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Title: Retreat, Move Forward
Author: Evandar
Fandom: SVSSS
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen, Angst
Pairing: Pre-Shang Qinghua/Shen Yuan
Warnings: Self-esteem issues, AU - No Transmigration, References to Depression
Disclaimer: I do not own SVSSS and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: It’s on a whim that he checks his email inbox afterwards; he usually throws himself into writing straight away, desperate to get his words out and his deadlines met, but he was unexpectedly prolific yesterday and he can afford the pause.
He deletes most of them without thinking. He reads a couple of newsletters to remind himself that he used to be part of a community once, then deletes those too. His mouse is hovering over the mass delete function when a subject line catches his eye: Paradise Hills Writers Retreat: Your Reservation.
AN: Written for the 2025 round of![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
iddyiddybangbang! I asked for amnesty and then Ao3 went down two hours earlier than anticipated.
Part 2, Part 3
The comment arrives on cue, one hour after his latest chapter hits the internet. Most of that hour was probably spent typing instead of reading, he thinks, skimming through Cucumber-bro’s vitriolic essay. Every so often, something that approaches a compliment catches his eye, like poor Peerless Cucumber can’t stop his standards from slipping enough for him to actually enjoy things.
Actually… this chapter had been one of his favourites to write. It’s set in the north, with Mobei-Jun as a secondary character, and a few of the snippets that he’d written when he’d still had ambitions for PIDW had finally made it into the novel. And those bits, those bits that he’d kept out of sheer nostalgia and had copy-pasted in to this latest chapter in order to pad his word count a little – those are the bits that Cucumber-bro seems to have enjoyed.
Something twists in his chest. Regret, maybe, for the novel that could have been. Or maybe it’s the impending heart attack from the cheap noodles that he ate earlier. Their slightly chemical aftertaste is still lingering on his tongue, and no matter how much coffee he drinks, it won’t go away. Either way, he scrolls back up again, rereads the comment and picks out the bits that are actually complimentary and savours them slowly.
Cucumber-bro’s replies are full of Luo Binghe isn’t going to fuck you, dude responses from the readers who actually do read PIDW for the porn. As badly written as it is, he knows people do that. The majority of his comments are about how hot various scenes are, regardless of how ridiculous he makes them or how often he forgets where peoples’ hands are (or even how many they have). PIDW has a loyal readership of pervs with dubious taste in smut; people like Peerless Cucumber, who read his shit for fun (or spite) rather than pleasure, are definitely in the minority.
He clicks out of the comment section and back into his word processor. He’s short by six thousand words on his next chapter, and he needs to get it done if he wants to pay rent this month. And, well. Writing will be a lot harder if he’s homeless again.
He throws himself into his latest draft, padding out his wordcount with phrases so purple that they’re damn near ultraviolet. Every so often, he reaches out to the plot-device spinner that he keeps on his desk, flicking the pointer and then writing whatever bullshit it throws at him into the chapter. He winces as it lands on betrayal from love interest and sex pollen; Peerless Cucumber’s next essay-comment is going to be vicious.
He's lucky his skin’s so thick, honestly.
But he can’t stop thinking about the compliments. About Cucumber-bro’s admiration of his world-building. He hesitates a little before working in a titbit of Northern Desert lore that he’d thought would be cool back when this over-blown nightmare still had a plot.
The next time, he doesn’t hesitate at all.
The time after that, he doesn’t even think about it.
He works what he can into the chapter without it seeming too deliberate, sketching in some of the details for the North that he’s always wanted to include. Why can’t Luo Binghe take a hot second between seducing beauties and killing people to notice the purple and green ribbons that snake across the sky at twilight? Why can’t he notice the distant pillars of the First Temple, like broken teeth on the horizon, and half a thought about how – if he’s a Heavenly Demon – there must be other gods out there too?
He may have beaten the original plot to death with a shovel and buried it in the furthest recesses of his brain, but the bare bones of it can still be found in the earlier chapters. Luo Binghe might be irredeemably far down the road of revenge, but he was originally supposed to take another path, and –
Fuck you, Cucumber-bro. He makes his obligatory sex scene particularly obnoxious out of sheer spite – how dare his biggest anti-fan remind him of how he’d wanted to be a real author once upon a time?
Sure enough, Peerless Cucumber’s comment the next day is gloriously self-contradictory. He, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, is both a talentless washed-up hack and capable of surprisingly intriguing world-building. He sniggers as he reads it, mouth full of instant noodles. The combination of reluctant admiration and absolute loathing is so delicious that it makes him forget that he can’t afford an egg to go with his ramen.
He scrolls idly through other comments for a bit. More of the same: praise for bringing back Ning Yingying for the pollen-induced fuck fest, speculation on how soon Luo Binghe is going to win this plot-arc’s obligatory beauty into his bed. It’s on a whim that he checks his email inbox afterwards; he usually throws himself into writing straight away, desperate to get his words out and his deadlines met, but he was unexpectedly prolific yesterday and he can afford the pause.
He deletes most of them without thinking. He reads a couple of newsletters to remind himself that he used to be part of a community once, then deletes those too. His mouse is hovering over the mass delete function when a subject line catches his eye: Paradise Hills Writers Retreat: Your Reservation.
He blinks. His what?
He stares at it for a good three minutes before clicking, weighing up his options before clicking into it. He’s fully braced to have to spend money he doesn’t have rescuing his laptop from whatever virus is attached to it, but he’s curious.
The email is a weirdly chic reservation confirmation email for a very sparkly-looking countryside retreat that he’s never heard of before. A quick search online shows that they’re a real place and that they are indeed hosting a writers’ retreat in three weeks – the same dates as the one that he’s apparently booked to go to.
The email is addressed to Mr Airplane.
“What the fuck?” he whispers, voice cracking from disuse.
The retreat is for two weeks. Two weeks of peace and quiet, of all-inclusive food and an on-site spa where one treatment costs more than his monthly food budget. Two weeks full of writing workshops and mountain hikes and the ability to go outside without having to check the air pollution index first. It sounds like a dream and a complete nightmare all at once. It’s definitely nothing he’d ever sign himself up for.
Even if he still clung to the idea of being a real writer instead of a stallion novel sell-out, he’d never be able to afford it. And he definitely wouldn’t have signed up under his pen name - what the fuck??? Which weirdo did this?
But.
But.
He throws himself into a new schedule – a schedule more insane than anything he’s ever done before. He writes bonus chapters: harem porn and background stories; writes advance chapters so that he can release on schedule and not have to think about PIDW while he’s busy masquerading as an actual writer.
Because –
Because he –
It’s stupid and extravagant and probably a horrible joke, but he wants it so badly that he can’t sleep or think about anything else. He keeps his hands flying across the keyboard and words pouring out while he fantasises about being able to put an actual plot down onto paper.
He doesn’t check his comments. Peerless Cucumber’s probably raging over the downturn in quality this arc has suffered, and he knows fine well that if he looks at the comments then he’ll lose whatever motivation is holding him together regardless of how thick his skin is. The idea that someone out there, someone who knows him as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, has enough faith in his writing to book him into a writers’ retreat is the only thing that’s keeping his fingers moving and the updates flowing.
Two weeks of daily updates. That’s all he needs to be able to go. The extra chapters have paid for his train ticket: Cucumber-bro may be a jerk, but he’s willing to pay good money to rip his writing apart.
He phones the resort, citing his booking number and – after double-checking that the reservation is real – asking them to change the name on the reservation to his real one. It’s not like he has any ID for his alias, and he knows that they’ll ask for it on check-in. Even the hold music is fancy, and he sits at his computer, typing one-handed, trying not to panic as it plays in his ear.
It goes through. Eventually, it tries to go through. He doesn’t know what he would have done if they’d refused to change it at this point, and he doesn’t even believe it until he gets the notification for the updated reservation.
No more Mr Airplane bullshit, thank fuck.
Packing is another nightmare. It’s not that he has much to pack, even if he was moving out rather than just going to a hotel for two weeks. But none of the things that he does own are in any way suitable for the place that he’s going. He hasn’t bought new clothes since leaving college and there’s always a chance that they’ll kick him out before he even gets his room key if he turns up dressed like a bum. But he can’t afford to go and buy anything, so he – he sucks it up. He shoves his laptop into his backpack along with a couple of old notebooks with a bunch of story ideas and notes in. He doesn’t flick through them. He doesn’t want to second guess any of the old ideas from back when he had ambition, and they’re the best thing he has to offer right now.
He has to catch the subway to the train station, and the train journey is a long one. He watches as Beijing speeds past, transforming into open countryside. He watches as the day passes outside the train, the scenery transforming and towns and cities blurring past first as the sun rises and then starts to set again. He tries not to think. He fiddles with the wire for his headphones, twisting them around his fingers until he finds the right angle for the right earbud to start working again. He plays music until the battery on his phone starts to die; when he has to put his phone on charge instead, he closes his eyes to block out the sight of the world changing.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it.
He –
Okay, he does. That part of him that wants to be taken seriously as an author is still there, deep down. If nothing else, this whole situation has made it abundantly clear that that part of him never died, no matter how much he’d thought he’d put it to rest. So, he’s taking a chance on a retreat that he hasn’t even paid for because having that reservation means that someone out there believes he can be better than what he is.
No one’s ever believed in him like that before.
He doesn’t know what to do with it, not really, but he wants to find out who they are and cling onto them for all he’s worth.
It’s past midnight when the train pulls into his stop. He grabs his back and disembarks onto a deserted platform, makes his way to the exit. The hotel said that they’d arrange to have him picked up, and sure enough, there’s a man in a suit standing by a limo outside of the station’s main doors, and he’s holding a sign with his name on it.
He feels a little guilty, sliding into the back seat. The car is spotless and smells of some kind of fancy air-freshener, and his ragged jeans and faded hoodie feel almost like an insult in comparison. He fiddles with the wire of his headphones again, keeping silent as the limo makes its way through winding streets up, up into the hills.
The hotel emerges from behind some trees, shining like a beacon. He stares up at it as the limo pulls up. What he can see looks ridiculous in its luxury: sleek lines and walls of glass. He’d known from the email that he would feel out of place here, but looking up at the real thing? He wants to run screaming all the way back to Beijing.
He takes a deep breath, and when the driver comes around to let him out of the car. He steps out.
He doesn’t run.
Author: Evandar
Fandom: SVSSS
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen, Angst
Pairing: Pre-Shang Qinghua/Shen Yuan
Warnings: Self-esteem issues, AU - No Transmigration, References to Depression
Disclaimer: I do not own SVSSS and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: It’s on a whim that he checks his email inbox afterwards; he usually throws himself into writing straight away, desperate to get his words out and his deadlines met, but he was unexpectedly prolific yesterday and he can afford the pause.
He deletes most of them without thinking. He reads a couple of newsletters to remind himself that he used to be part of a community once, then deletes those too. His mouse is hovering over the mass delete function when a subject line catches his eye: Paradise Hills Writers Retreat: Your Reservation.
AN: Written for the 2025 round of
iddyiddybangbang! I asked for amnesty and then Ao3 went down two hours earlier than anticipated. Part 2, Part 3
The comment arrives on cue, one hour after his latest chapter hits the internet. Most of that hour was probably spent typing instead of reading, he thinks, skimming through Cucumber-bro’s vitriolic essay. Every so often, something that approaches a compliment catches his eye, like poor Peerless Cucumber can’t stop his standards from slipping enough for him to actually enjoy things.
Actually… this chapter had been one of his favourites to write. It’s set in the north, with Mobei-Jun as a secondary character, and a few of the snippets that he’d written when he’d still had ambitions for PIDW had finally made it into the novel. And those bits, those bits that he’d kept out of sheer nostalgia and had copy-pasted in to this latest chapter in order to pad his word count a little – those are the bits that Cucumber-bro seems to have enjoyed.
Something twists in his chest. Regret, maybe, for the novel that could have been. Or maybe it’s the impending heart attack from the cheap noodles that he ate earlier. Their slightly chemical aftertaste is still lingering on his tongue, and no matter how much coffee he drinks, it won’t go away. Either way, he scrolls back up again, rereads the comment and picks out the bits that are actually complimentary and savours them slowly.
Cucumber-bro’s replies are full of Luo Binghe isn’t going to fuck you, dude responses from the readers who actually do read PIDW for the porn. As badly written as it is, he knows people do that. The majority of his comments are about how hot various scenes are, regardless of how ridiculous he makes them or how often he forgets where peoples’ hands are (or even how many they have). PIDW has a loyal readership of pervs with dubious taste in smut; people like Peerless Cucumber, who read his shit for fun (or spite) rather than pleasure, are definitely in the minority.
He clicks out of the comment section and back into his word processor. He’s short by six thousand words on his next chapter, and he needs to get it done if he wants to pay rent this month. And, well. Writing will be a lot harder if he’s homeless again.
He throws himself into his latest draft, padding out his wordcount with phrases so purple that they’re damn near ultraviolet. Every so often, he reaches out to the plot-device spinner that he keeps on his desk, flicking the pointer and then writing whatever bullshit it throws at him into the chapter. He winces as it lands on betrayal from love interest and sex pollen; Peerless Cucumber’s next essay-comment is going to be vicious.
He's lucky his skin’s so thick, honestly.
But he can’t stop thinking about the compliments. About Cucumber-bro’s admiration of his world-building. He hesitates a little before working in a titbit of Northern Desert lore that he’d thought would be cool back when this over-blown nightmare still had a plot.
The next time, he doesn’t hesitate at all.
The time after that, he doesn’t even think about it.
He works what he can into the chapter without it seeming too deliberate, sketching in some of the details for the North that he’s always wanted to include. Why can’t Luo Binghe take a hot second between seducing beauties and killing people to notice the purple and green ribbons that snake across the sky at twilight? Why can’t he notice the distant pillars of the First Temple, like broken teeth on the horizon, and half a thought about how – if he’s a Heavenly Demon – there must be other gods out there too?
He may have beaten the original plot to death with a shovel and buried it in the furthest recesses of his brain, but the bare bones of it can still be found in the earlier chapters. Luo Binghe might be irredeemably far down the road of revenge, but he was originally supposed to take another path, and –
Fuck you, Cucumber-bro. He makes his obligatory sex scene particularly obnoxious out of sheer spite – how dare his biggest anti-fan remind him of how he’d wanted to be a real author once upon a time?
Sure enough, Peerless Cucumber’s comment the next day is gloriously self-contradictory. He, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, is both a talentless washed-up hack and capable of surprisingly intriguing world-building. He sniggers as he reads it, mouth full of instant noodles. The combination of reluctant admiration and absolute loathing is so delicious that it makes him forget that he can’t afford an egg to go with his ramen.
He scrolls idly through other comments for a bit. More of the same: praise for bringing back Ning Yingying for the pollen-induced fuck fest, speculation on how soon Luo Binghe is going to win this plot-arc’s obligatory beauty into his bed. It’s on a whim that he checks his email inbox afterwards; he usually throws himself into writing straight away, desperate to get his words out and his deadlines met, but he was unexpectedly prolific yesterday and he can afford the pause.
He deletes most of them without thinking. He reads a couple of newsletters to remind himself that he used to be part of a community once, then deletes those too. His mouse is hovering over the mass delete function when a subject line catches his eye: Paradise Hills Writers Retreat: Your Reservation.
He blinks. His what?
He stares at it for a good three minutes before clicking, weighing up his options before clicking into it. He’s fully braced to have to spend money he doesn’t have rescuing his laptop from whatever virus is attached to it, but he’s curious.
The email is a weirdly chic reservation confirmation email for a very sparkly-looking countryside retreat that he’s never heard of before. A quick search online shows that they’re a real place and that they are indeed hosting a writers’ retreat in three weeks – the same dates as the one that he’s apparently booked to go to.
The email is addressed to Mr Airplane.
“What the fuck?” he whispers, voice cracking from disuse.
The retreat is for two weeks. Two weeks of peace and quiet, of all-inclusive food and an on-site spa where one treatment costs more than his monthly food budget. Two weeks full of writing workshops and mountain hikes and the ability to go outside without having to check the air pollution index first. It sounds like a dream and a complete nightmare all at once. It’s definitely nothing he’d ever sign himself up for.
Even if he still clung to the idea of being a real writer instead of a stallion novel sell-out, he’d never be able to afford it. And he definitely wouldn’t have signed up under his pen name - what the fuck??? Which weirdo did this?
But.
But.
He throws himself into a new schedule – a schedule more insane than anything he’s ever done before. He writes bonus chapters: harem porn and background stories; writes advance chapters so that he can release on schedule and not have to think about PIDW while he’s busy masquerading as an actual writer.
Because –
Because he –
It’s stupid and extravagant and probably a horrible joke, but he wants it so badly that he can’t sleep or think about anything else. He keeps his hands flying across the keyboard and words pouring out while he fantasises about being able to put an actual plot down onto paper.
He doesn’t check his comments. Peerless Cucumber’s probably raging over the downturn in quality this arc has suffered, and he knows fine well that if he looks at the comments then he’ll lose whatever motivation is holding him together regardless of how thick his skin is. The idea that someone out there, someone who knows him as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, has enough faith in his writing to book him into a writers’ retreat is the only thing that’s keeping his fingers moving and the updates flowing.
Two weeks of daily updates. That’s all he needs to be able to go. The extra chapters have paid for his train ticket: Cucumber-bro may be a jerk, but he’s willing to pay good money to rip his writing apart.
He phones the resort, citing his booking number and – after double-checking that the reservation is real – asking them to change the name on the reservation to his real one. It’s not like he has any ID for his alias, and he knows that they’ll ask for it on check-in. Even the hold music is fancy, and he sits at his computer, typing one-handed, trying not to panic as it plays in his ear.
It goes through. Eventually, it tries to go through. He doesn’t know what he would have done if they’d refused to change it at this point, and he doesn’t even believe it until he gets the notification for the updated reservation.
No more Mr Airplane bullshit, thank fuck.
Packing is another nightmare. It’s not that he has much to pack, even if he was moving out rather than just going to a hotel for two weeks. But none of the things that he does own are in any way suitable for the place that he’s going. He hasn’t bought new clothes since leaving college and there’s always a chance that they’ll kick him out before he even gets his room key if he turns up dressed like a bum. But he can’t afford to go and buy anything, so he – he sucks it up. He shoves his laptop into his backpack along with a couple of old notebooks with a bunch of story ideas and notes in. He doesn’t flick through them. He doesn’t want to second guess any of the old ideas from back when he had ambition, and they’re the best thing he has to offer right now.
He has to catch the subway to the train station, and the train journey is a long one. He watches as Beijing speeds past, transforming into open countryside. He watches as the day passes outside the train, the scenery transforming and towns and cities blurring past first as the sun rises and then starts to set again. He tries not to think. He fiddles with the wire for his headphones, twisting them around his fingers until he finds the right angle for the right earbud to start working again. He plays music until the battery on his phone starts to die; when he has to put his phone on charge instead, he closes his eyes to block out the sight of the world changing.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it.
He –
Okay, he does. That part of him that wants to be taken seriously as an author is still there, deep down. If nothing else, this whole situation has made it abundantly clear that that part of him never died, no matter how much he’d thought he’d put it to rest. So, he’s taking a chance on a retreat that he hasn’t even paid for because having that reservation means that someone out there believes he can be better than what he is.
No one’s ever believed in him like that before.
He doesn’t know what to do with it, not really, but he wants to find out who they are and cling onto them for all he’s worth.
It’s past midnight when the train pulls into his stop. He grabs his back and disembarks onto a deserted platform, makes his way to the exit. The hotel said that they’d arrange to have him picked up, and sure enough, there’s a man in a suit standing by a limo outside of the station’s main doors, and he’s holding a sign with his name on it.
He feels a little guilty, sliding into the back seat. The car is spotless and smells of some kind of fancy air-freshener, and his ragged jeans and faded hoodie feel almost like an insult in comparison. He fiddles with the wire of his headphones again, keeping silent as the limo makes its way through winding streets up, up into the hills.
The hotel emerges from behind some trees, shining like a beacon. He stares up at it as the limo pulls up. What he can see looks ridiculous in its luxury: sleek lines and walls of glass. He’d known from the email that he would feel out of place here, but looking up at the real thing? He wants to run screaming all the way back to Beijing.
He takes a deep breath, and when the driver comes around to let him out of the car. He steps out.
He doesn’t run.
