Chapter Text
Shang Qinghua: I am fully unloved by those around me.
Everyone: That is the biggest lie you've told me and you have unwatered my crops.
First lets just say that Shang Qinghua is totally unable to realize basic affection and also like mafia affection might be a little different to normal affection. Ok, let's set up the scene.
Hamster is born again with his system like normal, unhelpful and unresponsive to lots of his request for info, in a family of minor merchants. They don't really mind Qinghua but they aren't really good either, we get a couple of scenes in childhood with his family who really doesn't care where he ends up, and basically lets him do his own thing. Basically just feeds him and provides a bed but no big emotional connection there (that is noted by Qinghua). The family is kinda big, "lots of children and not enough hands kinda" energy. Big "is that a cousin I know or is this a family friend who we call cousin? doesn't matter no difference either way" energy. Big "This is totally a crime family or a cult" energy. Big "I know that there are things happening in this family that are illegal but like not really bad? in that they are nice about it" energy.
Later we might get a minor "villain" here who after realizing Qinghua is on the other side turns out to "change their ways" to good. Basically Qinghua is born into the mafia and like doesn't totally realize that he might have a card up his sleeve this whole time because whoops looks like that family which I have cares about me? and has like real power and stuff?
I'd like to have this basically be like a mafia Addams Family that Airplane wrote up in one of his drafts to explain how Qinghua got so much info about things and stuff but forgot about it the next day. Perhaps first chapter starts on him writing the whole thing down late at night, perhaps drunk?, and getting a kick out of it before "moving it very carefully to the maybe pile on his desk." I imagine that this pile basically gets pulled by the system to fill in plotholes in the story like how do most of this minor villains get these items from? Who networks between these two minor lords mentioned in chapter 80 and chapter 132? I imagine that this pile had a whole lot of ideas about Qinghua and the others backstory which the system just basically crams into order which means that there are all these minor connections to everyone that keep happening.
The family doesn't really care if Qinghua tries to be a cultivator and sends him off when he asks if he can go, no big fan fair or anything here. When he gets into the sect, he starts getting missions and focuses up on the plot in the peak, not that he can remember all the little things that he once thought of for his self-insert character once upon a time. I imagine that he gets in and starts seeing people that he noticed around his families house coming by the peak but he cakes it up to being that the peak does business with his family. Which he isn't wrong but its the other side, the mafia side that the business is with. An Ding is totally a unofficial spy network on top of being a basic glue peak that holds all the other peaks together type beat. When he basically becomes the leader, he basically has taken up a spy role for Ice Pack and the whole sect and then he realizes, "Hey wait a minute is that my family over there offering quite a few hints and tips on how to spy?"
Que big surprise moment where he's like "oh now that makes way more sense now." Growing into the role of peak leader, he gets pretty good at spying and closer to his family and all that jazz. The other sect lords don't really know the full story but Shen Jiu has some thoughts about the whole thing.
I imagine that growing up in mafia, Hamster thinks, "Wow, the world I wrote is kinda strange outside of the protag's view, huh?" and the other sect lords and people he meets are like, "That is completely and wholly unnormal. You are the strange one here."
I feel a lot of Found Family vibes off this one chief. Lots of discovering that you are way more powerful than you think you are.
- Question: Hamster born into main family of mafia or side character in mafia? Answer: Village Raised. No family lines. Perhaps, birth family dead and free range Hamster in mafia compound? who knows not me!
- Question 2: Pacing? Is this all about the family? One shot? Long with twists? Answers: ??????
- Question 3: Shen Yuan where? with who? Hmm? Answer: Kinda want Shen jiu to stay and have Shen Yuan pop out of a egg like other stories i've read. Perhaps...also mafia? or explained away with being mafia.
Also Qinghua totally collects children in this one. explains away the whole yeah, I want both Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan here, bro.
Other ideas are sure to be tic tac toed onto this one so whatever.
:)