#tgcf volume 7

[sabh0]

That one scene in Book 5 be like:

Also, these

[animebookworm16]

TGCF Volume 7 thoughts as they appear part 2

Hua Cheng was in fact pissed that White No-Face broke Statue! Xie Lian's leg

I don't like that the chapter title is calling him White Emperor... I smell shenanigans

Quan Yizhen is literally so precious

Is it weird that I want to wrap Mu Qing in a blanket and give him a hug?

part 1 , part 3

[radiantmists]

oh...

"If I wasn't destined to be perfect, I at least wanted to be perfectly kind. But I couldn't even manage that."

I think most people stop trying to be perfect pretty early; it's seen as almost egotistical to think you can be. But I think most people hold on to the desire to be good, and for a lot of us being a 'good person' means at least not doing terrible things, and ideally not having terrible feelings and impulses either.

And that's not achievable, not for real humans, and not even for the gods of this world. As the preceptor said, those who ascend are still human. The world has no true gods.

But in the wake of that truth, what Xie Lian says earlier is important. Everyone has the capacity and the impulse to do bad things, and everyone screws up and hurts someone sometimes. All you can do is shamelessly go on living, and keep trying to do good things and help people and make the world better.

[crimson-rain-flower-countdown]

7 days until tgcf Volume 7’s release!! 🦋✨

[imnotpoppunk]

I'll always be so obsessed with the part where Xie Lian is bracing himself for Hua Cheng finding out about the part of his life that he's most ashamed of. He knows how bad it was, how low he stooped, and truly believes that it would make him unlovable.

And then Hua Cheng kneels before him and reveals that yes, he already knows. He was there. He lived that nightmare with him.

And despite all of that, he still loves Xie Lian. Loved him then and loves him now.

Xie Lian's tears were so real and I could feel how cathartic it was for him to get that reassurance. I could feel his fear dissipate as he realized and WOW.

wow.

[glosschi]

Are you lot so used to watching from the sidelines that you’ve forgotten your lives are on the line?

Heaven Official's Blessing

[goatpunches]

“do you want to borrow spiritual power, gege?”

[fancy-rock-dove]

Hua Cheng and He Xuan are both assholes, obvs. But one of the things that will pull me right out of my immersion is any take on either of them that turns them into classist assholes. I just absolutely cannot see it.

Hua Cheng is wealthy because that’s one of the ways he decided to make himself powerful, but it’s pretty central to the way both ghost kings view power and the system that they were both deeply impoverished in life. They respect the common worker and are fully ready to eat the rich.

Admittedly they also both fell in love with spoiled rich kids, but only the ones who are unflappable defenders of justice in spite of the circumstances of their birth and defy social convention and the advice of the people around them to be so.

[we-are-ignited]

Guess I’m staring book 7 oh no

[kousagi7hikari]

Happy volume 8 release day!

[schrodingers-hoarding-problem]

guess who now owns 6/8 of the english heaven official's blessing volumes? me!!

im so excited to start my reread (first one since i read the fan translation oh so long ago and im so excited)

[wolfriver777]

Just finished book 6

[animebookworm16]

TGCF Volume 7 thoughts as they appear part 13

I love that Hua Cheng's solution to anyone that actually displeases him is to turn them into a budaoweng doll, it's such a convenient method of subduing someone

Well I guess if I'd been alive for over two thousand years I also would turn to gambling as a way to escape the constant existential crisis that is living

Xie Lian goes from a content-if-somewhat-currently-disturbed 800 year-old to a teenager once again the moment he sees Mei Nianqing sucked into a card game again

The Crown Prince of Wuyong deserves a warm blanket and some soup. Jun Wu can still fucking fight me but the Crown Prince of Wuyong gets a hug. I know one is a younger version of the other but I don't care, Jun Wu has crossed too many bridges and burnt too many bodies for me to forgive him anywhere near as easily.

So I get that Jun Wu's whole thing is making Xie Lian a mini Jun Wu. But you've really gotta wonder about a grown adult, a whole twelve hundredish year old man deciding that he is going to psychologically torture a seventeen year old.

Mei Nianqing has a stronger stomach than I, because if I'd seen those faces I absolutely would have lost it

Mei Nianqing going "Duh" will like rent free in my brain for years

Breaking news: grown man swears eternal revenge and torment upon a child with limited life experience and a positive outlook

part 12 , part 14

[radiantmists]

This is such an interesting comment because of course this is how Hua Cheng sees the world, and of course it's heavily informed by how he saw people treat xie lian, but the imagery of slicing up oneself immediately reminded me of the Land of the Tender.

And it makes me wonder-- does hua cheng think of himself as an exception to this, at least when it comes to xie lian? Or is the boy who stole that pearl earring from his savior and then kept coming back for more, the man who has just been offered more of his god than he ever thought possible and is now eagerly teasing for every bit of affection he can scrape up, speaking of greed from thorough self-knowledge?

and then, the inverse. Hua Cheng has offered so much to xie lian, gone through so much for him, literally been ripped apart for him-- and xie lian hardly asked for any of it. back when they were discussing ghost ashes, hua cheng said something along the lines that if *he* gave someone his ashes, it wouldn't matter to him if they destroyed them.

to hua cheng, love isn't about the trust that someone will value that first slice of you; its the willingness to cut yourself down to the bones, if they need it.

[crimson-rain-flower-countdown]

1 day until tgcf Volume 7’s release!! 🦋✨

[mxtxfanatic]

Thank you for your thoughts on Xie Lian and low self -esteem/self -harm tendencies. My question kinda piggybacks of that.

In the novel, Hua Cheng has concerns about Xie Lian's pain and willingness to withstand it or ignore it in favor of getting a solution. 

Land of Tender was pretty extreme and I think Xie Lian genuinely considered not having any other option before doing what he did. 

But there's the time when Xie Lian planned to jump in the pit to help those thrown in and brushed aside his own potential injury from such a fall. (But was naturally worried when Hua Cheng jumped instead)

And also the time Xie Lian took a blow from eming to stop the fight between Hua Cheng and Lan Qingqui(sp?).  

And withstanding the needle in his foot and forgetting about it until Hua Cheng took it out. 

Or being willing to swallow a sword to capture the fetus spirit.

Or in the Mt. Tonglu arc, where he picks up something that has poison on it. He's had it happen so often, it didn't bother him. 

I can see this is not Xie Lian self-harminhg,  but it does seem like a low amount of concern for his pain/safety.  

He even makes a promise to Hua Cheng (they promise each other) not to touch anything weird/dangerous without telling the other first so the other can handle it. 

And when Hua Cheng took a hit from Xie Lian (who had to obey because he was wearing the brocade immortal) - Xie Lian took issue with that and Hua Cheng called him out on that. 

----

"Xie Lian hadn’t expected him to ask that. “Maybe…it was to remind myself of some things.” He then quickly said, “San Lang, don’t…don’t change the subject. What kind of bad habits have you developed? That situation just now—you could have just restrained me. Why did you stand there and take the blow?” 

“So you do know that it’s a bad habit, gege?” Hua Cheng replied. “You have no right to lecture me when it comes to taking beatings, you know.” 

“Oh, really?” Xie Lian said, but he felt guilty the moment the words left his mouth—after all, he’d almost swallowed a sword back when he fought the fetus spirit in the water, and Hua Cheng had caught him red-handed. 

“Yes, really. ‘Why use other methods if I can solve the problem by taking a beating?’ That’s your bad influence on me,” Hua Cheng replied. 

Xie Lian waved him off. “Never mind, San Lang, let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s look at these robes.” "

TGCF volume 7, chapter 117, page 200

-------

From all this, would it be accurate to say Xie Lian has low regard for his pain/safety if it means finding a solution to a problem...and potentially even going for that route faster/ or finding that easier before thoroughly considering other options? 

Or is perhaps Hua Cheng being too overprotective? 

Or is it secret option number three? 😅

I leaned towards the first thought. It seemed that Xie Lian maybe stopped concerning himself about his own pain until he realized someone else cared about him very much and so he decided to be more careful. 

Again, not saying Xie Lian is reckless. Or that he wouldn't tend to his own injuries. Just that perhaps he was setring aside his own pain/potential injury in favor of getting a quick solution. 

I hope I explained that well. Thank you for your thoughts! 👍🏾

Idk how long this is gonna be, so I will start off by saying that Xie Lian's actions exist in line with two realities: 1) he has built up an extremely high pain tolerance from just living life for 800 years and experiencing The Horrors against his will. I do not think that having a high pain tolerance and therefore being alright with experiencing injury because the pain means nothing to you is the same as having a low regard for your pain or safety at all. Xie Lian does not seek out situations to harm him, and he doesn't disregard his safety in situations he puts himself in (emphasizing the "he" because there are a lot of situations he is forced into, where him experiencing The Horrors is the point and thus unavoidable). 2) He literally cannot die (also as part of experiencing The Horrors, but he's learned to weaponize it to his advantage). So let's get into these examples:

Land of the Tender: he was drugged and vulnerable with the only thing between him and potential death was a barrier and a child. He quite literally had no options that weren't "assault/kill Hong'er" or "lose your cultivation and get you and Hong'er killed." He stabs himself to relieve the poison and maintain a semblance of mental clarity because the only other cure to the drug outside of sexual intercourse was physical violence. The moment Mu Qing and Feng Xin show up to help, he stops stabbing himself.

Banyue Arc: He is the god who was sent to clean up the mess, he was going to have to go down there eventually anyways. There is no "injury from the fall" (unless due to his own bad luck, but it doesn't happen in when he actually goes down, so...) because he is a god who jumps up and down these heights all the time. This the same dude who has to jump down from the heavens to do work. Why should he have allowed San-lang or, god forbid, an actual human to go down there first in his stead when 1) he knows he can handle the task but has no evidence that they can and 2) he knows that even if he can't somehow handle it, there's still Mu Qing and Feng Xin and he, himself, cannot die?

Fight between Hua Cheng and Lang Qianqiu: Xie Lian had tried to stealth and de-escelate, but Lang Qianqiu was the one who charged forward in reckless anger. Xie Lian, seeing that Hua Cheng's blow would kill him if it connected, absorbed the blow, instead, because he knew he could, only injuring an arm. Was Xie Lian supposed to let his former student die in front of him just because to save his life would injure him in a way that he would heal from fairly quickly?

The needle and the fetus spirit: I analyze the needle scene here (and will return to this analysis at the end), actually, but as for him doing whatever it took to capture the fetus spirit, once again, this was a matter of life or death, and Xie Lian had a choice between temporary pain or sacrificing someone else's life so that he wouldn't be injured. What kind of cultivator would he be, exactly, to let civilians die for his comfort? A cultivator who was asked to save lives, mind you. He could have chosen to avoid the needle and let the fetus spirit escape to kill again, but he didn't.

Now, I'll give you another example of Xie Lian choosing "pain": during the Birthday extra, Xie Lian is experiencing pain so badly that it makes him blackout. He hides it because celebrating Hua Cheng's birthday with him for the first time is more important. After it's discovered, Mu Qing and Feng Xin realize that the pain seems to be worse around Hua Cheng and theorize that putting some distance between the two would give Xie Lian reprieve enough to figure out what's going on. Hua Cheng leaves immediately, no questions asked, because his priority is Xie Lian's wellbeing. Xie Lian, on the other hand, panics, because while physical pain is something Hua Cheng cannot tolerate him experiencing even if Xie Lian can handle it, the emotional pain Xie Lian derives from feeling abandoned is something he cannot handle. He immediately sends himself back to his husband's side. While Xie Lian can tolerate pain, he only tolerates what he wants to and never seeks out pain for himself.

As for Hua Cheng, a loved one being upset at your experiencing of pain for whatever reason is not evidence of self-harming tendencies or a lack of self-care on your part. The thing about Hua Cheng's responses to Xie Lian allowing himself to be injured/pushing into danger is that Hua Cheng knows Xie Lian's history. He was there for the land of tender and saw Xie Lian mutilate himself to keep him safe. He was there in the temple when Xie Lian was mutilated against his will for the sake of others. He was there when Xie Lian was utterly abandoned by everyone he knew and loved and acting out in self-destructive ways. All of Xie Lian's worst moments, he's experienced, and his whole goal of amassing power was to be able to protect his beloved. Even when he wasn't there, he was collecting information and stories on his whereabouts and experiences. But Xie Lian doesn't know this when they first meet.

Xie Lian has spent 800 years as a lone wanderer with no long-term companions and no one who even knew of his existence. He could only rely on himself from his early 20s on. Not even his friends were dependable, and that is the mentality that Xie Lian has at the start of the story. "I cannot ask others to do right because they are unreliable, so I will do it, myself, without asking." Hua Cheng is upset at this mentality not because he believes that there is something wrong about Xie Lian but because he knows that this belief has sprung from the truth that Xie Lian really didn't have someone to depend on, and even though Hua Cheng's 's back again and ready to be that someone, the fact that Xie Lian is still risking himself instinctively without even considering that Hua Cheng can help him means that he has not proven to his beloved that he is dependable and is here to stay.

So for your conjecture, it's not that Hua Cheng is being overprotective, but he wants Xie Lian to see him as the pillar of support that he is and realize that he no longer has to fight anything alone. And it's not that Xie Lian stopped caring about his own hurts until someone else started caring for him, it's that he hasn't had the luxury to care and tend to his own hurts, because no one was gonna do the things that needed to be done while he took a rest. Others may have had him, but he only had himself. Until Hua Cheng, of course.