Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

 Winny:

Xiao Yao slowly removed the mask and it was Fang Feng Bei.
Xiao Yao forced a smile and said, "I somewhat hoped that you would come to visit my bedroom at odd hours on purpose."
Fang Feng Bei did not speak, so Xiao Yao asked, "Do you not know to meet with your close friends and companions? Why did you have to come to me?"
"You said it yourself, they are close friends and companions."

Something I did not expect to see in a TSJ thread: a fan translation of the Thai translation, which seems to suggest that XY was kind of hoping that FFB would make a nighttime visit to her bedroom. ^^

 AH :

Something I did not expect to see in a TSJ thread: a fan translation of the Thai translation, which seems to suggest that XY was kind of hoping that FFB would make a nighttime visit to her bedroom. ^^

Hahahaha. No words to describe my happy tears. 

 plor20:

Girlllllllll...don't get me started on the dialects! It's like  this emoji with the tears gushing!? The writing systems are a mess! like I've mentioned I've never even seen half of them let alone could read them.  Maybe this why China is so strict about one writing system and standardizing Mandarin.

Wow. It would be challenging indeed to communicate in Hmong when there is no standardised writing system. 

While predominantly standardised, the Chinese language in itself also uses two different writing systems today - 简体 simplified Chinese and 繁体 traditional Chinese, which can also present a challenge to those who are only versed in one writing system, though perhaps the learning curve is not as steep. Simplified Chinese (modified from traditional Chinese in a campaign by the Chinese government to promote literacy among its population back in the 50s) is used in China, and most parts of Southeast Asia. Traditional Chinese is widely used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Traditional Chinese would be more reflective of the origins and meanings of the characters in its character-set, the meanings of which unfortunately, can be lost in simplified Chinese. Take for example the word "leaf" yè  is written as 叶 (simplified Chinese) vs 葉 (traditional Chinese). The traditional word has the 艹 grass radical at the top, which reflects that the word is related to plants, something that is not as evident in the simplified version.

Do note though that Tong Hua, as a mainland Chinese, would have written her novels in simplified Chinese.

 plor20:

Vocabulary also is very diverse. Because we're from so many places, we have different terms for the same thing based the dominant language that influence us.

You know, this is somewhat similar to Chinese who reside in different parts of the world as well, where the local culture has influenced the vocabulary or the grammar, even when using the standardised Mandarin. 

e.g. Percentage is referred to as 百分比 bǎi fēn bǐ in China, but called 巴仙 bā xiān (a phonetic translation of "percent") among Southeast Asian Chinese.  

Even within the same country, the same dialect actually uses different terms in different areas. e.g. the Hokkien dialect in Penang is different from the same dialect in Sarawak, even though they are all in Malaysia. And certainly, they are also different from the Hokkien dialect in 福建 Fujian, China where it originated. 

But you're right! These diversities are what makes it so fascinating, even within the same culture.

 H19279:

With regard to her 2nd “death”, i wrote an analysis long time ago, comparing her status with the Plum forest case. I think she fully awared that XL saved her.

https://mydramalist.com/discussions/lost-you-forever/121043-about-long-lovesickness-yaoliu?pid=2857065&page=3#p2857065

https://mydramalist.com/discussions/lost-you-forever/121043-about-long-lovesickness-yaoliu?pid=2857067&page=3#p2857067

I finally managed to read through your analysis. Very thorough, per usual. This thread moved so quickly back in the day that I must have missed so many discussions. 

XY knew enough about poison so the dose that she used on herself would have been lethal as she wanted to kill herself. She and Can Xuan weren't discovered for a while, so without XL's support via the Lovers' Bugs she would not have been alive when Xiao Xiao and the rest of the servants arrived. And her heartbeat while not as low as during the assassination attempt was low enough that Xiao Xiao couldn't detect it. So, yes I think this is a replication of the process during the assassination attempt.

 H19279:

2. After very long time of feeling the heart beat, she felt sensation. Actually, did she really feel XL embracing her via the sense on her skin? No, that the feeling she got through the PLB since her mind was not merging with her body yet. She even could feel his movement, his thinking concentration

I never thought about the separation of soul and body as the reason why she couldn't sense anything through her 5 senses. But I think that's a plausible explanation. I always believed that the devasting power was XL because her bodily sensation was gone so for her to "feel" it, it would have to be via another method i.e. The Lovers Bugs connection. Jing's transfer was a physical act and she couldn't feel any physical sensations in that state. It's like if Jing had stuck needles into her at that point, she wouldn't have been able to feel them. Not to mention, the timing of everything would have to line up quite neatly and miraculously. 

 H19279:

She knew that her survival was at least related to her bug connection with XL.

"Xiao Yao covered her eyes, if she knew it was this hard to die she would have never planted the Lover’s Bug in Xiang Liu years ago!"

"Xiao Yao smiled bitterly, such deadly poison couldn’t even kill her. Having the bug connected with Xiang Liu was like giving herself nine lives. But what was the point of living like this?"

This part suggests to me that she knew that it was the Bugs between her and XL that kept her alive. Surely when she decided to poison herself and CX, she must have thought about this and how XL was likely to react. Did she think he wasn't going to save her or was this another cry for help/test like the crystal ball? 

Does the author want us to think about what is not clearly written or does she not care by this point and just wants to wrap things up ASAP and I'm a crazy person who is thinking too much?

 H19279:

Did she really believe Ah Bi’s story? She smiled bitterly. Both XY and Sir Bi used smile to deceive themselves and each other. She showed “devastated expression”.

Or maybe she was devastated because once again he came to her rescue, but refused to stay with her. But what does she expect at this point really? The dice have been cast.

I think I missed the discussion about her "waiting" for the ceremony. Was what the verdict/consensus? Reading through what you included, I think it's plausible. Which then makes her glomping on to Jing the minutes he showed up utterly cringe-worthy. However, this also follows the established pattern throughout the novel - XL wasn't there when she woke up after 37 years so she clung to Jing. Running back to Jing following the event of the bride snatch 'cause XL wasn't playing. I got to say, XY passivity for a large part of the novel frustrated me. By this point, we're at the end of the novel and she's still looking to escape and hide - can't deal with life without someone besides her. This is her attempt at running to a nunnery so that she doesn't have to deal :-)

Poor XL. He must have a mountain of things to take care of at this point in the story and he still has to run around saving XY's ass and more running around to save Jing so XY doesn't take herself to the nunnery.

 H19279:

Jing, a very smart man, could sense something smelly in RM’s story. Anyway, he is a cunning fox, he kept it for himself. Unfortunately, XY didn’t pay attention to detail at all. She felt the loss in her heart but again tried to find a reason to mask, cover her feeling.

Jing for sure knew that the Royal Mother was lying - he questioned her in disbelief but quickly backed down since it benefits him to not bring up Xiang Liu. During all those decades that they looked for ways to break the Lovers Bugs, I'm surprised that they didn't think to ask the Royal Mother. XY is not stupid either, she probably suspected as well but chose to pretend not to know - typical of her, really. 

In a similar vein, do you think Jing doesn't know or guess who actually saved him? Sir Bie accurately guessed right away that it was XL. Jing is not stupid, he knows, but as always, if it doesn't benefit him he isn't going to reveal it. How about XY, do you think she questioned or suspected? Or once again, she knows but chooses to pretend not to so that she can stick to her choices. XL is always "the thing that must not be named" in XY and Jing's relationship - they both know what is going on, but both pretend to the other person that nothing is going on. Just like their act during the meeting with the Shaman King. I wonder if XY really thinks that she's fooling Jing?

This entire scene with Sir Bie, The Royal Mother and these two lovebirds just reeks of pretences. A bunch of people lie to each other and to themselves to maintain the illusion that everything is well so that they can comfort themselves that the choices that they made and are making are the right ones. And this is 1-2 chapters from the ending. The idea that it's not a tragedy because the character gets what they wanted rings hollow when there are such self-deceptions involved.

P.S. I remember you mentioned before that you find the sequence following the bride snatch where they spend 1 month in the cottage to be "off". Have you come to any coherent explanation for that sequence?

Do you have the links to your other analyses?

@liddi

Thanks for the feedback! I incorporated some of it back into the analysis. A few thoughts:

> "共工 Gong Gong, later called 洪江 Hong Jiang" / "玱玹 Cang Xuan was revised from the original 颛顼 Zhuan Xu"

I read somewhere that Tong Hua changed the character names because she was getting complaints about using actual names from mythology. However, I think it's possible Tong Hua intentionally added a few more hints as to the relationships between her characters with the name changes that were not there in the original work. Although Xiang Liu was actually Gong Gong's minister in Classic of Mountains and Seas, as you pointed out, Hong Jiang better reflects the water-based powers that he has. Moreover, water is also associated with Xiang Liu as well. The meaning of Cang Xuan doesn't seem as strong as the meaning of Zhuan Xu, so it's possible that his new name was deliberately chosen so that the "⺩" radicals better reflect commonalities with Jiu Yao's name.

> The number of strokes they are counting is based on simplified Chinese characters. In traditional Chinese, the number of strokes would have been more than 17

Is Tong Hua from mainland China? All I found out is that she went to Tsinghua University in Beijing. Perhaps she's using simplified characters as the basis for her work despite it being historically inaccurate in order to better reach the mainland audience. You're right, we don't know if the 17 strokes for 防风邶  (Fang Feng Bei) and 玱玹  (Cang Xuan) is intentional or not, but it's fun to speculate.

> "It is overly simplistic to just draw a line and say that they are related to Xiang Liu based on the radical alone, whether it is 木,卩 or 阝" / "老木 Lao Mu should also be in Xiang Liu's camp, but he clearly is not"

There seems to be a pattern with the radicals in the names, but you're right--not all relationships are based on radicals. For example:

• 桑甜儿 (Sang Tian Er) is linked to Xiao Yao because she liked to eat iced mulberry treats that were sweet when she was a child.
• 高春桃  (Gao Chun Tao) is linked to Xiao Yao based on the meanings of the words. 高 pertaining XY's family name, 春桃 - spring peach pertaining to the classical poem "桃夭" that Xiao Yao's name is based on. Do you know if Shao Hao and A Heng directly referenced this actual poem when they were naming Xiao Yao in Once Promised? I didn't see evidence of characters directly referencing classic poetry in LYF.

There does seem to be a correlation with characters having 阝and 木 radicals in their names being associated with Xiang Liu, but not all character relationships with XL are based on these attributes alone. Possible standalone shadow characters for Xiang Liu are:

• 阿念 (A Nian) / 海棠 (Hai Tang) corresponds to Xiang Liu / Mao Qiu. I see Xiang Liu treating Mao Qiu as an extension of himself, just like A Nian treats Hai Tang as an extension of herself. Also XL and AN collaborated twice: pushing XY off cliff and saving XY's life before Jade Mountain. XY even told AN that her life would be more interesting if AN were as powerful as XL. Commonalities between XL and AN include:
  • Both are described as being very beautiful.
  • Both AN / XY have water-based powers. Both their fathers Shao Hao / HJ also have water-based powers.
  • WXL flirts shamelessly with both of them.
  • XY poisoned Hai Tang, but failed to poison AN at their first meeting. XY poisoned Mao Qiu, but failed to poison XL at their first meeting.
  • They were both very cruel to XY at first.
  •  Both had XY beaten at some point.
  • AN makes XY swear an oath not to marry her. XL makes XY swear an oath when taking the PLB.
  • XY made grilled fish for both of them.
  • AN led a battle, so she could also be considered a general?
  • They both gave XY wedding gifts made from Fu Sang God Wood.
  • Xiao Yao gave both of them 3 choices - to XL when asking about San Tian Er's brothel for Chuan Zi's marriage, to AN when talking about the 3 paths they could choose in their relationship. AN mentioned to XY that they took the 3rd path to be good sisters to each other during XY's wedding. This could also be interpreted as XL wanting to tell XY that they were good lovers to each other.
• 丰隆 (Feng Long) 
  • Both were generals.
  • Both were extremely loyal to their leaders - FL to CX and XL to HJ
  • Both were career-oriented
  • Does FL have water-based powers?
  • Both would give up XY to TSJ.
  • Both supported XY being independent. I believe FL told XY he'd support her pursuits if she married him.
  • Both fulfilled other people, but didn't do themselves right. FL fulfilled TSJ, CX, Xing Yue. XL fulfilled TSJ, Hong Jiang, XY.
  • Neither spent extended periods of 1:1 time with XY. I believe FL rushed back to work after 1 day or accompanying XY during her stay at 5 Gods Mountain.
  • Feng Long brought on his early demise by leading the attack against XL because he was afraid Xing Yue would do something stupid and harm XY. If we buy the theory that XL meant to assassinate FL instead of CX for the same reason (fearing Xing Yue would harm XY), this could also be the reason for XL's early demise. After FL's death, CX was forced to take decisive action to avenge FL and appease the Middle Plains leaders, leading to XL's early demise.
  • FL died by an arrow to save CX. XL died by arrows to save HJ. Here, FL's death could be used to foreshadow XL's death.

Possible pairs meant to shadow alternate paths in Xiang Liu & Xiao Yao's relationship:

• 赤宸 (Chi Chen) & 阿珩 (A Heng) (no similarities in radicals) - What would happen if they expressed their love despite having opposing stances.
• 左耳 (Zuo Er) & 苗圃 (Miao Pu) (阝meaning 耳) - What would happen if there was no opposing stance between XL and XY.
• 麻子 (Ma Zi) & 高春桃  (Gao Chun Tao) - What would happen if FFB married into XY's family. Chun Tao's father opposed the marriage at first, just like Shao Hao opposed XL/XY's relationship. If FFB married XY he wouldn't be able to spend much time being HJ's military advisor, just like Ma Zi didn't spend much time with his original family after marrying Chun Tao.
• 老木 (Lao Mu) & 玟小六 (Wen Xiao Liu) - What would happen if XL and XY both abandoned their posts to be together.
• 阿念 (A Nian) & 玱玹 (Cang Xuan) - What would happen if Hong Jiang surrendered to Xuan Yuan.
• 涂山篌 (Tu Shan Hou) & 防风意映 (Fang Feng Yi Ying) (no similarities in radicals here, but these are character foils rather than shadow characters) - What would happen if XL and XY betrayed each other. 

I have yet to incorporate some of these ideas back into the original post. The analysis is still ongoing so any additional feedback is welcome.

 solarlunareclipse:

Is Tong Hua from mainland China? All I found out is that she went to Tsinghua University in Beijing. Perhaps she's using simplified characters as the basis for her work despite it being historically inaccurate in order to better reach the mainland audience. You're right, we don't know if the 17 strokes for 防风邶  (Fang Feng Bei) and 玱玹  (Cang Xuan) is intentional or not, but it's fun to speculate.

Please see my post just above for my analysis on the original names vs new ones, and how Tong Hua managed to sidestep controversy while cleverly retaining references to the original.

Tong Hua was born in Shaanxi province, China and attended Peking University. After several years in the United States with her husband, she returned and settled in China due to considerations for her aged parents. She wrote LYF when she returned to China. As such, I can pretty much say with certainty that the novels were all written in simplified Chinese.

The 17 strokes would not have worked in the first place because Cang Xuan was not even the original name to begin with. Zhuan Xu (even in its simplified form) was already 25 strokes, so the theory falls apart there and there.

 solarlunareclipse:

Do you know if Shao Hao and A Heng directly referenced this actual poem when they were naming Xiao Yao in Once Promised? I didn't see evidence of characters directly referencing classic poetry in LYF.

In Once Promised, the name 玖瑶 Jiu Yao was given by A Heng. However, the pet name 小夭 Xiao Yao was given by Shao Hao after he heard a folk ballad which began with:

桃之夭夭，灼灼其华
The peach tree is young and elegant, Brilliant are its flowers

-- cr. Chinese Text Project translation

While on the subject of names, the name 玖瑶 Jiu Yao itself is interesting. 玖 jiǔ  is an alternate way to write "nine", and can also refer to a dark-hued jade-like stone. 瑶 yáo can either refer to a precious jade, or the name of the Yao tribe, which according to some legends, were descended from Chi You, similar to the Miao tribe. @plor20 - can you please confirm whether this is true? If yes, could it be that the name Jiu Yao  is actually also a nod to 九黎 Jiuli, where A Heng and Chi You lived together? 

 windiaaa041293:

For some reason I always want to visit the Yaojing thread. They discuss the lost koala translation, in the wedding robbery part when XL asks XY a question.this is the missing part of the translation

Xiang Liu asked: "Are you willing to
marry Jing?"
Xiaoyao's expression changed, as if she
was struggling to wake up.

They accused the koala removed a bunch of lines, and added some lines of her own.
Didn't they previously trust the koala translation more than the original Mandarin text? I even saw it when they were arguing in the comments column on the main page. But look now... They even blamed the koala for being biased and scolded her.
They said it was something important that the koala deleted.

And they believe that the person Xiaoyao most wants to spend the rest of her life with is JING. It's really unexpected

Koala translated the 2013 version of the novel in 2014. The "omissions" they are referring to are lines that were added by Tong Hua in the 2019 version of the novel. Koala isn't a time traveler. Obviously her 2014 translation would not include 2019 content.

Edit: It seems like some sources for the 2013 text included the TSJ question and some did not. 

Frankly the updated 2019 version of the scene makes it clear that XY preferred YSQ over TSJ (she didn't answer when asked if she was willing to marry TSJ, but was was quick to say yes for YSQ) and that the person she most wanted to spend the rest of her life with probably wasn't either version of him (since she was quick to say yes about being willing to marry YSQ, she wouldn't have any reason to resist thinking that she wanted to spend her life with him, and since she seemed to prefer YSQ over TSJ then it wouldn't be logical that the person she most wanted to spend her life with but resisted thinking about was TSJ). The 2019 text is worse for YaoJings than the 2013 text that Koala translated.