San Lang

Hua Cheng(花城, Huā Chéng), also referred to as San Lang (三郎, Sān Láng), is the deuteragonist and main love interest in Heaven Official's Blessing.

He is a ghost of Supreme rank and the most notorious of the Four Great Calamities, widely known as Crimson Rain Sought Flower (血雨探花, Xuè Yǔ Tàn Huā).

Appearance As a Supreme, Hua Cheng possesses an extremely powerful shape-shifting ability not even gods can see through. It's said that no one has ever seen his true form because he transformed so often. The first time he met Xie Lian after the third ascension, his appearance was about sixteen to seventeen, noted to be good-looking in a boyish, devilish way with eyes bright as the stars. He wore casual, maple-red clothes of high quality and had a loose, carefree ponytail.[1] In his true form, Hua Cheng is a handsome youth of eighteen to nineteen years. The childish aura of his younger form is one of calmness in true form, although there is still a wild playfulness to him.[2] He has skin as white as snow and wears maple-red clothes along with exquisite, silver vambraces. Hua Cheng is also taller than Xie Lian , he has to stretch his neck in order to see him.[3] He has a deep, gentle voice that is pleasant to the ears in his true form.[3] Even in his younger appearance his voice is still deeper than typical for that age.[1] Hua Cheng has Xie Lian's name tattooed on his left forearm, but no one could read it for a long time due to his hopelessly terrible handwriting.[4] As Wuming, he was dressed in black robes and neat warrior attire. He had his hair tied up in a high ponytail and also wore a white smiling mask.[5] As a child and teenager, Hua Cheng wore bandages over the right side of his face at all times, due to being bullied for his appearance. The bandages were in fact covering his right, red eye. Said eye was eventually carved out, made into E-Ming, and now a black eyepatch hides it.[2]

Hua Cheng is charismatic and intelligent, with a nonchalant attitude. He mostly acts in his own benefit and cares little for others. Despite being a ghost king, he is not outright evil, seemingly neutral as he rarely undertakes altruistic actions and barbaric acts. However, he is very gentle towards Xie Lian, treating him with the utmost care and respect and offering him anything he desires. He despises everyone who has wronged his beloved in his eyes, not caring about their objective circumstances and being firm in his distaste for anyone who left or stood against Xie Lian at one point.[6]

Usually, Hua Cheng is very confident in his abilities, though rightfully so as he is one of the most powerful beings. However, he sometimes is deeply insecure, especially when it concerns to his red eye, an issue he still struggles with throughout the series. He has a vulnerable side regarding his feelings for Xie Lian and, because he feels he could not help him in his times of need, thinks he is unworthy of Xie Lian's love, but once he learns his feelings are reciprocated, he is immensely joyful.

Hua Cheng loves collecting rare treasures, having a large collection of antiques and priceless artifacts and weapons, some of which are thousands of years old. Ironically, he treats them rather poorly. He does not care when they are destroyed and has been shown to abuse or misuse them himself on occasion.[7]

Hua Cheng's nickname, San Lang, means "third son". In-world, he is called this as he was supposedly the third son of his family,[1] although there is no confirmation whether he made this up or he actually had siblings. Meta-wise, San Lang is the continuation of an in-joke where all the main love interests of Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's novels have monikers that can be organized chronologically - Luo Bingge (Big brother Luo) from Scum Villain Self-Saving System Lan Er-ge (Second brother Lan) from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation San Lang (Third son) from Heaven Official's Blessing. The main character of MXTX's fourth novel also follows this trend, the character having the nickname Si Shao (Fourth young master). His most famous moniker, Crimson Rain Sought Flower, was attained during his early days as a supreme. After he annihilated a ghost's lair and causing blood rain to fall, he found a lone, white flower struggling under the heavy rainfall, so he shielded it with his umbrella.[1] In a meta sense, "Crimson Rain Sought Flower" (血雨探花) is also a reference; tanhua (探花, lit. flower snatcher) is the title of the overall third-place scorer of the ancient Chinese imperial examinations. Xuěyǔ (血雨) can also mean "heavy rain colored by loess sandstorm" Even though he is canonically one of the most handsome men in the novel, Hua Cheng used to see himself as being ugly and deformed. MXTX confirmed this, saying that because in childhood he was often called an ugly beast due to his heterochromia. As he grew up, he began to believe that he might be good-looking”. But before the person he likes the most, he still feels lacking and sometimes wonders if he’s an ugly person.[8] Hua Cheng is so unbearably rich that he would treat legendary, incomparably precious treasures like they're disposable garbage.[7] MXTX confirmed in an interview that out of the three main love interests in her novels, Hua Cheng has the best skills in bed.[9] In the novel's postscript, Hua Cheng is confirmed to have a father from Xianle royal capital while his mother was described as being 'an evil beauty of foreign ethnicity'. Due to this, Hua Cheng had traces of a foreign culture, such as his connection with butterflies, maple leaves, silver accessory and beast totems.[10] The butterflies, maple leaves, silver accessory and beast totems are common symbols in the Miao/Hmong people's culture. In an abandoned draft, Hua Cheng often sang a love song in a long-lost language his mother taught him for his beloved. Whenever Xie Lian asked what he's singing, he would have answered with nonsense. As MXTX wrote the novel she felt that Hua Cheng's parentage and background wasn't necessary, so she scrapped it all. Hua Cheng's "birthplace" is Shanghai as MXTX was struck by inspiration to make his character when travelling there.[10] In the manhua, Hua Cheng’s symbolic animal is a fox as seen in both art by the official artist and actual chapters. In addition, Mu Qing explains, “Hua Cheng will only need to humor [Xie Lian] with a couple of sweet words, and he’ll believe him, just like one enchanted by a fox spirit.”[11] In Asian folktales fox spirits are seductresses, known to enchant and charm innocent people and make them fall helplessly in love with the spirit.