#like how long shen yuan had been reading PIDW for pre-transmigration

[dyed-indigo]

How many wives did Luo Bingge have?

I see quite a lot of debate over this within the fandom, and this excerpt has been passed around quite a bit:

But I felt like I remembered Bingge being mentioned as having more wives within the text, so I decided to skim the books (CTRL + F on the Internet Archive PDFs worked wonders) to find as many references to Bingge's wife count as I could.

I was right that he was mentioned as having more wives (hundreds to be exact), on the back of the very first book in the series even. However, the backs of books are the domain of the publisher rather than the author, so this isn't really trustworthy info to go off of for canon purposes. Still, it made me curious to see if more wives were mentioned somewhere else within the series.

He is mentioned as theoretically marrying at least 100 women at once here, however this was purely speculation on what would have happened in Proud Immortal Demon Way if Luo Binghe truly aspired for marriage. He did marry many women in PIDW, however it's never made clear whether these marriages were out of love or were political (and for horny reasons, the stallion protagonist can never escape his libido).

613 is also mentioned as a number of wives, and seems oddly specific unless there's some Chinese number symbolism I'm missing here, however this is just an example of something that Madame Meiyin could predict with her fortune telling abilities. Her fortunes are mentioned to typically be about romance, so this could be Shen Qingqiu remembering an actual prediction she made in canon, however even if that were the case (which there doesn't seem to be evidence to support) it could simply be that Luo Binghe never got those wives within the novel, and was just implied to get them afterwards (cue Peerless Cucumber rant about Airplane's lazy writing).

There's mentioned to be dozens of women "barely glimpsed" within the harem, presumably in addition to wives like Ning Yingying and Liu Mingyan who were more significant, but that still doesn't give us an exact count. If the initial harem count is accurate, it does imply that most of the women within it were just written to fluff the numbers a bit.

Bingge is mentioned to have "never refused" any requests to join his harem. RIP Bingge's understanding of boundaries, but, again, we have no clue how many women even asked to join. Demon Emperors are powerful, but also scary, and Shen Qingqiu is... perhaps an unreliable narrator when it comes to any version of Luo Binghe's appeal factor.

Bingge is mentioned multiple times to have had sex with hundreds of women, however, not all of the bedded were wedded. Madame Meiyin, for example, is mentioned as someone that Bingge slept with but never married, and there's no evidence that i could find that she was the sole exception in a sea of wives.

In conclusion, while manwhore Bingge is real, his count of actual wives is more than likely less than 100, as originally specified. (Though I wouldn't blame you if you thought otherwise, the emphasis on the harem size being "innumerable" and "uncountable" in the narration is quite a lot, and historically many Chinese emperors had a larger harem than Bingge.)

At least, he had less than 100 wives in the novel. In the donghua, on the other hand...

Well. That's a fairly definite amount.

[arsonisticscholar]

Disciple Shen yuan au, but he transmigrated as a pre/early arc reader of pidw. Say in canon he transmigrated at like 22, if pidw was written over the course of a couple of years he might be in his late teens. Innocent pre cucumber era where he had high hopes for pidw and hasn’t totally been stomped down by health issues and frontal lobe development

This is heavily inspired by Sy’s temp transmigration system because it’s a great fic and I love it but I can’t get it out of my head of what if situation is basically the same exept he hasn’t read pidw yet

Maybe he realizes he’s in a book, maybe he even realizes it is pidw (still in early stages, MAYYBE became more mainstream recently due to the start of the abyss arc) based on just seeing things online. But he doesn’t have the same biases about what the characters should be like or the foreknowledge of all the native life

I’m torn between him being the only Shen yuan there so there can be disciple bingyuan or to make cumplanes relationship more interesting by putting in not only another transmigrator, not only one that doesn’t know the world, but one that is literally the (to them, sy would kick anyone who called him this) child version of the most beautiful intelligent cunning bordering cruel wife of the emperor that lbh and sqh have gotten to know

Not only that, but I think it would be really funny if without the bias towards binghe as his blorbo since he hasn’t read pidw yet takes one look at lqg and is just standing in shock (UUUGGGHH FEED MY MULTISHIPPING TENDENCIES) but you cannot tell me he wouldn’t have a big fat crush on him. I think it would be really funny if he also is automatically drawn toward lbh and I think he would be absolutely ecstatic about it but would prob get scared away by their pda after like a week and a half

I also think it would be soooo funny if bingyuan end up adopting teen sy and find out about it and approach him like ‘you are NOT dating that BRUTE’ or some shit and he’s like huh?? Wdym?? I just think he’s really cool for when he saved me that one time and when he let me fly on his sword and gave me a cool fan and also I like watching him train and he’s just objectively pretty anyone would admire a face like that how could I not but Id never want to date him he’s a guy!?!? I’m an ally but I’m obviously not gay??? And bingqiu would just sigh and shake their heads and try to keep him away from lqg

And I think it can also be an interesting point of introspection like if I never met binghe would I really be with lqg? If I didn’t get to shizun first would lqg have stolen him away from me? I think on sqq’s part like so much of what sy does is a source of (first hand? Second?) embarrassment because ohh wow I was an annoying kid or oh my god why is teen me staring at him so much this is embarrassing I have a husband what does this say about me. And for binghe it can become a place of insecurity like if I never came along I’d this how it would end up if I never made it out of the abyss what if shizun leaves me for lqg has shizun ever thought of him that way what if what if what if what if

And i think sy would have an interesting relationship with sqh if he was still in the process of reading the early arcs when it was still mainly exposition and he’s already gotten a taste of the plants and monsters and plot set ups but it hasn’t gone downhill yet into fan service. He would totally gush about how much he’s interested in the story and share his theories and hopes for it and they might even end up brainstorming for another book for sqh to write together. And I love the idea of sqh not only being older post transmigration but also pre like he was a full adult when he STARTED writing and sy was a teen when he started reading and sqh just has the realization of ‘wow I was like 26 beefing with a high schooler online’ but also the fact that sy LOVED pidw pre fan service like you don’t stick with such a long and shitty story if you weren’t obsessed with it at some point. And I think it would give sqh a new perspective on sqq’s criticisms and upset about how it went. Yeah, he chose to keep reading, but he chose that because he had faith in the world airplane created and the character he loved.

He would like immediately out himself as a transmigrator because he went to the new kid ceremony thingy overheard cumplane being dumb and had a really obvious reaction bc wdym these two fantasy men are talking about miku in English in public out loud like what is happening here so they catch on to that, sqq accepts him as his disciple and the three of them have tea together and their interaction goes something like

*all sat at the low table in the bamboo house*

Sqh: so you’re a transmigrator

Sy: uhm I guess so

Sqh *to sqq*: psst Shen yuan bro (or something clearly Shen yuan) say something

Sy: how do you know my name!?!?

And that’s how they find out sqq and sy are the same person they eventually figure out timeline and stuff and sqq is like oh my god this is a child but also child me without pidw knowledge I need to keep him away from any trouble including plot, kidnappings, dangerous beasts, and mystery plants and obviously the most effective way to (not) keep him safe from this is adopt him BINGHEE COME HEREEEE we’re adopting this one now also remember how I came from a different world yeah this is technically me when I was a teenager before I read your story so he has no knowledge of this worlds dangers or customs we must protect him at all costs binghe locks eyes with him and the internal monologues are going in completely different directions binghe is cooing and brainstorming ways to booby trap the house so he can’t leave and sy is just gazing into his eyes like wowww what an objectively handsome guy yk his muscles are very big his hair is very big his eyes are very big,,,, I want to BE him I def don’t want him I want to BE him,,, gym goals fr,,, then he asks who he is and lbh’s like ‘oh my qingqiu’s husband 😊’ and sy just passes out on the spot

I also get the vibe that he would not be a very horny teenager like he might catch himself looking once or twice but I mean sqq didn’t really care about the porn in pidw so either he’s very particular or he’s very time and place so I don’t think his inner monologue for pretty people would be as body oriented as sqq’s is. I also want him to take a liking to yqy since he’s just like his older brother back home and sqq is like ‘no get away from this bad man’ and sy is all ‘but he’s so nice to me 🥺 he doesn’t mean bad’ like bro doesn’t know the lore also he would maybe not quite wifebeam but he would endear himself to like every single peak lord immediately.

I like to think he’d keep his body p much plus dianxia robes And the story is that bingqiu found a magic plant and made a plant son using bingqiu qi or something idk so that’s why they not only suddenly have a kid, a kid that looks similar to sqq and acts pretty similar to him but has no idea about anything in the world. These people think he was born yesterday and they might as well be right with how little he knows about the world or it’s customs

This is all I got for right now but feel free to expand on this or write it because I am a shit writer and boy have I been craving this