Knowing Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's works and going through Xie Lian's 800 years of life, there's going to be plenty of tearjerkers to come.
All spoilers are unmarked.
General
- Ling Wen having to deal with her worshippers believing she's a male god and having people question how a woman could be in that kind of position. Even when she would be acknowledged as a literary goddess, many still couldn't accept it and rebuilt her statues into a male form. It's only after this change did her temples become more prosperous. So whenever Ling Wen visits people in their dreams, she has to take on a male form.
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Bridgeroom Arc
- All of the brides who Xuan Ji had killed. They were hoping for a happy celebration, and ended up being killed by a vengeful ghost. Then when Xuan Ji is captured, the bride corpses start to deteriorate, with the oldest ones slowly crumbling away. Xie Lian hopes they'd be able to find the families of the corpses they could save, and hopes they're finally able to rest in peace.
Ban Yue Kingdom Arc
- Ban Yue's fate, as she unleashed the snake tailed scorpions on the kingdom and Ke Mo treats her as a traitor even after death. Her life when she was human wasn't any better as she was born from one of her parents being a Ban Yue civilian while the other wasn't, so she was treated like an outsider. She was even bullied to the point where she wouldn't protest as her head was being shoved into the mud.
- The donghua expands on Pei Su's perspective as he looked after Ban Yue and both found General Hua's corpse on the battlefield. Wanting to stop the war, as well as keep the casualties to as small as they could, Pei Su joined the army in hopes he can do that. However, no matter how hard he fought, he would never be promoted due to his background. Then he and Ban Yue come up with a plan for her to open the gets when she reports the Ban Yue soldiers would send suicide bombers inside Yong An if they lost. Finally promoted to a higher position, the plan is going well until Pei Su hears the Ban Yue soldiers declaring they found the Guoshi of Ban Yue who had betrayed them and after he climbs to the top of the Sinner's Pit, Pei Su stares on in horror as he sees Ban Yue's body hanging. The one person he wanted to protect from all of this has now died and he was powerless to do anything to stop it.
Kidnapping Arc
- Xie Lian refusesto fight Lan Qian Qiu because, "I've sworn many years ago to never kill with the sword ever again."
- Once a venerated god, after his first fall, people started taking down his old statues and carving new ones that had him kneeling as if begging for forgiveness or outright prostrating. It was then placed in crowded areas so people could spit or kick it as they passed by. Xie Lian internally thinks about how he's seen these statues so many times and for so long he could recognize his own back. Even though he doesn't find it humiliating anymore, it still hurts to see Xie Lian's features be used as a means for people to vent their anger out on someone for their misfortune.
- One of the few times we see Xie Lian lose his temper is when Qi Rong starts quickly babbling on about the truth behind the fall of the Yong An kingdom and why Xie Lian killed Lang Qianqiu's parents. Xie Lian tries to interfere to keep his cousin from talking, only to be held in a paralyzing spell by Hua Cheng.
- After finding out the truth about what happened to his family, Lang Qianqiu storms off after telling Xie Lian off and asking if everything he taught him was all utter bullshit. Xie Lian doesn't stop him nor deflect anything he says, he fully believes that everything that happened to the Yong An kingdom and Lang Qianqiu's parents are entirely his fault.(...) the truth was he killed with his own hands an honorable king who had truly wanted to eradicate discrimination, and the last blood descendant of his family in this world.
So, he deserved all the blame. - Shi Qingxuan looks hurt after Feng Xin yells at her for ramming her chest into his arm, and it's one of the few times the Wind God seems to be startled by others words.
- When Xie Lian goes to visit his parent's grave, he becomes furious when he finds Qi Rong laying in his mother's grave and demands to know what he did to her body. However, given that it has been over 800 years, Xie Lian already knows that his mother's body has long since crumbled into ash.
Xian Le Flashback
- Hong Hong-er's situation. After Qi Rong finds him, he orders his men to beat him up, and then stuffs him into a sack to be dragged behind his carriage for nearly ruining the Heavenly Ceremonial Procession. When Xie Lian later asks him if he had a home to return to, Hong Hong-er tells him he didn't want to go back home because he got kicked out and it's implied that his home life was abusive. As if his life wasn't already bad, he's apparently born under an unlucky star, and the rest of his life according to Guoshi's fortune will be filled with nothing but misfortune. When he accidentally attracts evil spirits to the temple and nearly set it on fire, he breaks down in hysterics when everyone starts to turn on him, screaming that this was not his fault. Even Xie Lian holding him close barely helps the boy calm down.This wailing contained no words, utterly meaningless, and nothing like the sound of sobbing bu nevertheless hair-raisingly dreadful. Without looking at who it was, it would sound like the desperate cries of a full grown man breaking down, or the struggling of a small beast with its throat cut open by a knife, as if only by immediate death could it be relieved. Anyone can make such a sound, it just shouldn't be coming from a child of ten years.
- Lang Ying, a man who had ran from Yong'an and trying to take refuge in Xian Le recounting to Xie Lian how his infant son who he carried on his back died. He then tiredly admits he wish his wife was still around to yell at him, and wishes to bury his son somewhere nice. Xie Lian nearly starts to cry at Lang Ying's story, and helps him find a nice place to bury his son and gifts him the red pearl he lost before he leaves.
- When Xie Lian sees Hong Hong-er again, the child appears in a run down shrine dedicated to Xie Lian and replaces the flower for the statue. Then the children nearby make fun of him and call him an ugly monster, saying that his mother hated him and that's why he was kicked out. Hong Hong er lashes out, leading to the other children to beat him up. Once Xie Lian chases them away, Hong Hong er breaks down crying, yelling in the empty shrine.Hong Hong-er: I'm suffering! Everyday, I wish I'd die. Everyday, I want to kill off everyone in this world, and then kill myself! I'm living in agony!
- Xie Lian descending and goes to meet his parent's again, but his father berates him when Xie Lian asks why he hasn't done anything to help the refugees. He even remembers how he used to look up to his father as a great ruler, but as he grew older, he knew that his father was far from a perfect king.
- A Yong'an girl plays a victim to lure Xie Lian in. Before she dies Xie Lian asks where her family was and she screams he killed them.
- Xie Lian does his best to control the outbreak of the Human Face Disease, but fails in stopping its spread.
- As the stress of the outbreak starts to whittle down on the trio's patience, Feng Xin and Mu Qing get into a heated argument where Mu Qing called Xie Lian a fool for trying to Take a Third Option and Feng Xin loses his temper. He starts yelling that Mu Qing is not anxious, and just wants to vent his frustrations out on Xie Lian because he thinks he's better than them. Xie Lian manages to calm them down by invoking "Same Old Rules", but things could have gotten ugly quickly if they didn't have that rule to fall back on.
- In one event, Xie Lian gets occupied in trying to keep a statue of himself up without crushing anyone, but then the sick start rushing up to him and demand he heal them. As they start to crowd him and pull at him, to the point he feels like they'd tear him apart, Xie Lian finally lets the statue fall. But during the time when he was getting swarmed, Xie Lian actually became scared as he begs for help. Afterwards, his temples and statues are torn down by his former believers.He was clearly a god of heaven, but at that moment, there was a tiny voice crying at the bottom of his haert: "...save me—"
- The aftermath of the outbreak got Xie Lian branded as a "God of Misfortune", where he, Mu Qing and Feng Xin would have been beaten to death if they revealed themselves to mortals, so they hid, no longer showing their faces.
Mid Autumn Festival Banquet
- During the banquet after Pei Ming's play was shown depicting him and Ling Wen as lovers, the gods start talking about rumors of Ling Wen seducing male martial gods to get to her current position. She coldly tells the other gods she hadn't done such a thing just because the mortals say that. Apparently during a period of time when she was under heavy scrutiny by mortals, she was cussed and cursed at while women would throw menstrual linens and bralettes into her temples donation boxes. The text even points out how if these rumors followed a male official, he'd be called charming instead and would be allowed to indulge."Clearly, although the situations were similar, a difference between male and female existed that the consequences differed."
- These rumors still don't let up when they start complaining about Ling Wen only having so many followers because she uses a male form, kissed the asses of martial gods and plenty of other things she did to rise in power or rank. Xie Lian can only shake his head solemnly as he thinks:Xie Lian: [internally] It wasn't easy being a woman official.
- After telling her brother to drop the curtain, Shi Qingxuan (who is normally upbeat and confident) looks shaken after the play depicted her and Shi Wudu as lovers, although that may not have been what triggered them...
Black Water
- The entire Black Water Arc, where Shi Qingxuan finds out he was never meant to ascend, and how his fate was switched with He Xuan's, leading the other to become a Supreme Ghost and killing the original Earth Master to sneak into heaven. He's then forced to realize that the person he considered his closest friend was the one's whose fate he wrongly took.
- As Shi Qingxuan tries to convince He Xuan that he could let him go and they'll never see each other again, he bitterly tells Shi Qingxuan he gave him so many chances as Ming Yi to not take Shi Wudu's side.He Xuan: You called the wrong person.
- Shi Wudu forces He Xuan to rip off his arms as he decides to Take a Third Option in their punishment by attempting to choke Shi Qingxuan. Even after getting both of his arms torn off, he continues to laugh at He Xuan so he could be killed and allow Shi Qingxuan to live. However, Shi Qingxuan begs for He Xuan to not kill his brother, still referring to him as Ming-xiong. His words go unheard as he watches He Xuan tear off Shi Wudu's head.Shi Qingxuan: ...I want to die.
He Xuan: Dream on. - Xie Lian attempts to reconnect with Shi Qingxuan, but finds that he can no longer switch with the former Wind Master as that door is now closed. Hua Cheng even apologizes as he tells Xie Lian that outsiders can't interfere.
Brocade Immortal Arc
- The story of how the Brocade Immortal came to be. There was a powerful man who likely would have ascended, but because of his mental state being stunted, he wasn't very bright and was easy to take advantage of. So when a girl he liked presented him with a crudely made brocade, he talks about how certain parts of his body wouldn't fit and she suggests he cut off those parts. After he cuts off his head, the brocade finally fit, and it became a cursed object.
