[open post] NEW USER: Shang Qinghua

[greatmasterairplane]

Look, this clearly isn't Proud Immortal Demon Way. Shang Qinghua might not remember all the details of what he wrote—that's what his most devoted fans are for, to point out inconsistencies in the comments section so Shang Qinghua can bullshit some mystical explanation, hahaha—but he's sure he didn't write this Western-style mansion. The System, when he tries to question it, is silent. So maybe it's some kind of test?

If so, not fair! Arranging the invasion of the Immortal Alliance Conference was supposed to be his last thing. The original Shang Qinghua died shortly after that, so how much plot relevance could he have?? He was meant to be retired, living life in the lap of luxury (or drudgery in the employ of his king, but whatever). Why doesn't the System just reward him for all his many years of loyal service? Can they have a "being hand-fed melon seeds by a group of big scantily-clad men" event, please???

He skims through the welcome table materials. Okay, so a world between dimensions, people pulled in from disparate worlds and trapped for eternity, sure. Classic stuff. His king is bound to show up at some point and drag Shang Qinghua away by his collar like a tiger scruffing a kitten. Until then, he'll just try to stay out of trouble.

Comments

[greatmasterairplane]

"He is not," Shang Qinghua protests. "He's actually a complex character! I just didn't put that in the book because any time I hinted toward it, some people got really pissed off. It just seemed easier to make him fun to hate."

[peaklordshen]

"Of course I'm going to get pissed off if you're going to be an apologist about the guy," grumbles Shen Yuan. But—maybe it's because he's getting a little drunk, now, but he can't help be a little curious. "Fine, then. What kind of complexity was he supposed to have?"

[greatmasterairplane]

"Oh, so now you want me to talk about Shen Qingqiu? Well, this is a welcome change," Shang Qinghua says, before bursting into cackling laughter.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan, having no fan to smack him with, makes do with shoving him, hard, though not hard enough to hurt a fellow Peak Lord or actually push him off the couch.

[greatmasterairplane]

"Okay, okay. So he was supposed to have this tragic backstory to explain why he's so evil. You know how he was supposedly a servant in the Qiu household, and engaged to Qiu Haitang? He was actually a slave, captured by slavers off the streets—that's why his name is 'Jiu,' it's just a number. So when he murdered the Qius, he was really striking back against years of abuse—kind of like Bingge did against him. It's, you know. Cycles."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan frowns, though it's a little more thoughtful than it is angry. He's turned towards Airplane, post-shove, and he absently stretches his legs across his lap as he considers this new lore. It does, objectively, make Shen Qingqiu a more compelling character. But—"It's not really cycles of abuse, though, is it?" he asks. "I mean—Shen Qingqiu to Binghe is, definitely, but Binghe just takes revenge, he doesn't also abuse kids under his care. He's nice to kids. A while ago I got de-aged and he showed me around his palace in a dream and gave me a Bulbasaur."

[greatmasterairplane]

"That's—fucking adorable," Shang Qinghua says. "Also, a de-aging plot, seriously? God, we're so in someone's reader requests fanfiction compilation."

[peaklordshen]

"That's literally what I said when I got here!" exclaims Shen Yuan. "But I thought Janet—did you meet Janet?—was the one behind it, like, the self-insert, because she's also a transmigrator.¹ I thought everyone here was just here for her weird fanfic pleasure."

¹ This Shen Yuan hasn't met Kade yet so he doesn't know this isn't true.

[greatmasterairplane]

"Oh, I met her, she seems kinda mean." Shang Qinghua says this with affectionate approval. "But—it's just so tropey, right? And if everyone here is fictional, it stands to reason that we're in some kind of fiction. Except us, but we came from somewhere fictional, and I guess Janet did too."

[peaklordshen]

"She is mean," says Shen Yuan, with just as much affectionate approval. "She's a good friend, though. I don't know if I would've admitted I was gay without her. She, uh, yelled at me about it. Like, a lot. And yeah, I guess it's some kind of fiction—but like I said, there's someone trying to break it up, which doesn't really happen in fanfiction."

[greatmasterairplane]

"Having a character come in and say, 'this is all ridiculous, get back to your canons'? It's still fanfiction, it's just bad. It's crack fic."

[peaklordshen]

"Oh," says Shen Yuan, and drinks more wine. "I never really read bad fanfiction." He never really read much fanfiction at all, but he's not going to let that stop him from making broad, sweeping statements about it. "That would make sense for why everyone is so OOC and queer, though." He blinks. "Wait, no it wouldn't. Because that would imply we're being, like, actively written right now, and we're not. We've just been--dropped in here and left to our own devices."

[greatmasterairplane]

"Yeah, obviously. We'd notice if someone was, like, controlling us. It's gotta be like PIDW, it's already been written but now we're in, like—the version that's not currently being written."

[peaklordshen]

"Okay, so it's kind of what I thought already - a bunch of people, a lot of whom happen to be gay, pulled into a world that maybe used to have a plot and an author but doesn't anymore. But like--Proud Immortal Demon Way was like that because you died, and showed up in it. But no one here is the author, I don't think. Unless--woah." He drinks more wine. "Maybe Aornis¹ is the author, and she like, regrets ever writing whatever bad fanfic this is and is trying to undo it?"

¹ Extremely nonlinear ping!

[greatmasterairplane]

"Dude. Yes. Sucks to be an author stuck here, though. At least in PIDW there was stuff to do."

[peaklordshen]

"I don't feel bad for her," Shen Yuan decides. "Like, what kind of freak shit was she writing, that she brought in Luo Binghe, traitorous rat Shang Qinghua, and Shen Jiu? Because obviously she wasn't aiming for us us." He gestures between himself and Airplane.

[greatmasterairplane]

"Soooo judgmental," Shang Qinghua says with a snort. "As if your literary standards are so high. Maybe some people really like, um... Bingjiuhua?"

[peaklordshen]

"Yeah, like you, apparently, since you think Shen Jiu was hotter than me." And obviously Airplane's attracted to Binghe. He's the one who made Binghe so hot in the first place.

[greatmasterairplane]

"Aw, does it bother you?" Shang Qinghua says, grinning. "Don't worry, bro, you're hot too."

[peaklordshen]

"Shut up, that's not my point," grumbles Shen Yuan, and then has absolutely no idea what his point actually had been, so he drinks more wine about it instead.

[greatmasterairplane]

Luckily, Shang Qinghua has a point. "Anyway—Shen Jiu. So he was a slave, and he had this really close friend, and. Um." He knows this story, obviously, but he knows too many details, and his alcohol-marinated brain is having trouble figuring out how to present it to Shen Yuan. "They were supposed to go become cultivators together. But when it was, like, time—I mean, when the cultivators were recruiting—Shen Jiu was locked up by the evil Qiu family, and he couldn't go."

[peaklordshen]

"What friend?" Shen Yuan asks immediately. "Why wasn't he around during the plot to like, make Shen Jiu less shitty?"

[greatmasterairplane]

Like Shang Qinghua's giving away his gossip that easily. "Oh, you know. Who's a cultivator about Shen Qingqiu's age, a little older, always fussing over him...?"

[peaklordshen]

It takes Shen Yuan a minute, and then his eyes widen, and then narrow. "Yue Qingyuan??"

[greatmasterairplane]

"Exactly. So Yue Qingyuan—Yue Qi at the time, get it, Qi and Jiu—were childhood friends, but at the pivotal moment, Shen Jiu couldn't go along with the Cang Qigong cultivators. Yue Qi promised Shen Jiu he'd become a great cultivator, and come back to rescue him at the earliest opportunity." Shang Qinghua grimaces a little; this backstory is good stuff, he knows that, but the ruthless Peerless Cucumber has been softened by his stint in PIDW, and he might get upset. At least about the Yue Qingyuan parts.