Voiced by (Mandarin): Jiang Guangtao (animation, Season 1), Deng Youxi (animation, Season 2), Su Shangqing (audio drama)
Voiced by (Japanese): Hiroshi Kamiya (animation)
Voiced by (English): Howard Wang (animation), Molly Zhang (animation, younger)
Played by: Zhao Xiaowen (web series)

Weapons: Fang Xin (Sword), Ruoye (Cloth)

The main protagonist of the novel. He’s known as the Flower Crown Martial God, the crown prince of the Xian Le kingdom and is also one of the Four Famous Tales (”The Prince Who Pleased God”).

• Affectionate Nickname: Hua Cheng refers to him as ge ge (literally older brother and figuratively referring to someone older, though it can also be used in a flirtatious way), or dianxia (”your Highness”), depending on context.
• All Asians Wear Conical Straw Hats: Xie Lian often wears a conical straw hat. This is in honor of the nameless farmer that showed him kindness during his darkest days and restored his faith in humanity. He eventually gives it to Jun Wu in the finale.
• All of the Other Reindeer: By his third ascension, everyone considers him the laughingstock of the three realms. Officials who don’t outright avoid him have no problem mocking him behind his back and are quick to nitpick any mistakes he make.
• And I Must Scream: Xie Lian being restrained on an altar by his own kingdom’s people as they took turns stabbing him in a fatal region with a spiritual sword to immunize themselves against the Human Face Disease. Xie Lian was conscious of the pain throughout and couldn’t even scream due to being restrained with his throat stabbed through. The description outright states that Xie Lian was not recognizable as a human once it was forced to an end.
• Animal Motifs: In the manhua, he’s associated with rabbits.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Xie Lian disguises himself as a woman on three different occasions in the novel, and is apparently both quite convincing and very attractive.
• Atrocious Alias: In the past when looking after Lang Qianqiu, he referred to himself as Fan Xin, which is the name of the sword he uses. When he was a general, he called himself Hua Xie.
• Awesome by Analysis: When given enough time and evidence, Xie Lian can quickly break a situation down. Such as figuring out that the ghost bridegroom was actually a bride, that San Lang was really Hua Cheng and figuring out everything that had to do with Shi Qingxuan’s unlikely ascension and the reason He Xuan wants Shi Wudu dead.
• Bad Liar: When put on the spot, he’s not very good at lying, especially when it comes to his budding relationship with Hua Cheng.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: At the beginning of the story, Xie Lian fights hand to hand. Even after he retrieves Fang Xin, he uses hand-to-hand combat if he’s fighting humans or spirits he can easily incapacitate.

• Beware the Silly Ones: Almost all of Heaven consider Xie Lian a fool, forgetting that he ascended because of his skill with the sword.
• Big Damn Reunion: After awaiting an entire year for Hua Cheng to return to him, he finds him sending up lanterns near Puqi shrine and runs over to hug him.
• Break the Cutie: Everything after his first descent is full of this.
• Blessed with Suck: Xie Lian is blessed with terrible luck that follows him wherever he goes and whatever he does. Anything he hopes to go right, will go wrong sooner rather than later. It actually came in handy once when it left him unaffected by the Reverend of Empty words as he had become used to his bad luck after 800 years. It’s revealed that after his second ascension, he asked Jun Wu to divide his luck onto others less fortunate in the world while also wearing two shackles. While Jun Wu warned this would leave Xie Lian with terrible luck for as long as he lives, he doesn’t care.
• Broken Hero: Xie Lian was a wonderful crown prince of Xian Le, proud, regal, always in the right, and he ascended to godhood at a very early age, except he then intervened in the war of his own country, fell down, ascended again, fell again after only five minutes for picking up a fight with Jun Wu, and then spent 800 years picking scraps and garbage, surviving however he could, and by the third time he ascends, he is a completely changed person… to the point the fact that he is willing to eat food from the floor and sleep in the woods instead of seeking shelter at the other god’s temples is embarrassing, horrifying and pitiful for Fu Yao and Nan Feng.
• Bungled Suicide: Upon finding his parents’ bodies after they committed suicide. Xie Lian tries to hang himself shortly after finishing (and vomiting up) the dishes his mother prepared for dinner the night before their argument. Since he’s immortal this only causes pain and Ruoye’s spirit being born.
• Catchphrase: He constantly says in his internal monologue that ”he doesn’t/didn’t know whether to laugh or cry”.
• Combat Pragmatist: Even without a blade, he’s still plenty powerful and uses whatever he can in his surroundings to fight. From using Ruo Ye in interesting ways to food.
• Cosmic Plaything: After his first ascension as a heavenly official, he seemed to be plagued with bad luck. His kingdom falls, leading to the citizens he tried to protect turning on him when the Human Face Disease plague them loses his position as the Crown Prince and falls from ascension, witnesses his parents hanging themselves and attempts to take his own life, and is stabbed multiple times by the Xian Le citizens as the ”cure” for the Human Face Disease. After 800 years, he’s gotten used to his bad luck and now casually rolls with it.
• Cuteness Proximity: When Hua Cheng is stuck in his child form Xie Lian can’t help but squee and hug him whenever possible because he’s just that cute.
• Deadpan Snarker: He does have his moments of snark, but it usually occurs in his head. He becomes more snarky after his second descent where he has been kicked and abused to the point he snarks at No Face to move away so he can look at the sky which was better looking than them.
• Despair Event Horizon: He nearly loses all hope in Book 4 where he loses his close friends, his parents commit suicide, he’s seen as a joke by other gods, has lost his sense of dignity as the Crown Prince, is stabbed multiple times in order to cure the Human Face Disease and nearly unleashes a second wave on the citizens of Yong’an. It was only due to the kindness of a passerby who gave him his straw hat as it rained did Xie Lian forgo his revenge and instead regained his confidence.
• Deteriorates Into Gibberish: After Hua Cheng and him have an Underwater Kiss to prevent Xie Lian from inhaling the harmful fetus spirit, Xie Lian is in shock and momentarily becomes a mess.
• Determinator: Despite all the terrible occurrences and humiliation that occurred to him during the Xian Le and Yong An war to the point where Xie Lian intended to unleash the Human Face Disease a second time around, he stopped when one person showed him an act of kindness. Also in general, he will see a problem or situation he’s placed into through until the end, even continuing on chasing a ghost fetus with a nail in the sole of his foot.
• Disguised in Drag: Xie Lian had to crossdress to disguise himself twice to solve the cases. First as the bride to drive out whoever was killing the brides, and second as the pregnant mother to drive out the Undead Child. The third time he does this is to hide himself is to throw off a group of cultivators chasing him and Hua Cheng. He is very convincing-looking woman and has tricked others multiple times.
• Drowning My Sorrows: He did this in the past when wondering whether or not he should steal from people and instead decides to get drunk and passes out in a ditch.
• Eating the Eye Candy: He gets really distracted whenever Hua Cheng is around and has to quickly snap out of it when he realizes where his thoughts were wandering.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Back when he was a crown prince, he’s usually depicted with a high ponytail that befits his regal status. Presently, he ties his hair in a much simpler style that suits his humble lifestyle.
• Fan Boy: A big fan of martial weapons, particularly swords. Hua Cheng tries to gift him his entire armory in Paradise Manor upon seeing how excited Xie Lian got when he saw them.
• First Love: Hua Cheng is the first and only person he’s ever fallen in love with.
• Foil: To Jun Wu. While the two of them lead very similar lives as the Crown Prince of their kingdom, where Jun Wu was corrupted and felt he couldn’t rely on anyone but himself to the point he killed his own friends to stop the Kiln, Xie Lian goes through similar experiences, but never truly gives in to his failures and loss. Xie Lian also despite falling from a prince to a trash god, never lost the support of one person who continued to believe in him whereas, Jun Wu lost everyone and Guoshi, leading him to erase his past to form a new life where he has complete control over everyone.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Xie Lian doesn’t remember saving Hua Cheng as a child, as the little boy Hong-Hong er soon disappeared. Nor does he remember meeting Hua Cheng as Wu Ming when Xie Lian was slowly becoming the White Clothed Calamity. He does find out about Hua Cheng’s past later on, especially Wu Ming.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed, There are a few people in Heaven who still respect and even befriend Xie Lian, but most of the Heavenly Court just see him as a laughing-stock god with incredibly terrible luck and want nothing to do with him. It doesn’t help that Xie Lian is so behind on the times he has no idea how to interact with other gods or know what they like. So when he sends them old folk recipes or health tips, they just ignore him in the communications channel.
• Friend to All Children: He’s noticeably gentle around children. Saving Hong-Hong er when he was still the Crown Prince, gently assuring Lang Ying he wouldn’t be scared of him if he took his bandages off, reining his temper over Qi Rong when Gu Zi is around, was kind to Qi Rong when he was younger when the young prince was being bullied and trying to give Banyue some proper nutrition when she would hungrily eat food off the ground.
• Friend to All Living Things: Animals, villagers, demons, ghost flames…
• Giver of Lame Names: The names he gives his dishes are… creative to say the least.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: He can eventually heal from any wounds inflicted on him, even when he gets sick or poisoned, he can walk it off in about three days. The stabbing by a hundred swords took him two months to recover from though.
• Hartman Hips: When putting on the wedding gown, he notices while everything else was too tight on him, his hips fit just perfectly.
• Heroic Ambidexterity: Lang Qianqiu notes that he knows Xie Lian can wield his sword in either hand without any of his power diminishing.
• Heroic BSoD: Xian Le’s war situation getting far worse partially because of Xian Lian’s own actions eventually leads to this and it gets even worse once he is stabbed a hundred times by his own people in an attempt to protect themselves from the Human Face Disease, his last friend Feng Xin leaves him, and THEN Xie Lian’s parents commit suicide. The culmination of these events lead to the Bungled Suicide and the birth of Ruoye.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: After 800 years of rotten luck, his opinion of himself has dropped to abysmally low, and regularly jokes about his own suffering like it’s nothing. Hua Cheng is notably unamused when Xie Lian talks like this.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Xie Lian was once a famous god who ascended as a very young mortal (17), but after he intervened in his own country’s war which ended with disastrous results, people stopped praying to him, destroyed all of his statues and temples and even made very humiliating kneeling statues of him just so they could curse and step on his image. He has stopped caring about his reputation for a while and when creating his first shrine at Puqi, he decides he can just worship himself.
• I Have Many Names: Xie Lian is also known as Xian Le, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Hua Xie, Head Priest Fang Xin, The White Clothed Calamity and many more.

• Insecure Love Interest: He at first doesn’t think Hua Cheng would ever be interested in someone like him since he was a scrap god. Over time, he starts worrying that Hua Cheng would not accept him due to his dark past, especially when he almost became the White-Clothed Calamity. Hua Cheng confirms to Xie Lian he already knows about all of that and doesn’t care because he has seen Xie Lian at his best and worst but still believes in him.
• Insistent Terminology: Every time he gets intimate with Hua Cheng and others point this out, he quickly claims that it was just ”exchanging spiritual energy”. Everyone immediately calls him out on that lie.
• I Will Wait for You: After Hua Cheng vanishes after exhausting his spiritual energy, Xie Lian awaits for his return at Puqi shrine for an entire year. He reasons that if Hua Cheng waited for him for 800 years, he can wait just as long. They then reunite during the mid-autumn festival when Hua Cheng sends up lanterns for him.
• Knight in Sour Armor: During his second descent Xie Lian acts more cynical and disgruntled. As he waits on the road for someone to pull the sword out from his chest, White No Face appears. Xie Lian barely bothers to hold a conversation with them and asks them to move so he can see the sky since it was better looking than their face. After he manages to stop a second wave of the Human Face Disease he does grow out of this attitude and decides to be a bit more positive.
• Know When to Fold ’Em: He concedes after Hua Cheng brings him back during the climax of the Revervent of Empty Words arc that even if Xie Lian was to use the body swapping spell to go back to Shi Qingxuan’s body in He Xuan’s manor, he couldn’t fight back against He Xuan’s strength in his own lair in a mortal’s body.
• Lethal Chef: Xie Lian’s cooking is so bad it can be used as a weapon. The only person who can withstand his cooking is Hua Cheng. To be accurate, it’s more of his fondness to experiment than cannot cook to save his life as he knows how to make simple pickled food.
• Light Is Good: He prefers to wear white and is clearly on the good side. Played with in the past, when he nearly became the White Clothed Calamity.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Xie Lian looked up to his father when he was younger, but as he got older and realized how fallible the great emperor was, Xie Lian and his father soon began to drift apart. Ironically, Qi Rong is more like Xie Lian’s father than the Crown Prince was.
• Loser Deity: He became known as a trash-picking god, and has the worst luck imaginable. At the beginning when he has no worshippers he just decides to just worship himself.
• Master Swordsman: Skilled with the sword, to the point where the Martial God of the East, Lang Qianqiu who himself was taught in swordsplay by Xie Lian when undercover as the Head Priest of Fang Xin would instantly die if they fought seriously.
• Messianic Archetype: There are shades of this in his backstory, especially given his multiple cycles of death and returning to being mortal. Xie Lian is willing to suffer a lot to try to help others, even complete strangers, generally to the distress of his own loved ones.
  • His worshippers torture him by repeatedly murdering him in order to become immune to the human face disease. Even after that experience, he still tries to get the people of Yong An to do the same thing to him in order to save themselves. And that’s after most of them have ignored him bleeding in the street for three days.
  • Before his second ascension, he refuses Jun Wu’s offer of returning to a peaceful life as a heavenly official and insists on getting a cuff that will direct all his good fortune to other people in order to concentrate the world’s suffering onto himself.
  • He also willingly takes the blame for the murder of Lang Qianqiu’s family in order to preserve peace between Yong An and the former citizens of Xin Le, going so far as to hold his tongue even when Lang Qianqiu nailed him live to a coffin and left him repeatedly dying for god knows how long.
• Momma’s Boy: He loved his mother and was spoiled heavily by her when he was young, and his horrible cooking is him emulating her. When he finds that Qi Rong slept in her coffin and impersonated her, he gets furious.
• Nice Guy: His defining trait is his kind and gentle disposition.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: When he was still the Crown Prince he helped an Yong-An refugee named Lang Ying bury his child and offered him money to buy food. Later on, Lang Ying becomes the leader of the Yong-An rebellion and fights Xie Lian on the battlefield. It gets worse for Xie Lian when Lang Ying is protected by a king’s aura, so he not only couldn’t kill him, any of Lang Ying’s attacks could now harm Xie Lian. This is even Lampshaded at the end of the book, when Lang Qianqiu (Lang Ying’s descendant) tells Xie Lian that Lang Ying never regretted his actions, but was sorry he repaid Xie Lian’s kindness with so much pain. Later on when he tried to save his kingdom from the Human Face Disease, this led to most of them dying, him losing his believers and then that all leads down to a whole new dark road for Xie Lian.
• No-Sell: He can brush off most of the damage he takes with a shrug after he goes through the initial wave of pain. When a Reverend of Empty words attempts to bring misery onto Xie Lian’s life, he just brushes off each thing it says, pointing out he’d be lucky if anything of his goes right for more than a month with his luck. The Reverend ends up regretting choosing Xie Lian as its target and flees in a panic after trying for months with Xie Lian barely reacting to each thing.
• Not So Above It All: He does joke from time to time and makes snide remarks. He even thought it would be a little funny if his verbal password for his communications array was ”Just recite the Ehtics Sutra a thousand times”, but the other gods didn’t think it was that funny when they realized the joke. He also internally admits that were it not for his chosen path of cultivation, he would have indulged his curiosity in reading some of the tales of Pei Ming’s exploits.
• Oblivious to Love: He and Hua Cheng are equally matched in terms of being completely dense to the other’s feelings. This is deconstructed, however, due to Xie Lian’s extremely low self-esteem brought about by all the tragedies he went through.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • All of Book 4 is where Xie Lian is stripped of his hope and optimistic personality, nearly leaving him as an empty husk and desire to destroy the Yong An kingdom as the White Clothed Calamity.
  • When he calls for Hua Cheng using his password, under Jun Wu’s close inspection and pretending everything was alright, Hua Cheng later sends Yin Yu to go rescue Xie Lian from his palace. He notes that he knew something was wrong since Xie Lian had shown to be embarrassed about saying Hua Cheng’s verbal communications password out loud, so the fact he said it at all meant something was wrong.
• The Pollyanna: Even after all that’s happened to him and the constant humiliation he’s faced, Xie Lian usually stays very positive.
• Power Limiter: Xie Lian has two cursed shackles that seal his spiritual energy: one around his neck and the other around his ankle. They break at the end of the novel thanks to Hua Cheng’s assistance.
• Precision F-Strike: To Bai Wuxiang right before the Human Face Disease was released the second time around. Counts as a huge O.O.C. Is Serious Business moment as Xie Lian is almost always extremely polite no matter the circumstances.
  Xie Lian: I SAID FUCK YOU!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, TO DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THIS?? I AM THE CROWN PRINCE!!!
• Red String of Fate: Hua Cheng ties one on for him so the two could always find one another. When others ask if this was the red string of fate, he tries to deny it.
• Repressed Memories: Xie Lian admits that he doesn’t like to or can’t recall painful or unhappy events when others question him why his memory is faulty he gives a vague non descript answer when Hua Cheng questions him in the birthday extra how long Xie Lian spent being nailed to the coffin.
• Riches to Rags: After his fall as the Crown Prince of Xian Le, he has spent 800 years living on the streets and his current status is a trash picking god.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Xie Lian is the Warrior Prince — he directly participated in the war by descending from the Heavens because he wanted to help both sides and stop his people from killing each other. Unfortunately for him, it did not end well.
• Seen It All: His bad luck has made him so immune to his own sufferings and is never surprised when something doesn’t his way. Hilariously, this works in his favor when a Reverend of Empty Words tried to make him miserable, but he easily shrugged it off and scared off the Reverend.
• Self-Deprecation: Xie Lian will frequently make jokes about his poor situation or how useless he can be, something Hua Cheng doesn’t like to hear.
• Self-Harm: Occurs several times throughout the story in order to prevent Xie Lian from harming others or drawing arrays. Hua Cheng is never pleased when he thinks Xie Lian is going to hurt himself.
• Shared Family Quirks: He and his mother are not only horrible cooks, they both give their dishes extravagant or frivolous names.

• Single-Target Sexuality: As his way of cultivation required full celibacy, he had no interest in finding a lover. But after he meets Hua Cheng, he slowly starts to fall in love with the Ghost King.
• Skilled, but Naive: He was this during his life as the Crown Prince. He eventually grew out of this.
• Spoiled Sweet: Even when he used to live in the lap of luxury as the Crown Prince of Xian Le and being spoilt by his parents, Xie Lian is nothing but kind to others and would go out of his way to help the commoners because he knew it was the right thing to do.
• Street Performer: In order to make a living for centuries, he would perform on the streets. When he tries it again in the story, he finds out a lot of his tricks have become out of fashion. During the Ghost Groom arc, he hilariously and instinctually falls back onto asking for money from the delighted onlookers as he jumps around in the air and fights off the Ghost Brides.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: In the donghua he’s depicted with gold colored eyes, befitting his status as a god.
• Terms of Endangerment: Jun Wu refers to him as ”Xian Le” most of the times out of affection, even when he’s beating him black and blue for not obeying him.
• Trauma Button: Whenever No-Face appears or is mentioned, Xie Lian is on edge and runs when he sees their mask. Due to them showing up during every wave of the Human Face disease that took everything from Xie Lian and being the one to convince the Xian Le people to stab him onto a coffin to avoid getting the disease, he has the right to be afraid for his life.
• Trauma Conga Line: Everything goes downhill for him once Xie Lian first descends to help his country in the upcoming war.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • How would Xie Lian have know that his phrase as the Crown Prince, ”Body in abyss; heart in paradise”, would have been seen as a great insult by Jun Wu? Then leading the former prince of Wuyoung to ruin Xie Lian’s life and attempt to turn him into the White Clothed Calamity.
  • Or how would he have perceived that helping a refugee Yong An man to bury his dead child, would lead to that man becoming the new Yong An king, him losing his kingdom to them and the start of the Human Face disease? And then that became the reason for his first descent from godhood because he couldn’t stand by and watch his kingdom fall without a fight.
• Virgin Power: His path of cultivation requires him to be completely abstinent, or else he would lose a majority of his power. At the end of the novel when he and Hua Cheng reunite, they end up consummating. Luckily for Xie Lian, Hua Cheng is always eager to share some of his own energy whenever Xie Lian needs it.
• Warrior Prince: The Crown Prince of Xian Le who ascended to godhood due to his prowess with the sword.
• White Mask of Doom: As he slowly becomes the White Clothed Calamity, he wears a mask similar to Bai Wuxiang’s as he makes his march to the Yong An kingdom.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: He crossdresses multiple times in the story for various reasons, but he never treats it like an abhorrent thing and gets more comfortable with it after the Ghost Bridegroom arc.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: As a child till the war between Xian Le and Yong An and the constant ungratefulness of the common people despite all that he was doing soured this belief. He still retains a bit of this trope, citing that since one person helped him during the time he was a White Clothed Calamity, that was enough for him not to unleash the Human Face Disease on Yong An.

Voiced by (Mandarin): Ma Zhengyang (animation), Chenzhang Taikang (audio drama)
Voiced by (Japanese): Jun Fukuyama (animation)
Voiced by (English): James Cheek (animation)
Played by: Zhang Linghe (web series – adult), Wang Siyao (web series – child)

Weapons: E-Ming (scimitar), wraith butterflies

One of the Four Calamities, ”Crimson Rain Sought Flower”, and the most feared among the Heavenly Officials.

• Abusive Parents: It’s hinted that his home life was miserable, and he was frequently abused by both his father and step-mother.
• Accidental Pervert: As a soldier in Xian Le’s army 800 years ago during the war, Hua Cheng ends up feeling up Xie Lian’s body trying to obey his instructions of getting a lock of hair while the other is under the affects of aphrodisiacs caused by the Wen Rou Xiang. This was referred by the author as ’Huahua’s sexual awakening’ considering Hua Cheng at that point is a young teenager. Furthermore, one of the Wen Rou Xiang shapeshifted to Xie Lian’s nude form to tempt Hua Cheng as he is stunned and immediately angered afterwards at the demons.
• The Ace: He excels in anything and everything. Granted, being around for at least 800 years would give him plenty of time to learn all kinds of trades. He is able to easily beat 33 Heavenly Officials in both civil and martial classification as well as holding his own against anyone else he comes across. He mainly puts his skills to use in order to help Xie Lian.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Downplayed. The novel is told mainly from Xie Lian’s point of view, leaving it to the reader to interpret how Hua Cheng would react in some scenes or focus on the hints of the dialogue and narration that are remotely form his point of view. Being a visual medium, the donghua gives the viewer a better opportunity to see his actions and expressions more.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • He’s called ”San Lang” by Xie Lian, the name introduced to him when they met on the cart.
  • His mother would refer to him as Hong Hong-er when he was a child; although he tells Xie Lian he actually has no name.
• All of the Other Reindeer: When he was a child, he was mercilessly beaten and attacked for his red right eye.
• Anger Born of Worry: He usually respects Xie Lian too much to reprimand any of his actions but shows this tendency whenever the other is injured, especially if it’s by Xie Lian’s own intentions. Late in the novel, Hua Cheng visibly shows anger at Xie Lian for the first time when Xie Lian unsheathes Fang Xin as he fears that Xie Lian is going to use the sword to stab himself once more.
• Animal Motifs: Butterflies, as they symbolize death and rebirth, as well as freedom and love. In the donghua, one of the heavenly officials refers to him as a sly fox; and some of the official artwork draw him with a fox.
• Bandaged Face: As a child and a teenager, he had his face partially wrapped in bandages to hide his red right eye — which everyone took as a sign of misfortune for him.
• Baritone of Strength: His English voice is much deeper than his Chinese and his Japanese voices, which is befitting of his ability and authority as one of the Four Calamities.
• Battle Couple: In the finale, he and Xie Lian join against Jun Wu.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: One of the main reasons he fell in love with Xie Lian is because the other showed kindness to him when no one else did, and when Hua Cheng lamented that he had no reason to live, Xie Lian encourages him to make him his reason for living.
• Benevolent Boss: He is both adored and feared, but the citizens of Ghost City are genuinely grateful to Hua Cheng and he seems to treat them well. It’s due to their respect towards Hua Cheng that in the finale, the citizens in Ghost City end up helping the cast by taking out the swarming rats that were about to overrun the city and break the human array.
• Berserk Button: While he’ll do it calmly, do not insult Xie Lian in any way, especially if he’s around to hear it. Case in point, Hua Cheng had burnt down the temples of a total of 33 heavenly officials, all because they had made fun of Xie Lian.
  • He even slices off Jun Wu’s hand in fury after he watches him slam Xie Lian repeatedly into the ground.
• Big Damn Reunion: After the battle with Jun Wu, he vanishes due to his depleted spiritual energy, but swears to Xie Lian he will return. One year later, he appears at Puqi shrine releasing lanterns for Xie Lian who runs up to hug him.
• Born Unlucky: As a child he was born under an unlucky star and was told he would have terrible luck for the rest of his life. Subverted when many years later he has incredible luck on his side.
• Bungled Suicide: As a child, he was about to attempt to kill himself during the parade to bring misfortune onto the kingdom. However, he forgets going through with it once he catches a glimpse of Xie Lian. He is then accidentally pushed over by a bystander but Xie Lian ends up saving him.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: When Hua Cheng is disguised as Lang Ying, Xie Lian (who is already onto Hua Cheng but wants to tease him) asks him who he thinks is the richest, strongest, most admirable person he knows. ”Lang Ying”’s answer? ”The man in red”. Though he insists Xie Lian is the most handsome.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth:His body shatters away into silver butterflies due to using up all his spiritual energy at end of the fight with Jun Wu. Thankfully, he comes back one year later.
• Character Tic: When he’s in thought, he fiddles with the coral bead strung into his hair.
• Child Soldiers: He joined the Xian Le army when he was only a teen and his age was allegedly one of the reasons Mu Qing had him kicked out of the army.
• Collector of the Strange: Paradise Manor is filled with exotic and unique treasures, all which Hua Cheng treats as commonplace belongings.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Downplayed. He knows Xie Lian can take care of himself and assists when asked, but he does sometimes get noticeably annoyed or angry when other people get too close to Xie Lian.
• Cross-Melting Aura: While Hua Cheng is disguised as a human, Nan Feng tries to test whether he is really human by having him draw the holy sword Hongjing, which exposes the true form of any supernatural being who draws it. Hongjing shatters when Hua Cheng draws it, and he feigns confusion over being given a broken sword.
• Deadpan Snarker: If you’re not Xie Lian, or someone who has treated the prince kindly, anyone near him is fair game for him to snark at. Combined with his Brutal Honesty he makes it known to whomever he’s speaking to that he doesn’t care for them.
• Death Glare: He gives plenty of fierce glares which warns weaker foes to back off from Xie Lian. He was also able to glare at the scorpion-tailed snakes and cause it to explode.
• Death of a Child: He died when he was mortal, likely before he even turned 16.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Asked Xie Lian as a child what was the point of living after undergoing so much suffering every day. To which Xie Lian replied live for him if nothing else.
  Xie Lian: I have no answer to the question you asked. However, if you don’t know the meaning to your life, then make me that meaning, and use me as the reason to live.
• Determinator: Even dying not once but three times doesn’t stop him from coming back and reuniting with Xie Lian. He will also stop at nothing if it’s to help Xie Lian. In the past, he was even able to keep up with a young Xie Lian who had already ascended to godhood. Whether it’s assisting Xie Lian when needed, giving him information or even attempting to help him spread the Human Face Disease as the White Clothed Calamity, whatever Xie Lian says, Hua Cheng would gladly execute.
• Devoted to You: Hua Cheng is so incredibly devoted to Xie Lian that not only does he declare himself the latter’s ”most devoted believer”, he has died thrice and came back all three times because he refuses to pass on if it means he’ll never be by Xie Lian’s side again.
• The Dreaded: He’s deeply feared by the Heavenly Officials — the mention of his name, or even a hint at his presence (such as his silver butterflies) are enough to send anyone who knows of him into high alert.
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: Whenever Xie Lian doesn’t know something, Hua Cheng usually has an answer. As San Lang, he brushed it off as him knowing these things for fun, but it’s due to his vast knowledge that he could easily go toe-to-toe with literature gods in debates and win.
• Eyepatch of Power: His true form sports one.
• Eye Scream: The eye in E-Ming is his missing eye that he tore out to prevent himself from going mad and killing the trapped villagers in Mt. Tong’lu who were with him.
• Fascinating Eyebrow: Mentioned quite a bit in the text when he’s amused or teasing.
• Fate Worse than Death: When asked what was his worst experience, he basically replies that watching his beloved being trampled on by others was the worst kind of suffering imaginable. Book 4 reveals that this was literally the case, as he was forced to watch Xie Lian be stabbed over and over by the common folk, and all he could do was scream in anguish at the sight.
• Flash Step: He demonstrates this in the donghua.
• First Love: Xie Lian is the first and only person Hua Cheng’s ever loved and he has devoted his entire life to the Crown Prince.
• Foil:
  • To He Xuan. While Hua Cheng became a Supreme out of his utter devotion and love for Xie Lian He Xuan was the opposite and became a Supreme out of pure hatred for Shi Wudu. While Hua Cheng gets to happily be with the person he loves by the end of the story, He Xuan loses Shi Qingxuan’s friendship for his revenge and likely the only meaningful relationship he’s had.
  • He serves as a foil to Guoshi where Guoshi was the last person to trust Jun Wu and was loyal to him, once he found out that Jun Wu had killed their friends who are now possessing him through the human face disease, he then finally left his prince. Hua Cheng however remains devoted to Xie Lian, seeing the other at his best and worst, but still continues to follow the one person who had shown him kindness.
• Forced to Watch: In the past, Bai Wuxiang captured Hua Cheng as a ghost fire and made him watch Xie Lian being mutilated by his people countless times on an altar. This has traumatized him so much, he jumps in front of Fangxin and gets impaled by it because he refuses to see Xie Lian impaled on that sword ever again.
  Hua Cheng: To watch with your own eyes your beloved be trampled and ridiculed yet unable to do anything. That’s the worst suffering in the world.
• Foreshadowing: He tells Xie Lian on their oxcart ride the tradition of ghosts giving the person they love their ashes and sees it as an incredibly romantic gesture. The ring he gives Xie Lian contains his ashes, but Xie Lian doesn’t know this until the end of the story.
• Hero Killer: Being a Supreme aside, he’s also infamous for destroying the temples of 33 gods in one night. And that’s after he defeated the martial and literature gods in combat and debating respectively. Later chapters reveal that he targeted said gods because they mocked and humiliated Xie Lian over a piece cultivated land after Xie Lian’s first banishment.
• Human Notepad: He has a tattoo on his inner left arm which is Xie Lian’s name written in his handwriting.
• I Am Not Pretty: He will often tell Xie Lian how he is ugly, even when Xie Lian tells him the opposite.
• I Hate Past Me: He notes in multiple conversations with Xie Lian that he has an incredibly dislike for his past selves. This could be why he has an immense dislike for E-Ming who holds Hua Cheng’s missing eye and acts more childlike.
• I Have Many Names: Hong-Hong Er, San Lang, Hua Cheng, Crimson Rain Sought Flower, Ghost King, Hua Chengzhu, Wu Ming.
• The Illegible: His handwriting is so terrible that when Xie Lian attempts to help him, he feels their finished product would have incurred the wrath of his former teachers to rise from the grave and curse him.
• Insecure Love Interest: For all his power and might, Hua Cheng harbors a lot of self-doubt and doesn’t see himself as worthy of Xie Lian’s love, outright stating he’s afraid to do so when Xie Lian asks him how come he hasn’t confessed to that ’special noble someone’. He also fears his true form being too ugly for Xie Lian, and that the prince would reject him would he see who he truly is. Ironically, the other thinks the same about himself when it comes to being undeserving of Hua Cheng’s loyalty.
• I Shall Return: After their battle with Jun Wu, he slowly fades away but assures Xie Lian he will come back to him.
• I Will Wait for You: He’s basically been waiting to meet Xie Lian again for over 800 years.
• Jerkass to One: Inverted. He makes it very clear he doesn’t care for anyone else but Xie Lian.
• Last Words: Before he vanishes, he tells Xie Lian ”Your Highness, I am forever your most devoted believer.”
• Love at First Sight: When Hua Cheng was still a child he decided that if he was going to die, he might as well gatecrash the national offering to the gods ceremony to cause misfortune to everyone. But upon seeing Xie Lian he was completely stunned and forgot about his plans, which incidentally caused him to fall from the wall and Xie Lian saving him.
• Master Swordsman: He can match Jun Wu with E-Ming and is on equal standing with Xie Lian.
• Meaningful Name: His calamity name is Crimson Rain Sought Flower. He’s able to call forth blood rain and his own name, invoking the white flower he protected from the rain.
• Meaningful Appearance: Wears a red coral bead in a braid in his true appearance. It’s one of the beads that Xie Lian wore when they first met. Mu Qing seeing and recognizing it leads to the truth about Hua Cheng’s identity and why he is obsessed with Xie Lian coming out.
• Mr. Exposition: He often explains plot-relevant information when Xie Lian needs to understand a new situation he finds himself in.
• Momma’s Boy: In an abandoned draft, Hua Cheng often sang a love song in a long-lost language his mother taught him for his beloved. This implies that he had a better relationship with her than with his father and step-mother.
• The Nameless: When he was a soldier serving Xian Le, he claimed had no name and when finally able to take on a form when Xie Lian was slowly becoming a Calamity, he says he has no name and allows Xie Lian to call him Wu Ming.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His title is Blood Rain Reaching Towards A Flower (Xue Yu Tan Hua).
• Not So Above It All: He may act aloof, but he does like to mess around when near Xie Lian. He seems to act like this the most when he’s in his San Lang form, playing around with the dangerous scorpion tailed snake, even using it as a jump-rope in the donghua. When the caravan group laughed at General Hua’s story, he claims the tablet said that if one were to bow in front of the stone and pray, they would be blessed with good luck. He was obviously lying which Xie Lian whispers for confirmation.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If he notices Xie Lian is in immediate danger or hears Xie Lian joke about the pain he suffered through, he gets really quiet and drops his teasing attitude. When Xie Lian asks him in the Ten Thousand Gods Cave who exactly is Hua Cheng’s beloved after seeing the statues are all of him, Hua Cheng acts unlike his usual confident self and even asks Xie Lian could he not ask as he believes that Xie Lian doesn’t return his feelings.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: There are plenty of tell-tale signs for ghosts that Xie Lian describes in the first book, some of them being how they don’t need to breathe and don’t have bodily functions like sweating. However, Hua Cheng does sweat when he wants to and the forms he takes are incredibly human-like. There’s also the fact that some ghosts stay due to an immense amount of hatred, but the reason Hua Cheng chooses to remain a ghost is because he refuses to move on if it means he’ll never be by Xie Lian’s side.
• Photographic Memory: He claims he remembers everything Xie Lian tells him and has a great memory on many topics that allowed him to easily debate against some heavenly officials. Also, not only is able to quickly draw a picture of Xie Lian in his Crowned Prince days in great detail, he also carved thousands of statues in Xie Lian’s image over his 800 years of life with stunning accuracy.
• Pet the Dog: Despite his hatred for generally any god that is not Xie Lian, he’s noticeably a lot more civil towards the few gods who do not treat Xie Lian badly, such as Shi Qingxuan. He also seems to have a decent relationship with Yin Yu, a former god who’s currently working for him.
• The Power of Love: For the past few centuries, Hua Cheng is the only non-god who had faith in Xie Lian. A god’s power is determined by the amount of followers they have and how much said followers believe in them; and Xie Lian — even with his shackles — is more powerful that most martial gods and can even go toe-on-toe with the Heavenly Emperor himself, all thanks to Hua Cheng’s undying devotion to him.
• Pretty Boy: Xie Lian’s narration repeatedly emphasizes how handsome he is, and he’s presented as a slim and beautiful man in the visual adaptations (especially as San Lang where he takes on a more youthful form). Ironically, Hua Cheng used to see himself as ugly due to constantly being bullied as a child about his appearance.
• Properly Paranoid: He voices multiple times how uncomfortable he feels about Jun Wu, even telling Xie Lian the god must hate him, which the latter brushes off. Turns out later all of the things Xie Lian suffered through, from the fall of Xian Le, to being stabbed to death along with Bai Wuxian were Jun Wu’s doing all along.
• Rags to Riches: He was a poor child when he was mortal, but in the future as the Ghost King, he’s one of the wealthiest beings in the story.
• Rain of Blood: He’s able to summon a literal rain of blood and can even turn them into flowers if Xie Lian isn’t able to avoid it.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: He fits this description perfectly.
• Red Baron: All four Calamities are given a title that shows how they are The Dreaded, but Hua Cheng’s titles of both the ”Ghost King” and ”Crimson Rain Seeking Flower” are more than guaranteed to fill the hearts of almost every Heavenly Official with terror.
• Redemption Rejection: He was given the chance to ascend into godhood, but refused and chose to remain a ghost.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Part of the reason why he was hideously abused by others as a child was his red right eye, as well as the Head Priest stating that since he was born under the Star of Solitude he will cause misfortune to everyone surrounding him.
• Red String of Fate: He wears a red thread tied around his ring finger. He later ties one on for Xie Lian so the two could always find one another.
• Rescue Romance: He falls in love with Xie Lian when the Prince saves him from a fall during the parade.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When first asked what he thinks of the Crown Prince, Hua Cheng states that Jun Wu must not like him very much since he did nothing to stop Xie Lian being banished from heaven twice. While the full story is much more complicated, the novel would soon show that Hua Cheng was nevertheless on the right track with his response.
• Secret-Keeper: He knew who ”Ming Yi” really was the entire time, but he lets the other be as long as He Xuan doesn’t involve Xie Lian in his plans.
• Seen It All: As San Lang, despite seeing things that normal people would be scared of, he only seems amused or indifferent.
• Shapeshifting: He has various forms he appears in, and transforms into Lang Ying for a short period before Xie Lian calls him out.
• Shirtless Scene: After Xie Lian and Ming Yi rescue Shi Qingxuan and return to Puqi shrine, Hua Cheng is seen with his shirt off working on the shrine, which causes Xie Lian to become immediately flustered.
• Shrouded in Myth: His past life before he became a Supreme has lead many to speculate. From him being an unfortunate child cursed under an unlucky star, to a young soldier who died in a war to protect his kingdom, and then a lovelorn ghost who refuses to move on because his beloved had passed. All of these stories turn out to be true.

• Single-Target Sexuality: As he puts it, he is Xie Lian’s most devoted believer and has no interest in anyone else but the Crown Prince.
• Smug Smiler: He usually wears a smirk, much to the chagrin of those who hate him.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: With Fu Yao and Nan Feng when the two try to out him as the Ghost King when he posed as San Lang.

• Street Urchin: He was living on the streets as a child.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: He acts both friendly and loving to Xie Lian and Xie Lian only; he doesn’t give a fig for anyone else. The only reason he’d lend a hand to help anyone is if Xie Lian asks him to. Even when Shi Qingxuan is possessing Xie Lian’s body, Hua Cheng would never raise a hand to Xie Lian in any way and instead started to beat up Ming Yi.
• Supernatural Light: After he dies as a soldier, his spirit becomes a Ghost Flame who Xie Lian buys and attempts to free, but he refuses to move on and remains by Xie Lian’s side. It’s only when he watches Xie Lian being stabbed by the Xian Le citizens with Fang Xin is he able to take a human form out of sheer anger and grief.
• The Tease: He enjoys teasing Xie Lian when he’s given the opportunity. But when Xie Lian tells him off, he does stop.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: When the 33 Heavenly Officials who he beat in their duels refused to acknowledge their defeat, he burned all of their temples down in one night, causing them to lose their powers and worshippers.
• Together in Death: Discussed. Hua Cheng tells Xie Lian that if the special place where he hid his ashes were destroyed, he’d see no point in living and would rather perish with it. Xie Lian later finds out that the ring he wears around his neck holds Hua Cheng’s ashes.
• Tranquil Fury: He exhibits silent anger whenever Xie Lian is in danger or someone is preventing him from going to his highness’ side, most notably when Feng Xin and Mu Qing try to block him from seeing Xie Lian after they discover the truth of the statues in the Ten Thousand Gods Cave or when Bai Wuxiang appears.
  • Another surefire way to piss him off is to mock Xie Lian, as Qi Rong learned the hard way.
• Trauma Button: Fang Xin holds a lot of horrible memories for him, and if he even gets a hint that Xie Lian was going to self-harm himself for the sake of a mission, he gets angered immediately. When Jun Wu attempts to stab Xie Lian with Fang Xin, Hua Cheng immediately jumps in front of Xie Lian saying he refuses to ever see or allow Xie Lian to be impaled on that sword ever again.
• Undying Loyalty: Hua Cheng has been a loyal follower of Xie Lian, ever since the latter saved Hua Cheng’s life and gave him a reason to live.
  Hua Cheng: I won’t forget. Your highness, I am forever your most devoted believer.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Despite being one of the Four Calamities, he’s actually well liked amongst mortals with many even turning to worship him after he defeated 33 heavenly officials. The many plays of that event is so popular and many officials up in heaven can say nothing against it when they are performed except stew quietly in their own discomfort.
• Warrior Poet: He holds centuries’ worth of knowledge and is highly skilled with a blade. This is evident in the fact that the 33 gods he curb-stomped comprise of both martial and civil gods; and where he decimated the martial gods in a test of combat, he completely floored the civil gods in a test of debate.
• White Mask of Doom: He wears a smiling white mask as Wu Ming as he serves Xie Lian when he was becoming the White Clothed Calamity.
• You Are Worth Hell: Hua Cheng is willing to go through any experience if it’s to protect Xie Lian.
• You Owe Me: He is frequently assisted by He Xuan even as Ming Yi because the other is indebted to him and owes him a lot of money.