Heaven Official's Blessing Analysis - Part 1 - The Ghost Wedding

The following is the script to this video.

“Among all the deities of heaven, there was one famous laughingstock of the three realms.”

So the story of Heaven Official’s Blessing opens, with a statement of fact about our protagonist – not about his bravery, his skill, or his great heart, but about his role as the butt of a cosmic joke.

Eight hundred years ago, it says, in the Kingdom of Xianle, there was a crown prince whose sole dream was to ‘save the common people’. With time he grew quite skilled in cultivation, and stories of his exploits spread. The prologue highlights two tales in particular.

One, the story of a grand festival parade, in which the crown prince was the star; during the parade, a child nearly fell to his death, but the crown prince interrupted the ceremony to save his life. Though the people were delighted, his teachers were concerned that the ritual had been left unfinished – would that not be bad luck? Should he not repent his actions?

To the prince, however, saving a child’s life could never be an ill omen. And if the heavens disagreed, then the heavens were wrong.

The second story starts at Yinian Bridge, where the crown prince fights and defeats a ghost, afterwards saying his ‘now famous line’: “Body in the abyss, heart in paradise.” The words attract the attention of the Heavenly Emperor Jun Wu, highest god in heaven, and the prince ascends to godhood himself not long after.

Not all is well, however; his kingdom and his people suffer in the years to follow, struggling with wars and plagues, and though it is taboo for a god to interfere directly in the mortal realm, the prince insists on descending to help Xianle. He will ‘save the common people’, he tells the Emperor, only to find that even the strength of a god cannot overcome the fate of a nation. Though the story does not explain it here, it is implied that the prince’s actions worsen events, until his own people turn on him, tearing down his statues and burning his temples.

“When the people call you a god, you are a god. If they call you crap, you are crap. You are whatever they say you are.”

So says the prologue, before describing the prince’s fall from grace and literal fall back to the mud of the human world, where he experiences for the first time “hunger, poverty, and filth”. Though he does ascend again, he falls again, and spends the following hundreds of years struggling to survive in pitiful conditions.

“Body in the abyss, heart in paradise.” A beautiful phrase, but how hard it is to live by, when you are no longer a prince in a palace or a god on a throne, but a weak mortal man. The place where the prince first says this statement, Yinian Bridge, takes it name from a Chinese idiom, a phrase implying a misstep or mistake.

A tragic story of the hubris of man and god, the foolishness of believing a single person – divine or not – can overcome human nature and save the world. Yet, the story is not over – because this is just the opening prologue, which ends by explaining how this failure of a god has just ascended to heaven for a third time.

The opening section isn’t anything like the rest of the novel; most of the story is from our protagonist, Xie Lian’s point of view, a limited third person that walks through his life and his memories as it becomes relevant. But this opening is far more distant, almost folktale or fairy tale like, and it never names our protagonist – he is referred to only as ‘the crown prince’.

It’s a myth, told as a set of short tales about a historical figure made into a legend, pieces of his life cut and pasted into a short story that supposedly explains everything worth explaining. It brushes over quite a bit of course, and manages to make our protagonist look somewhat foolish, somewhat pitiful, and ultimately, like a failure.

We’ll learn better of course; this myth is a set up for the majority of the work – a few pages to tell a tale that will be retold in depth across eight books. Ultimately, myths, folktales, rumors, and gossip – all the ways that people tell each other tales – are limited in scope, they can only tell so much. We won’t see every side, we won’t understand every perspective. The opening makes the main character Xie Lian look like a fool, but he is so much more than that.

In the prologue, he’s nameless; in the first chapter, we learn his name, and with it, quite a bit about his character. His surname 谢can mean gratitude or thankfulness; or to refuse or decline politely; in botany, it can refer to the withering or fading of a flower. Flowers are a major symbol for our main character, and for the last few hundred years, Xie Lian has certainly been struggling, if not withering. But he is also someone who is very grateful for the kindness he receives, who gives back twice as much as he’s given.

His first name怜can mean to pity or to sympathize with; and it’s a behavior he performs constantly in the book. Keep an eye out, and you’ll see Xie Lian sympathizing with gods, ghosts, humans, plants, places, objects, houses, – he humanizes and deeply empathizes with nearly everyone and everything he meets.

Heaven Official’s Blessing is a book series of eight novels, depicting Xie Lian’s third ascension to heaven and the actions he takes, both as a god trying to help others, and as a man trying to find his way in the world. It is also very much a love story; as Xie Lian meets figures from his past, and comes to know the one person who has always been on his side, who has seen his highest highs and lowest lows, and loves him anyway.

All the central themes of this story appear in the prologue and early chapters, and continue to reappear in every arc and episodic event of the series. As Xie Lian becomes involved in solving problems for Heaven, he comes across people who suffer with the same problems he has.

What is it to be human? What do we do when the worst that could happen has happened? How do we face each other, and ourselves? The characters of this series fall to incredible lows, and these falls often take everything and everyone from them. This is the unfortunate worst fate – to be dragged low, and further realize the people who loved you can’t stand who you’ve become.

Xie Lian, our protagonist, is alone at the start of the story. He says it himself: “I’m used to being alone.” Having seen and experienced true horrors in his life, he’s long since lost or been separated from his loved ones. What he wants most of all is someone who won’t leave his side – who can see the worst and best of him, and not leave.

The crown prince tried his best to save his kingdom, but he failed; and when he failed, his people turned on him. What kind of god fails, after all? The pedestal he’d been put on was what ruined him in the end – having raised him so high in their minds, the people could not fathom his human failures.

This is the root of many if not all of the problems in the novel – people who demand perfection from themselves and others; people who cannot understand or empathize with those who suffer and are struggling; people who value appearance and power over humanity and morality.

Body in the abyss, heart in paradise. This ties into that theme, as it relates to how people suffer and struggle, and how it changes us. How can we be starving, desperate, and scared, and not react emotionally? How can people be completely undisturbed in their hearts if their lives have been upended?

At the same time, “body in the abyss and heart in paradise” is a philosophical idea that Xie Lian strives for, one that has its heart in Buddhism. The term used in Chinese for abyss refers to one of the Buddhist hells, known more commonly in English as the Avici hell. It’s the Chinese equivalent to the Ninth Circle; where the word for Paradise used refers to the Peach Blossom Spring, a fictional paradise that might be equated to the Garden of Eden. A perfect, eternal garden, where no suffering or death exists.

While it is hard to keep your heart steady in difficult times, it is a goal to strive for – and Xie Lian, more than anyone in the story, keeps afloat in the darkness because he has struggled and suffered and already come through so much. He has a far broader, better understanding of people and the human world than most of the gods he meets. Maybe he can’t always keep his heart steady, but aiming for inner peace in turmoil time after time is what gets Xie Lian through so much hardship.

HOB is also a story of how perception and rumor influence society and the people at the heart of the tale. Xie Lian is a good man who tried his best, but after his failures, the stories the common people tell about him change from a great and noble princely god, to a failure, useless trash, a god of misfortune. No matter the actual truth, the story that gets told becomes truth – and this maxim repeats and repeats throughout the books. The dangers of rumors, the damage done by gossip, the negative influence of the stories we spread, are a major part of how people are dragged low, how bad situations are made worse when outsiders get involved.

The prologue, while somewhat serious and solemn, quickly takes on a comedic element – there’s a bit of parody at play, as the writer starts using less serious language, commenting on the absurdity as the same character rises and falls, rises and falls and rises again.

This comedic element is heavily present throughout the books; characters make fools of themselves and others, they are eccentric and unpredictable and incredibly human. All this levity feels perhaps a little weird for a story about gods, but that’s because this is about people who are gods – with all the same foibles and follies as men. It helps balance the book; this is a tale about high highs and very low lows, and the humor keeps the narrative from being too overwhelmingly dark.

Which is also why chapter one opens up with a bit of comedic banter between Xie Lian, who we now know is our crown prince, and another god, Ling Wen, a female god and the top civic god of the heavens.

Unfortunately, Xie Lian happens to be a god of bad luck. Thus, his rise to heaven caused a lot of damage, enough to put him in debt already, and he and Ling Wen banter back and forth about it – later, gods will even take bets on long how it takes him to fall again. This sets up the stakes for our tragically unlucky god – he’s just arrived in heaven and he’s already disliked and in debt.

The amount of debt – some 8 million merits – includes the number 8, a number that appears a lot. As do the numbers 3 and 4. Keep an eye out, and see if you can’t find the pattern.

The two major accidents that lead to Xie Lian’s debt relate to the quakes that occurred in heaven when he first arrived. A giant bell fell from its tower and near squashed a god; another god’s palace was shaken apart; both these gods, unfortunately, have history with Xie Lian, and the first chapter is dedicated almost entirely to mapping out this history, and setting up these two as important foils for our protagonist.

The first is Mu Qing, General Xuan Zhen, Martial God of the Southwest; he has seven thousand temples, is “considerably distinguished” in the human realm, and eight hundred years ago, he was the deputy general of Xie Lian’s palace, a servant to the other god. Awkward.

Even worse, when they were both human, Mu Qing was a commoner, a servant in the royal palace; the son of an executed criminal, who could only begin studying with the prince when Xie Lian himself requested it. Because of that, the man owes his entire godhood to the step up his former friend gave him; and yet, when Xie Lian fell low, Mu Qing “didn’t follow him”, in the words of the book. He went off and trained on his own, ascended to godhood, and left his former friend behind.

The reunion between Xie Lian and Mu Qing is full of bitter snark. Mu Qing speaks “languidly” and “tepidly”, he ‘humphs’; Xie Lian doesn’t recognize him at first because, in his words, Mu Qing never used to speak to him this way. Of course not – a servant could never mouth off to a prince.

The second figure enters, yelling angrily, and Xie Lian recognizes him instantly. This is Feng Xin, titled “Nan Yang-zhenjun”, Martial God of the Southeast, with eight thousand temples, who is “incredibly loved” by humanity. Eight hundred years ago, he was the “number one” heavenly general of Xie Lian’s palace, and before that, his human bodyguard. They grew up together, and when Xie Lian was banished, Feng Xin went with him, suffered and struggled with him. But ultimately, they were separated, in circumstances the narrative leaves unclear for now.

How different are these two we just met! Feng Xin’s introduction is so favorable by comparison; humans love him, he has more temples, he was “number one” in Xie Lian’s palace rather than just a deputy general; while he sounds angry at first, his tone changes when he learns who damaged his palace, and while he seems to feel awkward about it he’s not passive aggressively snarking at him like Mu Qing.

From the start, the novel is pitting these two against each other, and against Xie Lian, in an awkward love-hate triangle of former friendship. It’s also setting the audience up against Mu Qing, showing him in the worst light. Where the narrator of the story says ‘General Xuan Zhen’ while describing one god, it says ‘Nan Yang-zhenjun’, the polite term, for the other. While both paragraphs are written in a similar fashion, it’s clear the ‘speaker’ favors one over the other right from the outset. And Mu Qing’s behavior doesn’t exactly put him in the best light, either.

But remember! This is a story about the danger of stories – the danger of trusting other people’s gossip and rumors, how the perceptions of a narrative can twist our thoughts. Mu Qing’s “story” is going to present him in a certain light, in order to make us think of him in a negative way, maybe even in an evil way. But is that the truth? Is that what Xie Lian knows in his heart? Only time will tell.

Both Feng Xin and Mu Qing represent the “highs” and “lows” of the narrative – the ways that we all rise and fall. As the former bodyguard to a prince, Feng Xin spent his human life in a palace, surrounded by the high class. Though not a royal himself, he was hob nobbing with nobility throughout his life. That experience has led him to view people in a certain way – to put them on pedestals. Because he is a royal’s bodyguard, he must behave a certain way; and a royal behaves a certain way, because that is what makes them royal.

If they aren’t a royal, if they’re a cussing, street fighting, robbing and mugging commoner, then why is he their bodyguard? Since his place in the world was defined by class and power, he has a hard time separating these roles from the people around him. Thus, people he loves fear losing his good favor, thinking that he might stop caring if he knew they weren’t as perfect as their outer image demanded.

On the other hand, you have Mu Qing, a god, who started as a commoner. Most of heaven is full of generals and former royals and nobility, and Mu Qing stands out like a sore thumb. No matter how far he rises, he cannot escape his low birth – and so it defines him, his behavior, and his feelings about the world. He cannot stop acting as if those around him see him as lesser, because most of them do. He treats others as enemies as a paranoid way of protecting himself, because he can never be sure if they truly see him as more than a commoner, a servant, a low born.

These two problems are both rooted in the same issue – the structures of class, of deciding some people are worth more than others, and Heaven Official’s Blessing is going to tear down those barriers. By the end, we’ll see that Xie Lian, Feng Xin, and Mu Qing are not prince, bodyguard, and servant; neither are they perfect, untouchable gods.

There are some hints about this ultimate fate in these characters names, of which they have plenty. Mu Qing’s is the most obvious – his birth name can translate to mean “yearning for affection”, or “affectionate admiration”; in essence, the desire for friends. Not surprising if you’ve read all the books. His title, Xuan Zhen, seems to have its roots in Daoism, which is unfortunately not my strength; the literal meanings of the words are “deep, profound” and “real, truth”. I get the feeling it is related to Mu Qing’s role in the narrative; a kind of false antagonist who is actually true to Xie Lian and feels fondly towards him.

Feng Xin’s name includes the symbol for wind and true, or believe; possibly related to his belief in Xie Lian; though circumstances have separated them, Feng Xin never stopped caring about his friend. His title can mean ‘southern sun’; the yang refers to the masculine half of yin and yang, and his story will have quite a bit to do with, eh, masculinity. That and his association with the sun, the wind, and the south, makes me think he’s meant to be associated with the Vermillion Bird, the celestial phoenix.

In just a few pages, a lot of backstory has been set up for us, reinforcing a few major ideas: reminding us of how far Xie Lian has fallen, that his own servants are more powerful gods than he is; how rumor and gossip runs wild in heaven, because everyone knows the dirty back story between the three former friends; and Xie Lian’s own lonely helplessness, when he is forced to work on his own to pay off his debt, and no other gods wish to help him. The stage the author has set for us is quite bittersweet, painting the picture of a pitifully human character who feels quite unlike an untouchable, ethereal god.

The Ghost Bride

The story of Heaven Official’s Blessing will unfold across a series of somewhat contained short stories, all of them acting like side quests in the larger main story line of Xie Lian’s journey. They are episodic and primarily self contained, though as the novels progress they begin to grow bigger, more complex, and less easily finished and wrapped up in a bow.

The first one brings Xie Lian to Mt Yujun, a name which according to this Chinese fan article, is a homophone for the word for “encountering you”. Online dictionaries say the word means “with you”; clearly we are going to be meeting someone important here, perhaps someone Xie Lian has met before.

The tea shop at the base of the mountain only makes it more obvious: it’s called the Little Shop of Chance Encounters. Chance Encounter, my foot – we are walking towards destiny, and a very important figure is about to step onto the scene.

It is not a person we meet first, however; it is a small silver butterfly, just passing by. It’s “glittering and translucent” leaving a “sparkling bright trail in its wake”. It sits on the tip of his finger for a moment before flying away, leaving Xie Lian feeling the moment is like “the illusion of a dream that would shatter with a single touch”. What a beautiful sentiment.

Unfortunately, the master of the butterfly isn’t who appears next – it’s tweedle dee and tweedle dum, er, I mean Fu Yao and Nan Feng.

If you don’t recognize those names, that’s normal, because they’re new ones, but the characters aren’t. After all, didn’t we just spend many, many pages focusing on two men, who both have deep history with Xie Lian? And these two – who both hail from the palaces of those same two men – are very similar to them. They’re rivals, they’re here to help Xie Lian (though they both seem a bit bitter about it) and they both behave pretty similarly to the men Xie Lian used to call friends. Funny coincidence.

The first is Fu Yao, whose name means something like “ascending rapidly”, either like a whirlwind or in the sense of rising through the ranks, from the idiom fuyaozhishang. He is “extremely fair, elegant, and poised”, he rolls his eyes a lot, is passive aggressive, constantly pokes fun at others, and is from Mu Qing’s palace.

The second is Nan Feng, a figure who carries “unbridled wildness”, and is from Feng Xin’s palace. His name means southern wind, though according to wiktionary it’s also an ancient term for male homosexuality? The irony. Nan Feng is very short tempered and especially unfriendly to Fu Yao, as well as incredibly strong and is happy to take orders from Xie Lian from the moment they meet.

It’s so weird how familiar these two seem, huh?

Even Xie Lian senses it from early on; later in this section, he’ll mention Nan Feng reminds him of Feng Xin directly. During a fight scene, both characters will momentarily drop their acts, accidentally reveal more than they mean to. And Nan Feng’s name even shares the same symbols as his boss – Feng from his personal name, Nan from his title. These two aren’t really trying are they?

For the sake of discussing the narrative, yes, Fu Yao is Mu Qing in disguise, and Nan Feng is Feng Xin in disguise; and for the sake of clarity, I’ll be referring to them by their birth names for the most part. Both men rushed down to the human world to help their former friend in secret after being reunited. Despite the fact that the story told us they’re now estranged, despite how Mu Qing and Feng Xin behaved in heaven, it seems clear they still care.

They can’t show it easily – for one, they parted on bad terms, and still haven’t discussed their difficult history. For another, the rumor mill in heaven is already running amuck about the three of them, and these gods – who care deeply about appearances – don’t want to draw any more unwanted attention.

Still, hundreds of years have passed, they’ve not spoken in centuries, and yet both of them clearly care enough to stick their necks out to help the God of Misfortune. They may be in disguise and behaving rudely, but it’s a start.

This is a story in part about the dangers of class and how societal structures divide us; by bringing those divides down – by pretending ancient history never happened – both Feng Xin and Mu Qing are able to be their more authentic selves with Xie Lian; and most authentic is their desire to help.

At the tea house, the three of them begin to discuss what’s been happening around Mt Yujun. Over the past hundred years, seventeen young brides have vanished during the bridal procession through the mountainside. For a long time, nothing seemed too amiss – maybe it was just many cases of cold feet – until somebody found an actual cold foot left behind on the mountain. Clearly something was killing these girls, and as it kept happening and no human culprits were found, stories started to spread.

Perhaps it was a ghostly groom, people thought, a man so ugly and unloved he became resentful and attached to this world; demanding a bride of his own, he snatches women on their wedding day, killing the guards accompanying them and leaving pieces of their corpses to dot the mountainside. The most recent victim was the daughter of a very rich man, who not only used his wealth to catch the attention of the Heavens, but has also offered an earthly reward to anyone who can find and catch this killer.

But before they can catch a killer, our trio have to find a place to stay the night. Xie Lian almost heads out into the woods – he’s used to sleeping in the dirt, after all – but his allies remind him that gods can stay the night in local temples without much fuss.

Mt Yujun is in the north, but the god of the north, General Ming Guang, personal name Pei Ming, doesn’t have a temple in the area for some reason… how mysterious. Instead, they find one of Feng Xin’s temples, and Xie Lian hears about the unfortunate history behind one of his many titles.

Turns out, one time an Emperor wrote Feng Xin’s title down wrong. Instead of “perfect sun”, he wrote “tremendous masculinity.” Of course an emperor couldn’t be wrong, so everyone scrambled to cover up for the mistake, ultimately changing Feng Xin’s title to match the misspelling. Remember, you are what people say you are – another piece of the theme of rumors, the power of societal pressure – in this case, Feng Xin changed from a god of martial power and physical strength to… uh, let’s go with fertility. Now, most of his supporters are women.

Perhaps that explains why his introduction said he had more temples than Mu Qing, and he was “loved” by his human followers! Fu Yao – Mu Qing in disguise remember – is delighted by the other man’s misery; anything that proves that the ‘high and mighty’ aren’t in fact so perfect and untouchable delights him, of course.

Irritated by Mu Qing’s amusement, Feng Xin insults him back, telling him to “go sweep the floor”, a reminder of his embarrassing past as a former low class servant. That gets the other man going, and the argument only grows fiercer.

While fighting, the two of them manage to send some food flying to the floor. Xie Lian picks it up, and very politely scolds them for it; better they throw him around the room, he says. He tries to eat the food he just picked up, to both Feng Xin and Mu Qing’s horror. To Xie Lian, the worse horror is the idea of food going to waste – he has too much experience with hunger to be worried about dirt on his food.

It’s a small scene that so clearly delineates the places of these three in the world – how different their experiences and world views are. Feng Xin, embarrassed by a title he never asked for; Mu Qing, angered by a reminder of his low birth; and Xie Lian, so recently homeless with only the clothes on his back to call his own, more worried about wasting food than about shame or appearances. So much revealed about the three of them, all in this short, simple little argument over a meat bun.

While our three friends bicker in the Temple of Great Masculinity, a young local appears, a girl who is considered very ugly. Her skirt is torn, though she doesn’t know it, and Xie Lian is worried for her dignity. Feng Xin, who is very shy and awkward around women, won’t even look at her; Mu Qing, says he ‘saw nothing’, and doesn’t want to be involved.

Feng Xin, a bodyguard and a warrior whose spent most of his life isolated from women, has no idea how to behave around them; Mu Qing, a former servant, has had too much experience trying to do good and getting mud slung at him for his trouble.

So that leaves Xie Lian, who almost immediately moves to help. The three of them are standing on a platform slightly off the ground, invisible to the human world; when he chooses to help the girl, Xie Lian jumps down and takes physical shape; this too mirrors his own history and past choices. As a crown prince and a god, he chose to ‘descend’ to the human world to try and help his people, and suffered for his trouble.

Obviously, he’s going to suffer again – suddenly approached by a strange man, the young girl panics, and smacks him; but Xie Lian is unbothered, quickly whispering to her to explain himself, before slipping his robe over her back. The girl is embarrassed and horrified, running off, leaving Xie Lian down one robe with a sore cheek for his trouble.

Oh, Xie Lian. This is only the first of many, many times he’ll suffer for attempting to help; but suffering will never deter him from trying.

The ‘ugly girl’ is named Xiao Ying, xiao being a Chinese word for ‘small’ that is used as a diminutive, Ying a name which can mean firefly, – a small, frail creature that still manages to shine in the dark.

The next day, the three amigos gather at the tea house again to decide what to do next. During their meeting, a bridal procession passes through town – it’s not a real one, though. Apparently, a bunch of local toughs got the idea in their head to fake a wedding to draw the ghost out, hoping to win the reward money.

Only, the young girl from the night before, Xiao Ying, thinks its a very dangerous idea. She tries to stop them – which is how we learn she was asked to be the fake bride in the procession, and turned them down. The leader of the young men, Xiao Pengtou, was clearly angered by her disagreement, and apparently tore her dress on purpose for revenge. What a nice guy.

He shows more of his sensitive side as he yells at Xiao Ying in the street, calling her a “little woman” who shouldn’t be interrupting the “big men talking”. He claims they’re noble heroes protecting the common folk – ignoring the fact they’re all in it for the cash – calling her “selfish and greedy” for not wanting to play the role of a bride.

A true class act. It takes our heroes interrupting to disrupt the troublemakers, at least for now. Their leader, Xiao Pengtou, has a name which can mean “boss” or “leader”, or “head”. It’s clear this guy is the one stirring up trouble among this group, and it’s only going to get worse with time.

But the scene of the procession has given our heroes an idea – a fake wedding is a good way to draw out the monster. Instead of using a human woman however, they’ll use a ‘bride’ who can defend himself – and who better than Xie Lian?

While he is slightly embarrassed by the idea, Xie Lian hardly hesitates to put his life on the line. Xiao Ying, the young girl, shows up just in time to help him put the costume together; apparently she really cares about finding this ghost killer. Not to mention, her willingness to help Xie Lian is in part rooted in the fact he’s now helped her twice – kindness returned with kindness, which is not always the case in HOB.

Feng Xin and Mu Qing are horrified by Xie Lian’s disguise – they can hardly look at him, they’re so embarrassed by his appearance. But Xie Lian’s mild embarrassment only highlights just how little societal expectations and traditions matter to him – to the point that he’ll eventually forget what he’s wearing, behaving normally in front of other gods long after the disguise is no longer needed. So what if he’s a man in a dress? He’s suffered far worse, this hardly phases him.

So Xie Lian and co set up their fake wedding procession and head into the woods, where enemies are quick to appear. A strange ghostly child’s voice sings in Xie Lian’s ear; wolves with haunting green eyes attack the caravan, followed by monstrous waves of binu, a zombie like monster that eats corpses.

All this trouble leads to the group separating; Feng Xin and Mu Qing draw the monsters away while Xie Lian sits in the bridal carriage, awaiting their return, or the appearance of the ghostly groom. He doesn’t have to wait long… something does appear, though it’s not exactly who he expected. It’s not the ghost groom; it’s a mysterious, nameless figure, who will become the second most important character of the novel, and Xie Lian’s future beloved: Hua Cheng.

It says something that a love story spanning eight novels starts with the main couple performing a mock wedding ceremony right at the beginning, before they’ve even really met on the page. More than that, the first descriptor we get of the man focuses on a red string tied around his hand – obviously pulling on the imagery of the red string of fate, the folkloric idea of a fateful connection between two people that transcends time and space.

Xie Lian is dressed as a bride, and he is waiting for a ‘groom’, and just as he thinks he’s alone and possibly in danger, this man appears, lifting a hand to help him step down. On that hand is the red string, all we can see of this figure, and he patiently awaits Xie Lian’s decision as to whether to accept his help. All the signs point to the obvious – this is the main love interest!

Xie Lian eventually decides to take the stranger’s hand; he senses no threat from him, after all, in fact, the man seems “patient”, “well mannered”, taking “utmost care” with Xie Lian as if he’s “afraid of hurting him”. We’ve met this man for just a few paragraphs and already the narrative has described him more kindly than either Mu Qing or Feng Xin, Xie Lian’s friends of almost a thousand years.

Xie Lian, trying to figure out who this man is, pretends to trip; the man gently catches him, and Xie Lian is able to see the silver vambraces he wears on his arms. They’re decorated with “maple leaves, butterflies, and savage beasts” – the first two being major symbols of this character, as is the color red – he also notices the man is wearing clothes and jewelry that mark him as someone from beyond the Central Plains – i.e., as someone not of the dominant culture of the region, possibly an outsider.

The two of them walk slowly and carefully through the woods; all the monsters are terrified of this new person, unwilling to attack; When Xie Lian prepares to defend himself, the stranger taps his hand, as if to tell him all is well. He doesn’t speak – perhaps trying to hide his identity – and all we can really learn of him is his appearance, his “vividly red robe”, “black leather boots” with silver chains that clink as he walks.

His steps are “nonchalant but sprightly”, described as youthful, a word that will often be associated with Hua Cheng. Our love interest is, in fact, a ghost, and much much later we’ll learn he died before he ever turned eighteen – all the references to his youthful behavior and appearance are likely because of this. But while he seems young in spirit, he has confidence, he walks as if “nothing … could stand in his way”.

On they walk, Hua Cheng leading the way into the depths of the forest, to the domain of the ghost groom that Xie Lian happens to be looking for. As they walk, Hua Cheng opens an umbrella – another symbol heavily associated with him – as it starts to rain. The whole scene is “bewitchingly romantic and deeply affectionate”, in the words of the narrative – clearly, how Xie Lian himself feels. In spite of himself, he’s clearly interested in this odd stranger who should be suspicious given the circumstances, but Xie Lian just can’t seem to see him as a threat.

Just as their walk ends, and the stranger steps aside to let him go, Xie Lian tries to capture him; before he can, the figure erupts into “thousands of silver butterflies” that scatter “into a breeze of silver twinkling stars”… Again, the language is romantic, and beautiful; clearly these butterflies are related to the one Xie Lian first saw when he came to the mountain. And just like back then, he thinks that the sight of these creatures is “as beautiful as a fantastic dream”.

Hua Cheng, we’ll come to learn, is a very dreamlike, butterfly like being. As a symbol, these creatures are often used to represent the ephemeral, the temporary, especially with regards to human lives and spirits. In Japanese games like Fatal Frame 2, butterflies represent the actual souls of deceased people – they are used in poetry, philosophy, and storytelling as symbols of dreams, of souls, of the passing of time and the fragility of human life. As something small, beautiful, and fragile, which only lives a short time, the butterfly is the perfect symbol for a complex mix of beliefs about humanity and our eternal fates.

It’s a potent symbol for Hua Cheng, for he too is ephemeral. We’ll learn throughout HOB that he’s actually been fluttering in and out of Xie Lian’s life for hundreds of years; often being separated from him not by choice, but by poor circumstances. He’s a ghost, he’s died at least once, and his spirit has suffered and faded at various times. As a character, he also flutters in and out of the story itself; though he spends at least half the narrative with Xie Lian, they are often separated, sometimes through difficult or even tragic circumstances. All this to say – the butterfly as a fragile, ephemeral creature matches Hua Cheng exactly – as a being who has died and been reborn, changed and transformed. He is also in far more danger as a character than our protagonist is.

Just as quickly as he appeared, Hua Cheng disappears again. Xie Lian is left stunned in his wake, deeply impressed by his short appearance, mystified as to who he could be. But he has a mission to complete – one that has suddenly become easier since this ghostly stranger just walked him up to the front door of the ghostly groom.

This becomes clear to Xie Lian when he finds the bodies of all seventeen of the victims, the deceased brides lined up in a row inside of a dilapidated temple. This is a temple to the god of the north, Pei Ming, who was briefly mentioned earlier when our trio went looking for his temple and couldn’t find one. Now here it is, in the middle of the woods, full of corpses and ghostly energy. Clearly something is up.

But before Xie Lian can figure out much, the mob of obnoxious humans looking to make a quick buck catch up to him. Still led by Xiao Pengtou, the group quickly floods into the temple and starts causing trouble, ignoring all the warnings Xie Lian gives them. At first, they dismiss him entirely – he is dressed as a woman – but once they realize what he’s doing, Xiao Pengtou accuses him of attempting to cut them out, to keep the prize for himself.

The poor deceased brides don’t fair much better. The men start making lewd comments – calling one a hussy, commenting on their looks, daring each other to feel them up. The leader tells his men to only take the better looking corpses since their families might still be alive and willing to pay for the bodies. It’s all incredibly crude and selfish, and it’s all Xie Lian can do to try and corral these idiots before the real murderer shows up.

Xiao Ying is also among the crowd; she tries to get the men to listen to Xie Lian, but they care even less about her. It becomes clear why she’s here when the men drag a young injured boy out of the woods, claiming they’ve caught the ghost killer.

Obviously, they haven’t; Xiao Ying explains that this is just a local homeless boy, a poor injured waif she’s been taking care of. Because he’s ugly and disfigured, he hides in the woods, stealing food in order to survive. Xiao Ying’s been sneaking up the mountain to provide for him, and when she heard others in the village claiming that the “ugly freak” on Mt Yujun was the ghost killer, she knew he was being wrongly accused.

Xiao Pengtou immediately accuses her of being in cahoots with the ghost; of course, he just wants the money, and an easy mark, he doesn’t care about justice or the safety of others. Both Xiao Ying and the young boy are dismissed as “ugly freaks” – the phrase gets thrown around a lot; and Xie Lian notices that both of them cower from the other villagers, as if “they were afraid to step into the light, afraid to see other people”. It’s a pitiful state of affairs.

It’s also not going to solve this mystery. Xie Lian knows that something actually sinister is hiding in the woods somewhere, he just doesn’t know what yet. The clues are piling up, however; the brides the monster targets are always smiling, happy to be married; the ghost has hidden away inside the temple of Pei Ming, a handsome male god known for his dalliances with women. If the murderer is not a vengeful groom, perhaps it could be a disgruntled bride…?

The truth is revealed – it is a woman, not a man, killing all these poor young brides. A ghostly figure appears, walking not on her legs but on her knees – her limbs are broken. All the clues are pieced together to identify the ghost as Xuan Ji, former lover of the god Pei Ming, when he was still a mortal man.

The name Xuan Ji combines the symbol for oath or declaration with the word for concubine – a pretty meaningful name. We learn that long ago she was once a mortal woman and a general, fighting a losing battle against an enemy nation. Eventually defeated by General Pei Ming, she finds her life spared by her former enemy, a dashing and heroic man she starts an affair with.

But while the man was only interested in a passing affair, Xuan Ji wanted to share the rest of her life with him. The woman became obsessed with Pei Ming, to the point she disabled her own legs so he would find her more pitiful. But it didn’t work; eventually she died, returning as a vengeful spirit obsessed with catching Pei Ming’s attention. She burned down his temples, and when that didn’t work, she started killing brides, all to make her former lover descend from heaven to face her.

Xie Lian and Xuan Ji square off; though he does his best, he’s not able to defend everyone. Xiao Pengtou, the obnoxious chauvinist who caused so much trouble, tries to make a run for it down the mountain with the young boy in order to earn the bounty. Though he knows the boy is innocent, he doesn’t care. “everyone down the mountain” said he was the ghost groom, “so he was”. So long as everyone believes it, he can get paid, and that’s all that matters to him. Fortunately, before he can enact this foul plan, Xuan Ji catches him, and he gets his head ripped off by for his trouble. Ironic considering his name.

Xiao Ying, the innocent young girl who’s been trying her best to help this whole time, also tragically passes away. She tries to help Xie Lian, to no avail; not only is she unable to get close before Xuan Ji attacks her, her actions weren’t even useful, since Xie Lian didn’t need her help.

Recognizing the fatal nature of her injuries, Xie Lian lies; tells her it was her attack that really turned the tides around. She sees what he’s doing, however. She knows she was useless, and she knows she’s not going to be able to recover. Her final words are hard and heart breaking – her life has been long and difficult, with few good days; she’s perhaps been very unlucky, and yet she still… still what? Wanted to live? Hoped to see a better tomorrow? Xiao Ying’s last wish is left vague, but we’re given the impression that her long, difficult life still had a small bright spot of hope in it; like her namesake, the firefly, the tiny pinprick of light in the dark.

Xie Lian thinks, you’re stronger than me. We don’t know it yet, but our protagonist is actually incapable of dying – and he’s suffered fates far worse than death. At least for right now, he doesn’t seem to have that same hope Xiao Ying did, for a better tomorrow; or else it’s been buried so far down he’s struggling to find it for himself. You could even read into this the worst possible option: that Xie Lian has long since stopped wishing for a tomorrow, that he’s actively uninterested in being alive. He’s just going through the motions because he has no other choice, and because he doesn’t wish to suffer any more than he already has.

The girl who only wanted to help, suffered and struggled and died, accomplishing nothing. It’s a sad mirror to Xie Lian’s life, reflecting his own accomplishments as a human and a god, and it’s not the last time we’ll see characters whose fates reflect his own.

Once Xuan Ji is defeated, the other humans finally settle down. Without Xiao Pengtou to instigate them, they’re all suddenly much calmer; with the “lead instigator gone”, no one speaks against Xie Lian anymore, following his lead. It’s as if they all “just had a nightmare”, “acted as if possessed”.

We’ve just gotten a small glimpse of a much larger theme, tying into the ideas of societal pressure and the dangers of gossip – when those things go far enough to become a mob mentality, when a few people and a strong enough idea can twist a peaceful community into something foul and violent. If Xie Lian hadn’t stopped them, the crowd might’ve tried to string up Xiao Ying and the poor boy she cared for, only to then be killed by Xuan Ji themselves.

Xuan Ji, finally captured, continues to scream and vent her feelings at the godly statue of Pei Ming nearby; and then at the deputy general Pei Ming sends to face her, his own descendant, Pei Xiu, also known as Pei Junior. The woman claims she betrayed her own country for Pei Ming, that she lost everything because of him; Pei Junior says his ancestor refused to use the information Xuan Ji tried to give him, determined to defeat his enemies honorably.

Ultimately, who can say who is right or wrong? We weren’t there, we don’t know what promises these two made to each other in the dark. All that we can know is that a lot of innocent people got caught in the crossfire. Having caught the ghost, Xie Lian has completed his first mission as a newly ascended god, and can return to the heavens to report his victory.

Every story in HOB will play out similarly to this episode: with selfish people behaving poorly, instigating violence against the innocent; with mobs acting out monstrous deeds while insisting on their own righteousness; innocent people caught in the crossfire of the powerful, all while gossip and rumor fans the flames. The cycle repeats, over and over again, all the while our hero is often left unsure of what to do or how to fix things, if they can even be fixed.

All these episodes will tie into major figures in heaven; Xuan Ji had history with Pei Ming, and while he wasn’t exactly the villain it didn’t portray him well, either. These stories will reveal the cracks in the perfect facade of the gods.

Pei Ming is one piece of a set of three, a trio of gods called the Three Tumors. While Xie Lian’s past is the biggest element of the plot, another big portion is these three gods, their past misdeeds, and the problems they create for Xie Lian.

The Chinese symbols used for the ‘Three Tumors’ includes the word for poison. In certain strands of Buddhism, there’s a concept called the Three Poisons, the three “roots” of suffering which are essentially the causes of all our negative behaviors and states of mind.

It is these ‘roots’ that Xie Lian will be digging out as he takes on more quests and solves more problems, and most of them will tie back into these three major gods. Pei Ming is only the first – the story of Xuan Ji obviously relating to the Buddhist poison of raga, or attachment: physical worldly desires, including sexual desire.

The episode of Xuan Ji comes to a close. Xie Lian has one last meeting with his friend’s subordinates – his former friends in disguise of course – which gives a little bit more info about them both. Mu Qing as Fu Yao warns Xie Lian about the heavens: there aren’t many trustworthy people worth meeting there, he says. Xie Lian, listening to him, gets the feeling he’s speaking from experience, that perhaps he’s been bullied by the other gods. Knowing that this is Mu Qing, it’s confirmation that even six hundred years later, no one in the heavens will let him forget where he came from.

Of course Feng Xin disguised as Nan Feng has to disagree. He calls Mu Qing’s words “inflammatory”, says there’s good and bad everywhere – but how much does he really know about heaven? In the first chapter, Ling Wen told us that Feng Xin actually spends very little time in heaven; most days he’s wandering the human world. So who would actually know what heaven is like?

It’s just another glimpse into the nature of both of them – despite being a rude and rough edged guy, Mu Qing does try to give Xie Lian his honest advice, from his own experience; of course, Feng Xin, determined to see Mu Qing’s feelings as mere bitterness, disagrees. He’s not wrong exactly, but he is naive, as he just doesn’t realize how much Mu Qing’s background has affected his life – he’s been insulated from that world by his own slightly higher background, and his distance from the heavens.

The books themselves will, in fact, prove Mu Qing right – most of the gods we meet will turn out to be two faced in one way or another; many of them will be enemies at some point, and some are in fact dastardly villains. By the end of the series, Feng Xin’s words will seem foolishly naive.

But for now, the three part ways, and Xie Lian ascends back to heaven to report on his mission. He explains what happened and why, and mentions the strange man he met on the mountain, accompanied by silver butterflies.