Shen Yuan learns that it’s very easy to hate on a character and wish for their demise in the most brutal way possible when you aren’t in the story.
Because he’s helping Ming Fan improve his guqin playing. The same Ming Fan that he wanted to be shoved into the dirt of the burning Qing Jing peak. He’s just a boy with a little too much pride but he has his loyalties, Shen Yuan didn’t know this before.
Qing Jing peak disciples were described to be stuck up brats and rich kids, flexing on Binghe and bullying him relentlessly. Shen Yuan cheered when their dead bodies littered the peak. He’s teaching them poetry as they all shuffle nervously to the front to read aloud their poems to the class as he gives them silent encouragement.
Yue Qingyuan was an enabler, turning a blind eye to the way the original goods was handling things. Shen Yuan wrote praise as the arrows bit into his skin and sent him falling. Yue Qingyuan brought him sweets and tea, always asked how he was doing after the peak lord meetings. He was a good man.
It’s very easy for him to forget that he’s in a story. These people weren’t real, they aren’t supposed to be real or complex; but they are. Somedays he can’t get out of bed curling up as he remembers the paragraphs describing how the peak burned to the ground. Ming Fan’s skin peeling off, disciples littering the once green ground. Binghe stands above it all Xin Mo in hand with a smirk on his lips.
Binghe brings him congee that afternoon with worried glances, he asks if he needed to see Mu Qingfang. Shen Yuan shakes his head and let’s Binghe set the congee on his desk.
Binghe lingers, Shen Yuan doesn’t dismiss him. He stays in his room for a long time. An esteemed immortal cultivator shouldn’t have a disciple in his room like this, but today Shen Yuan wasn’t one. Today he was scared and tired and feeling like the age he died as (Shang Qinghua said he was way too young to die but Shen Yuan has long grown numb to it with doctors in the past constantly estimating his chances of survival).
Then Binghe asks if he can hold him. He immediately backtracks profusely apologizing for his rude behavior and almost bolts out the door like a startled rabbit. He stops in his tracks when Shen Yuan whispers a small “please.”
Binghe lingers at his bedside before hesitantly joining him. He is stiff as he slowly wraps his arms around Shen Yuan’s torso. Binghe is no longer a disciple at the moment, he is a boy one year older than Shen Yuan; his friend that wants to comfort him. Right now Shen Yuan doesn’t have to pretend to be a wise old teacher with responsibility crushing him, right now he can lay in bed with Binghe and be held so softly and tenderly.
They lie in bed together for many hours. Him and this person who was so much more than the paragraphs upon paragraphs written about him. So much more than anything that Shen Yuan can conceive with his mind. Binghe was so much more, and so deserving of a better ending.
Shen Yuan cries at the abyss with the System’s timer ticking down. Sobs that wrecked his body and made him shake, his eyes puffy red as he watches Binghe with the glowing sigil on his forehead. Shen Yuan fall to his knees.
Binghe holds him, even at a moment like this. Throws his arms around him and squeezes so tightly like Shen Yuan was the one about to be thrown into this world’s version of hell. Like Shen Yuan was the one deserving of comfort in this situation.
The abyss arc was his all time favorite in pidw. It was the arc that his 12 year old self marveled at with all the unique monsters and flora. Eyes glued to the screen at all the challenges, women, and strength Binghe had received. He was eager for when he enacted his revenge.
Now he wished it never happened, never created, never thought up of. The disciples older and younger than Shen Yuan didn’t deserve to die, the peak lords he had grown close to didn’t deserve to die, Binghe didn’t deserve this fate. No one did, real people or not.
At least when he died in this life he would be in Binghe’s arms instead of alone like in his last one. He rested his head on Binghe’s shoulder as the countdown reached zero.
His heart stops and Shen Yuan dies.
Something glitches, his body convulsing.
Shen Yuan pushes Binghe off of him with strength he definitely didn’t have. He tries to control his limbs but they don’t budge. He was being controlled by something.
“STOP, STOP, STOP!” Shen Yuan tries to yell as his body robotically steps towards a scared Binghe. He knows what’s about to happen.
“BINGHE—BINGHE, RUN!” Shen Yuan tries to warn, get Binghe out of here. Luo Binghe stays put staring up at him so close to the edge of the abyss.
Shen Qingqiu’s body kicks him and he goes tumbling into the darkness. Shen Yuan screams until his throat is raw.
“So you’re the brat who’s been in my body.” A disembodied voice says as it seems to scrutinize Shen Yuan.
It’s very easy to hate the PIDW Shen Qingqiu, with or without being in the story.