#you can tell ive never used tumblr before because im tagging my au character alterations like an ao3 story

[whisperinggbreeze]

A god of misfortune? No such person existed. Hua Cheng's frown deepened. "A god of misfortune? I've never heard of such a god. How would he ever get followers?"

Xie Lian barked a laugh at that. "You're right, you're right. I heard an interesting rumour once, that he had gotten banished from heaven and lost all of his followers."

(Something stopped him from asking why Xie Lian would worship a god of misfortune, why he would worship a god that he believes may no longer exist, why he would tend to the shrine so carefully and tenderly when it seemed futile.)

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part of the chapter 1 draft I'm working on for my tgcf au fanfic! the au premise is similar to one I've seen before but I wrote it a slightly different way:

HEAVY SPOILERS FOR TGCF BOOK 4 HERE BY THE WAY

after wu ming's sacrifice, xie lian (god autocorrect hates his name) was finally driven to become a calamity, but wu ming was saved when on the brink of death by jun wu (because let's be real, when has he ever passed up an opportunity to get 800 years long revenge on XL?) and ascended to godhood as a martial god, as well as the god of luck. hua cheng, having no memories of xianle (barring the basics of his early childhood) or XL, gave himself a new name and settled into godhood.

800 years later, while hua cheng is wandering through the mortal realm, he stumbles across a lonely shrine on a mountainside which is run by a kind young man who introduces himself as xie lian and talks about worshipping a god of misfortune who, as far as hua cheng can tell, doesn't exist and never has.