On his deathbed in his old age, SY transmigrates into a cultivator whose last wish was to get revenge on the $7;&!# who poisoned him!
SY: ... Okay.
Honestly, he had been perfectly content with peacefully going out after living a fulfilling life (although he never got rid of his status as Shen Patriarch thanks to his useless brothers who refused to get involved in the family business), but a second chance at life is good too... Wait, this is PIDW?!
... He takes it back.
After recovering (and learning how to use) his cultivation (for the first time), SY finally leaves the cave by blasting open the saboteur's cave-in job and strolls out to see where he was and what the situation really was. (He didn't trust the manic dying man fully.)
"S-sect Master?!? You didn't ascend?!"
Hm... so he's a the leader of a sect. It will make things difficult to investigate incognito.
SY put a finger to his lips and winked at the disciple who found him.
"There's a reason, so keep it secret for me," he whispered, startling the disciple even further. Perhaps this was all a hallucination...
Leaving the disciple who was questioning life behind him, SY trimmed his beard short and used a disguise technique to change his hair and beard from white to black before continuing on his way.
After a thorough investigation, SY is thoroughly disgusted with what he found. The whole sect was riddled with corruption, and his own damn head disciple, now the "sect master," was the worst of the bunch.
His many years as the Shen CEO had honed his abilities at reading people, and his former head disciple had the scummiest look to him... honestly, how did the former owner of this body not see the hostile takeover assassination attempt coming?
Gathering together some of the most virtuous elders, SY revealed the current "sect master's" ugly deeds, including (but not limited to) SY's "own" assassination, bribing witnesses and forging evidence to falsely incarcerate prisoners, illegal acquisitions of treasures and secret manuals that often included manufacturing "accidents" for the original owners, and lusting after his head disciple.
SY could only sigh and shake his head.
"If you had openly requested the right to pursue her and had mutual affections, this would not be a count against you," SY said. He had allowed many a department romance despite the board's concerns back in the day. "However, to abuse your position and power over her to take advantage and manipulate her... this is not love but greed!"
With all the evil deeds aired out for the world to see, SY personally reached out and broke his former head disciple's cultivation.
What, just imprison or exile this bastard? No way. This wasn't a man who would take his punishment quietly.
SY was a retired old man! Why leave a thorn in his side? Just to have drama in the future?
Besides, there was going to be a lot of reformation work needed to scrub the "muck" out of Huan Hua!
Part of SY wondered if this would be a problem in the future. After all, Luo Binghe would take over this sect... what if part of his journey was to eradicate the corruption in Huan Hua?
... Oh well. Now that SY knew how terrible this sect was, he couldn't pretend not see it and leave this liability and disaster waiting to happen. LBH can just take over a "clean" sect. It'll save him some time.
With terrifying efficiency from his decades as the Shen Corporation's CEO, SY purged and restructured Huan Hua.
Yeah, some of the mess was the fault of the original owner of this body, but SY just blamed everything on the former "sect master" acting without permission. Anyway, he didn't do it.
Everyone had audits and multiple checks and balances to insure there wouldn't be as much power abuse and embezzlement. Everyone had to pull their weight, and ill-gotten goods were confiscated and the victims compensated.
What did a cultivation sect want with all this mortal money and goods anyway?! And what was with the slves?! They're a cultivation sect, where social classes didn't matter once you took the oath for "departing" from the mortal world!
The world's setting was unfortunate enough to include slvery, and it would be difficult to correct since cultivators shouldn't meddle in mortal affairs, but their sect didn't have to participate! Hell, it was only the now crippled former sect master the slvers dealt with, so wtf?! And what was he doing with them?! Lord knows there aren't any in the sect... so what was he doing with them?! SY decided to investigate himself.
Looks like the former sect master was just a middleman for some nobles ... the details were disgusting enough that SY blinded the slver ringleader out of spite. (Ostensibly for "corrupting" his former head disciple, but let's be real, the guy was so bad he didn't need help.)
On his way back to the sect, SY spots some asshole nobles running wild on horseback through the streets, nearly killing people, before a few street urchins got entangled.
One of them threw qi... SY narrowed his eyes.
After learning what he learned at the slvers about some nobles' preferences... He saw the noble lock on to the boy.
... Nope.
SY never had children himself - no one was romantically interested in him to begin with (author's note: haha.) - but his siblings had kids and he had lots of fun being the cool uncle. He was going to stab a bitch if that noble got his hands on that kid.
Shrinking a thousand leagues into one step, SY suddenly appeared in front of the boy, preventing the noble's guards from touching him.
Although he ignored the nobles' side, looking solely at the boy, SY allowed his aura to expand, stifling and cowing the noble and his guards to silence.
Even the ill-tempered horse stood silently and shivered in his presence.
"Let me see your hand," SY said gently and took the boy's hand to poke and prod at his meridians.
"Grandmaster!" SY's entourage quickly caught up with him, causing the noble and his guards to be even more alarmed.
SY just smiled warmly at them.
"Look," he said. "I found a good seedling."
"Grandmaster..." SY's assistant sighed. "Alright, let's take him in."
"W-wait!"
SY wanted to click his tongue. SOME people just don't have any survival instincts.
The noble behind them reached out. "That is ..."
SY's assistant did click her tongue and demanded, "Who are you to question the Grandmaster of Husn Hua?! You are not this boy's guardian or master, what right do you have to prevent our Grandmaster from taking him as a disciple?!"
The noble went pale and nearly fainted.
"Now now," SY chuckled. "He did see the boy first, I suppose. But I wager that our sect will cultivate this little seedling better than a noble's house would, so please excuse my impropriety in taking him away. Unless ... you had... other plans?"
The noble quaked under the increased pressure Huan Hua's Grandmaster exerted. He was sure the Grandmaster knew his evil thoughts... but then the Grandmaster withdrew the pressure and smiled pleasantly.
"Fret not, I will not let you go empty handed. Thank you for finding this good seedling for me."
! A cultivator tool for almost nothing! Who cares about some brat?! The noble party departed with great joy despite their former fear.
SY's assistant frowned disapprovingly.
"Grandmaster," she complained, "after what we learned, we know he had no good intentions. Why would you reward him?!"
A sly, fox-like smile flitted across the Grandmaster's face.
"The tool isn't worth much, nor is it something he could use to overthrow the Emperor with. But tell me. What do you think is more dangerous, owning a powerful tool or not being strong enough to own a powerful tool?“
The assistant gaped. "You mean..."
"The ambition in those eyes is hard to hide, and a household that raised him to have such a temperament can only have a mire of enemies just waiting to drag them down. Whether they overestimate themselves and use it to attack others or others attack them to obtain it..." the Grandmaster trailed off before he chuckled. "Well, when you hear of their destruction, go get it back. We only permitted the Qius to have it, after all."
SJ stared at this bearded, white-haired man, eyes wide.
He had never respected an adult more in his life.
"Now then, let's get going and learn about this new little disciple on the way..." the Grandmaster said.
SJ snapped out of his confused daze. "W-wait-! Um... can ... can Qi-ge come too...?"
SY paused, noticing the other boy who had gotten hurt in the earlier scuffle
Ignoring his assistant's eyeroll, SY tsked tsked and picked the poor boy up, inspecting the scrapes and bruises.
SY suddenly paused and looked at his assistant. "Don't tell me I'm picking up every stray cat and dog. You take a look at his meridians too."
This other boy hadn't had his qi awakening yet, but his meridians were prime cultivation material!
The assistant gaped, then looked at one boy and then the next.
"When did cultivation monsters become as easy to pick up as cabbages on the side of the road?!" she squawked
Under SY, Huan Hua became a powerhouse among powerhouses. They were virtuous, upheld justice, and minded their impact on their surroundings. Their reputation soared with leaps and bounds.
SY's only regret was that his former head disciple's head disciple chose to withdraw from the sect.
Dammit! He had been preparing her to take over so he could retire!!! This is his brothers and the CEO position all over again!!!!
"... Why?" SY asked, preparing himself to rebut anything she said.
"... I wish to marry a demon."
... Okay, he didn't have an answer for that.
Fine, fine, have fun... at least Shen Jiu was shaping up to be promising. We'll just have to pass over SXY...
Before SXY left, she paused. "You... don't actually have any objections?"
SY could only sigh. "What good would they do? Demons who aren't automatically hostile are already so rare anyway. Just remember you have a home to come back to if you need it."
---
Long story short, when XF transmigrates over after dying of his old age, he finds that Cang Qiong has been usurped as the number one sect by Huan Hua, the OPM and LPM don't exist, Shen Jiu is Huan Hua's sect master with Yue Qi as Huan Hua's head enforcer, SXY is Empress Xi Yan of the demon realm (to disguise herself and avoid troubling Huan Hua), and LBH doesn't exist as LBH.
Oh, and his favorite hater-turned patron-turned good buddy, whose death he mourned for several years before his own, is happily tending the vegetable garden rare herbs and plants in Huan Hua's back courtyard just like he had in retirement in the modern world. After royally screwing up every inch of the plot!!!
Shen Yuan should transmigrate as Qiu Haitang!
He *could* break himself and SJ out of the horrible Qiu household, but Qiu Haitang showing up “early” only to kidnap SQQ’s littlest disciple would also be funny.
"Why are you here?" Shen Qingqiu asks flatly, as he leaves the bamboo house with Ming Fan in tow.
"I heard that you took on a new disciple," says the woman before him.
Qiu Haitang does not meet his eyes. She has not looked him in the eye for the better part of twenty years—not since that first murder on the road, when she came to bring him a basket of food and found Shen Qingqiu and Wu Yanzi with blood still dripping from their hands—but even so, her avoidance of him has never grown easier to bear.
"I did," Shen Qingqiu replies. "What of it?"
"I told you not to," Qiu Haitang says, her hands curling into fists. "That—Li Haoran was to be the last. You promised me."
"Ning Yingying wanted a shidi."
"I don't give a damn what Ning Yingying wanted," she says sharply. "You swore you would never take in another boy."
Silence.
"If I go into the house," Qiu Haitang continues, her voice deceptively calm, "tell me, Shen Jiu—what will I find?"
At this, Ming Fan steps forward and stretches out his hands in supplication. "Shiniang—"
"Be silent," she snaps. "Your shifu is a lost cause, and that can't be helped; but if Disciple Ming cannot learn from his mistakes, then you don't need to speak in front of me. Did you even think of coming to fetch me when you saw that he had picked up another little shidi to bully?"
With that, Qiu Haitang snorts and sweeps past him into the bamboo house, where Luo Binghe is still kneeling in the middle of the front room with tea trickling down his tearstained cheeks.
"There, don't cry," Shen Qingqiu hears her whisper. "You didn't do anything wrong. Can you look up so that jiejie can dry your face?"
"Shizun—shizun told me to kneel," the little wretch in the house replies, half-sobbing. "It's this lowly one's fault. I offended him, so of course this disciple should stay here and reflect."
"You didn't offend anyone," Qiu Haitang says gently. "He has a terrible temper, and he never learned how to control it. It's not your fault."
"But—!"
Qiu Haitang hushes Luo Binghe again, after which Shen Qingqiu hears nothing further: for at that moment, his wife seemed to have recalled the existence of the bamboo house's privacy wards—but later that evening, she returns to house with a sheaf of papers and flings them down on Shen Qingqiu's desk.
"Sign these," she tells him.
Shen Qingqiu glances at the first page in bemusement. "What are they?"
"Dissolution papers for Luo Binghe's discipleship. What else?" Qiu Haitang's lip curls. "From now on, I'll be his Shizun instead."
He lifts an eyebrow. "Did Yue Qingyuan give you these? He approved when I asked for that little beast, you know."
"He must have thought you'd wait at least a week before doing something to the child," Haitang says coldly. "I told him that he could either give Binghe to me or send him to Bai Zhan; and he was determined to save face for you, so he chose me."
And then, when Shen Qingqiu does not reply:
"Sign them, Shen Jiu. You don't want to know what I'll do to you otherwise."
At this, Shen Qingqiu picks up a brush and signs his name at the bottom of the dissolution form: for the last time he and Qiu Haitang fought in earnest, she fed him a cursed tonic that had him babbling in tongues before a hundred-odd dignitaries at Huan Hua.
"Thank you," she bites out: and with that, she turns on her heel and blows out of the bamboo house like a gust of chill wind.
Not for the first time, Shen Qingqiu finds himself wishing that he had left Qiu Haitang behind at the Qiu estate when he fled with Wu Yanzi. But her father and brother were dead, and she believed that she was betrothed to him; and when he saw her great brown eyes staring at him through the flames of her home, some power beyond Shen Qingqiu's own had prevented him from turning his back on her.
She was not meant to accept when I offered to take responsibility for her, he thinks dully, watching through the open window as his wife strides towards the women's compound on the other side of the mountain. She hated me then, and she hates me now—so what was it all for?
Shen Qingqiu has pondered upon that question night and day since he and Qiu Haitang first bowed to one another, not long after his instatement as Qing Jing's head disciple; and he is no nearer to the answer by the morning he is widowed, nearly a decade later.
What point was there in saving her? he wonders, as a grown Luo Binghe weeps in the streets of Hua Yue with Qiu Haitang's still body cradled to his breast. Would it not have been better for her to die after the first betrayal, rather than live to be betrayed twice?
"Why are you all just standing there?" he hears Ming Fan roar. "That's our Shiniang! What are you afraid of? At most, that white-eyed wolf she raised will just beat us all to death!"
"Leave it."
Ming Fan stares at Shen Qingqiu in dismay, his eyes so swollen with tears that he scarcely seems able to see through them. "What is Shizun saying? What do you mean, leave her? She's our only Shiniang—she's your wife!"
Shen Qingqiu gazes at the cooling corpse in Luo Binghe's arms for a little while longer; and then, at length, he turns away.
"Your Shiniang's end was of her own making, Ming Fan," Shen Qingqiu says, already starting towards the group of screeching cultivators trapped behind the wards at the other end of the street.
Shizun Shen jiu who hates alphas with a passion vs disciple shen yuan who treats alphas omegas and betas all the exact same. Shen jiu finds shen yuan pinning Liu qingge down to tickle him and shen jiu is about to explode an artery from how senseless his disciple is! Shen Yuan why are you sitting on top of an alpha teasing him!! What do you mean friends do these kinds of things!! Ohhh my godddd tell me you didn't give that beast Luo binghe your outer layer to smell so he can calm down. You gave a younger alpha disciple guqin lessons by taking his hand in yours and guiding him with your chest against his back? Shen yuan..!!!!!
xiang fei lives near a large ocean coast. sometimes when he's struggling to write he may go out in his tiny little row boat and read what he has aloud to no one in particular. he also talks to himself about his issues.
shen yuan is a mermaid who listens to this mess of a man's messy writting and even messier life. its become a bit of a routine. Xiang fei tends to show up about every other week sometimes every week if he's really struggling and shen yuan's curious (read:nosy) about him so he shows up.
he really wants to criticize xiang fei's writing especially when he scraps a perfect chapter for some slop because 'it won't sell well'. sy isn't sure what that means other than a story filled with bland repetative sex. after a particular bad rewrite, sy can't stand it and peaks out from the water to tell him he can't possibly make those inane changes. he does not account for the fact that, while he knows xiang fei very well, xiang fei doesn't know he exists and the existence of humanlike non human creatures can be disturbing.
needless to say, xiang fei has a small panic attack and faints
So he revives his crewmates (it would be really funny if he made a spell that would just force the body to work instead of WHA canon's time reversal. Like. Smart boi) and doesn't tell them they died. They think they just come out of the coma late. There are some discrepancies in the Mary's records when they get back to Earth, but they just assume its a glitch.
Rocky Grace keep secret forever? Would be interesting
Windowway to get the Taumoeba. No chain required. Or duplication or enlargement spell. Duplification for the individual chain links or enlargement for if they just. Use the 3d printer for making the chains.
Rocky, making up an excuse for his crewmates to why they just lost 46 years: uhhhh coma?
Ty for coming up with this, its a joy to think about
I think Grace uses a duplificatipn spell for the chains. He is not handmaking that many chains. I think the collector mechanism works mostly the same otherwise.
Grace definitely does not tell them they died at first. Just a system error guys trust me fr. He further avoids talking about it by claiming he needs to go over the translation software with Rocky. At some points he plays up the amnesia card just to continue the facade. But too much data corroborates the opposite and Yáo and Ilyukhina have to sit him down and are like “did we die Dr. Grace?”
he tries to deny it at first, but they keep piling on evidence that he can’t explain and Grace has an Ace Attorney breakdown before admitting that they did in fact die in their comas.
It’s jarring and for a good moment a somber air becomes present…until Ilyukhina asks how they recovered from death!?
Grace goes real quiet and quietly says magic. Then Ilyukhina wants to do magic and Grace is more hesitant about it since the craft is very technical and soo many things could go wrong with that plan. He does promise to teach her when they get back to earth. (He told Rocky they were going to die earlier when he was reviving Rocky’s crew. Rocky offers the Astrophage to help them get home)
if they don’t immediately get caught by the witch police. Which leads to a discussion on witch society and the knights moralis.
they have mixed feeling on both side of witch society. Also Grace you’re a criminal! And could have used magic during the petrova taskforce days! I couldn’t remember okay!
(my au has Grace with magic induced amnesia around 18, but can recover his memories with the hard memory reset provided via French amnesia drug)
overall they agree to keep Grace’s secret so he does get magic arrested.
as for Rocky…
Rocky claims it was human medicine and then does not elaborate while pasting astrophage on the ship walls.
PL SQQ who was cursed (in some way, can’t decide if he’s asleep or something else) so the other PLs are looking for someone to heal him and then they meet witch duo SY & XF who are a bunch of fuckasses just doing shit and the PLs are constantly teetering between “They can help” and “They’re incompetent”
They keep wandering around so they’re kinda hard to stumble upon
XF & SY arguing so SY turns him into a hamster
LQG who stumbled upon them: !
XF reversing the spell and turning SY into a cat, only for SY to reverse the spell and start chasing XF around with his wand
LQG: they must be good at breaking curses! Let me go ask MQF about the nature of the curse
(Later)
XF: Dude, I lost my wand
SY: oh, I have a spell book that has a spell on automatically finding things but I can’t remember where I put it.
XF casting a spell without his wand: Oh I know a locating spell I’ll use that
SY: Okay
(The book floating over to them)
SY: Okay so—
LQG who brought YQY with him to look for the duo at the sect leaders request: …
YQY: Shidi, are you sure these two are capable enough?
And it’s so funny because things like this keep happening until SY and XF finally are brought to see SQQ and they’re like “oh this is child’s play” and immediately dispelling it except they send it back to its sender (HHP) and accidentally declared war on HHP somehow and now kinda reside on CQM while the sect figures out how to go about it
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