Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

 Kokuto:

Tooooooooooong Huuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaa!

Seriously?  For 10 years that's all book fans had?  That is so wrong.  I'll stop complaining about Drama Invisible Hong Jiang, now.

It's all we had from LYF. But he does appear in Once Promised too. 

OK, ladies. Some apparent spoilers for Season 2. Read at your ơn risk.

The source supposedly a special screening of episode 5 of Season 2. The scene where XY waited for XL on the beach, she wore red. At the same time, XL is sitting in their seashell staring at the Crystal Ball. He is also wearing red.  They are giving us crumbs because they are f-ing everything else up. 

 HeadInTheClouds:

OK, ladies. Some apparent spoilers for Season 2. Read at your ơn risk.

The source supposedly a special screening of episode 5 of Season 2. The scene where XY waited for XL on the beach, she wore red. At the same time, XL is sitting in their seashell staring at the Crystal Ball. He is also wearing red.  They are giving us crumbs because they are f-ing everything else up. 

I'm not proud, I will TOTALLY eat up those crumbs!  lol  There WAS two advanced screenings, that fans had a chance to win tickets for.  I saw the venue decorated for it.  And I think I saw the recorded message from Tan Jian Ci from one of them.

A NICE change.  But why in the world would XL wear red?  We only see him wear black cause he's doing sneaky assassination spy things.

 HeadInTheClouds:

OK, ladies. Some apparent spoilers for Season 2. Read at your ơn risk.

The source supposedly a special screening of episode 5 of Season 2. The scene where XY waited for XL on the beach, she wore red. At the same time, XL is sitting in their seashell staring at the Crystal Ball. He is also wearing red.  They are giving us crumbs because they are f-ing everything else up. 

Thank you very much.  Yes, lucky fans had a pre-screening last night which includes Ep5. One of them mentioned that Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao stared at each other across the ocean. Not sure how that works, except perhaps it was the 7-day wait outside Dragon Bone prison, and she looked out into the ocean for him, while he is looking at her, unseen by her. If they had her dressed in red too, it would imply that she was waiting for him to marry her and take her away. It does feel strange if he is supposed to be dressed in red in this scene though - unless this was his silent response to her plea,  which certainly then hits differently. Another fan mentioned that Xiang Liu showed up twice in that episode - once as Xiang Liu (during the 7-day wait), and the other time as Fangfeng Bei (on the boat going to stop the wedding?)

If Ep5 is the 7-day wait scene, it shows that the drama episode edit is certainly different from the leaked script (Ep6). The episode features Xiao Yao's life on Xiao Yue Summit, and her engagement to Feng Long. The poster mentioned that there were laughter and tears in the episode, and most of the laughter came from Cang Xuan and the old Xuan Yuan king.

Apparently the pre-screening showed quite a number of iconic scenes and unexpected designs (?). 

The fans appear to be very impressed and happy for the most part.

 AH :

In the novel, XY wears red wedding attire on three occassions, but only once on a beach - in chapter 43 after XL saves her and she sees his true form. And although XL was wearing his usual white robes, they would have been thoroughly stained with his blood (since the water around them was "seeped with red"), at least temporarily. Plus XY fell asleep on top of him / in his arms and there was all that wedding night activity innuendo...

Maybe they felt like adding that scene (where the two of them are both dressed in red, in the ocean and on the beach respectively, and each wishing they could marry each other) was like giving a nod to chapter 43?

That sounds very plausible. In the leaked script, they merged the two assassination attempts (Jing's and Xiao Yao's) into one, so it is a possibility that they did something similar here. 

If indeed she was dressed in red for this scene, it certainly sounds similar to Ch43. And seeing they changed the colour of her outfit from white in the leaked script, to red in the drama, dare I hope that whatever she had to say in that scene to A Nian was also changed. 

And since the poinciana flower wreath was worn for the 7-day wait, I am reminded of the photo of the preview scene where someone gave her the floral crown:

她向她递去的花环，红得耀眼。
她送上的祝福实现了吗？
The flower wreath she gave her, is dazzlingly red.
Did the well wishes she gave come true?

Does that mean A Nian supposedly knew who she was waiting for, and made her the floral crown with her well wishes?

In the novel, none of the three times she wore wedding attire were specifically for Xiang Liu.

If this scene was for the 7-day wait, the drama gives us what the novel did not, Xiao Yao specifically wearing a wedding dress for him, an outright declaration that she wanted to marry him.

And that makes me choke up.

 AH :

It feels very off. Red attire = wedding attire. But having XL wear red while XY waits for him to not show up / while he plans to interrupt her wedding at a later time but even then not to take the groom's place... it's just very odd. 

Well, you know, I've always said that the wedding robbery was the last small chance he gave XY to choose him.  Maybe he's wearing red, when he actually thought the crystal ball was a sincere chance for them to be together, before he thought better and reduced his chances and went with the 'accidentally' bumping into Jing.

 Kokuto:

Well, you know, I've always said that the wedding robbery was the last small chance he gave XY to choose him.

For the novel, that's definitely not my take, but I think we've discussed that already. 

For the drama, who knows? It definitely seems like they've changed some of the details. 

 Kokuto:

Maybe he's wearing red, when he actually thought the crystal ball was a sincere chance for them to be together, before he thought better and reduced his chances and went with the 'accidentally' bumping into Jing.

If XL was really, truly considering showing up and taking XY away from the beach and getting married to her right away (to the point where he actually acquired and put on red wedding clothes) but then changed his mind and ended up making the deal with TSJ and crashing XY's wedding the way he did in chapter 32 instead... to me that would make XL feel very indecisive. Which I don't really like. I prefer the way it was portrayed in chapter 31, where we see that XL is clearly moved by XY's gesture and sad about the decision he's making (based on how he stares out at the river and then down at the ice crystal ball, even raising a finger to make it look like he was taking the mermaid's hand even though the crystal kept them separate), but he doesn't appear to be wavering in terms of his decision and his resolve to act in accordance with what he feels is right. 

And even in that scenario (XL putting on wedding attire thinking he might actual go to XY to marry her), the wearing red would still feel weird. Meet up with XY, talk to her, if you come to some agreement with each other, then take her away... if you have to rush into a wedding immediately, then put on the wedding attire at that point, but not beforehand. It just seems very out of order to put on the wedding clothes first, before talking to her or even resolving to go meet her. But I guess maybe the visual dramatic effect matters more than sensibleness for a drama. 

 AH :

If it really does come across that way (with XY very clearly wearing the wedding attire for XL and wanting to marry him) it will be a real boon for YaoLius. Tangible proof that, even in the drama with all its changes, XY definitely returned XL's romantic feelings for her. And it would provide a much clearer picture (than the novel) of XY's hopes and intentions when she sent the ice crystal ball to XL.

 Kokuto:

And that Xiang Liu wanted to marry her.  It would be so wonderful if they gave us that.  crying with joy and sadness

Yes. And I hope that her wearing red is what we guessed, specifically so for Xiang Liu.

 AH :

If XL was really, truly considering showing up and taking XY away from the beach and getting married to her right away (to the point where he actual acquired and put on red wedding clothes) but then changed his mind and ended up making the deal with TSJ and crashing XY's wedding the way he did in chapter 32 instead... to me that would make XL feel very indecisive. Which I don't really like.

If the scene indeed has Xiang Liu wearing red as he watches her 7-day wait, I don't believe he was wearing red for the sake of wanting to take her away and marrying her. Rather, my take is that he wanted to accept her plea but knew he could not do so, and this was his quiet, unseen response to her plea - that in a different time, different situation, he wanted to and would have married her. As it is, he could only accompany her vain wait in wedding robes that represented all of their reciprocal love and longing, but could never come to pass.