AU where SY takes up the hobby of rehoming and fostering animals in need. These animals, of course, being spiritual counterparts to the people in the svsss universe.
His first foster is a large silvery cat that seems rather aloof. Physically it's fine—even managing to slip out from Shen Yuan's apartment to hunt whenever he's not looking! The cat acts a little weird sometimes but it's nothing super unusual to Shen Yuan—who hasn't personally taken care of any pets on his own.
It's a wonder as to why it's in the program—until another cat is brought in. It turns out that the silver cat is very bad at understanding others of its own kind.
When the next cat comes, Shen Yuan finally decides that he actually needs to name both cats. He'd been calling the silver one 'little guy' and he's found that calling both cats 'little guy' gets really confusing for them. Especially during feeding time, where he places a bowl of food before the newest addition and says "Here you go little guy."
The first time it happened he was not expecting the silver cat to come running in from wherever it'd been and start attacking the other cat on sight. That's when he whipped out his phone and decided to look up names for cats.
"Riceball..? Tofu? Bossman? Robert—Okay what the hell are people naming their cats?"
Rather than picking a food related name or something of that sort he decided to name the cats after the characters of Proud Immortal Demon Way. He opens a wheel of names someone else had posted and ended up with the names of "Liu Qingge" and "Shen Qingqiu."
Shen Yuan wasn't exactly jumping for joy at using the name "Shen Qingqiu" on any animal, so he spun the wheel again. It landed on a wife who was only relevant in giving Luo Binghe more trauma and abandonment issues. Perfect! Anything was better than Shen Qingqiu.
Removing the surnames of both names—because well... they're cats—Shen Yuan was left with Qingge, the silver one, and Jiu, the newest addition.
Jiu was a little black cat. He had a nasty burn scar on one half of his face—not severe enough to permanently damage the hair follicles there thankfully. He came from a household that treated him more like a toy rather than a living being.
He'd been given to a young girl—Qiu Haitang—for her birthday. Though Shen Yuan didn't know the details, it wasn't hard to imagine what sort of things could happen to a cat in the hands of an immature child. If the infected nail caps were to be taken as a sign then they certainly weren't good ones.
Coming from a household like that it wasn’t a surprise how wary Jiu was. He’d hiss at Shen Yuan, hiss at Qingge, hell—he’d even hiss at his own reflection. He’d bristle when either of the two walked into the room, overstimulated by even the threat of interaction with Shen Yuan or Qingge.
Honestly, Shen Yuan didn’t think that Jiu even liked him. Until one of his older brothers came to visit him. Neither Qingge or Jiu had seen Shen Yuan’s brother, so Shen Yuan didn’t expect them to linger around when his brother came to check up on him.
His brother had audibly smacked him upside the head for something irresponsible he’d done, scolding him for something that Shen Yuan personally didn’t see a problem with. Before he could protest against the treatment, Jiu had slipped out from his spot under the couch and lunged at Shen Yuan’s brother.
Those claws of his—the ones that Shen Yuan had cleaned, nurtured, and restored back to their original state—shredded his brother’s leg up. Neither of the two brothers could react for a solid second before both of them began freaking out. Shen Yuan scooped up Jiu, holding the cat close as Jiu yowled at his ge.
This was the first time Shen Yuan had ever held Jiu, and it was to protect his ge from having ribbons for legs. It took a solid five minutes for Jiu to calm down, his hisses still spilling out even when Shen Yuan's brother had left the room. After Shen Yuan's desperate attempts at soothing the cat Jiu squirmed out of his grip, smacking Shen Yuan's leg with retracted claws before running back under the couch.
In another universe, Liu Qingge had stumbled upon a wild feather-footed leopard. A type of feline that could walk on clouds. They were rumored to be harbingers of fortune. It's said that they are beings that've descended from the celestial realm to ensure that the journey to godhood is smooth. In other words, they usually like good people and avoid bad people. They are believed to be related to Pixius.
The cat immediately cozied up to Liu Qingge, rubbing against his leg and purring. When Liu Qingge began to walk away--he was on a mission after all--the cat followed, that abnormally long tail quirked up in the air as it trailed after Liu Qingge.
Liu Qingge didn't stop it. There was no harm in letting a fortune bringing cat tag along. This wasn't a particularly dangerous mission anyways, Liu Qingge was only here to confirm the traces of a particular beast in the area. If he was fortunate, he'd find and fell the beast and bring back its corpse. If he wasn't he'd report his findings before deciding the next step.
Ironically, fortune was not on his side that day, as he ended up returning to the sect without catching sight of the creature he'd been tracking. When he boarded his sword to go the talkative leopard clung to his robes with a grip that was impossible to remove.
So Liu Qingge finds himself saddled with a cat. A cat that occasionally wanders off. Liu Qingge lets the cat he'd named Yuan keep to itself most days, often busy with his disciples, missions, and personal cultivation milestones. This doesn't mean that he lets Yuan wander around unsupervised, it's not uncommon to see Liu Qingge searching for the cat to make sure that Yuan isn't getting up to trouble.
This only ever becomes a problem when Liu Qingge tracks Yuan to Qing Jing peak.
Specifically to Shen Qingqiu's bamboo hut.
The hut where he walks in on the scene of Yuan sprawled across Shen Qingqiu's lap, purring while the other grades the work of his students.
About uhh SY's animal counterpart. The leopards themselves are small, no bigger than the usual domesticated housecat. The only thing that sets them apart from normal cats however, are their abnormally long tails, the feathery tufts on their paws, and two little horns that seem to serve no practical purpose.
LMAO I think LQG probably things SJ stole SY or something.
ANYWAYS YEAH THIS IS A PARALLEL.. UH IDK WHO I WANT SY TO MEET NEXT. LMAO.
LMAOO THEY ARE ONCE AGAIN ARGUING FOR CUSTODY OF SY LIKE DIVORCED PARENTS. WWWW
