I just wanted to talk more about this picture that took me ages to finish, so I'm gonna explain all the stuff I threw into it under a cut:
This is what this painting is based off! Kali, goddess of death and destruction, stepping on her husband, Lord Shiva, who laid down on the ground to calm her and stop her rampage. But rather than a sword and a head, Xie Lian is holding what he's known for, a sword and a flower, as the Flower Crown Prince. But the sword isn't just a sword; it's Fang Xin, full of Xie Lian's blood(golden, as a god) from all the times Xie Lian stabbed himself and been stabbed, and the vengeful ghosts who want to cause the plague circle around it.
Xie Lian did don the White No-Face mask and nearly caused a new plague. He wore it again, albeit by force, in the kiln, and after defeating Jun Wu's White No-Face, he burst out the kiln by himself. He effectively became a Ghost King then, and fully became king of all three realms - The strongest god in the heavens, the strongest ghost among ghosts, the ultimate mortal (as an Immortal, a Xian) among mortals. But of course, no matter what he is, no matter what he's doing, even at his worst, Hua Cheng finds him mesmerizing; he only wants to smile up at him. And if he can be a stepping stone for Xie Lian to stomp on- that's all he ever wanted, anyway.
Close up, Xie Lian's vaguely smiling on one end of his face and frowning on the other, and on the frowning side, golden tears are falling from his eye. Personally, I found Jun Wu always being the White No-face rather unconvincing; there seemed to be a pretty heavy divide between the talking, taunting White No-Face that was tangible and that others could witness, and the White No-Face that does not speak, that only appears in shadows and hallucinations and in the mirror, and who even Hua Cheng cannot sense. I do fully believe that's a joint identity that both Jun Wu and Xie Lian have, similar to gods in mythology such as Sekhmet, who was the alter-ego of various goddesses like Isis and Hathor.
I threw in a lot of symbolism and references in this beyond that. I originally intended to have Xie Lian be wearing his masks like Kali wears the severed heads, but I couldn't make it look right so instead they drift off of Ruoye, showing off the three different faces Xie Lian's worn in his life. There's a recurrence of the number 3 in the story(three realms, three masks, three trips around the capital before Honghong-er falls, three ascensions, etc etc), which is why he's also holding 3 fingers up on both hands.
The ground is dried up as if a drought had happened, given the drought that's intrinsically connected to what caused his downfall. But at the same time, it's also covered in blood; it's a battlefield. In the background, you can see Mount Tonglu erupting, and Mount Taicang on the other end, with lanterns coming off somewhere just below the second highest peak - the cottage where Xie Lian waited for Hua Cheng.
I also made sure to showcase that Xie Lian is the king of all three realms. He is on the ground of the mortal realm, spirit flames circle around him like they worship him, and merged in with the plague ghosts is the white-gold clouds of the heavens.
And of course, a painting that references religion and picks apart Xie Lian as a god wouldn't be complete without using his bamboo hat as a stand-in as a halo as seen in many, many religious artworks.
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