(Spoiler Warning: This piece contains major spoilers for Tian Guan Ci Fu by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. If you haven’t read the novel and plan to, you might want to return after you have.)
When I first read Tian Guan Ci Fu (TGCF), I remember feeling deeply unsettled by the plot’s trajectory once I got to the story of Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan.
Shi Qingxuan’s pain felt particularly cruel to me not because it was more tragic than anyone else’s because it certainly wasn’t but because it seemed undeserved. Kind-hearted, innocent Shi Qingxuan hadn’t done anything wrong, had he?
He hadn’t been the one who orchestrated He Xuan’s downfall. He hadn’t been the one who gambled away a life for his own gain. He was just someone caught in the crossfire of a past crime, a man who had once been loved, had once trusted, and had been betrayed by that same trust.
So, if I understood that and Xie Lian did as well, why didn’t He Xuan? Why had he still punished him? Why had years of companionship and what should have been genuine friendship amounted to nothing?
I struggled with this for a long time, dismissing it as a story of people being cruel for the sake of cruelty despite reading it multiple times. But on my latest reread, something clicked—something I had missed before.
At that moment, I began to understand why He Xuan did what he did and why Shi Qingxuan had, in a way, sealed his own fate.
For all the layers of grief, guilt, and betrayal that Shi Qingxuan faced, the truth was staring him in the face, and it wasn’t just about whether or not he should expose Shi Wudu’s crime. It was about the deeper, more painful truth of why he chose not to.
When Innocence Becomes Complicity
He Xuan’s revenge wasn’t the impulsive or senseless cruelty thing I’d considered it. If anything, it had been a long, calculated game of patience, and this is something that goes without explanation for anyone who’s read the work.
However, there’s something important about He Xuan’s approach that is often overlooked: he gave Shi Qingxuan the chance to see the truth.
He didn’t keep him in the dark out of some twisted enjoyment of deception, at least not in the way I’d perceived it initially. He Xuan let Shi Qingxuan know because he genuinely wanted to see what the latter would do with that knowledge.
And what did Shi Qingxuan do?
Nothing.
Even after hearing about He Xuan’s suffering, after learning of the crime that had destroyed a life, and after being confronted with the undeniable fact that his beloved older brother was guilty of a monstrous act, Shi Qingxuan still protected Shi Wudu.
Shi Qingxuan was disgusted, yes. He was disturbed, horrified, even. However, when it came to action, he still chose to preserve Shi Wudu’s position rather than seek justice. He still thought it was acceptable for his brother to undergo a trial as a god rather than be exposed for the criminal he was.
At that moment, Shi Qingxuan was no longer an innocent bystander. He had become complicit.
And isn’t that something we always see in the real world?
The People We Excuse
A strange human instinct compels us to protect the people closest to us, even when they are guilty. Even when they do terrible things to others or even to us. Even when, in the back of our minds, we know that they should be held accountable.
This is something that’s a universal thing, isn’t it? After all, how often do we excuse the harm caused by our friends and family even to us simply because we love them?
How often do we justify their actions, smooth over their wrong, convince ourselves that they don’t deserve the full extent of the consequences they should face?
How often have we ignored the flaws in someone close to us, hoping that love or loyalty will somehow redeem them, even when logic and morality demand otherwise?
People defend corrupt leaders even when they are fully aware of their misdeeds simply because those leaders, in one way or another, serve their interests. They ignore the crimes of their favourite celebrities and idols because admitting the truth would mean shattering an image they cherish.
Many of us turn away from the injustices committed by those we admire, those we are loyal to, those we love, those we know.
Because knowing that someone has done wrong is one thing.
Accepting that they deserve punishment is another.
Why Do We Do It?
So, why do we do this? Why did Shi Qingxuan refuse to expose Shi Wudu? Why do we struggle to hold our own people accountable?
One reason is fear.
To turn against someone you love is terrifying. It means risking alienation and becoming the person who broke the unspoken rule of loyalty. Snitches get stitches, after all.
For Shi Qingxuan, going against his brother would have meant rejecting the person who had shaped his entire life and who was, in a lot of ways, all he had. Shi Wudu had made him a god. Shi Wudu had always protected. How do you suddenly turn on that? Who would turn on that?
Another reason is denial.
It’s easier to tell ourselves that a loved one’s mistake is not that bad than to acknowledge the full weight of their wrongdoing. If we accept that someone we care about is truly guilty, we are forced to reconcile with the fact that we have, by association, been standing on the wrong side of history.
And then there is self-interest.
Shi Qingxuan had everything to lose if Shi Wudu’s crime was exposed. He would lose his brother’s protection and the security he had always known.
While he might not have been thinking about it in explicit terms—he did want to shed his godhood, after all—that instinct to preserve what we have often plays a role in why we choose to look away from someone else’s guilt.
The Consequences of Looking Away
But there is a price to this kind of protection. There is a cost to this kind of complicity.
Shi Qingxuan thought he could keep his hands clean by doing nothing. But in reality, inaction is also a choice, whether we admit it or not. And it was that choice to prioritise his brother’s survival over justice led to He Xuan taking his revenge.
In the end, both brothers lost. Shi Wudu died anyway, and Shi Qingxuan lost everything. He was reduced to the very thing his brother had feared the most: helplessness. Shi Qingxuan also faced the same thing he feared the most: a life without his brother.
And isn’t that the tragedy of it all? That in trying to protect his brother, he still lost him? That by refusing to act, he had indirectly condemned himself?
Because the truth is that when we protect those who do not deserve it, we do not just fail those they have wronged. We fail ourselves.
Choosing Justice Over Comfort
The hardest lesson in all of this is that morality is not always easy. It is not always clean. It is not always without loss.
To stand for justice often means standing against people we care about. It means accepting that love does not erase guilt and that loyalty should not come at the cost of what is right.
Shi Qingxuan’s story is deeply human. I do not consider him evil, and he is the farthest thing from a villain—the book definitely ensures we do not see him as such. He is simply a person who, when confronted with an impossible choice, chose to protect what was familiar rather than fight for what was right.
And in that choice, he lost himself.
That’s all.