![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
info | wip
NAME(S). θ±ε (hua cheng), ηΊ’εΏ (hong er), δΈι (san lang), ζ ε (wu ming), ε°θ± (xiao hua)
TITLE(S). θ‘ι¨ζ’θ± (xue yu tan hua, crimson rain sought flower), θ±εδΈ» (hua chengzu, city master hua)
AGE. >800
OCCUPATION. ι¬Όη (ghost king)
NATIONALITY/ALLIANCE. ι¬ΌεΈ (ghost city)
MARITAL STATUS. married β₯οΈ π π π π π π π π
IDENTIFYING MARKS. always wears red, sometimes has an eyepatch, occasionally has red eyes, has a completely illegible tattoo on his forearm, wears a coral bead in his hair, silver vanbraces, carries a scimitar with a working eye in the hilt
VISUAL. He stands at 6' 1"/185cm. He has brown eyes, and dark hair that he either wears in a side ponytail or a braid. He always wears maple red, and he's generally got a smile.
AURAL. His voice is lilting and melodic, almost flirtatious.
OLFACTORY. He smells of crisp autumn leaves, sweet lingering temple incense and hours spent cutting wood.
DEMEANOR. Usually easygoing, he has a good posture but sometimes sits villain-posed on chairs. He tries to hide his more intimidating nature behind an air of friendliness.
VISUAL. Stands at 6' 3"/190cm, muscular. Eyepatch over his right eye, long flowing black hair with several interspersed braids. Pointed ears, one fang. His good eye is red and has a snakelike pattern. He wears intricate silver jewelry and expensive red silks. His evil is visible to those who can visualize it.
AURAL. His voice is deep, soothing, smooth. When he walks, his boots jangle.
OLFACTORY. Warm and spicy with rich woods. The metallic tang of blood, and the narcotic honeyed scent of moonflower blossoms.
DEMEANOR. He walks with a slow, regal stride. He carries an air of intimidation and does extremely extra things like crush skulls as he walks.
CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TGCF. TW: SUICIDE IDEATION, VIOLENCE.
Hua Cheng grew up bullied relentlessly and was the unwitting recipient of a lot of resentful spiritual energy. He was told by a priest that he would bring misfortune to anyone who went near him and would die before the age of 18. He decided to end his life and crawled up a tower, only to catch sight of a Crown Prince during the middle of a parade. He was so distracted by the Prince's beauty that he pitched forward and fell down towards the crowd, but the Prince caught him.
This was a bad plan, according to Prince Xie Lian's advisors, because he'd interrupted an important ritual to save a street rat. Shortly thereafter, Xie Lian ascended to Godhood.
Later, Hua Cheng was beaten by Xie Lian's cousin, and Xie Lian, pitying him, sent for the best doctors to care for him. However, they all advised that he let the boy die, since he would live a miserable life due to his terrible and inescapable fate. Xie Lian refused to give him up, and Hua Cheng ran away shortly thereafter.
He started sleeping in Xie Lian's temples, and was beaten and abused by a bunch of other kids. One day, he yelled and cried that he had fantasies of killing everyone around him and then himself, and asked what the point was of being saved at all, and what was he supposed to live for? Moved by his outburst, Xie Lian broke a Heavenly edict not to show himself to mortals, and made an appearance to tell Hua Cheng to live for him.
After that, he became Xie Lian's most devoted follower.
Due to some circumstances that involve a gruesome plague, a civil war broke out in the Kingdom and Hua Cheng immediately conscripted himself into Xie Lian's army and then died. Xie Lian, having been promoted and then demoted from Godhood, was now destitute. He met a vendor who was pawning souls trapped in lanterns as trinkets to children. Xie Lian used the last of his money to purchase these ghostly lights to give them a proper funeral. One of these ghost lights was Hua Cheng, and he was delighted and honored that Xie Lian had once again saved him in his kindness. He bargained with Xie Lian to bind him to the Earth as he had unfinished business. Xie Lian asked why he would stay, and Hua Cheng answered that he wished to protect the one he loves. Xie Lian suggested that his beloved might feel guilty over being the reason his soul can't move on, and Hua Cheng agreed that he would hide it from them.
After that, Hua Cheng spent a little time protecting Xie Lian, but as he was essentially a small orb of light, he couldn't do a whole lot. Once, Xie Lian was invited to a compound where there were a hundred civilians and a strange masked manwho revealed that the plague that swept his Kingdom had a cure: anyone who killed, would gain immunity to the disease. As an immortal, Xie Lian could be killed again and again. Hua Cheng could do nothing in his state, and grew stronger and stronger in desperation as he watched each of the townsfolk take their turn. His resentment became so strong that he manifested a form, and his power was enough to kill every single person remaining at the temple.
He became corporeal and wore a mask to hide his identity, following Xie Lian who had taken a dark path. He took on a lot of resentful energy in order to save Xie Lian from having to do so himself, thus fulfilling his honor to die for him, though he was already a ghost so he could not really die.
After that, Hua Cheng regained his body but Xie Lian couldn't be found and had faded into obscurity. He had also asked for his luck to be dispersed, but as luck would have it, Hua Cheng was the unwitting recipient of all this luck, and so he began his journey trying to become strong and rich and worthy of his God.
He spent the next eight hundred years doing so, and made a name for himself by challenging the thirty-three Gods who had once chased Xie Lian away from a training ground and embarrassed him. He bargained that if they won against him, that he would give them his ashes so they could destroy him forever. And if he won against all thirty-three, they would have to voluntarily descend from Godhood. He won, but they all reneged on their part of the deal, so he burned all their temples and then every subsequent time any of their followers tried to rebuild their temples until they faded into obscurity.
Meanwhile, Hua Cheng had come out of Tong'lu as a victor, a Supreme Ghost, and after defeating those 33 Gods, became known as a Calamity, a highest order of Ghost.
One day, one of his wraith butterflies came back with good news: they'd located Xie Lian. He followed the butterflies to find Xie Lian dressed up as a bride in order to locate the Ghost Groom who had been stealing brides in the area. Due to his reputation, Xie Lian became a little wary when Hua Cheng drew too near, so he disappeared again.
He took on the form of San Lang, his alter ego, a teenager, and hopped onto an Oxcart that was taking Xie Lian to a worn-down shrine. He asked to stay at the shrine and offered to fix it up a little, and uh, turns out he's really good at that and the villagers love him. He even offers to go with Xie Lian on his next mission. At this point, Xie Lian realizes that San Lang is Hua Cheng, and calls him out on it.
Afterwards, Xie Lian has to go to Ghost City where Hua Cheng finds him and invites him to gambling, even though everyone else is suspicious that Hua Cheng is a Calamity. He gifts Xie Lian his armory, and there is an accidental burning.
Man there are like way too many arcs here that I don't remember.
Anyway, Hua Cheng gets into a way too small coffin with Xie Lian and they make out a bit after something extremely tragic happens, and then go home and make out a little more because Tong'lu opens up. WIP.
Hua Cheng's entire personality can be summarized in head empty, only Dianxia, but here's a longer breakdown.
He's hard working, and spends nearly a thousand years taking levels in badass in order to become formidable and useful. After those thousand years, he wants to do nothing more but give it all to Xie Lian, and settle down and help him chop down trees and make doors for his temple.
He's determined, and will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. He can't die, and so he'll keep gathering his strength again and trying and trying. He's protective of his God, but he's also protective of some of the people around him.
Not only is Hua Cheng extremely determined, he is also extremely petty. A group of gods once denied Xie Lian a space to train with them, and Hua Cheng literally ruined their entire careers by embarrassing them in combat and then burning down all their temples when they refused to resign as was part of their original bet.
Even though he's crotchety and rude to a lot of the characters, he's mostly rude to the ones that have proven over eight hundred years that they're... kind of mean to Xie Lian, or in one case, an enemy of one of his allies. He has a distrust of human nature and of gods because of his personal experience. He prefers to hang out with gege, but if not with gege, then he's been doing pretty okay as the head of Ghost City.
He really does care, and not just for Xie Lian. To keep from killing a bunch of trapped humans in a ghost tournament, he rips out his own eye to forge a blood weapon to keep other ghosts from killing them.
This act, actually, caused Hua Cheng to ascend to heaven, but for whatever reason, he rejected it. There is not really such a thing as a ghost ascending to heaven, and as for why he refused ascension, he never reveals to the reader. Perhaps it's because he doesn't want to be among those who wronged Xie Lian and Xie Lian had already been cast out another time, or perhaps it was because he wanted freedom to be able to do whatever he wanted. He is daring and stubborn.
He's also sweet when he needs to be. In the guise of San Lang, he's kind to the villagers, because he needs them to believe he's a good boy. He's perfectly capable of playing nice, of being polite and of being civil to make politically expedient moves, but he prefers to ally himself with those like He Xuan, who don't mind personally making appearances in heaven.
Hua Cheng has a fabricated mystery about him, because he wants everyone else to think he's a completely untouchable badass. He makes himself a reputation for having a bark just as bad as his bite, and for the most part, the gods leave him alone. He doesn't show himself to any of his followers. He hangs around the gambler's den in Ghost City but never gambles. It doesn't help that while he's disguised, he's repeating rumors about himself to Xie Lian.
He is also extremely romantic, bestowing Xie Lian with gifts and power and anything he could possibly want. He has lived the last eight hundred years of his life for his love alone, so naturally he's kind of a sap. He talks about his beloved, he has an entire cave full of statues of Xie Lian, and oh yeah he gave Xie Lian his ashes (without telling him what they were) and told him that they were in a safe space, because if the person protecting them couldn't anymore, he wouldn't want to go on living anymore.
He can also be a little bit cheeky, often hiding his true feelings behind coy flirtations, honeyed words and generally being smooth. However, this is all sort of a front, because...
...In reality Hua Cheng is a hopeless 800-year-old virgin who totally spent the last couple centuries preparing what he was going to say to Xie Lian when finally seeing him again. When it comes to everyone else, he truly is brazen, brash, and aloof. But when it comes to Xie Lian, he's still a little boy who would do anything to keep from being discarded by Xie Lian.
This is because, despite all that he's accomplished and all that he has to offer to him, Hua Cheng still believes that it's not enough and that he's not enough. Underneath all this, where it matters, he has an incredibly low self-esteem and in many ways refuses to let Xie Lian know his true feelings for fear that Xie Lian might not want him around anymore. He likens himself to a stepping stone more than once, stating that he'd be more than happy to become one for Xie Lian if only that would mean he was of some use to him. He thinks of himself and his own safety as startlingly unimportant, and only has self-preservation so that he can continue to serve.
His self-loathing comes out sometimes in the form of him berating his sword, which contains his eye and is often expressing his unfiltered emotions. Honestly he's always hated that particular eye, so he often kicks the sword away, calls it trash, throws some petty fits about it.
SPIRITUAL ENERGY
Hua Cheng has some of the highest spiritual energy (also translated as mana) in the series, and more than a lot of the Gods in the story. He can pass it at will, use it to communicate telepathically, to fly, to swap bodies with someone, or to create protective barriers. Without his spiritual energy, he fades away until he has enough of it to regain form. Sometimes if he is low on spiritual energy, he takes the physical form of a child in order to conserve it. Yes, his saber becomes miniature as well.
COMBAT
He is a trained warrior and fights with a special saber. He has been working on his grind for eight hundred years and became a Supreme by essentially surviving a free-for-all tournament against a lot of ghosts. He also famously challenged and won a fight against 33 Gods (half of them he fought in combat, the other in debate.)
INTELLIGENCE & LEADERSHIP
He debated against the other half of the Gods and won handily against all of them. He does a lot of the plotting and planning in the present timeline of the story, and is also generally regarded kindly as a good Ruler by the residents of Ghost City over which he presides.
IMMORTALITY... SORTA
The only way to kill a ghost of Hua Cheng's calibre is by dispersing their ashes. Hua Cheng's ashes are distilled into a ring that he gifts to Xie Lian. Also, because he is already dead, he does not require any sort of life-sustaining things, and he most certainly does not need CPR.
ENDURANCE
Even when he was a small child, people commented that he doesn't react to physical pain as strongly as might be expected.
SHAPESHIFTING & CLONING
Hua Cheng is able to shapeshift himself to essentially any other human form, and often takes on a form that he introduces as San Lang. San Lang is a little bit shorter and younger-looking than Hua Cheng, and also has two eyes which are the same color, whereas Hua Cheng has a missing right eye and was originally very sensitive about his heterochromia. He also essentially sends clones of himself whenever he needs to be somewhere but doesn't really want to be there.
BLOOD RAIN
One of his nicknames is "Crimson Rain Sought Flower," and he is known this way because he can sort of summon blood from the skies. He mostly uses it as a diversion tactic or really just to wig people out. He can also turn the rain into a rain of red flower petals instead, which he usually does to keep one specific person from getting bloody.
BUTTERFLIES
He is known for having these slivers of spiritual energy called wraith butterflies, which he uses as messengers. They're silver, and kind of just announce him. They represent love and purity. Additionally, he can spin up butterfly silk which functions similarly to spider silk in that it is sticky and binding.
LUCK & PRECOGNITION
Hua Cheng had rotten luck all his life, but at some point his luck turned around and made a complete 180. Now he has extremely good luck, and for whatever reason, he can also will some of it away to someone. His incredible luck also gives him a sort of warning of bad things ahead in the form of strong feelings.
DARUMA DOLLS
He can turn people into these little round wooden dolls against their will. They are supposed to symbolize luck and serve as a reminder to achieve ones' goals. He usually does this to troll people.
ARTISTRY
He also spent a lot of his 800 years learning how to paint and how to sculpt and is quite adept at both. His favorite subject is the God he worships. Despite his artistic virtuoso, his penmanship is terrible.
DOMESTIC SKILLS
He proves to the villagers that he is good at both cooking and cleaning and general handiwork.