nic 🪩

Major spoilers warning ahead!

imo shen zechuan would be way more cunning that way. i havent read past vol 5 yet so if i get something wrong just ignore it ig idk. Think about it, originally shen zechuan just like xue xiuzhuo, was using nobel clans as stepping stones to get to the top. and just like xue xiuzhou, he had nothing to lose. cezhou not being together wont change the fact that xue xiuzhou was going to kill qi huilian one way or another. Ji gang clearly doesn’t get involved in shen zechaun’s politics and clearly can take care of himself. Sure shen zechuan loves him but that wont stop him from risking his life in even more dangerous way than in the original series. Multiple times he risked his life and got injured and no one caught it other than xiao chiye. That will give him more freedom to break himself in thousand other brutal ways for the sake of victory. if you take xiao chiye out of the equation, shen zechaun wouldn’t have any reason to step outside of zudu, wouldn’t have reason to suppress his darkest personality, wouldn’t have anyone stopping him from hurting himself. If you take xiao chiye out of the way, it would only take shen zechaun end of third book to be the emperor and then he will go on suppressing power of libei and making enemy out of xiao chiye. Libie and qudu ‘s power struggle would stretch for long time until they lock themselves in a room n sort out 8 years worth of hatred.

Also im aware that this could easily go in the direction that if it wasnt for xiao chiye, shen zechaun would be dead by vol 2, but this is my fiction and in my fiction, he never drank the medicine to hide his marshal arts, he would be just that a pretty lean assassin thats way to swift with his moves that he doesn’t really need to have built.

idk if this lei jingzge gonna die in this volume or not ( its so damn obvious that hes gonna), but the fact that shen zechuan would just go out of his way to mention “my husband” . Like he wants even a dying man to know that he is ur husband. n the fact that u r not even married yet??? u just know that this man is gonna die and u want to make sure that he knows that xiao chiye is ur husband just for the sake of it???