#shang qinghua like 50 years later: where the fuck did all this complex ritualized social violence come from???

[sunderwight]

Thinking about a scenario where (pre-Plot Happening) Mobei Jun and Shang Qinghua have a tiff, and Shang Qinghua goes back to his peak and honestly he isn't trying to make MBJ apologize first or anything, he just gets so busy that he doesn't have time to grovel (kind of forgets they had an argument in the first place because it's not like MBJ is going to kill him YET unless he does something really egregious, they're on a schedule), but Mobei Jun is just fuming in his ice palace like "that asshole thinks I can't replace him, I can absolutely replace him, he's sooo replaceable" and etc.

So Mobei Jun tries it. He's going to hire himself another evil advisor. Another groveling rat minion. Maybe a dozen groveling rat minions! He's a demon king, these sorts of people are not hard to find. They can't all be working for his shitstain uncle!

And they aren't, of course. Finding a minion who is loyal to Mobei Jun (well, relatively) rather than any of his rivals actually isn't that hard. Mobei Jun is the most promising demon strength-wise of his generation, he's the direct heir, and he's less absent from court than his father and less treacherous and scheme-y than his uncle. There's a whole crowd he appeals to, who serve him readily and have no motive to turn on him.

But.

Turns out that there is a specific combination of traits which Shang Qinghua brought to the table, and none of his new groveling sycophants have it. The ones who are the best at sucking up also tend to be the worst at having actual skills. The ones who are good at their assigned tasks don't have much of an interest in complimenting his tits or telling him this or that cloak really brings out his eyes. The ones who do tell him those kinds of things also keep turning up in his bed, which is unwelcome and annoying. No one can offer him nebulous sort-of-prophetic insights to the goings-on of his realm either, or if they try to, they turn out to be hacks and charlatans with woefully low accuracy rates. A lot of them just outright lie to try and manipulate him against their rivals or enemies.

Within a week Mobei Jun is frazzled, exhausted, and finally ready to apologize.

He shows up on An Ding Peak and slaps Shang Qinghua across the face. The most self-debasing sign of desire that he can extend. Open palm and everything. He's practically on his knees begging Shang Qinghua for forgiveness (he's not actually, though, after all he's still extremely arrogant demon royalty).

Several years into the future, Shang Qinghua will dimly recollect the incident after actually learning about demon courtship customs (he wrote them, doesn't mean he was actually paying attention to them) and ask what that was about, and Mobei Jun will have a Hollywood style PTSD flashback both to that and to the second time he and SQH had a big fight and SQH left, and not properly answer him.