#/signed by Hua Cheng./

[emotionaldisaster909]

Petition for every tgcf donghua episode to be like ep3 minus Lang Ying

[star-mail]

xianle quartet !!

xianle quartet prompt by kryolue for TGCFAction aka TGCF Gotcha for Gaza :D

[lazycranberrydoodles]

COME ON GUYS DON'T LET DIANXIA DOWN

[hishoukoku]

QI RONG GOT TO BE BEATEN UP AND STEPPED ON BY BOTH HUA CHENG AND XIE LIAN

He spent an episode in Hua Cheng's grasp and another episode under Xie Lian's foot. BASICALLY. (+Xie Lian's martial god slap in the first) I've never been more jealous!

[touchlikethesun]

honestly of all the mxtx leads, i think lan wangji is the worst at math. why? i just think it's funny if he's bad at math.

[horsegirlwarcrimes]

I have been haunted by the Mud AU since you answered the ask about it? It's just so good in all the parts? Sad and muddy Xie Lian with a hole through his chest being mistaken for a ghost (and he doesn't care, he's So Tired) asking Hua Cheng to kill him? He doesn't recognize him because of the mud, and then when he loses you say he'll be hired by the Gambler's Den so he'll be wearing a uniform and a mask- The mention at the end of the summary of Hua Cheng and unintentionally disguised Xie Lian's contentious relationship, what's going on there... I'm so intrigued 👀👀👀

YESS omg. im so excited for mudlian au. he's suffering every day

my fav subgenre of tgcf fics is anything where either A) hc and xl dont recognize each other right away or B) xl ends up working in ghost city for some reason, so i want the best of both worlds (ᗒᗜᗕ)՛̵̖ i also think the idea of them initially disliking each other is soooooo funny just given how besotted they usually are with each other. the HC pipeline of 'who cares about this random asshole ghost' to 'hhhhnnnnggg id do anything for him and also i need to disperse myself for disloyalty to his highness by looking at this ghosts biceps to much' is a rich vein of untapped potential

[eruhamster]

this comes up as one of the top results for the hua cheng google search so every time i have to google hua cheng for art reference purposes i see this thing n i have never clicked it to see the whole thing but just enough of what's read there is enough to torment me

like it's so. like. LIKE. NO

to start, he's not necessarily unlucky, he makes everyone around him unlucky; it's stated by the state preceptor as 'brings misfortune to everyone save himself.' the solitary star in chinese fortune telling is called that because you may end up living a solitary life either by choice or through outside forces, and spells misfortune for family members. it particularly brings misfortune to your parents, which is why his mom is dead. but his star reading is so fucked that he likely brings misfortune to his spouse too, which is why the moment he meets xie lian, everything goes wrong for xianle and by extension xie lian (and you can say 'ah well it's simply all jun wu's fault - but jun wu only noticed him because xie lian was unlucky enough to catch his sights after fighting that ghost for days.)

but in chinese fortune telling, luck is only partially about the circumstances of your birth, it's also about your mindset and the environment you are in. this is a running theme in tgcf; luck and fate isn't all just set in stone. you make your own luck.

hua cheng has something to look forward to and devote himself to and also runs away from his family after he and xie lian meet, so he isn't quite so toxic as time goes on. but he still exists in solitude every time he pops up in the backstory, even when he's unnamed. and he dies before 19. and he still gets essentially annihilated as a ghost.

his luck only changes when xie lian shackles his own luck with the intention that that luck get redirected to others around him (ie the opposite of hua cheng's solitary star, that brings misfortune to everyone around him). he wasn't lucky until THAT point. it's at THAT point where even when all accounts he should be annihilated, he isn't. it's that point where he can create e'ming and become a god and then see nothing but success. because there's no one that's ever closer to xie lian than hua cheng. the luck floods right to him. xie lian said once if two people are fighting over one cup of water, he'd just give them his own; he follows through with that with the shackle, and hua cheng's cup of luck overflows as a result.

guy sees nothing but double 6's when he rolls dice, insanely lucky. the only time he rolls and sees anything less - snake eyes - is when it's fated that xie lian's shackle breaks. and when that happens, when xie lian's shackle breaks, he essentially immediately almost ends up getting annihilated just because he used up too much energy. everyone thinks this is so sudden; it's sudden because the guy's luck ran out because it wasn't his to begin with.

but again. chinese fortune telling is only one part fate. and by then hua cheng is not that abused, poor little boy. he is a god, feared by all, with immense fortune, with a giant city at his beck and call, and with a person that loves him crying and begging him not to leave him. and he's spent 800 years cultivating his devotion for xie lian, and truly believing he makes his own luck. his own work and the help xie lian had given him made him lucky enough that he isn't held back by a bad fortune.

i'm not even saying anything that isn't said by the books themselves but i'm still on it. every time i see that damn preview of that page. it makes no sense. if his star sign was "reversed" by meeting xie lian then why did he spend the rest of his life alone, still getting his ass beat by everyone around him, before then just dying unceremoniously on a battlefield before reaching age 19???

edit: also sidenote it's a marriage thing. to drink from the same cup is a reference to a chinese wedding tradition where the bride and groom drink from the same cup to symbolize their lives are intertwined. that's the reason why luck is spoken about as a cup to be shared in the story. it's subtext that xie lian and hua cheng are fated spouses, since one of the words for it, hejin, "to drink from the same cup," also means "marriage"

[bluewlnteroses]

i don't think i'll ever recover from knowing hua cheng gave xie lian a ring with his ashes not telling what it was without a second thought as it was a meaningless gift and not the thing that could destroy him completely!! ! even telling him he can do whatever he pleases with it but then when xie lian asks about his ashes worried about where they are hua cheng says he left them in the safest place in the world for him !!!!!! and even then if for some reason the place where he left his ashes gets destroyed there will be no need for him to exist either,,,,,,,,, how could i move on hes insane

[happypeachsludgeflower]

I was chattering my sister’s ear off on the phone earlier about the tgcf brother!huaqing fanfic I’m writing and she was hmn-ing along sounding like she kinda wanted to die (she’s never watched or read a mxtx story and did not understand anything I was saying).

And somewhere along the way the connection cut my ramble short (no clue when though because I just kept talking) and now she’s not answering her texts…

I have been ghosted by my own sister.

[backpackingspace]

Yin yu tried to speak up the first 3 meetings of overworked immortals support groups but in classic fashion was unsuccessful. He finally manages to say something a month in and nearly gets murdered for it. Hua cheng still makes him go to the next couple of meetings because "yin yu you need friends this is the fifth time you've asked me if you can work 80 hours this week normally I don't care what you do in your free time but that was before you passed out in the scheduled xie lian indoctrination time"

The others let him show up still as long he 1. Pays for some of the drinks 2. Puts in a good word if they ever want to switch sides 3. Ling wen who's boss also has scheduled xie lian rants (though in very different ways) feels just slightly bad for him.

[hualianbigbang]

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[rosesapphire2323]

Technically I believe the actual characters used in Chinese are different...?

Just checked. They are.

(okay bear with me this is not an 'um actually' post)

The paradise in "Heart in paradise" is 桃源 (Táo Yuán), while "paradise manor" is written 极乐坊 (Jí Lè Fāng)

But the idea of 'tao yuan' and 'ji le' are almost? similar? I think? except they're also not Both are referring to a form of spiritual bliss. But 'tao yuan' (shortened version of 桃花源 – Táo Huā Yuán – which translates to 'Peach Blossom Spring') is referring to a utopia, built in some form of pocket universe existing at the end of a river, which a fisherman stumbles across, and learns that its people live on peacefully and blissfully unaware of the disunity and political disputes at that time (Jin dynasty) ever since the civil unrest during the Qin dynasty. 'Tao Yuan' is used often to refer to some sort of idealistic place of beauty and repose, or even used to refer to an unrealistic dream. It opposes "Abyss" in the beginning of the phrase, which is actually 'Avīci' (無間 or 'Wú Jiàn') which is the lowest level of Buddhist hell, except it doesn't oppose Avīci at all, because 'Tao Yuan' is a fantasy land.

But guess what does oppose Avīci.

'Ji Le' does. Or 'Sukhāvatī', the birth place of aspiring buddhas. yup, hua cheng went ahead and named the home he built for xie lian basically a birthplace for a god. the actual opposite of the aftermentioned abyss in his famous quote where the most damned of humans go to rot.

because he's a simp. he's a dweeb. he's more of a dweeb than you'd actually expect. you'd think the eng translation is going to give you the peak of his sense of romance but nope. it's actually the Chinese one.

Hua Cheng is such a dweeb, like wdym your crush’s famous line is “body in abyss, heart in paradise” and you go on and name the house (located in the literal abyss) that you want to bring your heart home to “Paradise Manor.” Fuckin nerd.

[lazycranberrydoodles]

contributing to the vampire hua cheng fandom o7

pose referenced off of this / follow for more fafa :)

[elliotski]

I am in love with the idea of Hua Cheng being intrinsically connected to Ghost City in such a way that he can subconsciously manipulate it.

Ghost City’s streets are winding and confusing, but when Hua Chengzhu walks through his territory, the streets straighten themselves out, creating a clear path for him. Strangely enough, Hua Cheng doesn’t realize this until Yin Yu meekly asks for directions to a certain location in Ghost City, still settling into his new position as a servant to a Ghost King. Hua Cheng, annoyed, snappishly tells him that it’s literally down the street and four buildings down, and that if Yin Yu couldn’t find it, then he was too blind to manage the administrative areas of his city. Yin Yu, confused and intimidated, shakily tells Hua Cheng that there are no roads or buildings in the vicinity of Paradise Manor, and that when the street does start, it winds in three different directions. Hua Cheng gives him an incredulous look and tells him to just do as he’s ordered. Yin Yu walks away defeated.

Hua Cheng secluding himself when the isolation of searching for a forgotten god creeps up on him. Ghost City, used to their lord disappearing in irregular intervals, doesn’t find it strange when no one has seen Hua Chengzhu for several days. Panic starts to set in, however, when dark clouds gather above the city and a torrent of blood rain falls from the sky like a bad omen. The ghosts become frantic, believing it to be an ominous sign that they had displeased their lord. Hua Cheng, who had locked himself in his room in Paradise Manor, weeps his despair and desperation into silky, crimson pillows to the sound of rain for three days straight. He never realized that he nearly caused a flood of blood in his own city. In fact, Yin Yu, who had taken up the responsibility of cleaning up the city, wisely chooses to say nothing on the matter when Hua Cheng eyes his blood soaked robes with a questioning glance. This happens rarely over the course of the next eight centuries, but it occurs often enough for the denizens of Ghost City to stop panicking when it happens. They call it ‘the crimson torment’ and have learned to be especially nice to their lord in the following days. Miraculously, the blood rain stops after Xie Lian shows up, and Ghost City is eternally grateful. Xie Lian learns about ‘the crimson torment’ before Hua Cheng does, hearing about it from a group of gossiping ghosts. But when Xie Lian asks Hua Cheng about it, concerned for his husband, Hua Cheng tells him that he was never aware that such a thing even happened.

Hua Cheng mindlessly sending out an attack towards a trouble making ghost in Ghost City. The attack is restrained and certainly not as powerful as it could be, but it sends the ghost flying into a wall anyways. Normally, that would be that, but Hua Cheng was particularly frustrated that day. The echoes of the ghost’s wailing pierces his mind and worsens an already bad headache. Xie Lian, who’s standing off to the side, hurriedly walks toward Hua Cheng and gently guides him away. Hua Cheng goes willingly and complacently, as he always will for his beloved husband. That doesn’t stop the murderous thoughts brewing in his head, though, and before he knows it, there is a slight rumble beneath his feet. His thoughts spiral out of control and he doesn’t notice the Earth quaking beneath him until the buildings and stalls around him collapse. It’s the first time that Hua Cheng is forced to acknowledge the subconscious control that he holds over Ghost City and that moment secretly mortifies him.

[niki-phoria]

I'D GIVE YOU ALL THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE

pairing: xie lian x gn!reader (no pronouns used) genre: fluff/comfort word count: 472

notes: tgcf has taken over my mind so enjoy some (possibly ooc ??) xie lian nightmare comfort lol, set at puqi shrine before xie lian meets hua cheng, title from the 1975 - i couldn't be more in love

your body jolts upright as you’re forcibly ripped out of your dream. you can feel your heart pounding wildly in your chest. shivers run down your spine as you blink a few times, desperately willing your eyes to adjust to the darkness quicker. 

in your disorientation, you quickly scan the room for any danger. the fabric xie lian had hung up as a makeshift door flaps quietly in the wind. a few stray offerings sit on the edge of a nearby table. a stream of moonlight shines in through a small hole in the roof, illuminating the small shrine just enough for you to make out xie lian’s worried figure staring at you. 

“y/n?” his voice is quiet, as if you’re a small animal that will bolt at the first sight of danger. xie lian pauses for a second as if to search for the right words before finally settling on, “are you alright?”

“yeah,” you breathe. you run a shaky hand through your hair, taking a shallow breath. “i’m fine.”

xie lian doesn’t believe you. he’s smart enough to recognize the signs of anxiety. he’s known you for long enough to know exactly which nightmares plague your dreams. even the exhaustion of traveling for hours on foot isn’t enough to starve off the horrors that live inside of your mind. 

xie lian turns, reaching over to grab his boots. “why don’t i go get you some water? it’s been a while since you had anything to drink.” 

“wait,” your hand catches xie lian’s wrist before you can stop yourself. disguised by the darkness of the night, a flush rises to both of your cheeks. your grip around his hand loosens, but you don’t pull away completely. “stay?” your voice is barely a whisper; it’s all but swallowed by the quiet of the night. “please.”

xie lian’s gaze lingers on your hand for a second before he looks up into your eyes once again. your touch ignites goosebumps along his skin. since the fall of xianle, he had long since forgotten what it felt like to be touched with care. 

despite his reservations, xie lian curtly nods. “alright,” he murmurs, settling down on the straw mat beside you once again. 

the ground is uncomfortable, but it’s nothing you’re not used to. xie lian lays facing you; even with your eyes closed you can feel him studying each of your features. you can feel the mat move slightly as he shuffles closer. he props his head against his arm like a makeshift pillow.

you tense momentarily when xie lian reaches over, gingerly resting his hand on top of your own. despite the cold night, his skin is warm. his fingers gently trace along the grooves of your knuckles. “try to get some sleep,” he whispers. “i’ll be here when you wake up.”

if you enjoyed this fic, please consider leaving a like, comment, feedback, or rebloging !!

[everylastbird]

Yesssss, you see the vision! He is the best at hanahaki! He treats his condition like a man tending to his prized flower garden. If his love for Xie Lian blooms into flowers, then he will make his body a flower bed, and his bones a trellis

Lovesick

I enjoy the thought of a hanahaki au where Hua Cheng developed hanahaki disease before he died, but instead of ridding himself of it after death, he allowed it to progress far past what a living being could ever survive. I think he'd be really, really into such a physical embodiment of his adoration for Xie Lian!

I also like to think that in this au Ghost City is full of lush flower paths and gardens, and every single plant was grown from cuttings or seeds from Hua Cheng