IN AN INSTANT, the heavenly officials’ expressions grew even more unreadable than Pei Ming’s.
A white-clad cultivator acknowledged the greeting. His bearing was calm, relaxed, and graceful.
It was Xie Lian.
Every member of the group greeted him, their words and expressions extremely careful, polite, and courteous. “Your Royal Highness…” “Your Highness.”
You don’t usually see this directly mentioned in Chinese texts (such as svsss) because it’s so deeply ingrained and taken for granted as a basic element of society, but the function and status of scholars are inherently different in Eastern and Western cultures in both subtle and significant ways.
In China at least, for thousands of years the scholar caste (士) had been synonymous with power itself. The literati, by its very nature, is seen as part of the ruling class of the highest order. Due to the nature of imperial Chinese government and bureaucracy, it’s commonly understood that the pursuit of scholarly achievements is (more often than not) the pursuit of power, and not the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, since the end goal of this insanely arduous process is almost always to pass the imperial exams and serve the emperor as an government official. (You even see this reflected in Chinese mythology; e.i. in tgcf you cultivate your ass off and pass some sort of divine tribulation just so you can go work in the heavenly court, which is basically a mythical version of the actual imperial court.) The scholar caste, or literati, were not just seen as the cultural or intellectual elite, but the political and social elite.
This brings us to the sort of paradoxical understanding of power and social hierarchy in both Chinese history and popular belief. Unlike in the West™️ where historically, political power is believed to have come directly from god in the form of noble lineage (massive oversimplification I know), China (depending on the time period) was simultaneously obsessed with pedigree and deeply enamored with the idea of meritocracy. Somebody like tgcf’s He Xuan (had he actually ascended and not been thoroughly fucked over) would have been seen as a heroic and inspirational figure. Of course we also see how easily someone like He Xuan gets fucked over, which is why such inspirational figures are relatively rare. Still, the fantasy of the meritocratic ideal persists in a powerful and pervasive way.
To bring things back to svsss and Qingjng, aka the scholar peak, I think a lot of western readers don’t fully realize just how much clout and prestige is associated with a scholar peak and its peak lord. The fact it ranks second is not an arbitrary decision on the author’s part; the text doesn’t really go into this other than a few offhand jokes about it being posh because it doesn’t need to; the original target audience (Chinese readers) would more or less implicitly understand this.
Anyway, all this is to say that the position of og sqq as a Qingjing peak lord would be highly revered; I find it extremely unlikely that the rest of the peak lords would openly challenge him in any meaningful way. (Lqg lives in his own world because lqg.) To give airplane’s writing the benefit of doubt, there is presumably a reason that nobody further investigates lqg’s death or tries to publicly implicate og sqq before bingge comes along and does his thing. They may have suspicions, but it seems that none of the peak lords even attempts to go up against the combined might of sqq’s status and yqy’s guilt-simping, and are shocked and dismayed when finally presented with “proof” of foul play. I think it’s even mentioned in one of the opening chapters that a big part of why og sqq’s fall is so brutal is that he falls from such an unthinkable height. I remember reading something along the lines of “the more lofty/respected he was on the outside, the scummier he was in secret” (I haven’t read the English translation, please excuse my attempt).
Another thing about og sqq is that it’s absolutely nuts how he manages to become the leader of the scholar peak. The fact he’s mastered the four arts despite having an insanely late start is honestly far more impressive than his cultivation/combat prowess, because it’s something you’re really expected to start in your toddler years. Had it not been for his trauma/insecurities and the fact he’s committed mass murder, his humble background could have been leveraged in his favor. In fact, it’s unclear (afaik) if yqy has even attempted to hide his own origins. He was much younger when he joined and it would be very obvious that he had no family backing and was barely literate. He could have become the kind of heroic figure that embodied the meritocratic ideal: a slave boy who becomes the leader of the foremost sect, and I don’t think we know for sure if this isn’t exactly what actually happened. The popular-ish idea that yqy has also been desperately hiding his humble origins has never quite made sense to me, because one how could he have possibly pulled it off, and two why would he even bother. Even if it comes to light that he’s a runaway, a powerful sect can conceivably look the other way in order to protect a beloved disciple.
The same can’t be said for being a mass murderer, in sqq’s case. This is unrelated to the topic of Qingjing peak, but I think it’s equally improbably that upon revealing the truth of og sqq’s childhood abuse, his crime of murdering his master and razing his house to the ground can be lessened or forgiven in the eyes of whatever passes for a legal system in pidw. As far as historical context is concerned, a slave/servant committing mass murder has no legal or moral leg to stand on, no matter how badly he’s treated. His owner could literally attempt to murder him and it’d still not fully justify what he did within the vaguely Confucian value system that seems to be the status quo in his world. His only recourse would have been to say fuck it and declare war on the whole tribunal, which would also drag his sect into the conflict, and we all know how that would go with op bingge around.
Speaking of bingge, I think it’s noteworthy that despite having grown up on Qingjing peak, pidw doesn’t portray him as having notable scholarly achievements. There’s no mention of his prowess in painting, poetry and the like, even though he’s presumed to be good at everything he attempts. In many ways, pidw and the novels it’s inspired by sell by creating a “rail against the system” kind of power fantasy, in which existing systems of power are dismantled with great violence and gratification.
To circle back to the beginning of this embarrassingly long post, it’s telling that bingge is explicitly not a scholarly type. His interests are everyman interests: cooking, dating attractive women, beating up baddies, being badass in physical combat. He’s shown to have a street-smart kind of genius, and instead of studying the Art the War and being a brilliant general, he’s out there personally kicking ass with a big sword. OP antihero bingge raven way does not need archaic modes of erudition and power. In fact, he’s stronger because he rejects them. (The fact he turns out to be royalty is sort of a way to have the cake and eat it too, something you often find in this kind of story). The act of torturing his own shizun to death, no matter his crimes, is also nearly sacrilegious if we’re going by the vaguely Confucian values that govern the pre-bingge world, but I think that’s precisely why this kind of narrative is so popular. While og sqq tries to embody existing power structures and ends up subsumed by it, bingge tears it all down and creates a new world order.
I think I better stop here for now. If you’ve read the whole thing I admire you and I salute you 🫡
I love transmigration reveals both for the chaos (and Binghe’s dispair that he’s not actually living his age gap fantasy) but also because of how hilarious it is to see the Peak Lords react to Shen Yuan specifically.
Like Shang Qinghua grew up in his body. He went through all the same steps as the rest of them. For all he laughs it off and tries to act like he’s worthless he cultivated to a high enough level to ascend as a peak lord with the rest of his generation.
Shen Yuan transmigrated younger than some of his own disciples, took one look at the peak, decided he could run it better then did. There is a whole child as the second of the strongest sect and he is doing it well. He is in his twenties. He shrugged when someone brought up Without A Cure and claimed that it’s “not much different than his first body actually”. He is scolding Shang Qinghua who is decades older than him like they are peers.
I maintain my stance that everyone on An Ding is ripped from the physical labour. 💪💪From the Shang Qinghua to the smallest shimei. An Ding's Bizzare Adventure.
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