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sid_guardian2025-08-24 11:09 am
china_shop) wrote in sid_guardian2025-08-24 11:09 am
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Guardian Readalong: Vol. 3, Bonus Story: Pocket Dimension
Hi, and welcome to the last installment of the Guardian novel readalong!
Here is last week's post about the Shen San extra, and you can find all previous discussions in the schedule posts (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5), or via the !readalong tag.
In this week's extra, Pocket Dimension: Zhao Yunlan shows Shen Wei how to send red envelopes from his new phone, and Shen Wei sends bonuses to the SID team until he runs out of money. Everyone wants to work for the SID under Kunlun-jun, so Shen Wei has devised personalised applications. Mysteriously, more than twice as many applications have been returned as were sent out. Zhu Hong's Fourth Uncle disappears while visiting the South Sea Water Tribe, and Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei go to investigate. They get caught in a vortex full of bubble AUs, each with a connection point to the real world. Zhao Yunlan escapes from eighty-one pocket dimensions and reunites with Shen Wei, who seems traumatised. Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei take a seaside vacation. Shen Wei thinks swimming trunks are inelegant.
Excerpts:
1) Shen Wei is possibly even worse at managing money than Zhao Yunlan is
At the day-to-day level, Comrade Shen Wei showed every sign that he really knew how to enjoy life. Having turned his attention from manipulating the Three Realms to eating, dressing, and living well, he was more than prepared for the task.
Looking at the bigger picture, however, it was clear that Shen Wei had never truly engaged with the world. In tumultuous times, he’d hole up somewhere on a mountain. In times of peace, he’d rent some random place and live there for a while. Despite all his years wandering around the Mortal Realm, he had no savings or assets, never mind real estate or housing. To this day, other than his salary card, he didn’t have a single penny to his name.
As for all the famous mountains and rivers of the world, well, the government ran all of that now, and he certainly didn’t get a cut of the tourism money.
2) Shen Wei gives away all his money as SID bonuses
Zhao Yunlan put down his phone and walked over. “Hey, by the way, what kind of secret code is ‘Thank you, Shen-laoshi’? Why is everyone saying that when they come in?”
“Uh…” said Shen Wei.
“For the red envelopes he just sent us, of course,” Chu Shuzhi said. “Our bonus for the Dragon Boat Festival, right?”
Zhao Yunlan grabbed Shen Wei’s phone to find that, in the time he’d been wrapped up on a call, Shen Wei-tongxue had mastered the technique of mobile payments and diligently done some after-class practice. He’d been going down his contacts list and sending each person in the Special Investigations Bureau a red envelope.
It wasn’t the kind where you sent it into the group chat for everyone to fight over—Zhao-laoshi hadn’t reached that lesson yet. No, Shen Wei had sent each one individually, and had only made it halfway through his contacts before running out of money.
His Shen-laoshi viewed cash the same way he viewed in-game currency—and not even the kind you had to buy, but the kind the game gave you for free to start.
3) Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan become trapped in bubbles
In an instant, it became shockingly apparent that something was deeply wrong—he and Zhao Yunlan weren’t actually touching, despite how close together they were. Shen Wei whipped his head around in shock. There was some sort of clear film in between them.
Zhao Yunlan said something, but the sound didn’t penetrate the invisible barrier. Shen Wei read the words off Zhao Yunlan’s lips. “This bubble is…”
Bubble?
Shen Wei looked around. Fourth Uncle’s lamp of life was reflected everywhere, revealing what might’ve been infinite layers of clear film, like soap bubbles clustered together. Vague mirages flickered across the surfaces of the bubbles, reflecting both Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan an endless number of times. It was a frightening sight.
4) What are the bubbles?
The bubble that had separated him and Shen Wei just now was the same as that eleven-year cycle. Every bubble was a world set to repeat over and over for a certain span of time.
Some were simple and crude, repeating every ten minutes; some might seem incredibly real and complex, repeating only after thousands of years.
So this wasn’t some kind of artifact. It was simply all the remains of the sages’ attempts to create the Reincarnation Cycle. The waste from their experiments had been sealed in the South Sea all this time until the seal had first been disturbed by the King of the Gui and then accidentally smashed open by a great yao, leaving it exposed to the Mortal Realm.
5) Zhao Yunlan enjoys some virtual reality alernate lives with his boo
Not every dimension came straight from his memories. Some seemed like memories from a past life, but with subtle differences. Some were of bizarre worlds with just a few familiar segments flashing through them.
Zhao Yunlan rather liked the latter sort because in the course of the five thousand years he’d spent in the Reincarnation Cycle, he had very few memories of Shen Wei. When Zhao Yunlan occasionally managed to catch him, it was inevitably only a brief glimpse before Shen Wei disappeared again.
But in the fake worlds, Shen Wei was always right there at his side, playing different roles in his life. In those worlds, they spent a whole lifetime together until they both found their own connection items and broke out of the cycle…
Questions:
Did you enjoy this extra? What's your favourite thing about it? Do you have questions about what's happened in the six years between the epilogue and now? On a scale of one to ten, how terrible is Zhao Yunlan's dad? When Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan portal to the South Sea, who does the portalling: Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, or both separately? We know Fourth Uncle is still alive, but what happened to him? Do you think the question of the duplicate applications was satisfactorily answered? How do you feel about the bubble AUs?
(As usual, these are all just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like! You don't have to be keeping up with the readalong!)
Finally, I just want to thank everyone who's been part of this readalong, either by hosting, commenting, or reading along! It's been such a pleasure sharing this with you all for the last nearly-ten months. And super special extra thanks to
trobadora for being an awesome co-mod! <3 <3 <3
no subject
That's definitely how I read it! He's not afraid of offending SW, he's afraid of SW's hairtrigger "protect ZYL" reaction. *g*
Does his dad know his son is a god now?? It's unclear from this, I think.
Yeah, I wasn't clear on that either, but it does seem like it's common knowledge now among anyone who knows about the supernatural ...?
but now it feels like the SID is just a disguise so that the government will fund the SGO, lol.
Wasn't it always? It was established specifically for ZYL, wasn't it?
I continue to not understand cultivation (why does working under a mortal get in the way of it), but never mind.
I didn't read as it actively getting in the way. The way I understood it, if anyone worked for the SID under mortal!ZYL they'd be doing ordinary work instead of focusing on their cultivation, so it'd set them back, but now that ZYL is a god, proximity to his divinity advances their cultivation more (or more easily) than actively working on it would, which is why it's now popular. *g*
Love that Sangzan has started learning Chengyu, even if he can't use them correctly yet. Go, Sangzan!! *\o/*
Yes! I thought that was great for him, and ZYL could stand to be less annoyed about it.
Is "the South Sea's forbidden area" a reference to the Yashou forbidden area in the drama, I wonder.
Oh! Yeah, it probably is!
So wait, the barracuda was using the bubble AUs to duplicate the application forms, right? I wonder how he did that...
Yeah, the barracuda did it, but how is never explained. *grumbles*
Oof, poor Shen Wei! I can't tell if he went through his own bubble-time experiences or if he was just waiting on the outside
It definitely sounded to me like he was in the bubbles as well - if nothing else, it says "he didn’t seem to have recovered from the endless time loops yet", so surely he must have been in the loops.
Wait, why is ZYL offering to buy GCC things from duty-free? Is he travelling internationally? I'd assumed the South Sea was still in China!
"South sea" is the South China Sea, which borders various countries, and it never says anything else, so they might have ended up anywhere. *g*
Utterly outraged, he yowled, “How could Shen-laoshi, with his beautiful face, betray us?!”
The fan translation has a translator's note for this:
no subject
He's not afraid of offending SW, he's afraid of SW's hairtrigger "protect ZYL" reaction. *g*
An entirely reasonable caution! :D
Yeah, I wasn't clear on that either, but it does seem like it's common knowledge now among anyone who knows about the supernatural ...?
Maybe ZYL deliberately withheld/erased the information from him to preserve the parent-child relationship. (But whyyyy? When he's so awful? ;-p)
Wasn't it always? It was established specifically for ZYL, wasn't it?
I guess so. It feels different to me now ZYL is a god who just wants to garden all day, than when he was a mortal who took his supernatural crime-fighting seriously.
but now that ZYL is a god, proximity to his divinity advances their cultivation more (or more easily) than actively working on it would, which is why it's now popular. *g*
Ah. More Evil Worldbuilding. ;-p
Yes! I thought that was great for him, and ZYL could stand to be less annoyed about it.
LOL! In ZYL's defence, it seems to mean having to work pretty hard to translate what Sangzan is trying to say.
It definitely sounded to me like he was in the bubbles as well - if nothing else, it says "he didn’t seem to have recovered from the endless time loops yet", so surely he must have been in the loops.
Yes, though it's ZYL POV, and he doesn't know.
is a quote… from a 90’s movie.
LOLOL!! A very priest note to end on. g
no subject
I agree, filial piety should not apply to awful parents! Alas. *g*
Yes, though it's ZYL POV, and he doesn't know.
Unless I'm right (see my main comment below) and they met up inside various bubbles, in which case he can and does know.