#unless you have a uniquely awful life like xie lian did

[feyrfiend]

Yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying here regarding how jinx monsters in general work, they are monsters of opportunity, whispering self-fulfilling prophecies in your ear. It does "create" these situations of misfortune, but as your quoted section says, if you don't listen or believe in them, then they won't happen.

Unfortunately for Shi Qingxuan and Shi Wudu, the reverend of empty words they encountered was significantly stronger than the one that Xie Lian encountered, which was merely a "venerable" of empty words. That's what I was referring to when I called it "significantly weaker," I was comparing the two creatures. Yes, as you said, there were people that managed to defeat the reverend in the end, and ultimately survived, but it still tortured them all their lives, "providing it significant portions of food." So even if it didn't drive them to take their life and they "won," it still tortured them until they died:

In one of the screenshots I sent in my previous message, Xie Lian also admits that the one they're facing is a lot stronger than the one he had faced. But Xie Lian was also in a uniquely bad situation as a banished god with cursed shackles, and that's why he didn't have a heavenly halo of protection and he was able to be targeted by a jinx monster at all.

In his own account of his encounter with his venerable, he talks about how everything it said to him practically sounded like well wishes considering the state of his life. But the thing is that it actually did cause bad things to happen to him, it just wasn't creative enough to make them even worse than his actual life, so nothing happened and it eventually had no choice but to give up. And being a regular venerable of empty words, and not one as strong as the reverend that targeted Shi Qingxuan, it had to wait for joyous occasions instead of being able to strike whenever it wanted. That's why he was able to defeat it so easily:

But I do have to disagree on that interpretation of Mei Nianqing's quote there as well, from the way it's phrased, it sounds like Shi Wudu was unafraid of anything because "his fate was so tyrannical," i.e. he knew he was untouchable because of his heavenly halo of protection, so what does he have to fear? Regardless, it tried to target Shi Wudu, and was unable to bite him, and so decided to bite Shi Qingxuan instead.

Additionally, Mei Nianqing says the reverend was satisfied because it did get to bite someone who should have ascended, which is someone who should have originally been off limits. But this is also kind of unclear, because the way Xie Lian interprets the situation during the black water arc is actually quite different. He says that the reverend wasn't satisfied and was unable to get what it ultimately wanted because He Xuan died of exhaustion instead of suicide due to fear. So it's hard to know which of them actually have the real story.

It's interesting, because both Mei Nianqing and Xie Lian use the phrasing "broke its teeth," Mei Nianqing when referring to targeting Shi Wudu and Xie Lian when referring to targeting He Xuan. So from this section, it sounds like the reverend can still torture you and cause horrible things to happen to you even if you don't feed it with fear:

So it would've been impossible for Shi Qingxuan to be able to defeat such a creature. After all, if we believe Xie Lian's interpretation of the creature, even if you don't feed it any fear, it can still torture you, since that's what it did to He Xuan. It sounds like He Xuan is one of those people who "won" against the reverend, because he died of exhaustion and he didn't kill himself. But ultimately that distinction never saved He Xuan or his family.

And if we believe Mei Nianqing's interpretation, it chose not to attack Shi Wudu because it knew it wouldn't get any satisfaction from biting someone like him, who is fated to ascend. However, in his interpretation the reverend was satisfied with what it got.

Since the two of them have contradicting interpretations, it's hard to come to a conclusion on this since we don't really know who is more accurate.

Personally I'm inclined to believe Xie Lian, just because Mei Nianqing is quite biased when it comes to all things Jun Wu, but that's just my opinion on the situation. But either way, I don't think Shi Wudu was motivated by a lack of confidence in Shi Qingxuan's abilities, but rather by a very real fear that this monster is causing genuine mental torture to his little brother and will eventually lead him to take his own life:

It is interesting to interpret how the creature actually works, because a lot of the information we have on it is somewhat contradictory, but Shi Wudu's motivation is pretty clear; even if Shi Qingxuan was capable of fighting the reverend like those "winners," of course Shi Wudu wouldn't be okay with an outcome that caused Shi Qingxuan to be tortured for the rest of his life.

You seem to know canon quite well for the various MXTX works.

Shi Qingxuan would have been fine as a middle court official, right? At least, as long as he stayed in the heavens? I thought the Reverend of Empty Words couldn't actually reach the heavens (at least not until after He Xuan consumed it) but seeing other people talking about the situation makes me less sure.

My impression was Shi Wudu sacrificed the lives of He Xuan and his family for Shi Qingxuan's freedom, not for Shi Qingxuan's life.

It seemed to be yet another "my own convenience, or that of my family member, is more important then the lives of the common folks" type situation, same as with Pei Xiu sacrificing people to Banyue soldiers via avatar, instead of dealing with the reputation loss and killing them as himself.

I actually had a similar thought once upon a time here, but there was also a longer convo I had with a few other people that seems to have been disappeared by tumblr (because of course it has 🙄). I can vaguely remember someone telling me that Shi Qingxuan being in the middle court actually didn’t offer him full immunity from the Reverend of Empty Words based on an interview, if I remember correctly, but I do not remember this being in the text.

It’s definitely still a situation of “I am willing to sacrifice the lives of countless strangers for the comfort and safety of my own loved ones, because I value my loved ones more,” but there may have been more stake to it.

[feyrfiend]

Hi!! You're totally right on the fact that being in the middle court wouldn't have been able to protect Shi Qingxuan, MXTX actually wrote an author's note about the situation. She may have also discussed it in an intervew, I'm not sure about that, but basically it's that being a middle court official wouldn't have been enough. The reverend is too powerful and can still hurt deputies, who aren't actually very strong. The only way that Shi Wudu could've saved Shi Qingxuan from the reverend is by making the choice he made to switch fates. So it was definitely about saving Shi Qingxuan's life, because without making that choice, Shi Wudu would've had to watch Shi Qingxuan slowly get tortured to death by the reverend.

So although it is a situation of "I'm willing to sacrifice a stranger to save my brother" like you mentioned, it's a trolley problem of a situation where no matter what he did, someone innocent would've gotten hurt and Shi Wudu chose to make the decision that would protect the person he loves more than anything in the world

Also btw Shi Wudu didn't "fight off" the reverend, it was that the reverend was actually unable to target him at all due to the heavenly halo of protection that those who are fated to ascend have, and basically targeted Shi Qingxuan as the next best thing.

And the only reason Xie Lian was able to fight off a (significantly weaker) venerable of empty words is because he'd already reached rock bottom and his life was so horrible that any kind of curse it tried to put on him was genuinely better than what he was experiencing at the time. Which obviously wasn't the case for Shi Qingxuan, he had a lot to lose. I think it's not that Shi Wudu didn't believe in Shi Qingxuan's ability to fight it off, but that fighting it off is basically impossible unless you're in a uniquely awful situation like Xie Lian was, and he was facing a significantly weaker foe.

You seem to know canon quite well for the various MXTX works.

Shi Qingxuan would have been fine as a middle court official, right? At least, as long as he stayed in the heavens? I thought the Reverend of Empty Words couldn't actually reach the heavens (at least not until after He Xuan consumed it) but seeing other people talking about the situation makes me less sure.

My impression was Shi Wudu sacrificed the lives of He Xuan and his family for Shi Qingxuan's freedom, not for Shi Qingxuan's life.

It seemed to be yet another "my own convenience, or that of my family member, is more important then the lives of the common folks" type situation, same as with Pei Xiu sacrificing people to Banyue soldiers via avatar, instead of dealing with the reputation loss and killing them as himself.

I actually had a similar thought once upon a time here, but there was also a longer convo I had with a few other people that seems to have been disappeared by tumblr (because of course it has 🙄). I can vaguely remember someone telling me that Shi Qingxuan being in the middle court actually didn’t offer him full immunity from the Reverend of Empty Words based on an interview, if I remember correctly, but I do not remember this being in the text.

It’s definitely still a situation of “I am willing to sacrifice the lives of countless strangers for the comfort and safety of my own loved ones, because I value my loved ones more,” but there may have been more stake to it.