there’s something very frustrating that I can’t quite articulate with how much emphasis the scum villain fandom puts on sqq’s “true” identity and how the novel ends with Bingqiu happily married but shen qingqiu still hasn’t told binghe who he “really” is, like the fact that he doesn’t explicitly tell binghe his real name at the end and explain everything to him “ruins” the ending because they’re still “living a lie”.
and like…I do see where they’re coming from, since the biggest problem with Bingqiu’s relationship is communication, but I still feel like it does a disservice to bingqiu as a ship and specifically Shen Qingqiu as a character to suggest that they’re living a lie simply because he hasn’t told Luo Binghe everything about his past. like…shen qingqiu isn’t lying about his identity. There’s a reason the novel refers to him as Shen Qingqiu instead of Shen Yuan even though it’s told (mostly) from his perspective. From the moment he wakes up, he accepts his new life. He’s not playing the role of Shen Qingqiu, he becomes Shen Qingqiu. And he, Shen Qingqiu, was the person Binghe fell in love with. He was the one who constantly threw himself in front of danger to protect Binghe. He was the one who doted on his disciples and saved a bunch of lives.
By the end of the novel, Shen Yuan has been Shen Qingqiu for upwards of eleven years (albeit including the five he spent incubating in the ground). He’s not an imposter, he has just as much claim to the name as Shen Jiu ever did, and since it’s a name that Shen Jiu canonically hated, I would even go so far as to say that it became part of Shen Yuan more than it ever did for Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu received this identity against his wishes and used it to be a jaded, cruel person who tortured children and led to to countless deaths by proxy of the man he shaped Luo Binghe into. Shen Yuan received this identity against his wishes and used it to become a caring, benevolent person who was loved by his disciples and pretty much everyone who came into contact with him. That was all him.
I guess what I’m saying is, Luo Binghe didn’t fall in love with a lie. Binghe does know the real Shen Qingqiu. The real Shen Qingqiu isn’t the angry, overdramatic millennial, that’s just one aspect of his personality which he mostly relegates to his inner monologue (as we all do!) The real Shen Qingqiu is the man who rules-lawyered the System into letting Binghe ride in his carriage when he was hurt. The real Shen Qingqiu is the man who brought Binghe’s sword back to Qing Jing Peak and mourned him for three years despite believing he was destined to be tortured and mutilated by the man who owned it. The real Shen Qingqiu is someone who screwed up in so many ways but at the end of the day still chose to ride off into the figurative sunset with the man he loved in the hopes of building a future with him.
To be clear, I actually love identity reveal stories and I’m even writing one myself right now. I think that Binghe finding out this final piece of Shen Qingqiu’s past is an important final step in their relationship, absolutely essential in making sure he understands that the person who tortured him and the person he ended up marrying are different people, because he’s internalised some deeply concerning ideas due to not having this clear distinction. But all the problems with their relationship were never going to be fixed by Shen Qingqiu sitting Binghe down and saying, “by the way, I’m not who you think I am” right away. Nor do I think that doing this would fundamentally change their relationship or their dynamic. The novel ends with the words “the story between us is only just beginning” because there’s more work to be done than can be resolved in a single extra, but it shows that they’re willing to do that work. I honestly prefer that it ends on this hopeful note that leaves a lot to the imagination.
And look, if you don’t like Bingqiu, you don’t like it and you’re valid. I can definitely see why it’s not for everyone. But to call “Shen Qingqiu” a facade that Shen Yuan has to put on for the world is to undermine all of the good that he does with it.
