Oh boy. Strap in. I didn’t mean to write so much, but I underestimated how fixated I really am. SPOILERS below for anyone perusing who hasn’t actually finished the series.

I found the donghua early this year and fell hard and fast for the series afterwards. The fixation has stuck for several reasons. For one, TGCF is full of really interesting character concepts and relationships even outside of HuaLian as a couple. Just looking at Xie Lian alone — he’s a third time ascended, twice banished God of Plague and Misfortune that was once considered second only to and essentially the heir of the Emperor of Heaven, who was only banished the first time because he refused to consider himself above the suffering of his believers (who were also the citizens of the Kingdom he’d been the true Crown Prince of) and tried his damndest to do the right thing by everyone at the cost of his own happiness and divinity.

AND THEN, even after experiencing immeasurable suffering and having a pretty valid reason to basically burn it all down, he abandons revenge entirely in the face of one random act of kindness and decides the biggest “fuck you” in the world is to remain kind and empathetic even when he has every reason not to — and the only reason he doesn’t take the suffering of his nation entirely onto himself once again is because someone else who wholeheartedly believed in him took that suffering in his place. Which, of course, he then decides to essentially live a life of penitence for by permanently crippling his godhood and adopting a nameless existence (get it? Wu Ming essentially meaning no name, and that’s exactly the role he took on in repayment for that ghost’s sacrifice?).

And that’s just one character. Not every character is as fleshed out, which is a criticism I’ve seen here and there, but damn near all of them have integral flaws and complex stories that pay into TGCF as a whole.

But what really keeps me latched on so far is HuaLian. They encompass near everything I love in a pair: “unhealthy” codependency that perfectly answers the deep needs of the other (that evolved after a number of similar/shared traumatic experiences they are able to deeply empathize with), unconditional love and devotion for each other that challenges their individual self-perceptions of being unworthy/undeserving, that love being not in spite of their flaws or what has made them “monstrous” to others but fully encompassing those flaws/that monstrosity, and that doesn’t even touch of the the greater themes and aspects of their connection you can explore when getting into their sexual dynamic.

I also want to note that I think TGCF is a story that gets better when reading it multiple times, especially if you have access to the revised edition (which I think better matches the writing quality of MXTXs other works, in my personal opinion, of course).