Spoilers - ask questions and find answers

 jaginsing:

yes, correct. I'm circling back to my previous plothole question - why not in relation to why YH gives TY his neidan back, but why in relation to neidan presence/absence and dying - the fox demons survive without neidan, then are drained of blood for fragrance and die, ie don't die because of lack of neidan (my whataboutery was that I'd forgotten that point and Valley pointed it out wrt SY/QG) but die after the blood drain. But YH knows she will die without the neidan....that's come back to bug me, because her death is independent of the HuXinLin (unless I've forgotten something (again!)).

YH's case is different; she has a heart defect and needs the niedan to live:

YH to TY: "20 years ago, you fought against Su Ying and Qing Guang. Qing Guang kept up the formation, and Su Ying severed your body. You tossed away your neidan and heart protection scale. Ling Xiao was also there. Qing Guang ordered Ling Xiao to find them, and he did. However on his way back, he came across me, born with a heart defect and nearly abandoned by my own mother. He used the heart protection scale to repair my defective heart and the neidan to maintain my life........" (from the English translation/https://sporadicspores.blogspot.com/2021/03/heart-protection-chapter-101.html)

 LucianYaz:

My response was specific to why YH started cultivating the demon pathway, not to what was TY’s earlier intentions.

Yes. That's what I also understand too, that he did plan to take them back initially but her cultivating the demon way was not in his plan to take back the HPS/Neidan. Well at least I hope so because at that point, he has already liked her. 

 Hangmy:

Isn't it because her heart is naturally, what's the word, not enough (she's sick?) to keep her alive, that's why without his HPS and neidan, she will die?!

yes, so this is what is puzzling me atm.....Hu Xin Lin plugs the heart hole. So in a normal medical sense, the heart functions once it's plugged. But why she needs the neidan is not clear to me, since it's then not just the heart hole, but her heart problem is more than just a hole, and the neidan is what's required to fix the heart problem that is more than just a hole in the heart.

 Erin:

From what i understood it and some one can correct me the only reason she had spiritual power is because of his Neidan

 jaginsing:

yes, so this is what is puzzling me atm.....Hu Xin Lin plugs the heart hole. So in a normal medical sense, the heart functions once it's plugged. But why she needs the neidan is not clear to me, since it's then not just the heart hole, but her heart problem is more than just a hole, and the neidan is what's required to fix the heart problem that is more than just a hole in the heart.

I'm just thinking her heart problem is more serious than just plugging a hole. Like she needed both to survive and that the two HPS and neidan have been intertwined. That's the only way I can think of to wrap my head around this. Something like in the drama, when she went to ask how to save a heart that lacks a lot and they said a huge power needed. 

 jaginsing:

yes,,,,,except the novel itself is silent on this.....that's why it's nagging me. It's also the timing in the novel of when the information is given....it's only at the end that the neidan becomes a plot point, and the heart issue has always been just scale related until suddenly it's also neidan related. I wonder if that was something JLFX retro-worked for the drama?

lol look at me swooping in after 2 months of silence.

The neidan was always intended to be a late plot twist on the part of the story judging by how JLFX doled out information to us readers.

We knew from the beginning that TY is a spirit, and if you're familiar with the anatomy of spirits you assume he has or had a neidan. Even if you're not familiar with spirit anatomy, you should be able to piece this part together by the Yongzhou arc.

We also know that TY is missing body parts, but he only openly outlines his bones, horns, scales, tendons, and heart as his goals.

However, if you're keeping track of the info by this point, you'd also see that JLFX is flagging up a mystery with spirit neidans going missing with no trace, like the fox spirit neidans in Yongzhou. Kinda sus, huh?

If you're using a little brainpower as you read (which I wasn't lol), you'll notice all these little flags and you'll probably also ask yourself "hey, as a spirit, doesn't TY also have a neidan? wouldn't he want that back too? what happened to it?"

It's very much the type of twist where the author plants little mystery flags early on, but then leaves it alone while doling out related but not too obviously related clues along the way, until its time to bring everything together.

So, the neidan was always a plot point, it was just hiding in little pieces in the bg.

As for Yan Hui and her heart, neither the drama nor the novel give us much info on just how bad her heart is. We do know for certain she has a hole the HPS is plugging, but that doesn't necessarily mean that her heart is suddenly fixed. She could have underdeveloped parts inside her heart, or maybe it doesn't beat strongly enough to circulate her blood properly without the help of the neidan.

 Hangmy:

Lol swooping in. I honestly have not got over the drama. I haven’t watched anything new in this genre. Still miss this a lot :(

I want desperately to move on but typing up my review is melting my brain because this drama is confounding, and also I'm busy enjoying Love You Seven Times