Xie Lian

## **Appearance**

A handsome young, slender Chinese man who looks around 17 years old with dark, kind eyes. He has long black hair, that he keeps up in a half ponytail, and is usually seen with a simple bamboo hat. He wears simple, flowing white robes with bandages wrapped around his arms, and sometimes also around his neck. He has a piece of red string knotted around the middle finger of his left hand.

## **Powers**

High Pain Tolerance – he feels the pain but doesn’t really register it.

High Danger Sense – pretty good at sensing when there’s danger.

Swordsmanship Skills – he was incredibly obsessed with swordsmanship and weaponry as a child and ascended as a Martial God.

Immortality – he’s… a god (three times over).

Physical Strength – as a Martial God, he has exceedingly great strength and physical ability though he’s still readjusting to his own strength after the return of his spiritual powers.

Agility – he runs fast and is very light-footed even while his skills were limited by the shackles or even when he was mortal. Now, with his third ascension and removal of the cursed shackles, he’s able to move with godly agility.

Spiritual Powers – he regained the use of them after his third ascension, but now has even stronger access since he is no longer limited by the cursed shackles he had been previously been punished with, including spiritual shields, communicating with others within the gods’ (and ghosts’) communication arrays, as well as using these powers in battle.

Extremely Awful Cooking Skills – which are so bad that it can be weaponized.

*Ruoye* – technically a weapon, Ruoye exist as silk bandages around his arm; it has a certain amount of autonomy, but generally does what it's told to do by Xie Lian.

## **Talents**

Fighting, Calligraphy, Art, Singing, Dancing, Music, Terrible Luck (though less bad now…), Strategy, General Survival

## **Interests**

Swordsmanship, weaponry, poems, giving helpful tips around the house (or interesting things of note for gods!), building shrines, scrap collecting, helping people.

## **History**

**\*\*MAJOR SPOILERS\*\***

Xie Lian was born as the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Xianle, where he was beloved by his people. He didn’t care about politics or power, but instead spent time studying cultivation and martial arts at the Taoist Temple of Huang Ji Temple, visiting the palace and his family only once in a while, and participating in required traditions as needed. One of the most renowned events he was known for during this time of his life was his performance as the God Pleasing Crown Prince during one of the most important festivals of Xianle, which was cut short when he broke script to save a falling child.

He gained the notice of the gods and, that same year, after defeating a nameless ghost on his travels, at the age of 17, Xie Lian passed a Heavenly Calamity and ascended as a Martial God.

When the kingdom of Xianle was on the brink of war, Xie Lian, determined to “save the common people” descended from the Heavens to try to help – but since Gods are not allowed to meddle in the affairs of the people, this had the reverse effect and ended with his kingdom falling to fires and a terrible plague called the Human Face Disease, and rebels seizing control of the Imperial Palace.

The people turned against him and burned down his shrines, calling him the God of Misfortune, and the Heavens banished him, forcing him back to the mortal realm with a cursed shackle limiting his spiritual powers.

Back in the mortal realm, Xie Lian lived in poverty with his parents and his two former generals, Mu Qing and Feng Xin, forced to sell all his prized possessions, as well as turning to street performance and attempted robbery for money. Mu Qing was the first to leave him. Things got steadily worse, even to the point where he was bullied by Heavenly Officials, including Mu Qing. He also kept seeing and hearing Bai Wuxiang, an individual responsible for the spread of the Human Face Disease, but no one else could.

One day, while angry at the doubt of his parents and Feng Xin, he saw Bai Wuxiang appear and chased him. Although a small ghost fire tried to stop him, he ended up at the Flower Crowned Martial God Temple, where he was brutally tortured by the people who had been lured there by Bai Wuxiang, and told that – to save themselves from the Human Face Disease, they had to murder someone, and since Xie Lian couldn’t die, that could take it in turns to fatally stab him. Tied to the altar and unable to escape, Xie Lian could only mentally beg for death. Eventually, his consciousness shattered, and the small ghost fire that had been following him exploded, burning down the temple and everyone in it.

When Xie Lian finally regained consciousness, he was angry and had abandoned all his principles. Horrified by what he’d become, Feng Xin left him. The following day, Xie Lian woke to find his parents had committed suicide. He tried to follow them but his immortality made him unable to die.

Instead, he planned to take revenge on the Kingdom of Yong’an, which had grown to replace Xianle, by calling the spirits of the dead Xianle soldiers. One of those that answered his call was Wuming, a ghost clad in black who was immensely powerful.

Xie Lian planned to release another outbreak of the Human Face Disease, but stopped himself before doing so, wanting to give people one more chance to demonstrate kindness. When a passing farmer demonstrated that kindness by stopping to give Xie Lian his bamboo hat, the anger left him. Bai Wuxiang tried to force him to release the spirits anyway, but Wuming stopped it, destroying himself in the process.

As this happened, another Heavenly Calamity struck, and Jun Wu, the Heavenly Emperor appeared and defeated Bai Wuxiang, and Xie Lian ascended a second time – but since he believed that he didn’t deserve his second ascension, he asked Jun Wu to banish him once more, along with a two cursed shackles – one to punish him and restrain his use of power, and the second to disperse his luck.

500 years later, he accidentally ended up training the Crown Prince of Yong’an, ended up taking responsibility for the Kingdom’s downfall despite it being a scheme by his cousin, and was finally buried alive by the young Crown Prince who then ascended.

After 100 years, he finally managed to escape his coffin and headed Northward, where he ended up accidentally fighting in a war, where he tried to stop common people from dying. He was trampled and had to fake his own death.

Afterwards, he generally lived a simple life. None of his jobs really worked out because he had absolutely terrible luck so he mostly stuck to collecting scraps, earning him the name of “Scrap Immortal”.

He finally ascended a third time.

Xie Lian still retained the two cursed shackles from his second banishment, but he was still sent to do many tasks by Jun Wu, and for the purposes of trying to regain his place in the Heavens. Without followers, his powers were incredibly weak, and he was often assisted by others – including a young man in red, San Lang, who is later revealed to be Hua Cheng, one of the Four Great Calamities and a Ghost King feared by everyone, including many Heavenly Officials.

As events unfolded, Xie Lian ran into many people he’d known and who’d known him, and started discovering many things about his own past that pointed to incredibly horrifying conclusions – culminating in a battle against Jun Wu himself. During this battle, Hua Cheng shared so much spiritual energy with Xie Lian that the cursed shackles that had been restraining him broke, and he was able to defeat Jun Wu. His joy at this victory is short-lived, however, as during his celebration, Hua Cheng’s spirit disperses with a promise to return.

He’s trying to come to terms with this – trying to cling onto the belief that Hua Cheng will come back, as well as trying to gear himself up to help resolve some of the mess this whole endeavour has caused, when he finds himself in Wall.