He Xuan, Shi Wu Du, and Shi Qing Xuan: Three Mirrors
So yeah how about that chapter 124.
What a mess. And by that I mean it’s like excellent writing, but the circumstances are such a mess and it’s so tragic because it did not have to be that way.
Shi Wu Du and He Xuan parallel each other quite a bit, and of course, Shi Wu Du and his brother Shi Qing Xuan foil each other, as do He Xuan and Shi Qing Xuan. The entire arc explores a lot of themes like love and its limits, family, power and control, etc. by foiling these three characters. And they’re all kind of summed up in that final confrontation between Shi Wu Du and He Xuan, which reveals both of their fatal flaws are the same: they lack empathy and try to control that which is close to them. But instead of condemning them or writing them off as shallow, the narrative shows us that the reason both of them do these things is because of love.
“EVERYTHING I HAVE TODAY, I FOUGHT FOR MYSELF. I WILL FIGHT FOR WHAT I DON’T HAVE. I WILL CHANGE FATE I DON’T POSSESS. MY FATE IS UP TO ME AND NOT THE HEAVENS!”
These are some of Shi Wu Du’s final words. But Shi Wu Du’s best quality–his refusal to capitulate to a cruel fate, or to leave those he loves at a cruel fate’s mercy either–is also his fatal flaw. Because he hasn’t just been about controlling his own fate: he’s extended that control to the fate of others in Shi Qing Xuan, the brother he adores, and He Xuan, a random person who just happened to have the wrong name at the wrong time.
Where Si Qing Xuan is concerned, of course it’s understandable, even justifiable in some sense. He loves his brother and was fearful of the Reverend of Empty Words’s curse on his baby brother. To save him, he switched his fate with He Xuan’s and allowed Shi Qing Xuan to ascend without having earned it, and then kept the truth from Shi Qing Xuan. But by robbing and erasing He Xuan’s work to control his own fate, he shows a privilege He Xuan never had, and shows that in controlling his own fate, he doesn’t mind changing others’. Not to mention he ties Shi Qing Xuan up when he discovers the truth, forcing him to drink the black liquid.
In their final confrontation, Shi Wu Du refuses to consider He Xuan’s first option of giving Shi Qing Xuan a terrible fate, and tells his brother that he has to kill him instead. He doesn’t take Shi Qing Xuan’s wishes into account, because it’s not just about who will die; it means traumatizing his brother.
Shi Qing Xuan however, wasn’t as despairing as he was, and said hurriedly, “Ge! Ge! Let’s, let’s choose the first option. The first one.”
A moment later, Shi Wu Du calmed down. “No. I choose the second one.”
“…” Shi Qing Xuan was dumbfounded, “Why the second option? Can we not both live? Ge, I can’t do it, I really can’t.”
Shi Wu Du said furiously, “QUIET! Don’t you understand? To have me lose everything and watch you become a grimey creature, you think I can do it?! Why don’t I just go ahead and die from madness!” …
Shi Qing Xuan was so horrified he couldn’t keep a hold of it in his hands, dropping it a number of times on the ground. “Nevermind, ge, nevermind! Didn’t you tell me yourself? Everyone only cares for themselves in this world, why would anyone take care of us? Haven’t we always taken cared of each other? Don’t give this thing to me, DON’T GIVE IT TO ME!”
Shi Wu Du shouted, “QING XUAN! Don’t be so immature!”
But of course, Shi Wu Du is in part playing He Xuan. Shi Qing Xuan would never kill him, and finally decides to strangle his brother so that they will both die, forcing He Xuan to intervene.
Shi Wu Du gritted through his blood-covered teeth, “Qing Xuan! I can’t leave you alone like this! If I die there’s no way you’ll be able to survive in this world, so you might as well come with me!” …
Shi Qing Xuan broke down, “…Ge ge, I beg you I beg you, please stop talking, please shut up. Help…”
However, Shi Wu Du’s smug arrogance was undaunted, “Qing Xuan, ge ge will go ahead first. I will wait for you down below. Hahahahaha…”
Considering those are his last lines, it’s fair to say he may indeed have planned on them both dying. But again, he’s repeating the same exact flaw that got them into this situation in the first place: assuming he knows what is best for Shi Qing Xuan, when really what Shi Qing Xuan wants is just for his brother to be okay–he was more than okay with giving up his heavenly official status, for example, as long as it was going to be okay. Shi Wu Du’s inability to understand this is heartbreaking.
But even though Shi Wu Du could not understand this about his brother, his deep love for his brother parallels He Xuan’s tragic love for his family as well. As he even notes before he dies:
He used those broken arms that were bleeding profusely to tug He Xuan’s collar, “Because I see the you right now who is so filled with rage, so filled with suffering, so filled with hate, yet you are still powerless in bringing your family back. You’re still nothing more than a ghost in the gutters of the shadows. BE AS MAD AS YOU WANT, THEY’RE LONG GONE! But me, and my brother, we’ve lived for so long, and we’ve been heavenly officials for hundreds of years, so even if he can’t be one any longer, even he can’t live anymore, he still profited. I’M STILL THE VICTOR SO I FEEL EVEN BETTER THAN YOU! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…”
Again, this ties into the idea of privilege–no matter what He Xuan does now, he will never have his family back. And as such Shi Wu Du cannot fully understand the pain He Xuan is in, having lost his family and his rightful place in the heavens. But in pursuing controlling his own fate via revenge, He Xuan demonstrates the same flaw of Shi Wu Du’s: he tramples on the fates of others.
Shi Qing Xuan was completely innocent. Shi Wu Du treated He Xuan as just a tool to help his brother; He Xuan treated Shi Qing Xuan as a tool to help him get to Shi Qing Xuan’s brother. And yet it’s implied that not all of He Xuan’s feelings for Shi Qing Xuan were bitter–he knew Shi Qing Xuan was a good person, and gave him chances to denounce his brother’s actions.
He Xuan whipped around and started pacing back and forth within the hall of Nether Water Manor, growling, “I’ve given you chances!”
Shi Qing Xuan shut his eyes, clenching his fists. Xie Lian recalled that excessively furious “Fine. Very well!” back at the town of Fu Gu, and that scene of ‘Ming Yi’ blocking Shi Qing Xuan’s path to follow Pei Ming in going to the East Sea.
Only, every time, Shi Qing Xuan had chosen to help Shi Wu Du.
He whispered, “…I’m sorry.”
He Xuan stopped. He demanded, “And what good is your apology?”
That row of four urns were placed squarely in front of Shi Qing Xuan, as if they too were jeering at his feather light sorry, drilling misery into his heart, scorching his innards, like everything he said would be seen through. Shi Qing Xuan begged, “…I know it’s futile, but I…”
Before he finished his sentence, He Xuan placed his hand over his head and gripped his hair. Shi Qing Xuan’s soul was going to leave his body, the iron chains banged and clanged against the wall madly, “MING-XIONG! MING-XIONG! I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY! WE’RE THE ONES WHO SINNED! WE’RE THE ONES WHO ARE WRONG. IT’S MY FAULT! MY BROTHER ONLY DID WHAT HE DID BECAUSE OF ME. MY BROTHER’S GONE MAD, HE’S CRAZY CAN’T YOU SEE! I… YOU… YOU…”
He wanted to beg, to pray for mercy, but his pleas wouldn’t leave his lips, and he could only use his eyes to kowtow. He Xuan watched him, and in a fleeting moment, he seemed to have remembered something. He calmed and stopped.
Seeing this, it was like there was a thread of hope, and Shi Qing Xuan let out a breath of relief, tears finally rolling down. But before he could speak, he heard He Xuan’s cruel voice rang, “You’ve called the wrong person.”
And this gets to Shi Qing Xuan’s greatest strength and also, like the others’, his biggest flaw: his love for his loved ones. And it reveals something of what He Xuan was thinking: you don’t know who I am. He was never Ming-Xiong, but He Xuan, and the whole refusal to acknowledge his identity and what he had done to earn his ascension was cruelly ignored by Shi Wu Du.
Because part of what He Xuan wanted was to have someone know him, acknowledge him as mattering. He transformed himself into a female form around Shi Qing Xuan because Shi Qing Xuan asked him to, clearly wanting to get close to Shi Qing Xuan, to the point when Shi Qing Xuan insisted he was his best friend. But even in the end, Shi Wu Du tells him everything he’s done does not matter, that it’s all futile.
On the topic of Shi Qing Xuan and his love for his family and friends paralleling both his brother’s love for him and He Xuan’s own mourning for his beloved family, it presents an interesting conflict that again gets at this core desire to be acknowledged for who he is in He Xuan. Because what exactly was he expecting by giving Shi Qing Xuan chances? Would He Xuan have denounced his family, the family he claims to be so moved by, had they done something similar? Considering that he’s not really motivated by righteousness, I doubt it. So why was he holding Shi Qing Xuan to an higher standard? Because he’s a god? Or because it was really about himself in the end? Or more likely, a combination of the two? Did he just want to know what kind of person Shi Qing Xuan was, and by extent Shi Wu Du? Did he want something better to exist?
If he wanted to know what kind of people they were, he should have looked in the mirror, because he is very much the same as both of them. And by killing a part of himself and breaking another part of himself in the person who truly loved him and thought of him as his best friend and whom he clearly, to an extent, cared for as well, he’s unlikely to find that his bitter fate has changed very much.
Anyways off to cry again.
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