Heaven Official's Blessing seems to be about the nativity of Xie Lian at first. It seems to be about situations where there is no right answer and a decision on who to save must be made. Xie Lian is in fact embarrassed about his former idealism, his goals to save the common man, his youthful optimism.
Spoilers ahead:
When we learn what his preceptor asked him 800 years before, about the two dying humans in the desert. If you were a god, and you could give either one of them a cup of water saving their life but leaving the other to die, who would you choose?
It's a type of trolley problem, a distilled hypothetical meant only to enlighten its audience to the methods of their personal ethical frameworks.
For example, Mu Qing, the practical one, the utilitarian, asked about the qualities that might allow him to decide who is more worth saving.
Feng Xin, the honorable one, the deontologist, answered that they should discuss it among themselves.
On the other hand, Xie Lian was an idealist. Give them two cups of water. Reject the premise of scarcity. I am a god. Why can't I save both?
After the prince faced so many versions of this problem in the present... from the Banyue people to the Wind Master and his brother... and so many trials in the past... from the fall of his own people, to the fall of Yong-an's king at his own hand... we are told there are situations where someone must suffer. We are told that Xie Lian was naive. Xie Lian believes it himself, as the idealists he had taken under his wing (Banyue and Lang Qianqiu) crack in the face of a harsher reality.
His idealism failed him time and time again.
Except, as we learn the history of Wuyong and its fallen prince, the text also starts to reveal that there were two cups to begin with. One had always been artificially taken away.
Would Banyue need to betray her own people if they did not hoard the oasis? Would the country of Banyue need to fall so harshly if they hadn't intended to take out their enemy as soon as they met their defeat? (Problematic caricature of a "savage" culture aside)
Would Wind Master's brother need to change his fate if White No-Face hadn't made the creature who destroyed his life to begin with?
Would Xianle have fallen to Yong'an if the financial aid hadn't been skimmed by every official along the way? If the poor had the opportunity to pray and Xie Lian could have found them sooner? If the refugees weren't treated worse than dogs? If more than just the richest refugees were allowed to stay in the capital city? If other gods had helped Xie Lian carry water to Yong'an? If White No-Face hadn't artificially stuck his hand into the disaster and created the plague that sealed Xianle's fate? Every step of the way there was someone hoarding the water, both metaphorically and very literally. There was no way to save everyone, but a bit more reprieve could have stopped the civil war before it even started.
This is in parallel to Wuyong that fell not because its prince was naive, but because every other god refused to give their aid with no benefit to themselves. There was plenty of power to save the people, to forge the bridge and keep it steady. Every other god refused to use it.
But in simple acts of selflessness, you can bring back the water. Ironically, the motif that represents this aspect of the narrative is in the blockage of the rain. What kept Xie Lian sain just a bit longer if not an umbrella given to him by some random mortal soul? One passed to the boy devoted to him, that ultimately blocked the rain of blood once more upon their first meeting since Xie Lian's 3rd ascension.
The same style of hat that created the rains--the gift of water gifted out of the rain master's kindness--protected Xie Lian from the downpour in his lowest moment. As he sat in the storm waiting for the moment that he would unleash plague, finally admitting defeat of any hope for the humanity of the common man, a stranger stumbles over him. He cusses him out. Why wouldn't he? He was splayed out on the street, an inconvenient obstacle. A pathetic piece of performance art left to suffer the piercing of his own blade for almost three days straight. Only his enemy to relieve him from such pain. So there he was. In the way.
But as the stranger carried on, he stopped. He turned back. He handed his own straw hat to the poor figure in the streets. Humans are selfish. And humans are also selfless. Humans are human. And luck would have it, a human was human to him right before it was too late.
It's something White No-Face never realized, with his heart hardened by the betrayal of his own people. He saw the common man he slaved for for 5 years turn against him. He still persisted. He built their bridge to heaven as they turned from him. And just as their world was about to end, he suspended that bridge on his will power alone. If only they didn't swarm him. If only they could just trust him, and listen.
They died. His faith in people died with them. And everything that he existed for turned out to be fruitless. So, he broke.
And if Xie Lian didn't break as well, then it meant that everything he'd done for the past 1200 years, 2000 years was meaningless. If he couldn't show Xie Lian the world didn't deserve him, then maybe the prince of Wuyong just wasn't good enough for the world. Xie Lian had to be wrong. Because in turning against his people, White No-Face turned against himself.
But what he didn't realize is it was never the common man's fault for not believing in the gods. It was the gods' fault for hoarding the water. He blamed humanity, when the problem was the system.
He tried to break Xie Lian by taking away all of the water, but in taking away the water he proved that there was always more to begin with. In being the reason Xie Lian failed, he proved that Xie Lian never had to fail.
The problem was never with the people, who just wanted to survive. It's with those who hoarded the water. It's with those who believed there to be no other choice, and those who forced that choice in their greed.
White No-Face was wrong. The state preceptor was wrong. Disillusioned Xie Lian was wrong. Reject the premise. Reject the lies they sell you. Reject the illusion of scarcity.
Xie Lian was naive, but in his nativity he had stumbled upon the truth. There were always two cups of water. There were always two cups of water.
He should never have been embarrassed about his idealism, because in the end he was right. And in the end, he realizes he was right. He had always been right.
There were always two cups of water. And because of that he's finally able to save the common man.
