Chapter Text
Xiang Fei was having a terrible second life, frankly.
You would think that being the Writer God of the whole damn world would have perks! Instead, Airplane Shooting Toward the Sky had been shunted into the body of Shang Qinghua!
Shang. Fucking. Qing. Hua.
Well, technically he was Shang Baiguā, at the moment. Airplane had forgotten that little in-joke. “Pumpkin” liked pumpkin seeds. Ha. Ha. Ha.
And how was that fair! Xiang Fei had only gone and created a whole world for his unfortunate magnum opus, and the shitty System had plagiarised the whole thing! And, sure, he may have filed the serial numbers off a few other media franchises once in a while, but he had a weekly deadline! A deadline that would determine if he could buy food for the next week! And, as far as he'd been able to tell, the damn algorithm had included his entire half-remembered original outline!
The one that he'd lost when his ancient laptop’s hard drive had attempted commit suicide by fire. He had still used the half remembered plot points, scribbled notes, and, in one case, a doodle on a napkin. But it had become increasingly clear by that point what his horde of readers were there for.
And it wasn't the plot.
Well, excluding the anti-fans, obviously. The most vocal of which he'd almost considered a friend of sorts. Peerless Cucumber had been obsessed with Luo Binghe. And all the monsters. And the worldbuilding.
Which was flattering, really, but the guy had to be some rich young master, based on all the money he tossed at Xiang Fei for the extras and chapters. Also the lack of understanding the man had for people just trying to make money in shitty reality.
Which, fine! Complain away, send all the hatemail! Just as long as he's getting paid. Xiang Fei had tried to determine just how much of his original outlines had been lifted, but that had proved pretty difficult.
Turns out that overly precocious children from backwaters that asked weirdly pointed questions about world events tended to put adults on edge. It's not like he'd tried to weird out his family.
And most of the town.
And those visiting cultivators before Shizun…
He was only trying to figure out exactly what bits and pieces had gotten incorporated! So what if he shouldn't have known about a lot of the events he asked about! It wasn't his fault! There was a lot of plot that he'd never actually fleshed out! They weren't plotted out! He was guessing!
The shitty System refused to say anything except "User 001 must follow the plot." He was pretty sure the thing hated him! Not that that was anything new - both sets of parents appeared to share the feeling.
They seemed all too eager to pack off their youngest, oddest child with a cultivator. They practically threw him at Chong Baiyun, and told the wandering cultivator that he was a nascent seer!
Being fair, he was their tenth kid. Funds were probably getting pretty low.
Master Chong was…okay. He wasn't mean, or cruel, and was a pretty decent teacher - when he could be bothered. It's just that they had done so. much. wandering. Xiang Fei knew that was part of the name, but come on! Their routes tended to resemble something a drunken ant had plotted!
In the original outline, Airplane had planned a great many tragic character arcs for Proud Immortal Demon Way, and ended up scrapping most of them! After all, his readers would have rioted if something showed up their favorite wish fulfillment stallion, the Great Demon Emperor Luo Binghe!
Chong Baiyun had been one of those scrapped mentions. He was meant to be a tragic mentor figure for the ruthlessly ambitious Shang Qinghua, who only realized what he'd lost after committing to An Ding. So Airplane hadn't really thought about the names all that hard. They were fucking placeholders!
Chong Baiyun was meant to be an immortal master known for living amongst the northern mountains, who had a sort of "confusing wisdom" sort of vibe. "Great wisdom can seem foolish", and all that.
Apparently that meant the System took the naming conventions of unused NPCs super literally, however, and that meant that the man named "Esteemed White Clouds" had his head firmly stuck in the stratosphere.
Getting any sort of training had been like pulling teeth! Shizun had the attention span of a mayfly! Shang had managed to get him to focus on basic cultivation exercises and a few neat, if underhanded, tricks of the trade, but it was exhausting being around the excessively relaxed man.
“Shizun.”
Shang Baiguā tapped his “meditating” teacher on the shoulder.
“ShiZUN.”
A small snore escaped from the stout mans mouth.
“SHIZUN! WAKE UP!”
Chong Baiyun finally woke at the shout. Blinking, a drowsy smile spread across his weathered face, making his pale, yellow jade eyes crinkle up. “Ah…Shang-er. I take it that morning has arrived, hm?”
“Late morning, Shifu.” Shang Baiguā shifted, and bounced to his feet from where he'd been kneeling in front of his Shifu, waiting not-so-patiently for Chong Baiyun to wake up.
At least one perk of the whole living in PIDW from a baby thing was that he had a functional body that fit right from the start.
“Everything is packed except the tea set and breakfast stuff, Shifu!”
“Mn. Why doesn't Shang-er go forage a few ingredients for breakfast while this one makes the porridge, hm? The silver-haired man unfolded from his meditating position. "This master saw a patch of Zhe’er Gen about a Bu back on the trail! We can make a meal of the last bits of fish sausage and ginger!”
Shang Baiguā grabbed his foraging basket and grimaced to himself. Sigh. More fish porridge. He wished they would head to town soon. Any town! Almost all of the melon seeds were gone, including his own secret stash, and he'd was getting sick and tired of fish sausage. And Fish Grass, too! He was pretty sure Shifu’s favorite food was going to become his personal nemesis at this rate.
“What is wrong, Xiao Baiguā?”
Shit. Shifu had noticed his expression. He really needed to get a handle on this body's reactions! “En... Nothing is wrong, Shifu! Why would anything be wrong!? En. This one just…stepped on a…rock! Yeah! Stupid Rock!” Shang Baiguā kicked a nearby pebble.
Hm. Well, that was less than convincing. Needed to work on the talking, too, apparently.
Shifu chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “This one takes it that Xiao Baiguā is not especially fond of Fish Grass, hm?” Shang Baiguā stiffened. Fuck. He couldn't afford to make Shifu mad. He was still only eight! Well. Eight-ish. His parents hadn't really done birthdays after kid number 6, apparently. But he was still too little to really be by himself!
Salvage! Backpedal! Thigh-clinging, activate! “This lowly student would never disparage the food Shifu has so graciously provided! It is always delicious, Shifu!” Shang made a little half bow, hoisted the little folding basket onto his back, and darted off into the woods to forage for some greens and mushrooms and…Fish Grass.
Eugh.