#xiaoge like. in the dramas anyway
Note
Hey there! Your posts about heihua and xiao hua in particular have made me curious and I've only started book 7, so I didn’t get too much og book xiao hua (I have watched all the dramas though). Would you mind talking about him (and/or them) a little more? I'd love to read that!
And if not, then I hope you still have a great day :)
hi! i'd be happy to talk more about xiao hua and hei xiazi in the books if you're interested in my take on them (which honestly thank you i'm flattered you'd want it tbh 😂) so thanks for asking (sorry in advance for how horribly long this is)
before i say anything though, a few disclaimers:
while i do like him, xiao hua is technically not my ultimate blorbo (that's wu xie) so because the brainrot is less intense i'm not gonna pretend i'm an expert on all things xiao hua compared to some other people i can think of. same goes for heihua, which is a ship i do like but more passively, so again, not enough brainrot to be a super expert
i haven't read everything they're involved in yet, so for complete transparency, i'm currently about halfway through sha hai in my chronological order read of everything, and anything after that point i've read in bits and pieces only (like various extras, bits of yucun biji etc), so i notably haven't read flowery night. as far as heihua goes, the only thing i've read where they directly interact extensively is the beginning portion of what's considered restart part 2 aka the mute village storyline, but to my knowledge they don't really interact in real time before that point or barely. so i won't be talking about flowery night or the dragon vein trilogy that takes place after restart
any quotes will be pulled from merebear's translations of the dmbj books
i won't be avoiding spoilers so spoiler warning
NOW
with that out of the way, let's talk about book xiao hua and a little about book heihua. i'll be comparing to mostly ultimate note in terms of the adaptations but i'll try not to get too much into that, so the tldr of it is just to bear in mind their dynamic and xiao hua's character in that are significantly different in some ways from how they are in the books. if you want a good drama portrayal of book xiao hua imo the best by far is lost tomb 2 xiao hua even if even he isn't 100% perfect either. anyway i'm getting off track 🏃♀️
since you mentioned book 7, it's worth mentioning for anyone unfamiliar with the books that canonically xiao hua shows up for the first time fairly late in the story at the start of chinese volume 7, more specifically the xinyue restaurant auction, while hei xiazi briefly features in chinese volumes 4 and 5 as part of wu sanxing's double agent team along with xiaoge, but by comparison you don't get much about him besides that he's mysterious and competent on a scale wu xie equates with xiaoge. wu xie and hei xiazi don't interact much, so he's pratically not there and leaves you wondering what relevance he has to the story, which is only ever answered come sha hai. and more importantly at that point, there's no established connection between him and xiao hua at all, which is the major difference with the drama adaptations, namely ultimate note. you do find out later, both in sha hai and a thousand faces, that they're at the very least acquainted with each other to some extent, but that's information you only get much later. so essentially any heihua content pre sha hai is necessarily canon divergence au, and yes that includes ultimate note
xiao hua as a character then. it's interesting to note that he's fascinating in how eeriely similar he ends up being to hei xiazi in some respects, namely in how they operate, which is why i feel they get along as well as they do, but let's look at him independently first because there's a lot to say about him.
keeping in mind that the books are all, exceptions aside, from wu xie's perspective, xiao hua isn't named until fairly late into book 7. they meet by chance as they cross paths in xinyue restaurant, but he doesn't introduce himself to wu xie who calls him Pink Shirt until you reach a much later portion of the book that's never been adapted simply because ultimate note changed the story too significantly by introducing him early to keep that entire bit, which is terrible in some ways because it's such a fun scene, but we'll get to that later. in the meantime, here's xiao hua's first appearence, which establishes through frequent paralleled behavior that the reader is meant to preceive some degree of similarity between wu xie and xiao hua as well, which i'll also get to later:
Just as I was about to speak, the man saw Poker-face behind me and his face instantly changed.
I thought he knew Poker-Face, but when I was about to start asking questions, I saw a man come out from behind Poker-Face. He must have followed us in. The man was dressed in a black suit with a pink shirt underneath and no tie. He was very relaxed. The man went up immediately and asked, “Young Master, the usual?”
The man didn’t speak, but looked at me and stopped. I suddenly felt that he was a little familiar.
I lived in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, so I honestly didn’t have a lot of chances to meet acquaintances in Beijing. At this moment, my mind was stuck, and I couldn’t remember who this man was, but I smiled reflexively. The man had obviously stopped like me, and was looking at me with a very surprised and puzzled expression on his face before he also smiled.
(...)
The both of us smiled pervertedly at each other for a long time, but neither recognized the other. Honestly, when I looked at him, I felt as if I had seen him somewhere before. But on closer reflection, that was all it was. I simply felt that he was familiar.
(...)
The two of us shared a look, but we really couldn’t remember, and were both a little embarrassed. The old fellow with glasses was amused. These old Beijingers were slick and had seen all kinds of things. He gave us a roundabout: “Do the two young masters know each other? Let’s not stand here blocking the elevator door. When you meet someone you know, you’ll remember.”
As he said this, he invited the other party in. Pink Shirt shook his head as if it was inconceivable, looked at me thoughtfully, and then turned and walked into the inner hall. He had only taken a few steps when he looked back at me again.
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 6 'Auction' & 7 'Auction Part II'
much like hei xiazi, xiao hua is established as mysterious and somewhat unfathomable in a way that niggles at wu xie who can't remember why it is he recongnizes this man he to all intents and purposes should never have met given they don't run in the same circles and live in areas quite far apart. he takes note of how apparently disinterested he is when he notices that xiao hua is sitting across the iron triangle on the upper floor of the auction house, seemingly on his phone utterly bored out of his mind or acting like he's above what's happening really:
I looked carefully and saw Pink Shirt in a box on the left side opposite us. It seemed that he was alone and playing on his cell-phone.
(...)
Basically, it seemed like this was the only item being sold today, so all these people had come prepared to win. Thinking that, I looked at Pink Shirt, who wasn’t far away. He was no longer playing with his phone, but arrogantly sitting on a western-style sofa, and staring at the ceiling with his arms crossed.
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 8 'Feast for Collectors', 9 'Memories Part I
but of course he's very much paying attention, as pangzi points out:
He took no notice at all, and simply wiped it with his hand and continued: “It’s time for a break, and when the second half comes, I bet another two million gets added. Goddamn it, this Fat Master has learned a lot today.”
(...)
He pointed to Pink Shirt again. “This guy is also very good. He’s been playing with his phone the whole time and hasn’t even raised his head. He rang the last bell just before the break. It seems he’s determined to win and doesn’t even want to compete.
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 11 'Lighting the Sky Lantern'
and this is where we come back to how in some aspects he and hei xiazi are actually quite similar in their approach, in a way that's markedly different from how ultimate note sets out to contrast them almost glaringly. both he and xiao hua cultivate a persona of nonchalence with a devil may care attitude, but behind the false ease and approchability, there's a calculating and efficient mind aware of its surroundings at all times. in a similar way, very quickly you also realize that xiao hua, far from the prim and proper young master he's presented as in ultimate note, is quite literally just as unhinged.
from the moment xiaoge jumps into action to fight the restaurant security staff for the qilin seal, xiao hua jumps to fight him too, except contrary to ultimate note, this isn't in an effort to save face and throw huo xiangu off because he's working with wu xie, and again, he shows himself to be calculating and cautious:
Between one thought and the next, Poker-face flashed like lightning from my side and jumped straight down from the second-floor balcony.
His behavior left me stunned, and screams could be heard everywhere. I saw him make it to the ground and turn over swiftly before I heard another round of exclamations. I turned to look and saw Pink Shirt had one hand holding the railing of the gallery, while the other hand was in his pocket. He also jumped down and landed in front of Poker-face. On the other side, Fatty gave a loud roar, grabbed a stool, kicked down the screen, and rushed at the hotel staff who rushed in. The scene was a complete mess.
(...)
A man who rushed up was knocked down by Poker-face, and Pink Shirt was protecting the front of the glass cabinet. The two men looked at each other but hadn't yet come to blows.
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 11 'Lighting the Sky Lantern', 12 'Wreaking Havoc in Heaven'
until wu xie finally manages to get downstairs with pangzi, at which point he finds xiao hua, ass handed to him by xiaoge because it's xiaoge, but instead of angry or surprised or any number of appropriate reactions at being beaten up, the maniac is smiling gleefully. and wu xie understandably thinks it's really fcking weird:
When I came downstairs, the glass cabinet with the seal had been broken and the thing inside had been taken out. Poker-face was looking at the seal carefully and had no intention of leaving. Pink Shirt was getting up from the ground, clutching his neck and coughing. It appeared he had already been beaten once.
When we walked past him, however, we saw him coughing, smiling, and looking at us as if he were very happy. I went up to the stage and told Poker- face to take the seal and get away quickly. As soon as I turned around, I saw Pink Shirt approach me and say, “Hey, Brother.”
Fatty and I looked at him. Fatty lifted the table and Pink Shirt immediately waved, “Wait, wait!” He took a business card from his pocket, handed it to us, and pointed to the imperial seal. “I won’t stop you. Here’s my contact information. When you want to sell the stolen goods, call me.”
Damn it, I said to myself, definitely not a serious person. Fatty actually went up and took the business card, and Pink Shirt made a gesture of invitation. I was so anxious that I pushed them aside and rushed out.
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 13 'Huo Xiuxiu'
it's at this point we also get introduced to huo xiuxiu (best girl who i could also talk tbh) who's also an absolute gremlin who teams up with xiao hua partly at huo xiangu's behest to test the iron triangle. which is where get into the entire portion of book that couldn't be adapted, and is the part the ultimate note actually changed significantly, because the iron triangle aren't on the run from huo xiangu, she's the one sheltering them. and so xiao hua's real introduction comes in the form of an elaborate scheme between him, huo xiuxiu, and huo xiangu wherein he disguises himself as huo xiuxiu thanks to the bone-shrinking technique, so successfully even xiaoge doesn't detect it until all three of them clue into something being very wrong, at which point he attacks them, gets his ass handed to him by xiaoge again, and once again finds it hilarious and the challenge has made him want xiaoge around clearly:
He staggered but didn’t fall to the ground. At the same time, I suddenly saw him pull a strange dagger from his sleeve, which seemed to be an antique. Holding it in a reverse grip, he rushed towards Poker-face. I immediately shouted “Be careful!” only to see that Poker-face was no longer in his original position. At the same time, a lightning-quick shadow flashed through the air and instantly knocked the man out with his knee.
(...)
I knew that the real malicious one was this guy, so I didn’t feel an ounce of pity for him as I helped Poker-face subdue him first.
When “Xiuxiu” got up from the ground, his whole body suddenly stretched out in a strange posture. He suddenly got bigger, his shoulders widened, his height increased, and the mask was torn from his face.
When I looked at him, I immediately recognized Pink Shirt. He was gasping as he laughed: “It hurts way more getting hit when shrunk to that size. No joke.”
(...)
Pink Shirt rubbed his joints, smiled, and then came up to me and patted me on the shoulder. He turned and nodded to Granny Huo: “Yes, you have a good eye.” Then he pointed to Poker-face and said, “This guy belongs to me."
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 30 'Get Down to Business'
so essentially, all this was a very long-winded way of showing that xiao hua, before we even know his name and identity, is established as unpredictable, ruthless, calculating, faux insouciant, and a particular flavor of playful that wu xie clearly finds unhinged and is extremely put off by for a hot minute, mostly because he's not aware (not is the reader at this point) that xiao hua's entire life has forged him into finding amusement and challenge in unorthodox things.
in the same way, it's directly because of this that contrary to ultimate note (and even any of the other early dramas like lost tomb 2) he's also absolutely not immediately ride or die for wu xie despite knowing very well they're childhood friends. he abandons wu xie, who as per his assessment was in all likelihood dead or dying, to secure his own escape before coming back to find him, which is the point where wu xie finally realizes the single greatest point of divergence between them. up until then, both wu xie and the narrative make a point of establishing parallels between wu xie and xiao hua, and here finally, what divides them is made clear, and the narrative establishes them as two sides of the same coin separated by this one split in personal code of ethics:
He apparently didn’t rush to check on my situation after I fell into a coma, but continued to climb inside instead. He reached the end of the crevice, completed his task, and then came out to see if I was dead or not.
I couldn’t help but feel a little upset. I didn’t know whether this could be considered a ruthless or firm mentality, but he obviously didn’t feel burdened by it.
I had finally found a difference between the two of us.
But since I didn’t have the physical strength and didn’t want to break our tacit understanding, I didn’t bother expressing this emotion. I knew that when it came to this industry, the habit of desperately rescuing your companions didn’t exist. There seemed to be a kind of prior agreement where two people decided to save themselves if both parties were in danger. It was actually very fair if you thought about it.
It was true that Xiao Hua was uncertain about my situation at the time, and even I would hesitate to go back and rescue someone if I were him.
I couldn’t help thinking of Fatty and Poker-face again. If they were here, the black-haired corpse would’ve had his head cut off before he could scratch my back. Or I would have seen Fatty rush out from those pottery jars and screw everything up. But I would have been saved.
At that moment, I felt an extreme sense of insecurity, more than I had felt before. Although we were three people now, I was really only responsible for myself. It was a very disconcerting thought. At the same time, I suddenly understood why Xiao Hua hadn’t been grateful but angry at me for going into the cave to save him.
He was used to solving his problems by himself. Before he did these kinds of things, he had already accepted that there wouldn’t be any backup or help. He wouldn’t blame anyone for his own death, nor would he blame himself for others’ death.
Was this the Mystic Nine’s mindset? I felt a chill in my heart.
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 53 'Snake Bite'
and to be clear, this doesn't mean xiao hua is a bad person, nor does the narrative present him as one. it's simply the point where both wu xie and xiao hua diverge clearly when up until then they'd been presented as eerily paralleled. the difference between lies in where this mentality and stance is one that will eventually cause wu xie much grief and trauma when he's forced to adopt it during sha hai, it's simply one that xiao hua adopted too long ago to function without, and has stopped dwelling on if he ever did. similarly, xiao hua takes even longer to finally look at wu xie and see his use and welcome his presence genuinely, where before he'd still been cultivating the same easily approchable persona, though wu xie poked several holes into it before then:
Xiao Hua gave me a meaningful smile, “I found another reason why Granny Huo asked me to bring you. To some extent, you’re also a knowledgeable little shit.”
I grinned, thinking that these words made it sound like he didn’t want me to be here before.
— Daomu Biji Volume 7, ch. 55 'Unlock the Password'
from there, once xiao hua begins to truly open up to wu xie as a friend rather than a burden he's been forced into babysitting, he very quickly picks up on their similarities and what divides them as well, and in a show of almost uncharacteristic mercy, tries to spare wu xie from the ruthlessness he's accustomed to adopting to an extent when wu xie is forced to impersonate wu sanxing and confront just how ugly and lawless the underground business is. it's why this particular scene with panzi is incredibly touching in that despite confronting him with the responsability behind his choices, he spares wu xie from having to have literal blood on his hands, and in that way spares the version of himself he could have been had life not twisted him the way it has:
“Tonight is the key,” Xiao Hua said. “We just need a person to ‘cash’ in on our ‘achievement.’ Pan Zi has to come forward to determine how many people are on our side. Then, Wang Ba Qiu and Lao Liu will be eliminated later tonight.”
I was completely shocked, “What do you mean?”
“Never put something off until tomorrow. This is Master Three’s rule and Wang Ba Qiu knows it very well. He won’t wait for death.” As Xiao Hua spoke, he looked up at the sky. “It’s going to rain blood tonight.”
I gave him a surprised look, “You can say such terrible words without batting an eye. How do you do it?”
Xiao Hua smiled, “My grandfather said that sentence, and my mother relayed it to me. I was only seventeen when I heard those words.” As he said this, he sighed, “Stress is the kind of thing that when you talk about it, it’s gone.”
I frowned and felt a sudden burst of fear in my heart. I never thought this kind of thing would happen again. “Must it happen like this?” I asked him. “Why don’t we call the police anonymously and have them kill him?”
“Mr. Naïve is a fitting nickname,” Xiao Hua said. “If I were your Uncle Three, I might have found a way to keep you naïve, but I’m not. Little Master Three, let’s face reality. This was your choice.”
I was silent as I looked at Changsha passing by outside the car window. I remembered that Pan Zi had said something similar to me before. Indeed, this was my choice.
(...)
While we ate, I asked Xiao Hua when the evening’s events would begin. He merely smiled without saying a word and kept making me drink.
It was a kind of wine I couldn’t identify by taste, but I suspected it was mung bean roast, which was the kind of beverage grave robbers used to drink. Not only did it have some crystallized sugar and medicinal ingredients in it, but it had a spicy flavor and tasted like mung bean soup. After only a few drinks, I got drunk without warning and didn’t even notice when I became muddle-headed.
When I woke up, it was already the next morning. Xiao Hua and Pan Zi were lying on the sofa in my room, both covered in blood and sleeping soundly. I looked out the window at the bright sunshine and knew that everything was over.
— Daomu Biji Volume 8 Part I, ch. 10 'End of the Act'
looking at all this (and this is is my purely my own opinion, so take it with a grain of salt), my main issue with ultimate note xiao hua (and heihua by extension which i'll get into briefly) is that he's not only in some aspects a little to a lot OOC, he's mostly a lot more one-dimensional where book xiao hua is anything but
as far as heihua as a ship goes, they don't actually interact much if at all until much later in canon, even if you interestingly discover in sha hai that it's implied that hei xiazi is working with wu xie on the sha hai project at xiao hua's behest, and that much of his trust in wu xie and his plan stems from xiao hua's trust in wu xie:
It was really a heavy loss. Why did he encounter such tragic consequences every time he tried to emulate Lei Feng67 and do good deeds, while doing unethical things often made him a lot more money? Was he being cheated by partnering up with Xie Yuchen and Wu Xie?
He found it very interesting. He seldom completely ignored the details and promised others he’d do something. If he was part of a certain plan, then he had to know every aspect very well— not only his part but the others’ parts as well
This was the only time he was doing something he knew almost nothing about, and the only reason was: “You just have to trust him.”
He hoped doing this wasn’t a stupid decision. If this thing failed, then he would blacken the Wu family’s and Xie Yuchen’s credit himself.
— Sand Sea Part III, ch. 117 'Fleeing Cockroaches'
there's also a fun bit in part I where hei xiazi, before disappearing to retrieve wu xie and wang meng from beneath the sand in gutongjing, leaves li cu with a backpack and a phone with one number he tells him to call for help, and once li cu actually calls it, you understand it's xiao hua on the other end who's entirely nonchalent about it:
Li Cu trembled as he picked up the phone, pressed the call button on reflex, and put it by his ear. After a while, he heard a voice from the other side say: “Who is it? Who called me just now?”
“Well…I’m a messenger.” Li Cu said incoherently. “Someone asked me to give you a message.” He thought that after hearing this, the other party would reply to him and say “talk” or “wait a minute, I’ll find a quiet place” in a very low, solemn voice, but the other party said indifferently: “I’m a little busy now, can you call me back in thirty minutes?”
Li Cu paused for a moment and thought, you’re even giving me orders now, before he said, “But this message is very important.”
“My business is also quite important. If he’s really in such a hurry, why not come to me instead of asking you to call and give me a message?” The other party continued, “I’ll talk to you in thirty minutes. It’s okay if you don’t call.” At this point, the man hung up.
— Sand Sea Part I, ch. 40 'Unique Number'
and it's arguable that much of the vagueness stems from the very real necessity of secrecy that the whole sha hai plan demands, but while much of this reads as "oh? he's inconvenienced? that's too bad, also i'm busy at the moment please call back at a better time", given how his character has been established before, it's safe to say this isn't the genuine annoyance and exasperation you get from him in ultimate note wherever hei xiazi is concerned, he's far too enticed by chaos as a form of vaguely perverse amusement. it reads far more (again in my opinion) as how much of heihua's dynamic that i've seen play out in the books goes, that is to say them prodding at each other in a giant mutual game of chicken where they're both grinning inwardly or outwardly like the gremlin trashmen they are
the entire premise of restart part 2 is the iron triangle and the baby triangle needling xiao hua into gossiping about hei xiazi because he's late to their get together, to which he happily complies because oh boy that's this week's chance at getting a tally on the prod sheet.
i'm not entirely sure this is coherent or at all what you were looking for, and is definitely way too long woops, but uh. that's my xiao hua/heihua word vomit? i guess? book xiao hua and/or heihua enthusiasts are very welcome to add onto or debate any of this, i leave the rest to the real experts 😂
#how is it that the first meta i write is for xiao hua#and heihua#when neither are my brainrot blorbos#i clearly need to do this for pingxie#or general lore#or wu xie#or xiaoge#but those would be actual books atp#please send help#meta#xie yuchen#heihua#dmbj#dmbj meta
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Hils Watches Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Ep 7
7 episodes in and I'm still getting used to Cheng Yi's real voice. Was it his voice in Lost Tomb 2? I haven't watched it in forever and it's not like Xiaoge talks a huge amount
Li Lianhua in every episode: I am definitely not going to help you solve this case
Also Li Lianhua in every episode: So, here's how I think the murderer did it
I love that there's zero proof and the dude just admits it anyway
I love him and his smug little 'this is why I signaled to you not to drink the wine' smile
I'm laughing so hard. This dude is mansplaining tombs to a bunch of seasoned tomb raider. These two aren't even tomb raiders (but their actors played them in a different franchise) and even they look so done with this nonsense
TOMB TRAP! Aww I feel like I'm watching a DMBJ drama now. I miss my Iron Triangle idiots
Was it electromagentism?
Wu Xie, is that you?
Aww his proud little smile
OMG plot twist! I legit gasped!
I love him. "I revealed a grand scheme and now two people are trying to kill each other. People, eh?"
I don't make a habit of making gifs while I'm live blogging because it's time consuming. But this hair toss was too important
Got to love a drama with an evil kid
#hils watches#hils watches mysterious lotus casebook#hils watches cdramas#mysterious lotus casebook#cdrama
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i have finished reboot & i am sad
it's bittersweet—i mean, it was time to be finished with it; i've been watching it literally over the course of the pandemic. but enough! all things must end, even the arduously dragged-out conclusion of a whacked-out chinese tomb raiding drama featuring poisonous gas, hordes of insects, zombies, hand crabs, flying carnivorous clams, and "coffin dew," which like all the rest of those things does not exist.
ruminations and pictures and spoilers behind the cut!
1. so why is this xie yuchen the most boring xie yuchen out of all of them? i don't even know this actor's name because i never bothered learning it. also when the hell did he become a doctor and do sketchy operations on people without anaesthesia? he's wearing pink, he's rich, he has the same name; but there the resemblance ends. this is not the xiao hua we know and love. where is my bitchy swishy opera-singing organized crime boss? no wonder there's no chemistry between him and xiazi; this guy barely has a pulse. sorry to this man. nice sweater, tho.
2. i was trying to prove that pangzi says "that's not your xiaoge" (which he doesn't, those are bad subtitles; he just says "that's not xiaoge") and instead captured this adorable picture of drunk bai haotian. xiao bai gets a bad rap—mao xiaotong is adorable and sweet and honestly kinda hot when she's not trapped in a bowl haircut and overalls. i appreciate that wu xie, busily dying of lungs, doesn't have time or patience to explain to her why he's not available, but zhu yilong plays it wisely straight down the middle, face impassive. ship it or don't, he seems to be saying; i don't care, it's not up to me anyway—the viewer can read it however they want. (but wu xie does manhandle her on more than one occasion and that's also kinda hot.)
3. admittedly liu sang is very very pretty but i still don't want him in my pingxie, like mint in my chocolate chip ice cream. no thank you please. i have always considered myself a multishipper, a live-and-let-live fan; but this fandom has taught me i'm monogamous and i guess there's nothing i can do about that. still. look at liu chang's beautiful features. he made me care about jinx beyond just his function as a whump magnet, and that's an achievement. someday maybe his ouxiang will give him the hug he deserves.
4. speaking of beautiful just look at these total idiots. i'm going to miss their stupid faces. xiaoge drinking water, so he can be sober enough to take his drunk husband home and put him to bed. wu xie so plastered that i have inadvertently captured the one (1) image of the most beautiful man in the world making a derp face.
BONUS: whatever this beautiful cranky bitchy "doctor" has going on. which definitely involves feelings he still has for wu xie, after what happened in germany. (you know what happened in germany.)
and that's it, that's a wrap. in the meantime zhu yilong has been in cannes being absolutely heart-stoppingly fucking divine, and i will bet you a hundred flying carnivorous clams that the next time he's there, his film will be in competition. the condé nast cover story didn't hurt. with each entrée he cements his reputation and, more importantly, protects himself from the increasingly nasty sweeps of china "cleaning up" c-ent. i honestly don't know what there is to clean up anymore; there's almost nothing left. immortality and the live-action of tgcf not being released; justice in the dark just abandoned not even halfway through. this doesn't end well.
at least as far as lost tomb goes, though, i've decided i'm proceeding backwards—so next i'm watching sand sea/sha hai, because i want to spend time with mob widow wu xie (qin hao has won me over via gifset) and ji chen's xiazi. until then, pouring one out for li jiale and chuchu. and wu erjing i guess. 干杯!
#reunion: the sound of the providence#tltr#dmbj#xie yuchen#bai haotian#liu chang#liu sang#mao xiaotong#z1l#don't get me wrong i adore c-ent#i just feel protective of it#maternal if you will#i want to cradle it close to me and glare at anyone who would hurt it#huo daofu
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DMBJ Meta: Bai Haotian
So, since I’m in the middle of a Sound of Providence rewatch (I’m up to the murderous puppet theatre), I’m also having thinky thoughts about one of the supporting characters, Bai Haotian, also known as Xiao-Bai (Little Bai).
She’s present in the webnovel as well, incidentally, though she and Warehouse 11 are much less filled out. Anyway. (Some spoilers to follow.)
So Little Bai is a short drink of water, tiny, bright-eyed, who appears when Wu Xie enters W11. She’s extremely helpful, and also extremely mysterious, but after several mini-adventures it’s revealed that the giant flaming crush on him is entirely genuine and also, she’s a third-gen manager of the Warehouse (which is why she knows so much). In season 2, she’s recruited for the Thunder City arc as a diver; in the second half she’s involved in the W11 shenanigans that fill out the season.
She’s adorable in her own right, but what interests me in the narrative sense is how much she is like Wu Xie when he was a Baby Adventurer, Very Staunch. Young, brilliant, family connections to weird shit but also very sheltered, doggedly loyal to the people she admires. She’s got a lot of talent but also needs some teaching and seasoning before she can compete in the big bad world. Does that sound like our Xiao-Xie? And it’s nice to having someone in that ingenue role since he’s thoroughly aged out of it by now, but also.
If we treat Xiao-Bai as an analogue for Young Wu Xie, in that story Old Wu Xie is a mash-up of two different roles - Xiaoge (his long-time crush) and San-shu (uncle, mentor, tricksy manipulative bastard). And I think that Wu Xie, at least, is aware of the parallels.
So when Wu Xie tells her, “You’re young: you don’t understand the difference between love and worship,” is he also talking to his younger self? Is he looking back fifteen years to the young sprat he was and kindly patting that boy on the head for being enormously silly but sweet? Does he think whatever his *waves hand helplessly* Thing with Xiaoge is, it’s stronger than that or does he also worry that after all this time he’s still... the wide-eyed infant to Xiaoge’s tired self. I mean, on the surface level she’s just found out he’s dying and he wants her not to grieve so much so he’s trying to de-escalate her feelings, and that’s a solid bit of story-telling right there. But Xiao-Bai, and Piaopiao for that matter, have a lot of parallels and resonant themes with what’s going on with the Iron Triangle, and I think this is one of them.
And! A large part of drama plot is Wu Xie’s drive to prove that San-shu (the first one, at least, the one before the Xisha Shipwreck Tomb) was a decent man. That whatever bloody deeds he had done, he was forced into it, that he meant well, that he was doing his best.
The point being, this is Wu Xie post-Sand Sea, where he spent most of a decade being tricksy, manipulative, pragmatic, bloody-handed, using his allies as harshly as his enemies. The actor Zhu Yilong made sure we remembered that every morning he spent extra time painting a bloody great scar on his neck. The text reminds us by bringing in Jiang Zisuan and his accusations which are... inaccurate regarding A-Ning’s death but not without weight, either. Wu Xie’s walked in the footsteps of Third Uncle: he’s done some shit. So it’s interesting to me, and sweet, and bittersweet to be honest, in this quest to prove San-shu was a good man, just how much work Old Wu Xie puts into keeping Xiao-Bai, this mirror of his younger self, safe.
Also she’s cute. Did I mention she’s cute? OMG I could just die.
Anyway, back to the show... Run from the clams, my good man! Run!!
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also on the subject of zhang qiling’s characterization. i really want to get through more of the novels. i’ve only gotten through books 1 and 2 so far, and only the english translations (which im assuming up in quality a bit once you move to merebear translates in the later books), and i did not even get to the xiaoge parts in book one in the chinese versions yet.
so like, my opinion of him in the books is very specifically book 1 and 2 translated. and im very curious how he evolves and how he’s presented and how he acts to the iron triangle group.
book 1 and book 2 i actually think overall the drama adaptations did a good job of showing xiaoge’s personality in them, although a bit ‘sped up’ (just like pangzi’s mostly himself but ‘sped up’ to be closer and warmer and kinder to wu xie quicker than he is in the book, im assuming so the shows could get the iron triangle dynamic sooner).
in book 1, like The Lost Tomb drama, xiaoge is mostly a detached mystery man who’s intensely competent, dangerous, and aloof. in the book he doesn’t particularly give notice to wu xie as far as we can tell (from what i remember anyway), and wu xie mostly only notices him for how Talented he is (his cool fingers... ok wu xie calm Down lol), and because wu xie at that point is trying to pretend to be a tough cutthroat tomb raider like San Shu, but he’s naive and at heart always been just unable to ignore others suffering If he thinks he can help. So we get little bits of wu xie wondering if xiaoge’s okay, wondering where he is, checking on him (like wu xie is ultimately doing with pretty much everyone on the expedition he thinks he’s even got a .001% of being helpful to). Wu Xie is less charitable and goody-two-shoes than the shows, and just thinks in his pov selfishly, but even thinking himself ‘trying to keep myself alive fuck others’ he ends up going ‘oh fuck i should go try and grab that guy and help huh?’. So wu xie is thinking that way about xiaoge too, as is to be expected. What’s unique about it is that no one else is thinking of xiaoge as someone who needs to be cared about - who’s weak enough to need help, or an ally enough to deserve their time, etc.
And that dynamic is also true in the show - in the drama the rest of the team is quick to assume xiaoge is against them, could kill them (quite possible), is using them, can handle things without them sticking any limbs out for him, and a lot of them don’t necessarily assume xiaoge would even help them If he was around and it was convienient for him. The drama blows it out of proportion, with wu xie being damsel-in-distress saved by xiaoge nonstop, and xiaoge visibly to the audience taking notice of wu xie SPECIFICALLY asking if xiaoge’s okay and trying to help him (as early as the scene in the Inn when wu xie carries him to a bed, and gets him food to eat). In the novel xiaoge does help wu xie at times, but at least from wu xie’s pov (the only one we get) it seems he just Happens to be helping. One can say xiaoge maybe already took a special interest in wu xie, simply because he DECIDES to help him (which he likely does because he notes wu xie is actually treating him like a Person unlike pretty much everyone else on the team, and wu xie’s also the only civilian on the team and therefore not necessarily as much of a potential enemy/threat to xiaoge and his goals). But from wu xie’s perspective xiaoge just seems like an enigma in book 1, who’s VERY competent and VERY cool and very mysterious, who wu xie treats like a Person who deserves to be concerned for like himself (unlike how others treat xiaoge), who happens to help wu xie out a bit (but multiple people help wu xie he’s a naive first timer he needs it lol).
So from book 1, you really don’t see a clear perspective on how Xiaoge views wu xie. Only that its apparent wu xie himself treats tomb raiders, all people generally, as People as worthwhile as himself to help (if he thinks - foolishly- he could survive helping them). So wu xie’s behavior is a contrast to literally everyone, and for someone like xiaoge its a treatment he generally doesn’t get. (I’d argue for Pangzi too, a reason they gradually gravitate toward each other too). The drama follows a similar arc, but xiaoge’s interest and the fact he’s been Affected by someone caring for him and what that makes him feel like is WAY more obvious and likely sped up (cause the early dramas speed up iron triangle dynamics a bit). In the drama, its CLEAR xiaoge’s repeatedly saving wu xie in part because wu xie in particular is trying to help xiaoge, treating xiaoge like a normal person like wu xie is, and assuming xiaoge has good intentions by default/is an ally by default. Wu Xie is being trustworthy, and safe, and attempting to be helpful, all things xiaoge never gets. And drama xiaoge tests that, even trying to show himself as scary and brutal AND a dangerous ‘traitor’ to the group without arguing with San Shu when san shu starts painting him that way. Killing an immortal in front of the group and wu xie after wu xie assumes he isn’t a killer, xiaoge and pangzi ready to murder each other, xiaoge and san shu clearly on opposing sides (meaning wu xie assuming the best of xiaoge means even MORE if he’s assuming xiaoge is worth trusting even as a stranger against the person wu xie loves/knows/trusts most in that group). So in the drama its more clear xiaoge is very affected by wu xie’s treatment of him, and that’s likely why he has an interest in checking in on him/keeping him safe later at the auction scene they add in, and the implication is that in The Lost Tomb 2 xiaoge’s still so eager on wu xie because wu xie truly WAS the person to treat him like a trusted person back. The drama is clearly more sped up/obvious than book 1. But the core intention of xiaoge mysterious, wu xie’s normal personality happening to touch xiaoge are in both.
Onto book 2. I watched the drama The Lost Tomb 2 first, and so i expected that xiaoge suddenly being a lot WARMER and friendlier and open to smiling and joking and trying to be close to wu xie was “the drama speeding pingxie/iron triangle up in closeness” just like the first drama. However, mostly, that wasn’t the case. In both the show and book, Xiaoge first is introduced as Old Man Zhang who is a “professor” who shakes wu xie’s hand and smiles and is EAGER to talk to and touch him. Then wu xie finds out, once attacks happen, that old man Zhang is actually Zhang Qiling as he removes the face-mask disguise and helps wu xie out. In the show, I thought that was already SUCH a change of pace - for xiaoge to show up covertly, and then go gush to wu xie in disguise (just xiaoge gushing/socializing in general is out of place for him normally!). But then I read book 2, and in it old man Zhang gets more dialogue of trying to compliment wu xie (and wu xie taking it as veiled-insults implying wu xie is inexperienced, when its actually xiaoge having RESEARCHED wu xie’s background and gushing in an attempt to say he finds wu xie cool too and wants to be friends).
So Old Man Zhang itself is so interesting, because this disguise and warmth to wu xie implies at some point in book 1 xiaoge DID decide he’s interested in knowing wu xie, and decided when book 2 came and wu xie was scouted for an expedition, that he xiaoge would show up too and attempt to socialize with wu xie again. which is all HUGE for xiaoge, a guy who 1. does not socialize or care to, 2. does not generally have any attachment to the world so just having an interest in getting to know someone is big for him 3. is purposefully making efforts to be warm and interact which are things from book 1 he seemed to not care to do at all. So in book 2 he is suddenly acting a LOT more like pangzi (a tomb raider but sociable and aware of how to be at least casually friendly and make JOKES, compliment people, vocalize team work and strategy). xiaoge is doing a LOT in book 2 to try and reach an olive branch out to wu xie in the hopes wu xie will take it. I also think the disguise portion as old man Zhang indicates on some level Xiaoge wanted to try socializing/connecting to wu xie without it being tied to himself, in case things went badly and he needed to not leave such an impression on wu xie. He clearly cared a LOT about how their next interaction went and wanting it to go WELL post book 1, which i find fascinating. In retrospect then, what WAS xiaoge thinking of wu xie in book 1. I wonder.
And then this final bit, is perhaps me reading too deep into it, but Old Man Zhang specifically being old - to me that reads like Xiaoge hinting he’s maybe not this young cool enigma wu xie met him as, and seeing how wu xie will receive an older version of him (since he is in fact over 100). Its Xiaoge testing out the idea of if wu xie will socialize, still treat him the way he likes wu xie treating him, if wu xie finds out he’s not exactly the man wu xie expects. (and Xiaoge is not going to be what wu xie expects in MANY ways - he’s not as good intentioned as wu xie thinks sometimes, he isn’t human as far as he himself views things, he’s older than wu xie thinks, he’s not cool like wu xie thinks but more just very very out of touch and isolated. And to a degree i personally read, that Old Man Zhang was xiaoge testing the waters to see if wu xie would still amicably treat him decent if he didn’t meet Wu Xie’s expectations.
Then the rest of xiaoge later? As he acts uncharacteristically warm and friendly compared to book 1? Rather than testing if wu xie will like his more particular niche traits, hes testing if He can interact in a way compatible with wu xie, and if that will get him the friendship and closeness he wants - like when u act more charming to win over a person’s attention. And it largely works, wu xie overall gets quite friendly and teamwork’s in response and trusts xiaoge. In the show The Lost Tomb 2 this is almost JARRING compared to xiaoge’s mysterious closed off personality in The Lost Tomb. In TLT2 he smiles warmly, he stares directly at wu xie a lot, he jokes, he touches wu xie in camradiere and not just to ‘save’ or help him. He discusses what he’s doing and his plans for getting through a given area to a degree (aka he communicates/attempts to). He is trying to joke and be team-player around as much as pangzi (who is a much more sociable tomb raider with a lot of charisma), and regardless of how intense xiaoge is acting his main goal just seems to be to develop a connection to wu xie. This is xiaoge, and he could have showed up, said little, offered a bit of help (since wu xie Trying to be helpful to others tends to sometimes inspire it in the people he’s with), done his own mysterious agenda, then disappeared. He didn’t need to smile, or discuss any plans at all with wu xie, or compliment wu xie on his background and credentials, or even research and look into him. I expected the drama version of xiaoge to be ramped-up for pingxie shipping potential that the drama wanted to utilize. But then i read book 2. And in book 2 yeah, there’s not exactly a bunch of soul staring gazes, so as usual drama ramped up things a little. But the core element, xiaoge changing so Drastically in an attempt to connect to wu xie and build a relationship to him, is still there. He’s wildly more like a ‘usual tomb raider’ like pangzi or panzi in book 2 - talking to wu xie, working as a team, actually helping wu xie clearly on PURPOSE and not just ‘oh it happened to be convienient to help him.’
Book or drama version, im guessing to some degree its book 2 with pangzi and xiaoge teamed up with wu xie, where wu xie starts gradually making an impression on them. In the long term, wu xie’s connection to them tends to temper them both to be kinder people... where they might have shot someone to death or stabbed them, when wu xie’s around they tend to slow those instincts, when wu xie remains their team member as the stories go on, they tend to want to do these things a bit less even when wu xie isn’t around because ‘what would he think.’ At least that’s true in the shows. So pangzi is also going through a transformation as early as perhaps book 2 from “casually sociable but will kill anyone if they turn out to not be allied to him” into someone more like “well wu xie’s naive but i may not wanna leave him to die” or “well if i don’t Have to shoot xiaoge maybe i won’t since he’s technically being neutral right now and we’re both with wu xie.’ I’m curious how that transition happens in the books for pangzi. In the shows? The shows 1 and 2 speed the transition up to make pangzi a loyal trusted friend FAIRLY quickly, then show 3 Ultimate Note tempers it a little to a more reasonable pace of ‘shady tomb raider who’ll kill most people’ to ‘well maybe he’s got a soft spot for wu xie.’ TLT2 in particular speeds things up intensely, but still showcases exactly how brutal pangzi (and xiaoge) are when wu xie is not around - how they only don’t kill each other cause they’re allies, how they’ll kill a-ning and her men or other randoms if its needed without a concern, how neither of them particularly care if an immortal gets murdered by xiaoge, how they don’t personally look out for one another and think ‘you’re a tomb raider too take care of yourself and i’ll handle me cause i don’t expect u to help if im screwed.’
Pangzi is an interesting case because like... as shown in TLT2, he can charismatically act inept then fight someone and win, he can charismatically act friendly then betray someone (he often uses looking incompetent, or seeming friendly, to get himself out of traps or save wu xie or get the chance to attack someone). So pangzi’s transition from closed-off tomb raider fine with killing, to emotionally attached to wu xie and wanting to align with wu xie’s morals a bit, is more subtle. Because he acts friendly to wu xie before its actually genuine friendship, and he’ll use the same ‘warmth’ to harm others that he uses without any intention but kindness toward wu xie. Pangzi’s evolution is more about getting a soft spot for wu xie, where he starts to feel he can be Himself without it always being an act, where he feels he Can risk being kind and helpful without getting screwed (because wu xie won’t screw him over generally), where he starts to feel bad about being brutal toward a novice like wu xie. I imagine once we get to Ultimate Note and the coinciding book, Pangzi’s characterization starts matching up more (but i haven’t read the books that far yet).
I’m very interested on if book Xiaoge’s development matches when it coincides with Ultimate Note’s timeline. Because book 1 xiaoge is so much of a mystery/closed off its hard to pin down exactly what he thinks about the new person he meets wu xie. Then book 2 implies he thought quite a Lot but he also seems to be putting on a different kind of act in it. If in book 1 (and drama The Lost Tomb) xiaoge is trying to come off as an unknown stranger to keep people out and at a distance, then book 2 (drama The Lost Tomb 2 sea-tomb part) Xiaoge is trying to give off the impression he’s a sociable tomb raider like San Shu or Pangzi (even though he’s not) because he’s trying to get wu xie to engage with him more. And because it’s all wu xie’s pov in the books, we don’t really know why xiaoge took a particular notice to wu xie for sure, and why he decided it was worthwhile enough to attempt to engage and emulate tomb raiders who are Good at interacting with wu xie in order to get wu xie’s friendship too. I’m wondering if in later books we ever get a perspective on why xiaoge wanted wu xie’s notice/connection, and i am very excited to see xiaoge in general unfolding into more of his many facets as the books go on. Because as mentioned, book 1 he keeps people at a distance as strangers, and book 2 he’s putting on an act (and also potentially revealing how big his capacity for chatty friendliness is given the right incentive lol).
I found Ultimate Note drama xiaoge to be interesting because he is clearly back to closed-off this-is-my-problem-to-handle but Wu Xie keeps extending olive branches to try and meet him halfway, and xiaoge tries at times to extend it back in an Honest way. Staring to try and say things to wu xie, letting wu xie feed him, letting wu xie ‘help’ him, letting wu xie start convos and HOLD him in those convos when he could easily just leave or overpower wu xie - and doing all these things while admitting he thinks its his problem, that he’s a monster, that he doesn’t want wu xie hurt, that he thinks wu xie is stepping out of line pushing this of him etc. whereas in TLT2 he was extending an olive branch just to get wu xie to be warm to him... by Ultimate Note he’d rather abandon wu xie if it means wu xie is out of THIS mess (he’s also like that in the later TLT2 portion after the water tomb). By UN he also realizes leaving wu xie won’t get what he wants, that wu xie will jump into xiaoge’s mess anyway, and they both try to meet each other halfway a bit more honestly. (and unfortunately the dramas are missing the time between water-tomb to Ultimate Note’s plot and all the development happening off screen/in the books there). From a book perspective, i’m wondering how things develop to UN’s point, and im wondering how close (or Overdone) UN’s depiction of the characterizations are compared to the corresponding book. (Because again... the shows tend to overdo the iron triangle closeness/development i personally think just in case they’re the first/only dmbj drama seen, so the audience gets iron triangle and pingxie dynamics no matter which drama they watch).
#xiaoge#pangzi#zhang qiling#wu xie#iron triangle#pingxie#meta#dmbj#did anyone ask for dmbj meta? no? lol well im dropping#dmbj novels#and show comparison meta on xiaoge's character anyway#and pangzi's#i would LOVE to read a fic where like Reboot or Ultimate Note era xiaoge acts like Old Man Zhang. acts like water-tomb tlt2 xiaoge#because we KNOW thats an aspect of his personality#we know xiaoges got a fucking degree? or at least a fake one. we know he's got a professor alias with Old Man Zhang.#we know he IS capable of physical affection starting like holding hands grabbing shoulders and desiring to cuddle#and that he can RANT compliments if given the chance and motivation#so like. has there ever been a date where xiaoge just brings wu xie's research highlighted#and they're at some dinner. and xiaoge's just smiling gushing about X and Y that wu xie wrote and asdking questions???#and wu xie's blushing cause hes a BABY compared to xiaoge and its NOT truly impressive to xiaoge who#Lived thru this stuff. right? but xiaoge insists NO IT IS IMPRESSIVE IT IS#and wu xie cracking a big smile he cant supress and blushing more and trying to talk#and xiaoge staring at him with a smile listening raptly#and then like pangzi crashes the date#and xiaoge goes silent as the grave cold eyes. as if he was not gushing 2 minutes prior#but pangzi saw him smiling like a SAP as he walked in. so he still KNOWS#like. as far as im aware? that could all canonically happen. it falls in line with Xiaoge's behavior as old man zhang#and we know wu xie's fond pov in the books is not gonna mention it. not gonna out xiaoge as a mushy dork when he's 'suave and cool' in the#pov journals lol.#but if xiaoge ever dresses in a pretty dress for wu xie? well wu xie Wont mention the particulars but he'll journal oh how HOT it would be.
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Hi! I hate to bother you and if you decide to delete this or not answer, no worries at all. Time is a precious commodity. From following your blog, I know you are wise in all thing DMBJ. I was looking at the translations of the novels on Amazon and am considering buying them, but they're described as being books for ages 8+. That surprised me as my only exposure thus far has been Lost Tomb Reboot, which seems aimed at an older audience. Does the 8+ rating sound accurate to you? Are they enjoyable for adults? Thank you!
Oh, nonny, you would go for the complicated question right off the bat. No worries, though; I’m up for it! 😁 (And you are not at ALL a bother! I love talking about DMBJ. Especially the novels. ^_^)
(Disclaimer: 1) These are my opinions only. 2) If you have the financial ability to support the official translations of any Chinese novel by purchasing them, you definitely should.)
OK, so first thing’s first: I HIGHLY recommend reading the novels. They cover so much more territory than the dramas alone and will fill in a lot of the blanks that the dramas don’t cover, so if you enjoy the story and the characters, you’ll be getting much MUCH more of them in the novels.
Second thing’s second: The novels are published first online by NPSS, then cleaned up and polished and edited before being published in print. Some stories (like some of the side stories and extras) were never published in print and probably won’t be. The basic timeline of the novels goes like this:
Main novel series (books 1-8): takes place when Wu Xie is about 26-28 years old or so. This is the time period when the Iron Triangle first meet and become who they are together.
Tibetan Sea Flower (Zang Hai Hua): takes place ...5ish or so years after the main novel series. Xiaoge is absent for... (spoiler) reasons... but his presence is still VERY much felt in the novel. This is when we get the biggest chunk of his back story to date. It is also unfinished and ends on a TERRIBLE cliffhanger, but it’s well worth reading anyway. (There is a drama in production right now to cover this novel and hopefully we’ll get some closure on that.)
Sand Sea (Sha Hai): the first three volumes take place 9ish years post-main novel series, the final volume is a prequel to those. This is Wu Xie’s revenge/mob widow(er) arc and the first three volumes are told from the POV of a younger character, Li Cu. This story is ALSO unfinished and ends on a terrible cliffhanger, but from what I understand, the drama did give us some closure (I haven’t watched it yet, so can’t confirm that myself, but it’s what I’ve heard). There is also a second season of this that is coming down the pike probably after they do ZHH.
Ten Years Later: The story of Wu Xie going to pick up Xiaoge from where he’s been since the main novel series ended and the Iron Triangle deciding to settle down in a little village called Yucun (Rain Village) and retire.
Finally we have Yucun Biji (Notes in Rain Village 1 & 2), Restart 1 & 2 (the novels TLTR is based on) and then two other novels whose names I am utterly blanking on but that come after Reboot. (Yucun Biji 2 and the two novels after Restart are current works in progress.)
And NUMEROUS SIDE STORIES AND PREQUELS AND EXTRAS INCLUDING QUIRKY LITTLE SHORT STORIES THAT WILL UTTERLY BREAK YOUR HEART INTO PIECES AND ALSO A STORY ABOUT THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE AND MANY OTHER WACKY THINGS??? (Seriously, the novels are a TRIP. XD)
Which brings us back around to your actual question. The official translations on Amazon (books 1-6) actually cover books 1-halfway through 5 of the Chinese novels. That’s it. For anything else after that, you’ll have to move to fan translations. (If you feel comfortable sending me a message off anon, I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.)
And behind a cut for the rest, I think...
OK, so remember how I said that the books are published online first and then in print second? The person who has done pretty much all of the fan translation had not done volumes 1-5 1/2 because they wanted to encourage everyone to support the official translations and still do. They are, however, now going back and working on the the online versions of those volumes. The reason I mention this is that while I absolutely agree that we should support the official translations if we can, they’re... not as good as they could be. OTZ They’re poorly localized, the transliterating of names is not consistent with current pinyin (i.e., Wu Sansheng instead of Wu Sanxing), and the writing itself is kind of clunky. Now some of that is that the earlier novels were very early works of NPSS and his writing ability has grown by leaps and bounds through writing this series, so the later books are of a much higher quality. And part of it is just... not great translating. Which is unfortunate.
I remember enjoying the first two books but not being totally sucked in yet (and for the record, I WAS reading the official translations, so even though the fan-edited MTL is better, it isn’t like the official translations are unreadable. They’re not. They’re just not as good.), then slogging through book three (because that’s a Wu Xie-only book and I missed the Iron Triangle), and then I got to book four and didn’t stop reading until I’d devoured the entire rest of the series. XD
As for the 8+ rating thing, I vaguely remember thinking that the simplicity of the writing and the adventure nature of the plot might have made it a fun read for my (then) 8 year old nephew as I was reading book 1, but the books are still very much intended for adults and that becomes quickly apparent by the time you’re in Volume 2 and beyond. The themes get very complex and even dark in places in a way that might be hard for an 8 year old to follow (though that may depend on the 8 year old). So I think that’s a mislabel on Amazon’s part and I wouldn’t let it worry you, if I were you.
...I realize this got very very long, but I hope I’ve managed to answer your question? If not, please feel free to send another one and I’ll see if I can clear up what I missed. ^_^
#dmbj novels#i'm happy to elaborate on anything here#i was just trying to avoid massive spoilers for anyone who doesn't want them#and also this is all my opinion#just stating that again#^_^#i hope this helped nonny!#anonymous#long post#just in case#eirenical.meta#...ish
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Y’all I don’t even speak Chinese but watching this PingXie video @thosch3i linked to on Twitter was a transcendental experience
#was no one going to tell me that Wu Xie looks at Xiaoge like THAT in what I am presuming is the reunion??????????????????????#if that scene isn’t actually in the drama i will truly riot#anyway come join me in hell#pingxie#dmbj#tlt3
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Texts from the Lost Tomb, part 5.1
Good thing I didn’t do something like a story arc with this series, bc that would be…well.
Zhang Chat
Zhang Rishan: Could we speak, Patriarch? It is a family matter.
Zhang Qiling: read 12:18pm
Unnamed chat
Zhang Rishan: Good afternoon. I am writing with regard to a development pertaining to a Zhang family heirloom. Its recent activity has provided some potential insight into a long-standing mystery about our family’s longevity. I would deeply appreciate it if you could have Zhang Qiling contact me at his earliest convenience.
Wu Xie: !!!!!!!!!!!
Wu Xie: sorry, I mean yes, absolutely. Is it at the tea house? Can I come too? We won’t break things this time, I swear.
Zhang Rishan: That would be entirely dependent on whether Zhang Qiling contacts me.
Zhang Chat
Zhang Qiling: …Pangzi has several phrases he uses in addressing persistent telemarketers. I believe the more vivid wordings apply to you today.
Zhang Rishan: I apologize for the somewhat underhanded machinations, but the matter is urgent. How much do you remember about the 1800s?
Zhang Qiling: Nothing. Why?
Men in Black Chat
Zhang Qiling: Has he contacted you?
Hei Yangjing: oh shit whaddup it’s dat xiaoge
in some parts of the world, ya know—people lead into conversations with dumbass small talk and actual context for their demands
i know it’s crazy but like lord what fools these mortals be and shit amirite
How’s bae and the loudmouth
Zhang Qiling: Your descriptor for Pangzi is somewhat hypocritical, I would argue. Wu Xie is well; he had a bad cold last week but has mostly recovered.
The Shakespeare reference is noted and appreciated. Although I personally prefer The Tempest.
Has he contacted you?
Hei Yangjing: omg this is a xiaoge trivia plot twist thx
although tbqfh I figured you’d be more into Romeo and Juliet
lmao get it
…too soon?
Zhang Qiling: Has he contacted you?
Hei Yangjing: sadly, dear A-Xie and I just don’t talk daily the way we did when you were making snowmen for ten years or whatever. don’t be jealous, whats a Wu Xie to do but the other black-clad immortal in town who’s…teaching him stuff;)
The last time I heard from our mutual boo was on one of my birthdays (i tell people different days to maximize consistent presents, got the idea from something in the news)
Zhang Qiling: Your attempt at levity is not humorous in the least. Wu Xie is not interested in you and any attempts you make to express your own interest will be blocked with extreme prejudice.
I was referring to Zhang Rishan. At the start of this conversation, five years ago.
Hei Yangjing: yikes chill tf out jelly bro you know I was joking
Cool your Qilin
hehehe
Admit it tho, we would be hot
Also yikes on the Zhang Rishan front
Lead with that next time tf use ur words
No I never talk to the bitch unless he pays why
Ew what does he want now
Tell him i died, make it tragic
Bonnie and Clyde Chat
Hei Yangjing: psst hey sexy got some big news
Xie Yuchen: Change the chat name.
Hei Yangjing: uhh lemme think no anyway how would ur fine ass like to hear some spicy info for the low low price I just sent?
Xie Yuchen: …This had better be good.
Hei Yangjing: face it ur the rich and rational version of Wu Xie I knew u would be curious
So here’s the 411
Xie Yuchen: The what?
Hei Yangjing: ugh
Youth
W/e
So the sitch is, zhang bois got some special necklace from someone somewhere
That is supposed to make the wearer invulnerable or somesuch
Idek man at this point I’m just accepting it, like sure u have a magical necklace, makes sense
I wonder if the Zhangs are like lotr??
I would totes be gandalf. u can be galadriel in that one HBIC scene.
Except this weirdass family jewelry hasn’t done fuckall for years, shit was broke af
then said necklace started glowing last week like yikes it was lit kinda glowing
Hehe I guess this is its glowup
Get it
Xie Yuchen: So, a mysterious Zhang artifact has suddenly become active.
Hei Yangjing: duh that’s what i said
Xie Yuchen: Is Zhang Qiling involved?
Hei Yangjing: he didn’t wanna be but you know Wu Xie has the Zhang Qiling equivalent of beatlemania and got them involved lol
Qilinmania, i dub it
And so now they are headed to the haus of scalding hot tea
Interested?
Xie Yuchen: Try and stop me.
Hei Yangjing: bitch I’m inviting u to crash the potentially dangerous Zhang drama WITH me
It’s basically a date;)
Xie Yuchen: No, it is not. Pick me up in an hour.
Hei Yangjing: feisty, I love to see it
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Hi hi! So the lost tombs and chronology all super confuse me. So tlt2 ended on a cliffhanger that was not resolved by tlt3 which is ultimate note, but now there is another tlt3 that I am guessing is made by the same studio as tlt2 (but not UN) that actually follows tlt2? And it has the same WPZ as tlt2 (but sadly different WX, ZQL though I’m sure these guys are great). You seem to know what you’re talking about so I’m hoping you can help!
UN also ended on a cliff hanger so I’m wondering if they’ll get a sequel from their studio that comes before tomb of the sea.
ahhh hello anon! yes ahaha the dmbj dramas are certainly very confusing--because they keep switching the screenwriters/entire production team between dramas. huanrui did tlt1 (2015), tlt2 (2019), and the sequel to tlt2 (2021). they're also technically the production company for un (2020), but linghe did like all the directing/casting/writing so its significantly different in tone and quality from the other dramas huanrui produced. npss (dmbj author) did sha hai (2018) and tltr (2020), with sha hai being in collab with linghe, so you can see lots of parallels with un and shared cast. (gonna add that i dont know much about the m9 because that’s not what im personally interested in, so i’m only going by stories with wu xie & the iron triangle.)
unfortunately, the dramas pretty have no continuity as a result of all the weird shit and multiple studios doing different dramas and messy stuff going on behind the scenes. the author's production company currently has all the rights back for filming future dramas, which is......imo, a good thing for book fans who love the author but a 😬 thing for book fans who like the original story more than what the author is now doing with it. I'll uh avoid saying too much opinion stuff though so no more on that 😅
that aside! yes 云顶天宫 “explore with the note” part 2......is the direct sequel to tlt2 and done by the same studio. unfortunately the writers are different and im not sure how much of the production team is the same either. idk how much you know about the novels so brief summary here--for the chinese version, the main story has 9 parts split among 8 books (though the official eng tls have each part being a different book) with some important content being as follows:
official eng title “cavern of blood zombies” (first time wx goes into a tomb, first t3j meeting)
official eng title “angry sea, hidden sands” (xisha seabed tomb, introduce a-ning)
official eng title “bronze tree of death” (bronze tree in qinling, wx & lao yang solo adventure)
official eng title “palace of doom” (heavenly palace on the clouds, introduce bronze gate)
official eng title “deadly desert winds” (golmud, introduce hei xiazi, desert, rainforest, tamutuo)
official eng title “graveyard of a queen” (the rest of that arc, wu sanxing & xie lianhuan reveal, jade meteorite, amnesiac xiaoge and escape, sanshu vanishes for good--also i think the official eng tl covers a couple chapters of the beginning of the next part too)
阴山古楼 (searching for xiaoge’s memories in banai, miluotuo cave, i think introduction of wu erbai)
邛笼石影 (auction/hotel iron triangle fight, introduce xiao hua & xiuxiu, wx & xh on the mountains alone while pz & xg go with granny huo)
finale (rescue from zhang family mansion, changbai mountain goodbye, 10 years promise)
after the main story are the main sequels:
zang hai hua (tibetan sea flower; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie a few years after xiaoge has entered the gate, searching to understand xiaoge’s past
sha hai (tomb of the sea; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie’s plan to wipe out the wang family, after zhh
chongqi (reunion: the sound of the providence) covers wu xie’s lung disease and how he recovers from that, set after they pick up xiaoge again from the bronze gate. thunder city and everything.
灯海寻尸&万山极夜 (still updating on wechat) don’t worry about this one since it’s still a WIP lol
btw between sha hai and chongqi there’s also ten years later (a short story) that covers how wu xie and pangzi pick up xiaoge from the bronze gate and take him home
the dramas Do Not Connect To Each Other At All, which the exception of tlt2 & tlt2 pt2 somewhat, but they go in this order:
盗墓笔记 / the lost tomb 1 (2015): covers part 1 but with major OCs and filler, and includes the auction scene from part 8 for some reason, so introduces xiao hua early.
怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 / the lost tomb 2 (2019) technically “explore with the note”: covers parts 2 & 3 but with major OCs and filler, introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu (and hei xiazi briefly) early. last couple episodes also cover the beginning of part 4. not a direct sequel to tlt1 despite being done by the same studio.
云顶天宫 / heavenly palace on the clouds (2021) technically also “explore with the note”: covers part 4 with major OCs and filler (and the same changes carrying over from tlt2). some episodes are identical to the last couple episodes of tlt2. works as a direct sequel only if you ignore the last couple episodes of tlt2 that take place in the snowy mountains. (those episodes of tlt2 were filmed after this drama was filmed, and im still not sure why they dragged the wu xie and xiaoge from tlt2 back to changbai mountain to film those episodes.)
终极笔记 / ultimate note (2020): covers parts 5-8 with minor OCs and minimal filler, also introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu early. the only adaptation that resembles its source material most of the time.
沙海 / tomb of the sea (2018): covers the second sequel with major OCs and filler. includes some bits from zhh and the short story “three days of silence”.
重启之极海听雷 / the lost tomb reboot (2020): covers third sequel with major OCs and filler.
in addition there is the prequel series mystic nine (2016) and side movies for the dramas that the author produced. there is also a single standalone movie--time raiders (2016) that is....well it’s. very strange. it’s fully subbed on youtube if you’re interested?
the best way to watch the dramas is to assume each one is its own self-contained AU set along different points of the dmbj timeline because even the dramas the author himself worked on don’t have continuity LOL (and with the exception of ultimate note & sha hai most of the time, also assume most characters are pretty OOC from the novels).
i uh regret to inform you though, that ultimate note will not be getting a sequel unless the author magically decides to not care about making money anymore and sells the rights to film the finale to linghe or something ^^;;;; it’s....unfortunate bc un is the most highly-rated dmbj adaptation on douban by A Lot, but it’s an adaptation that the author had literally nothing to do with whatsoever.
more information on some of the side movies/stage plays/manhua/donghua here.
summaries of the main novel stories (currently through zhh) here.
edited mtl (some of which has apparently been looked over by native cn speakers) of the novels following where official eng tls end here. (there are many scattered extras as well.)
you can get the official eng tl books/ebooks on amazon or elsewhere(?), but if you have problems purchasing them or like you just dont wanna support amazon or something, dm me off anon. (also i dont want to be mean but frankly the official tls are kinda bad too ^^;;;)
a rough timeline (spoilers galore) for the dmbj novels here. (fair warning im not 100% sure how accurate all of this is--they put three days of silence as 1991 but looking at the info in zhh, it seems like it should have been before the 1950s...but it’s more than fine as a general overview.)
anyway i hope that was helpful in some way? dmbj is a Very Confusing thing to get into ahahaha, one of my twitter mutuals has made a few carrds if you think they might be helpful: book, dramas (slightly out of date bc it says heavenly palace hasn’t aired yet), ultimate note (got its own carrd by virtue of being the only adaptation aside from sha hai sometimes that most og book fans acknowledge lol ^^;;;)
also anon if anything wasn’t clear or if you had more questions feel free to ask again sorry ahahaha im kinda tired rn @.@
#dmbj#shouting into the void#ask#anon#....im kinda tired bc i just finished watching ydtg so i hope that doesnt come across *too much* in this post LOL#and its probably obvious which adaptation im biased towards but after reading the novels i cant really help it
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pingxie thoughts (and prayers) pt. 4
it’s been a long time, my comrades. but finally i am here again! tho idk if anyone really cares but i do love to just. spit out random words about these two. so take this and enjoy some heartache~ let’s go
(previous post here)
About Pingxie and touch
Compared to any other drama adaptation in the DMBJ series, Ultimate Note has possibly given us the biggest amount of very touching (hah) moments between Pingxie. They feel close, warm, and intimate at times (Reboot is its own story but it also separates Pingxie for almost half the drama so let’s leave that out of this). In these moments, the otherwise very scarce physicality between them is shown. More so, all of it happens so easily (compared to TLT2 for example. oh what a year of longing can do to the relationship am I right guys).
As I finally got to episode 16 (the very bad, absolutely horrible episode that breaks my heart in so many ways and that I want to burn like it’s starting to sprout too many heads), I got an idea. I figured out what happens in that episode when it comes to Pingxie and their comfortably solved physicality. What changes, is the direction of their touch. It’s like a switch – and Xiaoge’s memory loss is what causes it to flip.
(more explanation under the cut!)
Before Xiaoge loses his memories inside the jade meteorite, we mostly see him as the one who controls when Pingxie touch each other. I like to even think that this is the way Wu Xie wants things to be: he’s fine with touch anyway, Xiaoge is the one with unspoken (or even undiscovered) lines. Considering this, there are very few occasions where Wu Xie reaches out first when it comes to touching. Most of them happen during the very first episodes where he tries to get Xiaoge to tell him why he disappeared and why he hasn’t contacted Wu Xie after coming back or that one single reassuring shoulder squeeze we see after the night of trying to survive the snakes. At least I cannot remember much else, correct me if I’m leaving out something significant.
On the other hand, from Xiaoge’s side? There are so. Damn. Many. Times. Most of them have the sense of helping or protecting (mainly) Wu Xie but these touches are always prolonged and very meaningful (tho I guess that is also just. part of Ultimate Note’s Pingxie agenda, I see yall over there, I know what you are doing. Pls don’t stop).
To name a few of those moments: The times Xiaoge covers Wu Xie’s mouth with his hand, him keeping Wu Xie from tripping and falling, him holding Wu Xie when he’s suffering of that fungus, him catching Wu Xie as he inevitably does fall, him sharing his blood to keep Wu Xie safe from the ticks. He is even reaching out for Wu Xie when their group is traveling through the jungle and they come upon the path with the statues that can be used as sonar weapons. He is weak himself but as soon as Wu Xie stumbles, his first instinct is to reach out. To touch. To support.
(sorry it’s very hard to get decent screenshots of this split second scene bc the whole of iron triangle moves around so much so enjoy this very worried looking zql instead. also pls don’t stare at a-ning, she doesn’t like that.)
And let’s not even talk about their night in the collapsed tent. Or him instinctively protecting Wu Xie from the jade servants. Or him twitching in the background when Wu Xie steps on the pressure plate placed in front of the Heavenly Queen Mother’s duplicate in the Palace. He expects danger and he is ready to move closer to Wu Xie to pull him aside. And then there’s him trying to figure out if it would be alright to come closer, to touch Wu Xie, when he’s in pain after discovering his uncle’s secret. There is something so fragile about Xiaoge throughout all those scenes where Wu Xie is finally hearing the truth from Chen Wenjin. He doesn’t know if he should be closer, offer his touch as support – or leave completely. Bc in the end, it’s him who has brought this pain upon Wu Xie. He knew and couldn’t share the truth, so what right does he have to try and comfort Wu Xie now?
(this post isn’t about pangzi but i am always so grateful that he exists as the link between these two idiots. while xiaoge hesitates, pangzi is there to act. for him, touch is easy, safe, comfortable. it’s his language. am overjoyed that he’s teaching that to the other two, dull as they are.)
That hesitance leads to the bandaid scene which feels like one of the most meaningful touches there is even if it’s so small and brief (and ridiculous, my god. there is this one amazing analysis post about that moment but I cannot really remember by who, am sorry). It’s Xiaoge reaching out after all the staying back. It’s Wu Xie settling into it, into this care shown to him, after pushing others away. It’s Xiaoge actually using his touch as something more than protection, a tool of keeping someone safe. He wants to take care of Wu Xie. He’s even packed those bandaids for him, the sappy fool.
(as a side note, i really question their way of just putting the bandaid on the already spilled blood like cmon, as if that’s gonna stick)
It’s a lot for someone who doesn’t usually touch people. I am so happy to see it. Wu Xie is so happy to see it.
And then comes the damn jade meteorite.
During episode 16, it’s almost ridiculous how much touching we get. That’s basically my fill for like,,, a month. But also it’s just. Not good. Because it’s so painful to see, as this is Wu Xie finally reaching out to Xiaoge, touching him all over, holding him close, when there’s nothing else he can do for him.
For Wu Xie, touching means comfort – and that’s what he needs for himself in that moment. He’s basically all over Xiaoge from the moment he comes out of the meteorite to the moment we see the Iron Triangle in the hospital. Wu Xie carries Xiaoge on his back and seems distressed when Pangzi asks him to switch. He keeps hovering, hands on Xiaoge’s back. His first question to Panzi when he wakes up in the camp after passing out in the desert is to ask for Xiaoge’s whereabouts. He holds Xiaoge while they sit by the highway and then keeps reaching out to him while they sit at the back of the truck. He even rubs Xiaoge’s neck/shoulder while he’s at it – and still I ache.
Wu Xie becomes extremely physical the moment he thinks he’s lost Xiaoge (again!). He’s witnessing the strongest person he knows being helpless and weak, being unable to fight for himself, and his first reaction is to fill all the space there is to fill with his own self. This sudden necessity of touch somehow tells a lot about them. Until this point, touching has been easy, a positive surprise to Wu Xie even; after the jade meteorite, it’s a lifeline. Something to make things feel real, to reassure Wu Xie that Xiaoge is there, is breathing, is alive. That he can heal and come back.
After Xiaoge wakes up, all the touching continues. Wu Xie remains desperate but now also has his guilt to bear: he needs to leave Xiaoge alone to encounter the world and only meets him again when Pangzi brings Xiaoge to Wushanju.
That’s basically a stranger Wu Xie is now looking at. Xiaoge cannot remember anything which also means that all the progress that happened between them has gone down the drain. Xiaoge regards touch the same way he possibly did before – as something that is meant to be violent. He doesn’t show that bc when has Xiaoge really shown any discomfort but Wu Xie must know.
And still Wu Xie’s first instinct is to touch, to take Xiaoge’s face between his hands and be impossibly gentle with him. He seems almost awkward in Xiaoge’s presence until this moment but the touch still comes so easily to him. It’s an instinct and possibly the moment Wu Xie realizes what he’s to do now; it’s his turn to reach out, to keep touching, because Xiaoge will not. He has lost all the memories he has of these people closest to him. He doesn’t know their closeness anymore, isn’t aware of what is appropriate between them. Wu Xie has to lead now, to be the one to show where their lines go.
And so he does (and forgive me if I cannot remember everything): He reassures Xiaoge by the lake when hope feels lost by grabbing his shoulder. He holds Xiaoge’s arm to keep him from spilling more blood to fight the poisonous spiders. He touches Xiaoge very gently when they inspect his tattoo (on all occasions). He’s there when they look at the picture Xiaoge saved from the burning house. He grabs Xiaoge’s shoulder again in reassurance when they watch Pangzi mourn Yun Cai. He holds Xiaoge close, desperately, when he gets hurt in the Miloutuo cave. He offers simple touches that convey happiness and laughter and closeness and trust and loyalty.
It’s a cycle of touching. And slowly Xiaoge reaches out too, starts being his protective self. I think it even startles Wu Xie when they’re in the training rooms of Fairy Huo and Xiaoge grabs him mid movement. Xiaoge is still there to help him, to protect him. Xiaoge is still getting used to being with these two people who he barely knows but he still has the instinct to protect them and use his touch for it. Wu Xie’s call gets answered. It just makes me utterly sad how big of a step back the memory loss is for them, and seeing Wu Xie struggle with it so much, seeing him crack himself wide open… It hurts even more.
So, what I get out of this is: Pingxie have this two-way movement going on when it comes to touching. When all is fine, it is simple, mostly from Xiaoge’s side towards Wu Xie bc that’s where the line between them lies. When something happens, it becomes more important, more desperate; and then Wu Xie’s real colors shine through as he pushes closer to Xiaoge. The memory loss just comes to hinder this, tho it also shows how Wu Xie works as a teacher when it comes to Xiaoge and the way he can touch and be touched.
They push and pull each other, in a sense. It keeps them moving, getting close. Touch becomes what they are – and I think we see the proof of their final progress in Reboot where they don’t even have to see the other to trust the other’s touch.
(extra pic of xiaoge bc somehow i got startled by the fondness on his face in this scene. it’s when wu xie is naming the ppl in the picture taken before the paracel island team left for their journey. also xyl pretty.)
(as a final note, gotta say that i had this post in my drafts for like a month bc i couldn’t bother taking all the screenshots. my laziness has really reached its peak. thank you anyone who read this, you’re a dear ♥ also there’s another one! coming! soon-ish)
#dmbj#ultimate note#pingxie#wu xie#zhang qiling#help me lord#i will choke#on this ep#ep 16 is a curse#pingxiethoughtsandprayers
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Ghostman’s Backstory
Who is Ghostman?
First, you very likely have no idea who I’m talking about. Ghostman, as Wu Xie dubs him ‘鬼影’, is a character that shows up in Volume 8 (the last volume, and in drama-speak it means the events right after Ultimate Note) briefly to impart a lot of insightful explanations on Wu Xie (and we the audience).
This does mean this will be a lot of spoilers then and quite lengthy. I’ll usually tag these with posts spoilers, but I’m using a cut this time too.
When does he first appear?
So technically, he’s made an ‘appearance’ earlier, as the mysterious figure stalking them around Banai, and the person who tried to steal the box containing the iron block from Xiaoge when they first visited his former residence.
Although described as ‘collapsed’ or ‘sloped’ shoulders, this should not be confused with the ‘collapsed shouldered’ figure standing behind a screen Wu Xie saw in the old photograph that led them to Banai in the first place (that was later unveiled to be an iron figurine (Vol 6, Ch. 35)). (However, there does seem to be another mention of the photo that may contradict this... so idk. It’s all Wu Xie hypothesizing anyway.)
What does he look like?
From Wu Xie’s description in the novel:
His whole body was like a mass of wax that had quickly melted at first. All the skin was mottled with holes, but the melting process seemed to have stopped abruptly. His shoulders were practically nonexistent, his hands hung on both sides of his body, and all the flesh and skin on his shoulders were wrapped around his body. I could even see the joints through the thin skin covering his shoulder bones. His whole face had been melted and his hair was so long and unkempt that it was practically knotted together.
When and why does he approach Wu Xie?
He approaches Wu Xie (and Pangzi technically) as they are about to enter the mountain to find Zhang Family Ancestral Manor and save Xiaoge.
Recap: A long-range authentication system was set up for the manor in Sichuan, which is where Wu Xie’s team operated. After they messed up a password though, they lost contact with Xiaoge and Pangzi’s team in Banai. Wu Xie then rushed over to perform a rescue operation, and for reasons, had to utilize his Sanshu’s identity to do so (so he’s posing as his Sanshu). Pangzi managed to make it out somehow, and now they’re both trying to get back in.
Ghostman approaches Wu Xie because he recognized Wu Sanxing and was curious what he was doing back here. Hence, he finally shows up and asks Wu Xie to follow him (Vol 8, Ch. 31).
Who is he really and what is his story?
It turns out his name is ‘Zhang Qiling’ (though presumably no meaningful connection to THE Zhang family). Thirty years prior, he was part of the ‘archaeology team’ of Chen Wenjin that came to Banai.
He joined the team because he was part of the result of a nation-wide search for people named ‘Zhang Qiling’, and was the only one who remained by some qualifications (Vol 8, Ch. 36). He doesn’t know the significance of the name, however.
Although an archaeology team nominally, their real task was to bring a coffin into the mountain (Vol 8, Ch.35-6). What this is, he has no idea. But he says they were all deceived, and only three people probably knew the real situation.
When they went into the mountain and finally reached the building, the miluotuos (rock beings that preyed on humans and were attracted to their warmth) had been hot on their heels, even if they couldn’t immediately breach the alkali barrier. This concentration of Miluotuos triggered the Manor’s defense mechanism - a spray of alkali mist that kills / scares them off, but also liquefied the team. Those in the building were instantly liquefied, and Ghostman was fortunately in the tunnel and only got lightly exposed, and he still became the way he is today (Vol 8, Ch. 35)
He only survived all these years thanks to the help of Panma. And since then, he’s been raising lynxes and keeping people from approaching all these years. If they did get too close, he’d kill them, because it was better they died by his hands than inside that terrible place and feed more miluotuos.
He asks ‘Sanshu’ what he’s doing back here and if he knew things would happen the way they did back then, and if that was why Sanshu did not join their group. He also wants to know who is ‘in charge’ now and if Sanshu agrees now that the ‘secret’ should never be revealed.
What all did they learn from him?
Since Wu Xie was posing as Sanshu and didn’t have his actual memories, he had to tread very carefully on how to answer / ask follow-up questions.
The origin of the qilin tattoo
The Yao people in the area would tattoo a qilin tattoo on their best hunters when they come of age. It turns out the reason it took the shape of the qilin it is today was because a Han tattoo master had come through around Ming or Qing dynasties (1300s - 1900s) to teach here and decided to modify / improve it.
Now as to where the original tattoo came from... it was deemed a necessary thing for hunters who hunted deep in Yangjiao Mountain, which to the people was a very unique place. They’d forgotten the reason though, and only carried it out of tradition.
Eventually, Ghostman’s team chased down enough clues to realize it was a very precise topographical map of the mountain. It mapped the route to the Yao ancient road. The Yao people spent a lot of time trying to figure out what special thing was at the end of the route, and Ghostman’s team similarly presumed this special thing must be the Manor. But then they realized it was a closed loop. (Vol 8, Ch. 34)
Miluotuos and secrets of the mountain
The path that wound around complicatedly was in fact more of a ‘fence’ to keep the miluotuos at bay. Miluotuo actually means ‘old grandmother’ and refers to the whole mountain. Technically the rock people are the miluotuo’s shadows.
The miluotuos eat people by trapping them inside the rock they secrete, which is why when Wu Xie and co. got stuck in the cave from the siphon, they couldn’t find any entrance. And since the miluotuos are everywhere in the mountain, it’s like the entire mountain is jelly with shifting passages.
And as I mentioned above, miluotuos are attracted to heat and while trapped in the walls, could break through if attracted enough. Hence, the Manor has a defense mechanism of misting alkali, which would force them to retreat. (Vol 8, Ch. 34)
Thousand year plan
The Zhang family had actually planned to move the Manor to this area nearly a thousand years ago. Two points - 1) the vegetation around this mountain was of especially good wood for construction. And there was a great fire in Ming dynasty (1300s-1600s) that conveniently wiped out the original vegetation. 2) To transport this lumber down, they formed a deep vertical hole all the way to the bottom of the underground cave. They did this simply by placing a copper ball at the entrance of the cave, and let thousands of years of rain slowly wash away the stone since water would pool at the bottom of the ball. (Vol 8, Ch. 33)
Others
There was a ‘Chen Qing’ group that was Sanshu’s faction, presumably led by a ‘Lao Yu’.
There’s a secret in the mountain that should not be revealed to the outside world. And they’re very close to losing the ‘key to all the secrets’ presumably because Xiaoge got trapped inside.
Notable questions / implications:
What is the significance of the five pointed star that he tosses ‘Sanshu’? (Vol 8, Ch. 32)
Whose coffin was carried into the Manor? (Vol 8, Ch. 35-6)
Some netizens have hypothesized this to be Wang Canghai, but who knows.
What is the ‘secret’ that must not be known by the outside world? (Vol 8, Ch. 35)
I want to say that while this might be related to the Zhang family secret / gate, it’s not quite it. Otherwise Ghostman would probably know what Zhang Qiling meant?
What’s the ‘only key’ that will soon be lost? (Vol 8, Ch. 36)
Again, maybe he’s referring to Xiaoge, but then why would he not know the importance of Zhang Qiling?
Why does Wu Xie feel like he recognizes Ghostman? What’s his relation to Wu Xie? “As he spoke, he regained his composure. Although his whole face was melted, I suddenly had a thought—I seemed to recognize him.He wasn’t in that photo and didn’t have the kind of relationship I thought he did with Uncle Three. As I was thinking this, I immediately broke out in a cold sweat. I had met him before, but where? Who was he?” (Vol 8, Ch. 35)
Only ‘three’ people probably knew the full truth of the situation. Assuming Chen Wenjin and Huo Ling were two, who was the third? And was this before or after the ‘replacement’, so were these even the real Chen Wenjin and Huo Ling?
Why did they conduct a nation-wide search for Zhang Qiling? (Did they actually care to find their patriarch for once?)
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I should work on something- one of the twenty or so fic WIPs I’ve got going, the RPGMaker game I was working on last week, pick up my linguistics studies again- but I finished Love and Redemption last night after basically doing nothing but watching that show this week, and now I’m just like... Bleh what do I do with myself???????????
The show was great, by the way. 59 eps but WORTH IT. There were only a couple places where is could have used some paring down, unlike say, Princess Weiyoung which needed to cut out like 20 eps, it was so bloated with repetitive arcs. This didn’t have that problem. Each arc was different from each other, and built into a progressing story. And the soundtrack was fantastic (Liu Yuning, Zhou Shen, and Ayanga, three of my faves, are all on it, and Colored Glass is a banger).
Also there may be some obvious greenscreening but the special effects were leagues ahead of The Untamed, which came out the same year. Sorry, CQL, I still love you, but let’s not pretend about the awkward sword flying and Basement Dog.
Below are some thoughts, mostly on characters because I don’t want to spoil the show. TL;DR, so many Lost Tomb actors and they all did great jobs! New respect for middle-of-the-pack Zhang Qiling and angriest Wu Xie. Love and Redemption > Ashes of Love and Eternal Love.
The characters in Love and Redemption are mostly very well done and the female lead is Crystal Yuan/ Yuan Bingyan, who is fantastic. This is the third drama I’ve seen her in (the others were Ever Night and The Mystic Nine) and she’s great at all her roles. If you can get past the first couple eps where the character is somewhat tiresome, she really shines.
Also I finally understand the hype about Cheng Yi. Yeah, he was Zhang Qiling in The Lost Tomb 2, which I thought was a fun season of DMBJ but Cheng Yi’s Xiaoge is like, middle of the pack, for me. But seeing him in another role was good. I think I’ve mentioned that I liked him better as Zhang Buxun than Zhang Qiling, and I think it’s just that Cheng Yi is more fun to watch when he gets to emote more. Also HUGE props to his make up artist who did great work, except for that one scene where his lips were a distracting and uncomplementary pink that didn’t do him any favors. You don’t need to highlight Cheng Yi’s lips, friend, they highlight themselves. Anyways, Yu Sifeng’s complexion was always spot on for his state of health and his sickly with dark circles was so realistic, I was worried about the actor for a bit.
Also, Liu Xiuyi was amazing in this as Hao Chen. I don’t think I can say much without spoilers but he was dignified, a bit withdrawn when needed, more emotive without chewing the scenery too much (although I personally don’t mind a bit of scenery chewing if it’s fun or works with the scene), just fantastic in this role. You really felt his conviction even if you didn’t agree with what he was doing. Also, super handsome, which is a nice bonus.
Also super handsome is He Zhonghua as Chu Xuanji’s father. Another DMBJ actor I enjoyed (This cast was full of them, btw. We’ll get to Bai Shu, but also keep an eye out for TLT2′s young Uncle Three, Hou Xiuxiu, and Dou Cheng). Yeah, I admit, I think Chen Pi Ah Si was handsome. He’s also a great actor. The character was frustrating at times (Untamed fans will have flashbacks to dealing with the sects, for real), but also he struck a great chord between stuffy sect leader and doting father.
Now. Bai Shu. Bai Shu, where do I start with you? He gets some flack for his Wu Xie being so angry and antagonistic, and I too would have preferred to shave some of the rough edges off (and if I may be ridiculous for a moment? He was mean to Pangzi waaaaah ;_;), although I can understand the choice. But as Teng She/ Flying Snake? He did great. He was bombastic and cocky, and that perfectly fit the character. His physicality was clearly snake-like and that really emphasized how he wasn’t mortal and was proud of being who he was. You knew he was a serpent (and not a metaphorical one like some of the other characters) just from the way he moved. And the interactions with Qing Long (translated as Green Dragon in the YT subs) were fun, too. Teng She was delightful character and I have new respect for Bai Shu.
Oh, and for Word of Honor fans, Ye Baiyi’s actor Huang Youming does a fantastic job as an antagonist. He’s a creep and a villain, but he’s interesting to watch.
Shit, that was a lot about actors and nothing about plot. I guess that means there were no spoilers, lol~ Anyways, I stopped watching the other shows this gets compared to, Ashes of Love and Eternal Love (Three Miles of Peach Blossoms, to specify, since there’s like two other shows called Eternal Love or something similar). The female lead of Ashes of Love and Love and Redemption have similar set-ups, but LaR’s Chu Xuanji stops being annoying sooooo much faster. And I got real sick of Eternal Love’s memory loss arc. It was so tedious, I wasn’t willing to watch any longer. I had no connection to the lead couple, couldn’t feel the male lead’s affection for the female lead, and the secondary couple was awful (I was actually hesitant to watch The Long Ballad because I hated Dilraba’s character so much in Eternal Love. But Dilraba is soooo much better when she’s not Fengjiu). So I paused on Eternal Love and Ashes of Love last year some time, and haven’t bothered to go back. But I felt Yu Sifeng’s affection for Chu Xuanji so even when the Sifeng torture got tedious (he spits blood so many times. Sooo many. Their fake blood budget must have been higher than The Untamed’s entire effects and I’m probably not the only one to make that joke? So you know it’s bad), I stuck with it. Because I was rooting for them. I didn’t give a damn if the leads in Ashes of Love or Eternal Love got together or not, which isn’t a good thing in a romance drama.
So if you’re struggling with the other big name love-centered xianxia dramas like Eternal Love and Ashes of Love, watch Love and Redemption instead.
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Xiao Yuliang related video recs from Bilibili!
P.S.
If the live comments section is too distracting, you can turn it off by clicking a button on the bottom that looks like this:
Anyways, Enjoy
Xiao Yuliang edits:
【肖宇梁｜手书动画】to Rainco.小月亮，欢迎回来！
【Xiao Yuliang| Animatic】to Rainco. Welcome back!
This artist spent only a month making this animatic.
Check it out, it looks cool!
这TM才是一人千面的蛊王！【肖宇梁 · 欲向病娇感】
Man with a Thousand Faces 【Xiao Yuliang·Yandere-Themed Edits】
Compilation of magazine photoshoots
Very smexy
Highly recommend :)
Zhang Qiling edits:
旦脸武生① | 不靠后期剪辑直接就能打到这种程度！ | 肖宇梁 | 打戏花絮和训练视频混剪 | 周大侠
Fight Scene Behind the Scenes and Training Compilation
FIGHT SCENES
If you feel unsatisfied by how UN or Shahai had edited their fight scenes, watch this video, many fans say his behind the scenes stunts are more satisfying to watch than the final products.
Or you can just spend the time watching him doing flips and stuff
三次元漫画男们的高燃打戏视觉盛宴，进来爽一下【佐藤健/肖宇梁｜绯村剑心/张起灵】
【Sato Takeru/Xiao Yuliang| Himura Kenshin/Zhang Qiling】
A crossover between Ruroni Kenshin and Ultimate Note
both were known for being well-accepted live action adaptations and their impressive fight scenes
The transitions are really smooth, almost starting to see a resemblance between the two
Recommend for anybody who loves watching fight scenes with swords
显微镜看剧 | 肖宇梁 | 从瓶盖漏出的一些瞬间 & 一位百岁老人比较可爱的一些瞬间
Xiaoge Cute Moments Compilation
This is a baby xiaoge appreciation video
There are a total of 4 videos under the same title, they should show up in the recs
【张起灵|肖宇梁】雪山上那一幕回眸，在我心上烙下一道白月光啊
【Zhang Qiling| Xiao Yuliang】That Glance Upon the Snowy Mountains, Left a Ray of Pale Moonlight Upon My Heart
This video used one of my favorite songs when it comes to XYL edits
This was made before UN aired, he was already many ppl’s favorite ZQL even tho he only had minutes of screen time
【肖宇梁】带你沉浸式体验张起灵的百年孤独
Experience Zhang Qiling’s Hundred Years of Solitude
THE FEELS
There’s no lyrics in the music, so you don’t need to understand Mandarin to have the same experience
The video uploader recommend you to watch the video in full screen and turn off the comments for the full experience.
“你听说过藏海花的故事吗”【台词向|请笃信一个梦】
“Have You Heard of the Story of The Tibetan Sea Flower”
Another one of my favorite songs, 请笃信一个梦， sang by Zhou Shen (周深）， some may recognize him for drama and donghua ost’s
Zhou Shen’s voice is incredible, but also the part there the child was singing, made me really think about xiaoge’s life and how NPSS said he is the most innocent character out of the DMBJ series
The lyrics are also surprisingly fitting. If you ship WX&ZQL, you might find the song heartwarming
Ship edits:
【邪瓶丨秦昊x肖宇梁】枕黄粱（互动剧情有！！！）
【Wu Xie x Zhang Qiling| Qin Hao x Xiao Yuliang】Zhen Huang Liang (Interactive routes!)
This edit is based off of a Xieping fic
Basically while ZQL was in the Bronze Gate, he subconsciously materialized another version of himself.
The other “him” died after telling him to go home with Wu Xie.
ZQL, feared that he is an imposter himself and that WX is going to find out, buried his other “self” in a stone-piled grave before meeting with WX.
ZQL went home with WX, trying to keep the materializing thing a secret, but one day the secret was exposed by Hei Xiazi, who found the buried body on Changbai Mountains.
If you’re watching from your computer, at the end of the video, you can choose different endings by clicking one of the buttons.
【黑瞎子×张起灵】【黑瓶】||无问|| 为什么亲吻他的伤疤，却又不能带他回家
【Hei Xiazi x Zhang Qiling】||No Question|| Why You Kiss Him on His Scars, But Unable to Bring Him Home
The singer Mao Buyi was well know for his angsty songs
I’m surprised not that many ppl ship them now
These two had known each other many times before, although ZQL might have forgotten many of those memories.
Every time xiaoge loses his memory, Hei Xiazi had to introduce himself again
Being the two characters with longer lifespan than the rest, they can keep each other company as time goes on.
Crack ships???:
“我集齐宝石，付出一切，只为砸开青铜门接你回家”
I’ve Gathered All the Infinity Stones, Sacrificed Everything, Only to Bring You Home
Thanos x ZQL (yeah you read that correctly, it’s the Thanos from MCU)
ASDFGHJKL JUST WATCH IT
What terrifies me is that it has a coherent plot....
Never in my life did I expect to see Thanos and xiaoge in the same video...
肖宇梁 ●○ 失 忆 蝴 蝶丨爷孙就是最屌的
Xiao Yuliang· Amnesia Butterflies
Zhang Qiling x Mi Ruo
Yes, it’s the two characters both played by XYL.
Fans always joked about how he looks different in every drama and almost like they’re played by different actors.
So here we are, a video edit of “What if Mi Ruo’s grandpa was actually Zhang Qiling”
Also, Mi Ruo and UN Wu Xie were both voiced by the same voice actor
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DMBJ Rare Pair Exchange Reveals (2)
(“Slice of Life”, “A Bucket of Water, Well Chilled”, “Tongues”)
I was interested in the mare’s nest implied by the Hei Xiazi and Wu Xie’s training relationship when I was making prompts, and so were some other people, and a lot of folk did fic or art on that. Nice!
When I was considering writing Treats I had a few ideas for those two, most of which got sorted into Slice of Life and Bucket. Then, while writing the middle scene of Bucket, it ducked its head bashfully, touched its forefingers together and asked, “But what if… sexy?” and the resulting bunny wouldn’t leave me alone until I finished writing Tongues.
(I want it known that, however dark things might get in these fics, I could totally have made them worse and I chose not to. I saw the path of Sin and I turned away. I turned away!)
Note: All of these fics take place a little before Sand Sea, and deal extensively with spoiler information therein.
“Slice of Life”
Something about Hei Xiazi is that, for all his pragmatism, he’s a compassionate guy. Which gives him an interesting perspective on Wu Xie’s extremely self-destructive arc. If Hei Xiazi trains him, he’s helping him get further into dangerous situations. If he doesn’t, the kid’ll probably dive in bitter waters anyway, with less ability to swim.
And. So. There are a few hints that Grandad Wu was a lot deeper into the snake thing and the conspiracy thing and the everything thing than he let on, and I wanted to explore that. What better perspective than a tired immortal who’s in deeper than he wants to be? And after all, didn’t Hei Xiazi bring Wu Xie the message-snake that got him started on the venom thing? If he just… hadn’t quite done his job, if, in that long trek through the desert, the snake just… died, things would have been a lot different for Wu Xie. I wonder if Hei Xiazi ever thinks about that.)
Anyway, it’s called Slice of Life, and there are fairly mundane scenes of gathering and eating snails (as a snack) because, well, life just happens around the weird shit. And it made a nice soft ground for when the violence erupted.
I did not mean for Slice of Life to be so symmetrical, it just sort of happened, and when I realised that I helped it along a little bit. I’m still fond of two lines from the start and end:
“You still think,” Hei Xiazi said levelly, “that I won’t really hurt you.”
“What I know,” [Wu Xie] breathed, intimate as a lover, “is you won’t ever stop me.”
Mirrored statements, metrically identical. I’m very proud!
I think I might have gotten the headcanon from ilgaksu, but I kind of think Hei Xiazi was studying medicine in Berlin at the height of the Weimar Republic, and that somehow morphed into the dream he has in the centre scene - Weimar Republic music in a fancy-house in Old Changsha. (And “Die solistiche Orchester” was both quite hard to track down an audio recording of, and an insane ear-worm once I had. I put it in the podfic I did of this fic: you’re welcome.) Blue-and-White Porcelain was mentioned very briefly in one of the main-arc novels and the name hella stuck with me. (One day I’m going to write a fic consisting of Blue-and-White Porcelain, Phoenix from the New Years Fantasy Extra, and oh, maybe Mo Ce from the M9 drama for good leavening. It may make the tag wranglers twitch.)
I really enjoyed putting in mundane details, like the colour of the bucket of snails, or the old-fashioned wooden crutch - they really help bring a scene to life, for me, anyway.
“A Bucket of Water, Well Chilled”
I’m not sure how much I have to say about this one, really. It’s loosely based on one of the side-stories, wherein Hei Xiazi dares Wu Xie to throw ice water on Xiaoge, soon after he comes down from Mt Changbai, with similar results to the fic.
It was certainly interesting to show a progression of their relationship. From, “I can’t fix your problem I can only curb the most maladaptive part of it” through “everything is awful and nothing is okay” to… “everybody is with their sweetie(s) and there’s room to make a joke”. I’m not sure Hei Xiazi really needed to lick the water-pistol in the first sc- Wait, he just tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a note: he totally did need to lick the water-pistol and if I were more aware of tropes and thematic expression this would be obvious to me. Okay, okay, I’m not going to argue.
Oh! So why does Wu Xie quote part of the Heart Sutra in the middle? The “no eyes, no ears, no mind” part? Another of the sides describes Xiaoge’s perception of behind the Gate as very dark and very quiet. It seemed close enough to that particular sutra that Wu Xie might jump to it if he let his mind wander.
… I’ve got a theory that all the snake mines Wu Xie devoured contained, as well as some ancient ancient history, a collection of sutras and religious-and-philosophical texts that people tending the mine, say, a monastery up in Motuo, might want remembered as well as simply writing things down. There’s a line in one of the post-Reboot novels that he knows a *lot* of sutras and I suppose he might have memorised them the old-fashioned way but, y’know, when there’s a bizarre mechanism for transmitting information around, why not go hard?
My other theory, and I’m not sure it’s so much a theory as just saying things out loud, is that with all the extra information sitting in his brain, plus the emotional bleed the novels say happens with snake pheromones, Wu Xie is essentially playing with the kind of three-or-four-deck card stack that casinos use - difficult to predict by outsiders because there’s so much extra information, but also so many cards that it’s unwieldy for the owner. And that he keeps himself functioning on the day to day by just… taking a smaller handful to use and trying to forget the rest of the pile exists until he needs it. (Wu Xie’s emotional affect can be, ah, fluid.)
“Tongues”
And this is where we take the snake venom mind-wandering up to 11.
(Incidentally, about a month after writing these, the Travelling Notes arc popped up some chapters that involved a lot of snail-cookery, and Wu Xie saying something that Pangzi tells him sounds *weird* which Wu Xie just brushes off with an off-hand explanation and… was probably not, from context, the mundane bilingual slip-up that he thinks it is - it was close enough to what I’d written that I was a little shook.)
I loved the mad swings in this - coupons to pinning someone against the wall, to sweaty sex, to giggling at the prospect that the landlady might hear, to tender, bittersweet cuddling - I always do enjoy a fic that binds extremes.
For what it’s worth, I borrowed the little room papered with newspaper and a board bed running down one wall from the Lost Tomb 1 drama. (It had some really vivid mundane scenery, that show.) Hei Xiazi wearing a sarong in Reboot was, it was memorable okay? He looked good. So I extrapolated a little for the fic.
And… so I was reading a meta about the descriptive language used in sex scenes, and it got me thinking about this one, which is a whole lot more E-rated than I usually do, and the choices I’d made in how things got described. And partly that’s because I’m just not a ‘weeping cock-slit’ kind of a girl, and partly… I was really tight in Hei Xiazi’s POV and it turns out he - the version that exists in my head - just wasn’t interested in that kind of detail. He was interested in the mechanics, and what needed to be done (and coupons) and how his partner was reacting, but he’s lived a long time and some things just don’t need a lot of describing in his internal narrative. Anatomy is an open book to him; orgasms are nice but easy; you don’t get to kiss someone’s fluttering eyelid every day!
... Perhaps that has something to do with his Romance vs ‘Real’ distinction. Hmm.
This also got podded, with the theme music “Adam a Eva”, similar era to “Das solistiche Orchester”, and if I knew how the lyrics went I would tell you.
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wu xie: assigned xiaoge lover
#tlt3#wu xie#pingxie#i know this makes no sense#i just#am finishing ep 22 AND#it really is so hilarious to me#that a ning CLOCKED him like 'u know how ur life is dedicated to xiaoge? well mine is to tomb raiding'#'u know xiaoge loves u and wants u alive? i dont care'#or fucking hendry cox 'this pavillian only zhangs can enter. u should be able to go right in i bet.'#or pangzi 'well my girl is talking to xiaoge but ur man is xiaoge so we both lose bro'#as the OLD MAN PANMA 'ur gonna destroy each other if u stay together u ARE aware ur boyfriend is a DEMON right?'#like not a damn soul in the world looks at wu xie and fails to recognize he is absolutely fucking Devoted to xiaoge#and xiaoge is so damn in love with him that everyone on the planet notices in seconds#like oh theres the quiet guy who could care less if anyone dies#oh hes letting that boy manhandle him again and rant at him and feed him#oh hes cuddled next to that dude again! oh he just bridal caught that guy for the 5th time this week! u know#i think that xiaoge really only gives a shit about one person guys!#and u know? they're right#xiaoge like. in the dramas anyway#feels So much like if he DOES care about anyone else#its cause he cared about wu xie first and by extension of wu xie caring#hes started giving enough of a shit to care too#like pangzi especially gets special mention#cause i think xiaoge and pangzi both attached to wu xie#and ended up caring about each other cause they Had to since they were both important to wu xie
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Ultimate Note (2020)
Episode 11
XIAOGE HAHA. He has become a mud monster too. Love Wu Xie’s “ARGH WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN” energy. Though he’s accepted that the disappearing act is part of Xiaoge’s nature, it doesn’t make him any less stressed out every time he derps off. Sometimes you gotta let some of that anxious energy out.
@jaecomments waait this xiaoge really does have such big cat energy!! He disappears despite everyone wanting him to stick around, then when he does show up, he’s like “feed me please” hahaha. classic cat.
Xiaoge really has come a long way. It’s an interesting little thing with him and food - he doesn’t eat much, doesn’t seek food out much, and doesn’t ask for it either. But Wu Xie didn’t forget to leave him some food in his pack! But also, see how this man really is not as stoic as he lets on haha. He dares just lift his hand and ask for food after Wu Xie flipped out haha. I loved Wu Xie’s hands grasping air, like “I wanna wring your neck but not really you know how much I worry about you!! D:<”.
Anyways, back to Pangzi and Panzi’s conversation in the medical tent. Nooo, Panzi, stop raising death flags for yourself omg. Now you know something bad is going to happen to him after that speech (…and I’m still not over Ah Ning). But also interesting point about his character - he throws himself in dangerous situations and is too willing to throw his life away indeed. There’s a lot to unpack there.
This Xiaoge has very nice fingers (and i’m not talking about the weird fake fingers they use for his pointer and middle fingers). Well, that’s like one of the criteria to play Xiaoge aside from the pretty face and ability to do all the stunts isn’t it lol.
Ah, yes, Xiaoge’s tendency to not tell his companions what he’s planning and just throw them off cliffs or into mud in this case. Remember that time he pushed Pangzi off the cliff in TLT2 without saying a word (in the Qinling Sacred Tree arc)? He’s always act first, explain later (...or never). That very gentle face slap though xD.
Now Wu Xie’s like a kid playing in the mud haha.
WU XIE. You complain about Xiaoge not telling you before throwing you in the mud, then proceed to do the same to Pangzi. They are all such CHILDREN lol.
“Xiaoge, why didn’t you tell me earlier” is just their whole life at this point.
XIAOGE SMILED. Still won’t high five, but Wu Xie is happy enough with that in the end haha.
The blind man and the pretty boy lol.
Does this mud really work. Of course, because Xiaoge said it does.
Wu Xie will listen to anything Xiaoge says haha. He trusts him implicitly and always has after all.
Who is Wu Sanxing? Indeed, this man is like the series’ biggest mystery lol.
Wait, Ba Ye was still around back when Wu Xie was little? I don’t think it’s ever revealed what happened to him, or what became of him.
Yeah, Xiao Hua definitely keeps out of trouble and doesn’t need to be rescued as much as Wu Xie haha. You can see why everyone wants to protect Wu Xie, it’s just that he’s as stubborn as his uncle and won’t stop as long as there’s a mystery in front of him to chase.
Look at these two, chilling in the dark with sunglasses on haha.
Hei Yan Jing is great as always lol. Also, Liu Yuning is doing a great job as him. I totally did not expect to see him here, and had no clue what he would be like acting but he’s great.
Uh-oh, Wu Xie lost his vision? Why does this stuff always happen to him lol??
What is going on lol. Why can’t anyone see? Oh, poisonous gas! Of course!
Xiaoge actually got bitten by a snake? Wow. Ha, love Wu Xie’s “wait, Xiaoge’s hurt??” He’ll always latch onto that even if he’s half out of his mind and panic-stricken.
Ah, that’s what the sunglasses were for. Playing dead I see.
I’M ALWAYS LUCKY?? How about the exact opposite?? But it’s ok, we know you’re concerned about Xiaoge. Also, I guess Xiaoge’s magic blood doesn’t work against this venom?
HEY. It’s the first shirtless Xiaoge scene of the drama! It happens every time, except in TLT2 which was a SHAME. Cheng Yi even mentioned it in an interview lol.
Xiaoge, stop staring so intently at Wu Xie lol. He’s so obvious about it.
Oh! Pangzi guessed right with the imposter thing in all his rambling. Xiaoge obviously knows but hasn’t told anyone…
HAHA they’re just using this as an excuse to tease Xiaoge and pinch his cheeks. The fact he’s fine with that (and showering with them) shows you just how far they’ve all come as friends.
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