Why did I use square format? It was horrible to work with. But it’ll make putting it on insta easier, I guess. Most time was spent on that fourth page making Mu Qing look as much like the emoji as possible.
Feng Xin and Mu Qing have been friends for a long time before the events of the novel.
AND
Theywere working together through out a large portion of it.
What isn’t a theory and is fact:
Feng Xin and Mu Qing have been going on adventures together for a long time and are very close, whether they call that friendship or not.
Proof:
—–
“It’s been a long time since the three of us did something like this, huh!”
“Do you mean fighting side by side, or running for our lives?” Mu Qing questioned.
“Both!” Xie Lian said.
“We clearly do this all the time!” Feng Xin exclaimed.
“Really?” Xie Lian wondered.
But, when some things come out into the open, the mindset would be completely different. Xie Lian laughed for a moment,
——-
I think a lot of us misunderstood this exchange to mean “We, the three of us, have been doing this a lot lately.” But that’s not what it means. It means “We, Mu Qing and I, obviously do this all the time.”
That’s the only interpretation that makes Xie Lian’s next line make sense.
The fact that they go on adventures together all the time makes complete sense in retrospect. They know each other. As mortals they only spent something like 5 years together. Is that really enough for those two to speak to each other with their eyes, to seamlessly work together, to speak in unison? They don’t actually do that with Xie Lian, do they? Only each other.
So, why have they been so aggressive the whole book? The book is saying It’s because of Xie Lian.
Mu Qing thought Xie Lian hated him all these years (something fed by a certain other asshole).
—
“He told me that if I was suspicious, then even if you knew I didn’t do it, you would still go with the flow and not save me. Because you hate me, you wouldn’t believe in me.”
“He?” Xie Lian understood who this “he” was.
Mu Qing continued, “Even though I didn’t agree to help him, but everything he’s said, I’ve thought of it too. I’ve always thought deep down, you hated me, you despised me, so I, I’ve always…anyway, you don’t actually think that. I’m glad.”
———-
Mu Qing’s unfinished line is probably: “I’ve always tried to hate you back”, right? And he couldn’t. He tried but instead spent the book frantically protecting him, advising him, warning him.
Feng Xin eagerly wants to reunite with Xie Lian. So imagine when you’re like 20, you have a falling out a person you feel very complicated about. You never got along with that other guy so whatever.
But then Other Guy and you both end up in heaven together. And you hang out for 800 years. You become friends. Even if you don’t call it that, you are fucking CLOSE. Definitely this is the person you are closest to in the world. You go on fucking adventures all the time.
Imagine your associate of over 800 years (again, 800 > any amount of time Xie Lian spent with either of them) is eager to see the guy who hates you. But, and extra fucked up, you want to show Xie Lian how cool and nice you are now because you don’t hate him, you want him to forgive you and like you. (You bring him medicine, feel very smug when Feng Xin hasn’t even shown u- oh there he is.)
And then…Xie Lian and Feng Xin seem like they don’t, actually, like you. And Feng Xin forgives EVERYTHING Xie Lian does! You are fighting constantly.
Oh and some weird fucked up shit with a baby ghost or something. Absolute nightmare. You look terrible and Feng Xin seems to be believing every shitty thing about you.
This relationship is now in a crisis of epic proportions and the actual world is falling apart.
But from the outside, this looks like what Xie Lian remembers, which he repeats several times. Xie Lian assumed they were exactly the same as when he last saw them, and yes their followers fight. But do we see them fight about anything that isn’t related to the period when they were with Xie Lian? Do they mention any thing in the past 800 years that they dispute over? No. Nothing. Xie Lian is wrong about things about 50000 times a chapter. He has to constantly revise what he’s been seeing and this is one of the final massive revisions.
Doesn’t it make more sense that Fu Yao and Nan Feng appearing is a coordinated effort? They don’t give the other away, they arrive as one, they cover for each other. They work together to bully Xie Lian into a fucking dress, for fuck’s sake. How is that possible if they’re not friends, whether they call it that or not?
This also explains why the two don’t have a reconciliation scene the way that Xie Lian and Mu Qing do. They don’t need one. They were fine except for this clusterfuck of old wounds that, like most dudes, they hadn’t dealt with.
Anyway. Some stuff to think about it. Frankly, it made me a feel a lot better to know they weren’t alone all those years and at least had one another. So while you’re reading the new english translation, try to think about them through this lens of “these two have been together for 800 years and are working together”.
begging people to read chapter 243 with their eyes and actual brains. Please. this and the original post it linked to (that hopeflly that person realized was all fucking wrong) is what made me foam at the mouth and start editing the wiki myself. an entire book about how you shouldn’t listen to rumors without evidence, that nothing is what it seems, and 80% of the fandom accepts the first version they hear and ignore the rest.
The very introduction that summarizes Xie Lian’s myth is promptly shown to be false.
No one in the book is what they seem. No one. And the fandom just goes “yeah Mu Qing abandoned him when he got kicked out”. A book about accepting things that have happened, realizing you were mistaken, moving on but not suppressing and you’re all so fucking bad at it.
pop quiz: how did Mu Qing meet Xie Lian?
If you said: while he was sweeping and Xie Lian heard him repeating mantras, then guess what? You’re wrong! Read it again!
True or False: the first time Mu Qing ever apologized was at Tong'lu.
FALSE. He apologized like 3 fucking times in the book.
Does Hua Cheng always tell Xie Lian the truth? “Yes but he bends it a little”. No. Wrong. No, he flat out lies. Repeatedly.
Is Hua Cheng always right about people? No.
No one is ever always right about anyone. Even the narrator seems to be an absolute dipshit making things up freely.
Oh and the Brocade Immortal is Bai Jing’s ashes that he gave Ling Wen. READ CHAPTER 243. i get that you skipped over it because it wasn’t about gay dudes and you were waiting for Hua Cheng or Feng Xin or Mu Qing to come back and say something, but read it. jesus.
The book has so many layers and I realize something I missed every time I reread a part of it. But I need this fandom to at least get on the general same page here with what’s written or at least admit you don’t know the full story or haven’t figured it out yet.
I’ll make a post later about the fengqing thing i realized I (and most of us) were misunderstanding. But I just suddenly fell into a rage.
