having an evil shixiong: most normal thing in the world. in fact if you don’t have an evil shixiong you need to really carefully consider the possibility that you might be the evil shixiong
having an evil shishu: also extremely normal. what, you can have an evil shixiong but your shifu can’t? grow up.
having an evil shidi: also fairly common, although there might be a larger issue at play so keep your eyes open for that
having an evil shifu: this is itself an issue, since you are now in one of the classic Confucian Conundrums and have to choose between sacrificing righteousness or filial piety
having an evil disciple: come on man. this one’s on you
having an evil shimei: stop what you’re doing RIGHT now. as of this moment, your one and only mission is to unconditionally support your evil shimei, no takesie backsies
having an evil shijie: ccan i get yuor shijie’s number. please
This was meant to be an April fools joke but I’m still thinking about Cang Qiong Traveling Circus.
It’s the troupe’s worst kept secret that Luo Binghe used to be the disciple of Shen Jiu, Cang Qiong’s former star aerialist. It’s unclear exactly how he ended up apprenticing under Shen Yuan instead, but if rumors are to be believed, it happened after some sort of deadly training accident.
These days it’s Liu Qingge, the contortionist/archer, who draws in the crowds. Nobody says it outright but everybody knows this is mostly because of the way he looks, much to lqg’s own irritation. Though with Luo Binghe’s upcoming debut, things may soon change…
Yqy used to do some kinda knife show in his youth but became a ringmaster after suffering a serious injury. Sqh is the tightrope walker with all the fancy gimmicks. Qqq does fire breathing and pyrotechnics.
"Did Luo Binghe love Shen Yuan or Shen Qingqiu, the persona he crafted to present to the world? Shen Yuan is essentially stuck pretending to be a person he's not for possibly the rest of his life, never being able to fully be who he really is again."
SHEN YUAN DID NOT GO AROUND THE OOC LOCK MULTIPLE TIMES, CONFUSE THE OTHER CHARACTERS WITH "HIS" SUDDEN AND OBVIOUS CHANGE, TURN THE WHOLE QING JING PEAK INTO A HEALTHIER PLACE FOR THE KIDS, FIGHT THE SYSTEM AND THE SITUATIONSHIPS OF THE STORY TOOTH AND NAIL, SHOW BINGHE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND KINDNESS, SAVE LIU QINGGE'S LIFE AND BEFRIEND HIM, COME UP WITH A MASTER PLAN TO COME BACK TO LIFE IN CASE HE DIED, SACRIFICE HIS LIFE FOR BINGHE, DO WHATEVER IT TOOK TO HELP AND SAVE BINGHE, CHANGE THE WHOLE STORY FOR THE BETTER, AND GENERALLY EARN LOVE RESPECT AND ADMIRATION NOT ONLY FROM BINGHE BUT SEVERAL OTHER IMPORTANT CHARACTERS, JUST FOR YOU TO DOUBT BINGHE'S LOVE FOR HIM AS A PERSON, SAY THAT HE CAN'T BE HIMSELF, SAY HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITHOUT FEARING RETRIBUTION FROM THE SYSTEM, AND REDUCE HIS AGENCY TO THAT OF A NPC IN HIS OWN STORY.
SQQ's personality = Peerless Cucumber's personality. Ergo, he was himself all along. He acted like he wanted to act. THE WISH-FULFILLING PART OF THIS NOVEL is that transmigration allows SY to become A BETTER VERSION OF HIMSELF. He thinks of himself as Shen Qingqiu even during the Peerless Cucumber arc. Remember!!! He was NOT HAPPY in his previous life because he was unfulfilled!!! In PIDW he, among other things, comes to his full potential. He LOVES teaching, he loves being a teacher to the point it's his go-to activity when he's restless.
Shen Yuan BECAME Shen Qingqiu, out of his own free will, and even after canon he continued being that person because that's who he likes to be.
#he spends his entire adult life as sqq!#he becomes sqq at ~20 y/o!!#(y’know - coincidentally about the age one might receive a courtesy name in certain stories/time periods?)#it’s not a pretense for sy!sqq any more than it was for sj!sqq#it’s just fulfilling a specific role (qing jing peak lord)#which sy was arguably better at than sj!! - via @wumiings
The most common misconception about chinese polygamy is that men could have "multiple wives". Under older Chinese legal systems, a man could have only one wife at a time, but many concubines. In some later dynasties, a concubine could potentially be uplifted to become a wife if the original wife had died, but replacing an actual wife with a concubine was considered a serious crime, no matter what certain harem dramas might suggest.
Concubines could be bought, sold, and gifted to other men, while wives could not. I doubt PIDW paid any attention to realism or social conventions, so its all whatever with Bingge's harem, but it's still more or less a given that a emperor's wife is the empress. Consorts are just fancier titles for royal concubines. The concept of a "first wife" seems to be a western fandom thing.
Another thing that isn't talked about as often is the practice of polyandry, where a women had multiple husbands. This usually only happened in impoverished rural areas, where individual men could not afford brides. Sometimes brothers would share the same wife, so any children they produced would belong to the same family. This also helped keep scarce resources such as land within the same household, instead of each brother going off on their own and dividing things up. This is distinct from matrilineal polyandry, which is confined to small matriarchal tribes.
Re Bingge's harem: the use of the word "harem" is a bit of a loaded one because it's an arabic word that comes from a different culture. In the OG the word is "rear palace", which refers to the rear palace of historical emperors where all the consorts live, but in modern vernacular, "rear palace" is used more metaphorically. So we don't know if a physically "rear palace" even exists in pidw. It seems like a lot of the wives are just off doing whatever, such as working as bingge's generals and advisors. This is kind of the theme of most stallion novels, since they're more about the power fantasy of conquest and less about the relationships, or how a massive group of women all sleeping with the same guy would actually function.
Also the size of the harem is "nearing 3 digits", not actually 3 digits, as we find out in the first chapter.
What do you think of the "Ning Yingying was sexually abused by Shen Jiu" allegations?
It's the only accusation aside from the abuse that is never explained/excused/disproven in the text, and people seem to believe it's false because Shen Jiu went to brothels for comfort and not sex. However, I think it's important to remember that technically, aside from the mission incident during the Airplane extras, none of the accusations against Shen Jiu are 100% false. Rather, they're missing context. He did murder Qiu Jianluo and the male servants, and he did burn down Qiu manor. What’s missing was the abuse he went through there. He likely did murder Liu Qingge. What’s missing is that he was tryinf to help, but accidently made it worse. With this track record, you would assume there is some missing context behind the sexual abuse allegations.
But Luo Binghe's abuse had no such context. Shen Jiu really just wanted him dead because of jealousy (unless you count Shen Jiu's backstory as the missing context). We don’t know enough about the sexual abuse allegations aside from that there was an incident on PIDW that made the readers demand his castration. This is confirmed by both Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua. But Shang Qinghua might have just been rwithholding information, and he purposefully left out some info from PIDW, meaning there's no way for Shen Yuan to get more context. So what do you think?
(Additionally, people take Ning Yingying's comfort with Shen Yuan at the beginning of his transmigration and Shen Jiu's lack of predatory thoughts as more proof, which I think is fair, but we also don't know when the incident occurred, or when Shen Jiu supposedly developed "interest" in her.)
I talked about this some years ago (here) (here) but I want to rewrite it and add a more serious analysis.
First thing: I don't think Shen Jiu sexually assaulted Ning Yingying. I believe this was a rumour widely supported by Shen Jiu's reputation as a lecherous man who visited brothels and was only fond of his youngest female disciple, assumption to which Shen Jiu himself contributed and never corrected, by openly saying things like
"(…)They might be able to control everything else, but they can’t stop me from looking for women! If Shixiong finds it shameful, he should watch that mouth of Liu Qingge’s.”
Chapter 24: Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu
A Bai Zhan disciple, the one Shen Jiu beat up, knew about these visits, and with how things happened, one can assume he resentfully told everyone who wanted to hear about finding Shen Jiu at a brothel. After many years of that, anyone would believe that Shen Jiu indeed was a "deviant", his unpleasant personality not helping him at all to cultivate good favor among his sect siblings and disciples.
Now, imagine a Luo Binghe/Bingge post-Endless Abyss, bent on revenge against his abusive Shizun. Imagine that he's building the case against him, and he needs evidence that Shen Jiu is the worst of the worst. He needs to bring him down from his high mountain, literally, he needs to destroy his standing in the jianghu. He may remember how Shen Jiu treated Ning Yingying, how he was jealous of Luo Binghe and Ning Yingying's relationship and tried to push them away,
Furthermore, Shen Qingqiu had told Ning Yingying thousands of times to stay far away from Luo Binghe and that she wasn’t allowed to get involved with him. So why did he see them every day, whispering together before his eyes?
Chapter 24: Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu
With how expressive and clear Shen Jiu is about his hatred and resentment towards people, what sort of conclusion, adding all the context of his own life at Qing Jing Peak and the rumours about Shen Jiu's lecherous behavior, whould you think Bingge make? It would even be easy to persuade Ning Yingying into believing that was what was happening, what with she being naive and not knowing any more than Bingge does about Shen Jiu's opinion on women, and the mysterious incident that Airplane vaguely mentioned,
Shang Qinghua thought for a while. “I vaguely remember you. Weren’t you especially vicious in one of those threads that was demanding I castrate the villain? It was when you, ahem, when the original Shen Qingqiu wanted to do…to Ning Yingying…”
Chapter 5: Bai Lu
When Shen Jiu "wanted to" do something but seemed to not succeed in doing it, as proved by Shen Yuan's initial words on Ning Yingying,
This young shimei inspired some complicated feelings in Shen Qingqiu. This was because he had designs on Ning Yingying—ah, no, more like the original Shen Qingqiu had designs on Ning Yingying.
Shen Qingqiu’s character settings were stuck on “shady hypocrite.” Since on the surface he looked pure-hearted, free of desire, and immune to wicked temptations, then beneath that surface he had to be immoral, shameless, scummy, and despicable. He was a teacher, but he harbored filthy intentions toward his obedient and cheerful disciple. He tried to carry them out several times in the story, and he very nearly succeeded.
One can, however, imagine the result of daring to try to get a taste of the male lead’s woman!
Chapter 1: Scum
There were seemingly various incidents in which Shen Jiu "tried" to do something to Ning Yingying, but no definitive attempt was ever mentioned, so regardless of the truth, I don't think anything happened. Why is that? Because Shen Jiu's relationship to women is that of emotional and physical comfort, not sexual. It would be EASIER for him if it was; he's only letting others assume he's engaging in sex at the brothels because it's more bearable to his sense of pride than admitting what he perceives as a shameful weakness.
Though Shen Qingqiu was unpopular among his peers, it wasn’t to the extent of being kicked out of the communal sleeping quarters.
He just loathed being in close quarters with those of the same sex.
All those years, whenever one of his beatings from Qiu Jianluo was over, or whenever he had a premonition of another beating, he had crawled to Qiu Haitang’s room and remained there, quivering. As Qiu Jianluo was unwilling to let his sister see the side of him that was perverse and lunatic, that had been the only place where Shen Jiu could hide.
And even longer ago, there had been some girl in their group, their big sis. But after she reached a certain age, that big sis had been sold to a withered old man to be his second wife. Afterward, they’d left that city, so they’d never seen her again.
Liking women wasn’t the least bit shameful, but treating women like saviors, cowering within their embrace and seeking courage from them…even without anyone saying it, Shen Qingqiu knew that was horrendously shameful. So even if it meant his death, he would never tell anyone, least of all Yue Qingyuan.
Chapter 24: Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu
"Liking women wasn't shameful", I think the implication is clear that he doesn't like women. If he did, he would smoothly wrap those "shameful feelings" with sexual desire and comfort himself with the thought that it wasn't shameful at all to pursue women. Furthermore, Yue Qingyuan in the same scene mentions that “Lusting after women damages one’s cultivation,” and I don't think Shen Jiu is interested in doing that to himself, with how preoccupied he is throughout all his backstory with surpassing others and attaining Full Core Formation.
Within the new generation of peak lords, Yue Qingyuan had naturally attained Core Formation first. Qi Qingqi and Liu Qingge had followed practically on his heels, breaking through at the same time. An Ding Peak’s Shang Qinghua, with his mediocre background, had barely managed to keep up—but even he had achieved official ascension.
However, the more anxious Shen Qingqiu grew, the more stuck he became, until he was suspended in place and unable to progress. He was racked with stress and anxiety. It was like he was swallowing a hundred kilos of tobacco every day; it smoldered within his head and stomach, stoking his flames of rage and irritation until they erupted.
Chapter 24: Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu
Here he doesn't mention WHEN he'd attained Core Formation, and is comparing himself to his martial siblings in regards to this. By the time Shen Yuan transmigrates, it's state that Shen Jiu's body had achieved Mid Core Formation, so he was halfway there but comparatively behind his peers, and this was something that stressed him to the point of qi deviation (side note: SY!Shen Qingqiu managed to get to Core Formation by the end of the Immortal Alliance Conference). This is all to reiterate that he wouldn't deliberately do something to push his own progress back (regardless of whether lust does cause damage or not, this was the assumption held by Cang Qiong Mountain and its disciples).
Shen Jiu and Ning Yingying's closeness could be easily misconstrued. In the flashback sequence, we can see how childishly affectionate she is with him, and how Shen Jiu calms down around her.
Shen Jiu humphed, his air sullen and spiteful. He seemed about to say something when Ning Yingying clambered up.
“Shizun, Shizun,” she called, flinging her arms around Shen Jiu’s waist. “Will Yingying get a shimei or a shidi?”
When Shen Jiu looked at her, his face relaxed somewhat.
Chapter 24: Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu
And early in the same chapter we are told from SY!Shen Qingqiu's POV that "Ning Yingying was really quite similar to Qiu Haitang in her youth". And since Qiu Haitang had been his safe haven at the Qiu State, one can conclude Ning Yingying played a similar role.
A final point to connect all this is that Bingge clearly states that his revenge is for himself, not for what Shen Jiu allegedly did to others.
Luo Binghe smiled. “Today, the humiliation this disciple once suffered will be returned one hundredfold. For injuring my hands and feet, I’ll tear off your limbs and grind them to dust.”
—Proud Immortal Demon Way, selected passage number two.
Chapter 1: Scum
"The humiliation THIS DISCIPLE suffered". If Ning Yingying is his precious childhood friend and Shen Jiu had truly done something heinous to her, Airplane would have written that. Much like in MDZS, MXTX writes all this rumours and assumptions around a character and shows us how people run along with them without ever confirming if they're true, and putting whatever they already know (Shen Jiu being close to Ning Yingying, him visiting brothels, his other crimes) in a confirmation bias cycle that never gets disproved, since Shen Jiu's other charges piled up against him —killing Qiu Jianluo and the men at Qiu State, abusing disciples, antagonizing Liu Qingge and threatening to kill him one day— get "proved" to be true by the circumstances surrounding it— and, again, it doesn't help that Shen Jiu is never willing to defend himself.
Now, to recap!
>SJ feels safe around women and girls from early childhood and consistently searches their company during his disciples days and after becoming a Peak Lord. This is an open secret that everyone at CQMS is likely aware of.
>SJ doesn't get along with his martial siblings, antagonizes and starts fights with LQG.
>After becoming a Peak Lord, he only treats well his young female disciple, with whom he seems very close; male disciples are either lackeys or targets of abuse. Conclusion: SJ hates men, favors women, specially favors his naive, childish female disciple
>LQG dies and SJ is the main suspect
>Bingge comes back and accuses SJ of
Qiu household massacre, murder of Qiu Jianluo >>backed by a witness, Qiu Haitang, who reveals Shen Jiu's status as a former slave, and since she's of higher status than him, it gives her leverage. She was also backed by HHP and Bingge, who offered up more charges
>LQG's murder, likely backed by Liu Mingyan, who is also of high status and well-liked
>"Having filthy intentions" towards Ning Yingying, backed by Bingge and NYY herself, after whatever incident happened that created the misunderstanding SJ wanted to do something to her in the first place
>Abusing his disciples, Luo Binghe in particular, to which Bingge and NYY would have been witnesses, and the Old Palace Master, since it's said he investigated Shen Qingqiu for the trial
Amongst this myriad of accusations and witnesses and an accused so unpleasant and unwilling to defend himself, who would bother to question if one of them was true or not? It doesn't help that Airplane axed Shen Jiu's backstory and never posted it, so the crumbs he'd left along the way to build up this complicated villain were never shown to the readers, and that's where Shen Yuan's assumption comes from. The incident in question was never explained.
Shang Qinghua embarked on an impassioned explanation of his artistic concept. “I had a lot of ideas for the character of Shen Qingqiu. I had hoped to portray him as a well-rounded, three-dimensional character; he’s scum, he’s wretched, but he has reason to be scum, as well as a not-scummy side. But the readers didn’t really buy it. As soon as I inserted signs of his development, they started griping in the reviews. So, I saw the winds weren’t blowing the right way and immediately turned him into a tropey and wretched asshole(...)"
Chapter 14: House Arrest
dehumanization is a whole narrative thing in Shen Jiu's character, starting with the structural denial of "human" status as a slave, then going into the explicit verbal denial of "human" status from Qiu Jianluo, and occasionally I will see this discussed in the framing of "not a person but an object" but in the series and even by Shen Jiu's himself it's very much characterized as "subhuman like an animal." beast; rat. and an interesting thing is that this then arguably can be tied into his attachment to cultivation, because it is actually possible for animals to cultivate to "human-like" status. and for Shen Jiu in a way this is very much true in his life! cultivation frees him from captivity and allows him to elevate himself out of "subhuman" standing to the status of a respected cultivator and Peak Lord. cultivation gave him the dignity of humanity that he did not get from being born as a human. but he also probably feels that this is tenuous, that, like Sun Wukong, no matter how high he climbs people may still look at him and go "why is a monkey here."
Shen Jiu "humanizes" himself by way of dehumanizing others; he can be human if he can look down on someone else as subhuman. this starts with the verbal reversal of roles with Qiu Jianluo ("I'm a human. Why should I be grateful towards a beast?") but of course more importantly carries on by imparting his damage with dehumanization onto Luo Binghe, who literally is not fully human even if neither of them knew that at the time it started. (funnily enough lbh is also the other male character heavily implied to have been in some way sexually abused, mostly by the Old Palace Master but there's also potentially something to be said here with Bingge about his first time with Qin Wanyue and how most of his positive relationships hinged on sex in some way. coincidence? relevant? just other unrelated parallels between sj and lbh because sj hit copy+paste on himself?) and unlike Shen Jiu, Luo Binghe DOESN'T rise up through human society. instead he rises up as a demon. this is perhaps another reason why Bingge is ultimately unhappy and unfulfilled, because he gains power and respect, but not by way of acknowledgment of his humanity. he becomes emperor because people respect his fangs (and his dick). Bingmei's humanity is very much affirmed by Shen Yuan, while Bingge never actually breaks the self-perception as a "beast" Shen Jiu imposed on him.
as far as "dehumanized" as in "objectified," we have Yue Qingyuan, who also started life "subhuman" as a slave and then is literally tied and equated to his sword. his body is not his own; it was literally dismantled and remade at someone else's hand. he doesn't have a voice; his screaming didn't reach anyone who would listen to it. a lot of characters are sometimes referred to with the name of their sword as a title in svsss, but probably none as primarily as Yue Qingyuan. it is literally his life. it tangibly limits his choices and freedom to act. and in disciple era especially, he had to use his life at the behest of the person above him. according to Tianlang-jun, the previous sect leader was actually fairly weak, which means that being a strong cultivator wasn't a priority when appointing Qiong Ding's head disciple or Cang Qiong's future sect leader in the past. but the sect leader appoints Yue Qingyuan as head disciple and brings him to the battle against Tianlang-jun because Xuan Su is exceptionally strong, so long as Yue Qingyuan gives up his life to use it. it paints an interesting dynamic that does feel a bit like the previous sect leader wielding Yue Qingyuan as a weapon.
of course in this framing Shen Jiu views his damaged cultivation as an obstacle that hampers his ability to truly and completely transcend "subhuman" status while thinking that Yue Qingyuan has already successfully and easily transcended because his cultivation is whole and peerless. meanwhile Yue Qingyuan is experiencing the horrors
adding to this that one of the most significant ways (perhaps arguably even The most significant way) that Shen Yuan affirms Bingmei's humanity is by emphasizing his human parentage and validating that he was loved by his mother(s). demons in pidw/svsss simply don't have the same attachment to family that humans do.
as an aside, Shen Jiu and Yue Qingyuan don't have family ,
