for the made-up fic title: 'Maybe in the next life'
A fic about Xiao Lanhua's flower friends doing a mortal trial. XD.
Post-canon, Xiao Lanhua is gentler and more mature with her flower friends, but she still encourages them to be active and work on their cultivation. They all evade and make excuses, and all of them say something like, "Maybe in the next life…" at least once.
Then one day, Shuiyuntian is rocked by a spirit-quake, a thing I just made up, and Simingdian gets a BIIIG jostle. The flower spirits tip over the side, yelling and panicking, straight into the mortal realm, where their memories are stripped from them and they are reborn as mortals.
And then the poor, barely-awake flower spirits have to function in people shape for an entire lifespan. They make for some pretty weird people, but each of them learns a lesson about being human and end up doing the thing Xiao Lanhua was trying to get them to when they answered her "maybe in the next life."
They all get back to Shuiyintian safely intact. (Xiao Lanhua was pulling strings in the background to make sure their trials were successful.)
The problem is, the mortal trials gave some of them (Peach Tree and Succulent) enough of a power-up that they achieved a permanent human shape. Succulent is pretty upset about this before he remembers the lesson he learned on the earthly plane, which is probably something about appreciating all the the joys of the world, not just napping.
Peach Tree's lesson was something about the shape of destiny. After resisting and kicking around lazily for a bit, she becomes Xiao Lanhua's disciple, learns everything she can about Destiny Books, quickly outstripping even Xiao Lanhua's knowledge.
The fic is revealed to be Peach Tree reminiscing, and she says that was the start of her "next life," because she has now taken over the title of Siming. She also ruminates a bit on trials and destinies and "next lives" from her point of view as the Arbiter of Fate.
Send me a made-up fic title and I'll tell you what I would write to go with it.
