liddi:
Various scenes here and there were cut, but not any of the important ones. Thus far, we are consistently about 1 episode behind in terms of the leaked script, bearing in mind that the leaked script only covered 20 episodes if we followed how they ended each episode. In other words, there is probably about 3 episodes worth of footage unaccounted for. Which leaves me with hope that whatever extra scenes they filmed, might address the issues we were concerned about.
Wow. It IS going to be interesting to see what they are going to do with those extra episodes... though isn't four episodes, if the script only had 20 episodes?
liddi:
Yup. In Once Promised, he is described as a strong, seven foot tall man, a powerful, fierce warrior. Here, he does not appear imposing at all, and in later parts of the script, it appears Xiang Liu keeps him safe, refusing to let him even participate in any of the skirmishes. Is it just to keep him safe, or is he still suffering from old battle injuries from the final Xuan Yuan-Shen Nong battle at Ji Province? No idea. I don't even know how badly he was injured in that battle since I have not properly read that chapter yet.
Uhnnnn, no, that wasn't Hong Jiang at all, but I'm not surprised if he doesn't match up physically. If XL is trying to keep him out of skirmishes, it does sound like he might be injured. That would be even more reason for XL's inflexible loyalty. IIRC, he returned Hong Jiang, when he was at a low, for some reason. Maybe it was from some injury or failing of his health.
liddi:
But yes. if Xiang Liu had chosen to put his happiness before theirs, where does that leave his men? In an earlier scene, Jing Ye already to Jing that winter was coming, and with shortage of food and clothes on the mountains, the Shen Nong remnant army's lives will surely get even harder - something Xiang Liu was well aware of and did his best to alleviate their suffering, even if he had to pay a steep price for it.
Yeah, and in that scene, Jing made it out like he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart, whereas, he was actually paying for the wedding robbery.
But when you actually see what XL is doing, you realize that there is no way he could leave.
liddi:
He is all kinds of awesome. There was a very funny meme on Weibo of him behind bars, with a caption that said "Cang Xuan, don't worry. You go ahead and confess your feelings. This time we have restrained Grandpa", to which Grandpa's actor Hou Changrong said "Please remember to let me out after the drama has ended." LOL!
I love that! "Please let me out when the drama ends." That would apply to all of us. lol