You know guys, the changes that are being made in TGCF are actually not really big, most of them are just making clearer the intentions that MXTX wanted to convey, in the first volume even the biggest changes were from the Fang Xin arc, and even so the the story is practically the same, it didn't affect the outcome or the characters' direction, the characters that were cut didn't make any difference or lack in the story (the ghost Lang Ying, prince An Le).
However, as the author's intentions are being made more explicit, many headcanons and interpretations out there are being denied, so a lot of people are getting angry at MXTX, and this since it was confirmed that Hua Cheng was a virgin for all those 800 years (until he lost his virginity to Xie Lian).
So, let's take it easy. MXTX always planned to review TGCF since at the time she wrote it she was already going through a huge wave of hate and she sees what people do with TGCF, all the dishonest/wrong interpretations taken for granted.
And it's sad that an author has to restrict her writing so much. One of the good things about MXTX's writing is that she leaves certain things between the lines, she likes to work with subtexts, to build contexts slowly before arriving at a result (and this has also been ignored by fans who take a single line as truth and ignore everything else that was built).
I have many thoughts re: the fall of Xianle from the pov of the impact of a natural catastrophe on socio-political balance and how great natural disasters often herald the fall of civilizations via civil war and internal strife
And how there are no viable solutions to a situation like that because the forces at play cannot be reconciled even if the root cause could be ammended (which is usually impossible anyway)
And how the tensions between the people of Xianle and the people of Yong'an follow precisely the theories of human displacement and conflict stemming from resource competition crisis
And how, regardless of whatever Xie Lian might have been able to do, it would not have turned out differently for him and his kingdom, even without Human Face Disease at play
Maybe i should dust off my knowledge and write an essay
I think it's very significant Hua Cheng's power involves rain because the event that started Xie Lian's suffering was a drought, so it's as if when he emerged to protect him, he said: "if it was wrong for gods to answer prayers for rain, a ghost will. And the heavens will bleed for it".
by far the funniest explanation for Xie Lian not realizing all those boys/men in his life with dark hair and an eyepatch have been the same guy is that repeated exposure to Hua Cheng has caused him to believe that eyepatches on men are way more common than they actually are. "average person is highly likely to wear an eyepatch" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person wears 0 eyepatches. Eyepatches Georg, who sculpts in a cave & wears an eyepatch for 800 years, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
Hua Cheng is not averse to touching Xie Lian, his problem with touching Xie Lian came from his belief that he did not deserve to be touched by Xie Lian, his god and his prince.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't want to touch or be touched, so much so that when he wants to, he touch a lot (😏). The cart scene where Hua Cheng moves away from Xie Lian's touch I believe was just for the shock/surprise, but he touched Xie Lian in the sedan chair scene at the bride's arch and every other time since.
As far as I remember, it was only this time in the cart scene that he removed the touch.