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*points to content notes* That.
Content Notes for the book in general: consent issues, sexualisation of teenagers, gore, mixed treatment of cross-dressing, self harm (sort of), dead babies, ANGST
And under the cut: SPOILERS for Book 2, chapters 58-88
BOOK TWO IS JUST SOLID FLASHBACK ANGST OH GOD
Time to find out how the universe BROKE XIE LIAN'S SPIRIT. HOORAY.
Ok, so. The backstory as we know it: Xie Lian was a prince of the country of Xian Le who ascended to godhood. A few years later, Xian Le went to war with Yong An. Xie Lian tried to create peace but just made things worse and eventually got kicked out of heaven. Yong An won the war and the Lang family took over, horribly mistreating the Xian Le populace for generations until Lang Qian Qiu's father took over and was a good king, with the help of a disguised Xie Lian who encouraged harmony from the shadows. Then Xian Le's shitty cousin conspired with the last living member of the Xian Le royal family to kill off the Lang family, and Xian Le murdered the remaining witnesses to keep it from causing more war. I think at that point Lang Qian Qiu became king and ruled justly until his own ascension to godhood? I'm fuzzy on what's going on in the region now.
Also at some point the Xian Le kingdom had a really awful "face plague" but it eventually died out.
So!
We meet the 17 year old human prince Xie Lian, beloved by all in the prosperous kingdom of Xian Le. He is your typical feisty, idealistic golden boy, causing everyone to shake their heads indulgently as he bends all the rules with so much pizazz that noone can stay mad. We also meet his two most trusted bffs...who by the present day are gods themselves, and have cut themselves off from Xie Lian to avoid sharing his disgrace.
During a religious ceremony Xie Lian abandons his post to save a beggar boy about to fall to his death. The boy is VERY CLEARLY a ten year old (and at this point human) Hua Cheng, complete with bandaged eye he refuses to let anyone see. Xie Lian gets mildly yelled at, and his gross cousin the future Green Goblin (now about 15) decides this is all Hua Cheng's fault, and tortures the poor kid. A furious Xie Lian tries to get gross cousin punished but "princes can get away with all sorts of bullshit" doesn't just apply to Xie Lian.
Dark spirits attack Hua Cheng, and Xie Lian's master/Guoshi warns Xie Lian that Hua Cheng has such dark fortune attached to him that to even associate with him is dangerous. Xie Lian doesn't care, but Hua Cheng runs away.
(EDIT: also it looks like Hua Cheng stole one of Xie Lian's red pearl earrings as a memento)
Time passes and Xie Lian ascends to godhood, bringing his two bffs with him. The statues of him in his temples show him with a sword in one hand and a flower in the other. He sees Hua Cheng again, now a little older, worshipping at a tiny home-made shrine to Xie Lian in the rain. He clearly has a horrific home-life, and he prays: what do I live for? How do I not give into hatred and despair?
And Xie Lian replies: If you need something to live for, live for me. And he leaves the boy a red umbrella.
There is a repeated theme of Hua Cheng placing fresh flowers on shrines to Xie Lian or Xie Lian himself, and his name as a demon is "Bloody rain reaching for the flower" because he once caused a rain of blood but protected a single flower with his umbrella.
Anyway. It's TIME FOR THE ANGST TRAIN. With a brief break for UNEXPECTED UNDERAGE DUBCON which was...well, it was a change, but not really an improvement from my pov.
There is a severe drought in a distant part of the kingdom, Yong An. Because starving people can't afford to pray, Xie Lian doesn't hear about it until it's really bad, and he meets a man, Lang Ying, filled with righteous fury about the death of his family. Xie Lian gives Lang Ying the remaining red pearl earring, hoping the money from it will help, but it's too little too late.
The rules about godhood say Xie Lian shouldn't interfere but he absolutely will not let his people just die like that. He descends to mortal form to help directly. At first he blames his dad the king, but the more Xie Lian investigates the more he realises how messy everything is. The only other god willing to help is a minor rain god (Rain Master Huang) from another distant kingdom, but transporting the rain uses up huge amounts of energy and barely helps the drought.
More and more Yong An refugees turn up at the capital. Xie Lian tries to help them, and stop tensions simmering, but it doesn't work, and things escalate to civil war. Reluctantly, Xie Lian defends the capital, and in a day he goes from never having killed anyone to killing thousands. The people of the city rejoice in the support of their god but Xie Lian feels only regret.
Gross cousin is of course 100% in favour of slaughtering all the refugees. But it seems like other forces are involved: the refugees seem to be getting foreign support. And maybe even supernatural support as well...
The narrative is fairly sympathetic to the refugees but it's still that thing where the needy are genuinely suffering but are a burden who can't be helped and exist mostly to make the privileged main characters feel bad. NOT A FAN, MXTX.
A brave and bandaged 14 year old soldier (eg, Hua Cheng) follows Xie Lian while he's investigating strange goings on near the refugees. A mysterious white masked figure (later referred to as White No-Face) taunts Xie Lian with inevitable failure.
And then, because MXTX HAS HER KINKS I GUESS, Xie Lian and the FOURTEEN YEAR OLD Hua Cheng get cornered by SUCCUBUS SEX POLLEN PLANTS.
Hua Cheng is protected by a mixture of his bandages and being pre-pubescent but Xia Lian gets a faceful of sex pollen and knows he only has a limited window before losing control. This is clearly a trap to make him lose his celibacy powered abilities in the most humiliating way possible, so he assumes there's some girls waiting somewhere nearby if he tries to run. He sets himself up in a cave to wait it out, with one barrier between him and Hua Cheng and another between Hua Cheng and the succubus plants. He tells Hua Cheng to stay between the barriers no matter what.
Thanks, MXTX.
The sex pollen plants make some VERY UNFORTUNATE SEX/PLANT PUNS as they attempt to seduce Hua Cheng, who just stabs at them with his sword which I...am not even going to think about the gender politics, though there's some subtext that they eventually realise they're better off using male forms (or maybe just Xie Lian's...). Anyway. There's some sexually charged fevered touching as a confused Hua Cheng thinks Xie Lian is in pain (or has possibly been sex pollened himself, it's not clear) but Xie Lian remembers that the two things he represses are lust and a desire to kill, so he saves the day with the POWER OF SELF HARM, slicing his arms a few times and then stabbing himself in the stomach until he is as close as it is possible for him to get to true death.
Which...like...when you put it all together, you can kind of see how Hua Cheng ended up with a WEIRD PSYCHOSEXUAL OBSESSION with this guy.
Once they're rescued, Xie Lian is all "This kid, who I have never met before, is remarkably adept. We should get him some sword training! Maybe a sabre would suit him!" and the bffs are all "He is...fourteen??"
A while later Xie Lian notices Hua Cheng following him from the shadows. He asks how the sword training is going, and Hua Cheng is all "So you weren't the one who ordered-" but is interrupted because NO TIME FOR SHIPPING BACK ONTO THE ANGST TRAIN.
Specifically, time for the SUPER GROSS DISTURBING FACE PLAGUE, where people develop increasing numbers of little faces on their bodies that eventually start screaming and eating stuff and it is. So gross and disturbing. Since Xia Lian left Heaven, he has to ask the guoshi/head priest to pass on a message to Head God that the civil war has crossed the line into Weird Shit The Gods Might Want to Know About. But the guoshi says this is just a consequence of Xia Lian's meddling, the country is destined to fall and the harder he tries to stop it the worse things will get. *side eyes guoshi*
The plague victims beg Xie Lian for relief but he can do nothing: he is unbeatable on the battlefield, but he is no healer. The most he can do is cut off affected limbs D:
At one point Xie Lian confronts the angry father Lang Ying, now a general amongst the refugees, and is nearly defeated in battle, something he has never experienced before. The father now has the aura of a king, enough to compete with Xie Lian's godhood. Everyone starts to question how effective of a god Xie Lian really is.
Xie Lian confronts No-Face again. He pulls off the mask...to reveal his own, younger face. As Xie Lian stabs No-Face he reveals the origins of the face plague: the faces are the spirits of the dead of Yong An, directed by the resentment of the living Yong An refugees D: The figure collapses into nothing, just an empty projection.
(And now I am writing this in real time. CAN YOU SEE WHY I NEEDED TO GO AHHHH)
bff Mu Qing: So clearly we just need to infect THEM with the curse using OUR dead and they'll be too busy suffering to attack us :D
Xie Lian: NO
bff Feng Xin: FUCK YOU MU QUING YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE XIE LIAN'S BFF
Me, knowing that Feng Quin and Mu Qing abandon Xie Lian: HMM
ohhhhhh nooooooo gross cousin heard about how to cast the curse D: Also looking back I think we were supposed to realise that killing someone makes you immune, but I didn't figure that out until ages later.
Xie Lian uses a giant golden statue of himself to stop a falling building, and for the first time thinks "Is that really me? That shining golden figure?"
Even gross cousin starts to question Xie Lian's ability to save them, shouting in front of a crowd "If you know how to cure the plague why don't you?" But if people knew, it would be a bloodbath.
Xie Lian strength breaks, and so does the peoples' faith in him. The statue cracks and the building falls. The city descends into plague and riot.
Xie Lian is called back to Heaven. Before he goes, he visits his main shrine, where a badly beaten Hua Cheng is defending the remaining treasures from looters. He has pinned up a hand painted image of Xie Lian, and somehow sensing his presence shouts "Don’t be sad! I will build you many more temples in the future; bigger, more elegant, better than anyone else’s. YOUR HIGHNESS! DID YOU HEAR ME? IN MY HEART, YOU ARE THE ONLY GOD, THE ONE TRUE GOD!"
Xie Lian laughs darkly, and for a moment reveals his white clad form to Hua Cheng. He says
“Forget me. Soon, no one will remember anyway.”
As Xie Lian ascends back to heaven, Hua Cheng shouts back, furious and wild "I WON'T EVER FORGET YOU."
PHEW.
I'm still wondering how the face plague got settled. I guess once the Yong An won they weren't resentful any more?
The little boy with a seemingly stable case of face plague that Xie Lian encounters in the modern day says he's from Yong An, though...
I don't remember how far into the flashback I was before I went OH WAIT. YONG AN. THAT'S THE "COUNTRY" THAT TAKES OVER AND ALSO THE REGION WITH DROUGHT.
And I didn't notice "Lang" being the family name of both "Leeroy Jenkins" (Lang Qian Qiu) and the angry dad (Lang Ying) until I wrote this up.
Anyway, that was a bit gratuitously tragic imo, but my final opinion will depend on how much external figures (or just Destiny) were MAKING it be tragic. I could do with less of The Public being mindlessly mob-ish, obviously that is a thing that happens but idk, it was a bit much.
I'm wondering how many more times Xie Lian met Hua Cheng and didn't recognise him. Or was that it for 800 years? Why didn't Hua Cheng hunt Xie Lian down earlier? It sound like he's been a powerful demon since his own death, which was presumably 5ish years after these events. There was a vague mention of rumours that Hua Cheng was a god himself at one point which would be INTERESTING. I mean as a demon he has shape changing so he could have met Xie Lian in disguise, and only decided to meet him as himself now.
That's some intense power dynamics there. Hua Cheng met Xie Lian when he was a 10 year old beggar child and Xie Lian was a 17 year old prince, and then worshipped him as a god, but now Hua Cheng is powerful and self confident while Xie Lian is relatively beaten down and weak. If Scum Villain is any guide Hua Cheng is going to affectionately dubcon the hell out of Xie Lian at some point.
(I still ship it)
I skipped to check the end of the current translations and it seemed relatively light, and then I checked a machine translation of the final chapter and it was SOLID ROMANTIC FLUFF, so, it's not going to be all angst all the time from here on out. But there is more angst to come afaict. I mean, this Book just covered the leadup to the first time Xie Lian got kicked out of Heaven...
Next: Book 3 (Part 1)
*points to content notes* That.
Content Notes for the book in general: consent issues, sexualisation of teenagers, gore, mixed treatment of cross-dressing, self harm (sort of), dead babies, ANGST
And under the cut: SPOILERS for Book 2, chapters 58-88
BOOK TWO IS JUST SOLID FLASHBACK ANGST OH GOD
Time to find out how the universe BROKE XIE LIAN'S SPIRIT. HOORAY.
Ok, so. The backstory as we know it: Xie Lian was a prince of the country of Xian Le who ascended to godhood. A few years later, Xian Le went to war with Yong An. Xie Lian tried to create peace but just made things worse and eventually got kicked out of heaven. Yong An won the war and the Lang family took over, horribly mistreating the Xian Le populace for generations until Lang Qian Qiu's father took over and was a good king, with the help of a disguised Xie Lian who encouraged harmony from the shadows. Then Xian Le's shitty cousin conspired with the last living member of the Xian Le royal family to kill off the Lang family, and Xian Le murdered the remaining witnesses to keep it from causing more war. I think at that point Lang Qian Qiu became king and ruled justly until his own ascension to godhood? I'm fuzzy on what's going on in the region now.
Also at some point the Xian Le kingdom had a really awful "face plague" but it eventually died out.
So!
We meet the 17 year old human prince Xie Lian, beloved by all in the prosperous kingdom of Xian Le. He is your typical feisty, idealistic golden boy, causing everyone to shake their heads indulgently as he bends all the rules with so much pizazz that noone can stay mad. We also meet his two most trusted bffs...who by the present day are gods themselves, and have cut themselves off from Xie Lian to avoid sharing his disgrace.
During a religious ceremony Xie Lian abandons his post to save a beggar boy about to fall to his death. The boy is VERY CLEARLY a ten year old (and at this point human) Hua Cheng, complete with bandaged eye he refuses to let anyone see. Xie Lian gets mildly yelled at, and his gross cousin the future Green Goblin (now about 15) decides this is all Hua Cheng's fault, and tortures the poor kid. A furious Xie Lian tries to get gross cousin punished but "princes can get away with all sorts of bullshit" doesn't just apply to Xie Lian.
Dark spirits attack Hua Cheng, and Xie Lian's master/Guoshi warns Xie Lian that Hua Cheng has such dark fortune attached to him that to even associate with him is dangerous. Xie Lian doesn't care, but Hua Cheng runs away.
(EDIT: also it looks like Hua Cheng stole one of Xie Lian's red pearl earrings as a memento)
Time passes and Xie Lian ascends to godhood, bringing his two bffs with him. The statues of him in his temples show him with a sword in one hand and a flower in the other. He sees Hua Cheng again, now a little older, worshipping at a tiny home-made shrine to Xie Lian in the rain. He clearly has a horrific home-life, and he prays: what do I live for? How do I not give into hatred and despair?
And Xie Lian replies: If you need something to live for, live for me. And he leaves the boy a red umbrella.
There is a repeated theme of Hua Cheng placing fresh flowers on shrines to Xie Lian or Xie Lian himself, and his name as a demon is "Bloody rain reaching for the flower" because he once caused a rain of blood but protected a single flower with his umbrella.
Anyway. It's TIME FOR THE ANGST TRAIN. With a brief break for UNEXPECTED UNDERAGE DUBCON which was...well, it was a change, but not really an improvement from my pov.
There is a severe drought in a distant part of the kingdom, Yong An. Because starving people can't afford to pray, Xie Lian doesn't hear about it until it's really bad, and he meets a man, Lang Ying, filled with righteous fury about the death of his family. Xie Lian gives Lang Ying the remaining red pearl earring, hoping the money from it will help, but it's too little too late.
The rules about godhood say Xie Lian shouldn't interfere but he absolutely will not let his people just die like that. He descends to mortal form to help directly. At first he blames his dad the king, but the more Xie Lian investigates the more he realises how messy everything is. The only other god willing to help is a minor rain god (Rain Master Huang) from another distant kingdom, but transporting the rain uses up huge amounts of energy and barely helps the drought.
More and more Yong An refugees turn up at the capital. Xie Lian tries to help them, and stop tensions simmering, but it doesn't work, and things escalate to civil war. Reluctantly, Xie Lian defends the capital, and in a day he goes from never having killed anyone to killing thousands. The people of the city rejoice in the support of their god but Xie Lian feels only regret.
Gross cousin is of course 100% in favour of slaughtering all the refugees. But it seems like other forces are involved: the refugees seem to be getting foreign support. And maybe even supernatural support as well...
The narrative is fairly sympathetic to the refugees but it's still that thing where the needy are genuinely suffering but are a burden who can't be helped and exist mostly to make the privileged main characters feel bad. NOT A FAN, MXTX.
A brave and bandaged 14 year old soldier (eg, Hua Cheng) follows Xie Lian while he's investigating strange goings on near the refugees. A mysterious white masked figure (later referred to as White No-Face) taunts Xie Lian with inevitable failure.
And then, because MXTX HAS HER KINKS I GUESS, Xie Lian and the FOURTEEN YEAR OLD Hua Cheng get cornered by SUCCUBUS SEX POLLEN PLANTS.
Hua Cheng is protected by a mixture of his bandages and being pre-pubescent but Xia Lian gets a faceful of sex pollen and knows he only has a limited window before losing control. This is clearly a trap to make him lose his celibacy powered abilities in the most humiliating way possible, so he assumes there's some girls waiting somewhere nearby if he tries to run. He sets himself up in a cave to wait it out, with one barrier between him and Hua Cheng and another between Hua Cheng and the succubus plants. He tells Hua Cheng to stay between the barriers no matter what.
MXTX Author Notes: Of course Hua Hua won’t be helping with rubbing one out or X… but this will be Hua Hua’s sexual awakening… (?
Losing virginity will only damage spiritual power, not martial might. Although martial might and spiritual power can be combined and amplified, their nature is different. Besides, only Xie Lian’s chosen stream is this troublesome, that an X life would damage his cultivation. Some heavenly officials are much smarter and would choose a stream where the more they X the stronger they become; but in most streams an X life and cultivation are completely unrelated.
Thanks, MXTX.
The sex pollen plants make some VERY UNFORTUNATE SEX/PLANT PUNS as they attempt to seduce Hua Cheng, who just stabs at them with his sword which I...am not even going to think about the gender politics, though there's some subtext that they eventually realise they're better off using male forms (or maybe just Xie Lian's...). Anyway. There's some sexually charged fevered touching as a confused Hua Cheng thinks Xie Lian is in pain (or has possibly been sex pollened himself, it's not clear) but Xie Lian remembers that the two things he represses are lust and a desire to kill, so he saves the day with the POWER OF SELF HARM, slicing his arms a few times and then stabbing himself in the stomach until he is as close as it is possible for him to get to true death.
Which...like...when you put it all together, you can kind of see how Hua Cheng ended up with a WEIRD PSYCHOSEXUAL OBSESSION with this guy.
Once they're rescued, Xie Lian is all "This kid, who I have never met before, is remarkably adept. We should get him some sword training! Maybe a sabre would suit him!" and the bffs are all "He is...fourteen??"
A while later Xie Lian notices Hua Cheng following him from the shadows. He asks how the sword training is going, and Hua Cheng is all "So you weren't the one who ordered-" but is interrupted because NO TIME FOR SHIPPING BACK ONTO THE ANGST TRAIN.
Specifically, time for the SUPER GROSS DISTURBING FACE PLAGUE, where people develop increasing numbers of little faces on their bodies that eventually start screaming and eating stuff and it is. So gross and disturbing. Since Xia Lian left Heaven, he has to ask the guoshi/head priest to pass on a message to Head God that the civil war has crossed the line into Weird Shit The Gods Might Want to Know About. But the guoshi says this is just a consequence of Xia Lian's meddling, the country is destined to fall and the harder he tries to stop it the worse things will get. *side eyes guoshi*
The plague victims beg Xie Lian for relief but he can do nothing: he is unbeatable on the battlefield, but he is no healer. The most he can do is cut off affected limbs D:
At one point Xie Lian confronts the angry father Lang Ying, now a general amongst the refugees, and is nearly defeated in battle, something he has never experienced before. The father now has the aura of a king, enough to compete with Xie Lian's godhood. Everyone starts to question how effective of a god Xie Lian really is.
Xie Lian confronts No-Face again. He pulls off the mask...to reveal his own, younger face. As Xie Lian stabs No-Face he reveals the origins of the face plague: the faces are the spirits of the dead of Yong An, directed by the resentment of the living Yong An refugees D: The figure collapses into nothing, just an empty projection.
(And now I am writing this in real time. CAN YOU SEE WHY I NEEDED TO GO AHHHH)
bff Mu Qing: So clearly we just need to infect THEM with the curse using OUR dead and they'll be too busy suffering to attack us :D
Xie Lian: NO
bff Feng Xin: FUCK YOU MU QUING YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE XIE LIAN'S BFF
Me, knowing that Feng Quin and Mu Qing abandon Xie Lian: HMM
ohhhhhh nooooooo gross cousin heard about how to cast the curse D: Also looking back I think we were supposed to realise that killing someone makes you immune, but I didn't figure that out until ages later.
Xie Lian uses a giant golden statue of himself to stop a falling building, and for the first time thinks "Is that really me? That shining golden figure?"
Even gross cousin starts to question Xie Lian's ability to save them, shouting in front of a crowd "If you know how to cure the plague why don't you?" But if people knew, it would be a bloodbath.
Xie Lian strength breaks, and so does the peoples' faith in him. The statue cracks and the building falls. The city descends into plague and riot.
Xie Lian is called back to Heaven. Before he goes, he visits his main shrine, where a badly beaten Hua Cheng is defending the remaining treasures from looters. He has pinned up a hand painted image of Xie Lian, and somehow sensing his presence shouts "Don’t be sad! I will build you many more temples in the future; bigger, more elegant, better than anyone else’s. YOUR HIGHNESS! DID YOU HEAR ME? IN MY HEART, YOU ARE THE ONLY GOD, THE ONE TRUE GOD!"
Xie Lian laughs darkly, and for a moment reveals his white clad form to Hua Cheng. He says
“Forget me. Soon, no one will remember anyway.”
As Xie Lian ascends back to heaven, Hua Cheng shouts back, furious and wild "I WON'T EVER FORGET YOU."
MXTX Author’s Note: We’ve finally reached this point… in a broken and defeated temple with a soon to be forgotten god and a young devout follower was the first image that floated in my mind for this novel, and was also what first gave me the impulse to write it. I’m the kind that would write up an entire book just for a scene… all this plot planning exhausted me…
To be able to follow the journey to this point is not easy, so thank you, thank you, I love you all. But… writing this is even harder [covers face] this book is killing me.
Alright, the second book is done. The third book will return to normal, present timeline.
----------
End of Book 2
PHEW.
I'm still wondering how the face plague got settled. I guess once the Yong An won they weren't resentful any more?
The little boy with a seemingly stable case of face plague that Xie Lian encounters in the modern day says he's from Yong An, though...
I don't remember how far into the flashback I was before I went OH WAIT. YONG AN. THAT'S THE "COUNTRY" THAT TAKES OVER AND ALSO THE REGION WITH DROUGHT.
And I didn't notice "Lang" being the family name of both "Leeroy Jenkins" (Lang Qian Qiu) and the angry dad (Lang Ying) until I wrote this up.
Anyway, that was a bit gratuitously tragic imo, but my final opinion will depend on how much external figures (or just Destiny) were MAKING it be tragic. I could do with less of The Public being mindlessly mob-ish, obviously that is a thing that happens but idk, it was a bit much.
I'm wondering how many more times Xie Lian met Hua Cheng and didn't recognise him. Or was that it for 800 years? Why didn't Hua Cheng hunt Xie Lian down earlier? It sound like he's been a powerful demon since his own death, which was presumably 5ish years after these events. There was a vague mention of rumours that Hua Cheng was a god himself at one point which would be INTERESTING. I mean as a demon he has shape changing so he could have met Xie Lian in disguise, and only decided to meet him as himself now.
That's some intense power dynamics there. Hua Cheng met Xie Lian when he was a 10 year old beggar child and Xie Lian was a 17 year old prince, and then worshipped him as a god, but now Hua Cheng is powerful and self confident while Xie Lian is relatively beaten down and weak. If Scum Villain is any guide Hua Cheng is going to affectionately dubcon the hell out of Xie Lian at some point.
(I still ship it)
I skipped to check the end of the current translations and it seemed relatively light, and then I checked a machine translation of the final chapter and it was SOLID ROMANTIC FLUFF, so, it's not going to be all angst all the time from here on out. But there is more angst to come afaict. I mean, this Book just covered the leadup to the first time Xie Lian got kicked out of Heaven...
Next: Book 3 (Part 1)
