Work Text:
Once again, it’s time for Shang Qinghua to receive feedback from his most devoted reader. Which is usually a full hour of verbal abuse as Shen Qingqiu completely rips his work to shreds. It’s a routine, one Shang Qinghua dares not break because the one time he published something without giving Shen Qingqiu an exclusive first look... the less said about that, the better! What scorn! What fury! And not just from his devoted reader! As the obvious cause of such ire, Shang Qinghua was practically tossed off the mountain by his unfilial son.
Don’t want a repeat of that!
When Shen Qingqiu finally puts down the manuscript, he... doesn’t slam it down with vitriolic disdain. Which is a good sign!
“I see you’ve finally stopped using every single word for shamelessly pandering to your shitty readers,” he says, which is rich coming from the guy who commented on every single chapter. “Congratulations. You’ve managed to write something that isn’t trash.”
Wow! High praise!
“And a happy ending, too?” Shen Qingqiu scoffs in that high-and-mighty way he thinks masks the fact that he has emotions, just like the rest of them. “Thank god you’ve finally worked through all your abandonment issues.”
“Haha, yeah,” Shang Qinghua says absently, still processing the remarkably kind words. Then, “My what?”
Shen Qingqiu stares. “Are you fucking serious?” After a solid minute of silence, he drags his hand down his face. “You are,” he says in horrified revelation.
All Shang Qinghua can really do is shrug. “Bro, it’s not that deep. I think you’re reading into it.”
“Reading into it? Reading into it? You have the nerve to say that to me!?” Shen Qingqiu gestures furiously at himself. “Original goods? Abandoned! Betrayed! Miserable!”
“He’s the scum villain, what do you expect? A happy childhood? And he wasn’t betrayed, he just thought—”
“Mobei Jun!? Abandoned!! Betrayed!! Miserable!!”
“He overcomes all that! That’s the point!”
“Luo Binghe!?” Shen Qingqiu yells, well and truly beyond reason. “Abandoned!!! Betrayed!!! Miserable!!!!”
“I wrote him with over six hundred wives! How does that not make up for it, huh!?”
Shen Qingqiu barks an outraged laugh. “That was in the version you wrote to pander to your brainless readers!” says the most loyal reader of them all. “Tell me again, what did you say about the original draft?”
“Well—“
“No romance! None! That was your original draft! So what was the ending, hm?” He seethes silently, fixing Shang Qinghua in an expectant glare. If he doesn’t get an answer, there’s no guarantee Shang Qinghua will escape with his life! But the answer is... well...
“I was probably going to end it with Binghe ruling both realms but feeling so unfulfilled by it he abandons his title and wanders off on his own. Either that, or self-destructing and ending his empire—“
Shen Qingqiu cuts him off with a wordless shout, lunging across the table to whack him with his fan. “This!! This was the story you wrote for yourself!! Think!!! For once in your life!!!!”
“Bro, seriously, it’s not that deep!” Shang Qinghua raises his arm in a futile attempt to block Shen Qingqiu’s relentless blows. ”People like tragedies!”
“If people liked your tragedies you wouldn’t have written flop after flop!” Okay, that kind of stings. “You wouldn’t have had to whore out your writing to your shitty readers’ every whim!” Again, a group that includes cucumber-bro himself. “No, instead we got your shitty miserable stories with no catharsis—“
“I mean, it was cathartic to write!?”
...
...
...
“Hm,” Shang Qinghua says, which sets Shen Qingqiu off once more.
“Writing stories where nothing gets resolved and every character ends up—“
“Bro.”
“—an empty husk who has no connection with anyone around them—“
“I get it.”
“—and that’s what’s cathartic.”
“Yeah, I see it now.”
“Dumbass,” Shen Qingqiu says. “Moron. I’m going to kill you. Glad you’ve finally moved on in a healthy way, idiot.”
“Thanks.”