I am quite fond of “arranged marriage / forced marriage” concepts, so I was thinking about how that unfortunately that doesn’t really work with Moshang in a Canon AU, except then I remember that Tianlang-Jun (agent of chaos and incurable romantic) would probably LOVE the whole “oh yeah, as the so-called ‘Demon Emperor’ I can matchmake anyone I like for funsies” thing.
In the “servant to a different king” AU I proposed months ago, Shang Qinghua (without System restrictions) dumps Cang Qiong Mountain Sect before becoming head disciple and saves Tianlang-Jun and Su Xiyan. So, let’s say that in this AU, Shang Qinghua anonymously gives Su Xiyan a heads-up and does successfully become the candidate for the next Lord of An Ding Peak.
Only, in that vague time before “when Tianlang-Jun was supposed to be imprisoned” and “the ascension of the new generation of Peak Lords”, Mobei-Jun’s family gets in trouble with the newly married, new father, newly interested in politics to protect his family Demon Emperor. Linguang-Jun implicated his brother in some scheme and cozied up in the hopes of being the Demon Emperor’s “appointed” next Northern King, maybe?
Only the scheme backfires because Tianlang-Jun is a spiteful bastard (and maybe not entirely fooled by this web), so he’s like, “Hey, what if I kill the Northern King and keep his body? What if I don’t give him back afterwards?” So, Mobei-Jun’s family will lose thousands of years of inherited power. Mobei-Jun’s family is panicking over this (including Linguang-Jun), which Tianlang-Jun finds delicious, and he’s like, “Hey, what WOULD you do in order for me to let him live or at least give you back the body? Dance for my amusement here, people; I want GOOD suggestions.”
SOMEWHERE along the line (don’t know how or who suggests it), marriage to a human pops up as an idea. Tianlang-Jun is married to a human and has a half-human son. Wouldn’t that show the Demon Emperor that Mobei-Jun’s family doesn’t hate humans and didn’t try to kill the empress?
Mobei-Jun basically exists to be the next Northern King and hey, he knows a human being, so he grabs head disciple (almost Peak Lord) Shang Qinghua from An Ding Peak and brings him before the Demon Emperor. (Mobei-Jun is kind of panicking here. Whatever his personal feelings for his father are, they CANNOT lose his father’s body.) Mobei-Jun’s explanation of the situation to Shang Qinghua on the way is not very good and very confusing, but part of that is because the situation is very ridiculous because Tianlang-Jun is ridiculous.
So, young Shang Qinghua is forced to spin a forbidden love story for the Demon Emperor (and possibly a large audience of demon royalty/nobility), in which he saved Mobei-Jun’s life and they’ve been secretly seeing each other for years. Tianlang-Jun is like, “Wow, I was probably just going to destroy the body no matter what they did, but this IS good. Keep talking. I really relate to this forbidden demon-human love story you have going on. A powerful demon lord and a human cultivator? Love it!”
Shang Qinghua’s explanation is SO GOOD, in fact, that Tianlang-Jun decides not only to let the current Northern King live after all, but to personally throw Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun a fabulous wedding.
Tianlang-Jun: “Xiyan and I eloped, so we didn’t really get to do the whole Big Fat Demon Wedding thing, but you two can! This is great. Xiyan and I don’t have any other demon-human couples to hang out with. You two should have kids A.S.A.P. so my son can have some half-human friends around his age.” (As far as Tianlang-Jun is concerned, if they ARE faking it, he’s going to make them do the whole monkey-dance anyway just to see how far they’ll take it.)
Shang Qinghua is like, “Great! Sounds great!” While Mobei-Jun is completely stone-faced (like, more than normal somehow) because he doesn’t actually want to marry his human servant, but can’t object without bringing down all the consequences just avoided.
So Shang Qinghua has to go back to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect and say, “Yeah, I’m leaving the sect. I’m stepping down. Can’t be the next An Ding Peak Lord, sorry. I’m getting married.” And people are like, “Well, you can be a Peak Lord and married, that’s fine.” And Shang Qinghua has to be like, “Haha, yeah, no. Expect an extremely dramatic messenger from the Demon Emperor tomorrow, probably complete with fireworks and confetti. I’m kind of being willingly forced to marry the son of the Northern Demon King.”