#xie lian also sometimes letting slip how he knew so and so's ancestor from thousands of years ago in a passing comment to them

[lenglengflames]

thinking about how gods diminish when their devotees dwindle, but as long as hua cheng remains in the world, xie lian will exist.

hualian will live on for decades, centuries, millenniums. as long as hua cheng's ring is protected by xie lian, and as long as xie lian still has hua cheng as his devotee. it's just poetic that they're each responsible for the existence of the other.

the other gods are all susceptible to the trends and evolution of the mortal world, but hualian will exist for eternity.

hualian as the guardians of history, witnessing every rise and fall of the world. xie lian who ultimately becomes one of the oldest and most powerful of gods, but still politely refuses the role of the heavenly emperor. he'd rather tend to his shrine, which at some point along the way turned into a safe place and shelter from the harsh world for orphans or the homeless.

he tells them stories of the gods, sometimes debunking historical events that had been spun by the victors.

xie lian who occasionally teaches in the village school at puqi, which is too far from the big urban cities to feel the spread effects of cumulative causation. he teaches the younger children how to read and write, walks through history with the older, inquisitive minds.

at some point, a former student of his who had moved out to the city and eventually became a professor in a prestigious university reaches out to him, asking if xie lian would like to teach history classes. xie lian of course declines, content to stay where he is, even if the truths he's told his students eventually gets lost as they grow and learn what's taught in the world.