It’s been ages since my last post but I am here to talk about Book Three of Heaven Official’s Blessing. There will be spoilers for things that happen in this book but I will refrain from spoilers for things to come as people are still in the middle of reading the series.

We’re still in the flashback at the beginning of the book. I was struck by the thought that if things were different Hua Cheng and Mu Qing could have been friends. They came from similar backgrounds and really he was the only one who understood Hua Cheng’s struggle growing up in a poor neighbourhood. He even said that HC would learn to deal with it, the struggle, and I felt bad.

I don’t hate Mu Qing, I know a lot of people do but perhaps because I’m reading with hindsight (I’ve read the books before back when it was online) I don’t hate him. He makes sense.

So, we begin to see the destruction or the downfall of Xianle and it is so painful. Xie Lian, I love him, but he was so annoying. He just would not listen! Mu Qing was making good and sound points, but he would not listen. People were warning him and he didn’t even heed their warnings.

I think I mentioned this before but you can really see that even though he is a kind person and different from his rich peers, he is still a prince. You can feel the entitlement through the page. Is entitlement the right word?

He just feels his way is the right way and things will work out because he wants them to. He is also naïve and out of touch. He didn’t interact with the people of Xianle growing up to the point they did not know his face. He spent all his time cultivating and whilst that is good for the mind and spirit… he didn’t really know people or the struggles of the average man. He didn’t understand his subjects. Mu Qing did but they didn’t listen to him.

Feng Xin was not royal but he grew up and worked around the privileged and he loved Xie Lian a lot. He was a bit biased.

Having dissed Xie Lian thoroughly, whilst I strongly believe he should have accepted he could not save everybody and that would have saved him a lot of trouble… him saving Hua Cheng was the best thing he did. He wonders if he made a difference but by saving just one person he made a world of difference so for me, Hua Cheng makes it worth it. He made a lot of enemies in Xianle but he also made his strongest ally. An ally stronger than all his enemies.

Ok, back to dissing my precious boy. The other thing Xie Lian lacked was conviction. He was on the fence. He was not clearly on one side. He tried to please both Xianle and Yong An but that was impossible.

He asked for help with rain but again he wasn’t addressing the root cause of the problem as advised. I bring this up so I can talk about the fact that the rain master’s bull sounded hot. Don’t judge me.

In the end a side was picked for him and it was Xianle and he fought alongside his people. I do find it interesting that he killed another human being for the first time during the battles with Yong An.

The impression I got from White No Face was that he wanted Xie Lian to break all of his convictions. He wanted to him to break his vow of chastity (the cave scene), to harm other humans willingly and not accidentally (more of making Xie Lian go against his morals than an actual rule), and to give in to evil. He wanted Xie Lian to fall.

Side bar: the plants mocking Hua Cheng foreshadowed the 800 years.

As I was reading the flashback it really felt like White No Face vs Xie Lian rather than Xianle vs Yong An.

Ok, I was singing Mu Qing’s praises earlier and saying he could have been friends with Hua Cheng however one thing harmed that. He got Hua Cheng kicked out of the army. It was too much of a coincidence. Xie Lian praises Hua Cheng’s martial arts skills and noted that Hua Cheng was better suited for the sabre. Mu Qing was for sure jealous! It is even noted that their fighting styles were similar? Did Mu Qing fear getting replaced? Yes, that is one decision of Mu Qing’s I did not agree with.

However, going back to defending Mu Qing, he sounds like he is looking down on Xie Lian but Xie Lian did make some bad choice as I’ve mentioned already. It got to the point that even his own parents were like, “Bruh, go back to heaven.” They did not want him to come down! Thus, to be honest I don’t believe he truly hated Xie Lian. I believe he had a tone problem and didn’t know how to talk to people without being sarcastic. In a way, they had the same problem in different fonts, a lack of social skills.

Xie Lian didn’t care about anything other than martial arts for a large part of his life and so did not get people. Whereas Mu Qing got people but did not know how to talk them. At least adults, he seemed good with children.

Plus, it is normal and healthy to be mad at your friends. Also, there was a power imbalance in their early relationship so I do not believe they were truly friends. He could not express his anger freely thus it built up and oh, yeah, his sarcastic nature got worse.

The saddest part for me was when Xie Lian began to break. When the people stopped believing in him and he in himself, that was when the battle was lost. He was truly crushed and helpless wishing to be saved. It was heart-breaking. He truly thought of himself as the god of misfortune.

As ever the ray of light Hua Cheng stayed mofo loyal! He defended the first temple of Xie Lian! He vowed to build more temples no matter what and to never stop believing in him, to never forget him as everyone else would soon. When Xie Lian told him to forget he probably felt bad because he heard how broken Xie Lian was. Still, he never gave up. Greatest ally.

It’s funny how Feng Xin was cheering him on not knowing who he was.

It should be noted that Xie Lian did still have believers but if they expressed it they were killed. So the remaining ones kept quiet out of being scared to go against the crowd. This book and MDZS really show the dangers of crowd mentality and how hard it is to go against it.

That ends that painful flashback.

We’re back to the present day and Xie Lian is threatening Qi Rong with Hua Cheng. I’ve never been more proud. That’s my boy, threaten him some more!

Then we have the episode where Xie Lian wins the competition of the lanterns. That made me so happy! I loved having the smugness wiped off the other official’s faces.

We meet the fluffy Quan Yizhen and there’s the whole foetus ghost and lady ghost saga. I’m not going to lie, when I first heard this story it threw me for a spin. It is mad from beginning to end. I’ll get into that later.

Let’s talk about more important things, Hua Cheng’s and Xie Lian’s first kiss! Eek! Ok, technically it’s not a kiss it’s a lifesaving manoeuvre but whatever.

How did he know Xie Lian would be in the lake?

Perhaps, his ‘Xie Lian is risking his life for no reason because he doesn’t value his life’ senses were tingling. He was big mad and so was I. Be more careful Xie Lian!

The funniest scene though is the investigation in the heavenly court. The way she accused Xie Lian and man had to prove his virginity. Why did Jun Wu even have such a sword?!

“My lord we have this sword that can split the earth in two.”

“Boring, I can do that.”

“This one can tell if someone is a virgin or not, how weird… let’s chuck it.”

“Whoa, buddy, not so fast… it can do what now?”

It also tickled me that Jun Wu got sucked into the gossiping like, “No way, Xie Lian isn’t a virgin?”

Then another favourite scene comes. I feel like MXTX did this for me. She knew I was about to be depressed after the flashback so she gave me back to back gold.

The part I like is when Hua Cheng gets to show Xie Lian the temple he made for him and the handwriting practise they do. Eek! The flirtation! How does MXTX make mundane things like dice throwing or writing so flirty!

Then the beginning of my favourite arc begins, this is where I fell in love with the series. I had been reading it online and I was so confused as to why it was so long, because it is hard to judge length online. I thought my reading skills were rusty so I powered through. Little did I know I had literally just read three books worth of content.

Anyway, yes, my favourite arc. For those of you who experienced pain due to this arc, I am sorry, but I did love it. I’ll explain why… later. If I do now it’s a spoiler.

So, Qing Xuan comes to ask for help facing the boogie man essentially. He’s been facing the Reverend of Empty Words since childhood. Looking back I can’t help but think a lot of problems would have been solved if they’d just listened to the fortune teller.

The raising him as a girl was a good cover to be honest. They would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for the fact that Qing Xuan really couldn’t wait to go to the bathroom.

Wu Du was really the only person Qing Xuan had so really it was a relief that Qing Xuan was able to ascend shortly after Wu Du ascended. The Reverend cannot harm those who ascend or are about to become King. It’s similar to how Xie Lian could not harm Ling Yang as he was about to become king.

Not to end on a sad note but the way the Reverend was not able to harm Xie Lian because Xie Lian’s life was so depressing it depressed the boogie man. Can you imagine! The creature waited for months for something good to happen to Xie Lian and when it failed it failed even worse than the creature anticipated. Still, it did not bother Xie Lian. The creature left because it was too hard, imagine!

They laugh at the story but Hua Cheng is like, “you laughing bro, you trying to laugh?”

Xie Lian… my precious baby boy. I know I’ve been dissing him a lot but I love him and his character. I like how he grew so much as a person from the time he ascended to the present day in the story. What he went through could have broken him but it didn’t, he came out stronger and better. This story honestly just has a special place in my heart for many reasons.

I’ll stop here because the book stops here and next time, *evil laugh* we shall talk of the Reverend’s arc.