2ha

The warnings are not joking around, please heed them. In the terms of sex, gore, violence and questionable relationships, this is more or less the same category as A Song of Ice and Fire.

(But with a much better emotional payoff and less people randomly pissing all over the place in the name of Gritty Realism.)

The ‘underage sex’ warning is there because a teenage Mo Ran visits a brothel, not because of anything that happens between the main pair. The furthest that goes while Mo Ran is still a teen is him (either in a magically addled or half-asleep state) forcing a kiss on a startled or sleeping Chu Wanning.

Actually, paedophilia is one of the very few warning-worthy things that does not occur in the book.

(That said, this is… not a relationship guide. The title and the premise should make as much clear.)

The Dog Lives.

The Cute Little Paper Dragon Lives.

The Cute Toddler Does Not. It’s pretty graphic.

In the first third of the novel both Mo Ran and Chu Wanning experience flashbacks to their previous lives. They way these are presented and how the characters (especially Chu Wanning) react are very similar to intrusive thoughts, so if you have trouble with those, these might be really unpleasant to read. Personally, for me, they weren’t enough to put me back into that headspace, but just know that they are there.

I know some people have strong negative feelings about the ‘asshole has a point’ kind of villain - this book has one of those. It’s an interesting case though, as they actually accomplish the positive thing they set out to do, the main characters’ vicory is damage control, reversing the backlash this action caused.

Does it end well?

Short answer: Yes.

All the way up to that point there was a huge, noticable difference between the horrible Chu Wanning in Mo Ran’s head and the one whose action the reader could percieve, and this difference became more and more obvious to Mo Ran himself, it created a huge internal tension in him.

The wontons were just the culmination and the point was not that Shi Mei did not make them, but that Chu Wanning did.

Spoiler Warning

I am putting together an 0.5 timeline because the events in the past just fascinate me dearly. It is quite hard because it requires skimming through the whole novel. Please let me know if there is a mistake somewhere.

15 years old: Mo Ran became Chu Wanning's disciple and a few months later, he was planted with the Flower of Everlasting Hatred.

19 years old: Shi Mei "died", Mo Ran started to secretly learn the Zhenlong Chess Formation and created the Shared Heart Formation.

20 years old: Mo Ran started his conquest with Sisheng Peak then Rufeng Sect.

Speculation: It is unclear when the siege on Rufeng Sect happened but it is safe to presume it would have been some time after Sisheng Peak got destroyed. In chapter 1, Xue Meng mentioned Chu Wanning once waited for Mo Ran to return all alone days and nights (it could mean a very long time).

Chu Wanning was present when Ye Wangxi was killed so it's likely that the battle between him and Mo Ran happened at Rufeng Sect. Then it would have happened closer to his coronation day.

22 years old: Mo Ran announced himself the new ruler of the Cultivation World. He also married Chu Wanning and Song Qiutong the same year.

So many events we learned about happened within the first year he became Taxian-jun: capturing Chu Wanning, the coronation day, Chu Wanning begging for Xue Meng's life, to their wedding.

Speculation: When did Chu Wanning find out about the flower? I found a hint - Song Qiutong resented "Chu Fei" because Taxian-jun once came to her because he was furious to find the letters Chu Wanning wrote to Xue Meng. This was before Taxian-jun celebrated his third year of being the emperor. So Chu Wanning must have made the discovery within the first two or three years after being captured.

25 years old: Taxian-jun got in a good mood since it was the three year anniversary of being the emperor and being married to Chu Wanning.

Their interaction was much different from other flashbacks, more peaceful and loving. Also, Taxian-jun referred to Chu Fei as his beloved and favored consort. And I like to think they had a bit over five years with moments like that every now and then.

30 years old: Xue Meng's assassination attempt happened. Taxian-jun laid waste on Taxue Palace. Chu Wanning passed away.

32 years old: :(

#we’ve got to stop throwing people away#this is targeted at a specific perspective#that i think will probably become very common among ppl who go from hyx to 2ha#there is already a little of ‘mo ran must never forgive himself’ going around though#and i think that’s just… so punitive and bleak and a worryingly common way to think about people#it really is the phenomenon of once you set a baseline of behavior…#a good person can’t put a foot wrong and anything good a bad person does is praiseworthy#see: shi mei stan accts that hate on mo ran#i’m using good person and bad person as shortcuts of course#are bodhisattvas even expected to never think wrong?#i don’t think that’s how enlightenment works actually#lol from my extensive experience#still i do know a little about it

Also, don’t get me started on Shi Mei stan accounts hating on Mo Ran 🙄 I mean, I totally get the appeal of loving a pretty villain and the hot mess that he is (hell, I do it all the time, too), but, ffs, if you are doing this, please own it and don’t try to turn it into some fake-woke social justice issue! I am fascinated by their blind spots when they attempt to decry some sort of double standard about Mo Ran getting a happy ending when “they both did the same thing”. Umm… no? It was not the same at all!

First of all, Mo Ran committed the vast majority of his atrocities under mind control and after literally being driven insane. What Shi Mei did was all premeditated and with his consciousness fully intact. And before someone brings up the brothel massacre that came before the curse, let me just point out that these were people who had wronged Mo Ran directly and pushed him well beyond his breaking point. In contrast, Shi Mei’s first victims were people who had loved him. Sisheng Peak was the first to be destroyed and let’s remember that he had wanted to plant the flower in Chu Wanning, who had taken him under his wing when nobody else would and who was on the same side as him when it comes to the BBB issue. Also, once you commit to the whole ‘the end justifies the means’ philosophy and start doing the same thing that was done to you to innocent people, you have absolutely crossed the line into full villain territory. 

Also, everyone talks about how Chu Wanning was willing to tear both his body and soul to pieces to protect the people he loves, but the fact is, Mo Ran did this too! He literally gave everything he had for others, and he had so little to begin with. Even TXJ did this, his only act after he was finally freed in the 2.0 timeline was to protect the surviving world with what is left of his body and soul. In contrast, Shi Mei just took and took, not caring whom he killed and what he destroyed. 

And all this is before we even get to the main theme of this book, which is that in order to be redeemed, you have to repent first. I mean, if you are going to compare Mo Ran and Shi Mei, how do you not see this? When Mo Ran was freed, he felt pain, guilt and shame and took responsibility for what he had done. In contrast, Hua Binan never did and continues to believe he did nothing wrong. Putting full blame on Taxian-jun for the atrocity that he personally planned, orchestrated and put into motion was the height of audacity, and that is why he did not get any grace in the end. Even the second timeline Shi Mei understood this and embarked upon a proper path of repentance, which will probably lead him to peace before he dies and set him on a path to reincarnation. 

The problem with Hua Binan is that he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong. The fact that 2.0 Shi Mei KNEW what they were doing was wrong and acted against it means hbn still had this idea that he was in the right.

I’d also like to point out that txj wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for 1.0 Shi Mei/Hua Binan so yes Hua Binan was still very much at fault for what Txj did. Txj was his puppet.

For me, Hua Binan is so irredeemable because he does horrific things of his own volition against innocents (there is no concept of acceptable collateral damage where you literally destroy a universe and start on another one because you need more people to kill) but also because he takes genuine pleasure in his horrors - and not horrors against people who wronged him but people who have done nothing to him or treated him well.

He plans to rape Chu Wanning (and earlier planned to put the flower into him to make him into a puppet monster AND someone “in love” with him) and all CWN has ever done was take him in as a student. Hua Binan himself doesn’t seem to have any beef with the man but he operates on a “well, it’s my turn to bang him now” as if CWN is not a person but a teapot in a group house - must be shared and shared alike without any input from the teapot. For him, CWN exists only to satisfy whatever need or desire Hua Binan has, whether for a puppet or for sex or whatever. And that to me is the core horror of Hua Binan - he does not see anyone else except himself as a person - not the people he kills, not Chu Wanning who he supposedly fancies, not even the other BBBFs who he uses and kills (Song Quitong) and only helps in the way he thinks is good - if they disagree too bad! There is only one real person in Hua Binan’s world and it’s him. 

And I can’t even think about what he did to Mo Ran without feeling more rage than is healthy. One can possibly, in a truly twisted way, explain his hatred of Mo Ran 2.0 as frustration and rage that how is this filthy animal (as TXJ) better than him at magic and he needs him, how did he have to put up with him slobbering over pristine Hua Binan (which HB magicked as control method but we all know he is not good at responsibility), why does he get CWN aka the toy Hua Binan wants, why can’t he control him fully blah blah. These are all psycho reasons to hate someone but I could at least follow the warped logic.

But it doesn’t explain the disgust and sheer sadistic pleasure he feels in the scene where he puts the flower into Mo Ran - a traumatized 14/15 year old who’s literally just experienced the first short stretch of decent life in his whole existence - and if Shi Mei doesn’t know the true horrors of his past, even the story he does know sounds awful. Here is a 14/15-year old kid who’s been rescued from almost being burned to death, an orphan, who’s had such a rough upbringing he has to be taught to read and write at his age, who eats as if he’s starving at every meal, and who’s been nothing but nice to Shi Mei. And the sick, twisted pleasure Shi Mei gets in lording it over him, the superior disgust he feels for Mo Ran, the delight he takes in his pain and horror - that is pretty much the grossest part of the book for me and that is saying something because 2ha has so much awfulness in it. Shi Mei is incapable of appreciating the sacrifice Mo Ran is making, or the kindness and selflessness that entails, he is incapable of being “well, I hate doing this awful thing but I have a noble goal” or even being dispassionate about it - he genuinely enjoys it. Just like Mo Ran, he’s had a childhood of no power (though significantly less bad than Mo Ran’s, I note) but instead of trying to save earthworms, he enjoys when it’s his turn to oppress someone.  

Even as Taxian Jun, a mad puppet, there remained enough there for Mo Ran to give a monastery a ton of gold for their association with the person who saved him from starvation. Hua Binan repaid all his saviors and friends with torture and death. And he feels zero guilt about it.

And I’m very into this take on the way he hates Mo Ran. I didn’t quite pick up on the fact that his disgust and sadism towards him was there from before anything even happened. I’m still puzzled by it– not that Shi Mei could hurt him so much, but that he zeroed in on Mo Ran specifically, given that not only did Mo Ran do nothing to harm him, he didn’t even do anything to particularly rub Shi Mei’s face in the contrast between them? Oh… until the confrontation over the flower. Did it start there or was it going on before that?

It wasn’t about luck, or he would have hated Xue Meng the most. Was Shi Mei mad because he could tell that Chu Wanning chose Mo Ran in a different way to how he chose Shi Mei (regardless of how he intended to repay it)? Did he just hate Mo Ran particularly because being around someone so apparently uncomplicatedly happy was irritating? Did he really not particularly hate him until he gave himself up for Chu Wanning, for obviously being traumatized and not hating the whole world, making completely opposite choices?

As for why he despised Mo Ran so much, I think it actually does have something to do with the fact that their backgrounds are similar? Losing their mothers unfairly at a young age, shitty, shitty fathers, and basically trauma after trauma when they were both kids. Even if Hua Binan got to Sisheng Peak after his dad killed his mom, he’s still a kid now saddled with the knowledge that his race is less than animals on most people’s eyes. Ignorance would have definitely been bliss in this case. 

Mo Ran had a horrible childhood, too, but the thing is that he tries his best to put it behind him. He tries not to let anger and resentment get the better of him and poison his future actions. And he definitely succeeds! Despite all that he’s been through by the time he gets to Sisheng Peak, he’s a legitimately sweet and loving person still. (And then haha Flower go brrr.) As he is, without any outside tampering, when someone helps Mo Ran, he never forgets it - it’s one of his most defining traits, imo. He’s hopeful! No matter what he’s gone through, he never stops believing that there are good people who care about him. 

Hua Binan, though - Hua Binan’s the exact opposite. Like you said, I think Hua Binan just… deliberately strangled any kindness and hope that was left in him. As far as he’s concerned, there are no truly good people, the world is an awful place, and he’s not going to let it scar him as badly as it did the first time, with his mother’s murder. He’s not going to let his guard down again. I think, just from a human-to-human perspective, that it began as a self-preservation instinct; I don’t think anyone can just wake up and decide that they’re going to be spiteful and cruel and vicious just for the sake of being spiteful and cruel and vicious. But it quickly escalated into cold-hearted and callous disregard for other people - and a lot of it was because Hua Binan himself didn’t attempt to rein it in. As I said in some tags, he saw the slippery slope and grabbed a sled. He immediately accepted that everything is horrible and unfair. He’s not going to trust anyone, he’s not going to let anyone in, and any kindness, genuine kindness, that’s given to him, is fake. (I think this is part of the reason why he never even considered opening up about himself? Like, even to Chu Wanning, whom he’s ~in love~ with? In his mind, no matter how well the people in Sisheng Peak treat him, they can’t possibly be sincere enough to still stand up for him if they find out he’s a Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast. If his own father, his family, would murder his mother for that, then why would these random strangers, regardless of how nice they act when they’re unaware of his origins, do anything to help him if they knew?) 

But then here comes Mo Ran! Lost his immediate family too. Has no one to look out for him too. But he’s… compassionate? He’s… genuine? Despite what he’s been through he wants to do good, he wants to help other people, he wants to form sincere connections with those around him? I think Hua Binan sort of saw an alternate version of himself, who still hasn’t learned anything despite his mother’s brutal death. Who’s still a naive idiot that actually believes that people can truly care about him. The way I see it, there’s almost a sort of disgusted pity in the way that Hua Binan regards Mo Ran - like, “people are only ever going to use you. Hell, I’m using you. And you - when are you ever going to learn?”

To put it in other terms, I think every time Hua Binan saw Mo Ran, he was reminded of all the (in his mind) weakness and stupidity that he pruned from himself. It’s fascinating to me that he hates Mo Ran with such passion, but he never actually acknowledges him much as his own person. It’s not the kind of hate that, say, Morgoth from the Silmarillion has for Varda, where he hates her but a part of that hatred is born from the fact that he knows she’s a competent, capable threat to him - it’s, instead, a much more scornful kind of loathing, the way you’d want to crush an ant beneath your heel. If Morgoth is glaring at Varda from across a table, then Hua Binan outright sneers down his nose at Mo Ran. At best, he’s an unwieldy tool to be used - annoying to be around, but he’ll have to put up with it. At worst, he’s an empty-headed little worm who can’t see what’s right in front of his nose. There’s such a condescending and intense disdain in the way he views Mo Ran, it’s really… interesting, honestly? 

Mo Ran has suffered in horrible ways, he’s seen the worsts that people can fall to, but it’s precisely because of that that he understands the importance of kindness. He knows how precious lives are, he knows he has to treasure every good thing that he has. Hua Binan has suffered in horrible ways too (no one deserves to watch as his own father eats his own mother alive, and no one deserves to be treated like a piece of meat just for being born as a certain something like a Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast), but that’s only made him believe that kindness is worthless and that lives mean nothing if he can achieve his aims. And the faith that Mo Ran has in the goodness in the world is something that Hua Binan willingly discarded long ago.

The thing about Hua Binan is that he completely internalizes the attitude that cultivation society has towards his people - and then spews it right back out at the world with a fury. Cultivation society says his people are livestock, just tools to be harvested, brutalized, and dehumanized for profit and to increase cultivation levels? Then Hua Binan says all other people are livestock, just tools to be harvested, brutalized, and dehumanized for his goals. The only exception, like you mentioned, is Mu Yanli, whom he definitely used but whom he also definitely loved. (And this is a side note, but every time I come across that scene when they’re contemplating what to do with Shi Mei 2.0, I snort, because Hua Binan is like “hey can you kill him for me” and Mu Yanli is like “no I can’t do that to any version of you” and Hua Binan is like “meh okay it was more of a personal favor anyway, it doesn’t have anything to do with our overall plans”… like… it simultaneously amuses me, as a person who has siblings, that Hua Binan gave in to his big sis so easily - and also terrifies me because it’s like he’s just… sitting there humming and flipping a coin with Shi Mei 2.0′s life. That’s a person you’re talking about! That’s literally another version of you for Christ’s sake! Anyway.) 

I do think some part of Hua Binan cared about Mu Yanli as a fragment of his past before his mother died, because she’s about the only person left who knew him when he was just a normal kid. But I think the main reason he loves her is her willingness to go to extreme lengths to get the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts to safety; both because it means she cares about his people and doesn’t see them as subhuman like everyone else does (or like he thinks everyone else does), and because he’s the exact same way. To Hua Binan, I think, it’s like a connection that they have. And since his most important motive in life is to open the Path of Martyrdom and get his people to the Demon Realm - Meatbun does a great job of establishing that nothing else will ever mean as much to him than that - that’s pretty much the strongest bond that Hua Binan could have with anyone. I definitely don’t think he loves her just because she’s his sister, though. I mean, do you think Hua Binan would have any trouble killing someone even closely related to him? Lmao. He’d be like, “Cool.” *stab*

#we’ve got to stop throwing people away#this is targeted at a specific perspective#that i think will probably become very common among ppl who go from hyx to 2ha#there is already a little of ‘mo ran must never forgive himself’ going around though#and i think that’s just… so punitive and bleak and a worryingly common way to think about people#it really is the phenomenon of once you set a baseline of behavior…#a good person can’t put a foot wrong and anything good a bad person does is praiseworthy#see: shi mei stan accts that hate on mo ran#i’m using good person and bad person as shortcuts of course#are bodhisattvas even expected to never think wrong?#i don’t think that’s how enlightenment works actually#lol from my extensive experience#still i do know a little about it

Also, don’t get me started on Shi Mei stan accounts hating on Mo Ran 🙄 I mean, I totally get the appeal of loving a pretty villain and the hot mess that he is (hell, I do it all the time, too), but, ffs, if you are doing this, please own it and don’t try to turn it into some fake-woke social justice issue! I am fascinated by their blind spots when they attempt to decry some sort of double standard about Mo Ran getting a happy ending when “they both did the same thing”. Umm… no? It was not the same at all!

First of all, Mo Ran committed the vast majority of his atrocities under mind control and after literally being driven insane. What Shi Mei did was all premeditated and with his consciousness fully intact. And before someone brings up the brothel massacre that came before the curse, let me just point out that these were people who had wronged Mo Ran directly and pushed him well beyond his breaking point. In contrast, Shi Mei’s first victims were people who had loved him. Sisheng Peak was the first to be destroyed and let’s remember that he had wanted to plant the flower in Chu Wanning, who had taken him under his wing when nobody else would and who was on the same side as him when it comes to the BBB issue. Also, once you commit to the whole ‘the end justifies the means’ philosophy and start doing the same thing that was done to you to innocent people, you have absolutely crossed the line into full villain territory. 

Also, everyone talks about how Chu Wanning was willing to tear both his body and soul to pieces to protect the people he loves, but the fact is, Mo Ran did this too! He literally gave everything he had for others, and he had so little to begin with. Even TXJ did this, his only act after he was finally freed in the 2.0 timeline was to protect the surviving world with what is left of his body and soul. In contrast, Shi Mei just took and took, not caring whom he killed and what he destroyed. 

And all this is before we even get to the main theme of this book, which is that in order to be redeemed, you have to repent first. I mean, if you are going to compare Mo Ran and Shi Mei, how do you not see this? When Mo Ran was freed, he felt pain, guilt and shame and took responsibility for what he had done. In contrast, Hua Binan never did and continues to believe he did nothing wrong. Putting full blame on Taxian-jun for the atrocity that he personally planned, orchestrated and put into motion was the height of audacity, and that is why he did not get any grace in the end. Even the second timeline Shi Mei understood this and embarked upon a proper path of repentance, which will probably lead him to peace before he dies and set him on a path to reincarnation. 

The problem with Hua Binan is that he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong. The fact that 2.0 Shi Mei KNEW what they were doing was wrong and acted against it means hbn still had this idea that he was in the right.

I’d also like to point out that txj wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for 1.0 Shi Mei/Hua Binan so yes Hua Binan was still very much at fault for what Txj did. Txj was his puppet.

For me, Hua Binan is so irredeemable because he does horrific things of his own volition against innocents (there is no concept of acceptable collateral damage where you literally destroy a universe and start on another one because you need more people to kill) but also because he takes genuine pleasure in his horrors - and not horrors against people who wronged him but people who have done nothing to him or treated him well.

He plans to rape Chu Wanning (and earlier planned to put the flower into him to make him into a puppet monster AND someone “in love” with him) and all CWN has ever done was take him in as a student. Hua Binan himself doesn’t seem to have any beef with the man but he operates on a “well, it’s my turn to bang him now” as if CWN is not a person but a teapot in a group house - must be shared and shared alike without any input from the teapot. For him, CWN exists only to satisfy whatever need or desire Hua Binan has, whether for a puppet or for sex or whatever. And that to me is the core horror of Hua Binan - he does not see anyone else except himself as a person - not the people he kills, not Chu Wanning who he supposedly fancies, not even the other BBBFs who he uses and kills (Song Quitong) and only helps in the way he thinks is good - if they disagree too bad! There is only one real person in Hua Binan’s world and it’s him. 

And I can’t even think about what he did to Mo Ran without feeling more rage than is healthy. One can possibly, in a truly twisted way, explain his hatred of Mo Ran 2.0 as frustration and rage that how is this filthy animal (as TXJ) better than him at magic and he needs him, how did he have to put up with him slobbering over pristine Hua Binan (which HB magicked as control method but we all know he is not good at responsibility), why does he get CWN aka the toy Hua Binan wants, why can’t he control him fully blah blah. These are all psycho reasons to hate someone but I could at least follow the warped logic.

But it doesn’t explain the disgust and sheer sadistic pleasure he feels in the scene where he puts the flower into Mo Ran - a traumatized 14/15 year old who’s literally just experienced the first short stretch of decent life in his whole existence - and if Shi Mei doesn’t know the true horrors of his past, even the story he does know sounds awful. Here is a 14/15-year old kid who’s been rescued from almost being burned to death, an orphan, who’s had such a rough upbringing he has to be taught to read and write at his age, who eats as if he’s starving at every meal, and who’s been nothing but nice to Shi Mei. And the sick, twisted pleasure Shi Mei gets in lording it over him, the superior disgust he feels for Mo Ran, the delight he takes in his pain and horror - that is pretty much the grossest part of the book for me and that is saying something because 2ha has so much awfulness in it. Shi Mei is incapable of appreciating the sacrifice Mo Ran is making, or the kindness and selflessness that entails, he is incapable of being “well, I hate doing this awful thing but I have a noble goal” or even being dispassionate about it - he genuinely enjoys it. Just like Mo Ran, he’s had a childhood of no power (though significantly less bad than Mo Ran’s, I note) but instead of trying to save earthworms, he enjoys when it’s his turn to oppress someone.  

Even as Taxian Jun, a mad puppet, there remained enough there for Mo Ran to give a monastery a ton of gold for their association with the person who saved him from starvation. Hua Binan repaid all his saviors and friends with torture and death. And he feels zero guilt about it.

And I’m very into this take on the way he hates Mo Ran. I didn’t quite pick up on the fact that his disgust and sadism towards him was there from before anything even happened. I’m still puzzled by it– not that Shi Mei could hurt him so much, but that he zeroed in on Mo Ran specifically, given that not only did Mo Ran do nothing to harm him, he didn’t even do anything to particularly rub Shi Mei’s face in the contrast between them? Oh… until the confrontation over the flower. Did it start there or was it going on before that?

It wasn’t about luck, or he would have hated Xue Meng the most. Was Shi Mei mad because he could tell that Chu Wanning chose Mo Ran in a different way to how he chose Shi Mei (regardless of how he intended to repay it)? Did he just hate Mo Ran particularly because being around someone so apparently uncomplicatedly happy was irritating? Did he really not particularly hate him until he gave himself up for Chu Wanning, for obviously being traumatized and not hating the whole world, making completely opposite choices?

 I don’t think it was personal per se, not at the start - nothing I read gave me the sense that Shi Mei in the flower insertion scene was happier than he’d have been to lord it over Xue Meng or even some random disciple. I mean, I am sure there must have been some “why does Mo Ran has a charmed life with a loving uncle who rescued him” - which is of course insane since even going by official story, Mo Ran had a terrible time and his uncle rescued him but he rescued Shi Mei too, Mo Ran got accepted by CWN but so did Shi Mei etc.

But ultimately, I think Shi Mei is enjoying it so much because he views himself as powerless and oppressed and member of powerless and oppressed group (and he’s not wrong, mind you) and you know how some people are abused and grow up lovely people and some people are abused and turn into abusers themselves? It’s kind of like that - he’s been oppressed and powerless and that turns into him relishing being able to have some power by oppressing someone weaker than he is.

There is a wonderful Kipling poem, “A Servant When He Reigneth,” which makes a great point about a disaster when someone unqualified is in position of power:

He knows no use for power Except to show his might. He gives no heed to judgment Unless it prove him right.   Because he served a master  Before his Kingship came, And hid in all disaster Behind his master’s name, So, when his Folly opens The unnecessary hells, A Servant when He Reigneth Throws the blame on some one else.   His vows are lightly spoken, His faith is hard to bind, His trust is easy broken, He fears his fellow-kind.

It’s a long poem, but this is the most appropriate bunch of lines, and I think really appropriate not just for Shi Mei but for a lot of people where sure sometimes mistreatment/lack of freedom to be yourself/being treated as subhuman can still lead to a heroic person who wants better for others that what he got for himself, who does not hate the world but wants to better it - Mo Ran and Chu Wanning (or Gu Mang from Meatbun’s other masterpiece Yuwu) are a great example of that. But much more likely, if you treat someone as subhuman, they will eventually turn into Shi Mei and not Mo Ran. I do not condone what Shi Mei did and loathe him, but it’s the horrible world they all live in that created him and his actions.

After all, when you are not human, why should you care about humans? If you are a thing, are you even capable of taking responsibility for anything? Of course not! Have you noticed that unlike Shi Mei 2.0, who I will never like but who is certainly redeemable by any objective definition, Hua Binan never admits to ANYTHING being his fault and not because he’s in denial but because he simply cannot see the most blatant causation possible - with a straight face he tells CWN that he never killed anyone as he enjoys commanding a puppet who has murdered most of the world at his compulsion. This is the equivalent of saying no, I didn’t shoot this man, the gun did! Hua Binan accepted his dehumanization and turned it into a weapon.

OK, digression worthy of Montaigne’s approval over, to get back to the hate thing. Yes, I think in the flower insertion thing, it’s enjoyment of lording it over someone, stepping on someone. Later it’s impatience that Mo Ran is not succumbing as quickly as he wants and that he, HB, has to put up with slobbering etc.

“At any rate, one of the most horrific things to me is the sense of deliberateness I get from Hua Binan. Like Mo Ran’s one voluntary Day of Murder is so much a lashing out in agonized self defense that it barely feels voluntary. And generally the defense goes “they were pushed to this extremity.””

#we’ve got to stop throwing people away#this is targeted at a specific perspective#that i think will probably become very common among ppl who go from hyx to 2ha#there is already a little of ‘mo ran must never forgive himself’ going around though#and i think that’s just… so punitive and bleak and a worryingly common way to think about people#it really is the phenomenon of once you set a baseline of behavior…#a good person can’t put a foot wrong and anything good a bad person does is praiseworthy#see: shi mei stan accts that hate on mo ran#i’m using good person and bad person as shortcuts of course#are bodhisattvas even expected to never think wrong?#i don’t think that’s how enlightenment works actually#lol from my extensive experience#still i do know a little about it

Also, don’t get me started on Shi Mei stan accounts hating on Mo Ran 🙄 I mean, I totally get the appeal of loving a pretty villain and the hot mess that he is (hell, I do it all the time, too), but, ffs, if you are doing this, please own it and don’t try to turn it into some fake-woke social justice issue! I am fascinated by their blind spots when they attempt to decry some sort of double standard about Mo Ran getting a happy ending when “they both did the same thing”. Umm… no? It was not the same at all!

First of all, Mo Ran committed the vast majority of his atrocities under mind control and after literally being driven insane. What Shi Mei did was all premeditated and with his consciousness fully intact. And before someone brings up the brothel massacre that came before the curse, let me just point out that these were people who had wronged Mo Ran directly and pushed him well beyond his breaking point. In contrast, Shi Mei’s first victims were people who had loved him. Sisheng Peak was the first to be destroyed and let’s remember that he had wanted to plant the flower in Chu Wanning, who had taken him under his wing when nobody else would and who was on the same side as him when it comes to the BBB issue. Also, once you commit to the whole ‘the end justifies the means’ philosophy and start doing the same thing that was done to you to innocent people, you have absolutely crossed the line into full villain territory. 

Also, everyone talks about how Chu Wanning was willing to tear both his body and soul to pieces to protect the people he loves, but the fact is, Mo Ran did this too! He literally gave everything he had for others, and he had so little to begin with. Even TXJ did this, his only act after he was finally freed in the 2.0 timeline was to protect the surviving world with what is left of his body and soul. In contrast, Shi Mei just took and took, not caring whom he killed and what he destroyed. 

And all this is before we even get to the main theme of this book, which is that in order to be redeemed, you have to repent first. I mean, if you are going to compare Mo Ran and Shi Mei, how do you not see this? When Mo Ran was freed, he felt pain, guilt and shame and took responsibility for what he had done. In contrast, Hua Binan never did and continues to believe he did nothing wrong. Putting full blame on Taxian-jun for the atrocity that he personally planned, orchestrated and put into motion was the height of audacity, and that is why he did not get any grace in the end. Even the second timeline Shi Mei understood this and embarked upon a proper path of repentance, which will probably lead him to peace before he dies and set him on a path to reincarnation. 

The problem with Hua Binan is that he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong. The fact that 2.0 Shi Mei KNEW what they were doing was wrong and acted against it means hbn still had this idea that he was in the right.

I’d also like to point out that txj wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for 1.0 Shi Mei/Hua Binan so yes Hua Binan was still very much at fault for what Txj did. Txj was his puppet.

For me, Hua Binan is so irredeemable because he does horrific things of his own volition against innocents (there is no concept of acceptable collateral damage where you literally destroy a universe and start on another one because you need more people to kill) but also because he takes genuine pleasure in his horrors - and not horrors against people who wronged him but people who have done nothing to him or treated him well.

He plans to rape Chu Wanning (and earlier planned to put the flower into him to make him into a puppet monster AND someone “in love” with him) and all CWN has ever done was take him in as a student. Hua Binan himself doesn’t seem to have any beef with the man but he operates on a “well, it’s my turn to bang him now” as if CWN is not a person but a teapot in a group house - must be shared and shared alike without any input from the teapot. For him, CWN exists only to satisfy whatever need or desire Hua Binan has, whether for a puppet or for sex or whatever. And that to me is the core horror of Hua Binan - he does not see anyone else except himself as a person - not the people he kills, not Chu Wanning who he supposedly fancies, not even the other BBBFs who he uses and kills (Song Quitong) and only helps in the way he thinks is good - if they disagree too bad! There is only one real person in Hua Binan’s world and it’s him. 

And I can’t even think about what he did to Mo Ran without feeling more rage than is healthy. One can possibly, in a truly twisted way, explain his hatred of Mo Ran 2.0 as frustration and rage that how is this filthy animal (as TXJ) better than him at magic and he needs him, how did he have to put up with him slobbering over pristine Hua Binan (which HB magicked as control method but we all know he is not good at responsibility), why does he get CWN aka the toy Hua Binan wants, why can’t he control him fully blah blah. These are all psycho reasons to hate someone but I could at least follow the warped logic.

But it doesn’t explain the disgust and sheer sadistic pleasure he feels in the scene where he puts the flower into Mo Ran - a traumatized 14/15 year old who’s literally just experienced the first short stretch of decent life in his whole existence - and if Shi Mei doesn’t know the true horrors of his past, even the story he does know sounds awful. Here is a 14/15-year old kid who’s been rescued from almost being burned to death, an orphan, who’s had such a rough upbringing he has to be taught to read and write at his age, who eats as if he’s starving at every meal, and who’s been nothing but nice to Shi Mei. And the sick, twisted pleasure Shi Mei gets in lording it over him, the superior disgust he feels for Mo Ran, the delight he takes in his pain and horror - that is pretty much the grossest part of the book for me and that is saying something because 2ha has so much awfulness in it. Shi Mei is incapable of appreciating the sacrifice Mo Ran is making, or the kindness and selflessness that entails, he is incapable of being “well, I hate doing this awful thing but I have a noble goal” or even being dispassionate about it - he genuinely enjoys it. Just like Mo Ran, he’s had a childhood of no power (though significantly less bad than Mo Ran’s, I note) but instead of trying to save earthworms, he enjoys when it’s his turn to oppress someone.  

Even as Taxian Jun, a mad puppet, there remained enough there for Mo Ran to give a monastery a ton of gold for their association with the person who saved him from starvation. Hua Binan repaid all his saviors and friends with torture and death. And he feels zero guilt about it.

And I’m very into this take on the way he hates Mo Ran. I didn’t quite pick up on the fact that his disgust and sadism towards him was there from before anything even happened. I’m still puzzled by it-- not that Shi Mei could hurt him so much, but that he zeroed in on Mo Ran specifically, given that not only did Mo Ran do nothing to harm him, he didn’t even do anything to particularly rub Shi Mei’s face in the contrast between them? Oh... until the confrontation over the flower. Did it start there or was it going on before that?

It wasn’t about luck, or he would have hated Xue Meng the most. Was Shi Mei mad because he could tell that Chu Wanning chose Mo Ran in a different way to how he chose Shi Mei (regardless of how he intended to repay it)? Did he just hate Mo Ran particularly because being around someone so apparently uncomplicatedly happy was irritating? Did he really not particularly hate him until he gave himself up for Chu Wanning, for obviously being traumatized and not hating the whole world, making completely opposite choices?

Level 1: I Acknowledge No Gods And Know No Shame. All Is Peaches, Sunshine, and Getting Away With Being A Little Asshole. Feral Pollyanna (age 0-9)

Level 2: Morality Is Everything. Pain is no excuse!! although if I can smile through it, does it REALLY count as pain? and anyway suffering for ur ideal is the most meaningful thing u can do in life!! (12-17)

Level 3: Morality is Still Everything but it’s getting kind of excruciating in here, this is really longer than i thought i’d have to hang around, and my ability to deliver, like, anything,, is really slipping. Other ppl get a pass, there is such a thing as extenuating circumstances u know!! Not for me though. This makes perfect sense (19-22)

Level 4: ALL THE PASSES FOR ME, FUCK DUTY, MORALS WHO??? TRAUMA IS REAL AND IT MEANS I CAN DO WHAT I WANT (24-28)

Level 5: *is loved unconditionally* *watches the untamed* *reads 2ha* Hold… hold on a minute?? Me being happy is inextricable from other people being happy??? others suffer when i suffer??? Being good is a choice i can still make and doesnt have to be pure to be real??? *cry-laughing in a truly unhinged way*

tbh after i read the cursed chapter 279 i had to stop reading it any further bcs of the stress & how traumatized i got. It took me a week to finally continue reading it. 😩