haha anyways,

My crack-ish headcanon is that heavenly tribulations have to be done in a certain way - like if you manage to kill a powerful ghost but do it by burning down the village you're supposed to be protecting, that kinda goes against what the heavens had in mind, right? So imagine Xie Lian saves a village from a powerful ghost and everyone crowds around, thanking Daozhang for his help, and he just gets this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he really messed up this time.

And so, he sighs heavily and squares his shoulders. He lightly punches a random grandpa. Gently elbows a lady in the face. Steals a mantou from a child right in front of the parents. Yells random swear words at everyone. And just bolts for the treeline, stolen mantou stuffed in his mouth, screaming apologies the whole way.

He's left about 30 villages with weird stories like this not even a decade into his banishment. He's not even sure that's actually how these things work but he's NOT risking passing a heavenly tribulation no matter how many years pass so he keeps doing this shit just in case.

Then eventually the heavens get tired and go "Oh for fucks sake, fine! You're ascending for uhhh... scrap collecting. Yup. You're just so good at it. There."

EP 3 IS OUT FRIENDS AHHHHH I AM SCREAMING!!!!

I love how hc follows xl’s morality, bro doesn’t give a single fuck about what anyone else thinks. He doesn’t even seem to ascribe to xl’s morals he just follows what xl wants to do at a given moment, he’s just like amoral(?) I think is the right word.

So please, meet

MushroomLian

In his Taizi Dianxia era — the rare and precious (in my native location) Amanita caesaria

It's Amanita ☠️, yes, but edible (but still Amanita, aand so why someone saw this poisonous potential in XL later, trying to turn him to the dark side, here we have some Mushroom AU ideas 😏)

And later — as Macrolepiota procera

Totally not so poisonous as Amanita, some Macrolepiota are, but this one not. Still, this mushroom is often confused with Amanita, aaand likes to live in trashy places 😏

silly heads. based on the post below