Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

 plor20:

Jing to XY is similar to what loyalty is to XL and the throne to CX, a wish come true, but they all made their wish come true at the cost of love. XY lost XL, CX lost XY, XL lost XY and Jing even though ended up next to the one he loves, he lost the chance to meet someone who can genuinly love him back too.

This part was incredibly sad...I felt pity for him for the very first time. 

Well he is going to live for the rest of his life on XL's territory, so to speak. 

 AH :

This truly all-white version of XL (even the band tying back his hair appears to be white, instead of jade-coloured) makes me think of WWX's comment about LWJ: always wearing mourning clothes / dressed for a funeral.

And why are you making digs at LWJ, WWX? 

WWX is a little boy crushing on his crush :-). LWJ is the aloof, icy genius of the school. WWX is the devil-may-care no-gooder who is attracted but doesn't know it. The way he runs around trying to get LWJ's attention. LZ this. LZ that. Look at me LZ. If LZ wears a bra, I'm sure WY would try to flick it :-)

Flirting with his crush.

Pouting at his crush

Calling his crush for help.

These two cuties!!

 AH :

Very pretty!

Yes! All the screenshots are from the PV and teaser, which were what drew me to the game.  The voiceovers in the PV itself are lacklustre. Unfortunately, the illustrations in-game are not particularly interesting, and the scenes we see in the PV are only narrated, not illustrated. This reminds me a lot of how much I looked forward to seeing the historical scenes in LMLMV, only to be told that those scenes were only in the MV, and not in the drama itself. Gah.

It was particularly amusing to see Wen Xiao Liu (looking in no conceivable way like a man) in Xiang Liu's oh-so-opulent tent after being caught. Clearly in this incarnation, our Nine-headed Demon must have found a massive pot of gold.

 AH :

Image 3 = XL (with white hair and a neat appearance) is with XY (in her female form / not WXL / not in red wedding attire) on water and looking up at the moon.

Is this a variation of chapter 4 when XL took WXL to the ocean to watch the moon rise? 

Yup, this is the iconic scene when they first looked at the moon together and he told her that as long as such sights still existed in the world, life was precious. The PV is in no way very faithful to the novel. But as you can see from the above incarnations of Xiao Yao, even if they had used their version of Xiao Liu in this scene, you really won't have been able to tell the difference either, because she is still dressed as a girl!

 AH :

Image 4 = XY with a drawn arrow aimed at XL, who already has a blood stain on his robes above his heart. 

You're right, this is from Ch46. Clearly, they take artistic license and aesthetics very seriously. Having an arrow sticking out of his chest probably didn't look half as cool as just a blood stain.

 AH :

Image 5 = XL on the surface of the ocean under the moonlight with a blood stain on his robes above his heart and XY in his arms, apparently unconscious.

I assume this is supposed to be the last night that XL and XY spent together during the 37 years of healing in chapter 22, when XL took XY to the surface to "see" the full moon, But again some of the details seem a bit off. XL brought XY to the surface and then took her back to the clam shell under water for the last round of healing to wake her up. So his robes would not have been bloodstained when they went to the surface. And the moon is a bit odd. In addition to not seeming to be full, the artist seems to have made the mistake of depicting a cresent moon with stars visible where the non-illuminated / in-shadow part of the moon should be. As if that part of the moon were transparent or non-existent.

That is an interesting interpretation. I initially thought the same too - even going based on the peach blossom birthmark on her forehead, but again, accuracy is not in play here because in the scene when Xiao Yao poisons Cang Xuan and herself (Image 8), the birthmark was still there when it was clearly removed already in the novel. Based on the PV, it should be a continuation from the scene in Image 4, so this is towards the end of Ch46 when she fell unconscious after losing so much blood,  except there is no Left Ear and Xiang Liu was the one who held her. This appears closer to the same scene in the leaked script, where Xiang Liu healed her wounds and held her in his arms in grief.

 AH :

Image 9 = TSJ holding XY's body in his arms after her assasination.

Giving TSJ fox ears and showing his nine tails when he tapped into his power I get, but they also gave him silver hair?? This seems too close to XL!

No no. Jing's fox ears are perpetually there in-game, no matter what scene he is in. His hair is actually blue. It looks silver here due to the lighting which they used to depict the fire around them. In no way does he resemble Xiang Liu, even in the game.

 AH :

Image 12 = The interruption of XY's wedding with Feng Long.

They changed the details so that CX was present at the wedding instead of moping alone.

They also gave TSJ blue hair and fox ears - even in a scene where he wouldn't have been tapping into his power?

And most significant of all they changed it so that XL (with his white hair and white robes) was the one interrupting the wedding, rather than FFB!

Yes - who knows what Cang Xuan was doing there when he should be moping by the poinciana trees over her marriage.

And yes. They couldn't be bothered to give us Fangfeng Bei, so he still looked exactly like Xiang Liu when he was supposed to be Fangfeng Bei. And the dense Xiao Yao couldn't even tell the difference. Go figure.

Fun fact. Players get to give poinciana flowers to the MLs they like the most, and Xiang Liu is leading with 13.2K followed by Cang Xuan with 12.9K, Jing 4.1K and Feng Long 3.9K.  Guess there are a lot of Xiang Liu fans among the players too!

 HeadInTheClouds:

So this has nothing to do with whether it was a boy doll or dudou, but I could have sworn that I read somewhere that putting the bib with the pomegranate on the doll somehow sounds like saying "It is Liu", i.e. that the doll comes from Xiang Liu. Was it not on this thread?

Hm. I think the theory came from the word pomegranate, which they take to be similar to "It's Liu".

However,  pomegranate 石榴 shí liú is pronounced very differently from "It's Liu" 是柳 shì liǔ so I think the theory is rather far-fetched.

 HeadInTheClouds:

Yes. What is it about this character that for the readers/viewers who loved him, it's so difficult to let go? It's a mixture of admiration and a deep sadness that makes your heart ache for him. And it's him as an individual, not just as part of YaoLiu. I've come across quite a number of readers who are just his fans and don't really care about the relationship. To the point that they bought and named a star after him.

Yes. I tell my daughter (and myself) that he is just a fictional character, yet the pain we feel for him still persists, even though we know that his meticulously laid plans all came to fruition, exactly how he wanted it, and we are still left with the "if only's" that would not go away. 

 HeadInTheClouds:

Sometimes I feel like a nut, thinking about something from the novel and getting teary. It's hormones :-).

YES. One would have thought that knowing the novel so well, having discussed it so much, I would have learnt to move on, or at least be more detached / numbed to it all. But, every now and again, the ache still reminds me that, I am not quite there yet.

 HeadInTheClouds:

And didn't we talk about how XL wish for XY to have a happy and worry-free life when said out loud sounds like "I love you"?

 solarlunareclipse:

Are you referring to when XL said this in the epilogue?

"愿你一世安乐无忧！"
"Yuàn nǐ yīshì ānlè wú yōu!"
"Wishing you a lifetime of peace and happiness without worries!"

I don't see any obvious pun, but my Chinese language skills are not the best.

I agree. Much as it would be nice if it were true, I don't see any similarity between what Xiang Liu said, and the English words "I love you", so that is another far-fetched theory to me. Not to mention I can't imagine Tong Hua, writing for her predominantly Chinese audience, would have incorporated an easter egg that refers to English words which may or may not be as easily understood by her target audience.

I read on a blog that the name of the book can also mean or sounds similar to "long thoughts about Xiang Liu",  but I have no Idea how true is that. I am not even sure if she is talking about the novel or about book 3, my chinese is non existent. 

"The name of the book is 长相思
Even on the chinese discussion forums, nearly everyone agrees that ”长相思 思念的是相柳“ which word-for-word translates to "Long Thoughts, thoughts on Xiangliu".

 blabla100:

Are you willing to marry Jing / I am willing doesn't really scream desire, just willingness. Who do you most want to spend your life with is the opposite and even though back in september I thought the answer is FFB, now I am certain that the right answer îs XL.  Actually it doesn't even matter, XY would have been happy with any of them.

There is a slight difference between willing and want to. I may be willing to do something - i.e I'm not opposed to it or find the idea totally repulsive, but that is far from "I want to do it". Did you see @plor20 and @solarlunaesclipse posts on the word willing?

And XL is the one that she fell in love with. The Lovers Bugs were successfully planted with XL - long before she ever met FFB. The only difference between the two is what she sees as the main obstacle between her and XL - his responsibility and commitment elsewhere.

 blabla100:

@AH

I kinda view it differently, even though I understand what you mean. The full moon was Jing's and XY's goal for sure, but they never got to the point of actually achieving it, at least not as far as the novel goes. In fact I believe TH is clearly sending us a message by trying to connect Jing and XY to the full moon and failling every time. 

I think we shared the same thoughts on this. There are attempts to replace XL with Jing - the moon, the song that she sang when she first met XL. I mentioned in an earlier comment that I think it's deliberate by the author to have Jing and XL together in some way as it represents the central conflict for XY.

https://mydramalist.com/discussions/lost-you-forever/110123-xl-and-xy-story-and-romance-warning-spoilers?pid=3012511&page=551#p3012511