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I know that this has probably already been said before, but I just need to say how dear Hua Cheng’s ‘San Lang’ form is to me.
Like, I don’t think it’s ever explicit stated why Hua Cheng chose to appear before Xie Lian as he did on the ox cart, but I think that there are many reasons.
The first being that he just really wanted to get close to his god without the fear of being rejected because he was a ghost king. Hua Cheng’s low self esteem (at least in regards to his looks) is something that is very explicitly stated in the novels and is an important factor how he chooses to present himself to Xie Lian.
Hua Cheng has spent his entire life hearing vitriol being spit at him, being told that he is monstrous and deformed. Undoubtedly, he had to do some pretty nasty things in order to firmly establish and maintain his rank as a ghost king. I wonder if he’s still haunted by the things said to him and if the things that he had to do ever made him feel like he’s proving those things to be true.
In being ‘San Lang’ Hua Cheng was able to shed all things that he has done as a ghost king and that past that haunts him and just exist as a companion to his beloved.
‘San Lang’ is who Hua Cheng would be if everything was perfect. He is a smart lordling who has run away from home. He is someone who had a home to run away from and the money to have a proper education. He is not the street rat that was run out of a family that should have loved him because of a superstitious belief and economic stress.
It’s the idea that Hua Cheng has specifically created that body with vision of a kinder past—a vision of what should have been—that really gets me.
I was trying to sort out some Feng Xin headcanons in my head, and I wonder if his parents died young. I wonder if they were loving? Did his father gently teach him how to use the bow? Did he guide his hands carefully when stringing this tiny weapon? Did his mother teach him how to put his hair up? Did she tuck flowers behind his ear? When his mother fell ill, did he notice the way his father started smiling less, losing his appetite along with his love’s? Did he hold onto her robes, asking her to stay? A few months later, did he clutch his father’s hand just as tightly, asking him not to leave him too? Did he ever break down into his Crown Prince’s arms, apologising fervently for his breach in protocol, but unable to let his best friend go? Did he cry harder when his Crown Prince, his best friend, shushed him and held him back just as tightly? Do you think as they grew up, he caught himself from calling his Queen ‘mama’? Do you think he ever felt guilty for it? Do you think he stared with dread as his best friend lost his appetite as well? As the queen and king did? Do you think years later when his Crown Prince ordered him to leave, he thought this time his best friend wouldn’t let him hold on? Did he, very briefly, think Mu Qing was clever for having let go first? Do you think he cried just as hard over the empty house as he did for his parents? As he does for the one person he still has had left? Or did the grief lodge in his throat and didn’t budge no matter how hard he hoped it would? When he saw the remainder of his old life haunting the heavens in the form of his rival, do you think he was angry? Did it bring him comfort? Or did their shared tragedy only leave a chasm in its wake? Did he ever think he still had someone left, or that he had lost him first? Was he ever his? Do you think he managed to bury the grief lodged in his throat after 800 years? Did it hurt more than the clock when the grief came back? Did he find any comfort in the way his crown prince best friend fellow god recognised him still? Did he recognise him (of course he did, he would know him anywhere)? Do you think after all the hurt of losing another home, when he finally swallowed the grief, he let himself reach out again? Do you think he startled when his best friend best friends reached for him first? Do you think he held onto to Xie Lian and Mu Qing, glaring half heartedly at this snarky crimson ghost who came back to them against all odds? Had he had gained a person too? When he finally fell asleep, was he glad to be held again as well? Do you ever think about Feng Xin…
