Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

 liddi:

Hair unkempt or perfunctorily groomed, and there was a fair amount of struggle getting the 3 layers of outfits on, but so happy that the mini family is reunited at last!

Awwww.  So cute.  I love that little Chubby!

 HeadInTheClouds:

You ended up getting mini MQ as well! If only they released a 20 cm version of FFB for the complete set. Do you think we are beyond help, liddi?? :-)

Yes.  Gloriously beyond help when it comes to these cuties.

 HeadInTheClouds:

Awww!!! Look at how cute they are. Was mini XL hair crazy to tame like his bigger version? You ended up getting mini MQ as well!

They are adorable, aren't they? To be honest, I haven't tried taming mini-Xiang Liu's hair yet, just did a quick smooth over and hid the unruly locks behind his head for the impromptu photoshoot. As you can see, I had given up grooming mini-Fangfeng Bei's hair! Will hand all such arduous tasks to my girl. And yes, how could I not bring mini-Mao Qiu home along with his diminutive master+alter ego? It would be a crime to separate them in whichever universe!  

 HeadInTheClouds:

If only they released a 20 cm version of FFB for the complete set. Do you think we are beyond help, liddi?? :-)

 Kokuto:

Yes.  Gloriously beyond help when it comes to these cuties.

Beyond help? Count me in too. If they ever released an official 20cm Fangfeng Bei, I will be having a good talk with my wallet once more about the importance of unity and reunions.

 HeadInTheClouds:

My mini XL arrived the day after I left for my holiday:-(. Couldn't do the Christmas photoshoot with him. 

Mine arrived just yesterday, hence the impromptu photoshoot! First time I have ever had to literally dress the doll - previous ones I ever bought observed decorum and were well covered upon arrival. I wonder whether that was the reason Xiang Liu had this unamused expression on his face, being subjected to such indignity!

 Kokuto:

Awwww.  So cute.  I love that little Chubby!

I love him too, though I still adore his bigger version best - so huggable and therapeutic to be with! 

 Kokuto:

I hope everyone had a great holiday, if you celebrate.  Like everyone else, real life seems to have kept me busy, lately.  But I enjoy lurking when I get a chance.  Definitely looking forward to next year!

It has been a very hectic few weeks for me but it is awesome getting together with most of my family, and I do sneak a peek every now and then when I can, despite being unable to engage. Hopefully things ease up as the year rolls in, though with Chinese New Year coming up, it might not be for some time yet. 

 AH :

Love this!

Mini FFB being 60% hair is particularly funny and adorable. ^^

haha Mini-Fangfeng Bei is clearly the most cheerful of the lot, despite his Sadako-esque hair! I certainly hope my daughter has far better luck than her clueless mummy on how to manage it!

https://www.wattpad.com/story/375589013?utm_source=android&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share_reading&wp_page=library&wp_uname=Anavrin1907

A story where Xiang Liu and Xiaoyao end up together :)

@blabla100 Thank you for your reply. I appreciate that you'd give it a go. No pressure though. Happy new year to you :)

 Winniewin17:

@blabla100 Thank you for your reply. I appreciate that you'd give it a go. No pressure though. Happy new year to you :)

62 chapters, wow :) you wrote it? 

I know this forum is not too active anymore, but I re-read a bit from the 2019 version and a bit from once pomised and there are a few things that stood out to me that I haven't noticed before. 

One is that when  XY decided to retrieve the crystal ball from the North Pole, the big event that happened before was that she agreed to set a wedding date with Feng Long (Jing, the one who loved her, was powerless and XL, the one she loved, was heartless) . I always thought that that alone was what put things into action (remember that she retrieved the ball after 4 years, even though the ball only needed 2 to 3 years to be done) but there was something else that happened at that time as well, something that really caught her full attention, which is yellow emperor telling her that he kept trying to cut a deal with XL all of these years but he rejected everything. I believe it was then when she finally understood that XL will never abandon his goal no matter what, so there was nothing more she could do other than play her last card and begging him to take her with him. That's in line with her answer to yellow emperor "the last time" when he told her that she keeps wasting things when he saw the crystal ball she made. 

Another thing that stood out to me was XY's delay to set a wedding date with Jing. I personally never believed that the reason for that was cause of her medical studies or cause she didn't want to separate from CX, but because of XL. Again, no doubt în my mind that that's what yellow emperor meant when he told her that she's exactly like her mom,  not because of her interest în medicine (she started seriously learning medicine way before that, yellow emperor was aware of that, but he never felt the need to point it out  to her that she's like her mom) , but because of her delay in getting married. Ah Heng tried to delay her marriage to shaohao as well, because the one she loved was Chi You. Anyway, what I wanted to point out îs the order of events. Coincidence or not, Jing's proposal and XY's delay came right after the meeting they had with the voodoo King and the meeting XY and XL had on the boat, with Jing în the background. "Jing couldn't explain the feeling but he rushed forward and grabbed XY as if afraid she would vanish from his life"  was basically explained a few lines later, when Jing told her that "You're not allowed to be anyonelse's wife".  Jing knew he was very close to lose her forever if at that moment XY would have gone after XL, she was too close to the truth and the love between them would have been revelead, but again that's not what XL wanted, hence why he let Jing listen to the conversation, his 9 heads did anticipate the course of events. 

Also, koala's version doesn't really mention the details, but after XL saved her în chapter 43 and they had that argument on the boat that lead them to be at odds again , there's another scene when she starts singing the sad ballad while crying, on her way back home, when CX asked her to sing something for him.  After CX fell sleep,  the melody changed to "why îs there Joy and sorrow în the world, why does life have separations, i only wish to be with you, stay togheter forever, never separate". Did she think about Jing? I don't believe so. She just separated from XL earlier and she kept thinking of the events that surrounded XL all day, which culminated with singing  and crying out the part about separations and only wishing to be with you, never to separate and not the full song. 

 A gray line that I read on a site that to me makes a lot of sense îs XY's projection în Jing of the feelings she has for XL. The exemple was meant to show how she diverts her attention to shaohao whenever Chi You came to her mind, as well as how she diverts it to Jing whenever she gets scared of her feelings for XL. Don't remember the chapter, but there was a scene when this matter îs described very well, she fought with Ah Nian and she recalled how her mom and Chi You looked at eachother. She couldn't understand then, but now she does (because she too fell for XL and not for Jing). She does 2 things next that are related and they explain her mindset, one îs that she thinks of how much shaohao loves her, so she must be her daughter and second,  as Chi You - shaohao's parallel as setting a pattern, she uses Jing and grabs a plum wine bottle out of a drawer that's been specifically mentioned to be full of poisons, to push back her feelings for XL and brainwash herself that the one she wants îs actually Jing, not XL. Basically she's trying to convince herself that she's shaohao's daughter, not Chi You's and that the one she wants is Jing, not XL. There are more exemples, when she tried to kiss Jing because she couldn't kiss XL, when she tried to air kiss him underwater and Jing pointed out that he wasn't the one în her eyes, when she feed him medicine with her mouth after the 37 years underwater etc. CX is the same, he whispers XY's name on his wedding night and treats ah Nian as a replacement, shaohao too, he marries someone that looks like ah Heng etc etc.  It's running în the whole novel, that's why the reference to a midsummer night's dream, which we know it's been pointed out in the novel makes sense. I haven't read the play, but to my knowledge it's a story of misplaced lovers that ends with things going back as they were, therefore everything turned out to be alright în the morning. 

@liddi

"This is what I mentioned in my post Xiao Yao's Journey Up to the Gifting of the Crystal Globe" 

Thank you for the link, liddi! Your post did cross my mind when I posted my thoughts this morning and I even searched for it, because I was curious to re-read it again, but I had no luck, so thank you! 

"In spite of Xiao Yao trying to brush aside the Shaman King's explanations that only lovers can plant the Lovers bug, Jing was obviously not fooled for a second. Her shared intimacy with Xiang Liu listening to the song of the merpeople"

Definetely. XY tried to minimize things in order to save face in front of jing, but both of them knew that the voodoo King was telling the truth. She was so affected by his words, that she wanted to spend another night on the sea, hoping or calling XL through the bugs to come and meet with her. Jing couldn't have heard the song of the merpeople, since he wasn't a merman, but he did hear their discussion and he understood the implications of XY's questions to XL very well and that's what got him scared. XY desperately wanted to find out if what the voodoo king told her is true. "If I die, can you live?" Are we mandarin ducks? The only thing that confused XY was the fact that XL did manage to take out the bug from CX.  

"Hmm...  the song was always associated with Jing's scenes"

I have my doubts about that, there are things in the story that I am already convinced of, but there are also some things that I view with a question mark and the ballad is one of them. You raised a very good point with FFB's parting prior and XY's wishing he could always be FFB (it didn't even cross my mind before you mentioned, so thank you), but there's more about that scene that makes me question the person she sang it for. I mean the whole description of the scene has double meaning. The willow, the moon, the thick shadows (from my recollection "shadows" is a word that TH used it în more than a YaoLiu scene în order to describe their layered relationship and to emphasize that there's more than what meets the eye between them. She might have used it just to make the scene look more poetic, but she could also used it as in telling us that what we see it's not just black and white) Everything is quite poetic and that's more în tone with YaoLiu than YaoJing. Even the people who believe that XY loved both XL and Jing should know that at that time her feelings for jing weren't as strong as they apperead. She cried her heart out about missing and wanting to spend the rest of her life with someone, yet as we found out în the later chapters, she didn't even believe în jing at that point în time. It didn't convine me. There's also this part:

"Xiaoyao had a good alcohol tolerance. In the past, even if she was drunk, her mind was still clear. But tonight, she drank so much that her mind was confused." 

What's the point of pointing out that her mind was confused? Dizzy yes, but the mind being confused? Confused about what? 

Also, when Jing got drunk and he started to sing the ballad himself, XY didn't have much of a reaction and that's not really în tone with YaoJing. If she sang that ballad to him în chapter 20, I would have expected XY to get more emotional when she heard Jing sing it, but not really. Everyone was touched, but her. 

I don't know, I keep the ballad in "I am not sure what to think" folder,  next to the milky way scene. I tend to believe she did project XL through Jing în that scene aș well, but not enough arguments, besides her statement from chapter 34 that "everyone had their secrets / abnormalities on that date". Which were hers, her date with jing, her out of character attitude or maybe she had some secret thoughts that no one knew about? 

"At that time, Jing had just returned not long ago, and guessed that Yiying was having a quarrel with Hou, so in order to piss Hou off, she deliberately treated Jing very gently and considerate. Xiao Yao couldn't help but sigh softly. It turned out that everyone on the boat, except Feng Long, had other thoughts, so no one noticed anyone else's abnormality."

Thinking about it, XY too had a quarrel with XL the night before,  when he let her swim back by herself. She was still annoyed at that, because she mentioned that if it wasn't for that, she would have jumped into the water for a swim too. FFYY was gentle to jing because she was annoyed at Hou, could it be that XY acted so flirtatious / abnormal towards jing în order to annoy XL too?  XL definetely took notice of the date, giving that he basically had that scene with the "feed me" repetead when he first met her as FBei, one chapter later. 

Anyway, back to the milky way, maybe she did saw XL în Jing when he untied his hair, but maybe în the scene where she saw jing with white hair and recalled that moment again, she thought of it as a memory of Jing. Or maybe the white hair on jing wasn't unintentional. The false getting mix with the truth. Problem is I am not very familiar with TH and I don't know how layered she is as a writer, so I don't know how far to go with my interpretations, but giving the novel descriptions, the " is what we can see with our naked eyes really the truth", the gray line and all that, I personally don't find it far fetched. Let's add the lovers bug in the mix and its conditions and things are getting even more clearer, to me at least.