The Gentleman Is in the Heart

I found a video on Bilibili with few views, but it moved me deeply.

Not because it says anything especially profound, but because it uses Han Li as an example and somehow lets me see myself.

After watching A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality for so long, I have always felt comfortable watching Han Li—more comfortable than Tang San, Wang Lin, Xiao Yan, and others. There is a sense of closeness, none of that sharpness. This is also why many people think of him as “mortal.”

Qin Mu is the complete opposite of Han Li. Qin Mu’s cleverness and intricate mind are displayed openly. Whatever he thinks, he says; he never holds it in. He also has an extremely open-source spirit, never reluctant to give away what he has thought of. When I first read Tales of Herding Gods, I thought Qin Mu was much like me, but he always also carried a sense of immaturity.

Han Li’s intelligence, by contrast, is almost always hidden beneath the iceberg. Others never see even one tenth of his true thoughts. More often he simply acts silently and does not explain himself. Of course, the video’s account of “blunting his sharpness” says it better than I can.

The video explained why I could not articulate my preference for Han Li, and likewise why I could not articulate my dislike for Tang San.

Then it showed me that the signs in Han Li’s ideas and actions conform to “blending with the dust.” He is a true gentleman.

A gentleman is not something forced into shape. Take Chen Changsheng: he has read the Three Thousand Daoist Canons and can name more than ten ways to write a gentleman. His heart is astonishingly pure; he could be called greatly good, perhaps even a sage if great merit and virtue were added.

But from Chen Changsheng’s first appearance in animation, he has felt artificial to me. The production team cares too much about the scholar’s image of warm jade and pushes it too far. It turns Chen Changsheng into an outward gentleman—or, more accurately, someone with a respectable facade. By neglecting the character’s depth, they make him too thin. It is hard not to feel uncomfortable and suspect that something unknown is hidden deeper down.

On the Mortal’s Journey side, however, the production team places Han Li’s inner complexity, choices, and psychological dilemmas in plain sight. Their presentation makes viewers feel they have seen Han Li whole, rather than only a shell.

A gentleman is not in speech or manners. A gentleman is in the heart.

About the Video

Written by Claude Opus 4.6.

The video breaks Han Li’s conduct into four steps: blunt his sharpness, untangle his complications, soften his light, and blend with the dust. Honestly, I usually skip this kind of “several steps” theory because it feels like padding out a structure. But after watching this one, I did think about it for a long time.

The first step is concealing one’s strengths. Han Li’s cleverest trait is that he never lets others think he is clever—when that sentence appeared, I felt it had struck exactly the point. The cultivation world cannot accommodate people who are too clear-sighted. The moment you show insight higher than others’, people will not admire you; they will guard against you. No one likes being seen through.

When Yellow Maple Valley abandoned him as a disposable pawn, he did not question it or grow angry. He silently fled to the Scattered Star Seas. I probably could not do that. When people abandon me, I may not say anything, but I will repeatedly think, “Why?” Han Li would not. He makes himself into an obtuse angle: if you do not pierce others, they will not regard you as a threat.

Then comes seeing through things without saying so. The video speaks of four states of mind: treating oneself as another, another as oneself, another as another, and oneself as oneself. I can understand the first three; the last is the hardest. Do not care about other people’s evaluations; hear your own voice first.

Honestly, I have not done it. Too many things matter to me: other people’s views, their expectations, even what they think of these blog posts. Sometimes I revise wording again and again before publishing, until in the end I have forgotten what I wanted to say. I suppose this is why I return to Mortal’s Journey every so often—not for the fights, but to watch how Han Li handles these relationships. To remind myself that there is a fourth option.

The third step is letting others shine. The video uses Lin Xiangru as an example: Lin lets Lian Po understand that his light belongs on the battlefield. Han Li does much the same. He lets the old monsters of Tiannan fight for fame and gain while he quietly takes the actual benefits. This is neither pleasing people nor flattering them; it is genuinely seeing another person’s value and helping it flourish.

I am less moved by this part than the first two. Perhaps my life has not yet reached the stage where I need to “let others shine.” I am still at the stage of “first, do not let myself go out.”

Blending with the Dust

The last step, blending with the dust, feels like such an elevated phrase.

It means letting go of discriminating thoughts and prejudices of high and low, noble and base. The video has a line that made me laugh: “People who listen to classical music look down on people who listen to pop; people who watch stage plays look down on people who watch errenzhuan.” But after laughing, it did not feel quite right, because I have this discriminating mind too. I used to look down on mindless power fantasies and think only works like Mortal’s Journey counted as good. Later I thought: they enjoy what they watch, and I enjoy what I watch; as long as we do not interfere with each other, that is fine.

And old-man energy arises when you believe your own tastes are superior and cannot resist judging, blaming, and correcting others. So people do not become old-manish because they get old; they get old-manish because they are old-manish (bushi).

What does the “happiness” we keep talking about actually mean? | Yi Mai San Lian EP17 discusses that old-man feeling at about 5<50>.

Han Li does not have this discriminating mind. From the Seven Mysteries Sect to Yellow Maple Valley, from the Scattered Star Seas to Tiannan, his status changes again and again, but he never looks down on the old Foundation Establishment friends because he has become a Nascent Soul cultivator. What he respects is not status, but the light and warmth each person gives off while absorbed in what they love.

Episode 178: the dialogue scenes are still astonishing.

The video quotes Soul: every soul needs a spark when it comes into the world, and that spark is a passion.

I wrote before in On Mortal Lives in Renegade Immortal and A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality that the essence of living as a mortal is setting aside a cultivator’s identity and experiencing life as an ordinary person again. Looking at it now, Han Li’s “blending with the dust” means something similar. Whatever realm he cultivates to, in a corner of his heart Han Li still considers himself a mortal—or rather, preserves that corner of humanity and the feeling of being alive. Wang Lin’s mortal life is a pot of fruit wine, festivals across the four seasons, and the lived warmth of the blacksmith’s family. Han Li’s is subtler. He does not need to deliberately live as a mortal, or deliberately try to fit in, because he has always been this way.

Seen this way, Han Li’s Dao heart is far steadier than Wang Lin’s. Wang Lin found his Dao amid AABB and BBAA (I am really not trying to hate on him). Han Li knew what he wanted from the beginning and only continued to make it firm. His cultivation is pure, like someone with a pure desire for knowledge who learns in order to seek knowledge and discern truth. Han Li’s cultivation and Dao heart are just as pure. (Perhaps at first they were mixed with a wish to catch up to his wife, but later he even forgot to look for her, did he not?) Wang Lin’s cultivation began with revenge, and later with reviving Li Muwan. He never understood why he cultivated in the first place; he was only a puppet passively pulled forward by hatred and romance. Can such a Dao heart truly be pure?

Han Li was plotted against by Doctor Mo, abandoned by Yellow Maple Valley, adrift in the Scattered Star Seas, entered and left Devilfall Valley, and fell into a spatial rift. These experiences would make anyone extreme or cold, but Han Li remains gentle and unhurried, neither servile nor arrogant. Call him gentle, call him calculating—either way, he has none of that viciousness. Wang Lin, from the time Teng Huayuan destroyed his entire clan, stepped onto a path wrapped in violence. He fought the Teng clan, then later fought the Heavenly Dao. He has never stopped since, and I cannot see a trace of living humanity in him. I see only, “Noisy! Die!” It is genuinely abstract. I am not criticizing him just to criticize him; in a sense, he has truly lost empathy. Perhaps this is also because the Renegade Immortal animation only keeps shaping standard, stereotyped villains, so every ruthless move Wang Lin makes is hard to fault.

But are villains really all the sort who walk up, provoke someone with “You little Core Formation brat,” and then stretch out their necks for the protagonist to kill? Meng Tuzi is the most laughable villain I have seen.

In Mortal’s Journey, viewers see Xuan Gu fall and call for an entire Xuan Gu side story. When Young Lord Wen dies, they cry, “No, Young Lord!” Perhaps viewers are letting their facial features guide their values? But Xuan Gu’s ultimate personal charm as an antagonist cannot be denied.

What is more remarkable is that every character in Mortal’s Journey is complex and many-sided. Even when they stand against the protagonist and receive the villain label, they are not simply divided into good and evil. Or rather, Mortal’s Journey tries hard to avoid praising good and punishing evil, and to avoid manufacturing opposition. There are many satirical novels that advertise “demonic cultivators act human while righteous cultivators do not,” then all reach the same conclusion: demonic cultivators are not necessarily evil; look at what they actually do. Mortal’s Journey is more direct. It creates many such characters: from their own perspective, perhaps they can only do what they do. For instance, Wen Qiang is right to protect his daughter, and right to seek revenge against the decayed management of the Star Palace.

But he is also genuinely a villain, and that is what makes such a character compelling.

His daughter Wen Siyue, along with later Gongsun Xing and Mei Ning, also establishes the many sides and standpoint of Old Devil Han to some degree.

The wordless dramatic scene in episode 106.
Two kneelings nearly a hundred years apart: the second is a test. Wen Siyue learns that Han Li is the senior who had inexplicably helped her a century earlier; Han Li knows that she knows, but neither says it. And after this parting, the day they meet again is far away.

A fairly complete compilation is available here: In A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality, Siyue’s kneeling recognized him as Senior Han. Han Li used a disguise technique, so Wen Siyue saw an old man; he even deliberately copied an old man’s voice and tone.

Yet the single line Do not mention this to anyone else immediately makes Wen Siyue connect him with Senior Han, who had helped her multiple times for no apparent reason.

A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality: an analysis of Wen Siyue’s story line

There is also a full analysis of the story line here.

One glimpse of Yang Guo, a lifetime led astray. This was mentioned in the scrolling comments, and it is true: this scene resembles the moment Guo Xiang sees the Divine Condor Hero remove his mask. More coincidentally, this outfit makes Han Li look most like Louis Koo, Yang Guo’s actor.
Gongsun Xing is the cutest character I have ever seen—several degrees cuter than Silvermoon.

Han Li sees his own guilt and feeling toward his parents in Gongsun Xing, then gives her all his resources below Core Formation. This indirectly leaves him without a suitable magical tool when he later pretends to be a low-level disciple in the Luoyun Sect. Before the competition, he spends days drawing talismans.

What a pity for Mei Ning. What a pity.

If Mei Ning had shown even a trace of determination instead of uncertainty, Han Li would have given everything to her without reservation. Old Devil Han says that forming a Nascent Soul will take one or several centuries, an endlessly distant future—would that not frighten a young girl? Then, in a few decades, he becomes a grand elder. Mei Ning’s temperament is relatively weak; if Mo Caihuan or Senior Sister Chen had been there, they would have firmly chosen to follow Han Li. Yet it is precisely that indecision and vulnerability, born of having been protected too well by her brother, combined with her pitiable expression, that leaves many fellow Daoists and me unable to let go. Still, following Zi Ling is not bad. Zi Ling is a professional at raising children; she previously raised Wen Siyue well.

And the production team has truly put thought into it. They even bring in A New Account of the Tales of the World. Very few people can understand that layer of symbolism; I certainly cannot.

Perhaps anime like this is exhausting to make and hard to please everyone with; it is also exhausting to watch. Dialogue scenes demand thought and feeling, and sometimes cannot be understood without an explanation. But as I grow older, I find it hard to say I can simply leave my brain aside when watching animation, so I can gradually watch only this sort of animation.

I seem to have wandered into many unrelated things, because I cannot specifically say what I felt about Han Li when I watched those scenes. But I vaguely feel that scenes like these are exactly what make “blending with the dust” seem like a phrase invented for Han Li. He is the phrase itself.

Letting Go of the Self

At the end, the video summarizes: blunting one’s sharpness removes the competitive self; untangling complications releases the self-centered perspective in order to understand others; softening one’s light releases jealousy in order to help others achieve; blending with the dust releases the arrogant self in order to embrace all beings. It is a continual process of “letting go of the self.”

Letting go of the self. Those two words carry weight.

I still cannot do it. I care about too much. Whether I am writing code or a blog post, I am always thinking about what other people will see. Sometimes an idea is good, but I swallow it because I fear people will find it childish. Han Li would not do that. He understands everything in his heart—who is plotting and who is sincere—but leaves three parts unspoken when words reach his lips. Not because he dares not speak, but because there is no need to.

To blend with the dust is not to make oneself dim, but to change from a body that emits light into light itself.

Perhaps that is the best state after one has truly seen the world.

Still, I am far from having seen the world. Let me finish this post first.