Shen Yuan is staring at Lan Xichen like he's speaking a foreign language, and he sort of it. The best Shen Qingqiu had been able to come up on his own was indeed running away from Luo Binghe; standing and dealing with him, trying to change the rules of the encounter so physical violence never enters into it...These still seem like impossible goals to him. But Lan Xichen is trying so hard to help, and Shen Yuan...he wants to keep his limbs. He wants Binghe to stop hating him. He wants to see where this goes.

"I stopped beating him, to begin with," he says, laughs awkwardly, the itchiness in his eyes increasing. Fuck no, he's not going to start crying again, when he doesn't even have drunkeness to excuse it. "The original Shen Qingqiu was a...terrible man. A terrible teacher," he explains. "I had to past a test from the System before I could stop imitating his shitty personality, but at least I was able to come up with some excuses not to keep beating Luo Binghe every day. I...I replaced the fake cultivation manual he'd been given with a real one." He sits and thinks for a moment, tapping his fingers together in lieu of a fan, both trying to pick out specific situations and the proper wording to describe him. "I moved him into my house," he admits, somewhat embarrassed. "The other disciples all took their cue on proper behavior from Shen Qingqiu. They bullied Binghe straight out of the dormitory and made him sleep in the woodshed, and I didn't want to put him back in the dorm if they were going to keep picking on him, so I put him in the spare room. He insisted on cooking and cleaning for me after that, but I don't think that was a negative for him? He seemed happy!" Shen Yuan are you trying to convince Lan Xichen or yourself??