ShortCircuit

... I have a looooong list. Danmei is so addictive (and most of them have no 18+ scenes at all, but the stories are mesmerising.)

MXTX wrote three novels so far - MDZS (5 volumes), Heaven Official's Blessing (or TGCF - 8 volumes), and Scum Villain's Self-Saving System (4 volumes). MDZS is an all-time favourite, but SVSSS is hilarious - these last two don't have dramas - they WERE filmed/filming but the censors basically banned danmei adaptation after WoH, LOL, they couldn't take Wen KeXing openly flirting. They do have donghua adaptations ongoing though.

And then there's the whole rest of them, LOL (there are some great ones that are not yet licensed by SSE or other publishers got their license and do nothing with them yet (yes Rosmei I'm looking at you, How to Survive as a Villain WHEN?!) They do have ebook versions too, but I ALREADY read most of these stories in fan TLs, I don't want them in ebook form, I want to feel real paper and smell that amazing book smell.

Here's a long list of what they have (completed or ongoing), just so you can follow it back to their site and look at the covers :D

https://sevenseasentertainment.com/danmeibooks/#home

There are two extra movies but they don't involve the MLs, sadly. One is about Wen Ning and the juniors going on regular Night Hunting missions, the other is about a very important pair of brothers but don't include WWX or LWJ *sad*

I highly recommend at least one of them - Fatal Journey - but not immediately after finishing the drama.

There are two donghua (animated) versions of MDZS - one is the serious one, with pretty much the same story as the drama / novel, but following the novel a bit closer (still censored, but not as much as the drama. They even included resurrected WWX opining that LWJ is his type so he'd rather go with him and not Jiang Cheng when they first met after the Mo Manor story ends, LOL. The plot flows more like in the novel, with more and shorter time flashbacks between the past and the present. The animation is amazing, the music is great, have a try at it!) The other one is a chibi short-form (some 5-mins eps) that is the cutest thing of them all, and has a lot of sweet moments from or inspired by the novel.

There's also an audio drama (links above, if you're interested). They cover pretty much the whole novel, and don't shy even from the riskier scenes, LOL. (The confession!!... and the aftermath of it, LOL)

There's obviously the novel - the fan TL still floats around the internet somewhere, but the novel has been officially TLed by Seven Seas Entertainment (they're amazing - the books aren't exactly cheap but they look worth the price. They have glossaries, inserted art, beautiful cover art, the works. I've spent more than I'm comfortable thinking about on those books - they are pretty good at keeping to release schedules and are publishing practically all my favourite danmei novels, can't help myself). MDZS has 5 volumes. SSE is also publishing a manhua (comic/manga) version that's not finished yet, but I don't have that one and I kind of don't want to read it.

So, you have options. The best would be the novel, IMHO, since it has a lot more story (particularly the romance) that isn't in the drama - plus the extras. But the donghua also rocks :)

PS I love it when this is the reaction of people coming closer to the end eps - before even starting it, there are usually quite a lot of comments on how the drama is so long, who can watch 50 eps. it can't be done, LOL. And then some watchers get so entranced they want more (we all do :D) and 50 is too few :D

I don't know either, but doesn't it fit? He put them together in the same classroom, didn't he? It's his fault LOL.

You might be mixing it with the first two eps (where he does call him that). He first (chronologically) calls him that when they meet again at that Wen waystation after WWX returns from the Burial Mounds.

That's because NHS is smart, LOL. He's just a porcelain doll :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8331QxSmWg (no spoilers at this time)

They probably just wanted to skip over the whole thing, it's simpler if LXC appears to be the leader from the beginning. But the thing is, he's not. And the story of why his father was secluded and everything carries a LOT of weight in LWJ's growth.

Also, it kind of skews the whole stratification of generations. All the older leaders have their own perspective, the younger ones another etc, and part of what makes this story great is the way it subtly (or not so subtly) presents the contrasts between generations.

It's a bit frustrating, LOL. Sorry.

I guess when you use which title or name depends on the intent of the person speaking, LOL. Like in, it's clear when they want to insult them or be respectful, otherwise, it depends on how the conversation flows and how familiar they are with the person they're talking to.

Someone you knew from school isn't necessarily more respected because they got famous or are better than you - that might explain JC's "Lan Er-Gonzi"'s, LOL. He wants to be sarcastic, our eyerolling king :D And he has personal beef with him anyway, since he thinks WWX did all those things around the Wen Clan trying to shield LWJ and getting their attention fixed on the Jiang Clan instead - then everything comes from that. Jiang Cheng can't vent his anger so he's out there finding targets to blame, unmerited as it may be. And then there's the jealousy - remember the "twin jades of GuSu" versus "the twin heroes of YunMeng" thing? He wanted to boast about his own and his brother's prowess and just when they could have become famous, WWX decided to drop the sword out of the blue (from JC's POV). So he takes some small pleasure out of calling him "second" LOL, as if it mattered to anyone.

Nie HuaiSang was everyone's friend in school, LOL. Not all of them were his friends back though. He's seen as meek, easily frightened, pretty much a coward - the Head-Shaker (一问三不知, lit. one question three don't knows says MDZS wiki, just so you see that descriptive character of Chinese, LOL.) He'd address everyone as -xiong ('bro), just to be friendly.

And his backer is his big brother. People would be friendly to him because Nie MingJue is at his back and he's (literally) a madman. (People in the Nie Clan were established by a butcher who cultivated a broadsword and not just the elegant sword, and the way they cultivated ALWAYS, no exceptions, turned them mad. Their broadswords are also mad and they get entombed to keep them safe, too - the tomb WWX and LWJ visited after the return to the current timeline was a sword-tomb of the Nie Clan). Nie HuaiSang is basically the ONLY clan leader who does NOT cultivate his own sword technique, because he doesn't want to go mad himself (people also think he's a coward not to do it, but it's simple self-preservation. He's a smart cookie, NHS.)

So to sum it up, it depends on situation, how familiar are you with the one you're speaking to, how friendly do you want to keep it, how much do you want to insult them (they do subtle insults like nobody's business in danmei, it's extremely entertaining :D), and if you can put your money where your mouth is, so to speak, LOL.

Lan XiChen only became the official clan leader after the Wen attack on Cloud Recesses. Until then, the titular clan leader was his own father, who lived in seclusion. Lan QiRen, his uncle, was only one of the respected teachers, not the leader.

The drama kind of skips over that attack a bit - the thing is, their father was alive until then and Wen Xu (Wen Chao's older and better brother) killed him. So LWJ not only lost his clan home, didn't know the fate of his own brother for a while, became a captive etc, he also lost his father.

I don't know where you are in the drama ATM, so I won't say more - but there's something very similar between LWJ and his father and that will be shown a bit later in the present timeline.

Yeah, LWJ calling WWX by his full official name is like mom calling you when you did something REALLY bad. You know you're in trouble, LOL.

WWX became the YiLing Patriarch when he settled in the Burial Mounds with the Wen refugees. It's what they call him in the town close to the Mounds, and it's spread by word of mouth, nobody planned it. He himself didn't push to be called that, but he's an easygoing person and didn't care about what others did. YiLing is the region they settled in, so he's the Patriarch (because he settled a new "town" but also because they thought he invented a new school of cultivation - demonical but still, new).

The personal (childhood) name is used in the immediate family and among friends (or lovers) - Lan Zhan, Wei Ying, Jiang WanYin (he's an exception and I think it bothers him a lot). When people use the personal name with someone they're not close to, it's basically insulting the person (that's why some of the cultivators call WWX "Wei Ying" - they're not close to him but want to demean him).
The official name is to be used in formal meetings and by anyone who isn't close - Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian, Lan XiChen etc. Nobody but WWX is calling LWJ by his personal name, LOL, not even XiChen. The one time WWX uses LWJ's formal name, IIRC, is when they meet the first time after he ended up in the Burial Mounds, when LWJ wanted to take him to Cloud Recesses and "cure" him of demonic cultivation.

Some of the names you noticed are normal titles. Chinese is a very descriptive language, and a lot of times people don't even use names (maybe you noticed that names appear in the TL that are NOT pronounced in the dialogue at all). Like, for example ShiJie - WWX NEVER calls her YanLi but ShiJie (elder martial sister), as she's his clan-sister, and older than him. He's her didi (younger brother, as a term of tenderness, and she calls him that a few times, and also ShiDi - younger martial brother). ShiXiong is a general term meaning "brother", kind of neutral, like you'd use with anyone you're in the same clan with and not close or distant. (Shizun or ShiFu would be TLed as "master"/"martial clan master", but they don't use those a lot). A much more personal word to use for a brother (though not apparent a lot in TU) is "ge" (you'd say - if you dared - Lan-Ge, for example, LOL). Or if you were a girl and you liked him OR he was your actual brother, you'd say "gege" - or "JieJie" for an elder sister, in the same circumstances. A younger sister would be meimei and a younger brother would be didi. Basically doubling the word means it's an endearment - or close/personal - term/meaning. YanLi also calls WWX XianXian a few times, or A-Xian. (A- affixed in front of the name is an endearment term also.)

Some of them are numerals, LOL. Lan Er-Gongzi literally translates as Second-young lord Lan. Gongzi means (young) gentleman, Er is the numeral for 2, and so they combine and describe him without naming him at all. You maybe had contact with other Chinese media, LOL, in the older wuxia movies everybody basically was numbered, not named - 13th sister, 4th uncle (maternal), 5th aunt (paternal), 2nd lady (by marriage) and so on and so forth. It's mayhem :D

For example, I've seen characters called SanDi - Third Younger Brother. In Wonderland of Love, also, the ML is called ShiQi Lang (because homonymically, ShiQi also means 17 and he's 17th LOL. His actual name is Li Ni).

As for the other titles, they got them also because people called them that. They ALL translate, LOL, and a good TL would have TLed them at all times. Sadly, the Netflix sub became official and they never TL the honorifics or adapt it so that you know who's speaking politely and who's showing their mannerless side (they do that with Korean subs too, it's so annoying).

All important/famous people got them. So, in short - one personal name for close family and friends, a second official name for everybody else, and a title showing off your prowess if you had any to show.

Hanguang Jun - Light-Bearing Lord
ZeWu Jun - Brilliance OverGrowth Lord
Chifeng Zun - Red-Blade Master (this is Nie MingJue)
LianFang Zun - Hidden Fragrance Lord (but actually LianFang is also his courtesy name, LOL).
SanDu ShengShou - Three-Bane Master (this is Jiang Cheng).

And so on, and so forth.

A lot of these names and titles use very different ideograms to be written even though they sound the same (at least to a Western ear, LOL) when pronounced. When written in a Latin alphabet, there are a lot of accents to indicate how they should be pronounced. When people introduce themselves, they usually explain their names, so that others could write them down correctly if needed - like naming the radicals they use or the actual words and their original meaning, because Chinese is so complex.

And then there are the dialects and the turns-of-phrase that have meaning in Chinese but it's cultural and subtle and only a little bit translated well (almost never in a direct-meaning TL, LOL). I am forever in awe and grateful to all TLers who work on Chinese novels, some of them take the time to explain what the words mean separately and how you'd go from what's written to the actual meaning, it's impressive and fascinating :)

PS as for the nicknames, they're just nicknames, LOL - JZX got to be called Peacock because he dresses so fashionably LOL, and Jin Ling became Lil' Miss because he's so sensitive. (Still, I think in his case it's warranted.)

Rental holy jewelry sounds about right LOL.

... We should all get some. I just saw these awesome earrings, too bad I can't afford them. But maybe rent...? As long as they're holy :D

That one who was a bit too helpful is gonna get dead right? Either that or he has a statue of his own buried somewhere and he's afraid he's on the ghost's list.

Jump scares are becoming my favourites.

The TL was wonky all ep this time, come on guys, this is BL, there's no chance someone's ex is a woman, LOL.

Also, Darin has the most honest screams of fear of anyone I've ever heard in a BL drama, LOL (I screamed with him and we sounded kind of same hahaha~)

ETA LOL @King wanting to get arrested (in the BTS), us, too, buddy, us, too wish that for you!

No, it's a huge (though hilarious) spoiler, it spoils the whole surprise. Wait for it, you're almost there. I'll send it when you're over the surprise, LOL. (Don't look it up :D)

I'm so tempted to send you the skit they did on Jin Ling's uncles right now and holding on by the tips of my fingers LOL

Did you SEE LWJ's face?!! He was MORTIFIED, doing superior math calculations to try and remember what he said or did!!

I imagine he was also calculating how fast can he run away until WWX would say something along the lines of - "you said you liked... ME!" :D

I love all his thunderstruck expressions.

There's AT LEAST one more marriage (incomplete, who cares, they can re-marry each and every time they walk out the door as far as I'm concerned).

WWX also will get shocked a few more times by the way LWJ acts now in this rebirth life of his. It didn't use to happen before, it's lovely to see it now :)

It was kind of his fault in a roundabout way, though. But it doesn't matter, since if they played the "what if" game, they'd go back to the beginning of time. Or at least back to the time Jiang FengMian took him home when he found his former shimei's son wandering lost among the beggars when he was a child.

Things happened. It can't be helped or changed.

As for JZX,.. That's a bit different from the novel and I won't spoil it, just in case. But the blame is not as clear-cut as it appears.

For context, *a-hem*, giving a family a rooster is a proposal for their family's maiden's hand in marriage. The asking of "is it good enough" is part of the marriage tradition.

So you see... he was actually proposing hahaha~ He even offered two, just in case one wasn't enough!! :D

Did you SEE WWX's face?! :D (If the girl said the rooster was good/fat enough, the proposal was considered accepted. And WWX said yes, it's good, the very best! - they're so married :D)

Someone else interfered. Are you through 33 now? Then you know they're already thinking about what happened on that road and at Nightless City. One of the best - THE VERY BEST IMHO - scenes that is upcoming will be focusing on exactly what that means. (You should know I'm trying really hard not to spoil it right now but I'm being pretty fangirly over it every time someone comes here to discuss the story :) )

@The Jianghu considering WWX's circumstances - LOL, not even Jiang Cheng knows about it. He didn't even tell LWJ. Only Wen Ning knows from the past. They - the rest of the "orthodox" cultivators - also didn't know - but even if they did, TBH I'm pretty sure they wouldn't care. WWX is - strangely - for once very aware of how obnoxious he was being when he was at the top, so they also hated him for being such a show-off. His generation didn't love him for it a lot (except for a select few, one of whom hasn't made a move yet, LOL, in the open), but the old people straight up resented him for being an upstart (not from a clan, nobody's child, unruly, full of ideas, leading others astray LOL, eventually turning into a demonic cultivator - he's the bad guy they'd tell kids stories about to frighten them into being good. )

They wouldn't care at all, and he knows it. And it's not like he doesn't care... *okay stopping it here, before any more slips through - good things ahead though!!*

LOL, you're looking at it from an outsider's POV. The thing is, WWX is not being blamed for being out of norms though he regularly is, but for being a demonic cultivator. That's the biggest NO-NO rule in Jianghu.

Even LWJ cautions him that anybody doing demonic cultivation is bound to pay, and pay a lot, for it, when it goes out of control. LWJ wasn't being an idiot, that IS what happens to everyone doing demonic cultivation. There can be no middle ground about it because it's been proven, all throughout history, that demonic cultivators eventually become out of control and to take them down will take a lot of work (and lives).

WWX sadly cannot use a sword anymore, so now all he does is use demonical/crafty tricks that he can still control. ChengQing is obviously a demonic spiritual weapon, and these - the rest of the cultivators - are going Night Hunting for monsters that WWX can control (and re-direct to use at will, which is the worst offense) the same monsters, to his own purposes. And his good intentions do not mean anything if the results are bad - look at the trap on that road where Jin ZiXuan died because an out-of-control Wen Ning attacked him.

That's why Lan QiRen, back in their school days, was so incensed with him proposing to use malicious energy to control uncontrollable ghosts and walking corpses and whatnot. There were people before WWX who did demonic cultivation and they're not fondly looked upon... It's just that he's smart and stubborn enough not to crack. Or he didn't have enough time to be subdued by it before his death (it takes both ChengQing AND the Yin Tiger Tally to work on him, by the time of his rebirth the amulet has been destroyed by his own hand so the danger of doing small tricks is a lot lower.)

It's the concept of zhījǐ - it can be translated as lifelong confidante but in Western languages the more fit word is "soulmate". It just doesn't immediately have the same romantic connotation that it would have, anywhere outside China. In xianxia/wuxia it describes someone who perfectly and without explanation understands their zhījǐ, platonically OR romantically (though, again, it doesn't necessarily include a romantic undertone. It doesn't dismiss it either though).

In the bold fan TLs I've seen, it's always translated as "I once took you for my soulmate", but in the NF TL that became the official one they made it "lifelong confidante" (which TBH sounds very clunky and twisted to fit, though it's not actually completely wrong. Still, who uses "confidante" usually? I very rarely come up across it, and mostly it would be a quote from TU, LOL).

PLUS, the range of emotions they displayed in that scene (that replaces the blindfold kiss, LOL) is definitely NOT about a platonic relationship.

Fans have been making memes about LWJ "detecting wifi" in that scene, LOL due to some homonyms in the words :D

Reddit provided a rendition of that, LOL -

无线热点 / wúxiànrèdiǎn / WiFi Hotspot

蓝牙 / lányá / Bluetooth (this is a bit more strained, but it seems to be MXTX (the author)'s nicknames for the charas :)