Now that i am fixated on he xuan and hua cheng’s dynamic, rereading the black water arc and seeing all of the tiny but meaningful ways they talk to each other is kind of a delight. I suppose on the surface it might seem that they’re kind of passive aggressive in their communication and at minimum are kind of prickly with each other. However, obviously all their face-to-face interactions are shown through the perspective of xie lian, who they need to convince that they are a legitimate god and the ghost king who kidnapped and tortured said god. they’d have to be pretty inept if they got along any better in front of a heavenly official… if you pay attention, it becomes clear how they’re actually always working together and helping each other out.
When shi qingxuan and “ming yi” first show up at the puqi shrine, hua cheng and ming yi react to each other with intense animosity and hua cheng tells ming yi to leave and not come back, and ming yi responds “coming here was not my choice!” The narration explains specifically that their reactions to each other must be because they had last met when hua cheng had kidnapped and tortured ming yi, at least as far as shi qingxuan and xie lian are concerned - so it seems to me that they are putting on a good act to help keep he xuan’s disguise up, while hua cheng is communicating objections to he xuan involving xie lian, and he xuan is responding that he doesn’t want to, but his hand has been forced by shi qingxuan.
Then when they’re going over shi qingxuan’s scrolls hua cheng corrects the mistakes that the kills attributed to the Reverend, and that actually some kills were his own and some were Black Water’s, and then has a pretty good time insulting Shi Wudu. All of that could be typical for Hua Cheng, and there also could be a lot of other double meanings read into it, but I just think that He Xuan probably enjoyed hearing that a lot. And when Hua Cheng describes how the Reverend goes after not only the prey but all its family and friends … something about it feels like he’s speaking for He Xuan’s benefit, speaking out loud all the things He Xuan can’t say yet about what happened to him so Shi Qingxuan has to be forced to deal with it, which I think would be a little satisfying for He Xuan. Hua Cheng seems to be giving him face, showing respect…
Then when they go through the array and Shi Qingxuan gets quite close to the truth of who meddled with the array, Hua Cheng starts babbling accusations and twisting logic so Shi Qingxuan gets confused and distracted and they move on. On the surface it looks like its because Hua Cheng could look guilty himself and he was showing that he wasn’t there to meddle or help, just to be with Xie Lian … but suspicion of Ming Yi was the most probable cause of the array taking them to a wrong place, and Hua Cheng’s contributions mean they barely consider it at all.
“What’s with that look? In my opinion, don’t you think Lord Earth Master is the most suspicious one?” said Hua Cheng.
Ming Yi’s eyes also swept over.
Hua Cheng added, “Instead of focusing on guessing who meddled after, what if the array he drew was wrong from the beginning? You don’t necessarily need a reason to do something. Lord Wind Master, you yourself are suspicious too.”
“Huh?” Shi Qingxuan had never thought the tables would turn on him, and pointed at himself. “Who? ME?!”
“Yeah. A thief crying thief is a common thing,” Hua Cheng said. “Just why have you come? If you and your esteemed brother are truly scared of the Reverend of Empty words, why were those rags cobbled together? It’s not a stretch of the imagination to think that the two of you schemed, and intentionally led us here.”
Just by looking at his expression, one could tell that he was cheekily gabbing nonsense; but he looked so confident that almost anyone would start doubting too. Shi Qingxuan was almost shaken.
(the last part ahahaha hua cheng <3)
Even in the novel as a whole - hua cheng and he xuan do a lot of things to benefit the other that otherwise they wouldn’t have wanted to. They always have a self-serving reason to pass it off as instead of “i just love my ghost king pal <3” but i firmly believe hua cheng and he xuan respect and *gasp* care about each other!!!
hua cheng lies to xie lian to support he xuan’s plans in the black water arc and i think it would take a LOT for hua cheng to do that. And in the last book, he xuan comes when hua cheng asks to help shi qingxuan hold together the spiritual array fighting the human face disease, that also is not something he would ever do lightly- even when he does come he seems very angry, as well as that this is the only time he shows his face around shi qingxuan again, and he hadn’t shown his face to anyone since his revenge but for this either.
Also in the last book, he xuan lets hua cheng trash his territory and pretty much smash apart his bonefish, and hua cheng says he can do this because of he xuan’s debt, but 1.) it doesn’t seem like he xuan is ever paying him back, or that there’s any kind of a collection deadline, he xuan just keeps taking more and more, 2.) hua cheng doesn’t seem liable to let someone take so much from him if he had wanted to be paid back, and 3.) hua cheng does not seem to care about any of his nice possessions and wealth, he’s pretty careless with the rare treasures he has, his own mansion burning down (twice?), and so on. He seems pretty unfussed about spending his resources as if there is always more where that came from. (credit to @muigiel for this observation) So i do think this is a purposeful mislead. Like the debt is a good cover for them to do nice things for each other :3 (i love them)
I think in general in tgcf ghosts and gods are not as they appear, and the more i look into ghosts in this book the more full of goodness, hope, love, and life they seem to be. (qi rong is an outlier and should not be counted. Ok but he is loved by guzi who apparently finds him to be a better father than the original (omg i’m so sorry guzi) so he does count a little i guess?)
I think a good indicator of how the actions of these ghost kings should be taken is given in the moment with hua cheng, xie lian and guzi where guzi is afraid of hua cheng on sight, and xie lian says, “don’t worry, this gege is a good person” and hua cheng says “no, i’m a very bad person” while making a cute little butterfly fly over to guzi. in hua cheng’s and he xuan’s responses to each other it’s as if they’re saying “i’m a very bad bad person” while making little butterflies fly toward each other. if we miss that I think we’ve missed something important about the story.
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