History Characters / TheScumVillainsSelfSavingSystemDemonRealmAndOtherCharacters

[[folder:Shen Jiu (沈九) - '''Warning: Walking Spoiler''']]
!!!'''Voiced by (Mandarin)''': Wu Lei (animation)\\
'''Voiced by (Japanese)''': Creator/DaisukeNamikawa (animation)\\

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/svsss_sj.png]]

-> ''When faced with the protagonist, every single character acted like his total edgelord aura had devoured their intelligence-- especially Luo Binghe's master, Shen Qingqiu, that idiot among idiots, scum among scum! His only purpose was to dig his own grave, and he hadn't even managed to finish before he was killed by the protagonist instead.''
\\

The Shen Qingqiu from the original ''Proud Immortal Demon Way'' canon, and he also serves as the villain of the story.

* AffectionateNickname: Yue Qingyuan and Qiu Haitang used to call him Xiao Jiu.
* AnArmAndALeg: He was turned into a human stick by Luo Binghe, losing his arms, legs and even his tongue.
* ArrangedMarriage: He was going to marry Qiu Haitang, although it may have been only because Shen Qingqiu was too scared to say no for fear her brother would abuse him even more.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The reason he didn't harm Qiu Haitang. While he may not have truly felt anything romantic towards her, she was at least the only one in the Qiu family who didn't abuse him.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: He could act calm and fit the picture of a proper sect leader. But when Luo Binghe was around, he didn't hide his cruel nature and immense hate for the boy, which drove him towards being a HateSink.
* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: When he realized too late that Yue Qingyuan had been nothing but lenient towards him since he joined the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect as atonement for not being able to rescue him from the Qiu family in time, Shen Jiu forgave his old friend but also pushed him away in the hopes that Yue Qingyuan would be spared from Luo Binghe's wrath. Unfortunately, it didn't work since Luo Binghe baited Yue Qingyuan into his death.
* BrokenBird: Shen Jiu was not only coping with his DarkAndTroubledPast, but it also turned him into a cynical stoic {{Jerkass}}. While Shen Jiu's past is not revealed completely in the canon and Shen Qingqiu is not aware of everything the original body's soul went through, the author Airplane tells Shen Qingqiu that he wanted at first to give FreudianExcuse as a background, but had to cut it out when the readers weren't interested. Sadly, the extras that detail Shen Jiu and Yue Qingyuan's past do reveal that in fact he was [[FreudianExcuse abused]] most of his life, to the point that he was prone to violence towards the first target he envied.
* ChildhoodFriends: He and Yua Qingyuan were both raised together in the same prostitution house. They were forced apart when Yue Qingyuan left to cultivated but promised to be back.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Luo Binghe's grudge extended so far that when Shen Jiu got imprisoned, he started out his revenge by destroying his peak, gouging out his eye, ripping out his legs, using the said legs to lure the only man that could have possibly beaten Luo Binghe to his own doom, Yue Qingyuan. He then took his broken sword as an evidence, because he couldn't take the body with him to taunt Shen Jiu -- who unexpectedly had a nervous breakdown over Yue Qingyuan's death, provoking Luo Binghe so he could kill him finally. Sadly, it only ended with Shen Jiu losing his arm, and eventually his second arm and tongue later on and being hanged with the ring around his waist. It is unknown how long his torture lasted before he finally died.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Shen Jiu's past was woven with misery and abuse from his early years. He was first a slave (along with Yue Qi), who later got bought and adopted by the wealthy Qiu family. The men of the family abused and humiliated him so severely, that the only person he could hide behind was Qiu Huaitang, his fiancee. In the meantime, Yue Qi escaped and promised to come back for him. The abuse lasted for years until he met Wu Yanzi, a roaming cultivator, who saw that he could be one as well. When he went to plead to young master Qiu to be let go, the master refused and started abusing Shen Jiu again, until he killed everyone in the Qiu manor, starting with the master, but he spared the women. His life under Wu Yanzi was not an improvement at all, as he was extremely afraid of Wu Yanzi, until he came across Yue Qi, now Yue Qingyuan. He had no choice but to kill Wu Yanzi in order to save Yue Qi. Sadly, the constant emotional and physical abuse made him wary of people and destroyed his self-esteem completely, soon taking [[BeneathTheMask on the mask]] to hide his crippling insecurities. And because of the constant abuse he received from the men of the Qiu family, he developed a phobia of being anywhere near men and instead went to brothels in order to sleep (because being by women made him feel safe), but it just added more to his reputation (which later backfired on him).
* DeadpanSnarker: Under his breath he has nothing but cold snark and venom, mainly towards Qiu Haitang's brother. When his insults were heard, he got a slap on the face or worse.
* DeathByDespair: After Luo Binghe showed him what was left of Yue Qingyuan, Shen Jiu finally broke down mentally and died soon afterwards.
* {{Determinator}}: He was willing to do ''anything'' to increase his own cultivation from killing other disciples and his own master during the Immortal Alliance Conference when he was younger. It's what lead him to become so powerful in the present.
* DoesNotLikeMen: Thanks to the abuse he suffered under the men he interacted with in the past, Shen Jiu began to harbor androphobia and felt much safer around women.
* TheDogBitesBack: After suffering the Qiu family's abuse for too long, he had enough and retaliated by burning down the Qiu manor and everyone inside it.
* DrivenByEnvy: The main reason he had such a hatred towards Luo Binghe was that he couldn't stand knowing there was someone better than him in terms of cultivation. Given he started cultivating later, this is a sore topic for him.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: While not evil, he certainly wasn't a morally good person. Despite his outward rejection of Yue Qingyuan, he can't bring himself to kill him during his time at the Immortal Alliance Conference, even when his master attempted to goad him into killing his former friend. In his original fate, he only gave into despair after Luo Binghe showed him the remains of Yue Qingyuan's sword and died soon afterwards.
* FateWorseThanDeath: Being turned into a human stick is less preferable than actually being killed. His torture in the original novel is what spurns Shen Qingqiu to avoid this fate at all costs.
* {{Foil}}: Ironically, he was to Luo Binghe of both versions. Of course, it can also be a note to the 'cycle of abuse'. Both had a difficult upbringing that composed of child slavery and being an impoverished street orphan respectively, and then lived their most formative years being abused by authority figures they eventually took revenge on in the most extreme ways (burning them down and turning them into a human stick being the methods, respectively). And despite one coming off as more triumphant and heroic, both ended up being shaped into growing up bitter, resentful, unhappy, and overall, ''broken''. With the new canon version of Luo Binghe, it's less potent due Shen Yuan's better treatment of him, but there's 1. the implied abandonment issues and deep sense of loneliness both of them have (which can also be applied to the original Binghe as well), and 2. the sustained misunderstandings between them and the people they care about--this aspect is so similar between the two that Shen Yuan realised that his failure to properly communicate with Luo Binghe might end as badly as it did with Yue Qingyuan when he failed to properly communicate with Shen Jiu if he didn't do anything about it.
* HateSink: In the original canon, since his backstory was never revealed, he existed purely to be hated by the audience by acting as the "scum villain" for Luo Binghe to conquer. In the altered canon, however, his past gets revealed to Shen Qingqiu and shows Shen Jiu in a more sympathetic light, although it doesn't fully excuse his actions towards Luo Binghe.
* HeadbuttingHeroes: He and Liu Qingge would always fight on sight whenever they saw each other. Once Shen Yuan transmigrates into his body, Liu Qingge was incredibly confused by "Sheng Qingqiu" being nice and fighting him, and wondered about what kind of qi deviation he underwent.
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: In his early years filled with too much humiliation and physical and mental abuse, his self esteem had been almost destroyed to the point that the only thing left was being DrivenByEnvy, as he missed the best years for cultivation. He got mocked for starting out late, but when he became a Peak Lord, he was extremely good at putting noble and high facade. There's also him being aware that his actions and hatred were scummy and that they'll probably come to bite him back someday, but he thought that he was "rotten from birth"--in other words, he believed that he was far too gone to be saved--or rather, he thought never could have been saved and become a better person in the first place.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: In the "Airplane" extra, while he hated Liu Qingge's guts, he didn't want anything bad happening to him and even advised his shidi to not always train alone as qi deviation can happen. It's even implied that he didn't actually kill Liu Qingge in the original canon, but was trying to help stop the qi deviation and failed. This doesn't absolve him of his other behaviors, but it does shine light onto a man who has some shreds of kindness left.
* LightIsNotGood: He wore light colored robes and was the titular "Scum Villain" in the original canon.
* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: You could say he had a proper 'goodbye' with Yue Qingyuan in the original 'Proud Immortal Demon Way', as bitterly as it ended up being for both of them and there will still ''a lot'' of things left unsaid, but the same can't be said for the Shen Jiu in the altered story. Once or maybe even before Shen Yuan occupied his body, he was already gone, without having resolutely talked to Yue Qingyuan one last time and without hearing the truth behind why he never came for him. That's already sad enough, but then there's the fact that once Yue Qingyuan tried to tell the truth when he was heavily injured, it was inadvertently towards Shen Yuan, who also recognized that those words weren't for him.
* OutgrowingTheChildishName: After they reunited as cultivators of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, Shen Jiu was quick to snap at Yue Qingyuan whenever he'd call him "Xiao Jiu", which was his AffectionateNickname for him when growing up.
* PrettyBoy: He's noted even when he was younger to be incredibly good looking, and the ''donghua'' and official artwork he's on the slim and pretty side.
* ThePromise: He had Yue Qingyuan to promise to come back and rescue him from the Qiu manor was he was strong enough. When he doesn't and Shen Jiu ends up killing most of the Qiu household on his own, he had turned bitter towards his former friend.
* SadistTeacher: He made his student Luo Binghe's life on Qing Jing Peak absolute hell, regularly stringing him up in the woodshed and whipping him, making him do menial labor without the proper tools, encouraging the other students to bully him, and giving him only the barest rudiments of an education. And all that was before pushing Luo Binghe into the Endless Abyss, a literal hell dimension. In the canon ''Proud Immortal Demon Way'' timeline, Luo Binghe returns to take brutal vengeance. That said, while awful no matter what, this is less out of genuine sadism and more on him continually stowing in his resentment and self-loathing
* SmallRoleBigImpact: He was the main catalyst for Luo Binghe in the original canon to become the stallion protagonist, as well as sealing his fate as a human stick, but is almost a footnote in the rest of Luo Binghe's story afterwards. For Shen Yuan, his past actions spurned the transmigrator to avoid this gruesome fate.
* SourOutsideSadInside: Shen Jiu was harsh, cynical and just wanted to be left alone. The person he trusted the most -- and the only one he actually trusted -- betrayed him, and Shen Jiu never gave him opportunity to explain why Yue Qi never came back for him. In the end, his personality that drove people away ended up being one of the things that backfired on him, when even Yue Qingyuan thought that Shen Jiu killed Liu Qingge, only because he said he would kill him one day.
* UncertainDoom: While both Shen Yuan and the readers more or less see him as dead, it wasn't truly disclosed what happened to the original Shen Qingqiu's soul in the altered timeline once his body was vacated. Shen Yuan even briefly considered the idea that Shen Jiu's soul might have gone through a similar experience as he did--implying something similar to his transmigration, but in the end, it's something that he'll probably never know.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: After slaughtering and burning down the Qiu manor, when asked if he was waiting for Yue Qingyuan to return, he spat that they were no longer brothers, nor did he consider him a friend. Later on it's shown that while he acknowledged that Yue Qingyuan had forgiven him, he couldn't bring himself to bridge the gap.
* WouldntHitAGirl: Given his traumatic past, he would never harm a woman, as he spared all of the women, children and Qiu Haitang at the household, but killed every man he could see. He even only goes to brothels just so he can get some proper rest because he can't fall asleep without a woman next to him, and never actually sleeps with them. Even with his alleged molestation of Ning Yingying in the original canon, it's hard to tell how much of that may just be a rumor that got used against him.
* YouAreNumberSix: His name, Jiu, is Mandarin Chinese for "nine", as the slavers who initially owned him and Yue Qi (seven) numbered their slaves rather than naming them.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Qiu Haitang (秋海棠)]]
-> ''Nevertheless, Qiu Haitang was innocent. Her love was deep, her hate was righteous, and she hadn’t really done anything wrong in this whole affair. But, revenge had ground this artless and innocent girl into a bitter woman with a heart full of schemes.''
\\

A young woman from Shen Qingqiu's past with a severe grudge against him.
----

* {{Bishounen}}: He's noted even when he was younger to be incredibly good looking, and the ''donghua'' and official artwork he's on the slim and pretty side.