Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

 AH :

This forum provides some interesting clarification and background on the difference between 绿 and 青. It seems like 青 is used to refer to things that are blue or greenish blue more often, but it is sometimes used to refer to things that are truly green (confusingly, sometimes even the green of grass). While 绿 generally refers to things that are truly green, like the green of leaves or the green of grass.

This is great! I was like, wait, those are not the hanzi I learned for green and blue hehehe

 liddi:

Commonly, 青 means "green", but in certain contexts, it can also allude to a shade of blue. Descriptions such as 青衣 usually refer to green clothes, as opposed to 蓝衣 blue clothes.

天青色 refers to a colour which is similar to that of the sky on a clear day.

绿 is unequivocally green, regardless of what it is used to describe.

 liddi:

绿竹 can mean literally "green bamboo" or a species of bamboo (Bambusa oldhamii) which is native to Taiwan and southern China, densely foliated, and can grow up to 20m tall, with a diameter of 10 cm.

Thanks for this liddi!

 liddi:

For me, I would think of 竹 as a shoot or clump of bamboo. Certainly, not a bamboo forest. 

In that case, it does seem like Koala's choice to translate it as "forest" is outright incorrect, and not just imprecise. 

 liddi:

The text you referenced in Vol 1 Ch8 reinforces Jing's overall appearance, which would affirm that he should appear to be more like a bamboo stalk (fluid) rather than an entire forest:

Thanks for the translation liddi!

 liddi:

A jade crown held his hair up

I was curious about what this might look like so I checked the Manhua panel that depicts this scene to see how the artist imagined it.

 AH :

I was curious about what this might look like so I checked the Manhua panel that depicts this scene to see how the artist imagined it.

The colour and robes look exactly right, though the belt is not as loose as I expected. I still can't reconcile wooden clogs with floating clouds though...

玉冠束发 The jade crown holding his hair up is not quite how I would have imagined it. I see it more like how Cang Xuan usually wears his hair, or Mei Changsu in NiF, even though the effect of him floating on clouds with fluttering robes is perhaps not as consistent with that hairdo:

Still, it would be more consistent with the scene in Vol 1 Ch14 on the ship, when he finally undid the coronet that held his hair:

却看璟一边站起，一边随手解开了束发的发冠，满头青丝如银河泻九天，披落在他背上，飘散在海风中。他侧倚着船栏，几分慵懒、几分随意地看着东边天空初露的晨曦。 
However, she saw Jing undo the coronet that held his hair as he stood up, sending a head full of black hair down his back like the galaxy falling from the sky, flying in the sea breeze. He leaned against the railing of the ship, gazing lazily and casually at the first light of dawn in the eastern sky.

-- Vol 1 Ch14

 liddi:

The colour and robes look exactly right, though the belt is not as loose as I expected. I still can't reconcile wooden clogs with floating clouds though...

I was thinking of Japanese geta, which are wooden bottom, but the top is like a flip flop.  But they might be more of a shoe on top of a geta bottom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanfu_footwear

Boy the characters for Lu and Ji are very similar.

A few questions that I see getting debated on this thread are:

1. Why did XY walk into an obvious death trap after TSJ disappeared?
2. Why did XY commit suicide after finding out that CX betrayed her?
3. What did XY hope would happen after she agreed to be the next Royal Mother?

The answer to all three questions is “XY hoped XL would come save her and take her away.” Why? Because of sun symbolism, the Statue of Liberty, and blue flowers. Just kidding. Because Tong Hua is an environmentalist: she recycled the same story arc three times during the course of the novel. The third arc is abbreviated because TSJ is absent for most of it, and we’re spared from a lot of his nonsense. However, we can understand the motivations behind XY’s actions by copy/pasting XY’s motivations from parallel arcs.

 liddi:

he made the role his own

True!

 liddi:

Certainly, the archery lessons would not appear half as intimate if she only reached up to his chest, and not their faces so close to each other:

Very true. Although a height difference that was still significant, but less extreme than in the Manhua, can still be good. 

 liddi:

The manhua does not depict the scene where he guides her movements though, him telling her to try once more herself (perhaps they find the height difference daunting to illustrate too?)

Lol, good deduction.

 liddi:

I see the English translation of the manhua is up to Yu Jiang's attack? Which means you have met Fangfeng Bei.

Yep. Not sure if it will continue any further though. I think I read something last year about the person doing the English scans not continuing. 

 liddi:

I I wonder why they chose to give him different coloured eyes as Xiang Liu vs Fangfeng Bei. 

I thought it might be a demon vs. deity thing (where they decided to give deities certain eye colours and demons certain eye colours), but not sure. It does seem inconsistent with the idea that FFB is supposed to be XL with no magic or transformations at play. Just a bit of hair dye added and his armour taken off. 

 liddi:

Hearts beating as one:

 liddi:

Fangfeng Bei unmasked:

Hadn't seen this! This is past the point where the English translation cuts off. 

 AH :

Very true. Although a height difference that was still significant, but less extreme than in the Manhua, can still be good.

That's true.

 AH :

Yep. Not sure if it will continue any further though. I think I read something last year about the person doing the English scans not continuing. 

That's very disappointing news. Hopefully someone else will take up the mantle. If all else fails, there is still the Chinese version available. Knowing the novel as well as we do, it should not be difficult to deduce which scenes are illustrated.

 AH :

I thought it might be a demon vs. deity thing (where they decided to give deities certain eye colours and demons certain eye colours), but not sure. It does seem inconsistent with the idea that FFB is supposed to be XL with no magic or transformations at play. Just a bit of hair dye added and his armour taken off. 

I don't know either. There is artistic license to consider, of course. Either way, nothing that would significantly spoil the enjoyment of the manhua. Just curious why they felt it necessary to do so.

 AH :

Hadn't seen this! This is past the point where the English translation cuts off. 

Yes, these scenes have not been covered in the English version yet. Hopefully it catches up sometime in the near future.

Some more...

Doggy Bei:

"How about I hug you? I am willing to use my handsome man wiles on you."

"Why not stop being a princess, and follow me to roam the world?"

You would have seen this one, but I love how cool Fangfeng Bei looked here. It's pretty ironic that the drama waters down a lot of scenes, such as the aerial battles between Cang Xuan and Xiang Liu's men in Qingshui town. However, when Fangfeng Bei had his arrow aimed at Cang Xuan in Xuan Yuan city, he was on a winged horse up in the sky overlooking them in the drama even though the novel had him simpily at the end of a darkened street.