Blessings Unveiled: An Enchanting Exploration into Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s Heaven Official’s Blessing

With the newly released second season of its Donghua (Chinese animation)–found on Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Amazon Prime Video–and the upcoming release of its final novel, it’s no wonder Heaven Official’s Blessing is getting such a large amount of publicity on social media, especially TikTok. More commonly known as TGCF, based on its Chinese name, Tian Guan Ci Fu, the story follows a crowned prince turned fallen god who ascends to the heavens for the third time after 800 years of being banished to the mortal realm. Through his journey, he comes across a mysterious Ghost King who seems to have known him for quite some time, and he realizes that the Heavenly Realm is filled with dark secrets. This review will contain major spoilers for the entire book series.

With there being seven novels published already and a final eighth on the way, it can seem a bit daunting to get started on the series. The novels are broken up into several arcs, some of which can feel a bit long, but the artistry behind the characters and world design make up for the slower pace. All characters feel important to the story, whether they are pushing along another character or further developing the plot. They all have a purpose and are incredibly complex.

Furthermore, the worldbuilding is magnificent. The story is told over 800+ years and is extensive, with vivid descriptions of life in all three realms–the mortal, demon, and heavenly realms–with gods and demons and the rise and fall of dynasties. It is so thoroughly explored that it’s hard not to become immersed. You truly feel like you’re part of their world, trudging through life in the mortal realm with Xie Lian, picking up scraps and doing odd jobs to make money along the way, or gambling with ghosts in Ghost City. In the second book, when Xie Lian finds himself in the Gambler’s Den, rolling dice wrong according to Hua Cheng, they have a moment in which Hua Cheng shows him how to do it “the right way”. Any normal person would assume he’d tell Xie Lian what to do and leave it at that, but that’s not the case in this book. Hua Cheng has Xie Lian approach him so that he can teach him how to roll the dice by placing his hands on top of Xie Lian’s so that “the backs of Xie Lian’s hands were enveloped by Hua Cheng’s palms.” This sentence, paired with the illustration in the novel, made me feel like I was intruding on an intimate moment.

Compared to Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s (also referred to as MXTX) other works, TGCF focuses more on the tragedies in the story with room for humor on occasion. Its themes of corruption and abuse of power are seen in multiple characters throughout, even in the main character, Xie Lian. However, the book also shows the power of love, devotion, and fate as well as the ache of loss and the euphoria of being found. The two main characters, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng, are examples of the novel’s themes of fate and devotion, and their story is truly one to be admired. After reading Hua Cheng say to Xie Lian, “What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you,” in the last book of the series, I’ve started to wonder if he has raised my standards a bit too high when it comes to relationships.

I also don’t think I have ever cried quite as hard as I did reading TGCF. The tragedy of the characters, especially Xie Lian, left me in tears multiple times throughout the story. The emotions are so vulnerable and raw that they often had me needing to put the book down and ruminate on what I had just read. The story of his first banishment in the 6th novel didn’t give me a moment to breathe as we went from reading about the Human Face Disease, a disease where small human faces sprout all over the body, take over his entire kingdom, to watching his downfall as he descends from the Heavenly Realm after becoming a god to help his people.

What made these heartbreaking moments even more upsetting is that most were due to choices he made–choices that he believed to be right. Despite the Heavenly Emperor telling him to remain in the Heavenly Realm as disease and war took over his kingdom, he believed that as the Crowned Prince, he had to descend and fight for his people. However, this seemingly heroic act is what led to the downfall of his entire existence. He ended up causing more trouble than necessary and it led to his first-ever banishment since gods were not supposed to meddle in human affairs.

The typical good-guy, hero protagonist structure of Xie Lian’s character can often become boring in stories, but the fact that his choices lead to failures that he must deal with gives him more complexity. His belief that “the greatest battles we face are the ones within ourselves” makes him feel more relatable than a standard hero, such as Superman, where everything almost always goes right for them. He tries his best, but sometimes it’s not enough, and that’s okay. Heroes don’t have to be perfect all the time.

What’s also interesting about these novels is that a “revised version” was recently released in China. The revised version was created to comply with China’s book censorship laws. The laws, which have been around since the Qin dynasty, require that all domestic and foreign books that don’t meet the government’s requirements must either be censored or forbidden from being published. To appease this law and publish her books in her native country, MXTX chose to rewrite and release the novels as a revised version, thereby keeping her original work available while also appealing to the Chinese censorship laws. She removed characters and pivotal romance plot points between Xie Lian and Hua Cheng to show their love and devotion for one another. She also changed some smaller moments to be more friendly than romantic, such as changing kissing to forehead touches.

Going further than just editing content for censorship purposes, she also fixed other characters and areas with plot holes to make the story more coherent and flow smoothly. I, as well as many other fans, would be interested to see her revised version fully released in English, but we’ve at least been given a large number of fan translations that have been posted all over Twitter. The new content added seems to be making up for the plot points and romance that were removed. A moment in the translations that had me leaning back and letting out a long breath was a scene added regarding Hua Cheng’s insecurity about his real appearance. Xie Lian finally sees him without an eyepatch and becomes upset when Hua Cheng claims that his appearance is “inappropriate”. We read about Xie Lian wondering if he’s the problem, thinking that perhaps he said something in the past that made Hua Cheng insecure.

The scene is small, and while it may not be the most romantic interaction, it still adds so much more to their relationship. We finally read about Xie Lian seeing the Ghost King, known for being confident and beautiful, in a state of vulnerability. We can feel the softness and desperation in Xie Lian’s words as he tries to make Hua Cheng understand that he sees him as beautiful no matter what appearance he takes on. It’s a moment that makes your heart warm and full. Despite the censorship she’s had to do in the revised version, the work she has put towards preserving their relationship, like the scene she added above, is very admirable. I wish I could go into depth about more of the extra content added in, but I fear this review would turn into an entire thesis.

TGCF was the first series I read out of all her other works, and I can confidently say that it was a perfect introduction to her works. Its compelling plots and characters kept me awake past my bedtime, itching to read more, even as my eyes begged me to stop. Though I finished reading the most recent book months ago, it still has me contemplating its themes and soul-crushing arcs to this day. It does get a bit darker as the series progresses with topics such as gore, death, self-harm, mental illness, and body horror, so I would recommend reading a full list of content warnings found on Storygraph if that would potentially be a bother, but I could not recommend this series enough. If you haven’t read the series yet and aren’t turned away by the spoilers in this review, then I’d highly recommend reading. It’s beautifully written and will be sure to have a lasting impact.