AU Where Shen Jiu Takes One Look At Tiny Prospective Disciple Shen Yuan Who Looks So Much Like Him But

AU where Shen Jiu takes one look at tiny prospective disciple Shen Yuan who looks so much like him but so fucking soft and immediately goes “I must destroy it” but when he tells Yue Qingyuan he wants the boy for Qing Jing Peak, YQY unexpectedly puts his foot down— reason being that he thinks the Shens must be long-lost brothers and he’s afraid that if SJ badly hurts SY and then finds out the truth he’ll regret it. So instead SY becomes a disciple of Qiong Ding Peak.

The thing is, though, that SY knows why YQY took him in. So even though he sees YQY as an older brother figure, he privately believes that the only reason the sect leader is affectionate towards him is that he’s (possibly) related to SJ. Meanwhile, YQY is going around the whole Twelve Peaks like “omg have you met my beloved new disciple?? he’s so cute and smart and he’ll probably inherit the sect some day.” SJ is immensely jealous and furious at himself for it.

Cut forward several years and SY is head disciple of Qiong Ding. SJ manages to corner him after a meeting of the peak lords and is harassing him about something or other until SY finally blindsides him by blurting out the “fact” that YQY still thinks they’re siblings and is really only soft on him for SJ’s sake…. SJ is so incredulous he nearly has a qi deviation.

Afterwards, he tries very hard not to let his feelings towards SY be affected by the most absurd bit of self deprecation he has heard in his entire life, but a week later he breaks and storms into YQY’s study like “ZHANGMEN-SHIXIONG ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOUR PRECIOUS FAVORITE DISCIPLE BELIEVES YOU DON’T ACTUALLY LIKE HIM???”

I don't think i'll ever be able to get over how coquetish Shen Qingqiu is, like, bro is supposed to be a repressed nerd inside a villain's body so why is he acting like the type of man wars are fought over? That head tilt with his voice drawing out the word "Shidi" would make ME fight a deranged half-demon over his corpse for 5 yrs straight, Liu Qingge was victim

ok but bunny suits r so cute

[ID: Scum Villain fanart of Shen Qingqiu in a bunny suit. He's first shown sitting down with a confused expression and light blush. Then he's shown with an unnerving angry expression, planting a heel on Shang Qinghua's forehead. Shang Qinghua, bleeding, looks outraged. End ID]

ID by @princess-of-purple-prose

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*

i’m sorry are you telling me that after everything he said about his family supposedly being close— doting on his little sister and having a warm older brother whom yue qingyuan reminds him of— shen yuan was never once properly hugged before he died???

like i know he immediately tries to cover it with an uncomfy aside about how it wasn’t a pretty young woman hugging him or w/e, but he clearly isn’t talking about a first romantic hug specifically, because the context is being tackled by a crying 15-year-old whom he calls a huge baby for it.

so this is literally his first real, tight hug in his 20ish years of life and it happens in a ‘fictional’ world with a child he thinks might grow up to brutally-yet-justifiably (to his mind) torture him after he died alone and had his soul transplanted into someone else’s body.

babe??? i really don’t think your life was nearly as idyllic as you implied and i would love to know what the fuck is up with that

do you guys think yue qingyuan might have fallen for shen yuan too, in the end?

my headcanon is that shen jiu's 'charming personality' has pretty much eroded most of yue qingyuan's affection over the years. he'd still offer back up to his 'xiao jiu' in all things, but it's mostly guilt and nostalgia by the time shen yuan appears. and stubbornness, yqy simply refusing to face the facts tbh.

i wonder if he didn't find 'post-qi deviation' shen qingqiu just that much more lovable, cute and everything he wished his xiao jiu would be. in the end, it was shen yuan that yqy opened up to and to whom he finally gave an explanation. only after shen yuan showed him he 'still' cared about his 'qi-ge'.

it's a shame that shen yuan is now the one that carries the 'guilt' for replacing the original scum villain and taking his place. 'inheriting' yqy's affection even if 95% of said affection at that point is towards shen yuan rather than shen jiu.

i really wish to see yue qingyuan/shen yuan in a happy relationship since i think they could have great chemistry, i just can't see how it could be achieved without 1.000.000+ words full of guilt, impostor syndrome and heartbreak 😔

come on! they could be so soft and happy together!