Chapter 4

Thank you guys for being such great readers and keeping up with this passion project story. To show my gratitude, I'm publishing an extra chapter this week. I'll go back to 1 chapter a week next week unless the readership grows further, at which point, I might have to do a bit more long-term planning for this story.

As for the story, I wanted to show a very important fact to readers: Homophobia isn't unique to only Western societies with Judeo-Christian backgrounds. Any religious or philosophical system that has a rigid orthodoxy without realizing that the world doesn't function under the "ideal" rules set forth in its canonical structure will have bigoted elements for deviations from orthodoxy, whether it's homosexuals, other religious groups, or gender roles. Also, sometimes you just have to confront homophobia if you have the ability to do so, be proud and upfront. 

I wanted to showcase Hua Cheng, who in the novels is a bad-ass fighter with his sword (so is Xie Lian unlike the Japanese dynamics of Seme/Uke roles both men are equal battlers, Xie's just become more of a pacifist over his centuries of life though he's an even stronger fighter). Swords skills aside, the demonstration in front of the troops was necessary to show authenticity and authority, he needed to demonstrate his ability in combat and his ability to lead, while simultaneous drop the bombshell of being in an openly homosexual relationship (also incestuous to others, who do not know he and Xie are just impersonating Xie Xuan and Xie An). Shock your dispirited audience, then show your skill and ability to awe them. 

As for Sun Wukong discussion with Xie Lian toward the end, it's important to remember that Sun Wukong didn't grow up naturally rebellious or anti-establishment, he became that way after a lot of life experiences, many of which the novel Journey to the West never touched on. I'll do that here and help frame a perspective on why Wukong eventually rebelled against the Taoist Pantheon. In the ancient world, the Taoist pantheon did not have as many mortal lovers as the Greeks or Vedic gods when it came to mixing with mortals sexually, but they fell on the opposite extreme with how arbitrary their legal standards were and their stiff punishment against innocent beings. I might pull out a few of those stories in here to give you a peek at what I am talking about.

As always, I also wanted to offer readers a little glimpse at various aspects of Chinese culture including the weight and distance measurement system that existed in ancient times. I gave metric conversion in the footnotes in case people are wondering how this stuff works.