[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]

"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.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan sips more wine while he talks, mostly giving up on the pretense that he's not hanging on every word. "He didn't, though? Shen Jiu killed the Qius himself."

[greatmasterairplane]

"Right. He tried to cultivate a very dangerous path, and rushed it in the attempt to gain a lot of power very quickly. That backfired, and the qi deviation nearly killed him. By the time he recovered, Shen Jiu had already murdered his way out. So Yue Qingyuan helped him join Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, and eased his way to such a high rank, but Shen Jiu never forgave him for not coming back."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan stares at him. "They just—what, they never talked about it? And then I yeeted Shen Jiu out of his body?"

[greatmasterairplane]

"Well, better that than the original ending, right? Luo Binghe sent Yue Qingyuan his legs."

[peaklordshen]

"Trust me, I wasn't complimenting the original ending," snipes Shen Yuan, but there's no real fire to it, because he's still turning this new lore over in his head. No wonder Yue Qingyuan had been so... well.. like that, to him. But both of these options were so fucked up. He guesses if Yue Qi and Shen Jiu had made up, Shen Jiu wouldn't be so much of a bitter piece of shit hellbent on taking it all out on Binghe, but, god. He gives Airplane a sideways, pinch-mouthed kind of look. Maybe this place is making him soft, but——"Bro, are you, like, okay?"

[greatmasterairplane]

"Huh? I'm not that drunk."

[peaklordshen]

"No, I mean, like. Every relationship in Proud Immortal Demon Way is fucked, dude. Every time I unlock a new piece of lore or backstory or whatever it's even worse than what made it onto the page. I know you were writing it for money, but that was the papapa, right, not the unrelenting brutal tragedy?"

[greatmasterairplane]

Shang Qinghua waves this away. "It's just drama. When your real life is boring then fucked up stuff entertains you. And it's a convention of the genre for everything to be over the top like that."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan looks at him dubiously. "My real life was pretty boring, and I wasn't coming up with shit like 'what if this abused kid only had one friend who cared about him in the world and that kid abandoned him and failed to ever come back so the kid turned into a scum villain who perpetuated the cycle of abuse and eventually got his legs cut off by the kid he abused, who mailed them to his only friend in the world, and that friend finally showed up and got riddled with arrows and neither of them ever talked about any of it, the end.'"

[greatmasterairplane]

"Well, maybe you don't have a good imagination."

[peaklordshen]

"Fuck off," snaps Shen Yuan immediately. His legs are still in Airplane's lap. "I could kick you in the dick for that."

[greatmasterairplane]

Shang Qinghua grins. "Wouldn't Bing-ge get jealous about your foot touching my dick?"

[peaklordshen]

"My foot would not touch your dick," Shen Yuan yelps, pulling his legs back altogether. "There's, like, so much fabric in the way—" okay, he's only wearing house slippers, but Airplane's in, like, four layers of robes, probably—