#I feel like novel!Shen Wei is a lot more stable (despite being a creature born of pure chaos) because he engineered the situation

[avaantares]

I feel like there had to be some major mental and emotional recalibration in Shen Wei's universe after he met Zhao Yunlan.

After all, the one he's been waiting ten thousand years to meet is Kunlun -- the great hero who saved Shen Wei's life and brokered peace between warring civilizations, the kind stranger who reached out to the frightened youth hiding behind the mask of cold warrior, the philosopher who gave Shen Wei his name and taught him to live up to it, and very likely the first person since the loss of Shen Wei's own family to show him any sincere affection. The real Kunlun was already on something of a pedestal before Zhao Yunlan assumed his identity, and Shen Wei has elevated him so much higher and obsessed over what Kunlun meant to him personally for ten millennia since. The only worthy reappearance of a man he (and others) venerated so highly would have to be accompanied by blinding sunbeams and golden trumpets to live up to their expectations.

And then Shen Wei stumbles into professional irritant Zhao Yunlan, a man who wears Kunlun's face but specializes in being as obnoxious as possible, who can't be bothered to remove expired food from his refrigerator and leaves his dirty laundry all over the floor, who insinuates himself into situations where he doesn't belong and pries at the edges of Shen Wei's secrets without mercy -- in short, the opposite of everything Shen Wei has built Kunlun up to be in his idealized memories and hopes of reunion.

There had to be a moment where Shen Wei faced this disparity head-on in an attempt to reconcile his long-awaited hero with this persistent, self-destructive SID investigator who keeps showing up everywhere to annoy him... and it might have ended in a minor meltdown.

I'm sure there's a plot bunny here somewhere, if only I can capture it...