Chapter Text
Shen Yuan had always been far too curious for his own good. Even after awakening in Shen Qingqiu’s body, even while carrying in his memory every narrative arc, every trap, and every carefully planned catastrophe of that world, the restlessness never left him. There was always that uncomfortable sensation in his chest — a persistent itch, almost irritating, buried deep in his soul — that kept him from simply accepting events as they came. He needed to see with his own eyes, to confirm for himself, to be certain that everything in that world truly needed to happen exactly as it had been written in PIDW.
That was how — as almost always happened — he strayed from the main route of the expedition, without giving any warning to Liu Qingge, who was accompanying him and who, at that very moment, was probably already panicking as he turned around and realized he was alone in that unnaturally silent environment. There was nothing dramatic about it: no alarms blaring in his mind, no shrill warnings from the system. Just a small discrepancy, too insignificant to justify concern, yet enough to satisfy his curiosity. Experience told him that if something were truly dangerous, the system would already be screaming inside his head, flooding him with useless alerts and absurd penalties.
Even so, as he moved forward, something began to feel… wrong. The forest around him grew progressively quieter — not the natural silence of a peaceful place, but a heavy, unnatural void, as if the world itself were holding its breath. The insects had vanished, the wind no longer stirred the leaves, and even the sound of his own footsteps seemed too loud, out of place in that motionless space. Shen Qingqiu slowed his pace, and just as he was about to call out to his shidi, he saw it.
A lake.
Frozen.
It was the height of summer. The sun still burned high in the sky, the air thick and far too warm to justify such a sight, and yet before him stretched a smooth, flawless sheet of ice, reflecting the light like a shattered mirror splintered into countless fragments. The cold did not spread to the surroundings; it seemed contained, concentrated there, as though held in check by something unseen. At the center of the lake, something glimmered.
Shen Qingqiu approached slowly, feeling a shiver run down his spine — and, with mild surprise, realized it did not come from the cold. It was something else. An unsettling sense of recognition, strangely familiar, as if that thing were… waiting for him. As if it already knew he would come. At the lake’s center grew a lily, its petals translucent and delicate, reminiscent of hand-blown glass. Light passed through the flower and fractured into soft hues of blue and white, as though the ice itself were breathing. There were no submerged leaves, no visible roots anchoring it to the lakebed; it simply existed there, suspended between ice and air, radiating cold in a slow, steady rhythm, like calm breathing.
Shen Qingqiu frowned slightly. This definitely wasn’t part of the canon. He crouched at the lake’s edge and examined everything carefully: no suspicious scent, no colored mist, no pollen drifting through the air. His body didn’t react strangely either — no sudden wave of heat, no dizziness, none of that infamous sensation that always preceded the hormonal disasters so typical of that world. Not an aphrodisiac, he concluded with almost immediate relief, though his caution did not fade entirely.
Sword in hand, he extended it to poke at the flower from a distance, just to test it. Nothing happened. The ice remained intact, the flower motionless and silent. After a brief moment of hesitation, he stepped closer and, this time, extended his hand with extreme care, bringing his fingers toward the translucent petals in a slow, controlled — almost reverent — movement.
The instant his fingers touched the flower, the world shattered.
Cold surged up his skin like something alive. It did not burn, did not hurt at first; it spread far too quickly to be avoided, racing up his fingers and wrist like cracks of ice through thin glass. His hand began to crystallize before his eyes, forming irregular patterns — beautiful and terrifying all at once. Pain never came. Instead, a deep, crushing weight settled in, as if something were taking root inside him, anchoring itself not only in flesh, but in something far more intimate. Shen Qingqiu tried to pull his hand back, but couldn’t; the air left his lungs, and he didn’t even have time to scream before darkness swallowed him whole.
When he opened his eyes, Liu Qingge was gripping him tightly. His body was slick with a thin sheen of cold sweat, his heart racing erratically, his lungs burning as he struggled to catch his breath. The Lord of Bai Zhan Peak was shouting his name, shaking him, but Shen Qingqiu couldn’t respond; he sat up abruptly, still dazed, and then realized that the frozen lake was gone. In its place lay only damp earth, scattered leaves, and ordinary water reflecting the summer sky. The lily was gone as well, as though it had never existed.
He looked at his hand. Normal. Warm. Too warm — as if all that cold had been swallowed, forced deep inside him.
In the days that followed, Shen Qingqiu remained on high alert. He returned at once to the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, sought out Mu Qingfang, and subjected himself to examinations, tests, and diagnoses again and again until exhaustion; his body was analyzed inside and out, his qi examined thread by thread. Nothing was found: no poison, no curse, no detectable anomaly beyond Without a Cure.
“You are perfectly healthy,” was the final verdict.
Perfectly.
Shen Qingqiu smiled, thanked him, and returned to his peak. Yet that night, when he closed his eyes, he carried with him the unsettling certainty that something was deeply, profoundly wrong.
The door to Shang Qinghua’s room was thrown open with enough force to slam violently against the wall. The impact echoed loudly — BANG — and in the next instant, papers flew everywhere, an inkstone toppled over, and the brush nearly slipped from Shang Qinghua’s fingers as he shot up from his chair in a movement that was equal parts undignified and terrified. A curse was already rising to his lips, cut off halfway as he turned, ready to unleash ten uninterrupted minutes of profanity… only to freeze upon recognizing the figure standing in the doorway.
Silence fell, heavy and oppressive.
After a long sigh filled with judgment and resignation, Shang Qinghua spoke.
“…Cucumber Bro.”
There was nothing warm about his tone; it carried that very specific weight of good morning, and where exactly do you think you left your manners?
Shen Qingqiu didn’t answer. He simply walked in, closed the door behind him — this time without slamming it — and crossed the room as if he owned the place. He dragged a chair over and sat directly in front of Shang Qinghua’s desk, crossing his legs with a calm that clashed violently with the sharp intensity of his gaze. Shang Qinghua blinked, still processing the invasion.
“Cucumber Bro…?” he tried cautiously. “If you’re here to complain about the system again, I—”
“I found a flower.”
Shang Qinghua froze completely.
“…A flower?”
“A lily,” Shen Qingqiu corrected flatly, without preamble. “In the middle of a frozen lake. At the height of summer.”
The author of Proud Immortal Demon Way opened his mouth… then closed it again. A second passed before he said carefully, “…Go on.”
And Shen Qingqiu did. He described everything: the lake, the flawless ice, the unnatural silence of the forest, the translucent petals like blown glass, the complete absence of roots, the cold that didn’t spread, the disturbing sense of recognition. The touch. The frost creeping up his skin. The crystallization. The blackout. Every detail was laid out on the desk like an inevitable sentence.
“There was no scent,” Shen Qingqiu concluded. “No pollen. No hormonal reaction. It wasn’t an aphrodisiac. And it wasn’t in the canon.” He leaned forward, his smile sharp and dangerous. “So I’ll ask very simply: what the hell was that?”
Shang Qinghua didn’t answer right away. He stared at the desk — not at the papers, not at the brush, but at the empty space between them.
“…That doesn’t exist,” he murmured.
“What did you say?”
“That doesn’t exist, man,” he repeated, louder now, lifting his gaze slowly. “I never wrote that. I never planned that. I never even thought about it.”
Shen Qingqiu narrowed his eyes. “Don’t give me that. If even I — the Peerless Cucumber — don’t know what this is, then the very least Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, author of this pornographic mess called PIDW, owes me is an explanation and a meaning.”
Shang Qinghua opened his mouth to retort… then closed it again, running a hand over his face.
“Man…” he laughed nervously. “I barely remember what I ate yesterday.”
“That’s exactly why I came here with so little hope,” Shen Qingqiu replied dryly.
The silence that followed was long. Dense. Heavy. Then Shang Qinghua looked back at the description scribbled on one of the papers — he didn’t even remember when he had started writing it — and went pale.
“…No,” he murmured.
“What?”
“No, no, no.” He stood abruptly, knocking his chair backward. “Cucumber Bro… this is bad.”
“Define bad.”
Shang Qinghua swallowed hard. “Like… we’re screwed on a cosmic level.”
Shen Qingqiu smiled — but there was no humor in it.
The explanation that followed was… ridiculous. The kind that, if Shen Qingqiu were still just an ordinary reader, would’ve made him close the book, toss his phone onto the bed, and stare at the ceiling for a solid ten minutes, seriously questioning the author’s life choices. Shang Qinghua scratched the back of his neck, laughing without humor, before starting:
“You know when you create a draft of something… delete it, rewrite it, delete it again… you’re never satisfied, until it turns into an unfinished idea you shove into some forgotten corner of your computer and pretend never existed?”
Shen Qingqiu didn’t answer. He already knew. He knew all too well.
“So,” Shang Qinghua sighed, leaning on the desk and finally meeting his gaze, “that was it. Eternal Glass Lily was just a provisional name. An old concept, way back at the beginning of PIDW. Before everything turned into…” he gestured vaguely, “…endless harems and power-ups every three chapters.”
A strange twinge crossed Shen Qingqiu’s chest as Shang Qinghua continued.
“I wanted to create a different power system. Not to make Luo Binghe stronger right away. It was supposed to be an obstacle. A real challenge.” He gestured animatedly now, tension forgotten in his excitement. “The flower was perfect. Anyone who came into contact with it would absorb its properties. Absolute ice. Something beautiful, but completely uncontrollable.”
“And then?” Shen Qingqiu asked.
“Plan A.” Shang Qinghua raised a finger. “Create a rival. An anti-hero. Someone who found the flower first. That guy would be stronger than Binghe. Always.”
“Always?” Shen Qingqiu repeated flatly.
“Always,” he confirmed. “Binghe would face him over and over. Lose every time. Because the goal was development, not victory. He’d have to learn how to protect what mattered, even while being weaker.” A brief silence fell before Shang Qinghua continued more quietly. “In the end, they’d work together. Become… brothers. Something like Frozen. Power out of control, ice, isolation… and love as the key.”
Shen Qingqiu blinked. “Did you just compare PIDW to Frozen?”
“Don’t judge me,” Shang Qinghua shot back defensively. “It was a good idea!” He sighed. “But then I saw what the audience wanted. More wives. More conquests. More pornography disguised as epic fantasy.”
“Shocking,” Shen Qingqiu muttered.
“Plan B was…” Shang Qinghua grimaced. “Give the flower to a romantic partner. A future wife of Binghe. Strong, dangerous, but emotionally dependent on him. That whole ‘powerful empress on the outside, fragile on the inside’ thing. Love, redemption, blah blah blah.” He shrugged. “I never really liked that idea. It felt forced. So I scrapped that too.”
Silence settled again. Shen Qingqiu stared at him for a long moment before speaking slowly:
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight. That flower…”
“Should never have existed,” Shang Qinghua concluded bluntly.
Shen Qingqiu propped his elbow on the desk. “And the powers?”
Shang Qinghua swallowed. “Absolute ice. Unstable emotional control. The more the bearer represses, the more violent it becomes. The more they accept it… the more beautiful. And more dangerous.” He looked up. “Very Elsa, yes.”
Shen Qingqiu’s heart jumped. “So… whoever absorbs that thing gets ice powers on that level?”
Shang Qinghua nodded slowly. “That’s what I remember writing.” There was a pause. “But that was over thirty years ago, before I transmigrated. There’s probably a mistake. A plot hole.”
The room seemed to grow colder. Shen Qingqiu leaned back in his chair, letting out a short, incredulous laugh.
“Incredible. Absolutely incredible.” He lifted his gaze, smile crooked and dangerous. “So basically… I stumbled into an abandoned draft of Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.”
Shang Qinghua didn’t laugh.
“Cucumber Bro…” he said seriously. “If that thing awakened in you…” He hesitated. “Then I think the world just remembered something that should have stayed forgotten.”
And for the first time since waking up in that body, Shen Qingqiu had the distinct feeling that the script had been torn apart.