Work Text:
Now that Luo Binghe had defeated the God of Discord, peace reigned in the triple world: there would never again be a shadow of conflict or war and Luo Binghe with his wives would rule his empire judiciously.
The end.
Shen Yuan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the rose incense. He wasn’t going to throw his brand new mac off the desk, PIDW wasn’t worthy of breaking his parents’ gift.
Why had he spent hours of his short life reading that horrendous novel? Characters were as flat as figurines: arrogant men who thought themselves better than the protagonist (only to be badly slaughtered a few pages later), women who appeared on the scene only to join the harem and become amoebas…
Airplane shooting the sky was the bad example of the fact that it wasn't necessary to have any notions of narratology in order to write a novel that would become famous —thanks for slapping in the face all those authors who tried hard but did not have a shred of recognition!
Why did he even spend money to read the preview chapters? If he had known the ending would be so clichéd, he would have spent his time doing much more productive activities. The fingers flew on the keyboard. This would have been his last comment on PIWD and it would have been one of the fiercest.
How did I finish such a horrible and long-winded story? Rare herbs grow everywhere, pretty ladies fall for him easily and villains are all idiots, super illogical plot line!!! All of the fan who praised the novel, you have nothing to say, right? Stupid author, stupid novel. F**** ***! I want my money and my time back!
He rubbed in eyes. In situations like these, the best way to calm down was eating something. He retrieved a mantou from the kitchen and bit half of it off, but when he was going to swallow it, the mouthful of food got stuck in his throat. He coughed spasmodically and a male voice activated in his head.
[Stupid author, stupid novel, system activated. Pairing command successful]
Shen Yuan opened his eyes once again and he was lying on a western bed. Finely crafted sachets of perfume hanging from the four corners of the mattress and above him there was an elaborate white canopy. And a man dressed in green robes was floating mid-air.
Shen Yuan screamed in terror. Where was he now and why was some weirdo floating? That environment didn’t look like his room at all.
The man’s eyebrows twitched and he opened the fan in front of his mouth. “If you stop screaming, I’ll tell you everything you need to know”.
Green robes, a fan in the right hand, eyes so full of venom and contempt that they gave him goosebumps… That man was kinda familiar now that he paid attention. How could he not recognize him immediately?
Shen Qingqiu’s character was one of the most annoying villains Shen Yuan had ever read: he had the thickness of tissue paper and there was no motivation behind the abuse on his disciple. He was perfectly forgettable.
Shen Qingqiu closed his fan with a snap. “So you aren’t as stupid as I thought if you know who I am. Do you need me to explain the reason why you are here?”.
Shen Yuan glared at his antique-looking green robes that were shouting Xianxia drama. On the bedside table there was a paper fan and a small mirror. Shen Yuan swore the moment he saw his face. He transmigrated in Shen Qingqiu. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Shen Qingqiu clapped without any enthusiasm, his voice was full of irony. “Good. Aren’t you a clever one? Welcome in PIDW, copycat, let our adventure begin”.
Shen Yuan took a deep breath to calm himself down. He refused to do this, he would go to a slow and painful death that would make him wish he had never been born. His chances of survival were below zero. He might as well have died by his own hand.
Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky didn’t put a lot of effort into describing Shen Qingqiu’s Bamboo House, but if Shen Yuan wasn’t wrong once Ming Fan tried to drown the protagonist on a pond near the small garden behind the house.
He got up from the bed and ran towards the pond. He dived and opened his mouth, the cold water left a ferrous taste on his tongue. He was dying once again and this time he hoped to isekai’d in a different world.
He opened his eyes once again and he found himself in the same bed. Shen Qingqiu looked at him with amusement. “I admit it, I didn’t think you’d be…”.
But Shen Yuan didn’t listen to him: he wanted to die with an ounce of dignity and he would have succeeded. He ran once again toward the pound one again, but right when he was going to jump, a tug at his waist caused him to stumble on his feet. Where the hell did that rope come from?
“Now you listen to me!” Shen Qingqiu commanded in a firm voice.
Shen Yuan tried to get up, but his body didn’t move. Why Shen Qingqiu was still there and how could he paralyze him with only his voice?
With a snap of finger, the rope around his waist disappeared and Shen Qingqiu sat down on the grass close to him. “As I tried to tell you earlier, you transmigrated in my body, taking my identity and now I’m your system. You are a peculiar host: you had three lives, but you have already wasted one. Every time you’ll die, you’ll go back to the last saving point”.
He snapped his fingers once again and Shen Yuan's body relaxed. “Do you have any questions?”.
“Saving points? This is not a game. And how can you be my system? I thought it was a… ” Shen Yuan mimed something indefinite with his hands to express what he wanted to say. “A thing with a google translate-like voice”.
Shen Qingiu shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know either. When I was alive, I had a sudden deviation of qi that killed me. To be more precise, I stopped living as Shen Qingqiu: a metallic voice rang in my head and told me that my performance as Shen Qingqiu was over and I sank into a deep sleep as I waited for someone to occupy my old body”.
How could Shen Qingqiu talk about his death without any emotion in his voice? Shen Yuan had always read Isekai novels and when he had learned that he had a terminal illness he had hoped that the same thing would happen to him; but he was an exception, Shen Qingqiu wasn’t.
“I don’t know how to do explain it, but while I was asleep, I knew a lot of things: I knew that I was only a character in a trash novel and that beside this world there are other infinite universes, which are in contact with each other thanks to transmigrators and systems like you me”.
“And the saving points?”.
Shen Qingqiu tapped the fan on his cheek. “There are six saving point: the first two are missions that will happen shortly, then comes the clash against Sha Hualing. The fourth saving point will be the opening of the Abyss, there will be the trial and finally you will be handed over to Luo Binghe. And forget about killing yourself: if you end your lives before you have fixed all the plot holes, you will be trapped in PIDW forever”.
A shiver ran down his spine. He had to go through the whole story, no matter what.
“Ah, I was forgetting one important thing: you have 95 B-points now. You had 100 B-points, but I used 5 of your B-points to buy you the rope. Now it’s yours and you can find it in your storage now”.
Since when could the system use points without asking the user? Shen Jiu stared at him with a grin on his face. Being so invasive in the host's life, using B-point as he wished… Shen Jiu had to be an anomalous system. Not even Shen Yuan was a normal user if he had three lives, but what was the reason behind all these changes?
“There is any other information I need to know?”
“Yes. The ooc function is still locked, you’ll need 200 B-points to unlock it. You can also see the character sheet of the characters in front of you: all you have to do is this” and Shen Qingqiu made a heart shaped gesture in front of his eyes.
Shen Yuan froze on the spot. It wasn’t possible, he refused to believe that something so kitsch was the only way to see the character sheet. “Are you kidding me? You wouldn’t do such a thing, it’s ooc”.
“It’s the system to decide what’s ooc and what not. Someone is coming right now, if you want to see who they are without losing your face, I suggest you do it right now”.
A man dressed in blue robes was running towards him, his long sleeves swaying in the wind. He was still far away, if Shen Yuan would have done that ridiculous gesture, no one would have seen it.
He said goodbye to the last shred of dignity he had and placed his heart-shaped hands in front of his eyes.
A jade green screen appeared out of thin air.
[Name: Yue Qingyuan
Role: Qing Ding Master
Affection: 520 point
TTK: You need 250 B-point to read his past ]
Yue Qingyuan knelt on the ground. “Shidi, why are you laying on the ground? You should be resting in your bed”.
The Peak Leader stretched out his hand to help him to get up, but Shen Yuan refused it and stood up. He brushed off the blades of grass from his robes and walked in the Bamboo House. “It’s not your business Zhenmeng-shixiong”.
Yue Qingyuan followed him like a lost puppy. “A-J… Shidi, do you feel any better?”.
“I’m fine now. Why is the Cang Qiong Master on Jing Ding Peak? Don’t you have anything to do on your Peak?”. And he slammed the door before Yue Qingyuan had the brilliant idea to follow him inside.
Reading the novel Shen Yuan found it strange that Yue Qingyuan never scolded Shen Qingqiu for being so rude and disrespectful towards him and that ‘A-J…’ was suspicious. What was going on between Shen Qinqgiu and the Sect Master?
Shen Qingqiu raised his hand, still floating. “You read the character profile, didn’t you? You miss 155 B-Points to know his past. I can anticipate the points you lack, but if you don't pay them back within a month you will lose another life”.
Shen Yuan shook his head. “Nope, nope, nope. I’d rather be ignorant”.
Two shichen later, Mu Qingfan came to visit him. Yue Qingyuan looked nervously at him as he took Shen Yuan’s pulse. “How is Shidi? Has he recovered from the qi’s deviation?”.
Mu Qingfan got up from the bed. “Yes, he’s. His qi shows some minor irregularities, but this is normal considering what has happened. The situation will stabilize with two hours of meditation a day for a fortnight”.
He turned toward Shen Yuan. “You can return to everyday life, but be careful not to use too much qi”.
Shen Yuan nodded. “Thank you, Shidi, for your assistance”.
Yue Qingyuan and Mu Qingfan left the Bamboo House and Shen Yuan closed the door behind them. He turned in the window direction and he met two brown eyes. And who was him? From his childish and ugly features he must have been Shen Qingqiu’s cannon fodder disciple.
He looked at Shen Qingqiu and the man grinned back at him. Shen Yuan prepared himself mentally and he heart-shaped his hands once again. Everytime he did this, he could feel the virility leaving his body.
[Name: Ming Fan
Role: Shen Qingqiu’s first disciple
Affection: 300 points
TTK: He’s the son of a wealthy family and he joined to Qing Jing Peak to become a cultivator. He harbors a deep hatred towards the protagonist, Luo Binghe, and he’s more than happy to carry on the abuses on him ] .
“Shen Qingqiu, where are we in history?”.
Shen Qingqiu aired himself lazily with his fan. “I’m not sure, why don’t you speak with Ming Fan?”.
Shen Yuan gritted his teeth. What did it cost him to be more cooperative? Why did he feel so much animosity towards him? Shen Yuan didn't want to be in that situation either: if it were up to him, he would have preferred to be dead and buried six feet under the ground while Shen Qingqiu fulfilled his role as cannon fodder.
“Ming Fan, come here”.
His disciple bowed. “I’m sorry Shizun, I didn’t mean to peek: but word had spread that you had woken up and I wanted to see how you were doing”.
“Don’t do that ever again. Where is Luo Binghe?”. Shen Yuan smiled a little bit: he was doing quite well as Shen Qiungqiu.
Ming Fan raised his head. “You locked him in the woodshed after giving him forty strokes, Shizun. Do you want me to call him here?”.
Shen Yuan’s legs gave out for a second and he grabbed the edge of the furniture. Those forty strokes would become forty thousand cuts that Luo Binghe would make on his body once he emerged from the abyss!
“Yes, bring him here”.
A few minutes later, He heard Luo Binghe's limp footsteps approaching. Just as the protagonist opened the door, Shen Yuan made that awkward gesture again and prayed that Luo Binghe had not seen him. Shen Qingqiu chuckled behind him and Shen Yuan gritted his teeth.
[Name: Luo Binghe
Role: Protagonist
Affection: 50 point
TTK: The period Luo Binghe spends in Qing Jing Peak serves to introduce important characters such as Shen Qingqiu, Yue Qingyuan, Liu Mingyan and Ning Yinying and to establish relationships with these characters, who will play an important role until the fourth book. ]
uo Binghe’s left knee was turned towards the inner thigh in an unnatural position and his face was bruised. Why was Shen Qingqiu digging his own grave in this way?
Luo Binghe knelt with difficulty. “This disciple greets Shizun”.
Shen Yuan beckoned him to get up and threw the white bottle at him. “Take your medicine, I cannot let others think that I’m abusing my disciples”.
Shen Qingqiu studied the scene without saying anything. Luckily, that small gesture of charity didn’t deduct any B-point.
Luo Binghe’s smile was bright and honest. “Than you, Shizun for giving me this medicine. This disciple will intensify his efforts and will not allow Shizun to be disappointed”.
Shen Yuan vaguely remembered what was to come next: after he had been clubbed by Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe had put even more effort into studying cultivation on the false manual and this would lead to a deviation of his qi.
Was there nothing Shen Yuan could do to prevent this? He already had one foot in the grave, there was no need to make the situation worse.
“A-ha, be careful of what you think: I'd never reckon like this”.
“I know! It was just a thought of mine, I wasn’t going to help him right now, I value my life!”.
A drop of sweat fell down Shen Yuan’s temple. Couldn’t Shen Qingqiu cut him some slack?
He turned toward Luo Binghe. He could not remember exactly how old Luo Binghe was when he set foot on the peak, but the boy in front of him could not have been more than fourteen years old.
“You can go now, Luo Binghe. Ah, by the way, how old are you right now?”.
“This disciples are going to be fourteen this year” he said with a meek voice.
Shen Yuan sighed with relief: he still had four years to straighten out his relationship with his disciple.