Interesting! I Like That. I Also Like That Ghosts Are Sustained Solely From Their Own Internal Desires

I found it in an afterword. I don’t think I’d take what she said as Bible, since prior and after she is walking us through where her inspiration came from (a place she visited, a flower she saw, a storm she witnessed) and then it takes us through her iterations (it was intended to be 35k words, it was supposed to be a cozy fantasy the amount of manuscripts she had and threw away etc) so idk.

About the concept:

It feels off to me that she would make his abilities as an ode to his mom when the trajectory turned from “cozy serial” to a “dark epic” where the ML has an obsessive all consuming love.

How the story evolved:

Hold on while I have a breakdown about how Xie Lian is the only mxtx character to legitimately try to kill himself. This fandom spends all day and night crying about his deadbeat friends “suffering” over their abandonment of him, meanwhile he is the one who almost died over it—by his own hands AND others—and the only thing that “saved” him was Jun Wu’s curse of immortality.

Reading mxtx novels is watching a very clear walk into tragedy, where any other person at ANY MOMENT could intervene and say “actually, let me do right,” yet actively choose not to, only to cry years later about “well what did you want from me?” when their sins gets shoved back into their faces and their guilt starts gnawing at their flesh.

…Let me stop right here before I say something regrettable.

I haven’t read the revised version yet, but sounds like mxtx is spelling a lot of things out that were left to the readers to put together. This is both great and kinda sad (sad because I love puzzles lol) but yeah the prayer thing, I had already guessed it was Jun Wu who stopped them but are you implying that Mu Qing and Feng Xin, as retainers, knew? I had not considered that, and thought their surprise was genuine. When I read again, or start the revised version, I’ll pay attention.

Even if that isn’t what you meant to imply, I still find the idea worth exploring. It’s a kernel. A seed. “For his own good.” And then before they realize, a whole wall of secrets is already between them and they’ve taken the first step away.

[Aside. The drought. We know Rain Master was freshly ascended when Xie Lian seeks her out for the Spiritual Device. Which means the drought is likely due to there being no Rain Master at the time and the newly ascended one being too weak to help. We also find out towards the end that replacing the Rai master isn’t something Jun Wu wants to do since the position is too important and the current RM doesn’t have “big ideas” so I wonder what happened to the last RM. They wouldn’t have faded naturally, which means technically Jun Wu caused the drought even if it wasn’t just to fk with Xie Lian]

As for the bell and palace, I’m not sure! I’m leaning more towards cosmic irony than a deliberate action. Or even just literary symbology. I wouldn’t count out the possibility that it was a deliberate provocation though, since the result was that Mu Qing and Feng Xin are immediately hostile. (However, Jun Wu telling Xie Lian that FX paid the bill but shh don’t tell was definitely meant to shame XL)

The second and third ascensions were definitely unplanned and completely natural, as far I’m concerned. The first one is fishy but not impossible.

He never wanted Xie Lian to have hope. He himself couldn’t even ascend a second time and if he actually did, it was centuries after his first fall. How mortifying and rage inducing for a man like Jun Wu.

But unlike Jun Wu who lost most his believers then completely eradicated the remaining, Xie Lian always had a believer and it was a Grand Believer of the rarest kind. One that Jun Wu thought he had just watch die. So he was definitely pissed.

Just my thoughts. I appreciate your thoughtful reply and love discussing/exploring tgcf. Always a pleasure

Mu Qing and Feng Xins overall immaturity, petty passive-aggression, and lack of personal growth over an 800 year span always blew my mind. But I’m starting to really consider that they had someone whispering in their ears about one another.

“Don’t mind him, Mu Qing. You know he always looked down on you and it’s only got worse since you left his highnesses side first. Feng Xin will never let that go.”

And vise-versa. Or even more insidiously, casually playing one another’s insecurities off each other in seemingly unrelated ways.

We all know Jun Wu love psychological games. Immortalizing everyone around Xie Lian not only physically but keeping them all emotionally stunted. (CoughLQQcoughcough)

And this also further serves to isolate Xie Lian, since if the three of them were able to co-exist then they could present a problem and possibly figure things out faster.

Too bad none of them could tread their own paths.

This is all just

Pure Speculation

OMG DAMN HANDSOME NEW OFFICIAL HUA CHENG ART BY GEAROUS FOR HUA CHENG’S BIRTHDAY!!!

I want to post a rant about Mei Nianqing but I’m holding myself back and I don’t know why. 🤔

Yes, thank you you beautiful beautiful person. I was fr torn between going offline or making myself not be lazy. I still chose the latter, but it was cus the task became less dauting haha so in the 7seas version it's the same except we seem to be interpreting it completely differently.

"This was the cruelest way gods declined because the process could not be reversed. A heavenly official in that situation was destined to watch their own decline until they disappeared entirely—unless they jumped down from the heavens, returned to being mortal, re-cultivated a new path, and then ascended once more as a brand-new god."

Vol. 5 Ch. 79 7s

This part in particular. "Could not be reversed," Returned to being mortal," and "Brand-new god." in particular.

This is not a supplementation, a continuation, or a top-up. It is starting fresh. from ground 0, with nothing. And if they don't, then they die.

So I'm gunna have to hard disagree with the idea that "gods are always gods" especially since that passage is pretty explicit with saying they are not gods anymore once they lose their followers.

If they ascended again it would be a 1st tribulation.

Since the shackles were man-made and not part of heaven.. then Xie Lian didn’t ascend 3 times, he went through 3 heavenly tribulations.

And he did the last one in his sleep and had the nerve to describe it as “having weird dreams.”

Legendary.

I can’t stop watching this 😂😭💀

Some beautiful soul out there did the thing 🥹

Pure Donghua Battle Beats «— YouTube link to Yiling Patriarch shredding it on the ghost flute. 15 mins of unadulterated spook that only gets more intense as it goes.

ALSO. I’d like to say I think it’s a crime that the donghua flutist didn’t get credit. I could not find any information about who the actual musician was. However Qiu Niu who did the audio drama flute sounds a lot like the donghua flute so imma just put that out there.

And it’s a further crime they didn’t put the flute in the ost

Wei Wuxian flute battle soundtrack when? I need that haunting, heart pounding donghua music 🥺 no dialogue, zombie moans dimmed, just straight up spectral rage and melody and battle beats.

I swear if I could blast that while cleaning, laundry would become a moral reckoning. Mopping? A battle for the soul of my household. Dishes? Consider them exorcised.

Just thinkin’ bout how Xie Lian wasn’t even lent enough spiritual power to have a conversation through the spirit array until Hua Cheng came along.

😭😭😭😭 it was so sad that I couldn’t stop laughing. #JusticeForYizhen

“…[Pei Xiu] turned to Xie Lian. ‘So you see, there are many things in the world that simply cannot be clearly defined or resolved. You can only fight.’

Xie Lian sighed. ‘I’ll agree to the first part.’

San Lang, on the other hand, said, ‘Hm. I’ll agree to the second part.’”

Hualian: A True Power Couple.