I agree that one of mxtx's flaws in writing tgcf was not giving us more details about Hua Cheng's family life and his background outside of Xie Lian, but "HC is defined by his love for XL" is not a flaw of the writing, it's a deliberate part of Hua Cheng's canon character.

Again, this goes back to the EN fandom's subtle and tacit dissatisfaction with canon HC. Which in this specific instance I get; I wanted more details about HC's mom and family life, and the circumstances of his birth, and his ethnicity (since mxtx alluded to him being Hmong).

She gave LWJ relationships outside of WWX. Even LBH, whose most significant relationship is with SQQ, still holds on to the memory of his adoptive mother the washerwoman (and his love for her is an important part of his character). We also get to meet LBH's biological father.

And in the extras, we get an actual backstory for SXY/TLJ, who are LBH's parents. We do not get any of that material for HC. So this is definitely an important criticism of the way mxtx wrote HC, yes: she should've given us more ample information about his family background.

I would've loved, at the very least, some extras that touched upon HC's relationship with his mother. Or perhaps a conversation b/w HC and XL about his mother. So before I get into the other part of this thread, let me just say that I agree with that portion of the critique.

Otherwise yes, HC's character is meant to revolve around XL. And that's again because of what we learn regarding HC's life in book 2. HC's motivation revolves mostly around XL because, well, XL is to date the only person in HC's human life (besides, presumably, his mother)

who treated HC with compassion and dignity. Forget saving HC's life; he was the only one who saw HC as a human child and not an ugly blight. Again I cannot stress enough how significant this is for HC.

The experiences we have when we're young are formative and often define large chunks of our personality. Yes, we grow and change and develop, but there are certain traumas or life-changing events that occur during our childhoods that define who we are as well.

HC's attempt at suicide, and XL's subsequent saving of him, and later XL caring for him, soothing his wounds, protecting him from literally everyone else (including XL's own advisors), is a life-changing, life-defining event for HC.

Like his first two ascensions and banishments are life-defining events for XL, baby HC (Hong-er) trying to kill himself while cursing humanity but being saved by the literal crown prince of Xian Le, who was told to discard HC's life, is something that changed HC permanently.

If you were told that your life is meaningless and that you're better off dead, and all you wanted to do was die and curse humanity, but someone who is literally revered by the heavens saved your life and gave your life meaning, you'd never forget them.

And this is why book 2's final line is: "I will never forget you". Not just impactful for XL, it is the line that sums HC's devotion to XL up. He will never forget XL because XL humanized him and saved him when no one else batted an eyelash at his agony.

I'm a fan of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire by grrm and I'm reminded of one of the overarching themes of the series: individual lives DO have meaning, against all the odds, against people's attempts to dehumanize by the thousands. Every individual life matters.

XL was punished for believing in this very theme, that every single person's life, no matter their age or gender or birth status, has intrinsic meaning, and that every person deserves a chance to live freely.

From ASOIAF:
"… what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?“
“Everything,” said Davos, softly."
––Davos V, A Storm of Swords

/This/ is the impact of XL saving HC's life in book 2, this is the mantra XL embraces, that all of our lives have meaning no matter what heaven or destiny or fate preaches, and that he will set out to save people no matter what the odds are. And it's why HC falls for him.

Xie Lian is told by his advisors and by MNQ that by saving HC and keeping him close, he's not only damning himself but damning the Kingdom of Xian Le. He's told something similar by Jun Wu, that he's damning himself by interfering with human affairs when he descends.

And what did XL do? He said "the life of this one child is worth everything". Fuck your kingdom and its politics; this one child's life is worth more than that very kingdom because he is a human being and his life has value on its own.

I'm also a fan of the Captive Prince trilogy (which is an m/m romance) by C.S. Pacat. In Prince's Gambit, chapter 19, Damen (the protagonist) reflects on his desire to be with Laurent vs. his desire to reclaim his throne:

"A Kingdom, or this."

Xie Lian chose an individual life over a Kingdom. At that point there bond wasn't romantic obviously (though it was this action that directly led to HC falling in love with XL... for reasons I have just laid out). For all intents and purposes, HC could mean "nothing" to XL.

Certainly by other people's standards not "important" enough to warrant allegedly ruining the luck of an entire Kingdom. Yet XL chooses to save this child's life anyway, chooses to humanize him and point out the inherent worth in his life.

So it is any wonder that HC's motivations revolve mostly around XL? Who besides XL saw the child in him, that ragged human child, and decided that this individual child is worth the rage of the heavens?

No one else in HC's life (again, besides his mother) saw the inherent value in him when he was: human, young, underfed, raggedy, poor, and powerless, a speck in the large kingdom of Xian Le.

The counterargument to this is always: the residents of Ghost City, Yinyu, and He Xuan. Let's for a moment go with the fanon versions of HC's relationships with YY and HX. And of course there's HC's people, who do canonically adore him and respect him (and fear him).

HC earned the love and loyalty of his people through establishing his might with an iron fist and through staying true to his principles and not allowing corruption in his city. He's a phenomenal leader who's created a place for his people to be themselves.

This only happened when HC became a literal ghost king. This is not human HC; this is powerful, wealthy calamity-class ghost king HC who now has the physical strength, talent, riches, and power at his disposal to protect his people and provide an amazing place for them.

HC earned that through his grit and labor and (metaphoric) blood, sweat, and tears. He had to build himself up to reach that point. No one handed him that respect on a platter. The residents of ghost city wouldn't give a fuck for human HC or even ghost fire HC.

Speaking of ghost fire HC: again we see how to XL, every individual entity has meaning, whether it's a raggedy human boy or a ghost fire that's trapped. And again XL showed that he believes in this mantra, that all of us have meaning and worth as individuals.

No one but XL freed a trapped ghost fire HC from his bonds. No one but XL would care to free ghost fire HC. Certainly not the residents of Ghost City; why would they care about a meaningless ghost flame?

Even consider all the things HC went through during his 10 years at Mt. Tonglu; if he hadn't proven himself there, you think other ghosts, much less heaven, would care about him, would see him as someone with intrinsic value just for the fact of his existence?

Mt. Tonglu is a blood bath. It's ferocious. There's no value for life (pun intended) there because it's vicious and destructive and only the strongest come out intact. HC is frequently in places with no value for life, and he is forced to carve out his existence among them.

So we've established that the residents of Ghost City love HC because he is their ruler; they don't have the same view that HC's very existence is meaningful /just because/ that XL does. What about YY and HX?

YY and HX are indebted to HC in different ways. YY was accepted into Ghost City by HC because HC has every reason to hate Heaven. And HC has treated YY with respect. Similarly, HX and HC are allies (or as per fanon, best buds and friends with benefits, I guess).

Again, the HC that YY and HX come to ally with and respect (and in fanon, are best friends/fuck buddies with, I guess) is not the human HC or the ghost flame HC or the desperate Mt. Tonglu HC. It's Ghost King HC.

This allyship (or fanon friendship/fwb rltnshp) between HC and YY/HX isn't like QYZ and YY's shixiong-shidi relationship from their human life, or HX's relationship with his childhood friend who became his fiancée.

It emerged out of mutual convenience. If YY was useless or traitorous, HC would've destroyed him. Same for HX. If HC didn't provide what HX needed for his revenge, HC would've been useless to him. If HC didn't provide refuge for YY, then again, HC would've been useless to him.

These allyships (canon) or friendships/fwb's (fanon) did not emerge out of a natural platonic development with two friends bonding and getting to know each other, they emerged specifically because of HC's status and power. It's a direct contrast to how human!HC had no one.

Not just human!HC; ghost flame!HC and Mt. Tonglu, pre-supreme!HC had no friends or allies either. He gained allies as a result of how he built himself up, not because people saw him as someone they wanted to befriend.

You may ask: alright Navya, we get it, these aren't organically fleshed out relationships but rather dynamics that emerged due to convenience or placement or power. So? What's the point?

My point goes back to the value of an individual human life: HC's character revolves around XL because HC chooses to center his life around XL. And he chooses to center his life around XL, the man he loves, the man he chooses as his soulmate, because XL is, to this day

the only person who sees HC as worthy of love and care on his own, just for who he is as a person, as someone with intrinsic value because of his existence, not because he's rich or powerful or a ghost king.

And XL proved that when he saved baby Hong-er from suicide, when he saved him from Qi Rong, when he gave him a reason to live, when he freed ghost flame!HC. XL looked at HC no matter what state he was in ("what matters is you, not the state of you") and said: your life matters.

Your life matters because you're you and because you deserve a happy life worth living, you deserve to be safe and not to hate yourself, not because of what you may or may not become in the future or because of your power, but because you're a person, and all people have meaning.

So yes! HC's character revolves around XL. That is deliberate: because XL is the only person to look beyond the strength, the ferocity, and the power to see the human, the person with all the flaws and weaknesses, underneath. He sees him for who he is and accepts him anyway.

When you say that HC revolves around XL like it's a bad thing, all I think is that it shows how people didn't understand just how horrible HC's human life was, and how monumental it is for XL to actively prioritize the life of an individual over the demands of a kingdom.

HC revolves around XL because he chooses to, not because he's forced to or because he's an autonomy-less, naive guy. That's the critical difference here. Someone who becomes as powerful as HC could choose to focus on countless people besides XL, but he didn't, and we know why.