Concept: Wei Wuxian And Hua Cheng As Luo Binghe's Younger Biological Brothers, But It's Like, A Lot Younger.

Concept: Wei Wuxian and Hua Cheng as Luo Binghe's younger biological brothers, but it's like, a lot younger.

Like centuries on. TLJ's recovered from his mountain-flattening to the point where he has roughly the strength and capabilities of a decent human cultivator. The world has changed. The boundaries between the realms have gotten stronger, and the potency of demon blood based powers in the human realms have accordingly weakened. Lots of cultivators have ascended, and the current ranks of them are not nearly as impressive as they used to be. Luo Binghe and his husband have withdrawn into the demon realm to try and keep the peace and maintain stability, but TLJ doesn't feel such an obligation and prefers the human realms even when his power is a lot weaker there, so as the boundaries grow thicker, he just sort of sticks around on that side of the divide.

Eventually he takes on the persona of a wandering cultivator, observing the changes that various human sects and societies undergo. As true immortals become much more rare and the cultivation methods and philosophies change, TLJ starts taking on different personas every few hundred years, just to avoid becoming too conspicuous. He observes with interest as the various cultivation sects shift from meritocratic to dynastic inheritance, as the old sects either ascend too far from humanity or else fall into obscurity, while the new ones that take their place provide ample fodder for his soapy RPF stories and gossip mill. The boundaries between worlds become so thick that only beings of extreme strength can pass through, with the most prominent "demonic" forces in the human realms becoming resentful spirits and ghosts, although even so sometimes an item or creature still manages to chance upon a weak spot and cross over.

Beasts and cursed items that would once have been mere trifles for cultivators to deal with instead become major sources of conflict and nigh-indestructible foes. TLJ feels at times like he's watching insects wrestle with the consequences of someone carelessly discarding a piece of garbage in their path, fascinated by the lengths they must go to in order to deal with it, but then he too has his limits these days on how much he can even help (if he chooses to do so, which he doesn't always).

At one point he decides that he'd like to try living life more from the perspective of some of these barely-above-mortal level cultivators. Like choosing to play a game with extra handicaps on, just for the challenge of it. He takes on the identity of a new young cultivator, recently bereft of a master and looking to join one of the great sects, and takes on the name of Wei Changze. Striking up a friendship with the young master of the Jiang sect isn't difficult, and playing the role of servant and subordinate is pretty entertaining.

TLJ is not expecting to encounter one of Su Xiyan's reincarnations in the midst of all of this, but that's life for you.

The new Xiyan, Cangse Sanren, is a lot sweeter than the cold and cutting sugar daddy of days gone by. But she's still quite ruthless when she wants to be, and extremely talented, and she still falls into TLJ's orbit even when she has much more practical options at hand. How can he not fall in love all over again? Even when he thought she orchestrated his betrayal, he never fell completely out of love. He might be a jillion years old by now, but at heart he still wants his Xiyan to pamper and spoil him, and to return the favor as much as he possibly can.

TLJ's no saint. He's as greedy as any Heavenly Demon, especially when it comes to love. So he doesn't refrain from stealing his new Xiyan, Cangse, away from all rival suitors when the opportunity presents itself. When she gets pregnant, he becomes nervous about history somehow repeating itself. He sort of wishes she hadn't. But she's excited, and he never really got to experience this with her the first time. He's greedy for any and all experiences with her, in the end.

The baby is cute. TLJ likes him. This new son also takes after his mother, which is good too. He's not much like Zhuzhi Lang except for being a bit simplistic (because he's a baby) but TLJ feels a stirring in his heart strings not unlike the sentiments he once held for his poor doomed nephew, a stirring that grows in time to become genuine affection.

Intriguingly, this son of his doesn't show many signs of his heavenly demon heritage. It isn't potent enough to require a cradle seal. There are hints of it, here and there, but only to one who knows how to look for the signs of true demon blood. Which actually isn't all that surprising in the end, hybrids can turn out any number of ways. Still, TLJ feels confident that by the time he starts walking and talking, little A'Ying could survive on his own.

Humans tend to raise their children longer for that, though, and Cangse is very attached to their son. So TLJ is like, oh well, no need to cut the apron strings even if this third wheel stuff is dragging on a bit (Wei Ying is four). He's maybe even actively enjoying parenting! He's pretty sure he's improving at it as well, like he always makes sure his son has enough money to buy food before they leave him alone for a few weeks, even though the boy is big enough to hunt small game. Spoils him, really.

But of course, then tragedy strikes again. Despite being stronger than most stuff, TLJ is not nearly as powerful as he used to be, and he sometimes sucks at guesstimating the actual differential between him and some of the malicious ghosts out there. His attempt to satisfy Cange's ambitions and take on the Burial Mounds go disastrously, with Cangse once again dying on him, and TLJ ending up trapped in the resentful mire of the Burial Mounds, body nearly destroyed (again).

So he spends several years locked in a depression fugue state and also very slowly regenerating his destroyed parts, lost in memories and grief, eating a lot of dead humans (never his cuisine of choice, but he isn't rich on options) when one day some rancid little upstart throws down a corpse that isn't a corpse, and is also very familiar.

Why, it's Wei Ying! And he's basically a man now! TLJ's not sure exactly how much time has passed, but given how badly humans age these days, it's probably less than a century. Wei Ying is injured and having a rough time of it, it looks like his human cultivation has gone badly somehow, but he still has enough potency to his heavenly demon blood that he'd need to be dismembered and probably eaten before death would really stick. He's not entirely lucid, though, and the malicious ghosts in the Burial Mounds aren't helping.

TLJ figures, well, he is a father after all, and Cangse was so attached to their little dumpling. He'll help out! Just until the kid gets his legs back under him again. So as Wei Ying scrabbles in the dirt and writhes in torment against the dark energy of hostile ghosts, he also gets to hallucinate his father's half-rotted visage talking him through the basics of some demonic cultivation techniques that ought to help him crawl back out of this pit.

It's a good day when Wei Ying manages it. TLJ wishes him all the best, he truly does, and then he goes back to wallowing. For like five minutes (to him). Then somehow his clingy second son returns to the region, if not to his specific pit, and brings with him a gaggle of humans in varying states of distress and poor health. TLJ finds that the neighborhood has become noisy, but at least this noise involves some interesting news and gossip, and Wei Ying appears to be mastering some kind of hybrid ghost/demon cultivation technique that is pretty fascinating. Trust Cangse's son to be so creative! And he farms, too! Badly, but. Well. TLJ certainly can't throw stones, he's never once gotten the hang of gardening himself either. The only thing he's good at growing is parts of his own body, haha!

He's actually pretty upset when the human cultivators turn up and his son ends up getting torn apart and devoured by the backlash of his own innovations. TLJ briefly considers tearing himself out of his shallow not-grave to kill everyone involved, but that does sound like a lot of effort, and in his experience revenge just never works right anyway. So after a while he just crawls his way out more sedately, saves his energy and uses it to cross back over to the demon realm for a while.

He revisits his eldest son, and is like hmm this is how you decorate a palace? No no it's fine I guess. Where's Mobei Jun's little hamster man, has he written anything new lately? By which I mean in the past thousand or so years. Oh he has! Great! Also you had a younger brother for a while there. Yeah no he's dead now. But he did exist, I actually liked him, very creative boy. Shame about the angry mob.

To which Luo Binghe's response is basically some flavor of "I don't care" whereas Shen Qingqiu is genuinely distressed that Binghe had a brother and didn't even get to meet him.

TLJ hangs out for a while, reads through all of Airplane's latest works, recovers his strength, does some "bonding" side quests with Binghe courtesy of his son-in-law's meddling (doesn't really work), and then eventually decides to go back and see what's going on in the human realm again. He can't help it, he's just not really into demon culture that much, there are only so many years he can spend lounging around the place before he starts feeling itchy and recollecting every agonizing hour of youthful displeasure and boredom that defined his life as a prince.

Getting back to the human realm is even more difficult by the time he leaves again, though. The Heavens are being annoying about it. There are tiers of Heaven, of course, and lately the lowest tier (closest to earth) has been taking a fairly hard stance about keeping the realms apart. Probably because all those gods are still weak enough that even TLJ's failson could just smash them to pieces if so inclined, and the higher tiers have been consumed with their own celestial matters, so most of these junior gods haven't had much guidance and are convinced they are responsible for the order of the universe.

Imagine being less than a thousand years old, coming from the era where most cultivators don't even ascend anymore, and thinking you're hot shit just because you moved up a single rank in divinity. Whippernappers, all of them. TLJ would scold them but that sounds too much like hard work, and anyway they don't even know that he can listen in on their noisy little communication arrays and settle back with some popcorn to watch their dramas unfold. It's like his own personal television channel.

Though he doesn't let himself think directly about it too much, he is also on the lookout for another reincarnation of Xiyan. Things ending in tragedy twice can only make it more likely that they should go well the third time, right? Or, even if not... the tragedy might be tolerable, so long as there's a reprieve of togetherness beforehand again.

Alas, TLJ is not in luck for quite some time. In a moment of weakness he even settles for the pursuit of a spirited young commoner with a just-similar-enough kind of temperament to soothe the ache, before making him feel all the more unsatisfied in the aftermath. It's not that he imagines himself keeping faithful to a woman who has been dead (again) for ages and may or may not be reborn one day, it's more the feeling that having something near to the right thing is, in its way, even more unsatisfying than nothing.

Anyway, the young lady eventually tracks him down with news that she's pregnant, which TLJ supposes could plausibly be a result of their tryst. He gives her some money and tells her to contact him if the baby is weird, which does end up being the case (red eyes, clear demonic tendencies) so he provides some more compensation, at least until the kid is big enough to survive on his own. Then he just sort of peaces out to keep looking for Xiyan-Cangse Mark III, good luck to Third Son, it's not like this world is especially dangerous to a heavenly demon with blood that potent anyway.

Or rather, it shouldn't be, but plot twist: Third Son didn't get the regenerative abilities in the hybrid lottery. He dies on a battlefield. TLJ doesn't even hear about it, though he does eventually assume that the kid must have died because he's not hearing anything about a red-eyed conqueror or such after a few decades and that's unusual for Heavenly Demons. He's not too bothered in this instance, however, because he didn't let himself get attached this time. Smart of him. That whole Wei Ying business was just awful, he still thinks about it occasionally and he'd really rather move on.

Eventually a new ghost city crops up. TLJ doesn't think he'll find any version of Xiyan there, but he goes to check out the night life. Lo and behold, he finds himself spying a familiar face at the new gambling den, too. He's never heard of a Heavenly Demon becoming a ghost, but again, hybrids can be weird like that, and ghosts have filled a lot of the ecological niches left behind by the absence of demons. Ghost King, huh? Turns out Third Son is conquering his way across these piddly little realms. Good for him! Good for him. TLJ opts not to interfere. After all, he's not needed, the kid doesn't owe him anything, and he's mostly just in the city to collect gossip and enjoy the market. They get some interesting books.

He does cheer for this "Hua Cheng" when the kid beats a whole bunch of junior gods into the dirt. This must be the appeal of children's sports teams. The divine communication arrays start buzzing about this calamity, as the youths call it, and TLJ decides he's once again doing pretty good at this fatherhood business. Two interesting sons out of three isn't half bad!

The show gets even more entertaining when it turns out that Third Son has been carrying a candle for a particular disgraced god (Heavenly Demon romantic hyperfixation strikes again) and said god ascends once more, and this time there's all sorts of intrigue and plot twists in the heavenly court. It's so good that TLJ even goes to the effort of placing a call to the demon realms and magically livestreaming some of it to his son-in-law, who was so disappointed to miss seeing Wei Ying in action.

Unfortunately, the event he manages to livestream also features Hua Cheng dying. Whoops?

Well, it's a fittingly dramatic end to the story, even if his eldest son is pissed at him for upsetting his son-in-law with such things. His intentions were good!

As it happens, too, his divine livestreaming was a little more strongly broadcast than intended (well, he had to get it through the realms, that's not easy these days) and someone picked it up on the other side of the celestial divide as well. Specifically, one of the higher tiers of heaven. Which is how TLJ finds out that Wei Ying had actually come back from his first death, in a new body (smart kid!) and then subsequently hooked up with one of those Lan boys and ascended to godhood together.

After reuniting, Hua Cheng also proves resilient to the whole dying business, and so TLJ decides to make things up to Shen Qingqiu by organizing a family reunion.

His efforts initially garner interest from Wei Ying, coldness from Lan Wangji, glacial indifference from Hua Cheng, and some very cautious encouragement from Xie Lian (his sons all have impeccable taste in men), before the reunion finally happens and the gates of hell spring wide to bring forth the ultimate evil (Luo Binghe) and his better half, armed with some delicious banquet dishes and gifts for Shen Qingqiu's new brothers-in-law.

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starastray

1 month ago

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starastray

6 months ago

I've read like all 4 docs on ao3 about SY and SJ sharing a body, and I'm soooo not normal about this concept oh my God. So, it's time to ramble about my take on the concept, of course.

Most things I have read have SY transmigrate at his usual date, but... What if he didn't? What if he transmigrated when SJ was a child on the streets?

For the purposes of this, the person who has the most control of the body is based around soul strength, willpower, and collaboration between souls.

In the beginning, SY has very low soul strength, since he just straight up died, but being a child, SJ's is not much better. They both have obscene amounts of willpower, see canon. And at the beginning? Oh, SJ does NOT want to collaborate.

SY hasn't really gotten the whole "baby scum villain" thing yet, and thinks his soul has been glued to a particularly annoying street kid, so he tries to be patient with SJ, but it's not easy! Holy shit, this kid is a turbo brat who hates him! He is constantly threatening to exorcize SY! Like, kid, you can't exorcize me, you're eight. But SY does end up being useful at times, pointing out danger, reading signs that SJ can't, using his adult knowledge to help him as best he can. By the time they get to the Qiu manor, SJ grudgingly trusts and is maybe attached to his weird ghost hanger-on.

And then the Qiu manor hits. It's... Bad. Really bad. Qi-Ge is gone, hopefully to come back to them someday, but someday is not now, and they need to survive the day. Shen Yuan can't get over the fact that this is just a kid, that all of this is happening to a child. He is an adult, maybe he's not the most responsible adult, or the best person to handle this situation, but damn it SY has to do something.

The first time Shen Yuan takes over completely, it's during a beating in the first week. Before, even if SY had some control of the body, SJ was usually able to yank it back at least partially when he wanted to. He was aware of what was going on. But this time, Shen Jiu feels the first few strikes hit his back before Shen Yuan bubbles up, wrapping around him and pulling him down into blissful oblivion.

When Shen Jiu wakes up, it's over, and Shen Yuan is using some meager supplies he got from god knows where to tend to their wounds. Shen Jiu is scared, he didn't know Shen Yuan could take over that completely, but he's also... Relieved. And confused.

"Why did you take over then? If you really could steal my body, why didn't you do it earlier?"

"You didn't deserve that, Shen Jiu. I- how could I see that and not try and help? Not try and protect you?"

Shen Jiu froze. And then, slowly, started crying. Almost immediately SY starts fussing, asking if their wounds hurt too badly, if he needs him to dull the pain more. SJ sniffles, wiping his eyes, and asks; "More?"

Shen Yuan never explains that, but as SJ goes through the Qiu manor, he realizes that he is absolutely not in as much pain as he really should be. It's easier to bear when the pain is shared between the two of them.

The first time that Qiu Jianluo realizes something is off is during one of his lessons. As the brush is placed in Shen Jiu's hands, the angry, venomous child behind a mask of fear fades away, and he is instead facing calm indifference. The characters are perfect, every one of them, even the ones which there is no possible way Shen Jiu should have been able to know.

This pattern continues. Shen Jiu knows things he shouldn't. He is abnormally good at talking circles around guards and other servants, confusing and manipulating them enough to evade Qiu Jianluos summons in ways that couldn't possibly be his fault, orchestrating many of their confrontations with Qiu Haitang around as protection.

Shen Jiu is a good actor, he's smart, he's quick, but he isn't a fully grown adult master poser like our Shen Yuan is. Shen Yuan, number one rules lawyer and actor, is incredibly good at driving Qiu Jianluo up the wall without him being able to retaliate, and when he does manage to get in a beating, SJ/SY is not nearly as responsive to the pain as he should be, and heals faster than he should.

This is because the lovely new flowers that Qiu Haitang has planted in the garden at SJs kind suggestion are a PIDW plant that provides accelerated healing.

Eventually, it's too much, and Qiu Jianluo KNOWS something is up. He calls a rogue cultivator by the name of Wu Yanzi in to investigate the problem, and Wu Yanzi finds, and exorcises it. Shen Jiu is terrified and panicked, and Wu Yanzi, who had seen Shen Jiu's high spiritual potential, places Shen Yuan into a spirit trapping pouch and tells Shen Jiu to burn the Qiu manor to the ground and bring him as much money and jewelry as possible if he wants his little ghost back.

So the Qiu Manor burns, and Shen Jiu joins Wu Yanzi, significantly less willingly this time. Qi-Ge is nowhere to be seen, and Shen Yuan isn't there to save him anymore.

Shen Jiu supposes he will have to save himself.

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starastray

1 month ago

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starastray

11 months ago

Headcanon that Shen Yuan was hotter than Shen Qingqiu, actually.

Like yeah SQQ being a cultivator gave him a boost to enough attributes + being in a stallion novel where everyone is either unrealistic hot or dog's butt ugly got the Shen Qingqiu body extra points, and he wasn't bad looking to begin with. Plus not being ill is vastly more important to the new Shen Qingqiu than those extra hotness points (Without a Cure notwithstanding). But part of the reason why he's kind of like, meh, at least I'm not hideous or anything, is because Shen Yuan's original body was a knock out.

I also like him as chronically ill, and, as many people know, beauty standards and sustained suffering are not as incompatible as they should be. Shen Yuan was conventionally attractive in part because conventional beauty standards seem to want everyone slowly dying all the time. But even setting that aside, the man had flawless bone structure, an appealing figure, captivating eyes, and the kind of voice that stopped people in their tracks.

All of which was a contributing factor to his antisocial lifestyle, actually. Despite the fact that Shen Yuan does enjoy company and requires a certain baseline of social enrichment for his enclosure, his internalized homophobia and closeting did not play well with overtures from interested parties (regardless of gender). The only way to minimize the odds of him being asked out on dates was to essentially become a shut-in, especially since even Shen Yuan can only make so many excuses before he himself starts to notice that he's going to a lot of effort to avoid specifically that avenue of socialization. Far better to just remove himself from any risk of it, and then vocally lament that oh no he's just too much of a nerd to get anywhere with women!

Anyway this largely doesn't matter much outside of sheer comedy potential for any situation where SY gets his old body/life back. Like imagine a reveal scenario where the System is going to transport them back to their old lives.

Shang Qinghua: well bro I guess this is gonna be the ultimate test of love, right?

Shen Yuan: what do you mean?

Shang Qinghua: our husbands are gonna see what we looked like back before we were glorious cultivators! they're going to have to track us down in our mundane, kinda shitty pre-transmigration lives! it's gonna be at least a little embarrassing, right?

Shen Yuan: *gets his old body back*

Shang Qinghua, normal human with average looks: ...

Shen Yuan, exemplary 11/10: ?

Shang Qinghua: what. the fuck?? bro what the fuck why are you hot???

Shen Yuan: don't make it weird

Shang Qinghua: make it weird??? why were you sitting at home reading my shitty novel when you could have been out there building your own harem???

Shen Yuan: stop exaggerating

Shang Qinghua: oh my god you've always been like this. this is it, isn't it? it wasn't even brain damage from the transmigration or something--

Shen Yuan: hey

Shang Qinghua: --you've just always been completely unaware, haven't you? every time I wrote a beautiful woman who didn't know her own appeal you'd be jumping down my throat--

Shen Yuan: because that's a stupid trope--!

Shang Qinghua: --JUMPING DOWN MY THROAT EXACTLY LIKE THAT but this whole time THIS WHOLE TIME it wasn't even a glow-up issue, you've just been that, personified, yourself--

Shen Yuan: look I know I'm not ugly but I'm not I'm hardly that good-looking

Shang Qinghua: YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE THAT TROPE AGAIN! oh my god. how many broken hearts did you leave behind when you died?!

Shen Yuan: none, I wasn't even seeing anyone--

Shang Qinghua: yeah full offense but I am nottt taking your word for that. I bet you had a harem you didn't know about in this lifetime too. I bet you had a fan club, like an anime prince

Shen Yuan: *mumbling*

Shang Qinghua: what was that?

Shen Yuan: I said... only in high school...

Shang Qinghua: oh my god

Shen Yuan: it wasn't a big deal!

Shang Qinghua: *frantically trying to see if he can find any trace of it on the internet now*

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starastray

3 months ago

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starastray

10 months ago

The Snape Family - 1970

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starastray

1 month ago

When I was a kid my favorite game was Stick War. If you don't know, Stick War is when you and your friends pick up sticks off the ground and commence to beating the fuck out of each other with them. I don't mean like a boffer LARP; we was out-and-out brutalizing one another. We introduced one another to the ground on many occasions. One time a kid almost lost an eye. We found it great sport.

Anyways the local Scout troop had its weekly meetings at a Knights of Columbus hall, the which is a Catholic organization, so every year they would do that thing where they put a whole bunch of little white crosses in the ground out front in memoriam of all the aborted babies. Well, we discovered very quickly that them little crosses serve as a very good approximation of a light rapier for purposes of Stick War. Much blasphemous fun was had.

And you must understand that when you developed a taste for this greatest of all sports, Stick War is more than just a game. Stick War is a way of life. We'd be sitting around like, "Man, I can't wait for abortion season to roll around so we can beat on each other with more finesse and artistry."

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starastray

10 months ago

Silly bingqiu idea: Binghe is worried shizun has someone on the side... CLEANING for him

He knows sqq is super loyal (shizun says in his hometown people don't have harems! They marry one person for life! How romantic!) so he will never worry about shizun looking at another person that way.

BUT. He refuses to let anyone else clean or cook for his husband!! BINGHE is the wife! HIM.

Just thinking of a lot of "cheating tropes" but they're turned really silly and ridiculous. Instead of finding lipstick on shizuns collar, he smells the robe and goes "Who washed this!? I don't use this detergent!!"

He'll see food in the kitchen and start crying "shizun ate another man's cooking!? In OUR HOME!?"

He can't accompany shizun on a mission because he has work in the demon realm, and he's stuck on the throne holding his head in his hands wondering if shizun is using this business trip to, gasp, frequent those terrible establishments. (Restaurants)

Meanwhile shen Yuan feels super bad about binghe having to do everything around the house, so he's slowly been trying to help more. He tried washing his own clothes and cooking a bit, but binghe seems to hate it. He must be really awful at chores! Hopefully he'll get better with practice

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starastray

4 months ago

A casual teatime at Qing Jing Peak ~

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starastray

1 year ago

Okay, concept:

Luo Binghe grew up very poor prior to arriving to QJP. And when he first got to QJP, he was ostracized and neglected. So there are probably a lot of phrases, terms, and ideas that he didn't know were things until SY arrived and started actually teaching him. Right? So the bulk of what he did learn, he learned directly from Shen Yuan's own slightly messy attempts to fake ancient scholarly credentials.

Plus, QJP is supposed to be the peak of scholars and well-read, fancy intellectuals, and YQY probably also doesn't know shit about most of that stuff (having also been a former illiterate street child) and of course is incredibly predisposed to take Shen Qingqiu's side on virtually anything. Especially something frivolous or linked to their shared past, such as someone, say Qi Qingqi, accusing Shen Qingqiu of making up a literary reference or "gibberish" word. If something Shen Qingqiu says is something no one else seems to know, that just proves he's more worldly and well-read than the rest of his peers. Also, Shang Qinghua will probably know it, and despite his many (many) character flaws, Shang Qinghua reads a lot too. There's really very little to convince a former street child turned Demon Emperor whose former education began and ended with Shen Qingqiu specifically and Meng Mo (wildly out-of-touch with human culture anyway) to suspect that some of the difficult-to-source references his master makes really have no worldly source (in this world).

So Luo Binghe, in his quest to become as knowledgeable of all things about his shizun and keep up with him as well as possible, and maybe also put down some arguments he's overheard once and for all, eventually gets annoyed because CLEARLY there is a wealth of cultural knowledge contemporary to Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua that didn't survive to his own generation. His efforts at hunting down all the sources being referenced and origins of certain philosophical ideas or terminology keep coming up empty in certain departments. He's been over the entire QJP library with a fine-tooth comb, but QJP focuses on things pertaining to cultivation, history, and knowledge. Obviously, there are gaps. The archives are unlikely to keep pop cultural references and lowbrow literature, and Luo Binghe begins to suspect (from what tastes his master seems to share with his shishu) that that is that actual source he's missing.

The trashy yellow books and romance literature of their generation! Bawdy poems and lewd artworks so on! Heck, that's probably even where the shared "code" (bad English) comes into play -- disciples are always trying to sneak forbidden material past their teachers and smuggle naughty books into the dormitories. Knowing Shizun and Shang Qinghua, Luo Binghe honestly wouldn't be surprised if the two of them were racketeering that shit in their own disciple days. Shang Qinghua acquiring materials, Shen Qingqiu acquiring buyers, both of them making their extra spending money off of secretly supplying Cang Qiong's population with contraband fiction and art.

Also, that would explain why both Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua get flustered and refuse to elaborate if someone asks them what this or that strange turn of phrase refers to. Shen Qingqiu has a very thin face for actually discussing erotica, and Shang Qinghua doesn't like being caught doing illegal shit.

Luo Binghe desperately needs access to trash lit that's older than he is. However, most of that stuff is not printed to last, and turning it up is like trying to find old Spirk zines without the internet.

Shang Qinghua, the obvious go-to source, also seems to not really have anything that old anymore (intimidating him is laughably easy, if he had anything he would have coughed it up by the second or third time Luo Binghe asked and frowned at the same time), and if Shen Qingqiu did have anything he wouldn't want to be questioned about it. Asking too much might even get it destroyed in an act of excessive embarrassment.

Which means there is just one other person Luo Binghe knows who might be able to lead him to some sources. One other person he is absolutely, 100% certain was extensively reading trashy literature around the same time that Shizun was a young man. Someone who would know where to go to even begin looking for it.

Luo Binghe is going to have to ask Tianlang Jun for help with something.

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