#pre-transmigration

[lurkinginnernarrator]

Shen Yuan should be surprisingly good at makeup. Like, we all know that Shen Jiu could draw eyeliner sharper than Cheng Luan, but Shen Yuan had a meimei.

Imagine she has a school dance or something, and maybe a mean girl at school said something that made Shen-mei decide she was going to wear makeup for the school dance.

Now, of course, Shen Yuan and his geges make sure to tell her that the girl was just mean, and she's beautiful when she's comfortable and happy, not because of makeup etc etc it's all very good intentioned.

Even so, she says, she still wants to wear makeup.

So she buys some, and starts practicing. She's ... Not the best. Shen Yuan finds her crying in the bathroom with crooked eyeliner, mascara transfer marks on her cheeks, foundation and concealer in the wrong shade, contour that looks like a 5'o'clock shadow, overfilled brows, blush that won't blend...

He helps her take off the cakey makeup and bundles her into the living room, comforting warm drinks in hand. They spend the night watching makeup tutorials.

Step-by-step Shen Yuan learns along with his meimei how to do a full face of makeup.

The school dance goes perfectly, Shen-mei was the most beautiful resplendent girl in the school and had a wonderful time with her friends.

Shen Yuan and Shen-mei don't stop watching makeup videos and doing makeup on each other though, it becomes a shared hobby. Every few weeks, even into adulthood, they'd meet up, turn on some makeup influencer and take out their makeup brushes.

It was their special thing, something that just the two of them shared.

Cut to post-transmigration, during a visit for planning the 'garden', Shang Qinghua idly asks Cucumber-bro how he manages to draw the huadian perfectly every single time.

(I don't know the correct term, I tried looking for the proper terminology because what I believe Shen Qingqiu wears is some sort of scholar's mark? But I couldn't find anything. Please let me know if anyone knows the correct term!)

Shen Yuan shrugs and goes 'not like it's hard, you probably just suck.'

This leads to an argument wherein Shen Yuan decides to demonstrate his superiority.

They did forget that there was a Peak Lords meeting, and so Shen Qingqiu strolls in with flawless eyeliner, lips, huadian, the whole combo, and Shang Qinghua walks in with a red face and smudged eyeliner (it does look good though, fits his messy vibes).

Liu Qingge feels a little faint when he watches Shen Qingqiu absentmindedly press his fan to his lips, leaving lipstick marks on the fan. (SY wonders why at that moment, the System lets him know that his fan has leveled up.)

Luo Binghe is trying to figure out a way to get Shizun to teach him to do makeup... The thought of Shizun taking the brush to his lips, concentration furrowing his brows, letting Luo Binghe admire his face even more unabashedly then usual ...

Qi Qingqi changes her tune faster because she has to know how Shen Qingqiu got his eyelashes so perfect.

[lambiesvault]

Pre transmigration cumplane where:

Shen Yuan is an avid cosplayer because hell, he's got money and time to burn and he's got a hyperfixation, abeit a bit questionable.

Airplane who sometimes goes to fan events and cons undercover to spy on what fans are saying and brainstorm ideas for new chapters, and since no one knows what he looks like he can get away with it. (He based LBH off himself so.. revealing that would be embarassing)

Now imagine, SY knows he can pull off Shen Qingqiu best because he looks a bit like him and screw him, he likes the scholarly look, it looks good on his slight frame. Airplane on the other hand, is built like LBH, dorito waist and all, curly hair that goes past his shoulder and the prettiest (pathetic crybaby) brown eyes to ever brown eye.

Airplane is listening into a heated group discussion when the speaker turns around and bumps into him. "You're hot." Airplane says panicking because holy fuck. Shen Yuan looks exactly how airplane envisioned SQQ, there's even a mean glint to his eyes, the posture is ridiculously perfect. Mean scholarly teachers is ver much his type. Besides mobie jun.

"I like your take on Binghe-" Shen Yuan responds because goddamn, that's clearly a Luo Binghe cosplayer and in modern clothes too??????? Clothes that cling to his figure? Good shit.

Cut to them fucking nasty style before exchanging socials. Real ones and not the accounts they use for PIDW stuff. Nope. Not doing that because they both got embarrassing fandom/authorship secrets to keep.

[l33n1s]

Shen Bros who aren't technically related at all but share the same mom (cause SJ was adopted against his will)

Their mom (is she another slave? Is she a servant of the Qiu's?) meets SJ when he's brought to the Qiu's and she's like "oh this poor child. Anyways adopted." So she helps clean him up and makes sure he eats all while SJ is hissing and biting and scratching.

Enter SY her other son who is a toddler. And he does Not like the way SJ talks to His Momma so he does what toddlers do and bites SJ every chance he gets. So now SJ has beef with a literal toddler.

Anyways mom dies, SJ loses it, the Qiu's burns down, he almost mercy kills SY before just taking him with him. So now 14/15 yr old SJ is raising his sorta not brother and he's definitely not good at it by any sort of modern standard.

He's harsh, super harsh, but also he's a traumatized kid raising another, significantly younger, traumatized kid in a shitty situation. Cause I doubt Wu Yanzi has patience for crying kids, or kids in general. So he's gotta somehow keep SY quiet and out of the way so Wu Yanzi doesn't, like, kill him.

So basically everything is the same but SJ has experienced human kindness (a little at least) AND is more stressed.

[prince-fundanshi]

i think one of cumplane's favorite things to do together is watch absolutely atrocious movies, except SQH always pitches the movie as if it's actually gonna be good

SQH tells SY about emilia pérez so he gets his hopes up for some editorial and experimental film but then. he hears the songs.

the second SY hears la vaginoplastia he genuinely cries. like oh my god he's never heard anything that bad in his life. it sends him into hysterics and SQH loves every second of it

SQH finds no greater joy in life than making SY rage <3

[summerdoddles]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe that Shen Yuan family was that loving because we just didn't learn that he is the world's biggest unreliable narrator?? Unless Mxtx break into my house showing Shen Yuan life before transmigration, I'm setting my foot that he didn't have a loving family as that LIAR says he had

[cumplanecrash]

So apparently I only have time to format this at work, and the thing about work is, sometimes you have to do work there. This smallish section (under 800 words) rounds out what will be chapter 2, I think.

AO3 🔗 Shizun Babies AU tag 🔗 writeblogging Shizun Babies 🔗 first 🔗 prev

This was the part that they never showed you in the videogames: everyone needing to fuck off and bury their noses (or their disciples' noses) in some books. There would be no convenient "Ah, yes, I've heard of such a thing" or recently arrived tomes, like there would have been in the original Proud Immortal Demon Way; no search engines or algorithms like a more modern setting might fudge the downtime with. Everyone had to leave and go do research, because this wasn't in the book and/or because the System wanted to milk the situation for Heartwarming Points or something. Dinner'd been had, the very little they knew had been shared, and it was time for everyone to go their separate ways.

And Yue Qingyuan was absolutely bullying his precious disciple!!

They both stood by the front door, where Binghe had just returned with a stack of books from the Great Library, still clutching them as the sect leader loomed over the boy. Binghe wasn't done growing yet, while the sect leader was approaching 2 meters and as broad as an ox (that or Shen Qingqiu was shorter than Shen Yuan had been, which would be a trip and a half given usual fantasy logic), so it's not that hard for him to physically crowd Binghe without actually using overtly hostile body language.

[the finished version of this illustration goes here]

"It's very important that you understand that your Shizuns still have all of their adult faculties," Yue Qingyuan whisper-yelled at Luo Binghe. His back was turned to himself and Shen Jiu, as he had been about to leave, so Shen Yuan couldn't see Yue Qingyuan's face, but he could see Luo Binghe's polite-masking-intense-discomfort expression, so he could only imagine the intensity. "You must respect that they are grown adults, who have earned a high rank and the corresponding respect."

"Naturally," said Luo Binghe, sounding bewildered.

"But also," Yue Qingyuan took Luo Binghe's shoulder. "This curse makes them need to perform childish mannerisms against their will. So in a way, they also need adult supervision."

"This disciple is used to providing for Shizun during his flare-ups," Luo Binghe explained. "Providing amenities while being respectful is a skill this disciple has honed over the last year. And as for Lord Jiu, there are at least two things we agree on wholeheartedly, so this disciple thinks things will go rather smoothly this time around."

Bing-ge, what's the second thing?? Bing-ge? Shen Yuan bit down on his candy, hard.

"Luo-shizhi must contact me if he needs anything at all," Yue Qingyuan shook Luo Binghe by the shoulder.

"Qiii-ge," Shen Jiu whined, startling Shen Yuan where he sat next to him. "Let the boy put the books down before you make him piss himself, carrying on like that."

Shen Yuan wasn't the only one startled. Yue Qingyuan looked mildly sheepish after getting caught threatening Shen Yuan's precious little lamb. (Which, to be fair, he had excused Shen Jiu doing so much worse, so clearly this backwards-ass fantasy setting didn't understand how traumatizing being threatened by someone who you had no reasonable method to get away from could be. There was a reason the Revenge Against Shen Qingqiu arc had been so long and so well received, is all he's saying.) After relaxing from his startle, Luo Binghe sent Shen Jiu a grateful look, a sentence which had never before been thought in the entire PIDW fandom's history.

"Gimme gimme gimme," Shen Jiu demanded sardonically, going so far as to make grabby hands.

"You're doing that on purpose," Shen Yuan accused him.

Shen Jiu tilted his head back, and Shen Yuan was not preparee wail that came from so close. "Xiao Jiu wants his books now!!!"

Luo Binghe hurried past the sect leader, panic clear in his eyes as he brought five thick books to the table. As for Yue Qingyuan...

Shen Jiu immediately covered his mouth, bursting into giggles. "Qi-ge's face!" He gasped out, curling over onto his side towards Shen Yuan. Yue Qingyuan's dismayed expression was hilariously overblown, to be fair. Once the table was blocking the other two's view, Shen Jiu glanced up toward the cieling, and then did a tiny little dance, wiggling his hands and feet with a small smile.

That's what counts as heartwarming around here? System??? System are you broken?!? Shen Yuan demands to send a bug report!

[rhiangalaxy]

We all know very well that it's SQQ with the harem not Bingmei 😭

[ID: A Scum Villain OC and Canon crossover doodle. On the left is SY!Shen Qingqiu looking down with a flustered expression as he waves his handfan as if trying to cool himself off as he says "I can't have feelings for Binghe! He's supposed to have a harem of wives!" On the right is the oc Liang Yingyue, with her arms crossed with an amused expression responding "I'm about to blow your mind" A caption pointing to her says "Knows damn well that LBH is not after any of his wives now" End ID]

[spottedgardeneelstan]

i didn’t think it was important enough to draw, but i want you to know airplane IS getting french fry grease all over shen yuan’s neck.

[bloodyfries]

Role swap Shizun LBH this, Role swap disciple SY that, No!

Role swap where young (teen) lbh just dies and ends up transmigrating into one of the kids SY tutors (I feeling he would) from his class

[treeprince]

why do we beastify luo binghe when turning shen yuan into beast is right there for the taking

he wouldnt even really give a shit except for how "naked" he might be, and all i can imagine him doing with his new form is cataloguing all its traits and pretending to be scary so he can tend to whatever castle/estate/magic kingdom he got beast!cursed into management over without being bothered (im talking howl's moving castle sophie levels of "your face finally suits you" acceptance)

binghe showing up as the beauty who has to seduce the 'monster' interests me so much more, especially if u throw in a zesty bit of angst with everyone in town calling binghe a 'beast' for turning down all his marriage proposals, being run out of town for various crimes he never committed just bc he's the orphan and the easy target, who then meets someone so kind and yet so twisted looking, who has basically cursed himself into his current state, and having to teach each other that who they are is not what they are

i think it would also fit lovingly into binghe's whole thing about wanting someone to finally choose him, on purpose, and for shen yuan to be the one to say that he always will and not have the curse just fade away or disappear, mayhe it creeps up in small ways on days sy has trouble believing in himself, but then a touch from binghe, or a smile, and he can feel his claws retreat, or his fur smooth back out into skin

as long as someone like binghe can smile at him like that, he cant really be so bad, can he?

[lurkinginnernarrator]

Okay, I had a really cute idea, now okay, we know Shen Yuan was rich and all that pre-transmigration. And that he had two elder brothers and a younger sister. And that the older brothers managed the family business (can't remember if that's canon or fanon but it's true in this situation)

BUT. WHAT IF. the family business was an idol agency. Shen-dage is the CEO, Shen-erge is like the manager, he wrangles the backstage crews and label, and Shen-mei is of course, the star idol because of course.

Now I can't decide if Shen Yuan would be an idol alongside Shen-mei, or like a creative director.

We know Shen Yuan is a god-level poser, so he'd do GREAT at either (not to mention he's not stupid, or incapable, it's just in canon his denial skills are maxed out)

The media would love them.

There are dozens of compilations of 'Shen-mei and Shen Yuan being chaotic siblings for 17 minutes straight' and "top ten times Shen Yuan entered protective brother mode"

"Shen-mei cries ON STAGE and Shen Yuan comforts her!!!"

Let's not talk about the edits. Or the fanfiction. Or some of the signs that people bring to concerts. Or the fancalls.

Now imagine, they finish a global tour and all the Shens are bullied into taking time off by their staff. Shen Yuan, with nothing to do, decides to do something completely frivolous because 'who says I can't relax?? Take that!' and so he starts reading a novel.

The novel.

Twenty days later and Shen Yuan has sent more hate than all of his anti-fans combined. He has used words even his most inspired fanfiction writers would blush at.

And he dies and all that, yadda yaddah ya.

ANYWAY, imagine the fluff and the shenanigans. Both post and pre-transmigration

Airplane-bro starts humming a song and Shen Yuan's muscle memory possesses him.

Shang Qinghua: Cucumber-bro you must've been a diehard Shen-mei stan!!! That choreo was perfect

Or, OR that's how they both realize they're transmigrators.

(Airplane: 'i dont remember writing Shen-mei into pidw??? And why does Shen Qingqiu know the choreo??? Wu Yanzi what were you teaching him???)

Pre-transmigration Shen Yuan helping his little sister with recording harmonies and backup vocals.

And the outfits?. Need I say more?

[itsthatlake]

SJ's master is a transmigrator AU

Qing Jing Peak Lord Ao Huiju, through an artifact that shows him a vision of the faraway future, learns that the fate of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect is to be destroyed in an act of revenge upon a future Qing Jing Peak Lord and he becomes convinced that the only way to change the fate of this world is to bring someone from outside of it. After many years of searching, he finds a way to summon a being from another world.

Emma, a child of thirteen years from a modern, English-speaking country, wakes up in this world where she doesn’t speak the language, isn’t called by her real name, and only vaguely knows the culture from what she’s seen in historical Chinese dramas despite her own grandparents being Chinese as well. Ao Huiju names her Fu Tianci, convinced that she’s a god child after he realizes she’s speaking and writing in the Heavenly Language and Heavenly Script, and he forces her to behave as a Qing Jing disciple.

Emma fights him every step of the way, confused and scared and feral, so he quickly starts punishing her to get her to obey. He’s already decided that she’ll be his successor, she just needs to stop messing around and step up to the role. And, despite everything, she does excel. Having done gymnastics and dance classes for years, she quickly takes to martial arts as well; music comes naturally to her; spiritual cultivation is not difficult once she gets the hang of it; she’s always been clever and persistent, so strategy is one of her strong suits too; and calligraphy and painting are her worst subjects but the arrays and seals are fun to play around with regardless, so she gets plenty of practice.

But all the while, she keeps fighting her master. She hates him. She masters the art of malicious compliance with him, learns how to act and react accordingly, figures out how to make him tick. Ao Huiju is not a patient man exactly, he’s strict and doesn’t like when things don’t go according to his plans. He punishes her more often than not, and she learns to take it, because she’s long since figured out that there’s only so much he can do to hurt her and she will always be the winner the moment she makes him lose his temper.

And, of course, she refuses to teach him Heavenly Script, or English, the moment she realizes how much he wants to know. She won’t even translate things for him, no matter the threat of punishment if she doesn’t. This is the one thing she will always have the satisfaction of holding over him. And she will always play dumb and innocent if someone else questions her, because how could she possibly know Heavenly Script? That’s the language of the gods! And even if she had known it as a child, which she will deny forever, it’s hard to remember, you know?

After so many punishments and whatnots, she becomes a regular at Qian Cao Peak. Mo Xia, the head disciple, becomes her go-to healer. She was the first person Fu Tianci befriended in this world, the first to treat her with any kind of kindness, the only one to try to reassure her when she was just a scared child.

She’s seventeen when she has her first qi deviation. Ao Huiju finds out that she still has her old clothes she transmigrated in, including the beanie her mother had hand-knitted for her, the jacket she and her sister had sewn patches on, and a custom-decorated pair of fingerless gloves her brother had gifted her for her birthday once. He even found the bead bracelets she had made with her friends ages ago, the one with her real name and theirs. All things that she’s kept hidden away for fear of losing them, comfort items and the only stuff she has from her home.

And, of course, he destroys them all, claiming that they’re only distractions and that she has a mission that’s far more important than these silly attachments. She should just forget about that world since she’s never going back. She screams as he’s destroying them, feeling like her home is being taken from her all over again, and attacks him. She throws herself at him, clawing and yelling, her qi making the air fly in whirlwinds around them. He subdues her easily, of course, but she doesn’t stop. She bites and kicks and cries and bleeds and feels her heart shatter all over again.

She has no idea what happens next, but she hears Ao Huiju snapping at her to get a hold of herself and feels her qi going out of control and burning her. When she wakes up, it’s on Qian Cao Peak. Mo Xia is there, and she holds her as she cries all over again about her lost stuff and the unfairness of it all and how much she hates it, all the way circulating cool qi through her meridians to try and calm her down and prevent another qi deviation.

When she goes back to her own peak, a few days later, it’s with the cold determination of killing her master. She’s too young, too weak right now, but one day, she will kill him. That’s a promise.

Years pass by.

She gets her sword, Ma Li, and officially becomes head disciple of her Qing Jing Peak. She meets the rest of her fellow head disciples through meetings and missions. Yang Ling from Qiong Ding, who seems to want to be head disciple as much as Fu Tianci does; Chao Hong from An Ding, who barely glances at anyone once before dismissing them entirely; Jiang Shuzi from Bai Zhan, with a restless energy to him that has her impatient for a fight just by being near for too long; Xiao Mei from Xian Shu, who seems to be judging her every move like it’s her job to be the snobbiest person on the sect.

Ao Huiju starts getting more and more pushy with her, paranoid that she’s not doing enough to change the fate of the sect as he runs out of time. There’s still a few decades left before their generation is meant to Ascend, but it doesn’t feel like enough for him and he takes it out on her like he’s always done, pressuring her to do better, be stronger, smarter, faster.

The Naming Ceremony ensues when she’s thirty-seven. By this point, it’s been almost two and a half decades since she last saw her family, since she was brought to this world against her will, and she’s never once stopped hating the man responsible, nor has she forgotten her promise to kill him. She’s spent longer in this world than she did in her hometown. She barely remembers her family’s faces or voices anymore, her friends’ names, the games they used to play. She only knows her real name or first language because she regularly repeats it, whispers it to herself at night when she’s alone, writes letters to her family that she burns before morning comes.

Ao Huiju names her ‘Anchen’. Safe dawn. She wishes she could refuse it, use her real name, but she knows she can’t. She couldn’t when he named her the first time and she can’t now that she’s getting a generational name alongside her martial siblings. In a few years, their masters will Ascend and they will take their places as leaders, whether they want to or not. She makes it through the ceremony with a calm facade that she’s spent years perfecting, and then goes to get drunk with Mo Xia, now Mo Anxia, because her master couldn’t even be bothered to think of a proper name for her.

In a few years, the Hui generation will Ascend. The highest honor for a cultivator, Ao Huiju’s told her many times. Fu Anchen, now a grown woman and a great cultivator in her own right, but still that same child who swore revenge twenty years ago, decides that enough is enough. Why should he get to have a happy ending when he took everything from her? When he abused her and used her for many years? When he’s the reason she couldn’t graduate with her friends, won’t get the chance to see her older sister’s paintings up on the town’s spring exhibit or her younger brother compete in those chest tournaments he’s always practicing for, won’t hear her mother’s silly jokes or her father’s belly-laughs ever again? Why should he be happy when he took her happiness away from her?

If he weren’t so paranoid, she’d drug his meals. If he were less wary, she’d inject him with poison in his sleep. But the man only eats socially and the closest thing to rest he does is meditating. He doesn’t touch artifacts he doesn’t know the use of, he doesn’t mess around with flora he’s not studied before. It’s annoying, but she knows she’ll have to wait for a better chance if she wants to do this right.

Because as much as she resents being taken from her home, the life she’s built for herself here isn’t too terrible. She considers Mo Anxia her best friend. Jiang Shuzi, now Jiang Anying, is genuinely fun to be around. She enjoys her time on the peak, around her fellow disciples, whom she’s grown fond of over the years. She loves spending time with the little ones, teaching them what she knows and playing with them under the guise of training. Her life isn’t bad. And she refuses to lose anything else to Ao Huiju.

So she waits, and eventually a mission requires the peak lord to leave the mountain. So close to their Ascension, it should be her carrying out these missions. In most of the other peaks it’s definitely the succeeding disciples doing them. But Ao Huiju, despite his insistence that she needs to change the fate of the world, has never actually trusted her with anything he could do himself. It’s odd and even contradictory, but the man is way too paranoid and proud to ever let her act on her own if he can help it. Perhaps it’s the many years she spent actively sabotaging everything he asked her to do, perhaps it’s just one last attempt at influencing the world around them. Either way, it gives her the perfect opportunity to enact her plan.

She offers to go with him, since she’s been meaning to study the flora of that territory for some time now, and he reluctantly allows it. The place they’re going to is well into the demon realm, an isolated area full of demonic beasts. Not the kind of place you would catch a cultivator off guard. But it’s precisely due to this that she knows she’ll complete her goal. After all, when you’re so focused on outside threats, you don’t expect an attack from your only ally.

They’re in the middle of a fight with a herd of Blue-Horned Poison Bulls when it happens. She gets out of range, engaged in her own fight, when she sees an opening and directs the pair she’s fighting towards where Ao Huiju is holding off against a few of them. It’s easy to send a surprise attack to make him lose his balance, easier still to stay back as he gets attacked by the herd.

The thing about the Blue-Horned Poison Bull is that it’s very aptly named. Its horns are full of poison that they release upon contact, specifically a kind of poison that attacks the meridians. Sure, they move in herds of four or five, but aside from the poison aspect, they’re no harder to deal with than normal bulls. Nothing that cultivators of their caliber can’t handle, certainly. But that’s only if the cultivator in question can access his qi and isn’t feeling like his meridians are burning him from the inside— which is exactly what the poison does.

The moment the poison enters Ao Huiyu’s bloodstream, she knows it’s over. The poison by itself isn’t deadly, just painful and long-lasting, but facing off against a herd of bulls in that state is nearly impossible, even more so if there’s someone else actively making you lose your balance and distracting you. Nonetheless, it’s actually impressive how he manages to kill one of the bulls even in that state.

She lets it go for a while, just enough to make sure the injuries will be lethal, and then she intervenes. Killing the bulls doesn’t take long after that, since she manages to catch two by surprise and the rest of them are already injured. She makes her way to her master, not even pretending to try to save him. They both know better. She just waits for him to die, watching as he squirms and groans in pain, no doubt from the poison. He glares at her the entire time, mouth opening but no words coming out. He lasts longer than she expects him to.

When he stops breathing, she feels nothing. There’s no catharsis, no sense of relief or satisfaction. Revenge doesn’t taste sweet on her lips, but it doesn’t taste bitter either. Honestly, she’s just tired. She’s been fighting against him for so long that now that it’s over all she can think is how exhausted she feels.

A noise snaps her out of her thoughts, and she whirls around, sword ready, to find Jiang Anying standing there with his own sword out. He’s clearly just arrived, but she has no idea how much he saw. At the very least, he had to have seen how she didn’t even try to save him. Jiang Anying doesn’t say anything, though no for lack of want; he clearly has no idea what or how to say what’s on his mind. She waits for something, anything, but when nothing happens she gets on with the program.

They seal his body and take it back to the sect for a proper burial. She plays the part of somber, grieving disciple with an ease that only years of putting on masks can give her and watches silently as the sect leader puts his soul to rest, publicly lamenting the fact that another of them won’t be able to join them in Ascension even thought they were so close to it. People from all over come to offer her their condolences, and she maintains the facade until she’s locked herself in a room with Mo Anxia and a considerable amount of wine. She’s the only one who knows just how much she had hated that man, and the only one aside from Jiang Anying to be able to guess that maybe it wasn’t an accident after all, but she doesn’t say anything. Mo Anxia never felt any fondness for her Ao-shibo anyhow, and she knows how much he hurt Fu Anchen— she was there to help repair the damage every time.

Jiang Anying finally comes to visit her a few days after the burial. He tells her that he won’t say anything about what he saw, and when questioned why, he just says that he trusts his Fu-shijie’s judgment; she’s never been needlessly cruel before, after all. There has to have been a reason why she didn’t try to save her master and he, of all people, is not going to question it.

(The way to officially succeed Bai Zhan Peak is by defeating the previous Peak Lord in a duel. Jiang Shuzi had won his duel fair and square and within the agreed-upon rules, even if half of the Hui generation threw a fit afterwards over their martial sibling being killed by his disciple. Jiang Anying, for such an easygoing guy, can be ruthlessly efficient when it comes down to it. Fu Anchen never asked him what his master had done to deserve death, but she trusts that her shidi had a reason for it. Jiang Anying is too good of a fighter to kill someone by accident, and nowhere near a good enough liar to convince her that he didn’t realize the blow would be mortal until it was too late.)

Fu Anchen thanks him, and while she never confesses that she intended to kill her master (because that would be treason and grounds to kick her out of the sect), they become closer after that anyway. Fu Anchen, Mo Anxia and Jiang Anying become even closer friends after that.

The Hui generation Ascends, sans the Bai Zhan and Qing Jing Peak Lords, and the An generation take their respective places as lords. In the wake of it, Fu Anchen goes through her master’s house and methodically gets rid of his things. She finds the original notes from his vision that made him summon a child from another world, though not as much information about the summoning or the world she came from. The notes talk about a demon wearing a human child’s face, who trains in Qing Jing Peak and gets casted out when discovered, only to come back later and enact revenge upon his master and destroy Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. A child as cold as an ice river, one note says, which is curious.

And paired with a note that claims that Emma must be a god or the child of one, she also finds the old English —Heavenly Script— papers that he had tried to get her to translate for years, which makes her laugh. He never got very far with them after all. Serves him well.

Once she’s done going through his stuff, she starts to make plans to remodel the house entirely, perhaps even get rid of it and make a new one from scratch. Though something like that would certainly require a meeting with Chao Anjiang to figure out costs and materials, and he’s never been particularly pleasant to deal with. She decides that it can wait for now, since he must be swamped with his own work in the wake of the Ascension.

It ends, softly, with Mo Anxia coming over with drinks to complain about all the work and chaos the last few days have been full of. Fu Anchen receives her happily, also exhausted and more than happy to complain about it over drinks.

[savstan1]

chat..it has been a year 😭 i think pre transmigration sqh had a very early 2000/2010s side bang situation and VERY fried hair from dyeing/straightening it. i think he is very happy in his pidw life despite all the nonsense he’s subjected himself to!

[astrologysaysno]

There's a worm in my brain that always shouts "Shang Qinghua is the most sopping wet and pathetic individual that you must love with all your heart and soul."

It usually wins.

[waitineedaname]

Shen Yuan claims to be a straight man but that is incorrect. Shen Yuan is actually a lesbian

[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.