TGCF meta: Trauma, compassion, and what it means to truly know something
It happened! It happened! It finally happened! The idiots confessed! Finally, Hualianās shared brain cell can stop wallowing in denial!
Okay, I know we like to joke about Xie Lian being a dumb jock with no emotional intelligence, but I beg to differ. Heās deeply wounded, broken and scarred in ways that make it hard for him to internalize othersā love and care for him, but he is still deeply empathetic, and damned if he aināt a smart cookie.
I think Xie Lian knew Hua Cheng was courting him. Pretty much from the get-go.
He āknewā this fact like one āknowsā that it would be better to have 8 hours of sleep, or that our friends donāt secretly hate us. He āknewā this in his rational, deductive mind, but couldnāt let it seep down to his heart, couldnāt let it be true on an emotional level.
āBut what about the āspecial personā Hua Cheng is supposedly into?ā you might ask. āDoesnāt Xie Lian think Hua Cheng loves someone else?ā
Well, yes. And no. I think Xie Lian knows at least in part that this person is him, but at the same time, he cannot accept that the figure in Hua Chengās mind is truly who he is. Itās certainly no stretch of the imagination for Xie Lian to think this way: Back when he was first constructing Puji shrine in Chapter 13, we have the following exchange:
Xie Lian lightly coughed once before saying, āAh, this monastery is for the Xian Le Crown Prince.ā
Everyone was miffed, āWho is that?ā
Xie Lian said, āIā¦ā¦I also donāt know. I think heās a Crown Prince.ā
The crown prince Xie Lian once was is now alien to him; he no longer knows who that naive, idealistic young man was. I think Xie Lian believes that this āspecial personā is an idealized version of himself, someone long dead and past. All of this tension leading up to the confession is less about Xie Lian coming to realize that Hua Cheng is attracted to him, and more about Xie Lian being able to reconnect with his past self and believe that he is worthy of love, whether or not he measures up to an abstract ideal.
I think Xie Lian became aware very early on that Hua Cheng was interested in him, maybe even as soon as he learned of the identity of the hand that reached out to him in the bridal carriage. At first, he was suspicious of the demon kingās motives, as should be expected of him. However, once he grew used to Hua Chengās unyielding devotion, his coping mechanisms and lack of self-confidence began to kick in and deflect the attention: as one does, when one has internalized negative self-talk to the extent that compassion cannot absorb, that love can only bounce off of oneās shell.
It is fitting, then, that the confession happens in Mount Tonglu, a cursed place where Xie Lian is forced to reckon with his trauma and dive deep into his paralyzing self-doubt. Itās here, through all the pain, that Xie Lian can reconnect with the part of himself that he thought lost, the part that Hua Cheng coaxes out with his steadfast presence.
I think that if Tian Guan Ci Fu can be summed up in a sentence, Mei Nian Qing has it best: āWhen humans ascend, they are still human; when they fall, they are still, human.ā Although Xie Lian has become vastly wiser since the time the head priest said those words, Iām not sure he truly understood them until Hua Cheng entered into his life: until then, he was either an arrogant young man who believed himself infallible, or a walking shade whose only purpose was to survive: infinitely, irredeemably fallible.
It is Hua Chengās love that reconnects Xie Lian with his inner humanity.
Elaboration on this theory under the cut, along with nitty-gritty textual evidence.
