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Content Notes for the book in general: consent issues, sexualisation of children, gore, mixed treatment of cross-dressing, self harm (sort of), dead babies, child harm, incest subtext, ANGST
There's a violent misogynist in this section, but the narrative is not kind to him at all.
Under the cut: SPOILERS for chapters 151-160
They follow the tracks that Rain Master's steed left during his battle to an old temple. The only one who can read the ancient script is Hua Cheng, who claims he knows so much about ancient WuYong from his ten years fighting his way through Mount Tonglu. HMM.
Anyway he says it's a bunch of "nonsensical praises" along the lines of "Eminent Crown Prince Descends With Light To Shine Everlasting Unto the Land of WuYong" and Xie Lian winces.
Xie Lian: It sounds like he was also their god. So why did my master say he just died?
Even Jun Wu wouldn't know, he's a baby of 1500 years old. Heaven changes dynasties just like the mortal realm, only on a much slower scale. Sometimes because gods get banished, sometimes because someone stronger comes along, and sometimes because people's beliefs change.
For example if, ~somehow, something faster than horses was invented, then people would stop worshipping the previously powerful God of Horses, and he would have to either return to being mortal and cultivate a new path, or slowly watch his own decline until he disappeared.
The gods of the previous dynasty are said to have faded thus, but noone's left who can say for sure.
The inside of the temples and houses are black and rough, as if they've been burned, and the plaque outside has been scratched up as if attacked with blades. Did the people of WuYong turn on their god prince the way Xie Lian's turned on him? What happened here, and how did it lead to the creation of Mount TongLu?
Pei Ming: OUCH! A SCORPION SNAKE IS BITING ME!
Ban Yue: Sorry, I have them all over my body :(
Xie Lian: And you were touching her... why?
Pei Ming: Habit. It's a dark place, I want to comfort a scared woman!
Ban Yue, an immortal ghost priestess covered in snakes: I wasn't scared.
Xie Lian realises he can flake off the burned wall to reveal the mural underneath.
(MXTX Note: I have not researched how mural paints would react to being burned, just assume it's...a special mixture...)
Hua Cheng silently summons silver butterflies in the shadows, splintering the soot. A beautiful mural is revealed, one so shiny and new it must have been applied by magic in the last few hundred years. At the top is the Heavens, empty except for glowing clouds. Then there is a handsome glowing young man, presumably the Prince of WuYong. Half his size are four varied figures below, likely his heavenly officials. And at the bottom, half as big again, are countless identical figures, all with expressions of worshipful rapture- the people of WuYong.
But who painted this mural? And why?
Pei Ming wandered off earlier when Hua Cheng and Xie Lian were being shippy, and they can't find him. But Hua Cheng summons a butterfly which turns out to be a one-way bug-as-in-listening-device.
Pei Ming: I never thought I'd see you here.
Ling Wen (using her male voice): Watch your words ol' Pei, I might just smack you to death. I'm not in control of my body right now.
Pei Ming: Neither of us can move right now so who're you scaring? I take it you're still wearing...
Ling Wen: Yes, and he really doesn't like you.
Ling Wen is the "black clad youth" who's been killing everyone. And she and Pei Ming seem to have both been captured by some third party. Xie Lian figures out from various clues that they're underground nearby.
Pei Ming: Why did you so stupidly stir up so much trouble? Did he make you?
Ling Wen: I'm the one who wants to come. And why are you here?
Pei Ming: Long story short, Little Pei isn't making things easy. Did you see who caught us?
Ling Wen: I don't know, I accidentally fought Lord Rain Master and someone must have ambushed me from behind. Just make sure not to reveal your identity.
???: Pei Ming, Nangong Jie, you fucking pair, think I don't know what's under your fake skins?
Ling Wen: Probably another female ghost you ruined.
Pei Ming: Does that look like a woman to you? Maybe he's got a grudge against you.
Ling Wen: Maybe he's got a grudge against both of us, can you think of anyone like that?
Pei Ming: Too many to count.
???: STOP FLIRTING
Ling Wen: Wait, Jing Wen Zhen Jun??
Pei Ming: But he was always so polite!
Ling Wen: To everyone but me >:/
Turns out that when Xie Lian met Ling Wen, she was a junior civil official, and Jing Wen Zhen Jun was the top civil god of Heaven. But since then Jing Wen's star has entirely declined and Ling Wen took over his job. (Apparently "Wen" means Literature, while Jing means Respect or Quietude depending on the character)
Pei Ming: See! He DOES have a grudge against you!
Jing Wen: And who lent this bitch the martial officials she used to set my temples ablaze and harass my worshippers?
Pei Ming: >.>
Xie Lian: These three tumours really live up to their name :/
Jing Wen: To think I appointed you out of sympathy for your talent! Look how you repaid me!
Ling Wen: There's nobody else here, you can stop pretending.
Like the Pei family, Jing Wen was from XuLi. One day, centuries after ascending, as a literature god he thought it would be funny to descend and win an essay contest about XuLi. He wrote "An Ode to XuLi"...and was beaten by an anonymous essay called "Not XuLi", which better suited the cynical mood in the country at the time. Worse, the essay turned out to have been written by a female shoe seller, Nangong Jie, and she was sent to prison for it.
And so Jing Wen appointed her to work for him in Heaven. Everyone applauded him for his diverse hiring practices, most women in Heaven were in charge of flowers, singing etc, and the few in literature circles were mostly there to look pretty and do minor tasks.
Ling Wen, with a mean bite to her tone Xie Lian has never heard before: If you regarded me so highly, why did you have me serving tea and walking hundreds of miles to pick up poetry? At least in prison I had time to think.
Jing Wen: You're just angry I didn't promote you. But you're a woman, you can't reach that high!
Ling Wen: Did the Palace of Jing Wen at it's peak reach even the knees of my Palace of Ling Wen?
Since things are getting heated, Xie Lian tries hitting to ground to see if the noise shows up in the bug. Hua Cheng helps out, too, the two of them working in tandem to test one point after another.
Jing Wen: If it wasn't for me appointing you to heaven, who knows how many you'd have born spawn for in jail!
Pei Ming: Do you have to be this classless?
Jing Wen: See how your lover shields you!
Ling Wen: Pfft, you think everyone's my lover. You want to talk retribution? LET'S TALK RETRIBUTION.
Just then they all react to a noise from above. Xie Lian has found them! He crushes the ground beneath him and falls into the cave below. Ling Wen and Pei Mei are bound tightly by scrolls. And there is Jing Wen: a rough stone statue, wrapped in cloth!
Jing Wen: Crown Prince of XianLe! See what this bitch did to me! Even after my spiritual powers declined she tried to kill me! I had to possess this statue to survive!!
Ling Wen: You would order me to stay until midnight then say I stayed to harass you. Words murder without form. At least I was nice enough to respond with violence.
And then she kicks him in the balls :D Except the fabric shifts and shows the statue doesn't have any! It's a eunuch statue of the sort used in the graves of concubines.
Ling Wen: Ahahaha! This is why you're so furious! I can't reach that high? How about you then? :D
Genitals do not define gender, Ling Wen. YOU have a "male" body right now! And in fact the narrative seems to be flipping between "he" and "she" for Ling Wen...pretty much at random? I'm going to stick with "she" for clarity since she seems to prefer it, but am absolutely enjoying the genderfluidity. And I do understand the satisfaction of this happening to your mysogynistic ex-boss.
Anyway!
Jing Wen grabs Ling Wen's hair and accuses her of sleeping her way to the top, and Xie Lian tries to calm thing down by saying "It doesn't matter if you have the thing! I never use mine! No matter whether it's male heavenly officials or female heavenly officials or...other heavenly officials, such things are superficial!"
I know he's not actually talking about non binary people here but I'll take it.
Jing Wen: If it doesn't matter cut yours off then!
Xie Lian: Uh >.>
Jing Wen: Hypocrite! Fine, I'll cut off his!
Pei Ming: D:
Jing Wen: Nangong, admit it was you who made XuLi fall! That idiot general must have fallen into your hands!
Ling Wen: ...do you know the consequences of calling him an idiot to his face? :)
Jing Wen's head. There is a cracking sound, and his entire body shatters to pieces. BYE JING WEN.
And then Ling Wen turns to Pei Ming, with death in her eyes.
Ling Wen: Sorry, he heard Jing Wen call you my lover :(
Xie Lian quickly cuts Pei Ming free and pulls him away just as Ling Wen's fist crushes the wall where he'd been standing. Xie Lian runs as fast as he can, yelling backwards "Can you calm General Bai down?"
Ling Wen: He doesn't believe me any more.
Pei Ming, relationship expert: He must be hurt you lied to him!
Xie Lian: Then can you change to your female form to be less strong?
Me: >:/
Ling Wen: He won't let me.
Pei Ming: This wimp is afraid to touch a woman!
Ling Wen, throwing half a building at them: STOP MAKING HIM ANGRIER
Hmm. So they weren't actually involved?
And then Xie Lian and Pei Ming are so busy running they get caught in a net put out by some low level demons. Ling Wen approaches, her hands glowing with deadly balls of fire.
Pei Ming: I'm really not your lover though?!
Ling Wen: I KNOW THAT
Demons: Hey, no kill stealing!
Xie Lian: Oh they are so dead.
Demons: *suddenly fly off into the sky like team rocket*
Xie Lian: Can you smell flowers?
Pei Ming: No, I smell....
Blood starts dripping down from the sky, extinguishing the flames in Ling Wen's hands and soaking Pei Ming as he lies atop Xie Lian in the net. Xie Lian falls to the ground gently as the net dissolves, and then feels himself softly brushed by flower petals and untouched by a drop of blood.
And there is Hua Cheng, in his true form.
Xie Lian, resisting the urge to brush the petals off Hua Cheng's sexy shoulders: How fun!
Pei Ming, still tangled in the net and soaked in blood: Can someone let me down now?
Ling Wen is collapsed unconscious. Hua Cheng says the Brocade immortal didn't seem to want to fight him, just like it didn't seem to want to control him before. Hmm!
Pei Ming: Well, let's take off this robe while we have the chance. Ling Wen's in his male form so it's fi- OW IT BIT ME.
Back at the temple, the mural has disappeared. The group keeps making their way towards Mount Tonglu. The "kiln" comes into view: a volcano so tall it towers over the other mountains and is lost in clouds.
And then they come across a temple in the middle of the narrow path between two mountain bluffs. In this one is a mural of the Crown Prince of WuYong in painful meditation, surrounded by his deputies. And beneath him- chaos, death, and fire, houses and people destroyed by the lava of the Kiln. It's a depiction of a prophetic dream.
And then the bluffs on either side of them starts to crush the temple, pelting them with giant boulders!
Hua Cheng, calmly standing under an umbrella: Come closer.
Xie Lian, guiltily enjoying this: Ok :)
Everyone else, dodging boulders: Can I hide under there too? Do you have any spares?
Hua Cheng: No and no :)
He explains that there are three mountains in Mount TongLu called "Old Age", "Sickness" and "Death" that move around at will, trying to kill everyone they encounter.
Xie Lian: But no "Birth", how sad.
(According to the translator, "Birth", "Old Age", "Sickness" and "Death" are the four causes of suffering in Buddhism. I wonder if the Kiln is actually "Birth")
Ling Wen, still paralysed and being carried on Pei Ming's back: Can we focus on not being crushed to death?
Since there's only a six feet gap left at this point, Pei Ming uses his own body as a spike to wedge the mountains apart and buy more time. Ling Wen gives him a thumbs up.
Ban Yue lends her spiritual powers to the physically larger but mortal Pei Su, and he helps too.
Xie Lian starts digging downwards.
Hua Cheng, by far the strongest of all of them, just watches and twirls his umbrella.
Xie Lian: Don't dig, Gege, sit down and rest.
Everyone else: HUA CHENGZHU >:(
Hua Cheng: Hmm? :)
Xie Lian: You have a plan?
Hua Cheng: Just wait.
And then from beneath them comes...the sacred shovel of the Earth Master?!
They jump into the hole just as the mountains crash together. And holding the shovel is...a seven year old boy? (I think?)
Xie Lian: Lord Black Water, where is Lord Wind Master? Your revenge is none of my business, but he did once share a friendship with you and has done no crime, so...
Ling Wen: This is clearly not Black Water?
Xie Lian: But he has the shovel! And look at that forgetably bland face, it's clearly a disguise.
Hua Cheng: Gege, that's his real face.
It's heavenly official turned demon errand boy, Yin Yu!
Xie Lian: Sorry D:
Yin Yu: It's ok, I'm used to it.
Apparently Black Water abandoned the shovel in Ghost City.
Ling Wen: Your Highness Yin Yu, have you seen His Highness Quan Yi Zhen? He came to my palace frequently looking for you, sure there'd been some miscommunication regarding the Brocade Immortal affair.
Yin Yu: ...r-really? *deep sigh*
They all descend into awkward silence for a while.
They start encountering bones.
Pei Ming, picking one up: Look at the structure of this femur, it must have belonged to a beautiful woman with long legs, what a shame.
Hua Cheng: That's the bones of a man. And is covered in corpse poison.
Pei Ming: *realises his hands have gone green*
Ling Wen: CAN YOU KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF FOR FIVE MINUTES
But he wraps fabric around the base and turns it into a weapon.
They emerge into a cave, and all start walking along it with Hua Cheng and Xie Lian in the front. But then the two of them realise...everyone else has suddenly vanished, and the way back is blocked by a stone wall!
Hua Cheng says "Give me your hand" and then ties a red string around Xie Lian's finger, so they are connected by a red string tied with butterfly knots.
Hua Cheng: If the string doesn't break, the person on the other end is alright. It will always lead to the other person unless they are no more.
I'VE SEEN THIS IN FANART I THINK IT'S GOING SOMEWHERE SAD :(
They hear the sound ahead of someone bashing against stone, and then find one of Ban Yue's snakes embedded in a wall, thrashing about. And then they find the upper body of a man sticking out of a wall, but still breathing, like some weird hunting trophy.
Suddenly Xie Lian realises...Hua Cheng has vanished too! Xie Lian follows the string to...another wall. He raises his sword to break it free and then is swallowed by the stone himself!
It's like being swallowed by quicksand. He keeps following the string in the dark and eventually finds himself in the arms of Hua Cheng, and they hug each other with relief.
Hua Cheng touches their foreheads together so that Xie Lian can see through from a butterfly's POV with his right eye.
Xie Lian realises the person they heard pounding, and saw half swallowed, was Quan Yi Zhen. And there looking up at him with glittering, resentful eyes, is Yin Yu.
Xie Lian: Why does he look like he's going to gouge out Quan Yi Zhen's head with a shovel? D:
Hua Cheng: We can't have him do that right now, the mountain would eat him and get really strong, which would be inconvenient for us.
I love what an asshole Hua Cheng is.
Xie Lian: Do they have any deep grudge between them?
Hua Cheng: I don't know of any, but sometimes the desire to kill can come from something small.
Somehow Hua Cheng shows Xie Lian a flashback of a young, straight backed Yin Yu stopping a crowd of cultivators, including "another quietly handsome man", Jian Yu, from beating child!Quan Yi Zhen for deliberately provoking them by throwing mud.
Quan Yi Zhen responds by throwing mud at Yin Yu and shouting FIGHT ME
Yin Yu, ducking more mud and stones: Since you like fighting so much, want to join our sect?
Back in reality, Yin Yu slams the shovel into the wall right by Quan Yi Zhen's head.
Quan Yi Zhen: Have I done something to you?
Xie Lian: Has he?
Hua Cheng: Watch.
A group of disciples complain to Yin Yu, the head disciple, that Quan Yi Zhen keeps being anti-social and getting special treatment.
Yin Yu points out that Quan Yi Zhen gets special treatment because he is talented and works hard, and if they want to be treated that way they should work harder too.
Time moves forward to after Yin Yu's ascension. Xie Lian asks how Hua Cheng has this memory, and Hua Cheng points to a smiling servant behind Wind Master Shi Qing Xuan- apparently one of Black Water's many fake identities within heaven.
A group of angry heavenly officials crash Yin Yu's Grand Palace Opening complaining about Quan Yi Zhen. Afaict the main issue is that bullying of junior officials is rife in Heaven and Quan Yi Zhen refuses to put up with it. So he fights back and the opening is ruined.
Jian Yu, now a heavenly official too, is furious. But Quan Yi Zhen is unrepentant. They picked on him first.
Quan Yi Zhen: I don't like it here. At least before, I could train, but now all my time is taken up with talking and listening to nonsense. This is no heaven. Let's leave.
Yin Yu: I don't like it here either. But I want to stay. Ascension is really hard. Since we made it here, I want to stay and try to do better.
Quan Yi Zhen: What's so great about ascension?
Yin Yu: Ha! Why don't you give it a try then?
Xie Lian: People really shouldn't joke lightly.
Now it's the Mid Autumn festival. Yin Yu defends the newly ascended Quan Yi Zhen to Jian Yu. Then he's introduced to someone as the Martial God of the West, and is graciously humble when they start squeeing.
Official: OMG Your Highness Quan Yi Zhen is so young and capable and so beloved by your devotees after such a short time! You even won the most lanterns released competition!
Yin Yu: Aha...ha... Unfortunately-
But then someone shouts "OMG! EVERYONE! QAN YI ZHEN IS HERE!!"
I am rapidly heading towards the end of the "less angsty" part of the story /o\
Content Notes for the book in general: consent issues, sexualisation of children, gore, mixed treatment of cross-dressing, self harm (sort of), dead babies, child harm, incest subtext, ANGST
There's a violent misogynist in this section, but the narrative is not kind to him at all.
Under the cut: SPOILERS for chapters 151-160
They follow the tracks that Rain Master's steed left during his battle to an old temple. The only one who can read the ancient script is Hua Cheng, who claims he knows so much about ancient WuYong from his ten years fighting his way through Mount Tonglu. HMM.
Anyway he says it's a bunch of "nonsensical praises" along the lines of "Eminent Crown Prince Descends With Light To Shine Everlasting Unto the Land of WuYong" and Xie Lian winces.
Xie Lian: It sounds like he was also their god. So why did my master say he just died?
Even Jun Wu wouldn't know, he's a baby of 1500 years old. Heaven changes dynasties just like the mortal realm, only on a much slower scale. Sometimes because gods get banished, sometimes because someone stronger comes along, and sometimes because people's beliefs change.
For example if, ~somehow, something faster than horses was invented, then people would stop worshipping the previously powerful God of Horses, and he would have to either return to being mortal and cultivate a new path, or slowly watch his own decline until he disappeared.
The gods of the previous dynasty are said to have faded thus, but noone's left who can say for sure.
The inside of the temples and houses are black and rough, as if they've been burned, and the plaque outside has been scratched up as if attacked with blades. Did the people of WuYong turn on their god prince the way Xie Lian's turned on him? What happened here, and how did it lead to the creation of Mount TongLu?
Pei Ming: OUCH! A SCORPION SNAKE IS BITING ME!
Ban Yue: Sorry, I have them all over my body :(
Xie Lian: And you were touching her... why?
Pei Ming: Habit. It's a dark place, I want to comfort a scared woman!
Ban Yue, an immortal ghost priestess covered in snakes: I wasn't scared.
Xie Lian realises he can flake off the burned wall to reveal the mural underneath.
(MXTX Note: I have not researched how mural paints would react to being burned, just assume it's...a special mixture...)
Hua Cheng silently summons silver butterflies in the shadows, splintering the soot. A beautiful mural is revealed, one so shiny and new it must have been applied by magic in the last few hundred years. At the top is the Heavens, empty except for glowing clouds. Then there is a handsome glowing young man, presumably the Prince of WuYong. Half his size are four varied figures below, likely his heavenly officials. And at the bottom, half as big again, are countless identical figures, all with expressions of worshipful rapture- the people of WuYong.
But who painted this mural? And why?
Pei Ming wandered off earlier when Hua Cheng and Xie Lian were being shippy, and they can't find him. But Hua Cheng summons a butterfly which turns out to be a one-way bug-as-in-listening-device.
Pei Ming: I never thought I'd see you here.
Ling Wen (using her male voice): Watch your words ol' Pei, I might just smack you to death. I'm not in control of my body right now.
Pei Ming: Neither of us can move right now so who're you scaring? I take it you're still wearing...
Ling Wen: Yes, and he really doesn't like you.
Ling Wen is the "black clad youth" who's been killing everyone. And she and Pei Ming seem to have both been captured by some third party. Xie Lian figures out from various clues that they're underground nearby.
Pei Ming: Why did you so stupidly stir up so much trouble? Did he make you?
Ling Wen: I'm the one who wants to come. And why are you here?
Pei Ming: Long story short, Little Pei isn't making things easy. Did you see who caught us?
Ling Wen: I don't know, I accidentally fought Lord Rain Master and someone must have ambushed me from behind. Just make sure not to reveal your identity.
???: Pei Ming, Nangong Jie, you fucking pair, think I don't know what's under your fake skins?
Ling Wen: Probably another female ghost you ruined.
Pei Ming: Does that look like a woman to you? Maybe he's got a grudge against you.
Ling Wen: Maybe he's got a grudge against both of us, can you think of anyone like that?
Pei Ming: Too many to count.
???: STOP FLIRTING
Ling Wen: Wait, Jing Wen Zhen Jun??
Pei Ming: But he was always so polite!
Ling Wen: To everyone but me >:/
Turns out that when Xie Lian met Ling Wen, she was a junior civil official, and Jing Wen Zhen Jun was the top civil god of Heaven. But since then Jing Wen's star has entirely declined and Ling Wen took over his job. (Apparently "Wen" means Literature, while Jing means Respect or Quietude depending on the character)
Pei Ming: See! He DOES have a grudge against you!
Jing Wen: And who lent this bitch the martial officials she used to set my temples ablaze and harass my worshippers?
Pei Ming: >.>
Xie Lian: These three tumours really live up to their name :/
Jing Wen: To think I appointed you out of sympathy for your talent! Look how you repaid me!
Ling Wen: There's nobody else here, you can stop pretending.
Like the Pei family, Jing Wen was from XuLi. One day, centuries after ascending, as a literature god he thought it would be funny to descend and win an essay contest about XuLi. He wrote "An Ode to XuLi"...and was beaten by an anonymous essay called "Not XuLi", which better suited the cynical mood in the country at the time. Worse, the essay turned out to have been written by a female shoe seller, Nangong Jie, and she was sent to prison for it.
And so Jing Wen appointed her to work for him in Heaven. Everyone applauded him for his diverse hiring practices, most women in Heaven were in charge of flowers, singing etc, and the few in literature circles were mostly there to look pretty and do minor tasks.
Ling Wen, with a mean bite to her tone Xie Lian has never heard before: If you regarded me so highly, why did you have me serving tea and walking hundreds of miles to pick up poetry? At least in prison I had time to think.
Jing Wen: You're just angry I didn't promote you. But you're a woman, you can't reach that high!
Ling Wen: Did the Palace of Jing Wen at it's peak reach even the knees of my Palace of Ling Wen?
Since things are getting heated, Xie Lian tries hitting to ground to see if the noise shows up in the bug. Hua Cheng helps out, too, the two of them working in tandem to test one point after another.
Jing Wen: If it wasn't for me appointing you to heaven, who knows how many you'd have born spawn for in jail!
Pei Ming: Do you have to be this classless?
Jing Wen: See how your lover shields you!
Ling Wen: Pfft, you think everyone's my lover. You want to talk retribution? LET'S TALK RETRIBUTION.
Just then they all react to a noise from above. Xie Lian has found them! He crushes the ground beneath him and falls into the cave below. Ling Wen and Pei Mei are bound tightly by scrolls. And there is Jing Wen: a rough stone statue, wrapped in cloth!
Jing Wen: Crown Prince of XianLe! See what this bitch did to me! Even after my spiritual powers declined she tried to kill me! I had to possess this statue to survive!!
Ling Wen: You would order me to stay until midnight then say I stayed to harass you. Words murder without form. At least I was nice enough to respond with violence.
And then she kicks him in the balls :D Except the fabric shifts and shows the statue doesn't have any! It's a eunuch statue of the sort used in the graves of concubines.
Ling Wen: Ahahaha! This is why you're so furious! I can't reach that high? How about you then? :D
Genitals do not define gender, Ling Wen. YOU have a "male" body right now! And in fact the narrative seems to be flipping between "he" and "she" for Ling Wen...pretty much at random? I'm going to stick with "she" for clarity since she seems to prefer it, but am absolutely enjoying the genderfluidity. And I do understand the satisfaction of this happening to your mysogynistic ex-boss.
Anyway!
Jing Wen grabs Ling Wen's hair and accuses her of sleeping her way to the top, and Xie Lian tries to calm thing down by saying "It doesn't matter if you have the thing! I never use mine! No matter whether it's male heavenly officials or female heavenly officials or...other heavenly officials, such things are superficial!"
I know he's not actually talking about non binary people here but I'll take it.
Jing Wen: If it doesn't matter cut yours off then!
Xie Lian: Uh >.>
Jing Wen: Hypocrite! Fine, I'll cut off his!
Pei Ming: D:
Jing Wen: Nangong, admit it was you who made XuLi fall! That idiot general must have fallen into your hands!
Ling Wen: ...do you know the consequences of calling him an idiot to his face? :)
Jing Wen's head. There is a cracking sound, and his entire body shatters to pieces. BYE JING WEN.
And then Ling Wen turns to Pei Ming, with death in her eyes.
Ling Wen: Sorry, he heard Jing Wen call you my lover :(
Xie Lian quickly cuts Pei Ming free and pulls him away just as Ling Wen's fist crushes the wall where he'd been standing. Xie Lian runs as fast as he can, yelling backwards "Can you calm General Bai down?"
Ling Wen: He doesn't believe me any more.
Pei Ming, relationship expert: He must be hurt you lied to him!
Xie Lian: Then can you change to your female form to be less strong?
Me: >:/
Ling Wen: He won't let me.
Pei Ming: This wimp is afraid to touch a woman!
Ling Wen, throwing half a building at them: STOP MAKING HIM ANGRIER
Hmm. So they weren't actually involved?
And then Xie Lian and Pei Ming are so busy running they get caught in a net put out by some low level demons. Ling Wen approaches, her hands glowing with deadly balls of fire.
Pei Ming: I'm really not your lover though?!
Ling Wen: I KNOW THAT
Demons: Hey, no kill stealing!
Xie Lian: Oh they are so dead.
Demons: *suddenly fly off into the sky like team rocket*
Xie Lian: Can you smell flowers?
Pei Ming: No, I smell....
Blood starts dripping down from the sky, extinguishing the flames in Ling Wen's hands and soaking Pei Ming as he lies atop Xie Lian in the net. Xie Lian falls to the ground gently as the net dissolves, and then feels himself softly brushed by flower petals and untouched by a drop of blood.
And there is Hua Cheng, in his true form.
Xie Lian, resisting the urge to brush the petals off Hua Cheng's sexy shoulders: How fun!
Pei Ming, still tangled in the net and soaked in blood: Can someone let me down now?
Ling Wen is collapsed unconscious. Hua Cheng says the Brocade immortal didn't seem to want to fight him, just like it didn't seem to want to control him before. Hmm!
Pei Ming: Well, let's take off this robe while we have the chance. Ling Wen's in his male form so it's fi- OW IT BIT ME.
Back at the temple, the mural has disappeared. The group keeps making their way towards Mount Tonglu. The "kiln" comes into view: a volcano so tall it towers over the other mountains and is lost in clouds.
And then they come across a temple in the middle of the narrow path between two mountain bluffs. In this one is a mural of the Crown Prince of WuYong in painful meditation, surrounded by his deputies. And beneath him- chaos, death, and fire, houses and people destroyed by the lava of the Kiln. It's a depiction of a prophetic dream.
And then the bluffs on either side of them starts to crush the temple, pelting them with giant boulders!
Hua Cheng, calmly standing under an umbrella: Come closer.
Xie Lian, guiltily enjoying this: Ok :)
Everyone else, dodging boulders: Can I hide under there too? Do you have any spares?
Hua Cheng: No and no :)
He explains that there are three mountains in Mount TongLu called "Old Age", "Sickness" and "Death" that move around at will, trying to kill everyone they encounter.
Xie Lian: But no "Birth", how sad.
(According to the translator, "Birth", "Old Age", "Sickness" and "Death" are the four causes of suffering in Buddhism. I wonder if the Kiln is actually "Birth")
Ling Wen, still paralysed and being carried on Pei Ming's back: Can we focus on not being crushed to death?
Since there's only a six feet gap left at this point, Pei Ming uses his own body as a spike to wedge the mountains apart and buy more time. Ling Wen gives him a thumbs up.
Ban Yue lends her spiritual powers to the physically larger but mortal Pei Su, and he helps too.
Xie Lian starts digging downwards.
Hua Cheng, by far the strongest of all of them, just watches and twirls his umbrella.
Xie Lian: Don't dig, Gege, sit down and rest.
Everyone else: HUA CHENGZHU >:(
Hua Cheng: Hmm? :)
Xie Lian: You have a plan?
Hua Cheng: Just wait.
And then from beneath them comes...the sacred shovel of the Earth Master?!
They jump into the hole just as the mountains crash together. And holding the shovel is...a seven year old boy? (I think?)
Xie Lian: Lord Black Water, where is Lord Wind Master? Your revenge is none of my business, but he did once share a friendship with you and has done no crime, so...
Ling Wen: This is clearly not Black Water?
Xie Lian: But he has the shovel! And look at that forgetably bland face, it's clearly a disguise.
Hua Cheng: Gege, that's his real face.
It's heavenly official turned demon errand boy, Yin Yu!
Xie Lian: Sorry D:
Yin Yu: It's ok, I'm used to it.
Apparently Black Water abandoned the shovel in Ghost City.
Ling Wen: Your Highness Yin Yu, have you seen His Highness Quan Yi Zhen? He came to my palace frequently looking for you, sure there'd been some miscommunication regarding the Brocade Immortal affair.
Yin Yu: ...r-really? *deep sigh*
They all descend into awkward silence for a while.
They start encountering bones.
Pei Ming, picking one up: Look at the structure of this femur, it must have belonged to a beautiful woman with long legs, what a shame.
Hua Cheng: That's the bones of a man. And is covered in corpse poison.
Pei Ming: *realises his hands have gone green*
Ling Wen: CAN YOU KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF FOR FIVE MINUTES
But he wraps fabric around the base and turns it into a weapon.
They emerge into a cave, and all start walking along it with Hua Cheng and Xie Lian in the front. But then the two of them realise...everyone else has suddenly vanished, and the way back is blocked by a stone wall!
Hua Cheng says "Give me your hand" and then ties a red string around Xie Lian's finger, so they are connected by a red string tied with butterfly knots.
Hua Cheng: If the string doesn't break, the person on the other end is alright. It will always lead to the other person unless they are no more.
I'VE SEEN THIS IN FANART I THINK IT'S GOING SOMEWHERE SAD :(
They hear the sound ahead of someone bashing against stone, and then find one of Ban Yue's snakes embedded in a wall, thrashing about. And then they find the upper body of a man sticking out of a wall, but still breathing, like some weird hunting trophy.
Suddenly Xie Lian realises...Hua Cheng has vanished too! Xie Lian follows the string to...another wall. He raises his sword to break it free and then is swallowed by the stone himself!
It's like being swallowed by quicksand. He keeps following the string in the dark and eventually finds himself in the arms of Hua Cheng, and they hug each other with relief.
Hua Cheng touches their foreheads together so that Xie Lian can see through from a butterfly's POV with his right eye.
Xie Lian realises the person they heard pounding, and saw half swallowed, was Quan Yi Zhen. And there looking up at him with glittering, resentful eyes, is Yin Yu.
Xie Lian: Why does he look like he's going to gouge out Quan Yi Zhen's head with a shovel? D:
Hua Cheng: We can't have him do that right now, the mountain would eat him and get really strong, which would be inconvenient for us.
I love what an asshole Hua Cheng is.
Xie Lian: Do they have any deep grudge between them?
Hua Cheng: I don't know of any, but sometimes the desire to kill can come from something small.
Somehow Hua Cheng shows Xie Lian a flashback of a young, straight backed Yin Yu stopping a crowd of cultivators, including "another quietly handsome man", Jian Yu, from beating child!Quan Yi Zhen for deliberately provoking them by throwing mud.
Quan Yi Zhen responds by throwing mud at Yin Yu and shouting FIGHT ME
Yin Yu, ducking more mud and stones: Since you like fighting so much, want to join our sect?
Back in reality, Yin Yu slams the shovel into the wall right by Quan Yi Zhen's head.
Quan Yi Zhen: Have I done something to you?
Xie Lian: Has he?
Hua Cheng: Watch.
A group of disciples complain to Yin Yu, the head disciple, that Quan Yi Zhen keeps being anti-social and getting special treatment.
Yin Yu points out that Quan Yi Zhen gets special treatment because he is talented and works hard, and if they want to be treated that way they should work harder too.
Time moves forward to after Yin Yu's ascension. Xie Lian asks how Hua Cheng has this memory, and Hua Cheng points to a smiling servant behind Wind Master Shi Qing Xuan- apparently one of Black Water's many fake identities within heaven.
A group of angry heavenly officials crash Yin Yu's Grand Palace Opening complaining about Quan Yi Zhen. Afaict the main issue is that bullying of junior officials is rife in Heaven and Quan Yi Zhen refuses to put up with it. So he fights back and the opening is ruined.
Jian Yu, now a heavenly official too, is furious. But Quan Yi Zhen is unrepentant. They picked on him first.
Quan Yi Zhen: I don't like it here. At least before, I could train, but now all my time is taken up with talking and listening to nonsense. This is no heaven. Let's leave.
Yin Yu: I don't like it here either. But I want to stay. Ascension is really hard. Since we made it here, I want to stay and try to do better.
Quan Yi Zhen: What's so great about ascension?
Yin Yu: Ha! Why don't you give it a try then?
Xie Lian: People really shouldn't joke lightly.
Now it's the Mid Autumn festival. Yin Yu defends the newly ascended Quan Yi Zhen to Jian Yu. Then he's introduced to someone as the Martial God of the West, and is graciously humble when they start squeeing.
Official: OMG Your Highness Quan Yi Zhen is so young and capable and so beloved by your devotees after such a short time! You even won the most lanterns released competition!
Yin Yu: Aha...ha... Unfortunately-
But then someone shouts "OMG! EVERYONE! QAN YI ZHEN IS HERE!!"
I am rapidly heading towards the end of the "less angsty" part of the story /o\
no subject
Date: 2019-11-11 10:03 pm (UTC)Though not as much as I love Little Pei's friendship with Ban Yue which is honestly really cute for something that ended in her tragic death followed by hundreds of years of murder.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-14 09:29 am (UTC)I don't like Pei Ming and his wandering hands but ... I do love Pei Ming's friendship with Ling Wen ......
Same. I've finished the book now and my complex feelings are a bit different but still broadly similar. Also I never got especially attached to Shi Wu Du but I still sometimes found myself wondering how he'd have reacted to everything that happened involving his BFFs after his death.
Though not as much as I love Little Pei's friendship with Ban Yue which is honestly really cute for something that ended in her tragic death followed by hundreds of years of murder.
Agreed!