Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

Sorry I am late and posting late but...

I am really struggling to watch this season properly. I have had to skip many scenes to finish. I am trying to do a proper re watch now and saw XY wedding scene to TSJ when he was missing and am shocked at one part...

She begged CX too marry Jing. In the book it stated very clearly the only time she asked him for anything was to spare XL. This really takes allot away from the XL. I don't remember reading posts about this part so was pretty pissed when I saw it. 

This season is a mess in terms of following authors character intentions and characterizations.

 MengXiang:

She begged CX too marry Jing. In the book it stated very clearly the only time she asked him for anything was to spare XL. This really takes allot away from the XL. I don't remember reading posts about this part so was pretty pissed when I saw it. 

This is actually not quite the same.

In the novel, it does not say she never asked Cang Xuan for anything, just that she never asked him for anything that would put him in a difficult position. When she pleaded for Xiang Liu's life on her wedding day, she was begging him to spare a greatly feared enemy, knowing that what was at stake were the lives of his army and the eyes of those in the Great Wilderness, particularly those from the Central Plains who expected him to wreak vengeance on the one who killed Feng Long.

Cang Xuan stared at Xiao Yao contemplatively.

Xiao Yao said, “I know I’m putting you in a very difficult position, but I’ve never begged you for anything that would make things difficult for you before. This is the first time I am begging you, and also the last time.”

-- Vol 3 Ch17  (Chapter 50)

This is totally different from when she begged to be allowed to marry Jing since it affected no one except herself, and Cang Xuan was not in any difficult position to begin with, except his personal unwillingness to see her marry, which she was personally not aware of. So it cannot be seen to be comparable.

 liddi:

Xiang Liu was well aware of how the world viewed him by and large:

Xuan Yuan even published a bounty list. Nine Lives Xiang Liu commanded a higher bounty than Hong Jiang, and was ranked first on the list. The reason was very strange. Hong Jiang was nobility from the Shen Nong royal family, so anyone who killed him for money would incur universal condemnation. However, Xiang Liu did not matter. He was a demon, a hideous, terrifying nine-headed demon at that, so killing him, even for money, would not be a psychological burden.

-- Vol 1 Ch3

Xiao Liu could not help but burst into laughter and ended up choking on his saliva, so he grabbed Xiang Liu’s arm in a hurry. “You... you... didn’t you say that you detest people calling you Nine-headed monster the most? Nine heads is a taboo topic for you. Whoever dares to mention it will be killed by you.”

“You are still alive.”

Xiao Liu mumbled, “Alive for now.”

“What I detest is not them talking about me being a nine-headed monster, but the disdain and contempt in their hearts. I allow you to mention it because…” Xiang Liu turned over, propped his arm under his head, lying on his side on the surface of the water and looked at Xiao Liu. “You ridicule and make fun of me verbally, but deep down in your heart, you never truly thought that a nine-headed demon is strange.”

-- Vol 1 Ch7

To be thus feared, despised and hated in life, Xiang Liu can have no illusions of how his body would be treated in death, especially when he would have killed many of their comrades prior to it.  And his deductions would have been right, if not for Ru Shou honouring him as a worthy opponent. In the face of a lesser man, he would have killed them all with his death.

The notion that "XL might have anticipated that his enemies would probably try to desecrate his body after his death" makes perfect sense to me. I fully agree with that statement. 

The part that doesn't make sense to me is that it seems like there is a general interpretation that XL definitely thought about it and anticipated that his enemies would definitely try to desecrate his body. 

And, to take it a step further, for some fans it seems like they've concluded that he must have actually planned for that to happen. Either they feel that he definitely intentionally made his blood poisonous with that specific purpose in mind or they think that he definitely did something else (like using a spell or a formation or something - although I know we've established that you don't take that view) to "set up" that result. 

Idk I just... can't wrap my head around that level of certainty when it seems, to me, like the details shown to the reader can't support it. 

But maybe the issue is just that I'm a skeptical person and I don't like using absolutes unless there is a very high degree of certainty.

 liddi:

I wonder though. He was in the death match arena for many years until he escaped. If his blood was always toxic, was that also one of the reasons he survived, because his blood would have poisoned his opponents when they came into contact with it. We also know that the poison in his blood does not work immediately - Feng Long was the best example of that. Yet it seemed that this part of him was not a well-known fact, despite being on the top of the bounty list for years. Perhaps it is because most of those who encountered him did not survive to tell the tale. 

In the death match arena, XL's strength and fighting skills would have been much more limited than they were in LYF, since he hadn't learned Gong Gong's healing technique, he hadn't used Gong Gong's healing technique to develop his own fighting style, he hadn't spent over a century practicing it and cultivating in the far north, and he hadn't significantly increased his power by consuming the real FFB. So if his blood was always inherently poisonous, it seems quite possible that he would have used it as a weapon in the death match arena, probably with a delayed effect as you mentioned. Although the poison in his blood did take Feng Long down pretty quickly, and he was a deity with very high spiritual power. Maybe the effect would have worked even faster, maybe even immediately, on demons with lower spiritual power? 

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But on the point about the world not knowing about XL's blood being poisonous and him sometimes using it as a weapon.... in your view, did the world know that Nine Lives Xiang Liu from the remnant army was the same demon that once fought in the death match arena centuries earlier before escaping from it?

I had the impression that the world (including XY) knew that Xiang Liu was Gong Gong's adopted son and that he joined Gong Gong after the last battle, but I didn't get the impression that the world (including XY) knew that he had once fought in the death match arena (with or without using his poisonous blood as a weapon) or that his debt to Gong Gong was incurred when Gong Gong saved XL after he escaped from the death match arena and was nearly killed by the whirlpool. 

In chapter 16, when FFB started to make XY believe that perhaps he really had been a slave in the death match arena, she asked him who he was. I felt like that was mainly because FFB was supposed to be a deity, but only a demon could have been a slave in the death match arena. Not that XY was aware that XL specifically had once fought in the death match arena. 

In chapter 22, the fact that XL told XY the details of how he was injured and nearly killed by the whirlpool after he escaped from the death match arena (and how Gong Gong saved him) gave me the impression that those details were things that were not generally known to the world. 

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Later in XL's life, it seemed like XL didn't usually use his blood as a weapon when he fought with the remanant army. Feng Long's situation is the first time we see him do it. Maybe he normally didn't use it as a weapon, or saved it for when he was secretly working as an assassin-for-hire? 

So: (a) if XL didn't normally use his blood as a weapon when he was using his XL-with-the-remnant-army identity; and (b) if he used his blood as a weapon in other contexts, the world wouldn't necessarily know about it, then it would make sense that the world wouldn't be aware that XL's blood was poisonous and could be used as a weapon. 

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Xuan Yuan probably did figure out that poisons were not effective against XL though, even if they didn't know about his blood being poisonous. If they tried to poison Maoqiu and failed they must have also tried to poison XL and failed. 

 AH :

The part that doesn't make sense to me is that it seems like there is a general interpretation that XL definitely thought about it and anticipated that his enemies would definitely try to desecrate his body. 

My view is that he did not necessarily plan for them to desecrate his body, but he expected that they most likely would, an act they would pay for with their lives if they did. I don't believe he had any illusions that they would honour him in death, knowing how he was viewed in life, so it would serve as one last weapon against his enemies.

 AH :

And, to take it a step further, for some fans it seems like they've concluded that he must have actually planned for that to happen. Either they feel that he definitely intentionally made his blood poisonous with that specific purpose in mind or they think that he definitely did something else (like using a spell or a formation or something - although I know we've established that you don't take that view) to "set up" that result. 

Yes, I don't agree that he lived his life, expecting to kill more of his enemies with his death. I believe he continued to cultivate his powers to improve the odds of his comrades, but not with the specific intent of wholesale slaughter of his enemies. Hong Jiang and his army had been engaging in guerrilla warfare over hundreds of years, so there was no full scale direct conflict to speak of. When Cang Xuan sent the Great Army to take them down, the instructions he gave were also to wear them down by attrition. The only reason that changed was because Feng Long was killed. There was never any kill formation to speak of in the novel and he fought until the bitter end as Hong Jiang, never himself. In the drama, this is different, but my take is that Xiang Liu employed the kill blood formation as final retaliation for all the brothers-in-arms who perished, a final sacrifice to them. What happened after his death (the black blood in the novel, the poisonous black fog in the drama) was something that was very much a part of his own unique physical constitution, and not one that he deliberately set out to unleash on his enemies.

 AH :

But on the point about the world not knowing about XL's blood being poisonous and him sometimes using it as a weapon.... in your view, did the world know that Nine Lives Xiang Liu from the remnant army was the same demon that once fought in the death match arena centuries earlier before escaping from it?

No. What I meant was that the world did not seem to be aware that his blood was poisonous. I did not mean that they knew he was the same person as the child demon in the death match arena. 

You make a good point that as a child demon, perhaps his blood was not as potent compared to after hundreds of years of cultivation and harnessing his powers. It is similar to how he described the Lovers bugs to Xiao Yao with the comparison between a newly born tiger cub and a thousand year old tiger demon.

 AH :

So: (a) if XL didn't normally use his blood as a weapon when he was using his XL-with-the-remnant-army identity; and (b) if he used his blood as a weapon in other contexts, the world wouldn't necessarily know about it, then it would make sense that the world wouldn't be aware that XL's blood was poisonous and could be used as a weapon. 

 AH :

Xuan Yuan probably did figure out that poisons were not effective against XL though, even if they didn't know about his blood being poisonous. If they tried to poison Maoqiu and failed they must have also tried to poison XL and failed. 

Agreed. I don't think he commonly used his blood as a weapon. It sounded more like something he might utilise for covert operations. As for the Xuan Yuan court physicians, they knew they can't seem to take him or his mount down by poison, but they did not necessarily know that his blood in itself was toxic. Certainly, I don't recall anything that indicated that his powers that were cultivated with poisons was public knowledge - Cang Xuan and Feng Long were certainly unaware of that, and Cang Xuan in particularly have dealt with Xiang Liu for many years prior to that, starting from Qingshui Town. Even in the battle with Cang Xuan in Qingshui Town, he never used his blood once, relying on his brutal fighting powers instead. At the final juncture, he used his demonic powers to incapacitate Cang Xuan before moving in for the final kill. 

 MengXiang:

@liddi

Good point. You are right. They are not the same. 

Every Jing scene seems to irritate me... It seems a bit over done it not quite what I imagined... Excessive. The whole wedding things dragged on soo much. The pacing is off or something this season. 

While admire Yang Zi's talents and all the angst of her crying over ...aacck ... Jing, I have to say, much like their cutesy and kissing scenes, there's an element of acting to me.  Like XY feels this is supposed to be the proper reaction.

Except the pancake eating scene.  That really was painful and really hit me far more than the wailing and carrying on.  But maybe she's also grieving at venturing to build a relationship, and STILL having them abandon her by death.  I think that's part of the reason why she can't admit Jing is dead.

 liddi:

My view is that he did not necessarily plan for them to desecrate his body, but he expected that they most likely would

 liddi:

Yes, I don't agree that he lived his life, expecting to kill more of his enemies with his death.

 liddi:

What happened after his death (the black blood in the novel, the poisonous black fog in the drama) was something that was very much a part of his own unique physical constitution, and not one that he deliberately set out to unleash on his enemies.

 liddi:

Agreed. I don't think he commonly used his blood as a weapon.

 liddi:

Ep18 was painful to sit through, and I dozed off for most of it. The wedding saw no end and the screaming drove me up the wall. 

On the topic of pacing, it annoyed me immensely that quite a few of Xiang Liu scenes were aired across two episodes, which I felt spoilt the flow of the scene. I was particularly frustrated that this was done for the final battle. Why? I really hope that the final battle will be released either as a video short or re-edited to be shown in a single, cohesive viewing.

I agree with all of this. ^^

 Kokuto:

That was a crime.  They shouldn't have split up the battle scene of all scenes.

But alot of the cliff hangers were XL or FFB, annoyingly.

I think, from what you were saying about the leaked script, the stuff in the episodes were recut or shuffled around, which resulted in that weird lag that you noted, where we thought we were going to get an extra episodes or three.  Adding the XY and Mom scene screwed things up even more, I think, as far as editing.

I need to go back and see what other scenes were shuffled around. Strangely enough, the trend I saw up to Ep14 when Xiao Yao met her mother, was that scenes from the leaked script were removed and yet it was still behind (Ep15 of the leaked script). After Ep14, we see new scenes - meeting of A Heng, Xiang Liu meeting the Shaman King, saving Jing from the sea monster, sending Mao Qiu away among others. Would that really have taken up to 3 episodes of footage? Not that I can see, yet it happened. I think also the cliffhangers and repetition of scenes in the next episode might contribute a little. Anyway, will try and see if I can figure out where it change when I get the time.

 Kokuto:

Except the pancake eating scene.  That really was painful and really hit me far more than the wailing and carrying on.  B

I think I was less affected by the pancake eating scene because I had pretty much lost my patience by then. Perhaps a rewatch might make me more charitable...

 Kokuto:

It would make more sense for XL to set up the kill blood formation as a final gambit, IF, like in the novel, he was actually fighting Ru Shou's army for so long to allow Hong Jiang to escape.  Killing as many as possible to prevent them from following or being effective against Hong Jiang.  But the drama made it clear, Hong Jiang was dead... somehow, off screen, so the kill blood formation was just a final kill count.

True. In the novel, you never really know whether Hong Jiang actually escaped or died along with his men on the island. However, in the drama, we know Hong Jiang had chosen to die with his men - the choice he gave all of them to stay or leave was a clear indication of that. As such, Hong Jiang should have been disguised as one of the many soldiers, and died incognito, with Xiang Liu taking his place for 6 days and nights, to take as many of the enemy soldiers with him. I think he fought too as Hong Jiang because at this final juncture, Ru Shou's army was focused on Hong Jiang, which would draw fire away from the rest of his comrades, allowing them to survive a little longer.

 Kokuto:

This was something I found odd in the drama cause I thought XL planned for his body to completely disappear, into black blood or fog or whatever, so he literally left no trace of himself.  Leaving a body, means leaving a demon core, unless he removed it before the battle?

The drama never mentioned about demon core as far as I remember, so that might not have been an element for consideration as far as the drama is concerned. I know we have that last shot of his body, against a backdrop of charred ground and falling bloodied snowflakes, but seeing how even the bodies of the Chenrong resistance army also dissolved as the poisonous fog spread, I think that in the end, his body too finally disintegrated with his death. 

 Kokuto:

I think the pancake eating scene hit home with me, because I've been there, trying to eat, while choking on tears.  :(

I'm so sorry to hear that. I can understand why that scene would hurt for you..

 Kokuto:

Good point.  If Hong Jiang IS there with them, then why is XL in disguise?  I think the drama got confused, or didn't explain it well.  I mean, the escape plan from the novel could still be in the drama -- just not explained -- but by the end, Hong Jiang's escape ended with his death, which XL wouldn't know until he was told.

Maybe it wasn't so much an 'escape' as it was in the novel, but some sort of flanking move or suicide mission to take someone else out, where they split their forces.  So, Hong Jiang could still be planning on dying with his soldiers.

Staying disguised as Hong Jiang also allowed XL to set up the formation, I think.  If they knew he was XL, they'd have shot him with arrows sooner, before he could set up the formation.

I believe that he disguised himself as Hong Jiang because he knew Ru Shou's army would be focused on taking down Hong Jiang. We know that he forbade Hong Jiang from even participating in any of the smaller skirmishes in the past, and speculated why this was the case. Apart from the possibility that Hong Jiang had been severely injured before, I think another reason is that Hong Jiang represented the symbol of resistance for the Chenrong resistance army, so if Hong Jiang was seen to die, morale would drop, just as it did when the Eighth Flame Emperor was killed by the Yellow Emperor and his head held up in full view of the entire battlefield, which totally destroyed the morale of the Shen Nong army at the time. By disguising himself as Hong Jiang, he held up the banner of the resistance for as long as their entire army was alive, while Hong Jiang himself disguised, fought and died along with his men. Xiang Liu continued to stay alive for 6 days and 6 nights, setting up the formation to take as many of the Xiyan army with him when he died.

 Kokuto:

It didn't mention XL's demon core, but it did mention the fish demon's core.

True about the fish demon core, but its only focus was to enable its wearer to breathe underwater. I don't see it linked to the possibility of resurrection for the demon. I was just thinking, with all the purple and red fish cores that the Tushan clan dealt in, it would be quite a sight (or at least awkward) if all the fish demons suddenly got resurrected while the core was being held in the mouth of the wearer. Hmm.

 Kokuto:

I'm surprised they didn't have him fade away, though, instead of the pan out of his figure in white.  That seemed to the ending they were forshadowing all along, with the way he would disappear in a swirl of snowflakes.

Very true. I must say though, panning out his bloodied figure amidst blood red snowflakes was a poetic touch... everytime he appeared or disappeared, it was always in a swirl of pristine white snowflakes. This time, his passing was accompanied by blood red skies and snowflakes that wept for his demise.

 Kokuto:

One parallel that immediately grabbed me was the way XL died, falling back onto the ground, which was the exact shot of CX's mother, falling into the open tomb of her husband.  That was such a striking scene in my mind from the first episode.  And both even had the red flowers, though different.

I don't know if they just liked the shot, or if it is book ending the trauma.  CX's mother starting the cycle of abandonment and the bonds with CX, and XL freeing XY from the cycle and the bonds with CX, as some have postulated here.

I never noticed the similarities between Chang Pu and Xiang Liu's deaths, and the parallels never occurred to me because I could not see any connection between them both. However, your theory is an interesting one - Chang Pu's suicide after the death of her husband, was certainly instrumental in the two children drawing even closer together, especially when A Heng herself then left Xiao Yao to go to battle against Chi Chen. The drama was different from the novel in that Xiao Yao being sent to Jade Mountain takes place after her mother's supposed death in battle, so the children bonded even more during her wait for her mother, up to her departure for Jade Mountain. 

However, unlike the novel, the way events played out in the drama, it was not Xiang Liu's death that enabled Xiao Yao to finally break free from her bond with Cang Xuan, and leave for good. In the unmentionable last 30mins, she simply went on to marry Jing happily after Xiang Liu's death, and her departure led her back to Qingshui Town, not the ocean. Nonetheless, the choice of Qingshui Town has an added poignancy because of the extra scene in Xiao Yao's reminiscences, missing him as she tearfully  recalled the time she drew on his face, so perhaps we too can infer that Xiang Liu played an important part in her decision to go back to Qingshui Town.