Just Life

He decided to still follow his initial plan of living a more boring life, at least at the current point in time, but that doesn't mean he can't correct any slights made against him once he has his powers awakened again. And he will awaken them again. Though he might look for a less... taxing way of obtaining them this time. That rat on An Ding would be perfect for such a thing.

(He does not wish to relive the Abyss again. He never wishes to enter that cursed place for as long as he lives. In his past life, he had been more than powerful enough to easily survive and thrive in there, but even all that power wasn't enough to stop him from flinching in his sleep as his nightmares kept him reliving the lowest point of his life.)

In the meantime, he will be doing his best to stay below his Shizun's and his dear Shixiong's notice while practicing cultivation in secret, the correct way that he had been denied during his discipleship.

Cue training montage / timeskip during which he does his best to avoid both of them as much as possible and cultivates in secret (can’t ban him from going into the library if they never catch him in the library!), which gives him a more solid base and makes him realise that the more spiritual cultivation techniques of QJP never would have unlocked his full potential either way. It makes him wonder why Shizun chose him for QJP in the first place. (It makes him wonder if it really has been him who was wrong the whole time.)

His avoidance techniques must be working because while Shizun still doesn’t treat him any better, he doesn’t treat him any worse either. The real change is his Da Shixiong. Ming Fan is acting quite oddly in this timeline, or at least his behavior doesn’t quite fit what he remembers of his teenage years. 

Oh, he’s still a little bit cruel and does his best to emulate their Shizun, that could never change. But at the same time, he is more… softer? He doesn’t call on him as much in class anymore (his handwriting is much better now). He doesn’t send his little followers to beat him up either (he’s much stronger than they are, and they know it. They no longer volunteer to fight against him during training). He even stopped hounding him about spending time with Yingying!

Though Binghe must admit he’s spending less time with her. Seeing Yingying be his Shijie, and not the cold-hearted woman (resembling their Shizun more and more as the years pass) that the harem life made her into, made him realise he missed his one true friend all those years. It’s odd how he’d all but forgotten how close they used to be. (When did that stop? When did they both stop confiding in each other? When did her gaze start making him look away instead?)

Those were all things that could be attributed to Luo Binghe making changes by being his adult self in his disciple self’s body. What really surprised him were the insults he made, which sounded more and more like genuine pieces of advice said by someone trying to make them sound like insults. 

(“If Shidi keeps putting his whole weight in his foot like that, we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t cripple his opponent as well as himself by the end of this exercise.” / “Had Luo-Shidi ever heard of a wide-toothed comb? Having curly hair might not be the norm, but that is no excuse to have one’s hair look like a rat's nest. You'd better start using the proper hair oil too and stop shaming our peak with your messy appearance.”)

Not to mention the blankets and salves that would appear at the wooden shed on some colder nights or after his still weak body couldn’t take the punishments issued by their Shizun. At first, he thought it was just Ning-shijie giving them to him again as she had in the past, but she’d denied it when he asked. 

After a tough beating, he pretended to fall asleep immediately while waiting to see who it really was that gave him all of those items. He heard the soft creek of the door opening and slowly opened his eyes just a sliver to be able to see. To his surprise, he found Ming Fan slowly making his way inside while looking out to see if anyone spotted him coming. He quickly closed his eyes again before his Shixiong noticed he was awake. There were sounds of things being put on the floor, and then a short period of silence while Ming Fan just stood there, not doing anything.

Ming Fan left a few minutes later, just as quietly as he had crept in. Luo Binghe stayed up all night that day, thinking about his Shixiong’s behavior. He couldn’t make sense of it. Why was Ming Fan helping him instead of Ning Yingying? What had he done to deserve such an honor from that prickly Shixiong of his? What had changed?

(Had anything changed? Was it really Ning Yingying who gave him those things in his first life as well? He never did ask her back then. He just assumed because she was the only person openly kind to him. Had Ming Fan been the one doing it then as well? Had he misjudged his Da Shixiong so badly? Was he just too young and foolish to notice?)

Yes, his actions seemed to have affected quite a lot of things in the past, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Who knows, if Ming Fan continues to be nice (as much as a person like him can be nice, it seems), he won’t throw him into an ant pit this time. Some light maiming would be fine, though. Nice or not, he was still an asshole.

Soon afterwards, his Shizun went into closed seclusion in the Lingxi caves again. It took him a few months to remember how that event would end. He sends a mental apology to his Mingyan for failing to save her brother, but for all he knows, he could already be dead. Only time will tell if Shen Qingqiu can change as a person enough to change the War God’s fate.

And so a few years went by with little change besides the growing admiration and respect of his sect mates. Ming Fan’s bullying ways all but stopped as he put more focus into his Head Disciple duties, while his followers were dissuaded from such acts after Binghe pummeled them into the ground the first time.