Starastray - Untitled

AU where there's no system (or a decidedly less restrictive one) and Shen Yuan transmigrates into an OC rogue cultivator before the start of the novel, and decides he's gonna steal the protagonist before Luo Binghe even gets to Cang Qiong.

The logic is sound -- he'll keep Luo Binghe from experiencing neglect and abuse at Shen Qingqiu's hands, raise him away from the pressure of the sects and the likelihood that anyone else might find out about his heritage and try to harm him over it, keep him fully away from the Immortal Alliance Conference, and then Luo Binghe's course will change trajectory because he'll have no reason to want revenge against the world and no access to Xin Mo. Shen Yuan will be able to spare Luo Binghe some suffering and possibly survive in a world less subject to the harrowing whims of a half-mad tyrannical overlord. Win-win!

However, the tricky bit is that he's not sure exactly how far ahead of the novel he is, and also Airplane didn't specify where Luo Binghe grew up. This means that Luo Binghe could be any age younger than twelve and in any number of places along or near to the Luo river.

Shen Yuan decides he's going to approach this by pretending he is looking for the long-lost son of his sister, traveling through the likeliest areas, asking after abandoned children who might fit the protagonist's description. It's a long shot, he knows, and he's mostly relying on the existence of Narrative Destiny. But eventually he is directed by several people towards a particular city, which is not as close to the river as he'd have expected Luo Binghe to grow up, but then again he only knows that was where baby Binghe was found, not where the washerwoman who took him in ultimately lived.

It becomes clear to him, though, that he's been sent to the wrong target. But also why he's been sent astray is apparent in nearly the same breath, because among the slave children living in this area is a little boy who could be his much younger clone.

Seriously, this kid looks just like him! Or, well, close enough. He looks a lot like Shen Yuan's actual nieces and nephews from his past life. It's uncanny.

Also, because of his search, the slave kids get wind of what he's looking for (his long-lost nephew) pretty quick. The boy with the obvious resemblance to him greets Shen Yuan's own assessment with wary cynicism, but he's just a little boy. So it's not difficult to notice the way he's also practically vibrating with hopefulness, half-hiding behind a protective older kid and looking at Shen Yuan with big dark eyes like he expects to be rescued or destroyed with whatever he has to say next.

Shen Yuan has a big problem now. He just knows that if he says something like "actually no this boy is too old to be my nephew" or whatever other excuse, no one will believe him, and also this poor kid is going to be permanently scarred by it. He's going to think Shen Yuan is lying just so that he can reject him. On top of that, he's not in a good situation here. None of these children are even remotely well cared-for.

Shen Yuan's rogue cultivator self isn't rich on the level of being like a wealthy sect leader or anything, but he's made some money since transmigrating by doing random cultivator jobs and quests along the way here. He uses it all to purchase two little slave boys (Do Not Separate), then takes another job and uses that coin to acquire a somewhat rundown manor which used to belong to the local gentry. The Qiu family (rings some bells but that's not exactly an uncommon name) kept it up for a while in case a branch family sprung up in need of a residence, but they've been in decline and the place is downright decrepit, so they had been looking to sell it instead. It's too big for a wandering bachelor like SY to ever need on his own account, but that's sort of the idea. He makes more money taking on cultivator work, at first taking his boys along with him for lack of any alternative. Nerve-wrackingly dangerous! Eventually he hires workers to start restoring the manor, particularly setting up a yard to be a school area, and then starts taking on any freelance jobs he can get in order to steadily buy out the contracts on all the other kids. He gets it nice enough to house and care for as many orphans as he can acquire.

Not because he's a big old softie though!

His story of looking for his nephew is a bust now, since he's apparently "found" the kid. So he's got to change tactics! If he can't find baby Binghe and the washerwoman, the next best approach is to create an opportunity for them to come to him. So once he's got his new household established, he starts offering free lessons to all the local kids. Not just the ones he's taken in, but also any who come by and want to learn some things. It's a tempting setup for anyone who wants their child to get education but can't afford a tutor, and Luo Binghe's mother had been entirely the sort of person who would have packed up and left her situation if there had been an opportunity for it.

On that note, SY also starts hiring single mothers to help look after his new gaggle of children and do the work he doesn't know how to do in these times, like keeping house, laundry, cooking, actually raising kids, etc.

His "little school" is not universally popular. A few groups try and ruin him, because the poverty in the region provides a basis of business for them. The ringleaders of the human traffickers in the area don't want their trade to dry up, even if it means selling all of their merchandise for this round, so when they find out that their underlings let Shen Yuan buy off all the kids they try and intimidate him into returning them (it doesn't go well for them). The Qiu family also isn't thrilled after it becomes clear what he's doing, and get him investigated by the local authorities (read: use their bribed officials and local goons to try and interfere.)

When that doesn't work either the sects get involved, because the Qiu go crying to Huan Hua Palace that Shen Yuan is sketchy and is trying to establish his own sect. So Shen Yuan talks his way around the matter, and frankly the Qiu are small fish even if they're the biggest ones in the local pond, so HHP doesn't care to pursue things much further. (Read: SY could mop the floor with the disciples they sent to investigate him, and it's not worth it to piss off someone this mysterious and powerful just to bully some impoverished children.)

Shen Yuan is appalled by all this bullshit though. Trust the world of PIDW to make it so hard just for a guy to teach some poor kids how to read and do math!

It makes him dig in his heels about it, because he is at heart a stubborn bastard. The fires that once fueled a thousand angry screeds on zhongdian literature site is now aimed at the local magistrate. One of the women he's hired on has some dirt on the Qiu family, which leads SY to dig up some more until he eventually has enough to turn the tables on them. Local officials won't investigate because they've all been bought, but that in and of itself is of some interest to their superiors closer to the palace, and so SY arranges an investigation of his own that goes way further than he thought? Turns out there are some ugly skeletons in the Qiu closets, and the imperial investigator comes down on them hard.

Well, he can't say they didn't have it coming? Though he does feel bad for the children in the family, especially the oldest son, who gets hauled off to jail along with his father. At least the girl is sent to live with relatives. Maybe he should have done more to shield the minors in the situation...?

His kids tell him not to worry about it, though, that apparently young master Qiu was known to run people down in the streets and beat his servants and do other cartoonishly awful things. SY's not sure how much of it is true and how much of it is his little flock of fluffy sheep trying to ease his conscience, though they do all seem to take a lot of vindictive delight in the whole affair. Especially Nephew, who clings to his sleeves and loudly declares that the investigator should have publicly flogged the discredited nobles so that everyone could go watch, and then begs him for sweets as if that wasn't a creepy thing to hear come out of an eight-year-old's mouth. SY just sighs and tells him he can have something good when he finishes his calligraphy practice.

Of course, it's not exactly easy running what is basically an orphanage-slash-school (and maybe a budding sect...?), especially when pretty much all of the kids have been traumatized and faced stuff like rampant dehumanization, food insecurity, abuse, and neglect. Hiring single mothers soon becomes not only a plan to try and lure in Luo Binghe's mom, but an absolute godsend of an idea because SY has no clue WHAT he would do on his own about the discipline issues or emotional breakdowns or acting out that some of the kids get up to once it registers that they're in a safe enough place to unpack their baggage.

Apart from Nephew, SY's favorite kid is the one who came with him, the oldest of the flock of former slave children. He's the big brother of the group, the one who tries his best to look after the others and to not make any trouble himself. But even poor Little Yue is still just a kid who has been through too much, and he also eventually starts having some meltdowns and struggles with processing everything that has happened to him as a vulnerable child in an unkind world.

SY really didn't mean to start a trauma center for mistreated children!

Though, that's still not necessarily a bad thing for Luo Binghe to one day come across, provided he ever actually shows up...

Eventually, Shen Yuan does figure out that he must be ahead even of Luo Binghe's birth, though he still doesn't put together that he's interfered in the scum villain's backstory. Probably something even more amusingly obscure, like the creation year of some random artifact Luo Binghe used in some wife plot or other, tips him off and he mentally throws his hands up in the air. He's got to wait DECADES? Maybe he ought to try and find Luo Binghe's biological parents and just follow them around at this point!

Not that he can, now, though, because he has to make sure no negative IQ villains (who will probably just be cannon fodder for a subplot one day) decide to send goons to literally burn down his orphanage. Also if he's gone for too long his kids get upset. Probably because no one else is as weak to their puppy dog eyes and pleas for treats and toys as he is.

At least it gives him time to shore up his position, and train Nephew and Little Yue more extensively in cultivation. Despite his initial assurances to HHP that he was but a humble orphan wrangler who was only incidentally a cultivator, Shen Yuan does also teach the other kids some basic cultivation exercises. There are a few reasons for that.

One is just the principle of the thing. No, these kids don't all have the potential to become great immortals or anything, but they can still learn some of it and it's good for their health if they do. The only trouble is if they try and push too hard or attempt things beyond their range, and that's a risk with everyone who cultivates. Or even just exercises!

Another reason is that it helps stave off the jealousy that some of the kids have towards those with more cultivation potential. Teaching a lot of the basics all around makes it into just another topic at school. Some kids might not be as good at it as others, but those kids might also be better at math, or memorization, or board games, and while cultivation can open more doors to people as adults, for the children this is generally enough to satisfy their sense of fairness. Or at least reduce outbursts and fights.

Finally, the impression that any of SY's kids might be a cultivator also makes wicked people more reluctant to try and abduct or interfere with them. Cultivators are revered and nearly mythological figures in the public consciousness. It isn't difficult to see why, if even a rogue cultivator NPC like SY* can mop the floor with most random muggers (*Shen Yuan is not a normal rogue cultivator). Not many people want to risk bringing SY's ire down on them, but of those who might chance it if he wasn't around to immediately react, even fewer want to risk that the kids themselves could kick their asses.

Not knowing that only two of the orphans probably could in fact mop the floor with them helps keep all the rest safer, and is more believable when all of them can conduct themselves enough like disciples to fool anyone who doesn't know what to really look for.

Developments that surprise Shen Yuan but wouldn't surprise anyone else who is paying attention:

People start leaving unwanted babies and younger children on his doorstep. Not all the time, but more than once has he had to frantically find wet nurses and worry that he's changed things enough that some fishermen might just randomly drop the protagonist outside his gate, and he wouldn't even know because Binghe would be a literal infant??

Nephew (SJ) and Little Yue (Yue Qi -- only Shen Yuan calls him "Little", especially when he gets taller than SY by the time he's sixteen) are prodigies who get really good at cultivation, really fast, and between that and Shen Yuan's OP skills they completely warp Shen Yuan's ideas for what normal cultivation potential looks like. This would probably cause more problems if he wasn't teaching all the kids how to cultivate anyway, but means his students actually do kinda run the usual range of skills for a small sect.

SJ and YQ swiftly reach the point where they need more advanced equipment than just SY's teaching can provide, if they're going to keep building their skills. Gaining access to certain tools, aids, and materials (like spiritual swords) is a real hurdle though, and usually is for rogue cultivators (one of the major disadvantages of no sect affiliation.) Shen Yuan is hesitant to use stuff from the plot, since it's For Binghe, but he eventually caves and starts going after some things that he doesn't think the future protagonist will miss much. He also ends up buying stuff from HHP, since they're willing to sell things like spiritual tools and weapons if the price is right, whereas most other sects like Cang Qiong reserve them for members only.

They get an invitation to the Immortal Alliance Conference. Not the one where the Abyss opens up, obviously, the one where (originally) Shen Jiu reunited with Yue Qi and killed Wu Yanzi. Shen Yuan debates on going but the boys really want to, and things have calmed down enough that no one's trying to burn down the school whenever he leaves these days, so eventually he figures it'll be interesting to see some of the Cang Qiong characters and should be safe enough if he keeps his disciples close.

They don't run into young Yue Qingyuan or Shen Qingqiu on the trip, but Wu Yanzi does show up and get killed, and SY only hears about it and assumes they just missed all that action. (WYZ just got caught by some senior cultivators who recognized him and killed him to avenge some disciples he murdered.) Nephew and Little Yue do meet young Liu Qingge, Shang Qinghua, Mu Qingfang, and Su Xiyan though! Which gives Shen Yuan the opportunity to tell them all (mostly Su Xiyan) that if they're ever in trouble near his school, they can come to him for help. Hint hint.

This open invitation ends up being accepted broadly by a lot of traveling cultivators after the conference, who from then on treat Shen Yuan's school like a free motel whenever they're passing through. Plenty aren't even people SY met, but it seems his statement was taken as a general one to fellow righteous cultivators all around! Luckily, this has some advantages. Shen Yuan has no qualms running off anyone who tries to take unfair advantage of him or especially his kids or staff, and no shame in conscripting anyone who is decent enough to help teach his students, even if it's nothing to do with cultivating, and somehow word gets around and people start bringing school supplies, medicine, food, or other useful things along with them as gifts to help repay the hospitality. Young Liu Qingge comes by a lot on his way to and from various quests, or even seems to just turn up randomly sometimes (he comes to challenge YQ and SJ to fights), and SY's just like "I guess this is happening now" and teaches him to recognize the early signs of qi deviation and advises strongly against meditating in caves.

At one point a young Shang Qinghua turns up in one of the spare rooms, very obviously hiding an ice demon. Shen Yuan again is just like "I guess this is happening now" and shelters them until Mobei Jun has recovered, and sends a message to Cang Qiong that one of their An Ding caravans was attacked and their disciple is recovering under his roof but isn't well enough to travel yet. Much less stressful situation for Airplane (who is desperately trying to figure out what he did to manifest SJ's benevolent uncle from somewhere???)

Su Xiyan seems like the only person they met at the Immortal Alliance Conference who doesn't turn up at their door in a state of emergency at some point.

A few years later, there is a big scandal involving her and the demon emperor. Su Xiyan disappears, Huan Hua Palace accuses Tianlang Jun of plotting against the righteous sects, and Shen Yuan is even invited to the meeting where they try and rally everyone to go kill Binghe's dad. Naturally, he declines to participate in the witch hunt, but the major sects agree to it. By luck (or narrative fortune) Shen Yuan comes across Zhuzhi Lang on his trip back home, and mentions the ambush and his distaste for it (not knowing who ZZL is). ZZL warns Tianlang Jun and the confrontation goes very differently, especially since there's no Yue Qingyuan wielding Xuan Su.

It doesn't go well for the sects involved. Huan Hua Palace gets decimated. The Old Palace Master gets killed. Shen Yuan is like uhhhh that's... whoops? Didn't Luo Binghe need that in the future?? Fuck.

But the sect isn't wiped out completely, they just take a massive beating. Some of their younger disciples end up leaving and turning up on Shen Yuan's doorstep, for some reason. The manor house is becoming too small to account for all of these foundlings! They have to expand. Though the expansions would be a stretch to term a "palace" they end up occupying a much larger chunk of territory, and even investing in farmland and some storehouses to help support the sect. That's still not really a sect, of course. Even if a lot of the business that would have normally gone to Huan Hua Palace starts coming to them instead. Once HHP is back on its feet the stream will probably dry out. Probably?

Zhuzhi Lang starts hanging around. He's actually looking for Su Xiyan or their baby, dead or alive and per Tianlang Jun's instructions, but he uses Shen Yuan's school as base camp for his kind of hopeless efforts to find any traces of them, while also looking for ways to try and repay Shen Yuan. All the kids are just like "oh great, another weird man has fallen in love with Shizun -- someone go run interference" about it.

Some years later, an older woman and her young son turn up. Shen Yuan's off on a quest at the time, so SJ receives them. As is standard procedure he gives the woman a job and places the boy in classes, after giving him the aptitude tests. The kid is cute and precocious, so SJ uses him to distract YQ while he himself sneaks out to go join LQG on a monster hunt (and claim the valuable parts of the beast's remains for himself), and neither SY nor ZZL notice anything until SY's going over the paperwork for stuff he missed while he was gone. Since he procrastinated, it takes him like a week to find out that Luo Binghe is finally under his roof. He's going over the admission form right when SJ arrives with The New Adorable Child to try and distract SY enough that SY will let him go on a solo hunt -- as far as being distracted goes, it is way more effective than even SJ anticipated.

Then he has to figure out how to let ZZL know, so that ZZL can let Tianlang Jun know, so that Luo Binghe will have more family than just his mom and more resources than just a shabby little not-sect! But even once he figures it out and sets up the dramatic reveal, TLJ is just like "great! so can he just stay with you? he's probably fine there" which... irritates SY.

SJ fully conscripts Luo Binghe as a minion in his many cons. He never lost his street kid conman tactics, although he now uses them less as a ruthless survival tool or weapon and more to just get things to go his own way. LBH has the face and disposition of a little angel, which SJ no longer can pull off as a full grown adult, so he fills a gap. LBH also knows full well what's going, especially since a lot of SJ's tactics involve throwing LBH at SY like a smoke bomb.

Luo Binghe inevitably still develops a big fat crush on SY, so this is fine by him. Especially when he gets older, he starts bringing SY tea and making him breakfast and running his errands until even SJ is like "wait a minute, this little brat's stealing my job!" and by then it's too late. Luo Binghe is SY's personal assistant, the disciple at conman puppydog eyes has surpassed the master! While SJ was busy being like "I'm going to trick this idiot into doing my chores" LBH was going "I'm going to trick this idiot into giving me his job".

SY takes too long to officially name his school so everyone calls it the Shen Sect, much to his embarrassment.

SVSSS Au!

Shen Yuan works his ASS off to get the original ten thousand points to avoid throwing Binghe into the abyss. Only for it to be doubled (mentioned English book one, chapter 4 page 245, 4th paragraph) into the twenty thousand points??

So the system gives him a ‘canon divergent’ making it so that *he* doesn’t have to push Luo Binghe into the abyss!

But you know who drags him in instead? Luo Bingge. The system drags him in from his own world for 9999 points, leaving SY with one point, infected by without-a-cure, and too weak to fight him head on to save himself or his disciple.

But the system accidentally didn’t only bring Luo Bingge. It brought back both the Shen Qingqiu from PIDW and Shen Jiu from the current universe! The both of them barely have enough knowledge combined to make a good enough escape, and Shen Yuan is enough of a not idiot to drag them to a doctor so they don’t all die immediately!

And basically it’s SHENanigans, all three of them bickering over what to do. PIDW SQQ wants to protect his sect, the guilt having eaten him alive over the years and he’s willing to do anything to make sure his family stays alive (he’s thrilled that in this time line LQG is alive, arguing with SJ like a rabid dog whenever he complains), SJ on the other hand is like ‘Hey this is my fucking body, give it back’ and doesn’t care/gets what’s happening, basically zero emotional progression, SY wants to go and save LBH after getting stronger, worried about what’s going to happen to him in the hands of LBG, he read PIDW and wants to prevent the future, but in a lot less extreme ways.

Things happen include

-PIDW SQQ almost controlling the body on accident and breaking into tears at a peak lord meeting

-Original SJ freaking LQG out when he comes to see SY being like ‘he can’t see you right now, isn’t that a shame?’ (He went to go bicker with the system)

-all three of them fighting over the body like little toddlers

-PIDW SQQ and O!SJ saying to kill the little beast and SY being like “he’s my little meow meow tho :(“

-Strange brotherly bonds where PIDW SQQ and O!SJ fight over who should be older

-Airplane bullying x3

ok. enough suffering now. i am seeking out delight

Teenage Liu Qingge time travels to the future. Let’s say The Abyss Years (TM), as any good LiuShen story does. And who does he meet there, SQQ, of course.

Of course, this is SY, and not SJ, but LQG doesn’t know that! He’s amazed at how nice he’s being to him! And SY is just enjoying having a cute baby version of LQG around. SY smiles at him and he gets all red! He’ll never get a girlfriend like that, SY thinks to himself.

LQG goes back to his time with one very important thought- that SJ can be that nice to spend time with if LQG only was able to befriend him! Somehow! Did I say this was LiuShen? I’m sorry, this is LiuJiu!

Meanwhile, while teenaged LQG was hanging around SY, adult LQG was hanging around teenaged SJ, who does not want to have to entertain the peak lord from the future. Unfortunately, social niceties (and his Shizun) are forcing his hand, so here he is, spending the day with him.

And the adult version of LQG is being so nice to him?? Taking his bitchy comments, bringing up monsters for him to lecture about. He never really cared about monsters like that, but it was kinda nice to have someone actually listen to him for once.

So when teenaged LQG gets back, him and SJ just look at each other and think, “Why can’t you be like the other one?”

Man’s then something something, character development, LQG falling in love with SJ and his character traits and not just the ones he saw in SY, blah blah blah. I like time travel and I like stories that force these two to get along for five minutes lol

Also. Adult LQG, after spending a day with teenaged SJ, spends five minutes with SY and in entirety convinced that this is a new person. Clocks it immediately now that he has a fresh reference. Not that he cares or anything! This version of LQG is in love with SY, not SJ after all.

But he does wish that the other man would confide in him. He spends the next few years trying to ‘subtly’ hint to SY that he already knows his big secret! Go ahead and tell him the truth!

SY spends those years freaking out over what LQG might know.

ive been thinking a lot about how shen yuan and shang qinghua have this friendship, right, and once they relaxed a little it'd be obvious at least to those close to them that they have a lot of shared history. but after a while, itd become clear that a lot of that shared history is dirty jokes, and the locations and properties of aphrodisiac/fuck-or-die plants, and that the names they call each other are dick puns, and that shen qingqiu voraciously reads shanh qinghua's erotica even if he heaps criticism on it.

and im just imagining binghe or their disciples or whomever slowly developing a picture of those two having a really wild and misspent youth together before becoming peak lords.

Magical bullshit yada yada Shen Jiu gets a one way direct psychic line to Yue Qingyuan’s brain. He hears everything YQ thinks, all hours of the day, and can see into his dreams (like a one way Sharing is Caring). Except most of the time, Yue Qingyuan’s thoughts are silent. Maybe a passing ‘I’ll schedule that tomorrow’ but that’s it for hours.

And then Shen Jiu sees the first dream. It took a while. Yue Qi prefers meditation over sleep. It’s understandable when what he dreams of is an endless maze of caverns, body falling apart, the ghost of the boy Shen Jiu used to be haunting the cave as a flaming specter. It’s the only dream Yue Qi ever has.

Then the first peak lord meeting comes. Yue Qi’s mind sparks when Shen Jiu walks in.

Xiao Jiu!

Xiao Jiu looks so elegant today.

I hope he’s eating.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

I miss you.

Xiao Jiu is so smart!

I love you.

I would give Xiao Jiu anything. Everything he wants.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

You shouldn’t forgive me.

I love you.

The Snape Family - 1970

AU where, after dying in PIDW, Yue Qingyuan wakes up in the past when Luo Binghe is still just 14… and of course, he immediately goes to kill him.

Unfortunately, he still has his protagonist halo, so something interferes, and YQY ends up being confronted by the other peak lords about why he suddenly decided to try and murder a random Qing Jing disciple. Now, YQY can’t just say that he’s a demon, because he’s not sure what methods will work to reveal that, since he doesn’t know how LBH hid his his heritage the first time around — so he comes up with excuses, ones that he hopes will at least get LBH out of the sect before he becomes too powerful. He’s a poor cultivator, he always gets into fights, the other disciples always accuse him of stealing things and he doesn’t get along with them, so they should just throw him out of the sect —

What he forgets to account for is the fact that Shen Jiu is there, listening to all of this, and hearing YQY list off all the traits he sees LBH as sharing with his younger self as reasons he doesn’t belong at the sect. He knew YQY didn’t care that much about him, not after he’d abandoned him when they were children but… it still hurts to hear it spoken about so explicitly. If YQY didn’t owe him a debt for saving his life, would he be saying the same words about SJ?

So, SJ stands up to defend LBH. Sure, he might have been silently hoping the kid would quit or get himself killed, but SJ is nothing if not spiteful, and YQY? He just made things personal. LBH is his disciple, not YQY’s and by the time SJ is done with him, he’ll be fit to be his successor.

YQY is now faced with an impossible situation — use his authority as sect leader to go against SJs wishes and get rid of his future torturer… or wait and see what happens. Surely he’ll get bored of Luo Binghe eventually and start hating him again… right?

it's so wild to me that you absolutely cannot force a hyperfixation to happen. like you'll watch the most perfectly tailor-made-for-you content that everyone says you'll love and feel absolutely nothing, and then the thing you watch on a whim to fill time will reach through the screen and put its damn fingers in your brain and start rearranging the neurons right in front of you and every single time you're like THIS??? THIS??????? and this happens like every 6-12 months forever

Romantic bingqiu with queerplatonic liushen and eventual queerplatonic bingliushen, pretend relationship

---

When Binghe is in the abyss, Lqg gets into a bit of a conundrum.

Political peak lord reasons make him have to find a partner, as quickly as possible. Seeing his friend strangely upset about him, Sqq goes to reassure him that he could get any girl he wants and gets an awkward confession instead that Lqg, in fact, isn’t interested in anyone either romantically or sexually and probably never will be. Sqq, bro that he is, makes a suggestion. They’re going to pretend to be a couple so Lqg doesn’t have to get together with anyone that would have expectations. 

This goes surprisingly well. Lqg visits Sqq so often that he might as well live in the bamboo house too and no one doubts that they’re a couple. They get along well after a few initial hiccups and quickly grow very fond of each other until they’re inseparable. 

After almost two years of all that, Binghe returns from the abyss and, through the power of communication and Lqg’s bluntness, makes up with Sqq and returns to Qing Jing Peak as a disciple, miraculously recovered from death.

At this point, Binghe doesn’t feel entitled to his Shizun’s love, so when he finds out that Liushen are “together”, he quietly accepts it even though his heart breaks a little.

Several months pass that look somewhat like this: 

Lqg goes on hunts, brings Sqq back interesting things and is overall very content with his life. He also expects Sqq to eventually get together with the disciple he acted like a grieving widow about for so long. He’s secure enough in his relationship with Sqq to know that it won’t change that much, even when Bingqiu happens.

Sqq is ecstatic that Binghe is back and that he has somewhat forgiven him. He can’t stop touching him and making him spend time with Sqq and squeezing as much time and attention out of Binghe as he can while wondering why he still wants more. He’s also very confused as to why he keeps getting upset when Binghe talks too much to any girl or is out of his sight for more than two hours. Lastly, Binghe seems strangely down, but Sqq is sure it’s just the lingering trauma from the abyss. He also keeps the fact that his relationship with Lqg is purely queerplatonic a secret, partly because he barely even remembers these days that they’re pretending to be romantic and partly because he doesn’t want to betray Lqg’s trust.

Meanwhile, Binghe is devastated every time he sees Liushen being tender or comfortable with each other and more or less depressed the rest of the time. He looks at Sqq yearningly 16 hours a day and cries into his pillow every night. He hates Lqg with all of his soul, but can’t even find that much fault with him except that he doesn’t cook or clean for Sqq and that he doesn’t flatter and admire Sqq enough and that he isn’t jealous enough and does Sqq even feel loved??? 

He goes through a whole arc of cooking and cleaning for Sqq before he realises that it makes him too sad to do that when Sqq will never return his love. He also decimates three entire demon clans and the demon realm is weeping and desperately trying to find Binghe a bride so he’ll calm down.

It all comes to a head when Binghe decides he can’t take it anymore and packs his little rucksack to leave Qing Jing Peak. He only gets halfway down the mountain before Lqg catches him in the act and confronts him because: Is he going to abandon Sqq? Does he not love him after all??

Binghe tensely tells him that he doesn’t need to worry, Binghe isn’t going to try and steal him from Lqg. He was just about to leave.

Lqg replies that he better get his butt back up there and explains the situation to him.

Having his worldview rearranged, Binghe quietly goes back to the dorms and takes a few days to process the information. Lqg and Sqq are together but not romantically? Not even sexually? Binghe isn’t quite sure how someone can be with Sqq in a purely platonic way but he’s prepared to accept it. It takes him a while, but eventually, he reaches the conclusion that: if he has the chance to be with Sqq as long as he accepts that Lqg is going to be a part of their life too, he’s gonna take it.

Meanwhile, Lqg has told Sqq all of his confrontation with Binghe and Sqq is highkey panicking. What if Binghe hates him now for being gay for him? Probably gay. Admittedly, likely gay. What if he’s disgusted with him?? He wavers between going to talk to Binghe about it and avoiding him at all costs. 

In the end, it’s Binghe who confronts him and they have a long talk that ends with them snogging on the floor, Binghe crying, and two emotionally constipated love confessions.

It takes some time, but the three find a way to fit together. Bingqiu are unbearable the first while and Lqg goes on many, many hunts to not hear anything he doesn’t want to hear. But, eventually, Lqg returns to being a frequent visitor and even spends the night there now and then. Binghe grows… fond… of Lqg. He supposes. At least somewhat. Lqg thinks Binghe is a little strange, but he’s Lqg’s now, so that’s alright. Sqq can be a bit strange too. Bingqiu are still unbearable, but what can you do? In the end, they’re happy in their own way, all three of them.