aww lookie a tiny @slmjulie https://www.instagram.com/p/BuNhamVHUT8/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=i2lmkrhq4s08
Okay not to be that person but does it not KILL you to see the reaction of Shen Yuan’s family to his death? Like this keeps me awake at three am and haunts me when I am alone
What do you mean MAYBE Shen yuan died alone in his living room and wasn’t found by anyone until days had passed because he didn’t talk much to his family anyway? His younger sister coming into their house to find her brother and yell at him for ignoring her text messages for weeks but secretly she feels just so guilty for not checking up on him.
So she’s on her way with some takeaway and a lecture she’s repeated in her mind the entire elevator ride. She puts her key into his door, a key she has and her brothers have and their parents have but only she ever uses. It hurts her a little that their family never visits yuan-ge but then he just keeps getting sick
She enters and the first thing she smells is this horrible-horrible smell of a corpse that makes her immediately want to retch. I really don’t know how to describe it but just imagine a sister seeing her dead brother rotting before her eyes
Shen yuan must have been dead for at least three days. Shen yuan was dead for three days before his family found out. Shen yuan, even in death, was alone as he was in life. Immediately she dials her brothers and parents and the rest is history
This breaks her, because she keeps recalling the last text Shen yuan had sent asking her to visit and she keeps believing that if she had visited, her brother would be alive
Shen yuan’s brothers whom I imagine to be based on SJ and YQL respectively are no less aggrieved. Er-ge shuts himself off in his office and gets even more cruel to his employees. Deep down, he resented SY for how easily he got attention, how he wrapped everyone around his finger, how he could be hooked on an IV everyday but still smile, how even though life was always cruel to him, he was always kind to life. Most of all, he hated just how easy his brother was to love and hurt and ignore and still love back
He doesn’t attend the funeral, the entire family scorns him for it, saying he doesn’t love SY but the truth is, he wouldn’t have survived seeing the body of his brother so cold
Da-ge is raked with guilt. As the oldest, he always took care of SY, his sister and brother are too young to remember but he remembers how weak SY was when he was born. He and SY had a terrible falling out over SY wanting to live alone, as a result he never visited his baby brother’s apartment. Funny, the first time he visits It is to pack it up in wake of his brother’s death
No one in the family gets over the fact SY was dead for three days before they noticed. They all resent each other for it. But most of all, they resent themselves for it.
When I think of death, I imagine a quiet darkness and the warmth and safety of a mother’s womb. I like to believe that when we die, we simply become glowing souls put in the sky as stars, left to rest until put back on Earth. When I think of death, I want to sleep forever and never wake up. #darkness #sleepingsouls #stars #death #peace #peaceful
oooh and it proves to himself that it wasn't all just a dream or a figment of his imagination because he didn't even know how to do calligraphy or play a ancient chinese instrument in his last life, so obviously, he couldn't have possibly just made up so many years with his friends and family and binghe--
sometimes he can close his eyes while he plays and he's suddenly in his bamboo house, with binghe nearby, perhaps dusting the shelves for a millionth time as an excuse to be near his husband, and he's back home but--
he's broken out of it by applause.
he opens his eyes. his old (new, he had had such a thin face in this body) poker face slips into place as his eyes dull.
--oh. he's still here.
I love Bingge/Shen Yuan so much but I long for more AUs where Shen Yuan wakes up like the pevensies falling out of a wardrobe., and his Bingmei finds him anyway...
Shen Yuan de-transmigrates, wakes up sputtering for breath on his apartment floor, picks himself up, and tries to pretend he hasn't just lived over a decade as the main love interest in a trashy danmei series.
Swears off web novels and forums for life. He pleads with his parents for a Guqin after having shown zero interest in any constructive hobby in his life before, they're shocked he can actually play it? Like, very well? He joins a society, making waves as a scholar of traditional Chinese arts seemingly coming from out of nowhere?
Somehow he's much calmer going out in public than before. Doesn't feel his chest closing up so much... obviously it was his asthma.... (Not that he had social anxiety before, but if he did, he kind of stopped worrying in that... Weird dream? Because nobody seemed real at first. Not that they were real...) Anyway, if he just does what Shen Qingqiu would do, he always seems competent. Even if he's scrawny, dumb Shen Yuan.
He's out playing some day when he sees... someone... watching him, slightly scruffy streetwear, there one moment gone the next. He misses Binghe so bad, he's been ignoring it this whole time. And that guy - but, he needs to not be ridiculous. Stop pining for a fictional character Shen Yuan! You're better than this,!
A week later there's a knock on his door, he opens it to this short, scruffy looking guy who immediately says "Cucumber bro? Is that you?" He panics and nearly shut the door.
Someone gets their hand in the door first and pries it open.
"Shizun? That is you right? Running away again?"
We got ice cream🍦🍦🍦 I got a Birthday Cake and Rainbow Sherbet. (at Scoops on First) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsHihlHlSaE/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=siht04ro7me4
She’s so cute but why oh why did my dad let her out dressed like this? 🤦🏾♀️ #terriblechoices #uglyoutfit #mismatching #dancing #cutie
https://archiveofourown.org/works/64863049
here are the memes~
Shen Qingqiu was doomed.
He stood still, fluttering his fan nervously and trying to avoid catching his counterpart's, the real Shen Qingqiu, glaring eyes from across the room. Instead, he idly observed the other Cang Qiong Mountain Peak Lords, trying to spot the differences between the ones he knew and their alternates.
Liu Qingge had brought back a strange artifact from one of his hunts to the monthly Peak Lord meeting. It was a mirror, rimmed an ugly tarnished gold, topped with a decoration that was shaped into an unidentifiable creature with ruby red eyes.
[Important Artifact Detected: Red-Eyed Sphinx's Mirror! Quest starting...]
Shen Qingqiu had been trying to remember where it might have appeared in PIDW when the surface of the mirror suddenly began to glow a dull yellow. It quickly brightened until it obscured everyone's vision.
And then, there stood another set of peak lords across the room, facing them down.
System, what on earth is going on???
[Quest started: Lost Long Spirit in My Reflection! Other characters have been transported to this universe. Host must find a way to send them back without revealing his identity as a transmigrator.]
WTF? I didn't agree to this!
[Good luck!]
System??? Get back here!
While the two Yue Qingyuans and Xu Qinglis conversed together to try to understand what had happened, the other peak lords had begun to mingle with each other, curious about their counterparts.
Shen Qingqiu tried to suppress his panic, sticking close to Shang Qinghua. His Yue Qingyuan occasionally flicked his softened gaze towards the alternate Shen Qingqiu, likely noticing that the other still acted as he used to before his qi deviation. In fact, several of the peak lords he had gotten to know over the years were sending some looks at the other Shen Qingqiu.
With the original goods right there, how long would it be before something exposed him as a fraud?? What if he was confronted about why he acted so differently?
[Host must avoid having his identity exposed. Being revealed as a transmigrator will result in Host being immediately sent back to his old body.]
Yeah, yeah, same shit as always!
Looking to his side, Shang Qinghua seemed to be experiencing the same threats, desperately looking away from the more dead-eyed Shang Qinghua across the room who, luckily, was barely paying him any attention.
Fuck, what do we do?
---
Shen Qingqiu continued to glare at the Other Shen Qingqiu in the room. The other Shen Qingqiu was so obviously a fraud, he could tell within minutes of being here. While his alternate seemed somewhat familiar, he didn't act like him at all, his mannerisms were all off, and despite the attempt at keeping a poker face, Shen Qingqiu could tell that he was nervous. Probably at being caught out.
His alternate self had likely been replaced with a bodysnatcher or some sort of spirt, if they truly were supposed to be the same person. Was everyone else stupid, or had they had their brains sucked out by a Heart Mouthed Lobster-Squid?
Or maybe they simply like the bodysnatcher better and didn't bother to investigate.
Shen Qingqiu's face became stormier, turning his glare to the Other Yue Qingyuan, wondering if he had felt happier once his precious Xiao-Jiu had vanished. The other Yue Qingyuan's face grew even more pathetic. Tch. Typical.
"That stupid System--" Shen Qingqiu nearly snapped his neck in looking at the bodysnatcher upon hearing his murmur. The fraud, upon noticing his sudden attention, clammed back up and looked away. But Shen Qingqiu knew what he heard.
Xi Tong.
He hadn't heard those words in years, not since--
He stepped forward, scanning the other once more. Upon a second, more thorough look, Shen Qingqiu realized that he grew more familiar. He wore his hair in the way that Shen Qingqiu wore it, but looser and less severe. His eyes were clearer and lighter, with hints of a smile, despite his nerves. He occasionally quickly glanced up and to his left, as if seeing something there, before bringing his attention back to the room at large.
No. It couldn't be. He was long dead, despite Shen Qingqiu's best efforts. Even if the fake had some similar things about him, that doesn't mean--
Shen Jiu had once had a brother, besides Qi-ge. Slightly smaller than him, despite the fact that Shen Jiu passed him along as much food as he could when on the streets. He smiled so much despite their circumstances, and was so kind despite Shen Jiu constantly telling him that he was making himself a target. But he looked so, so similar to Shen Jiu himself. They could have switched their clothes and looked exactly the same, if one didn't notice the difference in their demeanors.
His brother has also always been a little odd, talking to himself and arguing with an imaginary friend that only he could see named Xi Tong. One of the reasons that they survived as long as they did on the streets was due to the inexplicable knowledge that his brother seemed to have. Somehow, his brother knew about the various plants or small animals that they could hunt and sell for a pretty coin in the markets. Shen Jiu never asked, not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
But his brother was dead. He had died years ago, in the time during when they were in Qiu's manor. During a punishment for Shen Jiu's attempt to get them both to join Wu Yanzi; he had switched their clothes and taken Shen Jiu's place and died for it. That had been the final catalyst that made him set the manor ablaze and escape, mourning his brother's death as his fault for daring to be free. Cursing Qi-ge for not coming back for them.
Dazed and his vision dim, Shen Jiu took another step forward, and another. Hope, something he thought he had killed off long ago, slowly rose in his chest.
Had his brother survived in this world? Had he managed to escape alongside Shen Jiu? Or had Shen Jiu died in his place? Dimly, he can't help but think that the world would be far kinder if that were the case. If his brother had made it to Cang Qiong Mountain and became a peak lord all on his own and still managed to keep his smile. If he didn't have Shen Jiu dragging him down with him.
The other Shen Qingqiu, not having noticed his approach, laughed at something the other Shang Qinghua said ("Wonder if Shang Qinghua is a traitor here, too," Shen Jiu thought dimly). His laugh was the same. He rose his fan to hide his face, but Shen Jiu noticed how his nose crinkled, and his eyes nearly closed in delight, exactly like--
"A-Yuan?"
wowow
what’s christmas even like in non-christian families? in completely non-religious families? like what do you tell your children? “well, kids, we’re eating a whole lot of food and spending a fuckton of money spoiling you because some other people somewhere believe their holy lord and saviour and the greatest person to walk the earth was born 2000 years ago. here’s a playstation.”
Here have a sunset! 🌅 (at Fort Myers, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsHHIprFmOA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=13bs8k9cfe0wg
"I have... realized," Shen Qingqiu said, "that you technically indirectly killed dozens of teenagers. At the Immortal Alliance Conference." He glanced at his friend from the corner of his eye. The office had been quiet before then, though Shen Qingqiu's thoughts had been heavy with contemplation.
Shang Qinghua lifted his head from his paperwork to look at the other, eyes half-lidded and slightly dull. "It's so kind of Shen-shixiong to have realized this. It only took a few months after the Conference had already ended."
"...don't you feel guilty?"
"What is there to feel guilt about?" Shang Qinghua said nothing else, and when Shen Qingqiu did nothing but frown back at him, he went back to signing various forms. In the silence that followed, he sighed and continued, "Listen, I'm not a necessarily a good person. I'm selfish, and I want to live. If I have to choose between myself and random characters that I don't know, then I'll always choose myself."
Shen Qingqiu stared at him, before looking down at his lap, where one of his friend's written works lay in a scroll. Most of the other's writings that he had gotten to read were far better than the trash his web novel had devolved into, more comparable in quality to the early PIDW chapters. He was excited to read this one, but he hadn't opened it yet. "I wasn't saying it to condemn you. After all, I want to live, too." He shifted. "So, I guess I'm not a good person, either."
The An Ding Peak Lord immediately shook his head. "No, unlike me, you are a good person--"
"If I were a better person, I would've taken the point deduction and allowed myself to die at the edge of that Endless Abyss than do what I did."
Silence permeated the room. Shang Qinghua kept his eyes on his forms, though his hands remained still, while Shen Qingqiu continued to stare down at the scroll in his lap.
Finally, Shang Qinghua let out a dry laugh and put down his paperwork to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Shen-shixiong, you sometimes irritate me, you know?" His voice was light, but there was something else in it, a barely noticeable tremor that made Shen Qingqiu look up. "You say these things, but you're sitting here, agonizing over the choices you've made to keep yourself alive. What does that say about you?"
What does it say about me, that I don't do the same? Shen Qingqiu sighed, fingers tightening around the edge of the scroll. "It says that I still have to live with it, the choice that I made."
"Then why are we even having this conversation? We both made our choices, and guilt or not, we're both still here, aren't we? Why think about it any further?"
Shen Qingqiu studied his friend, eyes tracing the exhausted droop of his eyes, the way tension clung to his slumped shoulders, despite his upright position. He had spent weeks turning it over in his head, wondering how his friend could stand the stain of blood on his hands, even if it meant that he got to live. But hadn't Shen Qingqiu done the exact same thing?
"Because it bothers you," Shen Qingqiu finally said. "Even if you say it doesn't."
Shang Qinghua scoffed and picked his brush back up, the black ink having already smeared all over his latest form. It would need to be discarded. "Don't make me laugh. I'm not some sort of anti-hero. I just know better than to waste time brooding over something I can't change. If it ever starts bothering me too much, I just tell myself that they were all meant to die, anyway."
"That's a bit cold, shidi."
"Don't try to pretend that you don't do the same mental gymnastics. You're just not as good at it as I am."
Shen Qingqiu couldn't argue with that. Sometimes, the world felt too real, and then not real enough. Shen Qingqiu would hear someone laugh, or taste a brilliantly seasoned dish, and everything felt too much and it all exploded before it turned dim. He would no longer be quite inside his body, and he would notice for the first time, again and again, how nothing was ever quite real.
It was a story. That's all it was. It was all just a story.
Shang Qinghua watched him for a moment, then sighed. "Shen-shixiong, if you ever figure out how to balance staying alive with being a good person, let me know."
"Oh?" Shen Qingqiu finally unrolled the scroll he had been holding for some time now. "And what would that accomplish?"
"Maybe then I’d consider feeling guilty."