A different ‘disabled d/s au dom xie lian gets given sub hua cheng’ idea:
Xie Lian, who has always lived at home prior to this, heads off to university/cultivation school. Assures his parents that everything will be totally fine! Unfortunately in fact he has approximately -5 self care skills, and the kind of internalized ableism where he feels like he shouldn’t have all these ‘extra needs’ that other people don’t have, and he shouldn’t bring them up to people and ‘drag things down’, so how about he just - goes on as though he doesn’t. (...Also actually he might have the kind of internalized ableism mixed with class guilt where his family has always had servants etc, and he’s dealing with stuff around that, but - well, a lot of stuff talking about class etc issues isn’t good at acknowledging disability, so he has an issue where he ends up feeling like a bunch of his needs are ‘luxuries’.)
(Xie Lian: well, I used up all my energy/spoons/resources trying to keep up with everyone without showing that I was having any problems, so now I don’t have any left to make food or go to the dining hall or anything. Guess I’m just going to eat these potato chips for dinner, this is totally fine!)
When he goes home after a semester Xie Lian continues to proclaim that everything is going totally fine but his parents aren’t buying it and decide to contact the university and demand he be assigned someone (which, again in universe is just a thing).
So the university does that. In this case a sub who’s been designated from being a ward of the state to the university. This being Hua Cheng. (I think Hua Cheng is being a sufficiently decent university worker, partially because he’s very interested in things, and partially (in a version with the prior encounters with Xie Lian) because I think Xie Lian’s parents helped fund the university and stuff and got things named after Xie Lian (...that gives Xie Lian more issues doesn’t it) which makes Hua Cheng ! to be there. (An alternate idea is that he got brought to the university after the local version of the Qi Rong thing, but since the thing with spirits etc couldn’t happen here he just stayed there. (And the university does wards or something). This would raise the question of Xie Lian not seeing him again but that’s probably not hard to make work, especially since Xie Lian isn’t literally a prince here.)
Cue: Xie Lian being mad about domism Hua Cheng is experiencing and trying to do things about it, Xie Lian trying to do something about Hua Cheng also having -5 self care skills and Hua Cheng promptly reflecting that back at him, Xie Lian having both Internalized Issues and genuine recognition that he’s privileged in a terrible system and also liking Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng being 😍about Xie Lian and trying not to let him know this, people casually assuming Xie Lian is fucking Hua Cheng (which again in this world would be considered completely fine and regular), Xie Lian having issues because he wants to, Hua Cheng having issues because he also wants to, and Hualian needing to sort so many things out but definitely being so much happier for it (and handling some assholes too).
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(Note here: to be clear, this society is in fact very bad. The domism is bad, having some people you treat as basically handy objects is very bad and not ok at all. (Also economic inequality and class inequality are bad - which, also doesn’t in any way make disabled people’s needs into luxuries.) Relationships across real world power dynamics have a lot of potential for bad stuff happening even if everyone has good intentions and good awareness of what all the issues can be, and much more if the second isn’t true even if the first is. (Which also doesn’t mean people can’t ever have and affirm them). Also in real life you should generally not sleep with either your hired or appointed care aids or with someone you are a hired or appointed care aid for.
The point here is hualian navigating a bunch of issues and finding things that work anyway, not that everything happening is totally great or something.)