Thread by @Foxypepsi1

For #HuaChengWeek2022 🥳

🧵Thread fic—Updates DAILY🕒

🏛️ A #hualian Museum visit
🏛️Post-Canon, Modern,
POV Outsider
cw: swearing (a bit)

Collab with @Ying_anSanren (ART below💖), special thanks to @yingfish!

#Day1_HuaChengWeek
🏛️ Day 1 Prompt: Favourite Hua Cheng Quote

As a brooding university freshman, Lai Wen could have pictured himself spending his Friday evening better than going with his lame ass class (SO cringe, as if they were still in high school) to visit the temporary exhibition entitled:

[Love Through The Ages: Origin Myths of The Red String of Fate]

So fucking cheesy!

He would totally skip it, lest the prof wouldn't have implied that this visit is a must to anyone who'd like to pass the finals. And not only his own course, interdisciplinarity be damned!

Add this Tour Guide Guy to the picture who is like the absolute worst type of museum workers: he believes that they're all veeery interested and is eager to show them around, "Don't be afraid to ask questions, I'm here to help!"

Plus, he's all "Fated lovers UwU".

Tour Guy has been going at it for some time now, all talk about “love that transcends time” blah blah Lai Wen wouldn’t give a damn.

"The story of red-stringed lovers goes way back. I'm sure you noticed this exhibition builds on legends a lot and things are up to interpretation—

—However, historians work hard to bring us closer to the truth. For example, our next stop… "

Another room, this one is decorated red with silver pattern, the item on display is a huge one: remnants of some pillar with a bit torn red paper—

—pulled taut like frayed-edged red silk with the wild, horribly weird crisscrossed lines on them more or less intact.

It’s in a bad shape, but what isn’t in a museum after all.

Tour Guy gestures towards it with his hand:

“Many experts tried to figure out what these couplets convey. Any thoughts?”

You say these are characters??? From this…it could be anything, really.

Lai Wen cocks his head to the left, then to the right, and some of his fellow classmates follow sort.

Nope, still an eyesore.

They all might look very dumb with their scrunched-up expressions and furrowed brows because Tour Guy lets out a light laugh.

“Then let me help with this one,” he says, a bit too cheerily:

“These pillars used to stand at the entrance doors of a Gambling House.”

The group collectively “oooh”s and one of the guys—Lai Wen never bothered with names—ask:

“Then are these rules?”

“It’s a good guess. Not entirely.“

Eventually, Tour Guy has mercy on them:

“[Money over life. Gains over shame] is on this piece. The other half is missing.”

“Oh, how poetic!” One of the girls exclaims, Lai Wen doesn’t know her, either.

Definitely not a literature major though.

Even the prof chimes in, surely just for the sake of showing that he knows his stuff:

“Indeed, a progressive approach to showcase something like this. It encompasses the literary skills of the scholar who did it. These poetic text calls attention to the nature of the premises, these significant words with this bold writing style are meant to establish dominance.”

Hearing that, Tour Guy seems to rub the back of his neck.

“You can put it that way," he mutters, before announcing louder:

"Here, to the next room, please!”

// DAY 1 END - TO BE CONTINUED 🏛️

⬇️ ✨ART ✨⬇️

Thanks for reading, TBC with the second prompt tomorrow!

Check out @Ying_anSanren's amazing art of the displayed object here:

https://twitter.com/Ying_anSanren/status/1532972008119705601?t=LpULj2bFGeq5E2q_bck82Q&s=19

🕙UPDATE WITH DAY (PART) 2:

Tour Guide Guy leads the group to the next room, but what could be displayed there? 👀🏮

https://twitter.com/Foxypepsi1/status/1533354898959618048?t=YoHh28YEs1hB33sKObNwnA&s=19