#xi ping

Long separations full of pining are a pretty common trope in popular danmei. MXTX's novels all include this to some degree, some of priest's danmei include this trope, and it pops up in several other authors' work besides. The lead characters are separated for anywhere from a few years to thousands of years, at least one of them spends the whole time yearning for his Person who disappeared/died/insert-plot-point-here-ed, and eventually they find each other again and get to be together. Non-danmei romances do this too sometimes, but I really see it a lot in danmei novels.

And I think so much about the fact that when priest, a danmei writer who has used this trope, wrote her first romance-free novel, she immediately said "but what if they don't reunite?" What if I wrote a scenario just like all those pining-filled danmei stories, but about a platonic/familial relationship instead? What if I did The Separation Trope, but without the romance genre obligation of them getting together at the end? What if I made my protagonist spend hundreds and hundreds of years waiting to see his favorite person again, certain the whole time that they would be reunited (or at least telling himself he's certain), only for it to not happen?

Like, even though the context isn't romantic, Xi Ping in the extras is absolutely living a danmei trope. He's the Shen Wei, the Hua Cheng, of his story. He spends who knows how many hundreds of years waiting patiently to see Zhou Ying, trusting absolutely in ZY's promise that they'll meet again. He insists as much in his final bet with Bai Ling. He races north to go searching the second he thinks he has a chance of finding him again.

And he just doesn't. Xi Ping saves the world, and he lives a long and mostly happy life, and then he is very lonely for a very long time, and his devotion doesn't pay off. He never gets to see Zhou Ying again.

Zhou Ying gets beyond the bounds, gets to see his true reflection and the true face of the sky, and the price of that self-fulfillment is that he never gets to see his beloved Xiaobao ever again. And Xi Ping doesn't get to see him.

What if there was a story about a guy who spends hundreds of years waiting to see his Person again, just like a danmei lead, only for that waiting to never pay off?

Xi Ping from Tai Sui

*Xi Ping fanart volunteered by @ stellarish

Priest (Author) Tournament Submission: He is literally everything to me. Pure chaos condensed into a single person. Everyone loves him, everyone hates him. He does his best, he doesn't try at all, he beats up monsters with a qin, he brought about the destruction of the entire cultivation world…

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Cédric Riester from When the Third Wheel Strikes Back (TWSB)

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Yu Shengyan from Thousand Autumns

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