Fanfic / Care To Find

Care to Find is a Scumbag System AU fanfiction series written by jayfeather63 on Archive of Our Own.

Having transmigrated much, much later in the plot, Shen Yuan finds himself the proud owner of a magic mountain, and happily slips into the role of the mysterious immortal master. He even gets a sweet if rather sticky disciple!

Thing is, said cute little disciple actually has run away from the Imperial Palace in which he was one of the Emperor's many, many offspring. And Luo Binghe doesn't take his child's disappearance well.

Especially when he finds him raised by a man who awfully looks like the late Shen Qingqiu...

Contains the following tropes

• Achievements in Ignorance: Zhuzhi-lang infiltrates a blood ward that even Xin Mo couldn't destroy by turning himself in a snake and focusing on his need to rest and heal from his injuries than wanting to injure the mountain's inhabitants.
• Amicable Exes: Ning Yingying is much happier as Luo Binghe's advisor than she ever was as his wife, and he clearly considers her a friend.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Ning Yingying starts to seriously re-evaluate her current life when Bingmei asks her if she's genuinely happy.
  • As Luo Binghe commands Shen Yuan to give him Luo Yu back and accuses him from kidnapping, the cultivator fires back he never kidnapped Luo Yu, the boy willingly came to him and is now living in his house for a year, and where was Luo Binghe all this time? It stuns the Emperor into quietness.
• Death by Childbirth: Luo Yu's mother. It put him in a rather unstable position, since the Emperor's children are intended to be raised by their mothers.
• Generation Xerox: Luo Yu very much is his father's child, as intended by Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky. After growing up angry at his circumstances, he decides to become a cultivator only for his innocence to be endangered.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Played for Laughs with Luo Yu loathing Bingpup for hogging Shen Yuan's time and cuddles, and when the puppy tries to scare the boy into fleeing the mountain because it wants to have Shen Yuan for it alone.
  • Played for Drama with Luo Binghe after accidentally visiting the Scumbag System timeline, as he cannot fathom why this iteration of him was good enough for Shen Qingqiu to love him when he wasn't.
• Hates Their Parent: Luo Yu strongly dislikes the Emperor for treating more like a hoarded possession than a beloved child and apparently caring for nothing but his demonic powers' emergence. Then Luo Binghe hurts Shen Yuan when he tracks his errant son down, and the boy decides on the spot to kill his sire.
• Heinz Hybrid: Luo Binghe (half Heavenly Demon) coupled with a mostly-human woman who had deity blood in her lineage. It resulted in Luo Yu being born apparently human.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Shen Yuan immediately melts in front of a black Harmonic Demon puppy, naming it Bingpup and later adopting it. He also goes berserk when he learns Luo Binghe has almost hunted the race to extinction.
• Identical Stranger:
  • Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan startingly look like each other, in the PIDW setting and modern China. It's hinted it's caused by a faint blood relation.
  • When Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky transmigrates within his own novel, he finds himself bearing the original Shang Qinghua's face, and several people believe he is the original goods.
• Kick the Dog: Very much a literal example with Luo Binghe driving the Harmonic Demon Dogs to extinction after a bad encounter with one. Shen Yuan certainly is incensed over the Emperor abusing his power to slaughter puppies.
• Killer Rabbit: Bingpup usually looks like a fluffy black puppy, who also can Hulk Out and fight Luo Binghe if the Emperor is threatening Shen Yuan.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Both Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua are unable to remember how to actually prevent the upcoming apocalypse, and Shen Yuan also forgot everything about Luo Yu's canon fate.
• Like Brother and Sister: Mobei Jun and Sha Hualing have a very siblinglike relationship. Watching it makes Shang Qinghua writhe in guild since he wrote a plot on them falling victim to an aphrodisiac. Something that would have likely ruined their relationship and caused considerable emotional damage.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Luo Yu grew up surrounded by tutors and servants, his father a distant and terrifying figure in his life while his siblings were busy fighting each other to be noticed. He ultimately runs away from the Imperial Palace because he's too unhappy there.
• Loophole Abuse: Zhuzhi-lang cheerfully exploits the fact that barriers tend to ignore creatures by using his snake form to visit places he really shouldn't be able to infiltrate. This plus his lack of hostility towards the Hua mountain's inhabitants allowed him to pass through Shen Yuan's blood ward.
• Love Is a Weakness:
  • Luo Binghe blatantly considers love a luxury and useless, since his many wives were mainly attracted by his power. Shen Yuan disagrees.
  • After the major disaster with Su Xiyan, Zhuzhi-lang firmly believes this. It's hard to blame him, since he's tending to Tianlang-jun who is in a very pitiful state.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Binghe merging the Mortal and Demon Realms is slowly unmaking the world itself, threatening to unleash the apocalypse.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Shen Yuan doesn't register Luo Binghe's extremely blatant thirst for him, believing the Demon Tyrant wants to take him back to the Palace as a retainer. Luo Binghe is noted to look like he wants to bang his head against the wall in sheer annoyance.
  • Shang Qinghua didn't realize Mobei-jun was courting him for several years. To be fair, the demon was expressing his feelings by cheerfully kicking the crap out of the cultivator and humans tend to consider this as a proof of hostility.
• Offing the Offspring: Tianlang-jun intents to kill Luo Binghe for his piss-poor performance as a ruler and his careless use of Xin Mo — since he was responsible for the whelp's birth, he will be responsible for his demise.
• Opposites Attract: Several people are baffled when they see Shang Qinghua — a Nervous Wreck who's scared of everything — is Happily Married to Mobei-jun who is one of the most terrifying beings around.
• Papa Wolf: For all his neglect, Luo Binghe immediately runs to seek Luo Yu when he's made aware of the boy disappearing.
• Parental Neglect: Luo Yu saw his father on his birthday, and the Emperor was only interested in learning if the boy had finally unlocked his demonic powers. Luo Binghe is later confirmed to not bother with raising any of his children, as he fears not managing to love them properly.
• Parents as People: Luo Binghe is genuinely worried for his son's future and seeks to toughen him in order to give him the strength to survive on his own, but he's guilty of heavy neglect and doesn't care about listening the boy's dreams and wishes.
• The Runaway: Luo Yu escapes from the Imperial Palace the day after his eleventh birthday, to learn cultivation. It quickly goes south as he doesn't know how to survive outside his bedroom, and it would have resulted in his death (as confirmed by Shang Qinghua) if he hadn't stumbled upon Shen Yuan.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: Luo Yu's relationship with Bingpup. The boy blatantly calls the dog the bane of his existence — when he's not cuddling the fluffy thing.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: This is what happens to any woman exposed long enough to Luo Binghe's protagonist halo. Qi Qingqi has quickly noticed the phaenomena and decided to stay as far away as she could from the palace to retain her wits, and Liu Mingyan mimicked her.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Luo Yu and Bingpup absolutely adore pancakes, and Shen Yuan needs to remind them it's not the healthiest of meals.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Tianlang-jun wants to prevent the upcoming apocalypse caused by the merging of the Mortal and Demon Realms by adding the Heavens to the mix, hoping it will stabilize the dimensions.
• We Named the Monkey "Jack": Shen Yuan bestows the name Bingpup on the Harmonic Demon puppy as it bears a red mark on its head, just like Luo Binghe bears a red mark on his forehead. Luo Binghe is less than amused at the name.
• What Did You Expect When You Named It ____?: Shen Yuan names his puppy Bingpup. Much like the Heavenly demon he is named, Bingpup is a tyranical bully.
• What Does He See in Her?: Luo Binghe honestly cannot understand why Mobei-jun decided to marry Nervous Wreck Shang Qinghua.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: As lampshaded by Luo Binghe, the problem with an all powerful demonic weapon is that no one thinks to look for other tools to solve anything — and it leaves him stumped when Xin Mo fails to destroy the barrier surrounding Shen Yuan's mountain.