Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

 liddi:

Hair unkempt or perfunctorily groomed, and there was a fair amount of struggle getting the 3 layers of outfits on, but so happy that the mini family is reunited at last!

Awww!!! Look at how cute they are. Was mini XL hair crazy to tame like his bigger version? You ended up getting mini MQ as well! If only they released a 20 cm version of FFB for the complete set. Do you think we are beyond help, liddi?? :-)

My mini XL arrived the day after I left for my holiday:-(. Couldn't do the Christmas photoshoot with him. 

 liddi:

Blessed Christmas to everyone and your loved ones! May the coming year bring you peace, joy and good health always!

I hope everyone had a great holiday, if you celebrate.  Like everyone else, real life seems to have kept me busy, lately.  But I enjoy lurking when I get a chance.  Definitely looking forward to next year!

 liddi:

Hair unkempt or perfunctorily groomed, and there was a fair amount of struggle getting the 3 layers of outfits on, but so happy that the mini family is reunited at last!

Love this!

Mini FFB being 60% hair is particularly funny and adorable. ^^

https://www.wattpad.com/story/375589013?utm_source=android&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share_reading&wp_page=library&wp_uname=Anavrin1907

A story where Xiaoyao and Xiang Liu end up together :)

Happy new year, guys! Hope everyone had a great time. I had family coming over, so I haven't had much time for myself, but things are starting to quiet down finally and I did manage to watch squid game s2 în between things. 

@Winniewin17

Thanks for the link, Winniewin17, I'll give it a go altough I personally am not really into fan ficts, regardless of how well made are they. I am still hoping to get that sequel from TH, even though chances are very very slim, lol. 

Old topic, but I did recall something I wanted to point out about FFYY, Jing and Hou's relationship  that I forgot to mention. Not sure if TH ran out of ideas or she purposely made a parallel, but if I remember correctly, FFYY did the same thing as XY did when she got the news of her fiance, Jing, dying. Yes, she thought the man she fell în love with at the festival was jing, not his brother (a midsummer night's dream reference yet again) , but I still find it interesting how both XY and FFYY married Jing, their fiance, în his abscence. Afterwards they both got back on the track, one thanks to the fact that she found out that the man she fell în love with was actually Hou, not Jing, and the other because of XL, I suppose.  Also, IMO Hou acted as FFBei's shadow, when XY hooked up with Hou, they went to the same places that XY went to with Bei. They even had a date that pointed to the koi playing with lotus scene. 

Yes :)

 blabla100:

I believe it was then when she finally understood that XL will never abandon his goal no matter what, so there was nothing more she could do other than play her last card and begging him to take her with him. That's in line with her answer to yellow emperor "the last time" when he told her that she keeps wasting things when he saw the crystal ball she made. 

Yes. When the Yellow Emperor finally revealed to her his continuous efforts to get Xiang Liu to change allegiance was rejected, it was confirmation to what she already knew deep down inside that he would never enter her world. Hence, the sending of the crystal globe was her last ditched appeal for Xiang Liu to let her be a part of his life, even if she was very clear that it would be short-lived and she would lose him one day. That too, more than anything else, tells us that she was appealing to Xiang Liu, not Fangfeng Bei. This is what I mentioned in my post Xiao Yao's Journey Up to the Gifting of the Crystal Globe:

 liddi:

She only found purpose again in properly learning medicine, which she spent the next two years doing. Then came Feng Long's proposal which blindsided her. Her grandfather clearly knew why she was so stunned by her upcoming marriage, so mentioned to her how Xiang Liu rejected every opportunity to switch allegiance, in hopes she would finally be willing to move on with a life with Feng Long.

It is telling then that, despite knowing Xiang Liu would never switch sides, the moment her wedding date was set in the next two months, she had the crystal globe retrieved and sent immediately to Xiang Liu, appealing to him to take her hand and let her be a part of his life. That, more than anything else, tells me that she already knew he would never step into her world, and whatever life she might have with him, would only ever be shortlived, until such time when he died. Yet, she still sent the crystal globe, for once, summoning her courage to actively fight for a chance at a life she wanted with the man she loved, even if it meant being alone again at the end of it. And I believe that her grandfather too, cannot fail to understand exactly what the meaning of the crystal globe and all it entailed was, but he said nothing, perhaps because he too hoped that the happiness she longed for would be within her grasp, even if it meant she would suffer in future as he feared. 

 blabla100:

Coincidence or not, Jing's proposal and XY's delay came right after the meeting they had with the voodoo King and the meeting XY and XL had on the boat, with Jing în the background. "Jing couldn't explain the feeling but he rushed forward and grabbed XY as if afraid she would vanish from his life"  was basically the feeling of "You're not allowed to be anyonelse's wife".  Jing knew he was very close to lose her forever if at that moment XY would have gone after XL, she was too close to the truth and the love between them would have been revelead,

In spite of Xiao Yao trying to brush aside the Shaman King's explanations that only lovers can plant the Lovers bug, Jing was obviously not fooled for a second. Her shared intimacy with Xiang Liu listening to the song of the merpeople, "... like heavenly music, dispersing across the vast ocean, ethereal and pure, stirring the soul, like a call of profound love in the dark, like a sigh of ecstasy that melted the bones, overwhelming the soul with the song." was not lost on Jing, and I agree with you that he knew in that moment, if she had gone after Xiang Liu then, he would have lost her, knowing now what she did after the visit to the Shaman King. His outburst "You're not allowed to be anyone else's wife" reaffirms again what I mentioned a few pages back that for all the drama's claims that Jing asked Xiang Liu to take Xiao Yao away from Feng Long's wedding ostentatiously to let her choose once more, I believe that had she finally married Xiang Liu, he would have tried to stop that wedding too even if he knew that was whom she truly loved.

 blabla100:

After CX fell sleep,  the melody changed to "why îs there Joy and sorrow în the world, why does life have separations, i only wish to be with you, stay togheter forever, never separate". Did she think about Jing? I don't believe so. She just separated from XL earlier and she kept mentioned XL all day in her head.

Hmm...  the song was always associated with Jing's scenes, so I am not sure that when she started humming the song this time, she projected it to Xiang Liu instead. However, it is true that the first time she sang it in Jing, Feng Long and Xin Yue's presence, the novel describes it as thus, with references to the willow (the 柳 liu in Xiang Liu's name) and the moon:

In the moonlight amidst the fragrant flowers, Xiao Yao sang and danced, her body as pliant as the willow, her eyes like spring water. The moon lingered as she sang, the shadows scattering with her dance. The last verse was a sigh about staying together forever, never to part. As she sang, her voice was like gossamer floating in the air, repeating the sigh thrice through her song, emotional and lingering in the bones.

-- Vol 2 Ch3  (Chapter 20)

Prior to this, she had parted from Fangfeng Bei after appeasing him with the poison made in the shape koi fish swimming among lotus, during which time she wished that he could always be Fangfeng Bei. This implied that she wished he could always be with her, so associating the lyrics of the song with Xiang Liu is perhaps not so far-fetched after all:

Xiao Yao asked, "Can you continue teaching me archery?" The implied meaning was—You’re not angry with me anymore, right?

Bei finished the wine in the bottle and said, "I need to leave for a while, wait for me to come back."

Xiao Yao guessed that he was going back to Qingshui Town. Although there had been no active warfare, he was the general of the Shen Nong resistance army after all, and there were still many things that awaited his decisions.

Xiao Yao could not help but let out a long sigh and murmured in a low voice, "If only you could always be Fangfeng Bei, how wonderful that would be!"

Appearing not to have heard her, Bei put down the wine bottle, stood up and left, and his figure disappeared amid the layers of heavy curtains.

-- Vol 2 Ch2  (Chapter 19)

 blabla100:

Don't remember the chapter, but there was a scene when this matter îs described very well, she fought with Ah Nian and she recalled how her mom and Chi You looked at eachother. She couldn't understand then, but now she does (because she too fell for XL).

You are referring to this. Yes, I concur that she understood it now, because like her mother, she too was in love with a man whom she should not:

The insults A Nian hurled at her mother were the fears she had kept hidden in the deepest recesses of her heart. She did not want to recall it, but the image of a blood-red robe still surfaced in her mind. The man’s gaze was so arrogant as if he wanted to crush the whole world, yet the look in his eyes when he looked at her mother was so tender and lingering. And the way her mother looked at him... Xiao Yao did not comprehend it at the time, but she understood it now.

-- Vol 1 Ch17

The last time before she parted from Fangfeng Bei, she continued to suspect he was Xiang Liu, and he had asked her to stop being a princess and wander the world with him. This was just before Fangfeng Bei sought refuge in her bedchambers, so at the time, she still did not know that he and Xiang Liu were one and the same, though subconsciously she had already suspected from the start. When she realised that they were the same person, she was both relieved and burdened - relieved possibly because she then remembered his seemingly flippant invitation to travel the world with him earlier; burdened because she was reminded once more why he could not respond in affirmative when she told him to give up everything first:

Last night, when she realised he was Xiang Liu, she felt no surprise at all. It was as if that was how it was meant to be, and the heavy burden in one corner of her heart was lifted, but weighed down at the same time in another part of her.

-- Vol 1 Ch17