PeachBlossomGoddess

I am not at all bothered by the shidi issue, it is much ado about nothing. It is very common trope for shixiong and shimei to fall in love in countless historical Chinese fiction so especially in a BL context it doesn't at all automatically brother zone a relationship between shixiong and shidi. In fact to me, it actually suggests the opposite. The relationship is changing because ZZS protective instincts and empathy has been aroused as he understands how deeply traumatised and disturbed WKX has been by his past.

The pace has slowed somewhat but it is still engaging. I think there are too many sects in the storyline and maybe a tad too many side stories/characters. Also it appears the main villain is revealed already around the halfway point which does take away a bit of the mystery for me but I think its still a very enjoyable watch as we are seeing a lot more character and relationship development even though the plot has slowed. It is definitely not crashing and burning mid way like some of the other dramas I think I know you are referring to.

LOL - Beijing people consider their mandarin the most perfect and are incredibly snobbish about it. My Beijing friends dropped Longest Day in Changan because Jackson Yee plays an intellectual nobleman but his putonghua has a clear common Southern tone whereas Lei Jiayin plays a blue collar military man but he speaks flawless Beijing mandarin. Their biggest issue with the show is that it wasn't dubbed and that took them out of character because the main characters didn't sound the way the should! As for me, the average Beijing taxi driver is the bane of my existence, they roll their tongue so much they are utterly incomprehensible. Nobody was happier than I when smartphones came along and I could just show them where I wanted to go.

If you listen carefully to the conversation between ZZS and WKS in ep 22, it is hinted heavily that ZZS has figured it out. WKS (in the bath, yeah don't be too distracted by his chest) thinks he had a narrow escape from being busted by ZZS but he is delusional IMHO. If Scorpian King the head of a rival spy/assassin organisation busted WKS right away, there is no way our ZZS is so much less competent he didn't figure it out some time back either.

That is theoretically true but as you point out there are different dialects and I often have a hard time understanding 100pct of the Mandarin that is spoken to me for business it is far from as clean and as perfect as what we hear in dramas. That said, it is Mandarin spoken fluently by native speakers nonetheless. In fact there is a hilarious scene in The Penalty Zone where one guy insists that anyone that works for him has to speak Putonghua in very heavily accented and difficult to understand Putonghua. It is kind of like half the time I don't fully understand what the Brits, Scots or the Aussies are saying even though they are speaking English.

I started watching it but I ended up dropped it after maybe 5 of 6. It is not my kind of humour and neither lead clicked with me but I saw the reviews on it are decent. The FL's costumes were the highlight for me.

They are speaking Putonghua, which is the way mandarin is spoken in mainland China. In Taiwan they speak Guoyu which is a bit different from the mandarin spoken in China - it is more whiny whereas Putonghua is more no nonsense. Simplified and traditional refers to the way the characters are written, not spoken. China, uses simplified Chinese characters whereas Taiwan and Hong Kong still use traditional. Most people who are fluent in Mandarin can understand both Putonghua and Guoyu and they can read both simplified and traditional. Interestingly most historical Chinese dramas still use written traditional characters as that is more historically accurate (i.e, the way building names, letters are written etc).

LOL... there is some light around 28/29...

The first episode Vin Zhang is visibly trembling from the effort of holding those yoga air poses - I almost died laughing.

Well we already see most of this in the early episodes. We see in the beginning WKX unleashes Ghost Valley on jianghu promising to make whoever recovers the glazed shell the leader of the Ten Devil (ie second to him). So no one needs a cover to go after the pieces - he is asked them to get him liulijia, that is their mission. As a result, a Ghost Valley faction kills Chengling's family - this is unambiguous. How is WKX not at least indirectly responsible? I can see they may try to wiggle out of it by saying its the Zhao Jing/Scorpion King faction but that is a cop out. And besides WKX didn't care - he indiscriminately goes after jianghu broadly holding them all responsible for his parents death. If Chengling was just a fraction of the hate driven person WKX is, he would have more than just cause to go after WKX for his family's murder. Even if he doesn't want to kill him dead, I can't see how he has any iota of affection left for him after this is revealed. SMH.

It is funny that you say that because I couldn't get into JOL or Tiger and Rose, I dropped both. I find this one quite entertaining, maybe it is because I really like Guo Qilin. But the drama is sagging in the second half, I am struggling to complete.

Maybe he is just waiting because he wants WKX to tell him when he is ready to. And he is much more interested in what made WKX into the master of Ghost Valley and who he was prior to that than the fact itself. He is totally the master spy - the way he analysed and deduced Zhao Jing as the other troublemaker in the late teen episodes shows how smart he is and makes it highly unlikely that he is not on to WKX.

Enjoy! :)

"but the character WKX is just a little too showy"
I think you put your finger on it, it is like he wants attention all the time. There are times it is too much and I find him tiresome and needy. I am less interested in all the speculation about who is the woman but to me it is unambiguously WKX just in the way he behaves. Not to mention those bright flowery and increasingly girly outfits and they have been plastering more lipstick and blush on him in the later episodes. I really wish they wouldn't do that.

That's interesting about ZZS - I am a lot more interested in his backstory and motivators - it is less tropey than WKX's. I hope we get to learn more about him when we get to Four Seasons.

I also don't exactly consider that ZZS righteous - he starts out as somewhat indifferent because he is dying and all the people he cares about are gone. To me, Chengling was the first reason he started to care about the living again but his universe is very narrow. He doesn't really want to involve himself in any of the jianghu quarrels unless it relates to WKX or Chengling, possibly Ye Baiyi. I guess given his current state of health that is probably appropriate.

I also think they are wrote themselves into a bit of a pickle. WKX is indirectly responsible for Chengling's family's massacre by Ghost Valley. If Chengling were like him, he would have more than just cause to go completely nuts on WKX and kill him dead just like WKX is going berserk on jianghu . How are they going to resolve this in a good way I just don't know.

IMHO either he already has or he suspects. He was a head spy, I'd be shocked if he didn't have tabs on Ghost Valley. Scorpion King knew who WKX is instantaneously so he should not be that difficult to identify.

That's a bit of a shame to hear that about ZZS in the drama vs the book but actually he is the character I find much more intriguing and interesting from the start. I find the eye for an eye trope too common a Wuxia motivator so even though WKX is interesting in many other ways, his primary motivator is less interesting for me. I also felt that Gong Jun overacted in the beginning and struck me as very oily it took me awhile to wash the grease off my face. I tend to prefer more subtle and nuanced performances, which I feel ZZH has delivered quite consistently. That said, they are both doing a superb job and are perfect foils for each other. I am solidly in the minority camp of preferring both ZZS/ZZH both in terms of character and actor but at this point WKX/GJ has grown considerably on me too.

For me, this is one of those legends where they disappear into the forest together never to be seen again. The end.
If you can't leave it at that, then it is fair to think he also dies shortly/6 months after she does. I have seen Chinese netizens speculate that Zhaixing actually succeeded in transferring the poison to herself, thus saving him - this is why she bled black when she was injured in the ending episode - I don't remember seeing that and it is too heartbreaking I don't want to go to rewatch it. But in either case, it would explain why you see him alone watching butterflies.

I suspect he already more or less figured it out.

They are from the Shenyi (miracle doctor) Valley, where Rong Xuan's wife is also from.