[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

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan rolls his eyes. "It's not that Binghe, idiot, it's the other one. Full black lotus Bingge, though he hasn't merged the Realms yet, so not as blackened as he could be. And you don't have to lie to me anymore, you know. We both know he's gay."

[greatmasterairplane]

It's hilariously typical Cucumber-bro behavior to start a rant in medias res and expect Shang Qinghua to catch up. It could not be more obvious that he only just arrived! And Shen Qingqiu criticizes his storytelling skills? "Bingge's gay?"

[peaklordshen]

"Of course he's gay," Shen Yuan snaps. "Don't play dumb, you're the one who wrote him that way. Why do you think I'm so pissed at you?"

[greatmasterairplane]

"How the hell did I write him as gay? I gave him like six hundred wives! Anyway, you're always pissed at me, was I supposed to notice a difference?"

[peaklordshen]

"Exactly!" snaps Shen Yuan. "What kind of straight man has 619 wives?? If any of them actually satisfied him, he'd stop! But instead you forced him into these endless marriages, knowing none of them could ever make him happy, out of some kind of—of insane homophobic fantasy or something, so you and all your straight readers could jerk off about it."

[greatmasterairplane]

"Okay, so, let me see—Bingge is here, he hasn't killed you yet for some reason, he's gay, and your theory is that I intentionally made him that way and then forced him to marry women because, even though it wasn't in the book, I got private, sadistic, homophobic pleasure from forcing a gay man through, like, stallion novel conversion therapy?" He casts back, trying to think of any insane details he's missed. "Did you say you drank his blood? Dude."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan deflates, just a little. "I—yeah, pretty much," he admits. "Is that not what you were doing?" He ignores the blood thing; what he did with his beautiful boyfriend's blood in private was none of Airplane the Homophobe's business.

[greatmasterairplane]

"Um, no?" Shang Qinghua throws out his arms in a lame ta-da. "I'm gay."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan glares at him. "Oh, come on."

[greatmasterairplane]

"What's that supposed to mean?"

[peaklordshen]

"Pretending to be gay to get out of homophobia allegations? I know you're a lying little snake, but this is really low," says Shen Yuan, genuinely a little disgusted. "Why the fuck would a gay man write thousands of chapters of gratuitous heterosexual porn??"

[greatmasterairplane]

Shang Qinghua laughs in disbelief. "Money? It didn't start that way, okay? Readers just wanted Luo Binghe to get some action, so I indulged, and the subscriptions shot up like a rocket!"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan stares at him. "You're serious. You're—you're really gay?"

[greatmasterairplane]

"I thought you knew! How many times have you argued with me when I said Mobei-jun is hot?" The argument is always Not as hot as Luo Binghe is going to be someday, which is so embarrassing for Cucumber-bro.

[peaklordshen]

"I thought we were doing that in, like, a straight way!" objects Shen Yuan.

[greatmasterairplane]

"Maybe you were doing it in a straight way"—definitely not—"but for me it was in the way where I want to lick my king's throat. I did not make Bingge gay on purpose, though. That's so fucked up. In my original outline, he was just supposed to end up alone—I guess maybe I was thinking of him as gay? Like, that's an obvious reason why he never would have gotten married? And it would explain why he felt so displaced. You know, like him being a demon is kind of a metaphor for a queer identity, because he's an outsider. So maybe after I made it a stallion novel, that persisted?" Shang Qinghua didn't know things he deleted could still make it into PIDW. That's harrowing. He doesn't want to think about how many Mobei-jun sex pollen drafts he has in his laptop trash.

[peaklordshen]

"First of all, I was not doing it in a straight way," Shen Yuan says primly, and doesn't even blush about it. "Second—yeah, it fucking persisted. He's been miserable." Luo Binghe hasn't said as much, but Shen Yuan can extrapolate from how happy he is to be with Shen Yuan, when Shen Yuan is just some guy. He's been absolutely starved.

[greatmasterairplane]

"Well, I knew that part," Shang Qinghua says absentmindedly. His son is gay? Shang Qinghua would argue he can't be held responsible for most of what happens in PIDW-But-Real; sure, it's his book, but he didn't write every single background character or banal little moment. It's not his fault if Random Villager #26 breaks his arm, or something like that. And he most certainly did not intend to create a real Luo Binghe—kind of real, however real you can call people in the fucked up construct they live in—and then push him into a lot of loveless marriages. He doesn't feel guilty, exactly, and he'll push back against anyone who tries to make him. But it's pretty sad. Shang Qinghua's parents were always bugging him to get married before he died, and that was bad enough. This is what he gets for trying to write a book with some kind of literary merit for once, before taking a hard left into porn. Next time he's gotta just start with the trash.

Pretty good luck for Cucumber-bro, though. Shang Qinghua thought that Binghe-obsessed runaway train was headed right for an unrequited brick wall.

[peaklordshen]

This brings all of Shen Yuan's anger right back again. He pulls his fan from his back pocket and whaps Shang Qinghua over the head with it. "Fine," he snaps. "You're not a homophobe, you're just an asshole, and made Binghe miserable for money."

[greatmasterairplane]

Well, he really can't argue with that. He did do that. "Now that we've established that books have conflict, what the hell have you been doing here for the past three months?"

[peaklordshen]

Books have-- oh, this fucking guy. "Fuck off, I hate you," snaps Shen Yuan. "And--" his brain offers, without prompting, getting fucked on the floor where apparently a bunch of tiny robots can see me. He flushes bright red. "None of your fucking business."

[greatmasterairplane]

Awwww haha, Cucumber-bro can be so cute. Sure, he "hates" Shang Qinghua but won't leave him alone, just like he "hates" PIDW but subscribed to every chapter, even paying extra for the bonus arcs. As a devoted writer of cliché trash, Shang Qinghua is naturally appreciative of a good tsundere act. "How did you get Bingge not to kill you, then?"

[peaklordshen]

"Oh, that," says Shen Yuan. That was like, the oldest possible news in the world, dude, we're like seventeen steps beyond that. "He figured out I'm not Shen Qingqiu, obviously."

[greatmasterairplane]

"Of course. My son is so smart," Shang Qinghua says with a touch of warm pride.

[peaklordshen]

"He's a genius," says Shen Yuan. "He's---" his brain spins like a fucking roulette wheel trying to land on something to say about Luo Binghe that doesn't give the whole game away--he's not sure he wants Airplane to know he's banging his glorious huge-dicked son, at least not yet. If Airplane is here now he's bound to find out eventually. But he can maybe--delay the inevitable. He's had other stuff he wanted to tell Airplane anyway. "Last week he performed a scene from Fight Club in a talent show."