been created.
Because that draft is only a copy of a world that already ended. Bingzu’s world ended, and he died. A “copy” of that world cannot sustain a new world; only the original can.
So Xiang Fei completely changing everything is what caused a new world to be born: PIDW.
Because this is a new Binghe, an original one.
But Xiang Fei never deeply explored this newly created Binghe, so even though he became the Creator of that world, Bingzu’s original story still prevails underneath it.
So when I talk about the original story, I’m talking about the plot holes PIDW left behind and how Bingzu’s original story fills them.
I don’t know if that made sense hahahha.
It’s like taking inspiration from something and changing it so much that it becomes your own original work, while the inspiration itself still remains underneath it
Shen Jiu already knew about Yue Qingyuan’s secret, and he also already suspected the reason why Yue Qingyuan never rescued him.
In the extras, after torturing Shen Jiu, Luo Binghe simply walks in and throws a broken sword in front of him, nothing more.
Even after being tortured, Shen Jiu’s mental state was still stable. But after hearing Binghe’s words and seeing the fragments of the broken sword, he doesn’t hesitate: he completely loses his mind.
Shen Jiu is arrogant and selfish, so why did he believe so quickly in someone he hates? He knows Binghe is capable of everything he says, but he had been tortured for days; he could have easily thought it was just another method of torture to humiliate him.
Shen Jiu thinks Luo Binghe has already uncovered all of his disgusting secrets and his “relationship” with Yue Qingyuan (at least that’s what I think). He believes everyone is against him, so it wouldn’t be impossible for him to think: “Ah, this dog is just trying to scare me.” But no. He doesn’t question it. Just the sword falling is enough to make Shen Jiu’s vision shake. I’m sure he didn’t even hear Luo Binghe’s words at first.
Shen Jiu saw the sword and became certain Yue Qingyuan was dead. He loses his mind, doesn’t question it, and doesn’t create comforting illusions like: “It’s just a sword, Yue Qingyuan must have escaped” or “During the fight, Yue Qingyuan must have broken the sword.” No. He instantly accepts that Yue Qingyuan is dead.
Shen Jiu knew the sword was Yue Qingyuan’s life, and that without it, he wouldn’t survive.
Everyone knows Shen Jiu’s personality and everything he went through. So how can he simply go insane after seeing a broken sword? There is no other proof that Yue Qingyuan is dead besides the sword and Binghe’s words.
Of course he doesn’t believe everything Binghe says; in fact, he prefers not to believe him, since he knows Luo Binghe would enjoy making him angry. But the sword? He simply sees it and loses his mind.
Shen Jiu is arrogant, but also extremely intelligent. It makes no sense for him to truly believe that the person who spent half his life by his side simply enjoyed life and gave up on him, especially knowing Yue Qingyuan’s personality, since he always protected him.
At first, Shen Jiu creates the false illusion for himself that Yue Qingyuan was enjoying life while he suffered, but that was clearly a thought born out of anger. After all, there he was buried in the mud, while his “savior” wore clean robes and belonged to a prestigious sect.
Shen Jiu may have thought this as a way to vent his anger, but he is rational. It’s impossible that he spent his entire life until death truly believing that.
Shen Jiu knows something happened that caused Yue Qingyuan to be delayed in rescuing him. He also knows the sect was one of the factors that delayed Yue Qingyuan.
Another thing: Shen Jiu is obsessed with cultivation. He would try everything to improve it. How many books and scrolls must he have read? It’s obvious he would piece together the reason Yue Qingyuan never unsheathes his sword and always keeps it protected.
He also knows that after leaving seclusion, Yue Qingyuan became extremely powerful, to the point of already being the sect’s successor. It’s obvious Shen Jiu would investigate Yue Qingyuan.
Not to mention that this was a time when Yue Qingyuan had not yet covered up all of his secrets, because he was too worried about Shen Jiu. He came out of seclusion and immediately went looking for him. So even when Shen Jiu was already with his master, Yue Qingyuan was still focused on him and probably couldn’t erase all traces.
You can’t silence everyone. He may have killed the person who deceived him, but other people could have seen him with that person and later noticed their “disappearance.”
Besides that, Shen Jiu knows that when Yue Qingyuan came out of seclusion, he had already left that place. It’s impossible Shen Jiu didn’t investigate this once he became responsible for one of the peaks.
Because of that, this can be considered one of the reasons Shen Jiu hates the sect: it was responsible both for Yue Qingyuan not saving him and for ruining his life.
So the illusion that “Yue Qingyuan was enjoying life while he suffered” is just a way of not accepting the fact that Yue Qingyuan almost died. He may not know exactly what happened, but he must have a rough idea.
And when he saw the broken sword, he didn’t create any illusion that Yue Qingyuan could still be alive.
Also, Yue Qingyuan lowers his guard a lot around Shen Jiu. So Shen Jiu could very well be the only person who knows his sword’s design, since no one has ever seen that sword fully unsheathed.
Even when Yue Qingyuan only drew half of the sword, it probably wasn’t enough to see its name. Everyone may know the name, but not the way it was written.
Obviously this isn’t written in the novel, but I believe Luo Binghe only threw a few fragments of the broken sword, not the part with the engraved name. After all, if it was destroyed, you probably wouldn’t even be able to see it.
So Shen Jiu immediately recognized the fragments of Yue Qingyuan’s sword.
Just the fact that he knows the sword’s design is already enough to assume he investigated Yue Qingyuan’s life, both directly and indirectly.
Since Shen Jiu has known him since childhood, it’s easy to connect the dots — especially back when Yue Qingyuan still wasn’t sect leader.
That’s why Luo Binghe couldn’t find anything other than Shen Jiu that could truly affect Yue Qingyuan.
The fact that Shen Jiu instantly believes Yue Qingyuan’s death just by seeing his sword means he is certain Yue Qingyuan “transferred” his life into that piece of metal.
Connecting the dots: Shen Jiu knows something happened to Yue Qingyuan.
Shen Jiu would never admit this. He knows Yue Qingyuan, but hates knowing him so well.
He knows something happened that prevented Yue Qingyuan from coming back for him, and precisely because he knows him so well, he creates these illusions to forget the past.
He is a “new” person now, so he creates the illusion that Yue Qingyuan changed, that he was fine while Shen Jiu suffered.
But Shen Jiu knows Yue Qingyuan, so he creates these illusions precisely because he knows they are lies.
The second thing Shen Jiu hates most, in my opinion, is being deceived. So he would seek the truth at any cost.
He is a villain who only has low IQ when he’s near the protagonist. In fact, it is literally written in the extras that Xiang Fei “lowered everyone’s IQ” so the protagonist would seem superior.
In other words: if everyone has the same IQ, when Luo Binghe isn’t around, technically their IQ returns to normal. Kind of hilarious hahahah.
Xiang Fei only received fragments of the story and, to make money, altered the entire plot without deeply exploring the characters.
So the original story fills in the gaps Xiang Fei ignored.
For example: in what Xiang Fei wrote, Shen Jiu mistreats Binghe simply because he is the protagonist, grows quickly in cultivation, etc. Nothing beyond that.
He didn’t develop Shen Jiu; he just turned him into the final boss for Binghe’s happy life.
But the original story fills in this gap, revealing the real reason Shen Jiu hates Binghe.
Continuing.
Shen Jiu is very intelligent. It’s impossible he survived that long if his intellect were low.
He obviously didn’t let anger blind him; he investigated Yue Qingyuan and noticed small signs.
But because of selfishness, he wanted Yue Qingyuan himself to admit everything.
Even if Yue Qingyuan lied (which obviously he never would, and Shen Jiu knows this), Shen Jiu would still believe him.
Because Shen Jiu knows Yue Qingyuan still remembers their “shameful” past and never changed the way he treated him.
That’s why Shen Jiu would believe any lie Yue Qingyuan told, because he would know Yue Qingyuan is only lying to prevent Shen Jiu from feeling guilty.
In the same way, Yue Qingyuan knows Shen Jiu would believe him — and precisely because of that, he tells him nothing.
But Yue Qingyuan has no idea Shen Jiu already knows his secret.
Shen Jiu hates men, but Yue Qingyuan is his only hope.
That’s why he loses his mind when he realizes Yue Qingyuan truly died.
Even with all his pride, he still asks: “Why didn’t you come back?”
He knows the reason. And that is exactly why he feels angry.
Angry at Yue Qingyuan, at himself, and at the entire situation.
The more he asks, the more hope he has of receiving an answer.
He also wanted Yue Qingyuan to tell him the secret for completely selfish reasons.
Shen Jiu thinks the worst of himself.
He definitely blames himself for Yue Qingyuan not telling him anything.
Maybe he thinks: “He doesn’t want to tell me because he thinks I’ll blackmail him?” or “He knows my biggest secret, but won’t tell me his. Is he threatening me?”
But those are just self-destructive thoughts.
Deep down, he knows the truth.
He creates illusions to feel more comfortable with himself, because he would never admit his inferiority complex.
He feels disgusted with himself while looking down on others.
I only feel bad for Yue Qingyuan, because he is absurdly innocent when it comes to Shen Jiu.
So to me, this isn’t even a theory, but a fact.
Every fan of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System knows Shen Jiu’s distorted personality, but few truly understand the character.
He is not a “good” person hidden behind a cruel mask to protect himself.
Shen Jiu going insane and Binghe being surprised, without making ANY jokes, is extremely suspicious.
That is a very obvious sign for the reader — honestly, I think almost no one noticed it.
During years of torture, nothing affected Shen Jiu.
Nothing.
Shen Jiu is practically immune to everything except Yue Qingyuan.
You can tell that the moment he saw those sword fragments, his entire world collapsed.
He didn’t go insane because of Binghe.
He went insane because of himself.
Because he finally accepted that Yue Qingyuan died trying to save him. He accepts that Yue Qingyuan always tried to save him.
Shen Jiu lives in illusions that Yue Qingyuan changed.
So Yue Qingyuan’s death proves the exact opposite: he never changed his feelings for Shen Jiu.
Shen Jiu knows this, but refuses to accept it.
Going insane was the only form of self-preservation.
Yue Qingyuan was the rope Shen Jiu was still hoping to grab to pull himself out of the mud.
But that rope was cut.
In a situation like that, madness becomes the only escape.
There was even that case of several people trying to commit suicide at the same time on a bridge.
After interviewing survivors, they discovered that when someone is close to death, the body sends warning signals.
Many people reported needing to drink alcohol to gather the courage to jump, because when out of their right mind, they stop feeling fear and stop thinking rationally.
Something similar can happen with suicidal people: they create illusions or enter dissociative states to keep surviving just a little longer.
Shen Jiu’s case is similar.
He goes insane, curses Binghe to feel better, and creates the illusion that he is still perfectly fine, because he doesn’t want to give Binghe the satisfaction of victory.
But the one illusion he does not create is that Yue Qingyuan might still be alive.
Anyway, this text got huge hahhahah.
I’ve never seen anyone talk about this. My English isn’t good and my feed doesn’t have much content in other languages, so I don’t know if anyone else has already thought of this.
SVSSS isn’t my favorite novel, but because it has an unreliable narrator, it’s really fun to analyze.
Honestly, the original novel of PIDW would be really interesting. Even though it’s BG, I would read it easily.
It would be extremely tragic, but incredible, with very well-developed characters.
This was just a thought I had. I didn’t even revise it beforehand, so even though it’s long, it’s not a super deep analysis — just the basics you can notice if you try to think like the character.
I don’t completely understand Shen Jiu, so this part about his thoughts is more my own speculation, because it doesn’t explicitly appear in the novel.
But one thing I am absolutely certain of: Shen Jiu knew Yue Qingyuan’s secret hahhahahha
I made an account here just to post what I think, because on Twitter you can’t post long texts
