There was also this strange description in Chapter 44 during the second assassination attempt by Xing Yue, when XY reflected how XL might have felt her pain when she fell from the sky and then smiled. If the translation is correct, I think the smile is an indication that she liked the fact that XL was hurting when she was hurting.MayaDavid:
Kaola translation did not translated well for that part. She smiled bitterly. Below I placed the original text and result from Google translation. She did concern his thought and pain suffer.
从半空中摔下时，她都痛得昏厥了过去，相柳肯定能感受到，不知道他是不是又要后悔和她种了这倒霉的连命蛊。小夭苦笑着，轻轻摸了下弓：“这次要全靠你了！”
When she fell from the air, she fainted from the pain. Xiang Liu must have felt it. She wondered if he would regret planting this unlucky life-linking poison with her again. Xiaoyao smiled bitterly and touched the bow gently: "This time it's all up to you!"
I also recall that she was sending XL black colored poisoned items as a way of venting her emotions. I interpreted these strange and passive-aggressive like behaviors to be coming from XY's dark, and selfish love for XL.
This is the period after Jing got married with FFYY. She was very sad, disappointed because she trusted wrong person. She laid her hope on Jing but he failed her and her hope shattered. Note: Kaola didn't do good job to translate what XY made. Bellow is the translation by google
小夭的病渐渐好了，她又开始做毒药。
生病的这段日子，颛顼代她收了不少灵草灵药，小夭没吃多少，正好用来调制毒药。
小夭谈笑如常，可她做的毒药全是暗色调，黑色的蝙蝠、黑色的葫芦、黑色的鸳鸯、黑色的芙蓉……一个个摆放在盒子里，看上去简直让人心情糟糕透顶。但通过制作这一个个黑暗无比的毒药，小夭却将痛苦宣泄出来一些。
Xiaoyao's illness gradually recovered, and she started making poison again.
During the period of illness, Zhuanxu collected a lot of magical herbs and elixirs for her. Xiaoyao didn't eat much, so she just used them to prepare poison.
Xiaoyao talked and laughed as usual, but the poisons she made were all in dark colors, black bats, black bottle gourds, black mandarin ducks, black hibiscus*... placed one by one in the box, it looked really bad. But by making these extremely dark poisons, Xiaoyao vented some of her pain.
What she made were messages on her hope and her thought: Black is unluck, sad color
- Bats: symbol of luckiness and happiness
- Bottle gourds (Hulu): protection, happiness, longevity, and prosperity, large family
- Mandarin ducks: symbolise the love of devoted couple
- (*)芙蓉 [fú róng] : Cotton rose hibiscus flower: the short-lived beauty that is associated with fame or glory, which tends not to be long-lasting, just like cut hibiscus flowers. This hibiscus flower differs from the hibiscus that XY used for cleaning hair (木槿花 )
In general, the hope of having a luckiness, happy marriage, family with Jing had shattered, short-lived as the fu'ro'ng flower. XL let her know the presence of his heart beat while she was heartbroken thinking of Jing and FFYY's wedding. By knowing and hearing another heartbeat accompanying her heart, her pain got lessened, no longer unbearable because she knew XL shared the pain with her. And making those dark color poinson is her way of communication with him as well as releasing her pain. "Thinking of the black clouds when Xiang Liu saw the poison, Xiao Yao couldn't help but smile lightly at the corner of her mouth". This couple liked teasing each other. Since she was back to normal (recovered), she might feel a bit funny, imagining his reaction when seeing those "black" stuff. (Such as what the hell is silly girl, so this is what made you such problem in the past?).
XL did start as dark. I don't think his love for XY was selfless initially. I felt that he was quite possessive in the beginning. I think that he was jealous when XY transferred the bug to CX (this was more obvious in drama). I interpreted his action of biting XY in the pool as one of passion and retaliation coming from possessive love. We already talked about him being enraged and could have killed XY at the beach after her identity reveal. IIRC, he was quite petty with Jing too before XY's assassination.
I don't think it is indication of possessiveness. This is the first time that he had such feeling of loving someone. As he told XY, except human and deity, other animals were very direct in love and mating. And he was a demon, which basically was an animal. The scene in the pool was analyzed by many. In my opinion it shows it anger when she ruined his plan, it also shows the influence of his animal instinct on his behavior (because he was badly injured so his animal instinct would overpower the human rational thinking). About the poison bug, he might know that it was lovers bug and he question her several time of her aim to use it specially for him. So, he tried to know if she had any love intention to him?
I agree with you that the primary reason she sought refuge in Jing's relationship was her trauma. But I felt that her relationship with XL was a main cause for triggering her trauma.
In writing my analysis, Jing and Xiang Liu were used more as symbols and Xiao Yao's relationships with them as allegories of different/opposing ways to deal with her trauma. The way you view her relationships with them also makes sense and I think it's quite congruent with my little allegories.
Trauma can result in certain patterns of coping that start as adaptive, but with time become maladaptive. Breaking away from the maladaptive patterns is hard work because old habits are hard to break and new habits are difficult to form. Crucially it requires you to stop avoiding and start addressing the root of the issue - it requires you to face your fears and vulnerabilities instead of avoiding them. You have to step outside of your comfort zone into unknown uncomfortable territory - that is how you grow. I think I mentioned in my analysis that the healing journey is never a smooth one, every step forward usually results in 2 or so steps backward; every time you step into the discomfort zone, you will want to run back into the comfort zone.
So for XY, her relationship with Xiang Liu is like the path towards true healing; uncomfortable and dangerous. I think I also mentioned that whenever things get difficult with Xiang Liu, Xiao Yao would high-tailed it back to Jing - running from that discomfort zone, back to the comfort zone. This is similar to how you see her relationship with Xiang Liu as triggering her fears and vulnerabilities and then pivoting back to Jing.
H19279 made an interesting point on how XY was shaken up by XL at her very first meeting with XL, and that exposed her vulnerabilities and made her open up to YSQ afterwards. I think this is a pattern that is repeated through out the novel
If I recall correctly, their first meeting was when she told him that she had nowhere to go, no one to rely on, and no means of protecting herself. These things are very much the root of her trauma are they not - being abandoned and alone? As WXL, XY hid her fears and vulnerabilities underneath a layer of bravado i.e. she avoids looking at her trauma too closely. Xiang Liu essentially stripped her of that bravado and forced her to voice her fear and vulnerabilities for the first time. It's any wonder that afterwards, she wants to go back to her comfort zone (Jing); nice and safe, but offers no growth.
Therefore, I struggled with this interpretation of XY breaking free from trauma after XL's death.
I don't think XL's death is the catalyst for XY breaking free from trauma. Rather, his death is the catalyst that sets her more firmly on the path of actually dealing with/addressing her trauma rather than avoiding it. Heading to the ocean, the place that very much caries Xiang Liu's memories and essence is the symbolic embracing of committing to the path of healing and growth (presented by Xiang Liu) rather than avoidance (Jing). In other words, XY's trauma is still there at the end of the novel, and her journey to deal with her trauma only just begins.
I think that all these jumbled feelings she had for XL, also made her scared/vulnerable and triggered her trauma. To overcome her dilemma with XL, throughout the story XY engaged in various escape mechanisms you mentioned such as denying/suppressing her feelings, deluding herself, engaging in self-ignorance and seeking companionship with Jing.
Yes. Contemplating a life with Xiang Liu means facing her trauma of abandonment, because of his outcome. Xiao Yao works hard to avoid facing this fear; that is why her only requirement in a partner is someone who will never leave her. Notice how love was never mentioned. Jing was of course the perfect means of avoidance. Unfortunately for Xiao Yao, she didn't count on falling in love with Xiang Liu and the result is a battle between what she yearns for and her fear of being abandoned again. Hence, all the escape mechanisms that she engaged in.
Xiao Yao's trauma is very strong because it doesn't take much for her to pivot back to Jing whenever Xiang Liu rejects her. Like how quickly she pivoted after he wouldn't see her after 37 years of healing or after the marriage robbery. Someone without Xiao Yao's issue might have dug in their heels and confronted Xiang Liu. They also wouldn't be running so quickly back to Jing after all the bullshit that he put them through. It's very frustrating for me to what her flip-flopping.
I thought that if I read this novel from the perspective of XY's healing journey, I could be less affected by XL's outcomes. While it helped, as you've probably already noticed from all my recent posts, I'm a wee bit too attached to this character to be immune to it.
Will respond to your other post about the Lovers Bugs later.
Kaola translation did not translated well for that part. She smiled bitterly. Below I placed the original text and result from Google translation. She did concern his thought and pain suffer.H19279:
The correct translation makes a huge difference. Now this reads to me like she felt self-pity and not my previous interpretation that XY was happy about XL having the same pain as hers. Thanks for the clarification.
What she made were messages on her hope and her thought: Black is unluck, sad color
Bats: symbol of luckiness and happiness
Bottle gourds (Hulu): protection, happiness, longevity, and prosperity, large family
Thanks for these details. I always wanted to know the symbolism behind the things XY sent. Related to symbolism, I think when XY asked TSJ to draw her butterflies, it said that TSJ heard the word poison and drew a number of small butterflies. Is there any significance in drawing many butterflies?
This couple liked teasing each other. Since she was back to normal (recovered), she might feel a bit funny, imagining his reaction when seeing those "black" stuff. (Such as what the hell is silly girl, so this is what made you such problem in the past?).
This is a very possible explanation. But I also feel that the action of sending the black poison was like a passive-aggressive behavior, like she was blaming and venting her anger on XL for the tragic and unfortunate situation with their relationship. I remember reading an interesting article that Windiaa posted very early in this thread. The article focused on XY's behavior after she returned from 37 years under the sea. It talked about how love and hate are like two faces of a coin (not the exact words, but something like this). I think the idea was how XY's love for XL was also mixed with some kind of hate. It made a lot of sense to me when I read that.
I don't think it is indication of possessiveness. This is the first time that he had such feeling of loving someone. As he told XY, except human and deity, other animals were very direct in love and mating. And he was a demon, which basically was an animal. The scene in the pool was analyzed by many. In my opinion it shows it anger when she ruined his plan, it also shows the influence of his animal instinct on his behavior (because he was badly injured so his animal instinct would overpower the human rational thinking).
This sounds very plausible as well. My gut instinct when reading the pool scene was that it was an act of possessive love. It could be due to the fact that my interpretation was somewhat based on what I saw in drama as well. In the drama, I interpreted XL's behavior after the bug transfer to CX as very jealous.
I think when XY asked TSJ to draw her butterflies, it said that TSJ heard the word poison and drew a number of small butterflies. Is there any significance in drawing many butterflies?
Since Jing heard that she made poison, thus, he drew them small size. He painted 10 butterflies. In china. number 10 is symbol of perfection, completion, full
The fact that she made the poison in the shape of phoenix petals for XL was just to express the experience and emotion that she wanted to share with XL. Phoenix flower tied to her childhood with CX. When she returned to Cao Yun Peak, she saw it again. She had fond memory with it, thus she wanted to "tell" him about it. She was curious of his reaction when receiving the poison (her gift).
This analysis about the phoenix flower makes sense to me. I also recall that XY was very excited to share and tell XL about the koi pond she made.
So for XY, her relationship with Xiang Liu is like the path towards true healing; uncomfortable and dangerous.HeadInTheClouds:
Yes. Contemplating a life with Xiang Liu means facing her trauma of abandonment, because of his outcome. Xiao Yao works hard to avoid facing this fear; that is why her only requirement in a partner is someone who will never leave her.
Unfortunately for Xiao Yao, she didn't count on falling in love with Xiang Liu and the result is a battle between what she yearns for and her fear of being abandoned again. Hence, all the escape mechanisms that she engaged in.
I agree with everything you said. Your analysis is pretty similar to what I felt.
While it helped, as you've probably already noticed from all my recent posts, I'm a wee bit too attached to this character to be immune to it.
I did notice :) I was actually wondering yesterday if it is a good time to post given all the frustration with the season 2 leaked script. For me, fortunately, yours and H19279 's lotus analysis made me see that XL had the best ending possible. While love is beautiful, overcoming the bounds of love is a greater feat. So, I no longer wish for XL and XY to end up together. I sometimes wonder if TH was deliberately cruel to XY and did not want XY to ever meet XL again (in rebirth or some other way).
While I have time to engage in the thread, I have another question. Does anyone know, what is supposed to happen to XL once he is passed according to the Chinese mythology the novel is based on? Can he reincarnate? Or be revived by using his demon core or something like described in fanfiction? Will he have his memories if that happens? Is there a higher status like nirvana in Chinese mythology?
I think in mythology he's basically a monster that represents the destructive flooding and ill effects afterwards, that the hero kills to help civilization flourish -- IOW, man learning to control nature's flooding. No one would want them to reincarnate or revived.
I think the general rule is reincarnation usually means no memories. But cultivation to ascend to a higher state or immortality can mean keeping memories -- as long as they aren't limiting.
He wore this outfit 3 times, marking 3 important events in his feeling development with XY
Yup. Thanks for providing the excerpts of the three events that marked his change in feelings towards WYL/XY. He was the most vulnerable he ever was in these scenes.
I always see the successful implantation of these Lovers Bugs like marriage vows and their little under-the-seas adventure like their honeymoon. Poor Xiang Liu was so happy. Then finding out about her real identity - he was so hurt and angry thinking that he'd been lied to. He went to see her to find an answer, only to be told that he wasn't suitable to be in a girl's dreams. Ooof! Unfortunately, the Lovers Bugs are not as easy to get rid of as wedding rings :-)
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