#this ended up being super xie lian focused but i adore hua cheng its just that we dont get his pov :(

[lubixings]

thoughts on hualian inventing love 💓🥰 yes i wanna hear u go off abt them also i lov u mwah

unfortunately when i think about hualian my brain just makes that static noise tvs make when theyre not working 😔

i just think theyre so neat like i love how genuine their feelings are for each other. i love the constant shameless flirting between them from beginning to end of the novel. i love that hua cheng was there at every step of xie lian’s journey, that he stayed by his side throughout it all and i love that xie lian doesn’t love him because of that, he loves him because of who hua cheng is and how he makes him feel. it’s not out of debt for what hua cheng has done for him - he fell in love with him not even knowing about all of that. 

xie lian has spent so much of his life experiencing the people he loved leaving him and then even more of his life just so completely and utterly alone until hua cheng comes along and makes him feel all these incredible emotions he hasn’t felt in so long. the line where xie lian goes “only after having met you did i discover that it’s such a simple thing to be happy” i feel really captures how lonely he’d been for so long. and at the part where hua cheng disappears, when he says its been so long since someones listened to him talk - that really hurt me !!!! 

ALSO xie lian at his prime was upheld to this impossible ideal not only by his followers but also the other heavenly officials including his two best friends. and arguably the reason they left was because he not only fell from that pedestal but he reacted in a way that was so human. esp with feng xin - xie lian was trying to survive an impossible situation but to him, it was like this person he idolized had turned into everything he was against. so to xie lian it felt like everyone had left him bc of his fall from grace. but the only person who stayed by his side despite it all was hua cheng - which is why that quote “to me, the one standing in infinite glory is you, the one fallen from grace is also you. what matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you” is just soooo important esp re: their relationship

and hua cheng throughout all of this thinking that he’s ugly and unlovable and that its just enough to stand by the person he believes in - he doesn’t dare to hope that xie lian might love him back bc he genuinely doesn’t value himself. and then seeing how xie lian loves him so completely 🥺 

also im not done lmao but also i love how balanced they are in terms of power and how they communicate so well with each other despite how others around them try to interfere. idk their relationship is just so beautiful !!

send me “thoughts on ______”