to love another (and to learn yourself)
is a The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong fanfic on Archive of Our Own by nyoomerr.
Seeking the sort of affection he had glimpsed in that other world, Luo Binghe decides to find his own Shen Yuan and kidnap him back to his world. There, he’ll be kept and treated like any of his other wives, and in return Luo Binghe will get to experience the soft love he so desperately craves.
Or, that had been the plan, until Shen Yuan spat in his face and refused to cooperate unless Luo Binghe said please and thank you.
Luo Binghe retaliates with messy attempts at dates, demonic courting gifts, and slow progress towards learning how to be a decent person.
Contains the following tropes
- Abduction Is Love: Luo Binghe tries to invoke this by whisking Shen Yuan away to his dimension and palace. Unfortunately for the Demon King, Shen Yuan refuses to entertain the possibility of a relationship with him unless he's freed.
- Big Brother Instinct: Jiu-ge is very anxious about Shen Yuan's health and won't hesitate to threaten the weird guy he met on the Internet and bonded with through bad porn.
- Book Ends: The first chapter has Luo Binghe trying to experience the same warmth he felt with Shen Qingqiu by forcing Shen Yuan to brush his hair. He finally gets to feel it in the sixth chapter when Shen Yuan combs his curls from his own volition.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Luo Binghe actually is a good husband according Imperial China criteria, but the stubbornly modern Shen Yuan refuses to let him have all the power in the relationship and demands to be treated as his equal.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: First played straight when Luo Binghe kidnaps Shen Yuan on the assumption it will help with his craving for Shen Qingqiu's love. It progressively diminishes as he learns to see Shen Yuan as his own person, and is completely averted when he meets Jiu-ge — implied to be an Identical Stranger for the original Shen Qingqiu.
- Flowers of Romance: The first romantic gesture Shen Yuan positively receives is Luo Binghe gifting him magic plants.
- Friend to All Children: Shen Yuan quickly gains the adoration of Luo Binghe's many children whom he openly dotes on.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Luo Binghe's first attempt to set a date has him dragging Shen Yuan to a forest filled with dangerous creatures and fighting one in front of the very breakable human who panics to such a point he's left bedbound for several days.
- Intimate Hair Brushing: Luo Binghe is shown yearning after the happiness he felt from Shen Qingqiu brushing and braiding his hair in the canon extra. His first attempt to recreate said intimacy is a total disaster, while the second is a success.
- Lima Syndrome: Luo Binghe wanted to make Shen Yuan his hopelessly devoted consort, only to find himself falling in love with the little human.
- Love Redeems: Shen Yuan actively rejects Luo Binghe as a romantic partner unless he betters himself as a person. He does.
- Parents as People: Luo Binghe does care for his children, but he frets about "spoiling" them and as such is more tough and neglectful than needed, while his wives fear him too much to go against his will.
- Replacement Goldfish: Luo Binghe first abducts Shen Yuan because he wanted for him to stand in as Shen Qingqiu. The second last chapter has him finally understanding that Shen Yuan isn't and can't be Shen Qingqiu... and that's not a bad thing.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Same-sex example, as Shen Yuan won't enter into a romantic relationship with Luo Binghe as long as he's behaving so rudely and cruelly. The demon starts making progress into his courtship by learning to be more empathetic and willing to accept other people's opinions.
- Sole Survivor: Mu Qingfang is revealed to be this for the Cang Qiong sect.
- Supreme Chef: Luo Binghe's goblin servants would risk death and torture for the opportunity to taste one of his handmade dishes. That's how good it is.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Beauty and the Beast, as the "monster" abducts a human as a romantic partner in order to help himself, only for said human to call him out on his bullshit and force him to grow into a better person.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: For one week spent within the xianxia dimension, one day will happen in the modern world.
- Your Costume Needs Work: Shen Yuan and later Jiu-ge's immediate reaction to meeting Luo Binghe in full demonic regalia is to accuse him from being a hardcore Proud Immortal Demon Way cosplayer who's going a mite too far with the roleplay.
