Shang Qinghua (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hackauthor) wrote2026-03-26 10:49 pm
hackauthor) wrote2026-03-26 10:49 pm
INTRODUCTION TO THIS MESS
1. What is Scum Villain Self-Saving System?
The Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS or Scum Villain) is a Chinese danmei (boys' love) novel written by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (MXTX). It was originally published as a web novel on Jinjiang Literature City (JJWXC), a Chinese web novel forum that specifically targets women and is particularly known for hosting danmei works. Scum Villain is a parody of transmigration and xianxia novels featuring a cultivation setting. It is overall more humorous than MXTX's other works, although it does touch on serious and emotionally complex subjects such as classism, racism, and abuse.
Transmigration is a trope similar to isekai, where characters travel from one world are moved to another through various supernatural means. In isekai stories the method of travel can vary, but in transmigration this is always a form of reincarnation. Xianxia is a type of subgenre of Chinese fantasy novels, which are typically set in a loosely-defined ancient past (but can also take place in the modern era!) with the addition of magical fantasy elements and supernatural happenings. Some of the fantasy elements featured in Scum Villain include demonic beasts/monsters, multiple planes of existence, and the existence of the humanoid but monstrous demons.
The general plot of Scum Villain is that Shen Yuan, a young man in modern day China, dies and transmigrates into the in-universe story of Proud Immortal Demon Way as the titular "scum villain" Shen Qingqiu. As Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan must navigate avoiding his fate of dying horribly at the hands of the protagonist Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe, after surviving a childhood filled with abuse and heartache, is destined to rise to great heights and as an adult takes his brutal revenge on everyone who ever hurt him--especially Shen Qingqiu, his terrible teacher who is responsible for a great deal of his suffering. These efforts are sometimes helped and sometimes thwarted by the System, the supernatural entity that facilitated Shen Yuan's transmigration and is in charge of keeping PIDW's plot on track.
Scum Villain is largely concerned with the many twists and turns of Shen Yuan (as Shen Qingqiu) and Luo Binghe's romance. Shang Qinghua is a supporting character in the main story who is (mostly) Shen Yuan's friend and ally.
2. Who is Shang Qinghua?
Shang Qinghua is the name of the Peak Lord of An Ding Peak, a minor villain and spy for the demonic prince Mobei-jun who conspires against the righteous world of human cultivators. Within the text of PIDW, Shang Qinghua is killed by Mobei-jun shortly after he is revealed as a spy.
Within the text of SVSSS, Shang Qinghua is another transmigrator whose presence Shen Yuan (as Shen Qingqiu) unmasks towards the end of the first novel. In his previous life, he was known as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: the author of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Unlike Shen Yuan, who transmigrated into an adult body, Shang Qinghua transmigrated into the body of a baby and has functionally lived an entire life within his own novel.
There are several names associated with this character, which I'll try to break down as simply as I can here:
Shang Qinghua: His courtesy name and the primary name he goes by. The "Qing" in this name is a shared generational character with the other Peak Lords of Cang Qiong.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: The pen name he wrote Proud Immortal Demon Way Under in his first life. It's a masturbation joke. This is often shortened to nicknames such as Airplane-bro, Great Master Airplane, or Airplane-juju.
Xiang Fei: His birth name in his first life. It shares characters with his pen name, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, as he originally wanted to use his name as his username for Zhongdian Literature.
Generally speaking, the character tends to think of himself and is referred to in-text as Shang Qinghua. When thinking about his previous life, he prefers to refer to himself as "Airplane" or "Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky". He only goes by Xiang Fei in the recently published post-canon extra "The Homecoming," which is a story where he and Shen Yuan are returned to their original bodies from their first lives.
3. What kind of story is Proud Immortal Demon Way?
Proud Immortal Demon Way is, within the text of Scum Villain, a popular web novel hosted on a website called Zhongdian Literature where readers purchase the story by the chapter. It is an action-adventure novel set in a historical xianxia setting with a particular narrative focus on revenge. Shen Yuan describes Proud Immortal Demon Way as a "stallion novel" and a "YY novel". Both of these terms basically mean the same thing: Proud Immortal Demon Way is a masturbatory male power fantasy novel where the main goals for its "stallion" protagonist is to conquer everything he sets his eye on, full of fanservice and mediocre villains who just exist to be violently cut down. It's notorious for being the cause of many circular online arguments, as well as Airplane's prolific writing schedule of daily updates of 10,000 words per day.
Luo Binghe is the protagonist of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Although he is (unbeknownst to him) secretly the child of famous righteous cultivator Su Xiyan and the Heavenly Demon Emperor Tianlang-jun, he struggles through a childhood of poverty and homelessness. He is eventually accepted as a disciple of one of Cang Qiong Mountain's twelve immortal masters, Shen Qingqiu, only to be physically abused by his teacher and mistreated by the majority of his fellow disciples. This culminates in Shen Qingqiu throwing him into the horrific Endless Abyss. When Luo Binghe crawls out of the Endless Abyss with the powerful Xin Mo sword in hand and his demonic heritage fully unsealed, thoroughly disillusioned with the world of righteous cultivators, he schemes to not just get his revenge on Shen Qingqiu but completely annihilate the four great cultivation sects. By the time the story ends and he has completed his revenge, Luo Binghe is the Emperor of the merged Human and Demon Realms with a harem in the triple digits and countless descendants.
Although Proud Immortal Demon Way was never a particularly high brow piece of fiction (Airplane himself describes it as a "popcorn novel," written first and foremost to be entertaining), part of the reason why Shen Yuan gets so mad about it is the novel's unrealized potential. It has many unresolved mysteries and plotlines that were left hanging in favor of more sex and repetitive romance; once women enter Luo Binghe's harem, they rarely are seen again. When Airplane describes his writing process, he admits that he scatters various potential plot points throughout his chapters and then pursued the ones his audience showed an interest in; anything the audience doesn't respond well to was abandoned, resulting in a final story full of plot holes. Despite all of this, Shen Yuan does praise him for his skill in writing and designing monsters and Luo Binghe as a compelling protagonist.
4. So exactly how fictional is the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way and the people who live in it?
This question is kind of complicated. The world of Proud Immortal Demon Way is both a fictional creation and a living breathing world populated by real people living their lives: this dichotomy is one of the primary conflicts of Scum Villain, as the protagonist Shen Yuan's knowledge of Proud Immortal Demon Way both helps and hinders him in his efforts to avoid Shen Qingqiu's terrible ending. His perception of the world as purely fictional and the people living within it as being simple characters actively works against him at many points, especially when it comes to understanding Luo Binghe.
However, there are certain aspects of the world that are directly related to the fact that it is fictional. The forces of Proud Immortal Demon Way's original story have a very real influence on the world. Luo Binghe can never truly lose; plot points may shift from one character to another, but the narrative is rarely ever truly denied. The world itself is full of a dime a dozen "once in a millennia" miracle plants and flowers, absurdly lethal demonic beasts, and mysterious ruins to explore. If a contrivance ever existed to move a story forward, it probably sincerely exists within the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way and the people there just have to live with it--no matter how absurd or ridiculous. There genuinely is a lot to dig into about how Scum Villain plays with the idea of determinism as a literally pre-written destiny in the form of a story.
There is also some additional information about the interplay of fiction vs. reality vs. fiction as reality in the extras of Scum Villain, but that's all a bit much to get into for an introduction to the series.
5. What's the role of the System in all of this?
The System is the supernatural entity responsible for Shen Yuan and Airplane's transmigrations into the roles of Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua. It gamifies the experience, granting or taking away B-points (short for "Badass Points") for accomplishing or failing at certain tasks; it also tracks things like Luo Binghe's satisfaction, anger, and heartbreak. The System has the ability to punish them for not following its directives--in fact, it uses the threat of returning Shen Yuan and Airplane to their original (presumably deceased) bodies if they do not cooperate with its demands.
The System is also the factor that decides what events are necessary for the narrative to move forward. For example, as a child, Shang Qinghua was forced to join Cang Qiong as an outer disciple in order to eventually become the An Ding Peak Lord Shang Qinghua. It would have allowed him, however, to kill Mobei-jun with a rock as it had determined that the character Mobei-jun was not necessary to the story.
X. Can you tell me a little bit more about the xianxia genre and what a cultivator is?
PSYCHE!!!!! this is getting its own post bc the info is so dense it needs different formatting. keeping my rough draft here tho
The Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS or Scum Villain) is a Chinese danmei (boys' love) novel written by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (MXTX). It was originally published as a web novel on Jinjiang Literature City (JJWXC), a Chinese web novel forum that specifically targets women and is particularly known for hosting danmei works. Scum Villain is a parody of transmigration and xianxia novels featuring a cultivation setting. It is overall more humorous than MXTX's other works, although it does touch on serious and emotionally complex subjects such as classism, racism, and abuse.
Transmigration is a trope similar to isekai, where characters travel from one world are moved to another through various supernatural means. In isekai stories the method of travel can vary, but in transmigration this is always a form of reincarnation. Xianxia is a type of subgenre of Chinese fantasy novels, which are typically set in a loosely-defined ancient past (but can also take place in the modern era!) with the addition of magical fantasy elements and supernatural happenings. Some of the fantasy elements featured in Scum Villain include demonic beasts/monsters, multiple planes of existence, and the existence of the humanoid but monstrous demons.
The general plot of Scum Villain is that Shen Yuan, a young man in modern day China, dies and transmigrates into the in-universe story of Proud Immortal Demon Way as the titular "scum villain" Shen Qingqiu. As Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan must navigate avoiding his fate of dying horribly at the hands of the protagonist Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe, after surviving a childhood filled with abuse and heartache, is destined to rise to great heights and as an adult takes his brutal revenge on everyone who ever hurt him--especially Shen Qingqiu, his terrible teacher who is responsible for a great deal of his suffering. These efforts are sometimes helped and sometimes thwarted by the System, the supernatural entity that facilitated Shen Yuan's transmigration and is in charge of keeping PIDW's plot on track.
Scum Villain is largely concerned with the many twists and turns of Shen Yuan (as Shen Qingqiu) and Luo Binghe's romance. Shang Qinghua is a supporting character in the main story who is (mostly) Shen Yuan's friend and ally.
2. Who is Shang Qinghua?
Shang Qinghua is the name of the Peak Lord of An Ding Peak, a minor villain and spy for the demonic prince Mobei-jun who conspires against the righteous world of human cultivators. Within the text of PIDW, Shang Qinghua is killed by Mobei-jun shortly after he is revealed as a spy.
Within the text of SVSSS, Shang Qinghua is another transmigrator whose presence Shen Yuan (as Shen Qingqiu) unmasks towards the end of the first novel. In his previous life, he was known as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: the author of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Unlike Shen Yuan, who transmigrated into an adult body, Shang Qinghua transmigrated into the body of a baby and has functionally lived an entire life within his own novel.
There are several names associated with this character, which I'll try to break down as simply as I can here:
Shang Qinghua: His courtesy name and the primary name he goes by. The "Qing" in this name is a shared generational character with the other Peak Lords of Cang Qiong.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: The pen name he wrote Proud Immortal Demon Way Under in his first life. It's a masturbation joke. This is often shortened to nicknames such as Airplane-bro, Great Master Airplane, or Airplane-juju.
Xiang Fei: His birth name in his first life. It shares characters with his pen name, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, as he originally wanted to use his name as his username for Zhongdian Literature.
Generally speaking, the character tends to think of himself and is referred to in-text as Shang Qinghua. When thinking about his previous life, he prefers to refer to himself as "Airplane" or "Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky". He only goes by Xiang Fei in the recently published post-canon extra "The Homecoming," which is a story where he and Shen Yuan are returned to their original bodies from their first lives.
3. What kind of story is Proud Immortal Demon Way?
Proud Immortal Demon Way is, within the text of Scum Villain, a popular web novel hosted on a website called Zhongdian Literature where readers purchase the story by the chapter. It is an action-adventure novel set in a historical xianxia setting with a particular narrative focus on revenge. Shen Yuan describes Proud Immortal Demon Way as a "stallion novel" and a "YY novel". Both of these terms basically mean the same thing: Proud Immortal Demon Way is a masturbatory male power fantasy novel where the main goals for its "stallion" protagonist is to conquer everything he sets his eye on, full of fanservice and mediocre villains who just exist to be violently cut down. It's notorious for being the cause of many circular online arguments, as well as Airplane's prolific writing schedule of daily updates of 10,000 words per day.
Luo Binghe is the protagonist of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Although he is (unbeknownst to him) secretly the child of famous righteous cultivator Su Xiyan and the Heavenly Demon Emperor Tianlang-jun, he struggles through a childhood of poverty and homelessness. He is eventually accepted as a disciple of one of Cang Qiong Mountain's twelve immortal masters, Shen Qingqiu, only to be physically abused by his teacher and mistreated by the majority of his fellow disciples. This culminates in Shen Qingqiu throwing him into the horrific Endless Abyss. When Luo Binghe crawls out of the Endless Abyss with the powerful Xin Mo sword in hand and his demonic heritage fully unsealed, thoroughly disillusioned with the world of righteous cultivators, he schemes to not just get his revenge on Shen Qingqiu but completely annihilate the four great cultivation sects. By the time the story ends and he has completed his revenge, Luo Binghe is the Emperor of the merged Human and Demon Realms with a harem in the triple digits and countless descendants.
Although Proud Immortal Demon Way was never a particularly high brow piece of fiction (Airplane himself describes it as a "popcorn novel," written first and foremost to be entertaining), part of the reason why Shen Yuan gets so mad about it is the novel's unrealized potential. It has many unresolved mysteries and plotlines that were left hanging in favor of more sex and repetitive romance; once women enter Luo Binghe's harem, they rarely are seen again. When Airplane describes his writing process, he admits that he scatters various potential plot points throughout his chapters and then pursued the ones his audience showed an interest in; anything the audience doesn't respond well to was abandoned, resulting in a final story full of plot holes. Despite all of this, Shen Yuan does praise him for his skill in writing and designing monsters and Luo Binghe as a compelling protagonist.
4. So exactly how fictional is the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way and the people who live in it?
This question is kind of complicated. The world of Proud Immortal Demon Way is both a fictional creation and a living breathing world populated by real people living their lives: this dichotomy is one of the primary conflicts of Scum Villain, as the protagonist Shen Yuan's knowledge of Proud Immortal Demon Way both helps and hinders him in his efforts to avoid Shen Qingqiu's terrible ending. His perception of the world as purely fictional and the people living within it as being simple characters actively works against him at many points, especially when it comes to understanding Luo Binghe.
However, there are certain aspects of the world that are directly related to the fact that it is fictional. The forces of Proud Immortal Demon Way's original story have a very real influence on the world. Luo Binghe can never truly lose; plot points may shift from one character to another, but the narrative is rarely ever truly denied. The world itself is full of a dime a dozen "once in a millennia" miracle plants and flowers, absurdly lethal demonic beasts, and mysterious ruins to explore. If a contrivance ever existed to move a story forward, it probably sincerely exists within the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way and the people there just have to live with it--no matter how absurd or ridiculous. There genuinely is a lot to dig into about how Scum Villain plays with the idea of determinism as a literally pre-written destiny in the form of a story.
There is also some additional information about the interplay of fiction vs. reality vs. fiction as reality in the extras of Scum Villain, but that's all a bit much to get into for an introduction to the series.
5. What's the role of the System in all of this?
The System is the supernatural entity responsible for Shen Yuan and Airplane's transmigrations into the roles of Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua. It gamifies the experience, granting or taking away B-points (short for "Badass Points") for accomplishing or failing at certain tasks; it also tracks things like Luo Binghe's satisfaction, anger, and heartbreak. The System has the ability to punish them for not following its directives--in fact, it uses the threat of returning Shen Yuan and Airplane to their original (presumably deceased) bodies if they do not cooperate with its demands.
The System is also the factor that decides what events are necessary for the narrative to move forward. For example, as a child, Shang Qinghua was forced to join Cang Qiong as an outer disciple in order to eventually become the An Ding Peak Lord Shang Qinghua. It would have allowed him, however, to kill Mobei-jun with a rock as it had determined that the character Mobei-jun was not necessary to the story.
X. Can you tell me a little bit more about the xianxia genre and what a cultivator is?
PSYCHE!!!!! this is getting its own post bc the info is so dense it needs different formatting. keeping my rough draft here tho