Wild thought but hear me out:

Crossover: NHS! Shen Yuan, MY! Luo Binghe (NMJ! Shen Jiu or Liu Qingge? https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤔" title="Denkendes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Denkendes Gesicht">)

Spoiled er-gongzi SY nurtures little servant LBH until the war hits & they& #39;re separated. LBH learns to scheme & overthrows WRH but is sent to JLT afterwards

(Jin sect=HHP?)
LBH hates it there but he& #39;s getting ahead socially so he sticks it out. He starts learn how to be friends with SY as equals, but the distance is grating. He has a 10-year plan.

But then.

They want him to marry some girl??

I& #39;m sure JGY///NHS writers have done this much better than me (on my to-read list!) but could MY& #39;s life have been different if he turned away from that path before his marriage? If his early life had been different? If he& #39;d gone into the Jin sect with different priorities?

Also just, the similarities between JGY and Bing-ge: common origins, snubbed and passed around, bowing and faking a smile to get ahead, never forgetting a slight--
Could a truly kind and loving connection make such a big difference in this situation too?

It& #39;d have to include a really uncomfortable conversation about class hierarchy, & this LBH wouldn& #39;t ever truly be happy in servitude, but imagine SY clumsily cooking & making tea and LBH being so touched bc SY cares enough not to treat him like a servant!

Also, Shen Yuan is a schemer. He& #39;s actually not bad at it, provided he& #39;s working with the correct information.

The heartbreak of him scheming against dear LBH to protect Dage?

The power flex of him teaming up w/ LBH to out-maneuver Jin sect politics so they can get married??

I should mention this was inspired by the NMJ! Shen Yuan fic by @SpiritOfFox1 (no relation to the plot, sorry) https://archiveofourown.org/works/24970879 
(This">https://archiveofourown.org/works/249... thread contains spoilers if you still haven& #39;t finished MDZS!)

And also a bit by their characterization of SY here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24914944 ">https://archiveofourown.org/works/249...