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thankyoumskobayashi · 5 years

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The symbolism of changing clothes: Hualian and color schematics. (Spoilers up to Tian Guan Ci Fu Chapter 109).

In the most recent chapter, Xie Lian, Hua Cheng, Wind Master, and Earth Master all go to a small town where their flamboyant attire stands out. Everyone changes except for Xie Lian, who dresses casually because he has spent most of his immortal life wandering the mortal realms and therefore he is better equipped to handle them. During the protagonist's backstory, author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu states that Xie Lian has always like to wear white clothes, and reminds the reader of this fact throughout the previous two cases Xie Lian handles. In this case, Xie Lian's choice of clothing remains pretty static.

He had gotten wiser throughout the years, and grown to see (perhaps) the folly of his younger ways. He had grown resigned to misfortune to the point that he scared away Venerable demons because they couldn't feed off of his broken dreams. This is some serious depression right here. Even though his consistent choice of clothing paralleled his consistent personality traits, Xie Lian's clothing choice is perhaps symbolic of more meanings.

Taoism is the cultural paradigm pervading Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's cultivation novels (or probably cultivation novels in general, but I have only read hers thus far), and some of the things it emcompasses are the concepts of yin and yang energy. White, or Xie Lian's chosen color of dress, represents the masculine yin energy. It is, as Mo Xiang Tong Xiu states many times in Mo Dao Zu Shi, the energy of life, an active energy, and a force for good. This "force for good" was shown as Xie Lian modeled the perfect cultivation student as a Crown Prince, and it became his driving motivation when he reneged against the divine rules of interfering with mortal matters.

This active energy means he is by nature a proactive person. He created a sign saying "renovation needed" by his latest tiny temple, he didn't wait for reinforcements when he learned his idiot cousin was kidnapped by the rebels but left to rescue him anyways, he volunteered to help the noble family when they threw out a doctor to gain a chance at feeding the two kids. From the time he was mortal until Xie Lian's present day, he has seen a need and strived to meet it. Giving rain, saving the child Hong, helping the merchants in their caravan. He has a desire to provide for and protect others -whether from royal duty to the people or compassion matters not- which has become innate over 800 years. It's instinctive. He has become the model of yin energy personified, although his portrayal of leadership is not what one might expect.

The "leaders" one could think of are loud, commanding, in control of everyone and everything. However, that level of micromanaging may produce hostility, helplessness, and resentment among the subordinates. Xie Lian steps in as a leader only when no one else knows how to or even wants to handle it. His main goal is calming people during times of paranormal crisis, like his many attempted directions to the mob on the mountain, or the directions to the soldiers not to jump into the pit. He also wants to keep the others safe, which lends itself to his self-sacrificial tendencies. He understands that even his subordinates have a right to run away from the case, even if that strands him in a precarious position. He listens to their concerns and mediates their fights. Although this may seem like the caricature of the "weak" leader, Xie Lian's leadership methods show the people he works with that he is dedicated to providing their safety and peace.

Rather than proclaiming he will protect them, as he did when he was the Crown Prince of Xian Le, Xie Lian tells the merchants he will go with them and demonstrates through actions that he will protect them along the way. He used this method of showing before telling as he protected the child Hong (whom he'd first saved when Hong fell from the sky) from his evil cousin's murderous schemes. He ordered the carriage stopped, carefully picked up Hong, did some crowd control, then marched that kid right up to the palace healers. He showed Hong he was there to protect him, murmuring comforting things to him along the way.

That child, as you may suspect from Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's love for creating many identities for her characters, likely will turn out to be the devotee at the run-down Temple of the Flower Crown Prince, aka the Temple where Xie Lian first noticed and appreciated the white flower in his statue's hand. It was implied that Hong, touched by Prince Xie Lian's rescues of him, looked up to him even after Xie Lian ascended to godhood. Hong looked up to him enough to do something different than the rest of the followers: establish his own personal symbol for Xie Lian in the white flower, and actually listen to Xie Lian's instructions to his worshippers on how to worship him. Touched by these two things, Xie Lian protected Hong from the children bullying him and invited him to sustain himself from the fruit offerings given. Hong confessed that he didn't know what to live for and Xie Lian told him "Live for me."

With all the political unrest, drought worries, and epidemic to worry about, Xie Lian didn't remember this child was Hong, who he'd saved from falling and from his cousin before. He merely saved him again and left to do more martial-godly stuff. Eventually, Hong heard through gossip that Xie Lian was on the battlefield fighting the people who wanted to escape the droughts. That, I believe, was when he first began pursuing Xie Lian, probably beginning as a form of hero worship. He snuck onto the wall guard then, and caught a glimpse of Xie Lian and his assistants as they guarded the royal capital. They got notice that Qi Rong was kidnapped and Xie Lian, ever a man god of action, left alone over the wall to fight them.

Hong siezed his chance then and followed him to the mountain, even after he was vastly outstripped by Xie Lian. He still caught up eventually to help Xie Lian deal with the plants, and sliced them down in a fit of anger while they tormented his hero. At this point Hong only ever wanted to pay back his hero for saving him, but was forced to watch Xie Lian harm himself rather than injure the child nearby. Indecency aside, Hong was probably enraged by having to watch his idol stab himself under the influence of demon plants. From there, it isn't hard to imagine Hong learning, perhaps as a young god himself, the exact effects of those demons. He would have learned that Xie Lian would rather sacrifice himself than kill another person. And even if he wouldn't die, he had been prepared to make that sacrifice. It isn't hard to imagine Hong becoming enraged at those demons Xie Lian had faced, before he had known what they would make him do. It isn't hard to imagine Hong, a nascent Demon King, seeking out and destroying all of those kinds of demons in a form of vengeance.

By this point you have probably arrived at the same conclusion as me: Hong/Hua Cheng/San Lang is in love with Xie Lian. He is pursuing him romantically (as well as sexually, though I'm not writing this essay about that) throughout the eras. Yada yada, this was in the summary Mo Xiang Tong Xiu provided with her novel, stop telling me this. I get it. But she likes to take an incredibly roundabout approach to storytelling, not addressing these things until at least 20 chapters later. As of right now the part(s?) when these things are discussed by the characters in-universe have not yet been translated. So forgive my redundance.

Mo Xiang Tong Xiu likes to give color schemes with her main pairings. This was true with Wei Wuxian (red and black) and Lan Wangji (white and blue). It also goes for Xie Lian and Hua Cheng as well. Xie Lian is white, and Hua Cheng is red and black. There might be other colors mentioned for both which I haven't picked up on, so I will only focus on those three. This essay began with everyone besides Xie Lian changing clothes. Hua Cheng changed into black clothes from a previous outfit which was a white robe beneath a red one. Let's examine how that color psychology helps him pursue Xie Lian's affections.

First of all, the red and white. Red is the color of passion, anger, excitement, and danger. It is attractive and alluring. These adjectives all describe the person Hua Cheng became over his 800 year existence. They were shaped by his determination and drive, his tenacity and his passion. His love for Xie Lian shows in his fixing the door, kissing him in the lake, sending up 3,000 lanterns. His love is the kind of unbounded, head-over-heels timeless love we have heard about in the Odyssey: he is the one seeking to find his way back home, back to the person he belongs with. He said so when he told Xie Lian (paraphrased) "Paradise Mansion is a house but not a home. It doesn't feel as much of a home as your tiny cottage does." When he is at the shrine with Xie Lian he is laughing and joking, offering to do domestic things simply because he is content. Here, his red is affection.

When Xie Lian is in danger, his red becomes the red of power and anger. After Xie Lian got stung by a scorpion snake, Hua Cheng immediately stopped the swelling by cutting the wound with a borrowed cauterized knife and sucking out most of the poison. When Xie Lian jumped into the pit after him, Hua Cheng had already killed all the wolves and was waiting to catch him at the bottom. Heavenly officials all told tales of how he caused only death and devastation in his wake.

Perhaps, if he hadn't had someone to look up to, he would have already fulfilled that prophecy of destroying the world.

But with Xie Lian's influence, he had someone to look up to. He had some model of morality in the Crown Prince who had saved him three, four, five times without even demanding thanks in return. Hua Cheng had plenty of time to learn about Xie Lian's compassionate and just lifestyle through hearsay and word-of-mouth news. He had plenty of time to analyze on the actions he'd seen Xie Lian perform firsthand and gain a reasonable grasp on his personal morality. By adopting some form of Xie Lian's moral code, Hua Cheng chose not to kill the entire world. He fought his so-called destiny with Xie Lian as assistance. Or perhaps? Perhaps his evil fate, bound far in the distance like a train stop down the track, was entirely shifted, a shifting of the rails so to speak, the moment he heard Xie Lian, the god who didn't appear to mortals anymore, whisper those words: "Live for me."

He truly took them to heart, although in a different way than Xie Lian probably intended. Rather than living out his life to make Xie Lian proud of him, he strove to become someone on equal footing to the pedestal in his mind he had created for Xie Lian. He strove to become someone who could properly charm Xie Lian and earn his trust. He wanted to be as powerful as Xie Lian was in his heyday. He wanted to have Xie Lian see him as a dependable and trustworthy person, but he probably ran into trouble finding the Flower Crown Prince after Xie Lian descended to the mortal realm for the second time. Everyone may have either made fun of Xie Lian when Hua Cheng asked after him, or flat out didn't care to learn or pass on his location. And so Hua Cheng made his own fortune, embraced his own power, became the Demon King who would kill everyone except the two gods who had formerly assisted Xie Lian.

If there is some plot to Xie Lian's second fall which complicates this somewhat--and knowing Mo Xiang Tong Xiu there probably is what with 135-6 chapters untranslated-- please know that it hasn't been translated yet, and that I am not a psychic. Anyways, when Hua Cheng 'first' appeared to Xie Lian, his clothing was crimson maple leaves on a white background. This shows that his own personality, vibrant and powerful, has been affected profoundly by the gentle, compassionate, noble personality of Xie Lian. He keeps Xie Lian's personality closer to his heart- and shows it to fewer people -than he does with his own personality. Hua Cheng said earlier on in the novel that he would give his ashes- his own biggest weakness- to someone worthy, someone kind who would guard them and do with them as they wished. And that if, at any point, he did something that person didn't like, that person could end him right then and there. Then he left the next morning, leaving Xie Lian with a ring on a silver chain. Suspicious? Hm. Coincidental? Very.

He has known Xie Lian for almost as long as Feng Xin, and nearly as long as Mu Qing has. He has known Xie Lian better than most other followers, since before he was a god. Hua Cheng even defied Xie Lian's orders of forgetting him, as well. That QianDeng Temple was probably built hundreds of years ago, as soon as Hua Cheng became a Demon King, and just sat there waiting for him to bring Xie Lian to see it. Since no one in the crowd was talking about it, and no one ever suggested going near it as a dare, it is reasonable to induct that Hua Cheng built it awhile ago, and Hua Cheng enforced strict punishments towards anyone who dared go near it. He probably tested out E-Ming on whoever tried to visit it, whoever commented on it, etc. Then the rumors got around that you'd be tortured for looking at it so everybody in Ghost City stopped. Once Hua Cheng showed QianDeng Temple to Xie Lian, he was probably nervous that he defied those orders, to forget the god whom he'd idolized, but luckily for him Xie Lian has a shitty memory and was impressed instead of embarrassed or angry at him. Xie Lian has mostly been ostracized from the Heavenly Community due to his infamy and wandering the mortal realms. He doesn't have people with a similar sense of humor to talk to, he's mostly lonely. Which brings us to the black robe: the role Hua Cheng dons in an attempt to win Xie Lian's favor.

In the yin-yang symbol, the two tapering swirls of black and white have a dot of the opposite color inside them. The white is the yin, and the black is the yang. Those two are eternally matched with each other for eternity, a profound meaning not lost on Hua Cheng when he chooses his clothing next. Since Xie Lian has no need to change his outfit, as he already blends in, Hua Cheng changes his own outfit to complement that. Yang energy in Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's novels is typically the energy of the dead, malevolent energy, the resentful power which a certain necromancer harnessed for personal gain. This kind of energy is what ghosts, demons, and the like all share, and as King of Demons it fits Hua Cheng to change to an outfit of its color.

However, the inherent paradox within their relationship is that fundamentally, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are pitted on opposite spiritual axioms. This is much more complicated than the "opposites attract" adage; Hua Cheng has similar strategies and theories to Xie Lian about the cases they solve together. Xie Lian is happy that his funny password made Hua Cheng laugh. No, there's parts of their personalities picked up by the other and folded into them, whether consciously or not. Hua Cheng's persistence at following Xie Lian during the Qi Rong's rescue becomes Xie Lian's persistence at hunting the fetus spirit, even if he has to swallow it AND his sword to do so. Xie Lian's intervention on Hua Cheng's death becomes Hua Cheng sending "greetings" to tyrants because he has standards for who's allowed to be on the throne, you know. They reflect each other, both looking in a puddle of water, both dripping from the blood of their casualties, accidental or not. The difference is, Hua Cheng can bear that weight of casualties differently than Xie Lian.

Xie Lian considers himself a has-been. He was great once, but not anymore. He failed to do what he'd said he'd do, and paid the price with followers and powers. Hua Cheng, after getting back into contact with him, is just as smitten now as he had ever been before. He showed Xie Lian a roomfull of swords just to hear him ramble for hours about how cool all the swords were and then told him, point-blank, "You can have all these swords." This Demon King wants to give Xie Lian reasons to be happy and excited again. He wants him to go on rants about the stuff he enjoys just so he can watch and listen to the Flower Crown Prince talk, his eyes sparkling, his expression unguarded and happy like he once was.

After they visited QianDeng Temple together, Hua Cheng explained to Xie Lian that none of his things could be stolen from Paradise Manor without his permission. Elaborating further with "...once something is in my hands, it's mine," Hua Cheng might be simply making things up sarcastically. Or, it could be one of the times when he is deadly serious and every word is accurate. We as a reader can't quite tell if Xie Lian is fully processing this, but he thinks to the first time he met Hua Cheng in the Ghost City. There, Hua Cheng had placed his hands carefully over Xie Lian's to help him roll two sixes on the dice. Did that mean he had already claimed Xie Lian as his? Does Xie Lian know the romantic implications behind that? Did he recognize the romantic intentions behind Hua Cheng's kiss? Mo Xiang Tong Xiu experience says that he didn't, but the clues are blaringly obvious to the reader.

Xie Lian has never left Paradise Manor through a door without Hua Cheng by his side. He has left through the roof, but that was one time. It will be interesting to see whether he can leave by himself later. Casein point: Hua Cheng built Xie Lian's door. Did he use the same spell on it that he did with Paradise Manor doors? If so, how can Xie Lian use it when he's not around? A viable explanation is that by giving Xie Lian his own ashes, Hua Cheng has granted Xie Lian co-ownership of Paradise Mansion and he will be able to go wherever he wants at any time. Either way Mo Xiang Tong Xiu chooses, this will be an exciting result. Through all of these cues and more, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu has shown us Hua Cheng's dedication and loyalty to Xie Lian, with his words, actions, and clothing choice. His name, however, as a Demon King: Crimson Rain Sought Flower, is incredibly obvious. The white flower is a symbol he personally gave Xie Lian after he ascended the first time. In QianDeng Temple, Xie Lian even holds it up and asks if "...this is the kind of flower [he is] pursuing," to which Hua Cheng, delighted that Xie Lian finally realizes his romantic feelings, replies that he has the premonition of gods. Xie Lian had only asked about the flower, not himself. It is unknown whether Hua Cheng understood that, but either way his tone reads as teasingly sincere.

One last thing: the whole "falling" in love thing. Hua Cheng fell from the sky in order to first meet Xie Lian. He was probably chock full of adrenaline and scared to death, but once those strong arms caught him and held him away from danger he felt safer than anywhere else in the world. He probably wanted to know more about the person who had saved him. I bet he manipulated the info of who saved him out of Qi Rong when Qi Rong's five hitmen showed up to kill him. I bet just knowing the name of the person who'd saved him was what drove him to fight like a madman to avoid dying by Qi Rong's interference. That led him directly to the carriage's path again, and then to Xie Lian's arms again. He was calm when Xie Lian was holding him, but no one else. He didn't give a shit when the Head Priest predicted a future of only destruction, but heard Xie Lian insisting that he was capable of doing good. This fundamentally changed him as a person, even if Xie Lian didn't remember it later. This, I believe, is the reason why Hua Cheng left the world largely intact. Plus he didn't know where exactly Xie Lian was, so he couldn't just destroy large areas without possibly creating a most unwanted casualty.

Falling from the sky, beaten and dragged behind a cart, accused of bringing doom, watching Xie Lian stoically face angry crowds, asking the god who no one heard from anymore why he should live. Watching the flower demons torment his hero. Although many assume Hua Cheng decided to become strong enough to protect Xie Lian at this point, it could have been a resolve building up since their first interaction. Whatever the case, suffering through watching Xie Lian deal with the outbreak, face the angry mob, get heckled as he held up the Pavilions day in day out, that was the acute torment which fueled Hua Cheng's determination to become powerful. That this remains his worst fear, even after he now is at LEAST as powerful as Xie Lian in his heyday, says much about how much he loves Xie Lian.

Pursue his affections, he's the kind who loves with his entire heart. And since you wear a white robe, his color, close to your heart, perhaps he is the person nearest and dearest to yours...

#tian guan ci fu #long post #essay + analysis + headcanons #updated with the new information heheh

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heavenofficialsbl · 5 years

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H.O.B. Chapter 12 part ii

Chapter 12 part ii: A Ghost in Red Sets Fire Upon The Military and Civil Temples part ii

I’m sorry this has taken me so long to write! I’m trying to get my sleep schedule back on track and that means I put myself to bed earlier (I usually write these before bed). Oh well, maybe I’ll get better with my time management as I do more of these. ALSO: if anyone is interested, I have an HOB discord for anyone that would like to join. Please shoot me a DM for the link <3

ALSO ALSO: Thank you guys so much for 500 followers! You make me so happy UwU <3 I didn’t think there would be this many people interested in HOB since it’s still so early into the translation, and it seems that the English speaking fandom is rather small right now, so it makes me really happy to see all of you guys enjoying the content!

Let’s get started!

OH BOY, I forgot that we had just gotten Hua Cheng’s name! I don’t know if XL is familiar with him or his name at all, but we’ll see...

Alright so Hua Cheng is translated to... Well it’s directly translated to ‘flower city’ which cracks me up. I have a feeling that this is going to somehow be connected to Xie Lian also being known as the “Flower crown Prince”. It’s funny how he had such a gentle and kind memory of HC leading him through the forest, while everyone else is on edge just at the mention of him

Daww, XL is part of the Four Famous Tales <3 That’s somehow very comforting/pleasing to hear. Even though he ended up being cast out from Heaven, he at least had some positive stories told about him

It does seem a bit odd that he hadn’t heard of these Four Great Calamities, though maybe it’s just for story-telling purposes so we can hear them explained

Oh please don’t tell me that XL is the White Clothed Calamity D: HC has to be the Bloody Rain Reaching Towards a Flower (that’s even the name of the first arc that we’re in ohoho). I’m also guessing that the Green Light Wandering Nights guy is the one who hangs corpses in the forest?

Mmmmm then maybe the White-Clothed Calamity isn’t XL, if they’re those that became ghosts

Ohhh interesting... I thought that the demon realm would be separate from the mortal realm like the Heavens are. I guess that just comes from being used to the idea of Hell though. That’s very discomforting though, as a human in this world, to know that all of the worlds demons and ghosts just live among you

Oh, I was right about something! So it is Green Ghost Qi Rong

The water demon doesn’t make hardly any trouble and still is listed first, while mister GG causes mayhem all the time and isn’t even Devastation level. People really do love having things that match lol they probably did just add him to make it 4

The White Clothed Calamity isn’t XL, but he seems painfully familiar with the name. It seems that this demon is the one who wiped out his own kingdom 800 years ago. I can imagine how painful it must be for him to hear that name. I wonder if he was extinguished right after/soon after he destroyed Xian Le kingdom, or if he died later on

Deathly Spirit Butterflies: cool as hell name

“Wan’t to provoke the least”: note, not the one the Heavens “hate the most” or the one that Heaven “considers the strongest”, but the one that they “don’t want to provoke”. I don’t know if this is a literal translation or if it was just written this way to keep the flow of the story, but to think that the Heavens are wary of HC and consider him such a great threat that they, instead of trying to destroy him, are instead actively avoiding him/trying not to give him a reason to turn on them... I think that says a lot

For XL to be as famous and Jun Wu but forced to be a scrap collector for 800 years while the other lives in luxury... oof

If one wanted to get to know a Heavens’ Official, they’d only need to take a walk, find a temple to visit, examine the god’s statue, study how they dressed, and what kind of enchanted weaponry they carried. With that, one could understand them to a certain extent

Except for the fact that we’ve explored how these thing change depending on the artist of the statue and the popularity of the Official... Artistic liberty and such

Do they think his name is fake because of how little it fits him? As for his appearance, people can lost of different personalities. I wouldn’t put it past him to change his appearance either, as he seems to be quite powerful.

Where can I get me a man who is always accompanied by blood rain and butterflies?

Of the stories that are given, I think he’s gonna beeeee probably a mixture of all four actually

OoooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oh yeah okay I have thought’s and ideas after reading that he became an official and left on his own okay yes please lets just say #heavypining

“Even if it was true, it still had to be false” xD So thats what those in Heaven find embarrassing? Interesting

Alright, so we find out that even demons/ghosts can have worshipers. We also learn that HC is probably Loki in disguise

It was almost at the point where he had enough power to cover the skies with just a single hand.

I can see why the Heavens are cautious of him. I hadn’t realized that he also had such a large following that was comparable to the Heavenly Officials’ following

He had just come out of a volcano, but that’s not important~

Okay, time to do a bit of research on poison and why it made him so formidable

*insert jeopardy theme here*

Alright so what I’m seeing about Gu is that it’s a traditional CHinese poison made by sealing several venomous creatures in a container, like snakes, spiders, and scorpions, etc., and letting them eat each other, and thus condensing the venom inside one body. It was used for things like causing disease and death, but also could possibly be used as a love charm...? this os from wikipedia:

"For centuries, the Miao, particularly Miao women", writes Schein (2000:50-51), "have been feared for their mastery of the so-called gu poison, which is said to inflict death from a distance with excruciating slowness."

Let’s go back a bit, shall we?

“...sometimes a temperamental and disagreeable teenager, sometimes a gentle, kind and elegant beautiful man, or sometimes a gorgeous female ghost with a poisonous heart.”

These things have really got me thinking now. I can’t stop reading about the poison GAH it’s so interesting!

I was confused with the wording of the sentence, “It was not a city where everyone raises Gu...” because why would someone RAISE poison? But now it makes sense, as the Gu, or Ku, is the survivor of that venomous buffet. When raised for a long time, it would continue to grown more venomous/poisonous

Oh. OH. Hua Cheng wasn’t studying Gu or making Gu, he IS Gu. Shit.

Okay he has to be Loki in disguise. To be a strong warrior and a competent scholar? Jeeze, he sounds like he really does have a lot of facets to his personality. To win in debates, you need to know when to yield and when to push. It makes me think of how when fishing, you need to sometimes let the fish swim away, but by doing that, you’re more likely to catch the fish in the end

Oh my god Hua Cheng offered his own ashes if he lost the bet, but he knew he would win xD When it says that he “openly invited” the 35 Officials, I wonder if he invited them by name, or if he just asked for 35 random Officials. I bet they were ones that were, at some point, cruel to XL huehuehue

And which 2 Officials thought he might actually defeat them? It says only 33 thought there wasn’t any chance, but that leaves two who thought he did have a chance. It seems like they didn’t participate, since it says that 33 lost the bet. I have a feeeeeeeeeling thats its XL’s two generals, because why wouldn’t it be? We need more circles withing circles, right?

In any case, people were very forgetful, in another fifty years, perhaps no one would remember it.

HAHAHA good luck with that

I can see why they don’t want to deal with him: he’s strong, cunning, and unpredictable. I doubt the Officials every get their temples burned (at least, it probably happens very, very rarely) so why would they think that HC would target the temples? They were left totally open and unguarded. What a smart cookie

I also like that he didn’t go after the two who decided not to fight him. I think that shows that he is, in a way, reasonable. He could have easily burned theirs as well, but they didn’t accept his challenge or his bet, so he left them alone.

Oh and it’s not just 33 temples, it’s all of the temples of all 33 Officials. Hoo boy, Hua Cheng, hoo boy

Jun Wu is right: don’t agree to something with such high stakes and then cry when it turns against you

Hua Cheng had also been very crafty, he only destroyed the temples and did not harm anyone.

A. GOOD. COOKIE.

Wait wait wait wait they can GO INTO PEOPLES DREAMS?! DUDE. They went into the dreams of such influential people and then lost so horribly RIP HEAVEN OFFICIALS WHO’S ARROGANT NOW BISH

So from everything that I’m reading about HC here, it seems that, and excuse me for bringing up Thor again, he doesn’t seek war, but is always prepared for it. He doesn’t openly attack people, but he’s certainly ready to fight if he needs to or feels threatened

Aaaaaaaaaaaand now a lot of them respect him. It must be such a weird dynamic between HC and the Officials: they’re Heavenly Officials for... heavens sake, and he is someone who, at least according to rumor at this point, had denounced his title as an Official and then became even stronger than many of the still current Officials. The more I read this, the more I understand why they can’t stand him. I think it’s not so much that they despise him like the 4 Clans despise WWX and want him dead, but more that they just want nothing to do with him, and are content with just staying away from him

Oh I totally saw that coming, that Mu Qing and Feng Xin were the two smart ones (or maybe they were just super uninterested) that didn’t bother with fighting HC

Op yep, it seems it was a bit of both haha they were busy and just didn’t want to bother. I wonder what their encounters were outside of the bet, since it says that they fought HC multiple times

Tadaaaahhhh- Our Highness the Crown Prince Xie Lian is totally smitten with those damn butterflies. I want to know what they do, or how HC uses them for the others to fear them that much. It says they cause “frantic devastation” so I want to see how they work

WEll I’m so glad that we’re finally getting some actual information on HC (I wasn’t expecting this much information this soon!). WE definitely still don’t know everything about him, so I can’t make a really good guess on what his personality is or anything about his character/morality, but he seems to be smart and reasonable to an extent.

Well, thanks for reading guys! See you hopefully in a few days when I get to chapter 13!

-Bee

#hob #heaven officials blessing #tgcf #tian guan ci fu #mo xian tong xiu #mxtx #hob liveblog #chinese webnovel #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #scum villain #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #xie lian #hua cheng

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