| “ | If you come with me, you'll be all right; but if you don't, I'll cut you in half. | „ |
| ~ Liu Hong threatening Lady Yin to stay silent. |
Liu Hong is a minor antagonist in the 16th-century Chinese classic novel Journey to the West by the late Wu Cheng'en, and its multiple adaptations. He's a boatman who is responsible for killing Chen Guangrui, Lady Yin's husband and Xuanzang's would-be father, all so he can have Lady Yin and Chen's upcoming position for himself.
In the 1986 series, he was portrayed by Han Shanxu.
Personality[]
Though at first seems to be polite and friendly, Liu Hong is actually a murderous psychopath under his charismatic facade. While most of the Journey to the West villains are demons, whose culture requires kidnapping and eating humans (not to mention many demons were later redeemed, mostly if they're steeds or servants of the deities), Liu Hong himself is just a normal human, fully capable of human moral agency, yet he commits heinous acts out of sadism and lust against those that never did anything to him, and manipulate others into believing him to be Chen Guangrui while blackmailing Lady Yin to stay silent, just so he can get what he wants without having to suffer any punishment. He's also cowardly, as the moment he's surrounded, Liu Hong quickly surrenders only to save his own skin, which inevitably fails.
Biography[]
Liu Hong is originally an ordinary boatman, who works alongside Li Biu. One day, Chen Guangrui and his wife, Lady Yin, who is a high-ranked official's daughter, come to their boat to travel to the capital so Chen can receive his promised position as the governor. Being impressed by Lady Yin's beauty, Liu Hong conspires with Li Biu and kills Chen, before forcing Yin to play along with him. Due to her unborn child's safety, she complies.
Later on, Liu Hong would impersonate Chen and takes up the position of governor for himself. When Lady Yin gives birth to her child, she names him Jiangliu ("River current" in Chinese). Fearing for her son's safety, she sends him adrift with a letter written by his left little finger's blood to explain his circumstances, and hopes to reunite with him someday. The boy is then found and adopted by a monastery and given the name Xuanzang, who then becomes a monk of the monastery.
18 years later, the Elder of the monastery tells Xuanzang the truth about his origins. Vowing revenge for his parents, Xuanzang then finds and reunites with his mother as well as healing his paternal grandmother from her blindness (due to her crying so much, having missed Chen since as far as she was concerned he had abandoned her). Thanks to Xuanzang's report, his maternal grandparents know Liu Hong and Li Biu's deeds and report them to the Emperor. Angered, the Emperor orders Liu Hong and Li Biu to be arrested.
The two then confess their crimes, and Li Biu is brutally executed. At the river where Liu Hong killed Chen, Xuanzang and his family sacrifice Liu Hong and take the criminal's internal organs to pay respect to Chen's spirit. However, Chen is then revealed to be still alive, having been saved by the river's Dragon King, much to everyone's joy.
Unfortunately, despite his death, Liu Hong's impact still remains, as unable to live with the guilt of living with a criminal who had impersonated her husband for 18 years, Lady Yin later commits suicide in secret.
Gallery[]
