#hob readthrough

[tgcf-en-abandoned]

Chapter 8

Translation at Sakhyulations.

We left off with Xie Lian dealing with the best-looking hand in the world. He continues dealing with it. He's smart and patient and doesn't act rashly, but apparently the elegant hand's owner is also willing to wait to the end of the world, and Xie Lian loses this particular game of chicken.

Xie Lian's quite good at trying to figure out this person: he fakes a fall to grab the person's wrist, walks slowly to scope out the person, and so on, but the person's wrists are decorated by silver vambraces and he's willing to walk as slowly as Xie Lian wants to go.

Side note on the "Central Plains" thing: the Central Plains is the Yellow River valley's lower reaches, the cradle of Chinese civilization and considered the center of the world in Ancient China. This is also where the endonym for China, 中国 "middle/central country", and its English translation "Middle Kingdom" come from. More broadly, the Central Plains refer to Chinese civilization and China proper. So our guest's vambraces are not Chinese in design, but rather from further afield.

Barbarian vambraces, hands full of evil intentions, and wolves whimper when they see him – yet he's also the most gentle and considerate bridegroom possible, never hurrying Xie Lian one bit, reassuring him with a pat on the hand, and it seems he's very happy to be walking with Xie Lian, based on the bounce in his step.

Silver vambraces, deathly pale hands, a red robe, black leather boots.

This guy actually……just with a single step……crushed this entire array……into useless dust……

...and dear readers, that is the point at which Xie Lian.exe crashed.

This situation and this scenery were both demonically alluring. However, this teenager held his hand with one hand and held up an umbrella with the other as he slowly led him forward. For no reason at all, this made their stroll seem romantic and flirtatious, like they were sincerely in love and inseparable.

Hmmmm. Is this perhaps what we call ... foreshadowing? And then they stop and the teenager lifts Xie Lian's veil, like a bridegroom on the wedding night. Of course, Xie Lian decides that the best way to react is to send out Ruoye to attack. Way to ruin the mood, Xie Lian.

The teenager shatters into a thousand silver butterflies that "scattered into a burst of silvery light, looking like a glistening and dazzling stellar wind" and the author and translator really brought out their best game here. That is one beautiful image. Even Xie Lian is distracted from his efficiency and matter-of-factness by this marvelous scene of fantasy.

Xie Lian quite accurately realizes that Romantic Walks Teen isn't the ghost bridegroom from two pieces of evidence, and again shows his wits. The question then remains, why did Romantic Walks Teen help him and bring him to the temple? (Yet the reason Xie Lian is really there is more important than this question. Well done, Xie Lian, putting first things first.)

General Pei, aka General Ming Guang, is the owner of the temple we're looking at! And the place the missing brides have been stowed. It's seriously creepy, how they've all been well-preserved (human corpses decay quite a bit faster than the brides have) and are all smiling with rigor mortis.

The ghost bridegroom is once again preceded by the creepy song! Xie Lian hides with the brides and has a momentary crisis about being a Real Man, Very Tall, and thus being conspicous amidst the ladies, but he's lacking the sky-high hairstyle and phoenix crowns of some of the brides, so he's camouflaged okay enough. (As for how tall Xie Lian is, he's 178cm as per extracanonical material, so he's tall for a Chinese man, but not ludicrously tall like most of the author's protagonists.)

Tidbit: the little martial gods dress in black. Xie Lian is apparently a very convincing crossdresser, for the villagers who wanted to search the mountain take him for a bride. Then again, he's dressed like one, and wedding clothing is rather gendered.

Fu Yao and Nan Feng are happy to obey Xie Lian's orders without objection now! Character development! But the ghost bridegroom has escaped, and we're all suspecting each other of being the ghost bridegroom now. (Come to think of it, has it been said how it escaped? Though I suppose that'll be chapter 11.)

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[heavenofficialsbl]

Guys I'm so behind, what is my life

So I still need to do my liveblog for chapter 12 part 2, and now chapter 13 is out ALREADY

DAMN

Alright I'm gonna have to jiggity jam through this schtuff

Please go easy on me, I'm running on so little sleep

[tgcf-en-abandoned]

Chapter 7

Translation at Sakhyulations

Sorry for the delay, I've been busy IRL and trying to finish a few other projects! We continue with the “The Ghost Holds a Wedding, The Crown Prince Climbs Onto the Marriage Sedan” mini-arc.

Xie Lian's adventures in cross-dressing continue! They've gone to the official whose daughter was most recently taken, and requested some military officials who are proficient in martial arts and thus might be able to run away from the ghost groom if necessary. Well done.

Aaaand the military officals dislike the heaven officials. Of course. Here are some lunatics who're stealing the show! I do wonder how Fu Yao and Nan Feng managed to convince that official they weren't just mentally ill and were actually heaven officials. Also those military officials are being really passive-aggressive at Xie Lian for the other two's crimes – "as long as the person sitting in the sedan chair was somewhat delicate, they would have already vomited themselves to death." ??? omg. So dramatic.

The sedan chair tilted and jolted. Sure enough, they heard the Xie Lian inside sigh softly. A few of those military officials couldn’t help but secretly feel pleased.

Outside, Fu Yao asked in a cool tone, “Young lady, what’s wrong? Marrying at such an elderly age, you’re happy to the point of tears?”

FU YAO NOOO. This is hilarious. Snarky and sadistic. He's the more present of him and Nan Feng, but he's mean.

Xie Lian shows his skill at defusing tension. “Maids who are accompanying the marriage.” indeed. He flicks the little martial gods on the fingers to get them to tone down the egos, and also humiliate them just a little to appease the sedan bearers. He's really very good socially.

He also keeps his head cool. A child's laughter? He asks whether anyone else can hear it, or if it's restricted to his ears. Creepy singing children? "If an ordinary bride heard this kind of voice in the middle of the road, I’m afraid she’ll only be scared to death." Well. Sakhyu dug up the song, decide for yourselves. :P

Another note: Nan Feng seems to think about things and their causes assuming that everything is as it is. Fu Yao seems to think about things and their causes assuming that everything is an intentional deception. "It could be possible that it’s deliberately trying to make you do the wrong thing. Perhaps, smiling is the real way to come out unscathed. However, its goal is to trick others to cry."

“Ever since I sat onto the sedan, I’ve never stopped smiling.”

Xie Lian, are you happy that you're finally getting married at such an elderly age of over 800? :P

The action scene starts, first with wolves, which apparently don't roam on Mount Yu Jun. Combined with the bit on the child singing, it's a decently effective horror scene. The wolves, one by one, surround them. The martial artists are of course more than willing to be distracted by the opponent they can actually punch in the face.

Base slaves are pretty terrifying: low combat effectiveness, but there's a squillion of them, and they're nigh-impossible to kill. Very tenacious. And now we have a hundred of them for Fu Yao and Nan Feng to deal with, and our poor Middle Heaven small martial gods are in trouble because of so many of these frustrating things.

Nan Feng keeps telling Xie Lian to stay in. Perhaps he's afraid the Ghost Bridegroom will smell a rat should Xie Lian exit the sedan and it'll all have been for naught. Perhaps he actually wants to protect Xie Lian.

Hmm. Nan Feng is very angry when he sees Xie Lian use a magical artefact. I wonder whether it's a feeling of betrayal that what he thought was true wasn't, or some other reason.

When Nan Feng said those words, his tone unexpectedly made him recall Feng Xin’s appearance when he got mad in the past.

I smell a rat. These two martial gods have more than meets the eye. They may not be Feng Xin and Mu Qing, but ... there is something there.

Fu Yao is cold and pragmatic (“If you want to talk, beat back this wave of enemies before doing it!” and “Since he can use that silk cloth, for a short while nothing will happen. If you have time to argue with him, wouldn’t it be better spent settling that group before returning to help? I’m leaving.”) while Nan Feng is more argumentative and perhaps even concerned. (Lol tsuntsun Fu Yao.)

As they fought, Fu Yao began speaking with a tone of hatred, “Ridiculous. If it were not for me……”

He stopped talking. The two of them glanced at each other, their gazes both completely strange. Fu Yao swallowed the rest of his words before turning his head. For the time being, the two of them put away this topic and didn’t mention it again. Instead, they only continued hurrying.

Yeah, there is something going on here.

Xie Lian's guess that the base slaves and wolves are only there to chase off/kill the entourage was correct, and he's willing to walk alone to the lion's den. The person who comes to meet him sounds like a young man or teenager, and isn't what Xie Lian expected: instead of an attack, a hand given to him for him to grasp. Also, it's one good-looking hand:

The fingers and joints of that hand were well-defined. Red thread was tied around the third finger. On that slender and pale-white hand, it looked as if it was a colourful and bright knot of fate.

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[tgcf-en-abandoned]

Chapter 6

Translation at Sakhyulations! Spoilers through chapter 10 for this one.

We resume our route back to the backlog. Chapter six is the start of the "The Ghost Holds a Wedding, The Crown Prince Climbs Onto the Marriage Sedan" mini-arc! It's an intriguing title, and while the latter part is purely descriptive, the former is more poetic.

We resolve our cliffhanger with the reveal that the "bride" whose head fell off was just an effigy. It's a remarkably good way of trying to trick the ghost bridegroom to come out – it's not likely to succeed, but it's a good first step that doesn't risk any poor girl's life. Too bad these guys' effigy disintegrated...

In heightened tensions, a scream would cause chaos to erupt, yes, since all these wandering white knights want to be the one to vanquish the ghost bridegroom. In such heightened tensions, it's also reasonable that a sedan bearer would scream when stepping on an arm, even if it's from the effigy. Even if the effigy isn't life-like enough to win Fu Yao's approval.

Our tea sommelier helpfully infodumps to us that the crowd is there because a missing bride's father is offering money for clues on finding his daughter. Good customer service even towards people he considers bugfuck insane! Well done, tea sommelier. My favorite bit part so far.

Then, he heard Fu Yao speak in a repulsed manner, “If I was the ghost bridegroom and someone gifted me an ugly thing like this, I would just wipe out this town.”

Fu Yao is a bit alarming here. Given that he's from Mu Qing's very status-conscious palace, I think he's picked up a bunch of his superior's hang-ups. Xie Lian was right to reprimand him, though WTF is up with Fu Yao constantly rolling his eyes. Like. "Only five times a day" ? And then Nan Feng snipes at him with “Even if you give him a goal of rolling his eyes only fifty times a day, he still wouldn’t be able to accomplish it!”

Had there not been a youngster interrupting them, Fu Yao and Nan Feng would probably have argued with each other again, but the youngster points out that they've failed with the effigy (reasonable) and then calls for them to storm the mountain. This will probably fail, too, since the ghost bridegroom kidnaps the brides, not the rest of the wedding procession.

Fu Yao is remarkably good at alternate viewpoints – before, he pointed out that the bridegroom might actually be a woman, and now he points out that the reason for a face covered with bandages might not be overwhelming ugliness, but rather overwhelming beauty... Hm. (Also, given what we know as of chapter 10, could he perhaps have known more of what was going on than he let on?)

Little Ying establishes herself as a voice of reason early on (and tries to protect the boy she's protecting, the foreshadowing is real). The youngster establishes himself as sexist early on, too! Also brash. Huh, they asked Little Ying to sit on a sedan chair as a fake bride? I suppose that shows how ... disposable they consider her. Also no wtf dude why are you shoving her so much, asshole move.

Ah. This was the one who tore open her dress. He's certainly enough of an asshole to do it. Note how he goes for the "you're so ugly no-one would want to rape you tear open your dress" argument? Asshole.

Nan Feng is about to interfere, but Xie Lian gets there first! Well done, kicking the dude over and then inviting Little Ying to enjoy your protection!

Huh, the demonic arts are known here as well, but they can distinguish those from the divine power Nan Feng displays to collapse a pillar. Quite a wise choice to go for property destruction to cow them. And Fu Yao tries to introduce Nan Feng as being from the Tremendous Masculinity (Ju Yang) martial god's entourage. I just. No. LOL. No wonder they started fighting again.

The "remember to pay for the pillar" bit is hilarious, but also good, since ... that pillar must've been expensive. Someone put months of labor into that pillar! It was probably there for a reason beyond decoration!

Xie Lian is very tactful. Had Ling Wen asked me how the two small martial gods were doing, I'd have said that they needed management or something, not “Each of the two small martial gods have their own merits, and they’re both capable individuals.” Mu Qing apparently stalks the spirit communication array 24/7 just so he could snark at Xie Lian at any opportunity, which, lol. Very petty. Apparently Fu Yao didn't inform him of this adventure. Intriguing.

Finally, an infodump on demons' and ghosts' ranks! Fierce < Severe < Wrath < Devastation, or capable of killing a person, a household, a city, or a country, respectively. Our ghost bridergroom is a Wrath, aka a city-killer. This means all the stories of "I totally saw the ghost bridegroom, honest!" are false.

Ooh, conditional hurting. Interesting. Also appealing; threats that are selective in what they target are much more intriguing and scary than rampant destruction that cares not one whit what it's destroying.

Fu Yao does have a point that Ling Wen Palace Hall is being ... slow. Intentional sabotage? Sheer incompetence? Busy?

On a first read, Fu Yao and Nan Feng appear pretty indistinguishable, but they do differ. Nan Feng is much less willing to treat people as disposable/cares about people as people. Fu Yao ... rolls his eyes. Their argument over whether or not to hire a woman as a bait is illustrative.

The one thing they do agree on is that Xie Lian would be willing to disguise himself as a bride, lol. Too bad he's terrible at it! A proper and handsome boy in a woman's wedding dress, and Nan Feng cannot take it, this is too much of a transgression. Fu Yao just goes “If I was the ghost bridegroom and someone wanted to gift this kind of woman to me […] I’ll just kill this woman.”

Huh, some heavenly officials can transform their appearance. I'm 99% sure this'll come up later in some capacity.

At the other end, Nan Feng returned to the temple with a green face. After he finished cursing, he had cooled down a considerable amount, a habit that was almost exactly the same as the General he served under.

Hmm. Nan Feng is quite similar to the General he serves under, and when Mu Qing snarked at Xie Lian earlier, it was Nan Feng giving Xie Lian the spiritual energy, leaving Fu Yao to do whatever. Interesting. Let's see if we see Mu Qing and Fu Yao, or Feng Xin and Nan Feng, onpage at the same time.

The woman this dress was originally intended for had been quite petite. When Xie Lian wore it, although the waist area was unexpectedly quite fitting, […]

Lolwut. Xie Lian isn't that short (178cm), and petite woman would be like ... well, let's go to Body Visualizer. Assuming she's 150cm and 40kg (eyeballed based on making the figure look petite), she'd have a waist of 58cm. Putting that on the male body ...

Yeah.

Anyway, Little Ying is here to make Xie Lian look less like an alien! Or, well, return Xie Lian's outer robe, and then decides she might as well help Xie Lian with his "hobby". (It's actually hilarious how Xie Lian hurriedly reassures her he doesn't have this kind of hobby.)

Little Ying saves the day/night, and they set off into excitement! Xie Lian emerged veiled, and his little martial gods decided not to peek, lol. Save your sanity, kids.

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[tgcf-en-abandoned]

Chapter 9

Translation at Sakhyulations!

We skip forth to cover chapter 9! I'll return to ch 6-8 after this one, and cover all the new chapters as they come. The chapter title is "The Mountain's Locked Ancient Temple, The Forest of Hanging Corpses". We have come across the temple in prior instalments; the forest of hanging corpses we shall probably soon encounter.

Fu Yao asks the correct question in an appropriate tone and doesn't roll his eyes even once! Your Honor, surely this consists ample proof that Fu Yao is the ghost bridegroom!

Little Ying's appeals to Xie Lian are understandable – he's the one who might best recognize her and doesn't seem to hate her like the village men do (did she turn down their best friend's marriage proposal? or do they just find her repulsive because she's ugly?). Then:

When they heard this, everyone began looking over to stare at him. There were even some people who started to whisper things. In bits and pieces, Xie Lian heard phrases like, ‘kink’, ‘different from ordinary people’, ‘I can’t believe it’.

OMG. The bystanders think Xie Lian kinks on crossdressing. This is hilarious. And even Fu Yao and Nan Feng inch away!

Ah, so it was only because Little Ying is an OP makeup artist and made Xie Lian look like a believable female model. And Fu Yao and Nan Feng have the hots for him. Ahahaha...

The temple sequestered behind the wards was for General Ming Guang and thus unusable, okay. And the villagers built the replacement temple for Nan Yang, huh. Interesting. Smells fishy.

Then the random bystanders decide that Xie Lian, Fu Yao, and Nan Feng just want the reward, and ignore all the instructions. One of the cons of people thinking they're just insane rather than believing they're Heavenly Officials. The youth who's out for the reward is quite efficient albeit ruthlessly profit-hawking but um maybe listen to the words of warning? Be more cautious in your grave-robbing!

I'm actually a bit suspicious about Little Ying. She seems cut from a very different cloth to the rest of the bystanders; she might not be what she seems. In any case, she tries to help Xie Lian advise the others to not be idiots and get themselves killed, but to even less avail than Xie Lian.

Fu Yao and Nan Feng react to the idiot locals quite differently: Nan Feng just wants to beat some sense into them, but restrains himself, while Fu Yao is content to let them die of their own stupidity.

While I do subscribe to the Wei Wuxian school of "IDGAF what happens to me after I'm dead", it's generally not a good idea to pinch corpses' cheeks. If only for the hygiene issues. The youngster gets punished by the bandage critter throwing a rock at him, but why the hell did Little Ying try to take the blame for that?

These chapters actually do a pretty good job illustrating that the people who take up the offer to retrieve people in exchange for a reward really aren't doing it for the sake of anything except profit. Spot how they treat Xie Lian like competition, rather than a potential ally. Of course, then they get blood on their faces in the creepiest forest imaginable.

Ah, Fu Yao and Nan Feng identify the thing responsible for the forest! A dude called the "Green Ghost" likes stringing corpses on trees.

The teenager with the butterflies was guarding Xie Lian from the blood-rain with the umbrella! A brief consultation with Fu Yao and Nan Feng reveals that the Ghost Bridegroom is at Wrath level, and the Green Ghost is at Wrath-edging-on-Devastation level, but Mr. Tender Walk Through The Forest is apparently too much for Fu Yao and Nan Feng to deal with. Also too bad for them to explain, which is not a good way to get Xie Lian to cooperate with you, guys.

Xie Lian explained, “The owner of those silver butterflies didn’t reveal any malice. And if he had been hiding his evil intentions and is truly as scary as you make him out to be, then I’m afraid it’ll be hard for us to escape him when we’re within the Mount Yu Jun range. At this time, it’s best if someone stays back and guards this place. That’s why, it’s better if you return first and see if you can help me by sending over a rescue squad.”

Words of truth. Fu Yao trusts him and leaves, Nan Feng boggles.

The bystanders actually catch someone? Huh. A young buy with his head and face wrapped in bandages; doesn't sound very scary. Little Ying is colluding with him, I think, but mainly to hide him.

Xie Lian takes pity on the rough treatment the boy's subjected to. Apparently he's suffered from burns all over the face, which: painful. Then Xie Lian FINALLY tires of the troublemaking youngster and slaps him around a bit. Take charge, Xie Lian!

Huh, the Green Ghost is Qi Rong, and the name Qi Rong holds significance to Xie Lian. I don’t think it’s come up yet; let’s see what Qi Rong signifies.

Mount Yu Jun seems quite the tourist destination with suspicious persons. Little Ying's kind, and wants to protect the boy who can't even speak. (Poor thing. Is that due to his injuries, or something deeper?)

We return to the mystery of why there aren't any Ming Guang temples, and finally we get to see Xie Lian make a connection! But in typical fashion, we end on a cliffhanger and don't get to see what connection he makes, lol.

Random speculation: the Ghost Bridegroom is setting up a trap of some sort. Perhaps he wants a Heavenly Official whose energy to sponge off of? IDK. Or the Ghost Bridegroom is actually a dead bride, the Patient Zero of the deadness on the wedding day epidemic, so to speak. Be glad Fu Yao sodded off to get help!

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[tgcf-en-abandoned]

Chapter 1

Okay, let's start! Chapter one, here we go. Chapters whose numbers end in 1 will be tagged with the fandom’s tags; others only with “HOB readthrough”

Translation at Sakhyulations.

This is very much a prologue/intro chapter. Our Crown Prince (whose name isn't mentioned in this chapter...) is nice and dare I say kind, uninterested in power and more into helping people. Also gives a timescale: this happened 800 years before present.

Hm, so our Xian Le kingdom venerates "Martial God Heavenly Emperor Jun Wu". Later on, there's mentions that other places venerate other gods, martial or otherwise.

The Crown Prince sees saving a child's life as more important than the misfortune of interrupting the ceremony.

“Then the Heavens would be the ones who are wrong. Why should the people who are right apologize to the ones who are wrong?”

...okay, wow. That's one badass speech to hold, and I can totally see a 17-year-old make it.

We're told that this attitude comes from being held as the center of the Universe, and considering the type of upbringing that implies, I think we're fortunate that he's kind and chooses to help people rather than go "lol my inferiors' lives have no worth".

The story with the ghost is again the Crown Prince being prideful yet kind, helping the ghost along to the next life. And Jun Wu witnesses it! Though having a 17-year-old become a god is not necessarily the best idea. Teenagers tend to be rash.

Huh, our Crown Prince's father was cruel and he managed to raise such a kind son? Rebellions generally take some time of mismanagement to forment, so at least some cruelty must've been present before his son ascended, even if missing his son might've made him crueler.

The Crown Prince is arrogant, and no-one has ever told him "no", and the whole debacle with Xian Le's downfall, even if told only in summary, is an excellent example of intent not being magic. No matter what our Crown Prince intended, the end result that he made the situation worse.

Whatever the people said you were, that was what you became.

This is an interesting reflection of society and people – I think the author has also touched upon this theme in her prior works, but here she says it explicitly in chapter 1. Let's see what comes up in the rest of the book.

Our Crown Prince gets tossed into the mud, and sees this as the abyss of suffering, plus says that his heart is in the abyss, too. He still gets up and ascends for a second time, only to go berserk in the Heavens and beat people up. (I am informed that we will get more info on this in later chapters.)

After his second banishment, the Crown Prince continues his kind ways and gets forgotten, by worshippers and insulters alike. This bit feels very naturalistic: time passes, and even the most infamous pass from memory. Who remembers people from 800 years ago? (I then went to look at Wikipedia's article on 1218, and apparently the answer is "all of us" because that's when Genghis Khan was active, but anyway. The point still stands, mostly.)

The chapter ends with the Crown Prince ascending to the heavens for a third time, the laughingstock of the heavens. Yet this is a really important characterization point: he doesn't give up.

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[tgcf-en-abandoned]

Chapter 4

Translation at Sakhyulations.

The chapter title is “Discussion Between Three Fools At The Ju Yang Temple At Night”; it’s fairly descriptive, though I’m sure Fu Yao would roll his eyes at being called a fool, and Nan Yang would be annoyed.

17 brides over 100 years, this averages to 0.17 brides a year -> one bride ever ~6 years. The bit about the locals merely adjusting their habits a bit rings true – people don't like to change, lol. Also the bit where only the bigshot officials' loved ones matter, because they're the only ones who can possibly whisper in the heaven officials' ears.

Thank you for the lesbian rep suggestion, Fu Yao; we really don't know if it's a ghost bridegroom or a tragic ghost lesbian who just wants a bride for herself already. (I'd read that version...)

At least Nan Feng and Fu Yao are taking it seriously and not just staring at Xie Lian and rolling their eyes.

"Fu Yao, why are you rolling your eyes again?"

This could be the catchphrase of this arc.

Ooh, Xie Lian is used to roughing it in a cave. Makes sense, considering how many centuries he's been walking about unascended.

The local Earth God is aww-worthy. I don't know if this is a common piece of Chinese folk mythology setting, but the way he is a deity, yet a small forgotten one dazzled by the splendor of these three Heavenly Officials... idk, it's new to me, and feels more vivid and nuanced. Xie Lian showcases his kindness by lighting an offering, and Fu Yao's eyes seem to have been stuck on the "eyeroll" mode. Fu Yao please.

most Heavenly Officials didn’t really care if ugly Godly statues of themselves were made. However, whenever Xuan Zhen saw someone make an ugly Godly statue of himself, he would stealthily break it to make the artist remodel it. Sometimes, he would even create a vague dream to express his dissatisfaction to the artist. Thus after a while, all the believers now knew they needed to create a nice-looking statue of their master!

MU QING OMG. I suppose this is class anxiety? He was an orphan boy only let in to cultivate on Xie Lian's charity. That must affect his worldview still, especially since we're told Heaven is full of the born noble.

The earlier bit on temples' statues of gods not really resembling them is on point, and Mo Xiang Tong Xiu adds a touch of ... not realism, naturalism? to her world. And Fu Yao carries on his master's feud against Feng Xin by criticizing the statue of Feng Xin, lol.

Huh, interesting way that they all have "home grounds". I wonder how it works in practice? Is there some mathematical formula where the burnt incense attenuates based on distance? (Beer-Lambert law? Some other form of exponential decay? Nonexponential decay?) How can I model this??? Never let a physicist do a readthrough.

A martial god’s female believers were always less than the male believers. Only he had been an exception eight hundred years ago, and the explanation behind this exception was very simple. It consisted only of a few words: he was good-looking.

AHAHAHA I can't believe it. Xie Lian's worshippers were mostly thirsty fangirls? :P On the authorial craft side, it does infodrop to us quite soon that Xie Lian is gorgeous. "Flower Crown Martial God" aaaaahhh.

We get introduced to Little Ying! She's ugly. She has a tear in her skirt. Xie Lian and his sidekicks are clear they want to Do Something, but Fu Yao is refusing to take responsibility and Nan Yang is Too Shocked to do anything. Obviously the solution is for Xie Lian to strip to the waist and offer the girl his robe! (Aren't they supposed to be wearing a full-body under-robe between the underwear and outerwear? Huh. Xie Lian must've skimped on clothes shopping in the past 800 years.)

Wait are those wounds from Xie Lian hopping off from heaven and catching his sleeve on a cloud? That's very unlucky, and it's obvious that he has zero worshippers. Though the black collar must be from something else. One of the times he was tossed out of heaven? Tune in next time to find out!

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[tgcf-en-abandoned]

Chapter 3

Translation at Sakhyulations.

We're told that Xie Lian has terrible luck. This'll be interesting.

Jun Wu is the Emperor. I don't know how much this work diverges from the Chinese folk religion, and whether Jun Wu is meant to be a riff on the Jade Emperor. Anyway, he still likes Xie Lian, 800 years onwards from their first meeting.

Ling Wen also likes Xie Lian, and tries to deceive someone into helping Xie Lian. Intriguing, though I guess it might be mostly her wanting to see the job done properly. Mu Qing, who was before thwarted in his wish to be a shit towards Xie Lian, now gets to be a shit towards Xie Lian and guesses right, so no martial god minions for Xie Lian.

"Those words of yours had been as if you were carrying a pipa, but concealing half its face, beautifully blurring the scene to some degree. People would have thought they were going to help the Emperor with some work, so of course they would come. But when they come and realize they were going to have to work with me, I’m afraid there would be trouble. How could we work together like that?"

Xie Lian is right about this. He's insightful, in addition to accepting all the setbacks and misfortunes life throws at him.

Ah, Xie Lian, how the hell did you manage to get into this misfortune and have your sleeve catch on a cloud, of all things. Then again, he seems to be a living demonstration of Murphy's Law...

The teahouse is nicely described, and I'd like to have tea there if I had the chance.

We get a silver butterfly come down to visit Xie Lian's fingertips, and then when it leaves, two martial gods appear. From Feng Xin's palace we have Nan Feng, who is taller, with "quite defined" facial expressions, brightly hadsome, and arrogant and obstinate in gaze. From Mu Qing's palace we have Fu Yao, who is pale-skinned, delicate and pretty yet refined, and looks cold and apathetic. Both look like they want to decapitate Xie Lian.

Xie Lian thought for a bit before again asking, “Then, do you know who I am?”

If these two small martial gods came here because they were muddleheaded and thus deceived by Ling Wen, then after helping him, they would return to get scolded by their Palace’s General. Something like that certainly wouldn’t be worth it.

Nan Feng replied, “You are His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.”

Fu Yao said, “You are the correct path for the human world, you are the heart of the universe.”

Xie Lian choked once, before he asked Nan Feng in an uncertain manner, “Just now, did he roll his eyes?”

Nan Feng responded, “He did, let him scram.”

OMG. Fu Yao has mastered sarcasm. This is hilarious.

Hm, it seems Xie Lian's two generals don't like each other. This'll be interesting!

...Ling Wen what did you do to these two guys? They claim to have willingly volunteered, but their superiors don't know what they're doing, and they're all depressed about being here.

And under the guise of Xie Lian briefing Fu Yao and Nan Feng, the reader is told what is happening: on Mount Yu Jun, there is something that steals brides from their wedding processions.

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