Chapter 3 is Live

I just opened up several can of worms in this chapter.

Ancient Chinese and Asian mythologies are seldom explored for their LGBT potential in storytelling, probably due to the main source interpretations being orthodox Confucian intellectuals or moralist leaders, who judge things through a narrow hierarchal structure. However, if you think about it, the ancient myths of Asia were notorious for gods shape-shifting and masquerading as human beings. Sometimes it's males becoming females () or female gods pretending to be males to be accepted into society. For example, one interpretation in Buddhism of the famous Guanyin goddess was that she was a male prince of India, who chose to become a woman to leave behind the temptations of position, flesh, and earthly possession. This kind of stuff is rife for exploration about gender and sexual identity, I am just taking a small dab at it for a historical fantasy/fan-fiction  

Readers will probably already have ascertained based on the themes my interpretation of Sun Wukong is along the lines of a gender fluid character, different from transgender or non-binary since Sun Wukong can identify as male or female. One of the monkey king's great powers is his ability to create "perfect transformations" into any human, god, ghost, spirit, demon, animal, or object in existence. So it would not be outside the realm of thought to interpret the character as gender fluid. Sun Wukong did transform a few times in Journey to the West into a female and seduce male characters with his feminine wiles, but most intellectuals over the centuries overlook that stuff and chalk it off to his "amoral" behavior. He also can transform into various male characters and perform the same kind of manipulation or use the male persona for intimidation. In his base form, Sun Wukong is a male biologically and uses titles of males in authority when needed like a king, but he doesn't like the rules or mores of a society that forces him to take on those titles and roles.

There are also real-world implications in the story with various characters, Xie An and Xie Xuan are famous in Chinese history for creating a stable southern Dynasty, while northern China went through a period of constant invasion similar to the European Dark Ages. Xie An is noted as a great statesman, who weighed various issues equally and guided the southern kingdom through a potential civil war with powerful ruling families like Huan and invasion by the Northern Di people of the Qin Empire. On the flip side, Xie Xuan, his nephew, is one of the best generals of the Southern Chinese Dynasty. His battlefield strategies and maneuver tactics enabled him to use numerically inferior troops to defeat much more powerful and numerous forces of Qin under Fu Jian. For folks interested in a bit of palace intrigue akin to Game of Thrones, opening this can of worms will give you that and much more. I intend to incorporate a bit of history in this fantasy, slightly altered with a few naughty bits of course  

Finally, I have not mentioned the appearance of the mysterious white-haired figure that only Sun Wukong saw. Who is this being? Why was he stealing food from a god? There's a very famous Chinese fantasy story that I am referring to here. This story thread will be related to how Wukong could emulate his Sifu and Baba in attaining immortality. In Journey to the West, the method of immortality that Sun Wukong first achieved is considered forbidden and frowned upon by the Heavenly Gods of the Taoist pantheon. Usually, Taoist immortals attain and maintain their power and rank through spiritual cultivation of energy, either through training in the mortal realm or through worshippers as gods (The same concept exists in the book Heaven Official's Blessing, too, so Xie and Hua fell out of normal immortal circles due to what they do). I wanted to explore this a bit more with a major long-term story thread.

Xie Lian and Hua Cheng can exist for so long due to their soulmate bond, which feeds off each other. Unlike most gods, Xie Lian does not need temples or worshippers/believers to stay alive or powerful due to his spiritual energy being drawn from his husband Hua Cheng. In turn Hua Cheng, being an immortal ghost king, who has access to all the limitless energies of the underworld and spirits is an inexhaustible power source as long as his essence, aka his ashes in the form of a ring on Xie Lian, are not destroyed. The union of a god and a ghost is a forbidden union, add to the fact that they're gay, it's like giving everyone a middle finger who gains their power naturally.

I've set up a bunch of story threads and themes in this chapter, I hope readers enjoy it. They may not all pay off immediately, but it hopefully will be a fun ride.