I come with a humble offering: raised by HCQ Yanqing (like topaz-witch-tea's happy family au) then have everything be ripped away from him. Could be jingrenheng, could be not, either way he's getting his whole family disappeared. I am of the believe that angst hurts more when you've had copious fluff before it.
The Sedition still happens, but later down the timeline (this requires a lot of timeline bending). The HCQ happily raise him as part of their family until Baiheng dies protecting him from assassins. Yanqing gets survivor's guilt from this, blames himself and thinks the other HCQ members blame him for not being able to protect them (he's already at the age where Jing Yuan and Jingliu are training him). None of the adults think he's at fault, but communication is deteriorating rapidly between them.
Yingxing, Dan Feng and Jingliu follow their canon fates.
After the Sedition, Yanqing was struck with grief and a lot of guilt. He had lost everything except for Jing Yuan, but even that was slowly revealing itself to be false. He knew that Jing Yuan was also grieving and that he also had to defend his position as the General at the same time. So, Yanqing didn't think much of how distant he was, he kept making excuses for him, telling himself that his father was just tired or that he needed to keep up appearances as their positions are currently very shaky and if either of them showed any signs of turning traitor it could turn very bad very quickly. He too was finding his own escape in honing his swordsmanship, trying to prove that he was loyal to the Xianzhou unlike his other family members. For the sake of himself and Jing Yuan he needed to become the model lieutenant. He needed to become stronger so that he won't fail his last remaining family.
It didn't take that long for Yanqing to accept Yingxing and Dan Feng as dead, even if he knew Yingxing was somewhere out there amongst the stars and Dan Feng’s reincarnation was in the Shackling Prison (soon to leave the Xianzhou as well). They left and never came back, so what is that if not death. Jingliu was a bit more complicated, sometimes he feels a familiar chill up his spine and he thinks he sees traces of ice. He thinks if Jingliu kills him in revenge, he won't even fight it, it's what he deserves, but she'll be even more disappointed if he doesn't utilize her teachings against her.
And so it went on like that. Yanqing gets used to an emptier house and an emptier life. He finds it easier to just obsess over swords to fill in that gap, as if more swords can fill the hole left in his heart. He presents himself as the model lieutenant, as the perfect weapon, after all a weapon can't betray its master. It's easier to accept himself as merely an apprentice, retainer and lieutenant to Jing Yuan because that's how Jing Yuan has treated him ever since the Sedition. Not on purpose on Jing Yuan's part, but there's still wolves in the ranks that'll jump at the opportunity to weaken his position, and him keeping Yanqing too close could cause something.
Yanqing slowly realizing that he lost all his family on the day of the Sedition. Yet he still remains because where else would he be, even if Jing Yuan no longer views him as his son, probably because he let Baiheng die. He contents himself with the fact that he's not kicked out of the household and still allowed to remain by Jing Yuan's side.
Let's give him a little bright spot in the form of him and Yunli meeting earlier and bonding over how they both try to redeem their family members' sins. Yunli with her father's cursed swords and Yanqing with the HCQ's Sedition. And for once he finds someone who he can be a normal kid around.
Xianzhou Stellaron crisis happens. Yanqing recognizes both Blade and Dan Heng, he doesn't think of them as Yingxing or Dan Feng. Even though somewhere in the darkest crevices of his mind he blames them for his pain, they're the ones that had their hands directly bloodied with the Sedition and therefore the undoing of his whole life. He's the one that now has to bear the constant judgement and wariness that he'll turn out like the rest of the HCQ, he's the one that has to constantly walk on thin ice as the ghost of Jing Yuan, the father, moves further and further away. While they have their fates clear and even a clean start for Dan Heng.
Yanqing chasing after them to Scalegorge Waterscape might be a bit more personally motivated than he thought. But when the General arrives and tells him, 'now is not the time' is when he truly breaks and when he really comes to believe that they all blame him for Baiheng's death as fact. The General clearly looks at these two wanted criminals more favorably than Yanqing, so clearly he must've done something worse. He thinks that him now kneeled down on the sand supported by his sword defeated and rejected by the living ghosts of his family must be his karma. He's found passed out in the sand by Cloud Knights later on.
Yanqing wonders why Jingliu didn't kill him when he confronted her earlier, maybe it's because she knows a worse punishment is waiting for him.
In actuality, the former HCQ members have kept Yanqing in their minds as the last bright spot in their lives. Jingliu wants to end the Abundance so that an incident like the one that killed Baiheng and almost killed Yanqing wouldn't happen again. Jing Yuan keeps working to make sure that Yanqing can have a stable and safe life and not get both of them kicked off the Luofu or thrown into the Shackling Prison. Blade, as much as he wants to end Shuhu for his own reasons, has also thought of how one less powerful Abundance being would mean better chances for Yanqing and how the Stellaron Hunters' goal to remove Finality would give Yanqing a future. (Not sure about Dan Heng, feel free to suggest).
If jingrenheng + jingyingfeng, trying to reconcile and reconnect with your estranged son that has long since accepted that you're dead and not his parents, you also tried to kill him once on accident. Yanqing is avoiding them like the plague for his own sanity and Yunli would like to stab them.
buddy you have no idea how giggly i got reading this
i kept smiling and giggling more just thinking about how my pookie is gonna react seeing this :)
pookie i love you but i also love your reactions to angst hehe <3
but also HHHHHH MY YANQING HEART LOVES THIS SO MUCH YANQING CARRYING EVERYTHING ON HIS OWN
they can't even try to reassure him if they knew about it literally 1 is dead, 3 are exiles, and jing yuan risks losing him physically while already losing him emotionally ITS A LOSE/LOSE SITUATION
i kinda feel bad for yunli too bc she's in a unique situation as an outsider who can see both sides and all the complexities of the situation but is still too young to full understand those layers bc she too is still a child so i imagine she sides with yanqing more and is pretty angry about all these adults leaving their burdens behind to be carried by the kids
i imagine bailu is included in this camp too, and fu xuan to an extent who is an adult that can sympathize with them as someone who also was given a heavy burden to bear with the prophecy of her causing her master's death and it coming despite her efforts to change fate
meanwhile for your mention of Dan Heng, i think Yanqing would be a really complicated subject for him due to his identity struggles with separating himself from Dan Feng and his past because he wants to be his own person and not just an extension of Dan Feng and what he's done, and that would include being a parent to Yanqing
i think he'd try to care about Yanqing in a basic "you are a person and therefore i feel bad about beating you up" way but also be uncomfortable with him with how his mere presence makes those alien memories and feelings that aren't his creep up, at the same time feeling bad about his aversion to him because 1. Yanqing is a kid and 2. it's not personal and he can see that the kid isn't a bad person. but at the same time
he needs his own, healthy space from his incarnation's past. including Yanqing.
UGGGHHH THE DELICIOUS ANGST
