#peixuan

Usually my post-canon thoughts have Pei Ming actively maintaining the old relationship while SQX wants to pull away

So let’s flip that!

Pei Ming who believes SQX never liked him anyway and decides to give him space and enjoy independence (he’ll have someone check in every now and then but otherwise doesn’t get involved. The bittersweet feeling of not really having much reason to stick around anymore so you just… don’t)

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Pei Ming & Shi Qingxuan, Jun Wu & Shi Qingxuan Characters: Pei Ming (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Shi Qingxuan, Jun Wu (Tian Guan Ci Fu) Additional Tags: and other heavenly official npcs, Mid Autumn Festival, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, sqx is a tsundere, sqx is also jun wu's favorite daughter, in a way that is not worrying, probably, Protective SQX, Pei Ming's Backstory Summary:

“Me again? How does this keep happening?”

It's tradition at this point for Pei Ming’s salacious tales to be featured in the Mid-Autumn Festival Banquet, and he downs the wine in a single gulp to great applause. The curtain can’t rise faster than the anticipatory whispers, as everyone wonders what sort of stage they’ll find the general on this year. A palace? A brothel? Maybe an enchanted forest?

They get a battlefield.

-

While trying to write a different kind of Pei Ming h/c fic, I remembered this draft exists and decided to clean it up and post it ;w;

somewhere in post-canon, Pei Ming & He Xuan run into each other. He Xuan is on guard, but Pei Ming has zero interest in him. Yes, he’ll always mourn Shi Wudu, but as far as he’s concerned, there was always going to be a price to pay for the fate swap, and He Xuan had the right to avenge his family.

Not the ‘Three Tumors’ because it’s not the same and both PM & LW have become a little more liked (or at least respected) after the whole final showdown but, eh, anyway the name is a work in progress. ‘Xuli Trio’ is rejected because all of them have very complicated feelings towards Xuli and most of those are negative.

But what hasn’t changed is that Shi Qingxuan is still sort of an occasional third (fourth?) wheel to them because Pei Ming has a promise to keep and SQX has mostly warmed up to him now.

Except...

SQX & Rong Guang: *hissing noises*

Pei Ming: Rong Guang stop picking fights with the kid. And Qingxuan, don’t just hide behind me smirking! You behave too!

Qingxuan the Storyteller

Post-canon, while figuring out what else do with his life, Shi Qingxuan gets into busking to earn some money…. or tries to anyway. A broken arm and leg make the more interesting things Xie Lian told him about kind of difficult.

But hey, Shi Qingxuan has always been a great storyteller and after 800 years of living in the biggest gossip hub in the universe (and being one of THE most sociable of the bunch), he’s got so many stories to share! Stories about the gods mortals could never hear about otherwise!

And they’re all 100% true!

(Save for any embellishments the officials who told SQX the original story added, naturally)

Obviously he won’t air out anyone’s private matters - but he’s got plenty of material to work with!

Sort of…

While SQX’s stories and vivid way of telling them are instantly popular, he quickly learns the officials the people (and their wallets) mostly want to hear about are:

3) Hualian - a problem because SQX doesn’t know too many stories and even less about what XL wouldn’t mind retold (XL: anything’s fine, there’s nothing I haven’t heard before. :) HC: think very carefully about what you repeat. :))

2) Ju Yang - a bigger problem because SQX never actually knew Feng Xin that well and doubts there are ANY of the kind of stories people want to hear about him.

1) Pei Ming - the biggest problem because…. it’s Pei Ming.

Well in fairness, SQX does actually know plenty of stories about PM, mostly stuff he witnessed or his brother told him about.

No, the problem is Pei Ming is absolutely DELIGHTED about this revelation having kept an eye on things (and maybe having snuck in generous clones among the crowd). If SQX wants stories about him to tell, he will provide!