In celebration of Paper Airplane Day, let's discuss our other favorite transmigrator, Shang Qinghua. Incredibly fascinating and definitely the most meta, here's a thread all about him, pulling from the beginning of the novel to the end. Buckle up, because it’s long.

In the beginning of SV, we get to know not SQH the transmigrator, but Airplane the author, through SQQ's narration and often cursing. The first words attributed to him are about the purpose of Proud Immortal Demon Way: that it was written with the sole goal of being satisfying.

Combined with SQQ's ranting about plotholes, brainless cannon fodder villains, and wasted foreshadowing, this cements Airplane as a sellout, an author with no artistic integrity, who only cares about reader reception. SQQ can even pinpoint the exact moment Airplane sold out.

So all through SV, we hear about PIDW as a trashy sellout novel to go with its trashy sellout author. A big part of the fun is trying to figure out what PIDW would have been like if SQH hadn't, as he himself admits, bowed to reader pressure.

The story directly serves us information about Airplane's genuine tastes and likes through the hidden plotlines SQQ stumbles upon, but in fact, SQQ actually unknowingly drops subtle hints in early SV himself, well before he met SQH the transmigrator.

In ch 4, SQQ calls early SV where LBH is still at CQMS, and so before Airplane completely sold out, a 为虐而虐的苦情戏码, so basically a storyline devoted to misery, filled with "abuse for the sake of abuse." Pretty much a whump plot.

Later in ch 23 he snipes at how Airplane wrote the harem, but for once he doesn't complain about the trashy fanservice endemic to stallion novels, and actually about Airplane not adhering to stallion novel tropes ENOUGH.

Saying that “only someone as one-of-a-kind as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky could sometimes manage to write a stallion novel harem in the flavor of The Legend of Zhen Huan.” If you know Zhen Huan, it’s filled with scheming and murder between concubines.

As SQQ rightly points out, not things that would be satisfying or popular among stallion novel fans. He even emphasizes this during his first meeting with SQH: “If you’re going to write a stallion novel, then write a proper stallion novel, don’t fool around and write whump?!”

So contradicting Airplane’s own words, not everything in PIDW was catering to the readers. And if it wasn’t, this “whump” must have been written according to Airplane’s own tastes. This is probably our first glimpse of Airplane’s true colors shining through.

When we meet SQH properly, we get the gist: shameless, unscrupulous, remorseless. We know that as a mole, he set loose demonic beasts into the Conference, killing scores of young disciples. We see him betray others to save his own hide. Unfortunately, this includes SQQ.

SQQ: I thought we were friends.
SQH: In your imagination, maybe.

Also remember we get his thoughts from before this moment in Airplane part 5, where he cavalierly thinks that if he were still in control of the plot, he’d make LBH noncon SQQ hundreds of times like a hentai.

Even though SQQ is not a hentai character, but a real, living and breathing human being, even a transmigrator. And SQH knows this. Which segues into our next section on how SQH sees the characters of PIDW around him.

Firstly, how SQH sees LBH. We get some alarming monologue in Airplane part 4, when he hears about SQQ being at BZ Peak. Unbeknownst to him, SY has already transmigrated, but SQH thinks:

“Who should Bing-ge be sent to for abuse.” This isn’t bystander syndrome where SQH is trying to not cause trouble, or being forced to obey the plot; SQH thinks LBH’s abuse is something that SHOULD happen. His concerns about SJ’s life also only extend to SJ’s role as LBH’s abuser.

Even though he’d briefly offered SJ advice about qi deviation, these are his thoughts. Contrast SY, who despite warnings of OOC in early SV, admitted that he can’t bear to stand by and watch child LBH being abused/bullied, though previously he hadn’t really cared as a reader.

We get an even better picture in ch 30. At this point, it’s obvious SQQ in mourning, to the point GYX, who’s an outsider, has picked it up, feels bad for accidentally hitting a sore point, and considerately resolves not to say more. Yet SQH actually goes and continues probing:

"Cucumber-bro, I really never thought that you were this sort of person.” Why would SQH think SY, a stranger he only interacted briefly with online, wouldn't be the type to be upset about shoving his disciple into the Abyss?

Because SQH himself is not that type of person.

SQH cannot fathom why SQQ would be upset that he'd shoved LBH into the Abyss. He cannot believe that SQQ would actually go so far to adore LBH as his "darling baby and disciple." Even though SQH himself calls LBH is "son."

Because to SQH, LBH is simply words on a page.

In fact, SQH can understand so little, he tries to contextualize SQQ's emotions, as of that of a "fan's." Instead of someone who genuinely loves and mourns LBH as human being. This is in ch 30. Now fast-forward 47 chapters, and what does SQH say?

SQH is again stunned, 47 chapters and 8 years later, that SQQ is feeling distress, or 心疼, over LBH's abuse. Even though by this point CQMS has been sniping SQQ about his favoritism for LBH. Why would SQH see SQQ feeling compassion for LBH as immediate evidence that he's gay?

Because feeling compassion for a mere character in a book is simply that alien to him.

To SQH, the characters in PIDW, even though he's lived there since an infant (the novel suggests he's around SQQ's age, so he's in his 30s), never became real.

Again, this is to foil him with SQQ, who we see mourn all sorts of characters and their personal tragedies, who is devastated over hurting LBH, whose greatest fear even back in chapter 41 was causing his sect siblings' deaths, despite being there for a much shorter timeframe.

And SQH's lack of concern about LBH comes to a head in ch 79, where LBH is clearly having a mental breakdown, going as far as to admit that he's "gone mad." SQQ is again devastated, most of the other characters react with horror or pity. And what does SQH say?

Absolutely nothing. Seemingly indifferent to the breakdown and LBH's mental state, with not even a remark of how curious or unexpected it is, SQH has no reaction throughout all of ch 79 until MBJ is blown off Maigu Mountain, whereupon he jumps after him on a sword to save him.

But then, this is the person who commented in a throwaway line in Airplane part 5 that in his original plans, before he'd decided to sell out, "Bing-ge didn't have a romantic subplot, and was destined to remain alone and unaging, devoid of attachments for all eternity."

The words SQH use to describe LBH's fate here is 孤独不老永世寂灭. 寂灭 can mean nirvana, but when placed with 孤独不老, there's a negative connotation.

So LBH's original fate was likely a death of ego: freedom from love, hate, joys, and sorrows, complete and utter detachment.

And altogether this gives us the picture of SQH's original plans for PIDW: a novel without catharsis, where love and loyalty, like TLJ's and SJ's, are dashed and doomed to bear no fruit. Where hatred begets hatred, and there's no end to the cycle of abuse.

A novel where kindness implies passivity and leads to self-destruction, because "when you're kind, you get taken advantage of," as SQH says in response to SQQ's despair about YQY. Even though SQH was the one who chose to write it that way.

Because this was SQH's worldview.

Suffering upon suffering, without any emotional payoff. SQQ wasn't far-off when he'd described SQH's early plotline, before he'd sold out, as "abuse for the sake of abuse." Suffering for the sake of suffering.

To SQH, suffering is both the means and the ends.

And here is where the meta part comes in. In SV, MXTX isn't only criticizing the readers who chase shallow satisfaction in cheap tropes and have no interest in anything else, like PIDW's stallion novel fans, she's also criticizing authors like SQH.

Why did SQH write flop after flop? You can stick to your artistic vision all you like, but without catharsis, the readers have no reason to care.

Just like authors aren't wrong for wanting their vision realized, the readers aren't wrong for wanting emotional satisfaction.

And thankfully, this is the lesson SQH learns at the end, just a little. This new LBH actually managed a happy ending, and he's pleased with the result. Relentless tragedies aren't the only way to be interesting and meaningful. In any case, it's far better than selling out.

Of course, he's still less concerned with LBH being happy and more with his old WIP being completed to his satisfaction, but it's progress.

And we do see him become more human too, when he admits he surprised himself by being willing to fly down Maigu Mountain to save MBJ.

And even realizing he sees MBJ as a friend after SV's main plot is over, a far cry from when he'd mocked SQQ for expecting friendship.

So in the end, he's content in being part of his magnum opus.

"It's just that he truly, really loved this story he wrote."

/END