AH

XY is in a bad mood for a while after being whisked away from the wedding. Not because she's mad about not marrying FL or that XL is the one who takes her away, but because XL chose to do it in the middle of the wedding ceremony (the most public option that would bring XY and FL the most shame) instead of earlier, even though he knew she was marrying FL two months beforehand. The weather also turns cold.

XL gives XY strong alcohol to warm her up, lift her mood, and loosen her tongue (she had been avoiding speaking to him). Then he asks if she wanted to marry FL. Silence. He asks if she wants to marry TSJ. Yes. He hesitates and asks who she most wants to spend her life with. This is where you pause and supply your preferred answer (and if you're a YaoLiu shipper - the answer that seems to be in XY's heart), and then have XY end up with the person that she names at this point.

In the novel, XY's mind fights so hard to not express the sentiment in her heart that when XL uses his powers to try to prompt her to answer (on top of the alcohol loosening her tongue), she gets a splitting headache. XL obviously pulls back as soon as she's in pain, so she isn't forced to answer. XL tucks XY into bed and ensures that she does not remember his questions when she wakes up the next morning.

Oh there is a scene right after that would be a nice launching point for your own ending if you pause at just the right moment.

Blame Sir Bi for keeping his biggest secrets.

Yes. XY mentions it in chapter 26, several chapters after the 37 years of healing chapter (chapter 22).

"Bird guy" is easily the funniest description of XL I've seen yet.

Not sure what else it would be called, but it's an older drama so it might be harder to find now.

Oh okay. Thanks for clarifying. That's quite the tweak they made.

The next chapter does mention that XL stops showing up to hang out after the charcoal incident. That was pretty crazy of her.

Yes, for the poison making they don't spell it out in the drama as much as in the novel. Initially XY thinks the poisons are meant for XL's enemies, so she makes them too noticeable to be used to secretly poison someone. But eventually she connects the dots and realizes that XL is consuming them himself, at which point she switches and starts making them taste bad.

There's a bit of chapter 2 of the novel that isn't included in the drama that I wanted to share.

The second time XL and XY meet face-to-face is at the wedding at XY's clinic. There, XY tells XL "I am scared of loneliness. I can't find a constant forever then a temporary companion is fine." Then XY gives XL poisoned wine, which he drinks. After some back-and-forth, XL asks "Do you really want to poison me to death?" and XY says "I am not a soldier in the Xuan Yuan army, you and I don't have a blood feud, I just want to whip you 80 to 100 times." XL responds "Dream on in this lifetime." Has another sip of the poisoned wine, and leaves. (Their second meeting and they already have enough of a rapport to joke like that!) That part is covered in the drama, but the next part is not.

"After Ma Zi's wedding, Nine Lives Xiang Liu would occasionally come and sit in the clinic courtyard and drink a few cups of Xiao Liu's wine and nibble on a few of Xiao Liu's snacks. When he left his face never even changed expressions and his heartbeat never once skipped a beat. Xiang Liu's very attitude of not taking Xiao Liu seriously is exactly what pissed Xiao Liu off."

At this point, XL doesn't know that XY's blood can heal him. He doesn't know about XY being locked in a cage by the 9 tailed fox or that she loves to swim. He's only met her twice and only knows that XY called herself a discarded person with no one to rely on, that she is afraid of loneliness, and that she is someone who can joke with him. So he goes out of his way to spend time with her and amuses himself by pushing her buttons (by having the gall to drink her poison in front of her and not die).

I feel like it's little changes like this omission that make it harder to see XL falling for XY before he suggests transferring the poisonous bug in the drama.

That makes sense. It would be very difficult to depict XY's perspective from the novel (hearing, touch and sensations, but no sight - just darkness).

Yep!

You're welcome :)

The novel only mentions XL giving XY his essential blood from his tongue via a kiss in chapter 48. In chapter 22 (the chapter that mentions the embrace), it does not specify how XL transfers his essential blood to XY or where in his body it comes from.

The translation I read says:

"Every twenty or thirty days Xiang Liu would heal her. When he was healing her, they ought to be very intimate because Xiao Yao could feel he was tightly embracing her. She could feel him from top to bottom. But during normal days Xiang Liu wouldn't hold her, at most he could caress her forehead and cheeks."

I interpreted that to mean that XL would sit behind her and hold her in his arms when he transfused his blood into her on each full moon, and then removed the poison (that was part of his blood) from her system. Definitely not having sex with her.

Cecelia Liu has a new drama? I'll have to check it out. I haven't watched any new dramas with her since 2017.

If I'm remembering correctly, the novel never actually shows XL commissioning the bow. There are very few scenes in the novel that involve XL but not XY. So technically nothing has been left out yet. They've basically added a new scene, but in a place that differs from where it should be if it were to match up with the novel's timeline (i.e., part way through XY's 37 year healing / revival process). In the novel, all the information about the bow being commissioned is described by Xing Chen to XY when she first describes the bow to XY in chapter 24.

And then in chapter 25 there's a scene where XY scoffs that FFB would never spend money to commission a bow for her and XL/FFB just looks at the crescent moon mark on her arm (where the bow he commissioned for her is kept) and smiles, just to make it clear to the reader that he commissioned the bow (even though it's already obvious).

In episode 13, XL does commission a bow and set of arrows from Xing Chen, and all the details of that scene (XL being in disguise and using a badge from the Gui Fang clan, the materials being difficult to acquire, etc.) match what Xing Chen described when she told XY about the person who commissioned her bow.

So you're right, it's possible that they changed the timing in the drama and this scene was meant to show XL commissioning the crescent moon bow for XL, but that's a pretty big change. It means he commissioned the bow way before he started teaching XY archery and way before he gave her transfusions of his blood to revive her. In the novel, the fact that XL's blood is in her system makes her the only person that can wield that bow.

If they did make that change, my guess is that: (1) they wanted to show XL being the person to commission it on screen so it was obvious, but they didn't want to do it in the middle of XY's revival scenes; and (2) they wanted to show that XL was far away when XY was taken away by ZX to explain why he didn't go to her immediately when she tried to call him by hurting herself, and it made sense to use the bow-commissioning moment for that purpose.

Since I just checked: XL commissions the bow 14 minutes into episode 13, XY hurts herself in the next scene (16 minutes in), and XL arrives at her clinic 26 minutes into episode 13. He's also injured (or at least, there's blood on his sleeve) when he arrives. His sleeve is still bloody when he feels XY's leg get broken (a little over two minutes into episode 14) and when he arrives at the shore of Five Gods Mountain (about 20 minutes into episode 14). So he must have done some fighting between commissioning the weapons and going to XY.

Eddie Peng as Wei Wu Ji is one of my all time faves.

Those events haven't been covered in the drama yet. The bow that XY/FFB commissioned for XY is given to her in chapter 24 of the novel, which is after XY is assassinated and XL resurrects her (in chapter 22). XY is told that the bow was commissioned 35 years earlier, meaning that XL commissioned it near the beginning of the 37 years he spent reviving her.

That doesn't sound like anything I remember from this part, and XY knew XL was FFB at that point. Could you be thinking of the part where XY finds out that TSJ's fiance is pregnant perhaps? Or maybe the moment (after XL takes XY away from her wedding) where XL asked XY who she would most like to spend the rest of her life with and she couldn't answer?