No Paths Are Bound

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Fanfiction
Title: No Paths Are Bound
Author(s): Cataclysmic_Calamity
Date(s): April 13, 2022-September 8, 2022
Length: 1.1m+ Words
Genre(s): Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Canon AU, Canon Rewrite
Fandom(s): Heaven Official's Blessing
Relationship(s):
External Links: AO3

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No Paths Are Bound is a popular fanfic by Cataclysmic_Calamity in the Heaven Official's Blessing fandom. It is rated Explicit and tagged with the ships HuaLian, FengQing, PeiShui, BeefLeaf, and Líng Wén/Yǔshī Huáng. The fic originated on Twitter as a thread fic.

As of November 23, 2023 it is the longest English fic in the fandom on AO3 at over 1,000,000 words. The only fic in the fandom with a longer word count is a completed French translation of the fic.[1] No Paths Are Bound is also the most popular fic by kudos,[2] as well as the second most popular by hits[3] and bookmarks.[4]

Summary

Xie Lian found something in himself that he thought was gone—worn away with every mistake he had made.

Faith.

His arms opened, and the child was hesitant—but eventually, he fell into them, his body trembling with silent sobs.

"I remember you," he whispered again, voice breaking as Hong-er clung to him.

I remember you.

I remember you.

I will always, for as long as I live, remember you.

(A re-telling of TGCF where Xie Lian has his cursed shackle placed in his eyes, blinding him. And yet, through all of his struggles; there is always someone watching over him.)

AO3 Summary

Recursive Fandom

No Paths Are Bound is a popular piece of fanfiction and has inspired its own recursive fandom. In 2022 some fans hosted NPAB Week, a fanweek dedicated to the fic and creations inspired by it.[5]

Fan Reviews and Responses

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reading no paths are bound by CataclysmicEvent is the weirdest experience, because you totally start to lose sense of what’s canon and not. for instance, i genuinely forgot that xie lian really did get buried in a coffin for a hundred years. along with “what do you mean Zhao Beitong isn’t a real character?” and “hua cheng didn’t save all those children?” and, perhaps most importantly, “well of course TGCF and MDZS are in the same universe, just hundreds of years apart! don’t you remember how the lan clan’s founding and xie lian’s third ascension were the same event?”

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Why NO PATHS ARE BOUNDS is the best fic ever, an essay

First of all, the author made everything so much more twisted and painful, of course my love for the original story, plot and characters remain unchanged it's just insanely satisfying to see it all exacerbated

×the amount of pain xie lian had to go through is astronomical and the consequences on his personality and punctual dissociating is really well depicted

×all the "perfect" sides of the characters are deconstrustructed like hua cheng's selfless behavior toward xl, his tendency to let him do what he wants all the times but in the fic he opposed him a few times over his own safety but still; lan chang is not the perfect mother that loves his son despite what he came out to be, she's resentfull and did harm,

×in contrary, all the hatefull sides of the bad characters who have few little chances to be appreciated have explaination arc if not redemption, for exemple shi wudu from my impression from the original tgcf is a family-first but piece of shit type with the water tyrant title and what happened to he xuan but there in npab it's clearly more complicated than that and oh my day i absolutly love the progress in relationship between he sheng and shi wudu excuse me i almost could've started shipping them both it bring so much comfort to witness them having each other's back and omg THE HUG !! THE PROTECRIVENESS !! THE TALKS !! please i love them;

the developement of bai wuxian story just fall right into the plot, what happened for jun wu to be that way

there's also qi rong's character who is despicable even more than he was and lovable, even more than he was, his humility toward mu qing brought tears to my eyes

Pursuing with Mu qing, the absolute love of my life that i would defend against all who is so so so sooo... I just love him and his progress and ouch his backstory was hard take but also it makes more sense in a way that he hadn't moved on after 800years, i'm not saying the original back story's lacking but it feels like some things were kept unsaid because i believe mu qing and his good heart must have been pushed in a corner way more painfully repeatedly for him to be so deeply wounded like we dont really know the extend of his past bullying

It's so well written and makes so much sense sometimes some elements could just fit right into the original story like why pei ming and hua cheng are the only one xie lian ever found attractive in the story, it just makes so much sense to me now like ?? pein ming being the zeus of tgcf and hua cheng being powerful fatherless makes it all possible plus that makes he xuan and hua cheng family by extend and that's just *intense screaming*

- he xuan coming back as the water master and the story FINALLY finally introduce us to a Thunder master

-hua cheng offering the armory to xl for him to profect himself and all of them being made by hc himself just feels right

(There's probably way more but i can't find them at the moment send help)

And the new original characters reng song the absolute perfection also i loved how lan qianqiu became a more central characters than he was in the original and their bickering was the epithom of cute, huz cheng's past and all the story around the forge i say it shortly but yk how much this weights in the story

Of course the additional nsfw scenes that we've all been craving for and everyone falling in love it's just too cute and ling wen and the rain master ? Absolute chef kiss

On a personal note i love depictions of body horror and monstruous behaviour and body changes and i was SPOILED on this side

%starting with the shackles, on the ankle, neck and eyes, constricting him, his breathing, his sight, his life. Plus blind are characters and stories from the point of view of blind characters are one of my favorite this days thanks to another kind white clothed cultivator; when they started thinking of a way to destroy the shackles it was horrible omg and just basically xie lian's level of pain tolerence and vision of normalcy and casually almost saying he got his eyed gouged out several times

%the animalistic/ bestial traits of the ghost kings like fangs, long nails, snarling, baring their teeth, please when he sheng brought shu wudu behind him to protest against to punishment almost turning feral i loved it.

That's it, that's the word, i love when they turn feral, when they embrace insanity and great amount of pain bring that out of them and this fic was perfect in this very aspect i think

And EXCUSE ME dragon hua cheng was the cherry on top of the cake it's one of my absolute favorite and it was beautifully described

Continuing on body horror and gory stuffs xie lian being hanged from his shackled, the pain, the screaming scenes, mu qing's qi deviation, yin yu's death... so well written

Let's not forget the perfect addition of the mdzs elements that fitted so naturally in the story, so fluid and logical in the telling, I love Zidian btw

On a more joyfull note, the growth of the characters, the humour, most of them were lovable, despite all the angst it's easy to just fall into it and enjoy the ride (then the angst is back and you just cry but oh well).

It's still followed the tram and order of the story and it's really pleasant to read your tgcf favorite scenes incorporated in a new not so divergent plot

In short y'all need to read no paths are bound on ao3 by CataclysmicEvent

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Twitter

Recursive Fanworks

Fanart

Fancomics

Fanfic

Podfic

Translations

Resources

References

  1. ^ Wayback Machine capture by wordcount
  2. ^ Wayback Machine capture by kudos
  3. ^ Wayback Machine capture by hits
  4. ^ Wayback Machine capture by bookmarks
  5. ^ https://twitter.com/npabweek
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