Shen Yuan was a sickly young master of the family the washerwoman works for. He didn't had a mom and tried to stay in the background least his half brothers bully him in their endless competition for their father's attention and heir position. Like the time when Lord Shen caught Shen Yuan playing guqin incredibly well and complimented/braged about his son's talents, his jealous half brothers 'accidentaly' broke his guqin and threw him in the freezing Luo River before going away. Maybe they didn't know Shen Yuan couldn't swim or just didn't care, but he only didn't die because little Luo Binghe was there and saved him.
After that they quickly became friends, Luo Binghe started to play with toys that before he could only dream of when looking at the other kids play, and even when Shen Yuan was too weak to play he liked to read to Binghe and talk his ear off about monsters out in the world, also teaching him how to read and write. In one of the times Shen Yuan was running from his brothers Binghe led him to the humble little house he lived with the washerwoman, basking in the warmth 'is this how having a mom feels like?'. Shen Yuan eventually discovered mom and son suffered humiliations from his family but couldn't really do much about it, his own situation was also precarious, though he gave them food/ingredients from the kitchen where the staff loved him.
When his friend didn't appear to play anymore Luo Binghe grew anxious, even asking the mean Shen brothers about it, who only sneered saying that useless trash finally died from illness. Soon after his mom also started feeling weak, and Binghe despaired.
Shen Yuan fell sick from the same disease as the washerwoman, but he was fervirish and locked in his room so didn't know that or he would have begged his father to also let the healer see her. When he finally could get out of the Manor he ran to the little house but there was no one there, only a plate to rent it. Shen Yuan blamed himself thinking he had passed that disease to the kind woman. He asked around and found a ragged Binghe on the streets mid winter, who cried in his arms discovering his friend was actually alive.
"Binghe, why don't we go away and become cultivators? I heard the Cang Qiong entrance trial is near."
PS: Shen Yuan is sickly because one of his dad's other wives poisoned her when she was pregnant, which caused her to die in childbirth. When he discovered this via servants gossip he grew sick. He was always vocal to Binghe about hating harems.
