Chapter Text
Not for the first time, Shen Qingqiu curses his outrageously shitty luck.
Had he really been naive enough to think that it was all over? That now, finally, he could get his happy ending?
As if that could ever happen!! Instead, he’d been kidnapped by the original Luo Binghe and dropped off in one of the courtyards reserved for his wives. A nice little touch of humiliation to hammer home how Shen Qingqiu had almost let Bing-ge fuck him, no doubt. Slumping back on the porcelain pillow of his annoyingly plush and fancy bed, he pings the System. The only response he gets is the far-too-cheerful Google translate voice of the System’s automated AI:
[The System was disconnected from its central power source, “Luo Binghe, version 2.0,” and is currently undergoing maintenance and updates in the background; the System will activate once it’s reconnected; we wish you a pleasant experience using the self-service. Thank you.]
He’s not sure how to feel about this.
On the one hand, the System being down means he can do things here that would never fly when his Binghe is around. But, on the other, it also means he can’t purchase any buffs, supplementary information, or scenario pushers. He could really use Easy Mode right about now!!!
He does have something to work with, though, in the fact that he actually knows Bing-ge very well. Far better, in some ways, than his Binghe. Before, he’d been caught off-guard with the sudden, unexpected switcheroo and had acted on pure instinct, but now he has more time to consider a strategy. Is this not the character that he’d read millions and millions of characters about? Is this not the only character in Proud Immortal Demon's Way whose actions had always followed a kind of internal logic?
Obviously, some of his assumptions have been overturned, like the idea that Bing-ge could never possibly be attracted to a man. Shen Qingqiu supposes this is proof that he didn’t bend anyone; apparently, no version of Luo Binghe had ever been properly straight to begin with.
Shen Qingqiu had also never thought that Bing-ge would ever actively trick someone into sleeping with him. But...looking back on some of his antics from the novel, it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, either.
Still, despite his threats, Bing-ge had stopped short of actually forcing anything. Which is something, Shen Qingqiu supposes, considering that he has the face of the Original Goods. Though, Shen Qingqiu is also pretty sure that Bing-ge will find other ways to make him hurt for that particular crime.
In light of that, Shen Qingqiu’s best bet is to convince Bing-ge that he’s not actually the Original Goods, and then appeal to his more positive personality traits.
Which isn’t an extensive list, unfortunately. Bing-ge repays kindness tenfold, and makes sure the material needs of those under his protection are met. He’ll help strangers, provided that it doesn’t interfere with one of his plans. And he’s incredibly indulgent with his wives, always forgiving their treachery--though Shen Qingqiu suspects that’s more a matter of pragmatism than benevolence.
And...that’s about it for Bing-ge’s good side! Truly, his Binghe is the superior version!
Strictly speaking, Bing-ge doesn’t hold grudges against those who haven’t wronged him. But in practice, that’s rarely enough to spare them if they’re enemy-adjacent. It’s only explicitly taking his side that guarantees mercy, in the end.
Shen Qingqiu has absolutely no intention of becoming part of Bing-ge’s household, in any capacity, so making himself less enemy-adjacent is all he can do for now.
Which means telling Bing-ge the truth.
Firstly, Shen Qingqiu decides to be as humble and formal with Bing-ge as possible. If the Original Goods had lived to see Bing-ge take over Tianlang-jun's domain, he never would've never been able to stomach showing Bing-ge the deference Bing-ge's owed as a Demon Lord. His disdain for Bing-ge had been too great.
Secondly, he decides that he needs to make a grand gesture. Something that the Original Goods could've never even conceived of doing.
When Bing-ge comes by to visit him at last, several days later, Shen Qingqiu is seated at a low table on the veranda, so at least he's already fairly close to the ground. This helps him to swallow his pride as he shifts to face Bing-ge and kowtows.
“This humble one greets Junshang,” Shen Qingqiu says, taking advantage of the silence. He straightens, though he remains sitting with his knees tucked beneath him. “This humble one’s name is Shen Yuan. This humble one died in his original world and was reborn into the body of this--” he gestures to himself “--piece of human garbage.” He may be more sympathetic to the Original Goods these days, but there's still no excuse for what he'd done! “This humble one apologizes for not being properly able to introduce himself, before. There is an entity that haunts this humble one and enforces a strict status quo, with this humble one’s life as forfeit if he disobeys. Our first meeting was the result of that entity’s power, as punishment for failing to accomplish one of its assigned tasks. This humble one bears no grudge against Junshang, for he understands the enmity Junshang has for Shen Qingqiu is well earned. This humble one only requests that Junshang pardon him for wearing the face and body of such scum, as it was not his choice.”
It takes even the great Demon Lord Luo Binghe a while to digest all of that. With narrowed eyes, he asks, “And why does this ‘entity’ permit such candor from you now, Shen Yuan?”
“It draws its power from the world this humble one was taken from,” says Shen Qingqiu. It’s not a lie, exactly; he just doesn’t think ‘it’s powered by the protagonist’ will be a productive factoid to share. “Now that we are out of range, this humble one is free from its influence.”
“And yet, you are not grateful,” Bing-ge notes. “Are you not pleased to be free of such a burden?”
It’s not like he’d asked to be freed!! “This humble one has become fond of his new world. He has responsibilities, and people he cares for. The burden is bearable, in light of these things.” And fuck Bing-ge very much for forcing him to admit it! His face is way too thin for this touchy-feely shit!!
“Your words are impeccable,” Bing-ge says, tilting his head to the side with a gaze that reminds Shen Qingqiu of a raptor. “Yet your eyes are so very angry. Why not be honest, Shen Yuan? This lord will not harm you for it.”
Hah! As if Shen Qingqiu is stupid enough to buy that! Bing-ge’s black belly is one of his defining features! “This humble one is not deceiving Junshang. Certainly, this humble one is anxious to return to the world from which Junshang took him, and finds the circumstances less than ideal, but he knows that Junshang is magnanimous. Surely Junshang will not keep this humble one here against his will?”
“Surely not,” Bing-ge says, smiling indulgently. Back in complete control of himself. “This lord only wishes to have some time to convince Shen Yuan to reconsider.”
Shen Qingqiu wishes very much that he had a fan to cover his face. In lieu of that, he forces himself to smile back. “Truly, Junshang is benevolent.”
There’s a pause, as Bing-ge gazes at him with unnerving intensity. It’s not unlike the way that Luo Binghe sometimes looks at him when they’re alone, only with a predatory edge that makes Shen Qingqiu even more uneasy. “Why Shen Qingqiu?”
Bing-ge's really going for the tough questions! “Shen Qingqiu was the role assigned to this humble one by the entity.”
“‘Assigned role’?”
Shen Qingqiu nods. “This humble one was assigned the role of ‘Shen Qingqiu’ for the purpose of changing the course of events according to the entity's whims.”
“And why would it select you for such a task?”
This protagonist is too slick! Shen Qingqiu doesn’t even know where to begin explaining that Bing-ge is a character in a novel that Shen Yuan died cursing!!
But...maybe he doesn’t need to explain. “If Junshang enters this humble one’s dreamscape, this humble one can show him.”
A look of genuine shock passes over Bing-ge’s face, and Shen Qingqiu allows himself the barest hint of triumph. Not a single character in the novel had ever invited Bing-ge into their dreams. Even during dream-based seduction, it had always taken place in Bing-ge’s dreamscape.
Shen Qingqiu knows full well that Bing-ge had been planning to sift through his dreams again, anyway. At least this way, it’s on Shen Qingqiu’s own terms.
Grand gesture: achieved!!
Bing-ge masters himself once more, smiling. It’s chilling, how easily he slips into his masks. Somebody who doesn’t know Binghe’s expressions as well as Shen Qingqiu might have even believed it was sincere. “As you wish,” he says. “This lord will see you tonight, Shen Yuan.”
Shen Yuan is standing by the foot of his bed in his old apartment, staring at the manhua-style poster of Luo Binghe hanging up on the wall.
He recognizes it as a dreamscape almost immediately, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like he’s been hit in the chest by a qi blast. He looks around at the place where he died--at the figures and completed kits arranged neatly on his bookshelf, at the dirty clothes strewn haphazardly on the floor--and his eyes begin to burn.
As a general rule, Shen Yuan doesn’t cry. Almost dying a few times as a kid--and actually dying a few times as an adult--has made him really good at pushing aside the sorts of feelings that would normally get somebody to cry.
But here, in the dreamscape, all of that shit is welling to the surface. Like blood from an open wound.
He’s such an idiot! Did he really think that being in his own dreamscape would be the same as being in Binghe’s? The original point of the dreamscapes had been to serve as a place of heightened emotions and lowered inhibitions, so that Luo Binghe could go through some character development. Shen Yuan had seen first-hand how unhinged Binghe could get in his own dreamscape! Why had he thought this was a good idea??
It all floods in at once: every stray unpleasant thought and feeling he’s had while lying alone in the dark. How much he misses his family. How he wishes he could’ve at least said goodbye. How they probably only found out about his death days or even weeks after the fact, with a body that was already decomposing in a pool of vomit.
He falls to his knees and curls in on himself, trembling, so sad that he’s sick with it. His stomach is burning, eating away at him from the inside out. He vomits, over and over and over again, the bile burning in his throat and mouth and nose.
A hand comes down on his shoulder, and, just like that, it’s over. He’s standing by his bed again.
Bing-ge is across from him, back turned to the poster of himself on the wall, his expression unreadable.
“Sorry,” Shen Yuan croaks. He swallows past the lingering rawness in his throat. “I didn’t mean to show you that.”
“That was how you died?” Bing-ge asks.
“The first time,” says Shen Yuan, with a nod. “Not very dignified.”
“Dying never is,” says Bing-ge.
Shen Yuan snorts. “Whatever you say, Mr Protagonist.” He...really doesn’t have a verbal filter in here, huh?
“Protagonist…” Bing-ge raises an eyebrow. “Is that what I am?”
Shen Yuan rolls his eyes and makes his way to his laptop, sitting down in his beloved gaming chair. Oh, how he’s missed this chair! “You don’t need to pull this cagey black-belly bullshit,” he says, booting the laptop up. “Just come here and I’ll show you.” And just like that, his laptop is already fully booted. Must be dream logic or something. “And you’d better not hold the way I speak to you here against me. I can’t do shit about it.”
Bing-ge huffs out something that may be a laugh, coming closer. “I would be happy for Shen Yuan to speak like this to me normally.”
“I bet,” Shen Yuan says. “What a nice excuse to punish me for being shoved into the body of a scum villain after I puked myself to death.” He opens his browser and clicks on the first bookmark. The Zhongdian page for Proud Immortal Demon’s Way loads, and he scrolls down to click on the first chapter. “There’s your answer, Bing-ge.” He stands up and gestures for Bing-ge to sit. “Read.”
Once again, Bing-ge obeys. He’s already figured out how to use the mouse to scroll down the page, because of course he has.
“There are thousands more of those chapters,” Shen Yuan tells Bing-ge, once he’s reached the end. “I read them all, and was so pissed off by the end that I died cursing it. Something took this to mean that it was my dying wish to fix the story, and put my soul into the body of one of the characters in order to accomplish it. The catch was that I got assigned the role of the worst cannon fodder villain, and had to follow certain rules. There were also some events that couldn’t be changed, like sending Binghe down into the Endless Abyss.”
Bing-ge says nothing for a while, and then: “...It’s not written very well. Why did you bother with the rest?”
“Because I really, really liked the protagonist.”
Bing-ge has a very familiar expression on his face. It’s the one Binghe makes when there’s something dangerous simmering beneath the surface. “So that weak impostor was the one who was ‘fixed’.” He looks up at Shen Yuan. His eyes are still black. “Does he know that you see him as entertainment?”
There's a sudden surge of rage. “Oh yeah, sure, it’s all been so fucking entertaining. Waking up in the body of a person who’s destined to become a human stick! Being forced to go through the motions of being him until I reach some arbitrary milestone! Having to choose between going back to my puke-covered, decomposing corpse or pushing my adorable, wonderful Binghe down into hell! Dying! Having my soul ripped out of my body! Watching Binghe go mad from sadness and jealousy! Dying again after losing my virginity in the most painful way possible! And then, when I finally think it’s all over and I can have some fucking peace, along comes Bing-ge to kidnap me into his shithole of world!” He slams the laptop closed. “Between the two of us here, I’m the one who’s being treated like a toy.” There’s an awful lump forming in his throat. “The kind that gets its limbs ripped off once it’s no longer interesting.”
The dreamscape shifts very suddenly, and then they’re in the bamboo house on Qing Jing Peak, lying together in the bed. Bing-ge is in Shen Yuan’s arms, his head pillowed against Shen Yuan’s chest. It’s the same exact position they’d been in when Shen Yuan had stupidly mistaken Bing-ge for Binghe and transferred qi to him through the night.
“I already apologized for hurting you that first time,” Bing-ge murmurs. “For somebody who claims to ‘really, really like’ me, you certainly like to misjudge me.”
Shen Yuan wants to push him away, but he can’t move his arms or legs. “What’s there to misjudge? You tried to trick me into letting you fuck me!” His eyes fill with angry tears. “That’s so fucked up! Do you even realize how fucked up that is?” He squeezes his eyes shut, his chest constricting. “If I hadn’t figured out that you aren’t my Binghe, would you have just kept going?”
“You would have enjoyed it,” Bing-ge breathes into the crook of Shen Yuan’s neck. “I wouldn’t have hurt you, the way he did.”
“Psycho,” Shen Yuan gasps out, his body trembling, as much from the humiliation of crying as from the act itself. “Get away from me.”
“You’re the one who invited me here.”
“Fuck off!” Shen Yuan snarls, wanting so badly to buck him off.
Abruptly, the dreamscape fades away.