#he really had no reason to bring in mu qing so i'll still compare them

[feietouhuo]

headcanon: mu qing’s idolization of xie lian, his royal highness the crown prince ( long post )

as much as i like to joke around & say mu qing prefers beggar xie lian & thinks he’s 1000x more handsome .... the person mu qing idolizes is the crown prince of xianle. not the scrap collecting god, not the laughing stock of the three realms  — it’ll always be xie lian, the flower crowned martial god.

he mentions it explicitly in his famous scene: “you were always a better person than me”. he goes even further to say it was difficult to dislike him. “you were quite amazing”. while he may have said it in mt. tonglu, those are words he formed 800 years ago.

but it isn’t blind idolization like hua cheng’s. rather, xie lian represents everything mu qing wants to be. even better, he represents everything mu qing wishes he could do. but unlike xie lian, he wasn’t endowed with a kind & warm personality. neither did he view himself as willful.

mu qing did believe he was a charity case for the prince. & for a long time ( throughout book 2 & parts of book 4 to be exact ), he never thought xie lian was all that. anyone with the status he had could do the same. “& did you know that i never thought the difference [ in skill ] between us was all that great?”. 

that isn’t to say mu qing wasn’t grateful. he was. despite his more violent & sharp personality, he never wanted to cause problems for xie lian. if he could avoid telling him about anything he faced ( abuse, undeserved scoldings, etc. ), he would. he knew people thought xie lian was crazy for bringing him in, so he stayed silent & obedient so xie lian would never defend him publicly. & of course, he worked hard so no one could speak poorly of his skill for both selfish & unselfish reasons.

yet, to him, every little thing xie lian touted was for show. it was to make him look good to his kingdom, that’s it. 

until the events in book 4. 

first, i need to make one thing clear about xie lian: no matter how idealistic or “stupid” you think book 2 xie lian was, he did everything he did when the world was against him. he’s strong. no matter how successful or unsuccessful you think he was, he still stood up to his parents, the guoshi, & every voice against him to fight for what he believed. he saved hong hong er & knew that was the right thing to do. he stood up for feng xin against his parents when he hit qi rong for bullying. he gave mu qing the chance to rise, despite being from a criminal, impoverished family. no one wanted to help the common people except for him.

there’s a popular sentiment in media: the rich can afford to be nice simply because they have everything. mu qing believed it too. but he also believed another thing: xie lian’s sentiment was bullshit. he could try, but those are empty promises.

mu qing’s opinion of xie lian soared after the incident at spiritual mountain. though it sounds strange, i want to consider mu qing’s position during it. he was a court official in the middle heavens. based off the fact those 33 other officials wanted to share spiritual land with him, he had a quite a high standing too. or, at the very least, was well-liked. he had power obviously. he had resources as we see later. add in the fact those 33 officials wanted to drive xie lian off & leave him by himself, the situation isn’t drastically different from past xie lian’s when he helped mu qing. one with a higher status with the ability to help, one at the bottom with a bad reputation, & those who favored one while looking down on the other. 

yes, i want to admit that mu qing’s circumstances are different & more strenuous overall. but i don’t think mu qing saw it that way. xie lian was put in tough positions too. even the line “hey, don’t be mean. he served as xie lian’s servant before this, of course he’d want to help him” is reminiscent of the line “just‌ ‌say‌ ‌you’re‌ ‌picking‌ ‌them‌ ‌under‌ ‌my‌ ‌command,‌ ‌and‌ ‌no‌ ‌one‌ ‌will‌ ‌say‌ ‌anything”. they both justify certain actions, particularly actions of protection, according to duty/status. xie lian protected mu qing by giving him permission to use his status whenever bad situations arose. mu qing could protect xie lian doing the same thing, even if people would think poorly of it.

now we’re back to my previous point: mu qing was “rich”. he had everything at that point, so why was it he still pushed xie lian down into the mud? he couldn’t let go of the fear of being looked down on again by these 33 officials he associated with in the heavens. people would gossip again.

in a single moment, he realized one thing: saving even a single person — no matter what you had — was hard. he couldn’t do it. 

but xie lian did. he extended his hand to him, a child of a criminal & nothing but an errand boy, & helped all he could. xie lian might have grown up without fear because of his upbringing, but it’s still hard to say “i’ll do what i want, even if it displeases everyone i know”. 

maybe xie lian didn’t save the common people. maybe he never would. maybe he was delusional.

yet mu qing & xie lian now echo one thought: as long as i / you can save one, it’s enough. one is enough.