ALBY!!

The fact that they can hold without holding. The fact that they can cradle their own crystal souls without touching. Like the crystal is a firefly they're cupping with a grip so light it's actually light itself.

They can hold butterflies without killing them. The hands wielding the unfathomable power of the universe can be the gentlest of hands, gentler than a breeze.

Me when someone woobifies shen yuan in fanfics:

His glitching system crashes and shuts down before he can even figure out wtf is happening, leaving sy stranded in actual primitive society, now cursed with immortality.

After all, he can't be allowed to die until his first mission begins. So what's the mission? Right... He has no idea because his system died before he could finish reading the message.

All he knows is that it has something to do with lbh.

So he goes about trying to figure things out. He has no special powers, but is quite literally indestructible--which he finds out the painful way. Multiple painful ways. Very very many painful and strange ways, over the tens of thousands of years during which he sits around waiting for the protagonist.

He may or may not have accidentally started a cult at some point. Got dragged into some political kerfuffles. Built some cities here and there, because he went through an engineering/architecture phase, out of sheer boredom. He might have invented paper or something, because he once watched some videos about historical paper making--or was it about block printing? He doesn't even remember any more.

Anyway, he waits and waits, and lbh just would not fucking show up. He's lost all sense of time. He can no longer tell if something happened a hundred years ago or ten thousand. He's worried even his memories of pidw would start to fade, so he writes down everything he can remember, and makes multiple copies, hiding them all in secured locations.

And over time, he's... built a bit of a reputation. Legends from multiple cultures all tell of an old, fallen god, forced to roam the mortal realm forever.

Oh yeah, despite his millennia of cultivation, he cannot ascend. It's like something is blocking him from it, probably his stupid mission that just. would. not. start.

No big loss, he supposes. He still has no idea what even happens once you ascend. Everyone who does is never seen or heard from again. What if it's just a big scam?

But his immortal existence can also be pretty depressing. Friends come and go. Kids he's adopted grow up and die within the blink of an eye. He stops adopting, not even pets. The early heavenly demons are somewhat more durable, but even they aren't truly immortal. Sometimes sy would accidentally fall asleep for centuries, then wake up bleary-eyed, unsure where or when he is, before he eventually ventures out again to go on some new adventures.

And some of those adventures are... um. Look, he gets really, really bored sometimes, okay? And somebody like him obviously shouldn't get romantically involved with mortals (and when did he start thinking of other people simply as "mortals"?) So, the responsible thing to do is to just have strictly casual relations. And since sy ain't no player, he limits his options to other men. Like, he's not gay or anything, but it's just the sensible thing to do. It's just a bunch of men helping each other out, getting some physical release together. And he's weirdly popular with men for some reason? Maybe they all got the same idea as him. Cool, cool.

And thus, the legend of an unfathomable immortal who cruelly toys with the hearts of men is born... Beautiful beyond comparison, ancient beyond time, but oh so terrible. Beware, O mortals, of the temptation that would be your ruin!

And sy, of course, assumes its just some funny story about a powerful succubus, or something.

And so he waits. And waits. And waits. And waits. And waits.

And during one of the century-long naps he takes, somewhere on the Luo River, a newborn is sent floating downstream in a basket...

_

Luo Binghe has not expected to see his own name written on an ancient scroll, locked inside an even more ancient fortress in the demon realm.

The fortress is in ruins, so old and battered it's barely recognizable as one. The scrolls are only preserved by some powerful magic, likely of heavenly demon origin.

Except, none of the characters on the scrolls look ancient. They're almost the exact same writing lbh himself uses.

All this weirdness pales in comparison to what the writing describes.

It's a exact, detailed record of lbh's own life.

Thing's no other soul should know. Things from his early childhood. From his disciple years. From those nightmarish years in the abyss.

Moments of his greatest shame. Moments of his greatest triumphs.

Then, there are the things that have not yet come to pass. Some are even accompanied by crude illustrations. There are sketches of *him*, not quite accurate but still recognizable.

And the scrolls claims he will go on to rule the three realms, even though lbh's world domination ambitions are still in their infancy at this stage.

What is this, some ancient prophecy? So many things feel so awfully *off* about these scrolls, but as lbh continues his bloody wars of conquest across the realms, he can only admit that they have their uses.

They tell him who would help, and who would ultimately betray him. The traps laid out for him. The damsels waiting for his rescue. Lbh feels like he is cheating fate. He feels like he's toying with something dangerous beyond comprehension, but he is not one to fear such things.

But where do these scrolls come from? Why were they created? Just *who* created them? As his power grows, lbh puts everything he can spare into discovering the secrets behind the scrolls that have inadvertently defined his life.

But he also has another more immediate problem to deal with. There are whispers that there is an ancient, elusive god in slumber, who is the only being that may be able to put a stop to lbh's supposed tyranny. Lbh wants to dismiss such myths as mere make-believe, but his scholars are less certain.

Well, if some ancient being does exist, then lbh will certainly root them out, and then either slaughter or subjugate them, like he's done with all the other false gods that dare to make noise in his domain, which at this point encompass the entirety of the known world.

Though, it's said that this one is also some sort of deadly seductress. Lbh snorts. Yeah, he's met plenty of those, too. Maybe this would prove to be the *fun* sort of subjugation after all...

Anyone carrying a bladed weapon carried oil. (More on that in a sec) Oil is what you use to clean and condition steel, especially, since water will rust it.

Many people in the Middle Ages used scented oils for their skin and hair from noblemen to lowly serfs.

Oil was incredibly abundant and quite cheap. The TYPE of oil however does matter in this.

Sheep oil (rendered from their fat) was very common and used for all manner of things from making soap to treating skin conditions. Rendered sheep fat has a very light texture and is a decent carrier oil without too pungent of a scent. Unfortunately it did rancid fast so it was common to add lots of herbs to it to help preserve it, especially rosemary, borage, marjoram and citron peels. This is how it became a common “perfume” oil used to scent hair skin or clothes. Nearly anyone would have had this handy somewhere.

Rendered pork oil was very common too and was most popular as a cooking oil.

Vegetable oil made from walnuts, almonds and flax seed was by far the most common non-animal oil. Nearly anybody had a bottle of almond or walnut oil in their pantry or on their person. These were by far the most popular oils used for conditioning steel, with walnut oil preferred because its tannins also gave armor a patina that kept it better. Only the absurdly wealthy ever wore polished armor. Everyone else blackened it to make it keep better. Walnut oil is good at doing that.

Walnut oil also works well as a lubricant. People back then DID use sexual lube by the way. No prostitute would be caught dead without it. Their favorite types were walnut and olive oil, though almond oil might be used in a pinch. They also used watered down acacia gum in southern Europe, which was sticky but slick and easy to re-wet.

Olive oil though was THE oil in Europe. It was expensive, comparatively, but obviously people considered it well worth its cost because it was found everywhere south of the Seine and frequently seen in even minor lordly houses or knights quarters much farther north. Considering quite a few people of the time thought it had aphrodisiac qualities when applied as certain way (likely because raw olive oil has a warming effect) I think you can imagine the most common reason it was sought after by men in particular.

Olive oil was also used in medicine and just about any church had some floating around somewhere because it’s conveniently good at treating minor infections and is wonderful for toothaches.

you might not believe me but there's a reference for this

You can read the original posts (here)

1.)

Shen Jiu felt like he was raising a child. Ever since Shen Yuan had acquired a soul, things were much more... Lively. Shen Yuan found himself interested with nearly everything, often pausing to just look around at the world around him. It wasn’t like he didn’t listen to Shen Jiu, no, Shen Yuan could never rebel—he wasn’t capable of it. It was just… Shen Yuan had learned the art of attitude.

When Shen Jiu would comment on things Shen Yuan would start answering. It started off with short one word responses, or quiet noises of agreement. Then he grew wordier. Shen Jiu could comment on a person they saw on the road in passing or a person that Shen Jiu had on his hit list and Shen Yuan would snort, responding with comments filled with something bordering on sass.

"What an uncouth man" Shen Jiu had said aloud one time, his eyes scanning an untidy man that was clearly way too drunk for the time of day. They'd been passing through a town, cutting through the daytime market while they searched for news on Shen Jiu's next target. Shen Yuan, covered from head to toe--er, hoof--in thick dark robes, peeked out from the veil that covered his face marred by a single scar running diagonally across his face. He flared his nose and let out an undignified snort loud enough to draw more than a few pairs of curious gazes, including Shen Jiu's own.

"Getting drunk before it's even noon? Is public decency a foreign concept here?"

Shen Yuan spoke bluntly in a monotonous voice, a slight undertone of something that seemed like offense slipping into his words. Shen Jiu almost let a laugh slip. That was the first time Shen Yuan had said anything outside of what Shen Jiu told him to say. The wandering eyes shifted from Shen Yuan to the man swaying on his feet outside of an inn, mumbling some incoherent words about how he paid for his stay and some other nonsense that neither Shen Yuan nor Shen Jiu were interested in hearing. Before anything could start, Shen Jiu pulled his puppet along and navigated his way through the market.

Later, Shen Jiu looked at Shen Yuan with an unreadable expression, one eyebrow raised as he stared.

"When did you pick up an attitude?"

Shen Yuan, now freed from the stuffy clothing he'd been in all day blinked at Shen Jiu and raised a brow of his own.

"If not you then who?"

Shen Jiu narrowed his eyes, smacking Shen Yuan across his head.

"You cheeky thing, who do you think you're sassing?"

Shen Yuan scrunched his face up and moved away from Shen Jiu's hand, rubbing his head as he shot the other a glare.

"As if this could be called sass..."

Shen Yuan grumbled, he hadn't even been that sassy. Deep within, something inside of Shen Yuan's soul resonated. There was a brief flicker in his memory--something about comment sections and black fans. It was unclear what either term meant in the context given, but Shen Yuan was well aware that Shen Jiu hadn't even seen half of the 'sass' he could deliver.

Shen Jiu just gave him another smack to the head.

2.) (Bonus little SY monologue thing)

"What even am I?"

The thought came up out of the blue one day. A fleeting thought. Or well, it was supposed to be fleeting. Shen Yuan's mind had latched onto it though, considering what the answer to the question could be. He tried to think back to the earlier days, but Shen Yuan's memory was a blurry mess. All of the common sense and knowledge that he'd been using for most of his life had been rewritten as he came to terms with his new body and the way the world around him worked.

He wasn't sure what he was, actually, he didn't have the slightest clue. His limbs, although sewn on with precision, were not his own. He had hooves for feet, a thick dark tail, and his hands were more claw than anything--stained with a deep black that Shen Yuan wasn't quite sure the source of. His chest thumped hollowly around the beating pulse of the demonic core nestled within in place of a heart.

Shen Yuan had no idea what manner of creature he was, there was no part of him that made sense in his eyes. That was fine though, Shen Yuan supposed that everything didn't need to make sense. It wasn't like any of the fleeting memory flickers he'd get on occasion ever made sense either. The only thing he'd ever gathered from them was a firm like for a specific river (LBH) and an extreme pride in the produce he'd grown... (Cucumber) At least, that's all of what Shen Yuan could make of things.

Truthfully, Shen Yuan wasn't really all too interested in finding out about his past. He just couldn't quite make sense of whatever life he lived in the past, it wasn't something graspable to the current him. Sitting around all day in a dark room, yelling at a glowing screen hatefully? What was the point of that? Could that even compare to the raw joy he got whenever he took down a slaver? Could it compare to the stories that each of his additional limbs told? Could the past--

"Keep Up."

Shen Jiu called from somewhere head of Shen Yuan, snapping the male out of his thoughts. Shen Yuan blinked whatever blurry memories had surfaced away, no longer letting his mind linger on thoughts of an unreachable past. He sped his pace up to a trot as he caught up with Shen Jiu, throwing lingering thoughts out of his mind. Unbeknownst to Shen Yuan, a blue screen flickered behind him twice before fizzing out, lacking the power to boot up again and fix the issue of that misplaced soul of his.

--

me, my boyfriend and his evil ass dog that wants me dead.