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7potato7 · 3 months

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So, Xie Lian descends from Heaven without stopping to let Ling Wen get even a single word in. He goes back to doing what he normally does, completely unaware that he just turned literally all of Heaven upside down. He spends several years this way (maybe even decades?? he has an excellent track record hiding from people) but Feng Xin and/or Mu Qing eventually find him and go wtf dude. So, since he's technically a fugitive now (Heaven saw him ascending, destroying everything, then rapidly descending similarly to a terrorist (except terrorism as a term doesn’t exist yet, so the xianxia equivalent ig) attack, oops. Speculation is that he works for Hua Cheng!!! which makes the man himself feel a certain type of way ofc) he flees down the Silk Road and ends up in Rome. He DID spend the time he was still in China (or the territories that would become China, since I'm estimating this at around 0 CE for my own sanity) trying to defeat random ghosts to repay his debt, but quickly realized it was futile.

ofc Feng Xin and Mu Qing now realize that this wasn't a terrorist attack! They already knew that, but Xie Lian's reaction is only proof! They go to Jun Wu, who decides that "Xianle" should be reinstated to his rightful position in Heaven. Yay! Except now they can't find Xie Lian Anywhere. Cue manhunt.

Meanwhile Xie Lian has been enlisted to the Roman army. Which, hey, he'd rather not do that. So he manages to finagle himself into a position on a small northern island which shouldn't see too much conflict. However, this is very much not the case! The Britons relied on the Roman army to defend themselves from the Saxons! So, Xie Lian just deserted and quietly retreated to gather scraps in some forgotten corner of the island. He gets caught in a storm and winds up in Ireland. He's still there when the Romans leave the island in 410 and when St. Patrick comes in 433. Turns out St. Patrick isn't actually an ascended official! How disappointing. For unrelated reasons, Xie Lian returns to Briton, now thoroughly "invaded" (read: culturally integrated) by the Angles and Saxons. He putters around the island for a while longer before heading back to the mainland (read: was exiled to the mainland. For witchcraft. In a boat with rocks in the bottom (very pseudo-historical, as far as I know the 5th century Britons were most definitely not executing people for witchcraft. Witchcraft was a fun hobby they did on the side, not a crime. However, I’d like to see you see someone stand up after being shot in the eye and not throw him in the sea. Yeah, that’s what I thought)).

He hitches up with the Merovingians, who deeply appreciate his rockin' haircut. Clovis (famously brutal and murderous, but then again who isn't), however, Did Not appreciate his ability to walk off a stabbing. Clovis stabs Xie Lian a couple extra times to be sure, then cuts his head off and sets him on fire. It takes Xie Lian about a decade to come back from that, so now it’s 511 and Clovis is dead. Xie Lian decides that he should try some other place on for size.

He ends up in a catholic monastery in Spain. This is where he learns to read Latin, which will later help him learn to read Spanish, French, German, English, you name it. Obviously, he can't pay the entrance fee, so he's a lay brother doing grunt work. He's fine with this. Although he has gathered some knowledge of the local religion, it's not something he can afford to be questioned on (thankfully, literally no peasant ever was educated in the scriptures so he was fine). The atmosphere vaguely reminds him of Mt. Taicang (in literally the vaguest possible sense), and he wonders if this is what Mu Qing had to deal with.

Then the abbot notices he hasn't aged and decides that he's an angel sent by God. Xie Lian decides it's about time for a change of scenery. They've probably forgotten about him in Briton, right?

Unfortunately, he's not that lucky. The abbot isn't willing to let him go that easily, and he and his successors chase him around Spain until 711, at which point they have other problems. Xie Lian reaches Briton and joins another monastery because that was nice. Poverty, chastity, obedience, thy name is Xie Lian!

Fortunately, this monastery is more willing to "overlook" his lack of aging. Unfortunately, this monastery is Lindisfarne, and is destroyed by Vikings in 793. Noticing that Xie Lian doesn't die when killed, the Vikings decide that he's the mortal incarnation of Thor, obviously. They take him with them, fit him out with armor and weapons, and bring him back when they sack Westphalia. He doesn't like killing anyone, but that's fine with them! They're just glad to have the mortal incarnation of... probably not Thor with them! While Xie Lian is still upset that they killed all those monks, he's gotta admit this is the best people have treated him since... his first ascension... ah, shit, he's gotta get out of here. He’s been having too much fun, this was supposed to be penance, mental spiral, etc etc. Maybe just in a bit, though.

They keep asking him to stay just a bit longer, kill just one more sea monster, please, your holiness, until suddenly it's 911 and Rollo is sacking what will become Normandy. When the French king gives it to them as a "please stop, thanks," Xie Lian goes there with Rollo. Then he leaves. The newly dubbed Normans are sad, of course, but they can't keep holding their god back! In reality, Xie Lian is worried that his bad luck is going to catch up to him.

For a while, he falls back into his scrap collecting ways -except, it isn't as easy in medieval Europe. They live in small, insular communities that don't much like strangers. So he eventually decides to just... hide in the woods.

At this point, Feng Xin and Mu Qing have obviously realized that Xie Lian isn't in China anymore (if you're wondering how it took that long, it's because they got distracted by the Warring States Period and the trail went cold). So they follow legends of a strange looking man who didn't die when stabbed to Spain. However, Xie Lian isn't in Spain. He's in the part of the world that will eventually become Germany, trying to avoid being pressed into a Crusade. Yes, it is already 1096. Keep up.

He does end up going on the Crusade as a cook. That lasts a day before they decide to throw him on the frontlines to "soften up the Moors." Xie Lian fakes his death. I could choose a specific battle, but I don't particularly care to. It was probably Antioch. Fine, it was Antioch.

He spends some time in the Byzantine Empire, which is rapidly crumbling. He flees after the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, thankfully with only minimal injuries this time. But on his way out, he briefly sees Feng Xin and Mu Qing in the chaos, fighting on the side of the Byzantine Empire. They also see him, but he leaves before they can do anything about it.

So Xie Lian fucks off to a random island in the Mediterranean. This ends up being the Island of Rhodes. He stays there doing his little scrap collecting do da until 1306, when the Hospitallers move in. Shortly after that, they themselves are booted off to Malta in another invasion. Xie Lian goes with them, bc what the hell, these guys kinda suck, they deserve the bad luck.

Xie Lian is still in Malta when the Black Plague hits in 1349. It... brings some old wounds back up to the surface. Best to just forget about it. He sticks around, anyways.

The Inquisition begins in 1478. The Hospitallers start to give him funny looks. However, he is widely viewed as a living saint, so they don’t really do anything. Xie Lian fakes his death, then barricades himself into a cave and meditates for around fifty years before coming back out. No one recognizes him. He does this a couple more times, with varying lengths of meditation. He should probably just move on, but it’s awfully difficult to get on and off Malta. Also, it’s kind of nice there.

In 1565, Xie Lian almost single-handedly holds off the siege of Malta with the aid of the inhabitants while the Hospitallers cower in their monastery. Really, these monk guys have gone downhill over the centuries. Of course, the Hospitallers and Ottomans rewrite the narrative, but who would expect any less? The truth is just embarrassing for everyone involved.

In a rare stroke of luck, Xie Lian leaves the island after the siege. Just a few short years later, in 1573, the Inquisition moves in.

It is now 1615. Xie Lian is very tired. He returns to the mainland after the siege, and now everyone is fighting over something called "indulgences." He wants to go home. He does go home! Jun Wu finds him immediately, oops. He'd been watching Mt. Taicang (insane behavior, it's been 2,000 years bro) and obviously noticed when Xie Lian went to pay respects to his parents. Xie Lian narrowly escapes and runs as far as he possibly can. Your pick whether it’s just because of the stalker-ish behavior or a Bai Wuxiang reveal. Either way, he runs all the way to the New World.

Of course, he doesn’t have the money to just... book a ship there. He signs on as an indentured servant. What are a few years off his life anyways? Unfortunately, before that can happen, he gets mugged and accidentally murders the guy. Instead of being an indentured servant in exchange for land, he is instead working off his debt to the guy's family. Which is fine, of course.

It's not, in fact, fine. After his service is done, he once more fucks off to the woods. At this point, however, most Native Americans know to be wary of foreigners, so he keeps to himself. If he gets shot by mistake a few times, it's fine, he shakes it off. At least they aren't guns. In most cases. He'll take what he can get.

He finds a cave. He meditates in the cave. He doesn't come out until 1850. It's almost being in the coffin again, except he can leave anytime. He just. Doesn't.

The shackle around his neck cracks slightly under the force of spiritual power he’s cultivated. He doesn’t notice.

The world of 1850 is very different than the world of 1650. Manifest Destiny is real and thriving. Suddenly the relatively friendly local tribes have been replaced by a bunch of other, less friendly people. The mountain used to be called Maskwa Wac, but now it’s Bear Mountain and Xie Lian is in Connecticut, apparently??? Mostly people call him strange names when he tries to ask questions, so he avoids them.

He isn’t used to people anymore. They aren’t exactly willing to get used to him, either. Centuries of dirt don’t wash out with a single bath. After two centuries in a cave, he has to relearn how to talk, write, and generally interact with the world. Culture has changed, language has changed, the entire world has changed. Xie Lian is exactly the same.

In 1863, Xie Lian finally manages to get a job. It’s gotten significantly harder to live without a job, so that’s good (maybe he should invest in this newfangled “identification” thing). Building the trans-continental railroad is a great gig for someone like Xie Lian. He’s strong and more than willing to work. The pay isn’t bad.

Unfortunately, some boulders fall on him after a misplaced TNT blast and his coworkers leave him for dead. But hey, hadn’t he heard of something called a “Gold Rush” talked about nostalgically in bars? He’s pretty sure it’s over now, but it’s worth a shot. He’s already partway there.

He only gets mauled by like three bears on the way over. It was good that he’d seen a few before at that point, or else he’d probably think they were yao. He also got shot several more times, whether by Native Americans or settlers.

The people out West hadn’t gotten a forty-niner in decades, but they’re willing to give him odd jobs mopping at bars and fixing fences and such. It’s almost nostalgic. They hear news about the South seceding and the war that follows, but it isn’t something that really affects them all the way out here. Xie Lian is glad to avoid it.

After only a couple years, he decides to go back to the East Coast. He doesn’t want to bring bad luck on these people’s heads, after all. He accidentally zig-zags down into Mexico and into South America, then overcompensates back up into Canada before finally making it to New York City.

It’s 1910. Almost the moment he steps foot in the city, he gets hit by a car. Somewhat delirious, he mistakes the car for a demon(?) and tries to kill it.

Insane asylums are not fun.

The important part is that he eventually gets out (or that’s what he tells himself). He doesn’t have the motivation to bother with a job anymore, so he bums it on the streets collecting scraps like he used to. Problem is, there’s a lot more homeless people in the post-Industrial world than the pre-Industrial one. Lots of competition for food and shelter. Usually, if it comes to a fight, Xie Lian just lets the other guy have whatever it is. It’s not like it’s life or death for Xie Lian, after all.

He gets picked up by the police, who aren’t so bad yet. Corrupt, yes, but this isn’t the Gilded Age anymore. They drop him off with a referral to work in a car factory (Xie Lian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry) and only a few bruises.

Machinery, ah... it tends to... break around him. He doesn’t last long at his new job. Neither does his job last long with him as an employee. The factory burns down. The owner has Xie Lian dropped in a river with rocks tied to his ankles. What goes around comes around, really.

In 1917, Xie Lian is drafted into WWI. So, of course, he ends up in the trenches. He’s just glad that he’s basically immune to every disease known to man. Most of his comrades aren’t so lucky.

This isn’t the type of war Xie Lian remembers fighting in -though his memories are a bit blurry at this point. They fight for inches of ground in exchange for hundreds of lives in muddy, dismal conditions. The mud kills almost more than the bombs do.

The despair is the same. That much never changes.

Xie Lian leaves. He had to. No amount of martial prowess could help stop this war. Perhaps strategy would, but even if they let some random soldier into the war room, Xie Lian wouldn’t know how to strategize with modern guns, let alone tear gas.

Feng Xin and Mu Qing are still looking for Xie Lian, of course. But the trail went cold years ago.

Hua Cheng is holding on to his existence by his fingernails these days. He’s expanded his influence globally, but he still can’t find His Highness anywhere. Ghosts everywhere tread on eggshells. In one night, he replaces every single carving and painting of Jesus in Europe with one of Xie Lian. The papacy is in an uproar, taking it as a sign from God Himself. The only person who doesn’t find it funny is Xie Lian, who is very confused. Also white supremacists. They don’t like it very much either (that just makes it funnier). It turns out that Xie Lian has been canonized as a saint a few separate times over the centuries. “His bones”/relics are in six separate churches. People start freaking out. A large portion of the Catholic church believes that Xie Lian is either Jesus (and that the rapture had already happened centuries ago) or the Antichrist. This causes a massive schism in Protestant and Catholic churches alike. Islam becomes the main Abrahamic religion. Xie Lian does his level best to ignore the people bowing to him in the streets and shaves his hair off with a bowie knife.

On another note, Jun Wu gave up on finding Xie Lian centuries ago. Turns out Xianle was just a spot of mud on his Heavenly canvas after all.

This is good. It means when Xie Lian sprints his way back across the world, Jun Wu isn’t watching Mt. Taicang anymore. Xie Lian, still a martial god, makes it there in a week at top speed. However, Mt. Taicang isn’t the same as it used to be. There’s a fence around the base, and big fancy houses everywhere. When Xie Lian touches the fence, it shocks him as if he’s been struck by lightning and he blacks out for a second. His first thought is that it’s some type of array (that some other cultivation sect has set up there, an optimistic voice whispers deep in his heart), but it’s just an electric fence of course. He climbs over.

His parents’ well is full of cement.

Xie Lian returns to the trenches. He was only gone for three weeks. His excuse is that there was a messed-up transfer. No one believes him, so he gets court martialed for desertion. It doesn’t go through. If he’d deserted, why would he ever go back to the trenches?

Eventually, he goes back to America. It was the furthest he could possibly get from his problems, after all.

It’s nice to be able to write “homeless veteran” on his signs. The police bother him less. Well, slightly less. People keep saying the economy is bad, but it’s always been bad for Xie Lian. He barely notices the differences anymore. He barely notices anything.

Then another war starts. Eventually, in 1942, Xie Lian is picked up and thrown into an internment camp. He isn’t Japanese, but he can’t exactly say he’s from Xianle, a long dead country no one has ever heard of. This is actually a massive turn in luck, because he meets Banyue and Pei Xiu in the camp. They’ve also been mistaken for Japanese, because that’s what a... misinformed forger put on their green cards when they got off Angel Island.

They all got out in 1946. Pei Xiu manages to get a low-paying job, but Banyue struggles to find work for her skillset (snakes) and Xie Lian still doesn’t have any identification. Pei Xiu quickly loses his job, and they all end up homeless again.

They’re at Stonewall when the riots start in 1969. The first brick was thrown by Marsha P. Johnson, the second by Sylvia Rivera, and the third by Shi Qingxuan, who now goes by Shi Xuan. They’ve had a bit of a rough time of it over the centuries since his brother was killed and they were knocked from Heaven, even losing an arm and leg, but they were kept immortal by her Ghost King. They don’t ever talk to each other, but Shi Xuan knows he’s watching. How else is she still alive? (If she keeps his camps close to waterfronts... well, that’s just their preference. Nothing to do with the head she can sometimes spy poking over the waves).

Shi Xuan recognizes Pei Xiu, but he recognizes nothing of the once-glorious Wind Master in them. She hits it off with Xie Lian and joins their group.

Technology is changing. Everything in the world is closer than it used to be. Privacy is quickly becoming a non-concept, especially for homeless people. There are cameras everywhere. Xie Lian, Banyue, Pei Xiu, and Shi Xuan don’t have access to this sort of technology.

Jun Wu, Feng Xin, Mu Qing, and Hua Cheng do. In 2003, a video of a homeless man telling a police officer off goes viral on LiveJournal and MySpace. On a completely unrelated note, several immortals show up in various American cities. Jun Wu is contemplating moving the Heavenly Court. Scientists are calling the sudden outburst of silver butterflies an invasive species.

It’s 2005, and Xie Lian hops onto the subway. It has been 2,803 years since he was banished. In an empty subway car, he meets a Ghost King in red.

#please don't take this too seriously #this is crack thinly veiled with angst #or angst thinly veiled with crack?#one of those #tgcf #modern au #canon divergence #if anyone sees any timeline mistake lmk #it's been a while since I got my history minor and Wikipedia is only so helpful

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