Fanfic / I Will Never Be Him

I Will Never Be Him is a Scum Villain fanfic by SpiritOfFox written on Archive of Our Own.

Yan Xiyan - Binghe's 67th conquest - never lived up to the expectations placed on her shoulders when the long-awaited Celestial Fox Demon arc started in the novel. The readers and the author quickly forgot about her the moment the wedding was finished and she was never mentioned again.

This should have made Shen Yuan's transmigrated life smooth-sailing, allowing him to disappear into anonymity, to live his new life freely in the safety of Binghe's harem. But of course, it can't be that simple.

Contains the following tropes

• Adaptational Sexuality: In the canonical Proud Immortal Demon Way, Sha Hualing (and Luo Binghe) was unrepentantly straight but here isn't fazed by the prospect to enter into a romantic and sexual relationship with a genderfluid spouse, hinting at some level of pansexuality.
• Ascended Extra: In-Universe, Yan Xiyan was one of the numerous Girl of the Week from the original stallion novel and never appeared again after her arc closed. A little transmigration later and she starts to grow into a fully fledged character and Love Interest for Luo Binghe.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Zhen Shu is hinted to grow an interest for Shen Yuan after he reassured and helped her through her miscarriage.
  • Zhuzhi-lang decides to repay Shen Yuan for sheltering, feeding and freeing him by taking him to safety after the fox demon is chased by Luo Binghe.
• Closest Thing We Got: Shen Yuan is not a healer, he only knows the bare bones of medical knowledge and has no practical experience whatsoever. Ning Yingying still calls him to deal with a miscarriage and deliver a sex-ed lecture because he's currently the only person with an inkling of care who will help without sabotaging his patients.
• Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Downplayed. Yan Xiyan doesn't look exactly like Shen Qingqiu when he was using his plant body, but still shares enough of his likeness and mannerisms for Bing-mei to feel protective and worry about her happiness.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Shen Yuan worries about Shen Qingqiu grooming Bing-mei when he learns of their relationship. Anyone having read Scum Villain is aware that Luo Binghe is the more active and pushy partner, and Shen Qingqiu wouldn't have acted on his own even if given the opportunity.
  • Luo Binghe's obsession with finding someone who will earnestly and deeply love him reduces him to fixate on Shen Qingqiu, unaware he already has his soulmate besides him.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Luo Binghe is pretty pissed off to learn one of his wives helped an enemy of his, in spite of said enemy being him from another dimension.
• Everyone Has Standards: Shen Yuan considers Zhen Shu a grade-A bitch but never wished for her to suffer a Forced Miscarriage, musing that no one deserves that.
• Fantastic Racism: Humans tend to be hostile towards demons, moreso when they're civilian and nobles.
• Forced Miscarriage: Zhen Shu was gifted a tea she believed was a welcome gift for her marriage to Luo Binghe, only to ingest an abortifacient. Shen Yuan later grows terrified of suffering her fate if he ever slips and reveals his own pregnancy.
• History Repeats: Xiyan flees a palace while heavily pregnant, leaving behind a Heavenly Demon bitterly convinced his lover betrayed him.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: Courtesy of their toughness and infinite lifespan, demons are slow to conceive. Female cultivators are mentioned to have one period a year, and Shen Yuan ponders over the possibility of male cultivators suffering from a decreased sperm count.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: After being thrown out of the harem, Shen Yuan has to worry about monster attacks and starvation as he tries to keep himself and his unborn child alive.
• It Was with You All Along: Luo Binghe desperately craves pure, unconditional love, something that he sought by marrying any woman showing the slighest attraction to him then fixating on Shen Qingqiu after his dimensional trip. He's left utterly floored when Bing-mei tells him stealing Shen Qingqiu isn't needed, as Yan Xiyan would have brought him the romantic, fulfilling attachment he so desired.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Demons have difficulties to conceive, and Luo Binghe's hybrid makeup doesn't help at all, yet Shen Yuan manages to get knocked up from spending one night with him.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: After hearing Bingge's fox demon spouse is named Xiyan, Bing-mei thinks of his birth mother and wonders if his counterpart is trying to solve some Mommy Issues of his own.
• Liquid Assets: Xin Mo always hungers for positive energy, and it manifests in the sword consuming happy memories — so any wife of Luo Binghe practicing dual cultivation with him is doomed to become an Amnesiac Lover.
• Longest Pregnancy Ever: Demon pregnancies tend to be variable in their duracy, and hybrid pregnancies moreso. Shen Yuan calculates he will carry his own child for a year at least, maybe two in the worst of cases.
• Love Hungry: At his core, Luo Binghe wishes for unconditional love. He found some mesure of friendship and familial care with his three main wives, but enlarges his harem in a pursuit for romantic love.
• The Medic: Shen Yuan finds himself briefly serving as this for the harem, since he's the only person to know something about how bodies are working and won't try to off someone out of greed or Fantastic Racism. He later advices Luo Binghe to enlist a genuinely qualified healer named Bai Xiang and apprentices under her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The first story closes on Luo Binghe's horrified realisation that he threw the one person able to genuinely, truly love him away out of wounded pride.
• My Secret Pregnancy: As harem intrigues already saw one of Binghe's wives suffering a Forced Miscarriage, Shen Yuan isn't eager to confess he's carrying the Demon Sovereign's child.
• Nerds Are Sexy: Luo Binghe regains interest for Yan Xiyan when the fox demon demonstrates medical knowledge and later courts him with books about healing.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Shen Yuan cares for Bing-mei's wounds and sends him back to his original dimension as soon as possible, merely for being his husband's counterpart. Said husband decides it means his spouse is untrustworthy for helping an enemy of his and banishes the fox demon from the palace.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Celestial Fox demons are not an One-Gender Race. They tend to appear as beautiful women but are perfectly able to shapeshift into male form, so Yan Xiyan is referred with "they" pronouns by several people in the know.
• Signature Hair Decs: Yan Xiyan's golden hair-ribbon. She wore it for her wedding, and Bing-mei later takes it with him — accidentally cluing Bingge in that the fox demon helped his counterpart.
• Single-Target Sexuality: No matter the dimension, Luo Binghe cannot manage to fall in love unless Shen Yuan is the other person involved. Bing-mei candidly admits he can't even notice romantic partners beyond his shizun.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Shen Yuan pegs Bing-mei as an impostor when he opens his robes and shows the scar from when Shen Qingqiu pierced his chest with Xiu Ya.
  • Bing-mei for his part is intrigued by Yan Xiyan humming a foreign lullaby, since Shen Qingqiu was the only one to know it in his original dimension.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Yan Xiyan's natural eye colour is bright gold, fitting for a fox demon. It also applies to Shen Yuan since he's a transmigrator.
• The Talk: Ning Yingying enlists Shen Yuan to lecture the harem regarding ST Is and sexual kinks, as he's the only person to have a modicum of knowledge on the subject. Even Luo Binghe and Mobei-jun are lurking in the background.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Sha Hualing — hinted to not be fully over Yan Xiyan — easily rolls with Shen Yuan identifying as male. Luo Binghe also refers to his fox consort with gender-neutral pronouns.
• Wife Husbandry: After learning Bing-mei is in a happy relationship with his Shizun, Shen Yuan briefly worries about Shen Qingqiu potentially grooming his apprentice.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Luo Binghe apparently is considered the most handsome dude to live. It's unclear if Arrow Shooting Towards the Sky actually described him this way, or if Shen Yuan is merely seeing him through his crush filter.
• You Remind Me of X: Bing-mei feels rather weirded out in front of Yan Xiyan, since the fox demon overall looks and acts just like his shizun. He quickly understands this is because Yan Xiyan is Shen Qingqiu's counterpart in the other dimension.