慕沛灵：双修关系中的权力不对称

She Never Said "I Do"

When Mu Peiling (慕沛灵) first appeared before readers, it was in a scene of coercion.

She was originally a cultivator of the Masked Moon Sect, with her own sect, her own cultivation path, and a future that — while not exactly bright — at least belonged to her. Then Han Li (韩立) appeared — not as a lover, but as an existence she could not possibly refuse.

What does a Nascent Soul cultivator mean to a Foundation Establishment cultivator? This is not the relationship between a boss and subordinate, or between a teacher and student. This is an ordinary person facing a superhuman being who could casually annihilate a city. When such a being says "you will become my dual cultivation partner," does the word "consent" carry any real meaning?

Cultural context: The power gap between Foundation Establishment and Nascent Soul stage is enormous — roughly five major cultivation stages apart. In the novel's framework, a Nascent Soul cultivator could kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator as effortlessly as an adult swatting a fly. This context is essential for understanding the dynamics of this relationship.

Nangong Wan's master (忘尘真人, Wangchen Zhenren) facilitated this arrangement, and Mu Peiling's initial attitude was resistant. But the novel used an extraordinarily natural narrative technique to gradually dissolve this resistance — Han Li provided her with cultivation resources, helped her break through bottlenecks, and treated her gently rather than roughly. Gradually, Mu Peiling "accepted" the relationship.

But we need to ask an uncomfortable question: Does acceptance expressed by someone who lacks the ability to refuse count as genuine acceptance?

The Cultivation World's "Arranged Marriage"

Mu Peiling's situation was essentially the cultivation world's version of an arranged marriage.

In pre-modern Chinese society, women were matched by their parents to certain men. If the man happened to treat her well, later generations would say "she lived a happy life." But no one ever asked: if she could have chosen, would she have chosen this man? If she could have chosen, would she have chosen marriage at all? If she could have chosen, what kind of life would she have wanted?

Cultural context: Arranged marriage (baobao hunyin) was the norm in imperial China for thousands of years. The concept of marrying for love is historically recent. This parallel is not incidental — Wang Yu is drawing on deep cultural patterns that many Chinese readers would immediately recognize.

Mu Peiling's story perfectly replicated this pattern. Han Li was not a bad person — he provided Mu Peiling with cultivation resources, didn't mistreat her, and even protected her to a certain extent. But these "benefits" constituted the most exquisite cage: when the benefactor is also the person you cannot escape, gratitude becomes a chain.

Even more subtly, Mu Peiling eventually did develop some degree of feeling for Han Li. But the environment in which these feelings formed — closed, unequal, devoid of alternatives — cast an enormous question mark over their authenticity. Psychology has a concept called "Stockholm Syndrome," and while applying it here may seem extreme, the underlying logic is the same: when a person's survival depends entirely on another person, their emotional judgment becomes severely distorted by survival instinct.

The Contrast with Nangong Wan

The best way to understand Mu Peiling is to place her side by side with Nangong Wan (南宫婉).

Nangong Wan was likewise Han Li's Dao companion, but their relationship had a fundamental difference: when Nangong Wan and Han Li first met, their cultivation levels were comparable — Nangong Wan's background was arguably even stronger. She chose Han Li as a decision made with other options available. She had the ability to refuse, the confidence to leave, and her "I do" carried real weight.

Mu Peiling never possessed this confidence.

The two relationships placed together form a cruel comparison: in the cultivation world (and in the real world), the quality of a romantic relationship correlates directly with whether the power between the two parties is balanced. This is not to say that a weaker person cannot fall in love with a stronger one, but that when the weaker party lacks the freedom to "not love," their "love" loses its standard of verification.

Nangong Wan could get angry at Han Li, feel jealous, make demands — because she had the standing to do so. Could Mu Peiling? When your Dao companion is simultaneously your cultivation resource provider, your safety guarantor, and your greatest support for survival in the cultivation world — do you dare express dissatisfaction?

This is the most insidious form of violence within power-asymmetric relationships: it doesn't require actual violence; it only requires the weaker party to be aware of their own fragility.

Wangchen Zhenren's Role: Agent of Institutional Oppression

In Mu Peiling's story, Wangchen Zhenren (忘尘真人) played a role that is often overlooked but critically important.

She was the one who facilitated the relationship. Her motivation was not hard to understand — the Masked Moon Sect needed to establish ties with a powerhouse like Han Li, and Mu Peiling was the most suitable "chip" in her hand. In Wangchen Zhenren's eyes, this wasn't sacrificing Mu Peiling but "securing her a good future."

How familiar does this reasoning sound? How many parents throughout history have said the same things while arranging their children's marriages: "This is for your own good." "His circumstances are so favorable — what could you possibly be dissatisfied about?" When a person is commodified as a bargaining chip, the one doing the commodifying often sincerely believes they're helping.

Wangchen Zhenren was not a villain. She was an agent of institutional oppression — in a world that reveres power, it is "only natural" for the weak to be directed by the strong, and intermediaries like Wangchen Zhenren simply found the "optimal solution" within that framework. She might even have been right: after joining Han Li, Mu Peiling's cultivation did advance rapidly, and her safety was indeed guaranteed.

But "good outcomes" do not equal "just process."

Mu Peiling's Self-Persuasion

Certain details in the novel hint that Mu Peiling engaged in extensive self-persuasion about this relationship.

She would proactively care about Han Li's cultivation, attend to his daily needs, and play the role of "good Dao companion." These behaviors appear on the surface to be natural expressions of affection. But if you're familiar with cognitive dissonance theory in psychology, you'll see another possibility: when a person cannot change their circumstances, they will change their perception of those circumstances to reduce inner pain.

"I had no choice in becoming his Dao companion" — this thought is too painful. So Mu Peiling's subconscious rewrote it as: "I chose to become his Dao companion because he's worth it." This is not dishonesty — it is the human psyche's self-protective mechanism.

And Wangchen Zhenren, as a worldly-wise figure in the cultivation world, most likely foresaw this psychological process when she first arranged matters. She knew that time and daily proximity would erode resistance, like water wearing away stone.

The Novel's Honesty and Dishonesty

Mu Peiling is worth discussing because she exposes an interesting contradiction in A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality's writing.

The honest side: The novel never pretended this relationship was romantic. Han Li never showed Mu Peiling the depth of feeling he had for Nangong Wan, and Mu Peiling never became the kind of woman who drove the protagonist "mad with passion." The author wrote this relationship with a near-indifferent brush, and that indifference was itself a form of honesty — it acknowledged this was not love but a "system arrangement" of the cultivation world.

The dishonest side: The novel never directly confronted the ethical issues of this relationship. It used "that's just how the cultivation world works" to sidestep all uncomfortable questioning. Mu Peiling's inner struggles were glossed over, her acceptance was treated as a given, and her feelings remained perpetually at the narrative margins.

This "half-honesty" is precisely the typical mode of Chinese web fiction: perceptive enough to sense the complexity of reality, but worldly enough not to dig too deeply into that complexity. Because once you dig, readers would feel uncomfortable about the protagonist — and web fiction cannot afford to make readers uncomfortable about the protagonist.

A Question Without an Answer

Mu Peiling's story ultimately leaves us with one question: In a world that worships power, where does the dignity of the weak come from?

She could not refuse this relationship, because the power gap made refusal meaningless. She could not leave, because leaving meant losing all cultivation resources and security. She couldn't even truly resent, because Han Li objectively hadn't mistreated her.

This is a perfect trap: when oppression wears a gentle face, the oppressed can't even find a reason to resist.

Mu Peiling ultimately became a quiet member of Han Li's household, bore children, saw her cultivation rise slowly, and lived without great drama. Readers rarely discuss her, because her story "isn't much to talk about."

But perhaps "not much to talk about" is itself the thing most worth talking about. A person's life was arranged without a sound, and everyone — including herself — found it perfectly normal.

Isn't that the greatest tragedy of all?