Tushan Jing and Xiao Yao, here's to a Happily Ever After

 ChunTian:

I look at it that XL loves XY but she is not top of his priority list. XY is probably somewhere in his top 10 but not the first place. 

Opposite for Jing, where XY is first on his priority list.

Yes!! My thoughts exactly... like Cangxuan and the Xiyan King, Xiangliu placed other things higher than Xiaoyao. He gave her some of his lives, but he kept his heart for himself...
He didn't give his heart to her like how Chichen gave his heart for her mother ( literally haha ) that's why I get annoyed when some fans insist 'XL is like Chichen'.
He really cannot measure up in terms of his passion or love haha

 soTreeD:

hahahahah I feel like I have to correct all the wrong idea about Jing's lost tails... TT

First off, its confusing but I think Jing is not a real fox... lol he just got the fox deity bloodline...

The tails lost in the battle with Hou is from the spirit fox he was channeling. His organs were still heavily injured when he took battle damage when his brother ripped off the tails from the fox he was channeling, but its not really his body.After he cultivate his spirit energy again and its restored, he can summon a fox with all nine tails again... and ... its weird to say this but I am sure Jing's butt is tail free...

HAHAHAHAHAHHAH 

 ChunTian:

Mmmm.....Jing fluffed out 9 tails when we first saw him in S1. And XY has the physical fox tail of the 9 tailed fox that she killed in her youth which Jing said could be his relative. This is so confusing indeed. Is Jing a foxy or not? Or just a his astral self is a fox. Not to mention in other xianxia dramas, 9 tailed foxes cannot seem to grow back their missing tails. Did Feng Jiu of Eternal Love of Dream get back her tail that she sacrificed? It's been too long since I last watched, but I think she lost one of her tails? 

ChunTian's head is getting big and eyes @@

If as you shared, Jing just needs to cultivate his spirit energy again and can fluff out all 9 tails when he gets better. I am much comforted. 

But hey...not bad, Jing's tail should get a discussion thread of it's own!!! Whole paragraphs about it. LOL

 soTreeD:

The fox that captured Xiaoyao is an actual nine-tailed fox demon.
In the novel, Jing told Xiaoyao its probably a distant relative lool When she was worried about Madam Tushan being upset, Jing told her that it deserved what it got because it tried to eat her first.

But Jing is with the bloodline of the divine fox deities from long ago ( probably like Bai Qian HAHAHAH ) The Tushan descendants can shapeshift, good at illusion spells etc. But as the 'pure' bloodline to be in line for clan leader, the nine tailed fox demons is the king of all fox kind, but the Tushan leader is apparently the King of the nine-tailed foxes...

Jing is watched over by the divine fox guardian, who appears to help him when he needs it. In the burning desert, it is described as appearing to ease his suffering in the intense heat...

But yes the drama was very confusing because they made tails appear just that one time lol
No more budget for anymore appearances hahahah

 ChunTian:

Hmm...if fox deities and fox demons are relatives of sorts, how come some are deities and some are demons? Curiouser and curiouser.  

 Sunbath12:

I think AH quoted some passages in the novel regarding the Tushan family and whether they are deity or demon (which is usually how I've seen the nine-tailed fox depicted). It seems like in LYF, they are both.

 soTreeD:

Tushan family governs all fox kind... so I think it includes everything from deities to demons to the foxes in the forest. As the Stone in the drama explained, the purest bloodline was Tushan Hou and Tushan Jing.

Hi everyone. ChunTian asked me for my thoughts on this topic. I'll try to cover the main points discussed above.

(1) Is TSJ a nine-tailed fox? Is he / are the Tushan clan deities or demons?

I agree with soTreeD's comment on this point. In the novel, the text seems to suggest that TSJ is not a nine-tailed fox himself. He is only related to nine-tailed foxes and, more importantly, he is a direct descendant of the original Tushan Nine-Tailed Fox from the time of Emperor Pan Gu (i.e., the beginning of the world). 

It seems that, apart from the original nine-tailed fox, all nine-tailed foxes are referred to as demons, they are rare, and they are all relatives of the Tushan Clan.

It seems that the Original Tushan Nine-Tailed Fox is not referred to as a deity or a demon. Rather it is referred to as both a divine beast (like a pheonix) and a demonic beast. 

The Tushan Clan are descendants of the Original Tushan Nine-Tailed Fox that intermarried with the deity clans. Tushan Clan members are born with humanoid bodies (rather than being born with animal bodies and then cultivating in order to acheive a human form - the way demons do), so they generally seem to be considered deities even though their original ancestor was not a deity. 

liddi  provided some thoughts on this in another thread:

 liddi:

In the novel, the Nine-tailed fox who imprisoned and tortured Xiao Yao was very consistently referred to as a nine-tailed fox demon. Likewise, the dolls that were made from the fox tails, were referred to be tails from nine-tailed fox demons too.

Jing Ye held out a jade box. Inside laid two dolls, not carved from wood but were furry, resembling animal fur. Xiao Liu was curious and wanted to touch but Jing Ye slapped his hand away, saying impatiently, "These are dolls made from the fox tail of nine-tailed fox demons 九尾狐妖 that were tens of thousands of years old, extremely rare and precious. The nine-tailed fox is the creature most adept in transformation in the world, and its tails are where its spiritual energy is gathered. Each of these two tails contains tens of thousands of years of spiritual power. Puppets made from it could not be discerned to be real or fake even by the Great Emperor Fu Xi if he were to come back to life."

-- Vol 1 Ch8

On the other hand, Jing has been referred to be of the bloodline of the Nine-tailed Divine Fox:

Cang Xuan was so angry that even Shi Qi who was of the Nine-tailed Divine Fox 九尾神狐 bloodline bore the brunt of his disgust, and he said irritably, "It is said that the Nine-tailed Fox is the most adept at transformation. So tell me, what exactly is wrong with Xiao Yao? How is it that the shape-shifting art could not restore her true form?"

-- Vol 1 Ch9

and according to folklore, their first ancestor was both a divine beast, and also a demonic beast. However the deity spirit they worshipped was supposed to be a wandering spirit of one of their ancestors, indicating that they were not worshipping their first ancestor. In which case, perhaps the Tushan clan as they knew it today, was probably deity due to intermarriage with other deity tribes, but also possessing the special powers inherent to their unique bloodline - being descended from from a bloodline that is both divine and demon:

The elders were momentarily stunned, their eyes showing traces of joy. In folklore, the nine-tailed fox was not only an auspicious divine beast 神兽 akin to the phoenix, but also a ferocious demonic beast 妖兽 that devoured humans. Over time, the lines between truth and fiction were blurred, and people both revered and feared it. In truth, both aspects were real. Humans preyed on animals, and animals ate humans; there was no right or wrong, it was the natural order. The deity spirit guardian of the Tushan clan was said to be a wandering spirit of the ancestor of Tu Shan who was honoured with offerings as a form of worship and sustenance by the clan, and protected their descendants. Yi Ying was a pure-blooded deity, with strong spiritual powers. If the Tushan clan could obtain her essential blood to offer up as sacrifice and nourishment, it would naturally be of great benefit to them.

-- Vol 3  Ch1  (Chapter 34)

Curiously enough, why would the nine-tailed fox which tortured Xiao Yao be referred to as a fox demon, when Jing is considered to be a high-level deity? And it was not just a disparaging label Xiao Yao gave her captor, but even one that Jing Ye used when describing what the dolls were made of. In which case, perhaps in the eyes of the world at large, Jing is considered to be a deity because he was of the revered Tushan clan, but at his core, he is still a nine-tailed fox demon, just like the distant relative that went rogue, even if his blood is perhaps now more deity than Nine-tailed Fox due to the intermarriages with other deity clans. If so, it would mean that as a deity clan, the Tushan clan was different in the sense that it was descended from a beast, similar to the Lirong clan whose ancestor was the two-headed dog, while it appeared that other deity clans were born and descended from ancestors with human form.

One thing I would note, though, is that I don't think there are fox deities in LYF. There are deities that may have relatives that either were fox demons or that was the Original Nine-Tailed Fox (i.e., a divine beast and a demonic beast), so they have both fox and deity aspects. But there doesn't seem to be a group that, on its own without being related to a different group, could be called fox deities. 

(2) Did TSJ have his own tails? When TSJ fought with TSH, were the tails that TSH cut off attached to TSJ?

In the drama, it seems like TSJ clearly has his own tails (as has already been mentioned, we got to see them early in S1). And so much TSJ fanart shows TSJ having nine tails.  

But in the novel, it seems like TSJ does not have nine tails of his own. Rather he can manifest his spiritual power in the form of a nine-tailed fox... which obviously has nine tails. 

In the battle between TSH and TSJ, each of them used their spiritual power to manifest an animal form. TSH created a tiger spiritual manifestation and TSJ created a nine-tailed fox spiritual manifestation.

TSH's tiger spiritual manifestation cut off seven tails from TSJ's nine-tailed fox spiritual manifestation and that caused TSJ serious injuries. 

I don't have any direct evidence to support the idea that, in the novel, TSJ would be able to restore the cut-off tails of his spiritual manifestation nine-tailed fox by restoring his spiritual energy. But since both TSH and TSJ's animal spiritual manifestations grew bigger or smaller based on their emotions and how much stamina / spirtual energy they had left, I think it seems quite plausible that he would be able to do so. 

-----

篌手结法印，水灵汇聚，凝成一条蓝色的猛虎，在白雾里奔走咆哮。老虎猛然跳起扑食，一只隐藏在白雾里的白色九尾狐打了个滚躲开。
   
。。。    

篌驱策猛虎去扑杀九尾狐，因为篌自小就更擅长杀戮，猛虎明显比九尾狐厉害，好几次都差点咬上九尾狐的脖子，九尾狐借助弥漫的雾气才堪堪闪躲开。

篌笑了笑：“不止你是狐的子孙。”灵力涌动。蓝色的猛虎变作了白色，白虎的身影也隐入了雾气中。

白雾里，忽然出现了很多只九尾狐，一只又一只从白虎身旁纵跃过，白虎急的左扑一下、右扑一下，却始终一只都没扑倒，累的气喘吁吁，老虎的身形在缩小。

篌知道这是璟的迷术，那些九尾狐应该全是假的，如果再这样下去，他的灵力会被消耗到枯竭，篌猛然闭上了眼睛，白色的老虎也闭上了眼睛。

。。。

老虎的耳朵动了动，猛地和身向上一跃，从半空扑下，看似是攻击左边的九尾狐，铁链般的尾巴却狠狠地剪向了右边的九尾狐，九尾狐向外跃去，身子躲开了，毛茸茸的打尾巴却没躲开，被老虎尾剪了个结结实实，一下子就断了两条。

璟喉头一阵腥甜，嘴角沁出血来，白色的雾气淡了许多，老虎长大了一圈。

九尾狐失去了两条尾巴，再不像之前那么灵活，因为白雾淡了，它也不容易躲藏了，老虎开始凶猛的扑杀它。不一会儿，九尾狐又被老虎咬断了两条尾巴。

篌说：“璟，如果你认输，承认你就是不如我，我让你死个痛快。”

璟面色煞白，紧抿这嘴，一言不发。篌说：“那我只能一条条撕断你的尾巴，让你以最痛苦的方式死去！”

老虎又咬断了九尾狐的一条尾巴，璟一面对抗着体内好似被撕裂开的痛苦，一面还要继续和篌斗。

。。。

一声虎啸，好像半天里起了个霹雳，震得山林都在颤抖。老虎几蹿几跃，把九尾狐压在了爪下。

璟跌倒在地，满身血迹。

。。。

猛虎一爪用力一撕，九尾狐的一条尾巴被扯下，璟的身子痛得痉挛。

。。。

白虎的后爪按着九尾狐，前躯高高抬起，两只前爪就要重重扑到九尾狐的身体上，将九尾狐撕成粉碎。
。。。

胡哑和幽在荒草地里走来走去，幽停留在岸边一堆被压倒的草上，胡哑对小夭说：“这是族长的血，应该是因为灵力凝聚的九尾狐被一条条砍去了尾巴，族长的五脏受到重创，再难支撑，倒在了这里。”

-----

Hou commanded the tiger to attack the nine-tailed fox. As Hou had always been more skilled in killing, the tiger was clearly more powerful than the fox. Several times, it nearly bit the fox's neck, but the fox barely managed to dodge by using the enveloping mist.

Hou smiled, "You're not the only descendant of the fox." His spiritual power surged. The blue tiger turned white, its form blending into the mist.

In the white mist, many nine-tailed foxes suddenly appeared, leaping past the white tiger one after another. The tiger pounced left and right in frustration but couldn't catch a single one, growing breathless as it shrank in size.

Hou knew this was Jing's illusion technique, and those nine-tailed foxes were probably all fake. If this continued, his spiritual power would be exhausted. Hou abruptly closed his eyes, and the white tiger followed suit.

...

The tiger's ears twitched. It suddenly leaped upward, seemingly attacking a fox on the left, but its iron-like tail slashed hard at the fox on the right. The fox jumped to evade, but its fluffy tail was caught and severed, losing two tails in an instant.

Jing tasted blood in his throat, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The white mist thinned considerably, and the tiger grew larger.

With two tails gone, the nine-tailed fox was no longer as agile. As the mist thinned, it became harder for it to hide. The tiger began to attack fiercely. Soon, the tiger severed two more tails from the fox.

Hou said, "Jing, if you admit defeat and acknowledge that you're inferior to me, I'll let you die quickly."

Jing's face was ashen, his lips tightly sealed, saying nothing. Hou said, "Then I'll have to tear off your tails one by one and let you die in the most painful way!"

The tiger severed another tail from the nine-tailed fox. Jing struggled with the excruciating pain tearing through him while continuing to fight Hou.

...

A tiger's roar thundered like a clap of lightning, shaking the mountains and forests. The tiger leaped and pounced, pinning the nine-tailed fox under its claws.

Jing fell to the ground, covered in blood.

...

With a powerful swipe, the tiger tore off another tail from the nine-tailed fox. Jing's body convulsed in pain.

...

The white tiger pressed down on the nine-tailed fox with its hind paws, lifting its forebody high. Its front paws were about to come crashing down on the fox, ready to tear it to pieces.

...

Hu Ya and You wandered through the overgrown field. You stopped at a patch of flattened grass by the shore. Hu Ya said to Xiao Yao, "This is the clan leader's blood. It seems that the spiritual energy-formed nine-tailed fox had its tails severed one by one, causing severe damage to the clan leader's internal organs. Unable to sustain himself, he collapsed here."

 @AH, thank you for such a detailed and beautiful reply.  It's like that thesis to be written at the "DaHuang University" I mentioned to @soTreeD earlier on. You should see all the "stars twinkling in my eyes" now. LOL

I am glad that we have @AH and @soTreeD here.  To me, you are both sages of the LYF novel.  

*HUGS TO BOTH*

 AH :

I haven't read the parts of Once Promised where Ah Heng is pregnant, but my understanding from other readers is that she had to artificially extend her pregancy with XY even beyond the normal deity pregnancy timeframe to convince the world that Shao Hao was XY's father. 

Aaah all I know is I think its mentioned in LYF that Ah Heng was in a coma for a year after she gave birth to Xiaoyao so the King of Haoling was the one who personally took care of her as a baby...
He already father of the year the moment she was born!
 
@ChunTian I am hardly a sage but thanks for reading what I write... heeheee

@AH definitely the master of thesis for LYF! 

 soTreeD:

Aaah all I know is I think its mentioned in LYF that Ah Heng was in a coma for a year after she gave birth to Xiaoyao so the King of Haoling was the one who personally took care of her as a baby...
He already father of the year the moment she was born!

Yes. It's crazy how wonderful a father he was to her and yet how brutal he was towards his own father and brothers at the same time. He was a complex character. 

 soTreeD:

@AH definitely the master of thesis for LYF! 

Lol, just an enthusiastic fellow disciple. 

 ah_luck:

Thanks so much for you kind help... your wise and kind words help me resolve this "knots" that has been bothering me and finally allow me to close this story.

Unlike all of Queen Yang Zi's past works that I so enjoyed re-watching over and over, I will not go back and re-watch LYF again...    Great acting work though especially Yang Zi and especially DW, a nobody actor with passion.  

Happy to help!

LYF is definitely one of the more painful stories I have read/watched in a while. Another great one I loved was The Rise of Phoenixes (but the ending was somewhat messed up in my opinion).

 soTreeD:

Aaah all I know is I think its mentioned in LYF that Ah Heng was in a coma for a year after she gave birth to Xiaoyao so the King of Haoling was the one who personally took care of her as a baby...
He already father of the year the moment she was born!

Oh my goodness! So heart warming. 

This man is indeed the father of the not just the year, but of the millennia (since they live for such a long time)!

 ChunTian:

I remember even the Haoling King did not mind FFB being XY's husband. Haoling King is definitely the dad of the millennia! Broadminded and good man. 

Yeah, he's so great in this story. His backstory, however, sounds tragic. Definitely a complex character.

 ChunTian:

So the XY was never top of XL's priority list stands true. He loved her enough to fulfill her 3 wishes but not for their HEA. I wept for XL and wished things could have turned out differently for him but am happy that XY will spend the rest of her days with Jing.  

Same, seeing it on screen makes it hurt more (as far as XL's ending). And I'm happy for XY and Jing :)