I'll be there in every universe

Why?

Author's note: First time posting here!

Please excuse any mistakes, English isn't my best language. :,)

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     None of this was his. Shen Qingqiu...no... Shen Yuan knew that all of the bonds that he had made during his time presenting as Shen Qingqiu, that none of it was truly his.

     The amount of time he spent in this world wouldn't matter. Sure he "had" relationships, but they're all Shen Qingqiu's. Hell, even Shang Qinghua had it better than him. It's... It's so unfair. He admits that it was all the system's fault, that Shang Qinghua had no way to choose when or where he would transmigrate after he died. Neither of them could. But he can't help to feel angry-... no... jealous of Airplane. Of how despite having to do everything the system told him, everything was his, and not of PIDW Shang Qinghua (since he doesn't exist here). That Airplane was born into his new body, instead of just being placed there randomly. Of all the time he had to get to know the other peak lords —past what he wrote in the novel— and to get to know his disciples.

     He didn't have many bonds in his life... past life now... but now he had some, ones that didn't belong to him in the first place. Even if he tried, he wouldn't be able to completely stop people from associating Shen Qingqiu from the past with him. It's so unfair, nearly everyone hates him for things he didn't do but how would they know? To them, he's the same Shen Qingqiu, whose fever/qi deviation led to a big personality change and memory loss.

     Oh...

     He's crying.

―

     He couldn't recall much of what happened after that. What he does know is that he woke up in his old body, in the same position as when he died; in front of his computer, the screen displaying the cause of his death. After confirming that it was actually his own body and not someone else's, he checked the time:

     ⌐September 21st, 2014 XX: XX¬

     As he stands to get up, his hand bumps into the fallen yogurt cup. I should probably throw that out, actually... I should just throw out all the yogurt I have. Don't think I want to see any of it for a long while.

     He was acting calm, too calm for someone who just died and came back. He was probably too unaware of what was happening to realize what has happened.

     His computer lights up to a notification. It was a message from Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky.

     Huh?

     Shen Yuan clicks on it, seeing if maybe the other man had any sort of explanation about what the fuck happened to them. Only to then remember that it was Airplane he was thinking about and losing all the hopes of getting an explanation.

Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky: CUCUMBER, WHAT HAPPENED???

Airplane Shooting Towards The sky: WHY ARE WE BACK???

Peerless Cucumber: Shang Qinghua?

Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky: AH YES, IT'S ME!! SHEN QINGQIU, IS THAT REALLY YOU!??

Peerless Cucumber: It's me but calm down, you hack. I don't know what happened.

Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky: :,) What do we do, we can't just ignore whatever *that* was.

Peerless Cucumber: Is there anything we can even do about it? Everything's happening too quickly, let's talk about it some other time after we get somewhat used to being back again.

Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky: Fine...

―

     "So, you're telling me that you died due to expired yogurt? Well, that makes me feel better about my death." Shang Qinghua said. He was sitting on Shen Yuan's couch. They were going to meet up somewhere outside, but their conversation would get them a lot of unwanted stares.

     "It's better than naming a cannon fodder after yourself."

     "Oh, shut up... Anyways, what were you doing before we came here?" Airplane asked, clearly trying to change the topic. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong topic!

     "I was... meditating. What about you? What were you doing?"

     "Meditating, sure. I was looking over some requests for new repairments from Bai Zhan. They have to stop breaking stuff soon; I don't know if the Sect can continue to constantly repair the peak. They might drive Mu-shidi insane one of these days, haha..." Shang Qinghua chuckled to himself, fiddling with his thumbs. "I wonder how they're doing right now, hopefully well."

     "Yea... Having two high-ranking peak lords disappear suddenly is due to cause some chaos. Hah, I just hope they aren't doing anything too extreme. Or maybe they aren't doing anything at all." The last part came out more sadden than intended, as Shen Yuan reached for his fan, only to realize that he no longer had one.

     "Guess old habits die hard." Shang Qinghua teased, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

     "Shut up."

     "It's been a week since we came back. We don't know the time difference between the two worlds. After all, we spent years over there and now we woke up to this world being at the same time as when we died."

     The both of them continued to discuss what they'd been doing the past week. Turns out that Airplane was going over PIDW and revising it, finally writing it the way he had wanted to. Shen Yuan offered to help him edit, can't let Airplane get too comfortable with his trash writing. He's planning on getting it physically published, and maybe giving them a somewhat better ending. After spending a whole life with his own characters, it felt cruel to give all of them a terrible end after getting attached to most of them. 

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Author's Note: Thank you for reading this chapter, hope you enjoyed it!!

 I currently have no idea about how many chapters I'm planning for this fanfic. 

I am, however, aware that the next few chapters will be longer. Once again, thank you so much for reading!! [Originally posted on ao3, but now being cross-posted on Wattpad, too.]

[10.25.23 - Edited and added a few more parts.]