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tcfactory · 5 months

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I have Other Projects that need writing first, but I have this mighty need for like. An SVSSS fic with Shen Jiu getting Tianlang-Jun out from under the mountain for whatever reason, consequently gaining just the worst kind of meddling gremlin matchmaker who is now dead set on fixing his life.

Shen Qingqiu is going to get therapy whether he wants it or not!! Tianlang-Jun can't go enacting vengeance on Huan Hua yet and has nothing better to do with his life right now! Zhuzhi-Lang, tell the prickly immortal master that this is for his own good! Attaboy.

Did I write almost 3k words of an outline for a fic I don't currently have the spoons to write and might never get around to? Yes. It was originally a twitter thread here, enjoy the very lightly edited details of this madness under the cut:

Maybe some business takes Shen Qingqiu near the mountain and curiosity bites him to see the sealed demon emperor - to see how good of a job stupid Qi-ge did because his shizun is singing praises about how Yue Qingyuan did the main seal and without him the whole thing would fall apart.

So he hides his presence - can't have the head disciple of Qing Jing Peak snooping around after all - and goes to take a look. It's soon enough that Tianlang-Jun is not completely out of it yet, he's humming and reciting and singing to himself in the dark to stay sane.

It gives Shen Qingqiu pause because he knows that song the demon is singing in a voice that would be surprisingly nice if his throat wasn't halfway crushed probably. One of the jiejies at the Pavilion sang it to him once when they were talking about composing, one music master to another. She composed it before she came to the city, for a likeable if spoiled young master, who then fell in love with an upstanding cultivator and kindly paid her ten times the original commission fee to please don't ever perform it in public because his beau is the jealous type.

So how does Tianlang-Jun know the song, Shen Qingqiu wonders. There's something very fishy about this. The songstress spoke only highly of the 'spoiled young master', but now that he thinks about it the timeline seems to check out... So he sneaks closer to investigate.

Tianlang-Jun hears him approaching and turns towards him. There are talismans over his eyes so he can't see Shen Qingqiu, but he quietly asks "the immortal master" to please don't be loud, his dear nephew have only just now fallen asleep. Poor Zhuzhi is running himself ragged trying to keep his uncle's spirit up and trying to find any crack in the talismans, but he already reverted to his original form and can't do much. He's curled up next to Tianlang-Jun so his uncle can just barely rest a hand on his head and is deep asleep.

Shen Qingqiu can't resist commenting on how hideous Zhuzhi-Lang is and Tianlang-Jun agrees but insists this is his nephew they are talking about so could the immortal master please not pick on his sweet hardworking Zhuzhi-Lang? Ah, master, did you know in some parts of the demon realm this counts as flirting? No?

They talk some more and Shen Qingqiu is mystified by how cordial the demon is - "What point is there in wasting my energy on raging against you, master Shen? You were not one of those who sealed me and my throat hurts so much afterwards you just wouldn't believe. 0/10 would not recommend."

Gets confirmation that yes this is indeed the 'spoiled young master', he does remember the girl he hired to write him a song, he now regrets terribly that he didn't just stick with it instead of running after romance. Was the money enough for the girl to buy her contract? Oh good. He was worried he didn't give enough.

And the more he hears about Tianlang-Jun's shenanigans in the human realm, the more Shen Jiu has Doubts about what went down. A man who fusses over his unfortunate, hideous thing of a nephew like Zhuzhi-Lang is the most precious good boy, who pretends to be drunk and 'accidentally' rents out a whole brothel for a week so a violent young master and his buddies can't hurt the girls while they are visiting the city is about as high up on Shen Qingqiu's 'good person' scale as a man can ever get, regardless of what else he is.

Shen Qingqiu has a good sense for Men That Are Better Avoided and Tianlang-Jun is tripping none of his badtouch feelers - very much unlike the Old Palace Master. Zhuzhi-Lang eventually wakes up and tries to scare Shen Qingqiu off, with mixed results. His unusual loyalty to Tianlang-Jun is noted, however.

So Shen Qingqiu goes back to the sect and hatches a Plan. It involves Mu Qingfang who knows all sorts of truth pollen, Shang Qinghua who can source basically anything they need and Yue Qingyue because stupid soft-hearted Qi-ge would not stand for being complacent in injustice. Plus they can count on his good nature to cover their asses if they are caught. Always good to have a backup plan in case they get in hot water, head disciples of a notable sect sneaking into another sect's territory to tamper with the sealed heavenly demon emperor.

It is fortunate that Tianlang-Jun currently can't see and Zhuzhi-Lang has no words to tell him Yue Qingyuan is there, because all Shen Qingqiu told him was that they are not with Huan Hua and that he wants to get to the bottom of this - preferably so he can dig a hole there and bury the Old Palace Master for good, the wording of which highly amuses the demon. So Tianlang-Jun is very cooperative, for the relief their company brings if nothing else. They hear all about his enthusiasm for the human realm (now a little bit dampened, he admits with a strained laugh) and figure out that he can't keep a serious lie up for more than 5 minutes. He probably could, Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua agree, finding common ground in their mutual bullshit/lie-radar, but it's not in his nature. Shang Qinghua mimes checking with his sources, goes for a good round of complaining to his ice prince, then returns having 'confirmed' Tianlang-Jun's recounting of the events.

So next point on the agenda: fixing this shit. Getting Tianlang-Jun out and finding out what happened to Su Xiyan. After that: finding a pit of demon ants they can shove the Old Palace Master into for a slow death, getting him to confess all his crimes in writing beforehand optional.

Getting Tianlang-Jun out is easier than anticipated because the sect leader was only exaggerating a little when he said the Yue Qingyuan's seal is the thing holding the whole binding together. With it willingly undone Yue Qingyuan can go wreck the other bindings with his cursed sword to weaken it further. Tianlang-Jun has only been under the mountain for a few years so he's not completely depowered, and after Mu Qingfang gives him some very rare demonic boosters ("Shang-shidi, stop shaking, nobody is going to ask where you got them!") he can break out no problem. It comes with a huge earthquake tho, so they must make a run for it. Huan Hua does find out that Tianlang-Jun got out as a result, but they are not suspected of freeing him for now.

They must hide the still recovering Tianlang-Jun and the now conveniently humanoid Zhuzhi-Lang and they need to track down what happened to Su Xiyan - which is probably the easiest, because Zhuzhi-Lang can remember her scent and her qi and he's a demon snake so he can use those to track her path, even years past. They find no Su Xiyan, but they do find baby Luo Binghe and that makes things uuuh. Not really better, honestly. The washerwoman is glad that the father came to track the child down, he looks like a very upstanding young master ("How?! He looks one bad step away from feral!"). Nobody listens to Shang Qinghua and Zhuzhi-Lang when they try to explain that maybe Tianlang-Jun as a single father is not a great idea, but they are kind of short on great or even passable ideas so they will take it.

Mu Qingfang however discovers the seal on Luo Binghe and declares that it shouldn't be carelessly undone. So they can't go and hide in the demon realm with effectively human baby Luo Binghe and while Tianlang-Jun can actually hide his demon nature very convincingly, they can't go around with Zhuzhi-Lang being so clearly recognizable.

Shang Qinghua and his plot devices to the rescue!

It's the flower of a very rare demonic plant with the ability to change half of a mixed-origin demon's nature - was originally meant for a wife plot with a demoness with similarly incompatible heritages who of course turned into a beauty afterwards...

Heavenly demon blood is very resistant to tampering, but nothing stops the flower from changing poor Zhuzhi's snake half - in this case to that of a human, for easier blending in purposes. Zhuzhi-Lang is not happy about this, but he can see the merits in it.

The drawbacks: the flower blooms once every three centuries (Shang Qinghua gets Mobei-Jun to steal a preserved bloom for him from the Northern treasure vault) so if he changes, he can't change again until then, quite a few decades from now. He will be stuck as half-human. He would lose all his snake traits, which he is not happy about.

The pros: easier hiding among humans, if something happens and Tianlang-Jun dies for real he won't turn back into that awkward half-snake form. He would remain humanoid.

The neutral: Mu Qingfang realizes that his mental health is depended on his snake familiars and sets Shang Qinghua to get a bunch of very rare ingredients for a potion of permanent speak-with-sneks. The family resemblance between Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang is more obvious so they can pass him off as Tianlang-Jun's son to make their made-up backstory more coherent. Mobei-Jun is a little suspicious about Shang Qinghua's sudden interest in rare demonic things, but mostly he's happy that his human is asking things of him, and he can start working off the life debt he owes Shang Qinghua. He might teleport into the middle of shenanigans and get drafted into the madness.

Zhuzhi-Lang never looked very old, but he looks maybe 13-14 now. So after overhearing Shang Qinghua's mumblings that they will have to get Luo Binghe into the sect to start cultivating before his seal is broken so he has the basics of cultivation down, Tianlang-Jun gets a wonderful idea. And unfortunately, the person in charge of babysitting 'runaway young master single dad' is Yue Qingyuan who feels too guilty about sealing him under a mountain to oppose him before it's too late. They end up similarly sealing Zhuzhi-Lang so he can 'scout ahead' and as 'the big brother' prepare a spot for Luo Binghe in the sect.

It's bit of a tossup who gets the newly renamed Luo Yuxi shidi, but Shen Qingqiu will probably call dibs, let's be honest. He can't trust Yue Qingyuan not to go along with more madness and Zhuzhi-Lang has no talent for medicine (and he is getting really fond of Mu Qingfang, nope, not under Shen Qingqiu's watch!). And he still doesn't trust Shang Qinghua, period. They are all in this together and yes, they are terribly entangled with demons and schemes now, but he's not letting Shang Qinghua off the hook for already being all that and strangely knowledgeable about things to boot.

Tianlang-Jun moves into the city with Luo Binghe, fully leaning into the whole 'rich widow who ran away from his responsibilities after tragic death of wife' angle, takes on the washerwoman to help with the child rearing and almost accidentally builds a spy network (he calls it 'gossip club'). And what better gossip than what Zhuzhi-Lang brings him from the sect! While Shen Qingqiu and the others work their way up to peak lords, Zhuzhi-Lang makes it to head disciple instead of Ming Fan (he's just barely categorized as next gen compared to the Qin lords, due to how long it takes him to get the hang of human cultivation as opposed to demonic power) and passes all the juicy bits to Tianlang-Jun. And what juicy bits they are! He could write a romantic tragedy about QiJiu from all the details Zhuzhi-Lang overheard and/or strongarmed Shang Qinghua into telling once Mobei-Jun accidentally let it slip that Shang Qinghua might be something of a seer.

Actually, not just could, he does. Names and identifying details are tastefully changed - and he does a somewhat better job of it than Mingyan, so it's not immediately traced back to Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan. Partially because unlike The Regret of Chunshan, Tianlang-Jun's chosen medium is prose, so it doesn't catch on that quickly.

He can't help himself tho, it is still a yellow book, so there is a lot of added spice to that tragedy that decidedly did not happen and Shen Qingqiu will hound him about when he finally hears about it - lucky thing that Shen Qingqiu doesn't find out until after Tianlang-Jun decides he wants a happy end and starts meddling to make them reconcile/get together. Zhuzhi-Lang is happy that his uncle is busy trying to set Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan up because it means Tianlang-Jun doesn't realize that Zhuzhi-Lang started dating Mu Qingfang somewhere along the way. Luo Binghe grows up happy and spoiled rotten by his father, his Zhuzhu gege and several uncles, including Mobei-Jun.

Linguang-Jun eventually notices that his nephew keeps disappearing to the human world (to babysit Luo Binghe, mostly, but he still often sleeps in Shang Qinghua's room) and comes to investigate, only to be fully drawn into all the matchmaking shenanigans and maybe get surprise wifebeamed by Tianlang-Jun. Tianlang-Jun might cause a ceasefire between Linguang-Jun and Mobei-Jun by accident because the relationship between Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang makes Linguang-Jun reconsider his hate towards Mobei-Jun. He still doesn't approve of Mobei-Jun marrying Shang Qinghua though! Seriously Mobei, at least pick a bride who notices when he's being courted!

Liu Qingge shows up at one point, probably, trying to investigate what's going on with those four suddenly becoming like peas in a pod. Idk what he would achieve other than get underfoot, but he tries his best. Tianlang-Jun might dupe him into becoming his sparring partner, by pretending to be "Luo Tianlu, absolutely legit rogue cultivator who retired into a secular life and settled down as a young master with his two sons". Shang Qinghua finds it funny, so he helps Tianlang-Jun forge evidence for his fake identity.

Binge's gay awakening is one day realizing that the annoying shishu who likes sparring shirtless with his dad is really hot actually. He still ends up on Qing Jing Peak because Tianlang-Jun would cry if his son didn't become at least somewhat aware of arts, and he doesn't want to disappoint his dad. But the Endless Abyss arc is basically just a big Training Montage of Luo Binghe trying to become a worthy challenger to court Liu Qingge. When he finds Xin Mo he leaves it the fuck alone because the adults have taught him not to touch obviously evil swords whispering questionable promises. Besides, he can ask Mobei-shushu to teleport him home - or airdrop a very protective and ridiculously overpowered Tianlang-Jun in - any time he's in actual danger. It's a little bit embarrassing, but Shang Qinghua taught him that surviving is worth a little embarrassment, and he should know, right?

Airplane gets to watch the disaster of a setting he wrote spin towards multiple happy endings instead of tragedy, to the tune of a song about a spoiled young lord, because it was Shen Qingqiu and the others who set things in motion and it fried his System.

He likes it better this way.

#svsss #shen qingqiu #tianlang jun #zhuzhi lang #yue qingyuan #shang qinghua #mobei jun #I sat down to get some thoughts out of my head and this thing fell out #it's rough as shit and at best works as an outline #I'm putting this out here in case anyone feels inspired by any bit of it #I might eventually write it myself once I finish my current projects and find the energy #maybe #hopefully?#tc writes

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