News: Heaven Official’s Blessing | 天官赐福, Tiān Guān Cì Fú (2020)

It still feels unreal that in less than seven days, we will have Heaven Official’s Blessing (Tiān Guān Cì Fú / TGCF) donghua released by Bilibili and Haoliners Animation League. It will premiere on October 31st, 2020.

For you, I’ll become invincible! 

—Edited by TheFNGee

Heaven Official’s Blessing is a Chinese danmei novel written by MXTX. It was first published in 2017 and had about 200+ chapters. This book was the third work by the author whose first novel, The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (2014), is the source for the currently airing popular anime Scumbag System on WeTV. The second novel – Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mó Dào ZǔShī; 2015), has so many successful adaptations & spin-off works that it needs no introduction  [But if you are new to this, read the earlier post on Mo Dao Zu Shi where I list all the reasons to read/watch it.] 

Anime trailer on YouTube: 

Heaven Official’s blessing Plot Summary – 

“Have you heard? The rubbish Heaven Official is having an affair with the ghost realm’s number one bigshot!”

Eight hundred years ago, Xie Lian was the Crown Prince of the Xian Le kingdom, one who was beloved by his citizens and the darling of the world. Unsurprisingly, he ascended to the Heavens at a very young age. Now, eight hundred years later, Xie Lian ascends to the Heavens for the third time as the laughing stock of all three realms. On his first task as a god, he meets a mysterious demon who rules the ghosts and terrifies the Heavens… yet unbeknownst to Xie Lian, this demon king has been paying attention to him for a very, very long time.

Main characters – 

Xie Lan is an 800-year old god, who at the start of the story, has risen to heaven for the third time. Being so old and having fallen twice already, he has no followers, and all the new gods treat him as a laughing stock. Xie Lan is a martial God with exemplary martial skills, very intelligent, and very kind and humble compared to the rest of his peers. His long spell on Earth realm before he ascended was a very hard path for him to walk, and as the backstories come out of his life, the readers find themselves loving him more and more and impressed with his resilience over the years. 

Hua Cheng / The Ghost King is a powerful and mysterious Ghost who is one of the three supremes, of whom even the Gods are scared. He shows himself to Xie Lan and helps him on his first mission to Earth after his third ascension. Though no one knows that he has searched and waited for Xie Lan for about 800 years from the time he first became a god and later lost the title and the powers. Even as a fallen god, Xie Lan always had one loyal follower in Hua Cheng. As the connection between both is revealed in later chapters, one can see his true devotion to Xie Lan. 

Apart from these two lead characters, the novel has about four to six other characters who will make regular appearances and play pivotal roles in the stories of Xie Lan & Hua Cheng. Each of these characters has their own stories, which at times will overlap and have consequences on each other’s life centuries later. I have to add that TGCF has one of the best villains I read in recent times and a really good twist for me when I read the novel. I absolutely loved his interactions with Xie Lan, and there was such a good understanding between these two characters, even if being on the opposite sides. 

International fans have been quite anxious regarding whether the Donghua will be for sub’d. Imagine the joy when it was finally confirmed that Heaven Official’s Blessing would have English and Chinese subs directly on the Bilibili Chinese website and app. However, it will require the viewers to subscribe to the website/app. I am not yet sure if joining the Youtube channel will work the same, but I will update you on that subject after the anime premieres and I hear from the Youtube channel users.

If you want to start reading the novel already, or if the donghua convinces you to continue the story, you can search for them on Google, and you will find many reliable fan-subbed versions for the web novel. Unfortunately, the novel is not officially translated into English, so it is not available as the entire book. The web novel is about a million words long (consider yourself warned), but it is a fantastic story with a lot of action, mystery, adventures, and very sweet romance. HuaLian [Ship name for Hua Cheng + Xie Lan] is one of the most devoted and sorted couples I have read in a Chinese web novel this year. The power these two together hold and how it is tested to the last strand is a compelling story that I can not recommend enough to all our readers.