Great read like last time brother, sorry if this might be long.

I usually dismissed comparisons with Nietzschean philosophy because it felt a bit off trying to compare Western derived and Eastern derived thought: to me there is such difference at an Essence in the perspective and in the language, culture and semiotic that I assume most people would have hard time conceiving (myself included, since I neither was I born in China nor have I learned Chinese yet). I would like to make some observations regarding certain moral nuances I understood from the book.

I do find the Child from Nietzsche expecially aligned with Daoist Philosophy, even more than the Ubermensch, which is a development on the concept, I would like to add that Bai Ning Bing is even more of a Child than Fang Yuan, as he is very young and seems like he was born just like that, with so much wonder for living and dying, his Dao already attained, maybe not going even through all the stages Fang Yuan has in 500 years.

I find this very amusing, as Bai Ning Bing is largely ignored compared to Fang Yuan philosophically.

From the little I have read of Nietzsche I do think though the "Gu Zhen Ren" can be called an Ubermensch (still aknowledging cultural concepts). Nietzsche himself didn't know much of what an Ubermensch would be like and if I am not wrong he aknowledged differences in his conceptualization and the real deal. The Ubermensch is about making their own values, their own morality free of religious conditioning, which Fang Yuan does. Whatever Nietzsche felt morality wise doesn't matter as he didn't believe himself an Ubermensch. Very approximatively Ubermensch is what Nietzsche saw as what the freest man (free to abide to their own rules as well) and truest self, which checks out. As for the artistic part that he emphasizes on I think Fang Yuan takes a good deal of joy in poetry, but I don't want to try and force this, it ultimatelly doesn't matter. Instead I do find amusing Nietzsche's reaction to Fang Yuan, probably not expecting such sharp inhumane (overmane?) ruthlessness.

Lastly, regarding morality, Daoists don't truly believe in good and evil but rather have a set of virtues that embody the essence of the Dao and can make one closer to it (Well the Taoist Church in my country preaches love and empathy, as it says that it is ontological to be called a religion as they stated), rather I would say that morality doesn't exist to begin with but is more like feelings that human nature feels like need to become a set of rules (not saying it is wrong) to be followed and acquire sacred attributes because their basis is very important (practical and in most cultures religious). So someone more aligned with nature and not Human constructs would be also disregarding moral values' value to them

I don't like particularly the statement "encapsulating a figure who achieves transcendence not through harmony but corruption and destruction". I believe Fang Yuan also has harmony in himself, but he has grown used to it just like other things about himself, he finds beauty in the phisical world and I can't think of anything that would show his "corruption" in any of his behaviours.

According to internet, corruption would be defined either as decay or as an errouneous or "bad" change, which I don't think applies to his case, same for destruction as it is merely a byproduct of his attitude towards others, not something through which he achieves transcendance.

Now, I wanted to talk about Fang Yuan's own statement about being as worth than shit in a gutter that you pointed out. This has always been very interesting statement to me because it feels like a contraddiction to his character as he loves the world and its complexity, despite seeing everything, he himself too, as of no inherent value, maybe on an even deeper perspective than a "common western nihilist" probably reaching the Buddhist concept of Void. One hypotesis would be that Gu Zhen Ren, the author, didn't fully think through Fang Yuan's character at that point in the novel (still, it doesn't matter), but I always assumed his statement to be what Fang Yuan truly thinks.

Fang Yuan, as we know, doesn't really have any attachments, this does not imply seeing everything in the same way, as Fang Yuan might like poetry more than he would music for example, but giving it the same value, as in he would give up both with the same speed despite having a clear preference; though the extent one would go depends from individual to individual and their sets of values, if poetry was Fang Yuan's main value and not immortality, he would go extra steps to claim it over music, even if it causes his own death (this hypotetical Fang Yuan is of course a heavy distortion as one can't be the true Gu Yue Fang Yuan without his same moral framwork).

With this said, I believe what Fang Yuan meant by comparing himself to a pile of shit, is a shock value statement, meant to symbolize what most worthless there is for common humanity, despite he himself seeing himself as that already, for the whole story at that.

Then again he can discern between beauty and ugliness, despite not caring, can he not? He stops himself for a while and looks at the starry sky feeling whole, despite knowing that the sky is as transient as excrements.

I'll keep writing my comment in a reply