Xiang83

This is the only other answer I can give you, to add to why I think my guesswork is right:

https://kisskh.at/755301-the-story-of-mystics#comment-19384218

If it's any consolation, GJM cannot kill the entire team. That would piss everyone off. However, GJM can make it miserable enough for all the male characters. The title of this series in Mandarin gives a clue, depending on which interpretation is accurate. "大梦归离" can be interpreted as the end of a dream, to return to reality. The team being together as DHB is akin to a temporary dream, and the reality is what happens to each member of the team by the end of this series. WX's love with ZYZ is temporary because ZYZ must die, ZYZ being treated as a human with friends by his friends of DHB is temporary, ZYC having a demon brother and these friends in DHB is temporary- All things must come to an end, once the team is no longer a team.

For another series titled "一念关山" starring Liu ShiShi and Liu Yuning, it was translated as "A Journey To Love". That translation is totally off. If you look at the poem that this title is based on ( https://www.cidianwang.com/mingju/8/89335720682.htm ), it's most likely a sad ending for the main team and couple (and yes, that is what happened).

There are actually two parts in the psychological dissecting of Li Lun. Li Lun is somewhat of a textbook case, so he hasn't actually done anything to surprise me (spoilers present in link below up to episode 19, for those who have not watched until that episode):

https://kisskh.at/755301-the-story-of-mystics#comment-19374790

You can write long essays. It's more fun sometimes. Feel free to join in the dissection of Li Lun relative to Bai Jiu here (edited to add that spoilers are present up until episode 19, in link below):

https://kisskh.at/755301-the-story-of-mystics#comment-19375376

Ying Lei will have the happiest ending, despite losing almost all his male friends after he lost his grandfather. All the guys are destined to either die or be left alone. In all three stories involving GJM's favourite side actors and actresses, Qing Geng played by AiMi was the only one to have some kind of decent ending and as a demon, she can wait and look for her beloved Fei when he is reincarnated. Everybody else died, also after losing a loved one.

I correlate the amount of screentime and character development with the likelihood of GJM killing off the character, otherwise what's the point? ZYC is a slow developer emotionally and only human, so he will be given time to learn. Alone. Once again, all guesswork.

This is guesswork based on what has occurred so far plus certain scenes that have not yet aired in the subsequent episodes, but the guesswork involves what happens in the end for specific characters. Therefore, please scroll down to the end of the dots, if you want to read this. If you don't want to see that kind of guesswork, stop reading here.
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Given GJM's penchant for endings and also by episode 17, two-thirds of the characters in the opening song MV are already dead: a decent ending for any character is to be left alive and healthy, but alone. A sad ending is to be left alive but isolated and/or pining. And the key type of heart-wrenching ending is to have one character die for another, which may explain why GJM puts so much effort and storytelling into building up certain characters, because the likelihood of killing them off becomes high .

ZYC's sword will be broken by Li Lun. Despite his wound from ZYZ, Li Lun was already more powerful than ZYZ, in their fight against each other just before WX's teacher sealed away LL. The clue for that is ZYZ spitting blood, while Li Lun is unscathed. To fix this unique sword, it will necessitate going to a specific place and doing specific things. That should be where the memories of Yinglong and BingYi (ZYC's ancestor and first wielder of the sword) will be shown. ZYZ will sacrifice enough power to at least make ZYZ powerless and vulnerable, to enable the sword to be whole again.

The masked villain finds a way to become a demon given his research on humans and demons and animals of the Great Wilderness, he but still wants ZYZ's core and also poisons LL, because LL found out what the masked villain intends to do to the demons in the Great Wilderness and he also realised the masked villain lied to LL about it all this time. That poison won't be able to kill LL yet (unsure if it will succeed over time because Bai Jiu has a human body and this might be combined with the injury LL already possesses from ZYZ, which I am not sure if the effects of the Ever-burning Wood crosses over to Bai Jiu but is suppressed by his lineage containing Divine power), but I presume LL will not allow the masked villain to win, and LL definitely isn't willing to let such an underhanded villain kill ZYZ.

LL will sacrifice himself and ultimately die with the masked villain to protect his friend ZYZ and honour his oath to die together with ZYZ (by going first), only after giving to ZYC the eyes which ZYZ gave to LL so that ZYC can protect ZYZ. Oh yes, LL does so because ZYC also makes a choice indicating some form of sacrifice to protect ZYZ, which LL recognises as ZYC being worthy to protect ZYZ. By this point, ZYZ and ZYC have each made a sacrifice for the other that touches LL emotionally, and LL chooses what he does to protect both of them. The threesome that can never be, alas... So if we're still pretending they are all straight and not even bisexual, all this is a wonderful heartbreaking brotherly exchange of gestures.

ZYZ will insist on the vow that ZYC made to him being honoured. ZYZ will find some way to die, either by sacrificing himself for one of the team or having a fight with ZYC (and if the fight between Yinglong and Bing Yi ended because Yinglong killed himself on the sword after Bing Yi was unwilling to stab him, then ZYZ will do the same to ZYC in a fight).

Does Bai Jiu die? One possibility is Bai Jiu dies to save a team mate such as ZYC, or Bai Jiu doesn't die but makes a sacrifice to help stop the masked villain's plans which renders Bai Jiu so badly injured and weak that he turns into a tree to slowly heal and when enough time passes and his injuries are healed, Bai Jiu will recover enough to transform back into human form. This could take decades to hundreds of years, if it happens. Then Bai Jiu looks for Ying Lei, because everybody else in the team would have passed away... (unless ZYC's bloodline or LL gifting ZYC more than just the eyes means ZYC somehow gains a longer lifespan). If ZYC gains a longer lifespan, then GJM is likely to make ZYC pine for ZYZ in a brotherly way (otherwise how to pass the censors?) Why am I talking about pining? Wrt reincarnation, surely the idea of ZYC and ZYZ being the reincarnations of Bing Yi and Yinglong respectively must have crossed your minds? And if so, you can forget about a happy ending for ZYZ and ZYC.

WX continues as the Baize goddess and picks a pupil, without ZYZ. PSJ seeks a new life using her skills, with her brother accompanying her. ZYC roams the world alone, seeking some sign of ZYZ being reborn. Ying Lei continues as the new Mountain god of Kunlun. If there is a happier ending for some of the characters, I'll be happy for GJM to make my guesswork completely wrong. But if I'm the director and given what has already aired, the intention is to make the viewers go through the emotional wringer, so get ready your tissues.

Edited to add that I would like an alternate ending extra, ten minutes long. Either ZYC finds the young adult reincarnations of LL and ZYZ as humans and ZYC becomes their adopted older brother plus takes them to Kun Lun to see Ying Lei, or there's a modern-day version where all of them exist today, and the extra episode shows how they meet up to hang out and celebrate welcoming the New Year together.

Edited a second time, to add: Before Li Lun actually passes the Eyes of Truth to ZYC that Li Lun once received from ZYZ, I am guessing that sometime within the next 7 episodes, Li Lun fights ZYC, breaks ZYC's sword, and at least once possesses ZYC (because Li Lun managed to make physical contact with ZYC) to make ZYC do something which emotionally devastates ZYC once the control from Li Lun is over and ZYC is himself again. What Li Lun does to ZYC also hurts ZYZ emotionally.

LL targeting ZYC in such a sadistic manner stops, when LL himself realises how he has been deceived by the masked villain and is poisoned. With 34 episodes in total, this might happen by the end of episode 30. Of course, GJM, please prove me wrong. I'd like some kind of happy ending for ZYC, but everything currently seems impossible because ZYC made that oath to ZYZ.

homaKP and I were having a discussion about Li Lun's intentions and also discussing Bai Jiu. You might find this thread interesting, such as the comments where I psychologically dissect Li Lun:

https://kisskh.at/755301-the-story-of-mystics#comment-19366928

LL never cared for humans all along, but once upon a time he did care about weak demons being experimented on and exploited by humans. It's his complete disregard and willingness to bend anyone weaker to him for his ends, plus ruthless determination, that makes him dangerous after he decided to become a social Darwinist.

LL must have realised what Bai Jiu actually is in Ep 19, after having physical contact with Bai Jiu and Bai Jiu's reaction with Divine power. What a fantastic gift. A wonderful mix of all three categories: sufficiently human and clueless to be vulnerable to LL, sufficiently a tree spirit so that Bai Jiu may not die too fast when LL attempts to take over because a pure human wouldn't be able to withstand whatever LL's going to attempt, plus that lineage which has Divine power and possibly able to overcome or at least neutralise the effects of the Ever-Burning Wood when LL tries to possess or create a new body to contain his Inner Core. Fantastic gift indeed.

Before I answer the question, I'm going to add some details:

LL's mental health is precarious, because ZYZ turned his emotional heart into a bloody pincushion with multiple stabs from many angles. That said, LL is not demented. LL is very dangerous, mentally fractured but still reachable although the window is shrinking, and unfortunately there are no psychiatrists in FoF. Furthermore, LL is literally a menace to anyone significantly weaker than him because he is a social Darwinist at this point. He's gone from wanting to rescue weak demons, to not caring if humans or weak demons die. LL is also better at planning for the long term than ZYZ.

In Ep 4 after the failed assassination by ChongWu Camp, LL repossesses the courtesan to kill Wu Yan, because Wu Yan tried to kill the gang including ZYZ but Wu Yan failed to answer the questions from LL. Those three questions sounded to me like a plea for help, an indirect plea to be seen and heard and listened to. Being a super-powerful demon, anyone LL confronts in such a manner would probably die due to intense fear and botching their answers. WX's answers were great, because they were getting through to LL where most people would have died, and then she throws it all away with that Huanling powder gesture and contemptuous smirk of a rejection, without realising what she has done.

LL's state of mind swings between extremes, when ZYZ is physically present or when LL focuses on the topic of ZYZ. ZYZ doesn't even realise how much ZYZ is triggering LL with his answers and by refusing to ask LL why LL asks the questions that LL does. When ZYZ said in episode 18 that he would never give up on his friends even if he gives up on himself (LL was strangling BJ), I literally winced because I could see the sword ZYZ had just stabbed into LL's emotional heart and I knew already what LL's reply was going to be. There are only 2 ways to process such a statement: ZYZ is a liar, or ZYZ gave up on LL but not this team, because LL is no longer his friend.

That is why LL's feral answer is to repeat what ZYZ said and then label ZYZ as lying again, also because that is the more-acceptable reality to LL ( I also did not need to see the subsequent seconds of the episode, to know that LL would either label ZYZ as a liar or claim ZYZ is lying again). However, both answers are ultimately unacceptable to LL, and LL doesn't know which is the right answer. Therefore, the right answer will be the one ZYZ picks.

LL is also being burned alive from inside, in constant physical pain except when he was sealed, and being sealed was a fate worse than death because he was buried alive and abandoned by his best friend. (If ZYZ was as dear to him as a lover as per certain leaked scripts on Weibo, whereby certain lines which were likely read by the actors but cut out and not filmed imply something not platonic, then that abandonment is even worse because the emotional pain would be excruciating). Not once did ZYZ go to see LL. As to why, we can see that ZYZ had his own big problems, but the blood moon isn't a daily menace to him. And as WX pointed out in her questions, about LL looking for ZYZ but ZYZ is avoiding LL.... LL was pretty direct in Ep 4, about going after ZYZ and wanting to catch up with his old friend and talk. If LL and ZYZ were ever previously in a relationship, I wouldn't peg ZYZ as the one who wears the pants. The first 15 minutes of Ep 4 is where I pegged LL's mental state of mind as being significantly unhinged and why, due to the actor's very apt acting there.

LL wants to resolve unfinished business, so I can see him continue that unfinished game of picking one from two: Is ZYZ a liar or not? And what better way to find out, then to put ZYZ's so-called friends and ZYZ through the wringer, to find out? LL is in constant physical and emotional pain from ZYZ being the primary cause of his suffering, so everyone who antagonises LL by enabling ZYZ = Must share his pain. There is no logic in that conclusion, except someone emotionally juvenile wanting a relief to never-ending pain (unless he dies or is unconscious) and wanting others to understand how he feels. If ZYC cannot survive the pain LL wants to inflict on ZYC and ZYC dies by suicide or some other reason, then ZYC dying before ZYC can kill ZYZ only means ZYC was not worthy. And in a way, would bring joy to LL.

Bai Jiu being possessed by LL- If I were LL, I would want to find out if ZYZ will give up on this friend, given how ZYZ was speaking about him in a manner that nearly drove me mad.

Given what LL had been doing in advance with other humans despite being sealed, I suspect LL had also been thinking about how to solve his problem with the Ever-Burning Wood, when he was sealed in his place of birth. And experimenting with a solution requires finding a pagoda tree spirit weaker than him that he can possess, but only after breaking free of the seal. Look carefully at Episode 19, 8:03 onwards. Bai Jiu having Divine power has LL exclaiming with barely-concealed delight at such a good gift.

At that point, I am pretty sure what LL did when holding Bai Jiu's head in Episode 19 was that LL had already inserted the means to physically possess Bai Jiu, to eventually go for a complete takeover. And in a battle of wills, I don't think Bai Jiu will win.

At this point, LL intends to find out whether ZYC is worthy to kill ZYZ, and whether ZYC can kill ZYZ or not. LL also intends to find out if Bai Jiu is his solution to the Ever-Burning Wood, because LL might be wondering if Divine power might be able to curb the effects of the Ever-Burning Wood if those effects can follow LL into a new body. And at the same time, LL will find out if ZYZ will give up on Bai Jiu, or ZYZ is a liar. Killing so many birds with two stones is a wonderful game here, if you're 50% psychotic. And that's my current take.

See 37:35 onwards.

I think it was interesting that Li Lun paused. Before their conversation, you can see he had already assumed an outcome. She proved otherwise. Before she hurled the Huanling powder in his face, he already verbally made a concession of respect that he wouldn't previously have said, considering he was all about wanting her to kill herself or giving her derogatory labels indicating how worthless she is to him. But instead of building on what she had created, she gives in to the urge to retaliate for what he has previously said and done to her. You can see that, in her reply and smile of contempt towards him. As a normal human, she would have been dead long before this, if crossing paths with Li Lun.

For a Baize goddess not to have learned anything from what she saw previously (such as Cheng Huang's memories), she is disappointing. Where was that compassion and understanding from episode 1, which she extended to that weak demon? Seriously, would she have been kind to ZYZ if they did not have any back history and she could see his true form, right from the start?

If she's in charge of deciding what happens to demons then yes, any demon with any power would and should resent her. Any demon having lived thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years, isn't going to take kindly to some mortal powerless creature of mere decades whose lifespan is shorter than an animal in the Great Wilderness not distinguishing oneself as to why they are a Goddess (they know that the Goddess is chosen but being chosen doesn't indicate having earned the worthiness of the position in their eyes because respect isn't automatically earned, otherwise she is just another human). WX can come across as smug (and that's a script thing, which I hope is part of a plan by the scriptwriters for her character learning to change and improve as a person).

Li Lun may be emotionally childish and emotionally fractured in some ways, but where there was a rare opportunity to make him pause and reconsider everything he believed about her and humans, she screws up. Won't be surprised if from now on, LL assumes there is no point talking to any members of the team and he should just get on with what he wants to do to them.

I don't think Li Lun assumes ZYZ doesn't know BJ isn't human. Li Lun was very specific about BJ's nature wrt Pagoda Tree Spirit, when speaking to ZYZ in episode 18. I assume Li Lun is setting up ZYZ to remember and realise whether that conversation had any meaning for the future, when he takes over BJ's body.

For someone who hates ZYZ, his reactions to anything personal (such as the time ZYZ put his hand over WX's eyes in Ep 4) from ZYZ towards others speaks more of obsession rooted in love but too deeply strangled by hate, unless something helps him sort out his mental and emotional deck of cards which frankly, he isn't shuffling with a full deck.

And frankly, even as I am trying to see it as a platonic best-friend-betrayal gone wrong, GJM's directing is making me blink at multiple cues that has me almost questioning otherwise.

It was a stupid move from WX, considering what she needed to repair the Baize token. As the Baize Goddess who is physically weak and has been rather useless in most situations until recently, she is too smart-arsed for her own good. Her teacher would have been a lot smarter in this situation. Li Lun could have cut off one of WX's limbs to teach her a lesson. All he did was make her contaminate the water with her own blood. So she got off lucky. Whether she learned her lesson is another matter entirely.

Li Lun isn't dead, since there are scenes which haven't aired yet, including what happens with Zhuo Yichen. Also, a game is more fun when it is drawn out. His main target of enmity is still ZYZ, whom he wants to gift the feeling of nothing and also wants his ex-best-friend to feel the eternal burning pain that he feels, from being wounded with the worst sort of never-ending curse that he can never cure.

Li Lun should still be deciding who to kill but after Episode 19 when ZYZ spoke about friends and Li Lun would have seen how ZYZ emotes when speaking about each of the team members, Li Lun has probably decided who he is going to torture first. If Li Lun is as sadistic as he seems to have become (after ZYZ's horrific unexpected betrayal and cluelessly botched apology which came at least 8 years too late, after ZYZ helped condemn Li Lun to an eternity imprisoned in his Birth Place which would be enough to drive anyone to extreme hatred when remembering how he wound up there and what he is in... )... The most sadistic thing would be to drive one of the team members to the brink of insanity and tempt them to commit suicide. Bai Jiu serves a purpose, PSJ is too mentally strong to do so and has no weaknesses he can exploit, hence Li Lun will naturally target ZYC to cause ZYZ more anguish. Li Lun would know Ying Zhao's death was a great blow to ZYZ.

Li Lun knew Bai Jiu is also a pagoda tree spirit, and he will also have deduced that Bai Jiu will be much weaker than him, because even if Bai Jiu bears an interesting mix of Human-Divine-Demon as an individual, Bai Jiu doesn't have the experience and power that Li Lun willingly wields as a Demon. Li Lun is too aware of himself as a Pagoda Tree Spirit and what he can do. Despite being wounded with the Ever-Burning Wood by ZYZ, before he was sealed away by WX's teacher more than 8 years ago, ZYZ and Li Lun fought after ZYZ intervened to protect WX's teacher, and it was ZYZ who suffered internal injury but Li Lun was unaffected, until WX's teacher started sealing him. At that point, Li Lun appears to be stronger than ZYZ.

Up until now, Bai Jiu seems to be clueless about what Bai Jiu most needs to understand about the individual components of heritage, especially wrt Pagoda Tree Spirit. Having power but not understanding how to use it nor be conscious of said power makes one vulnerable. This should make Bai Jiu completely vulnerable to Li Lun being able to possess Bai Jiu's body, since Li Lun would definitely have planted a key part of himself inside Bai Jiu, as of episode 19. A stronger demon will be able to control a weaker one. And Li Lun isn't a demon you'd want to physically touch you, because he doesn't do so without a reason.

How could Li Lun's death in front of ZYZ be convincing? How much knowledge do all of the team members have about the powers or regenerative skills of a Pagoda Tree Spirit, especially one determined to learn and use forbidden arts? If Li Lun possesses the ability to be able to plant a small physical component of himself inside another weaker Pagoda Tree Spirit and thereby allow his Inner core to transfer and survive without being detected by his victim until he wants to take over the victim's body, "dying" by allowing his current body to burn without his Inner Core isn't going to be an issue. PSJ shot Li Lun with an arrow where his heart would be, if he was human. If PSJ was going to do something truly damaging to Li Lun instead of making assumptions about human anatomy he definitely doesn't possess, she should have aimed for his eye.

These are guesses, based on the scenes which have not yet aired. My guesses could be wrong. The next 5 episodes should help confirm or refute these guesses.

Li Lun resorted to forbidden arts to escape and live and torture/stalk his ex-best-friend. For someone who is so determined to live and not hide what he is, Episode 18 and 19 look like a set-up. And then there's ZYZ's Inner Core that (I think, but not sure if I remember correctly) Li Lun agreed to help a certain masked someone to obtain...

Ps. I don't think Li Lun wants ZYZ to be killed by anyone, except Li Lun. And if that is the case, why let ZYC live? Why not find out if ZYC is worthy, when so far Li Lun thinks ZYC is not worthy? Li Lun has a morbid sense of curiosity in his philosophy which usually results in his targets dying, when he gets personal Just as Li Lun asked Wen Xiao questions (before everything went amok because Wen Xiao made the stupidest contemptuous comments when mocking and rejecting Li Lun, and he taught her a lesson because for a moment, it looked as if he might believe she was different from other humans but her reactions made him think she acted and lied to him and all her answers were only mocking him), Li Lun will explore. And what better way to explore, than to experiment? Good luck to ZYC. No one comes out of an encounter with Li Lun unscathed. For Li Lun, the worst scars to inflict are not physical.

If ZYC actually apologised to Li Lun one-on-one and asked Li Lun what he could do to make amends and clear up misunderstandings, things might change drastically and make Li Lun pause to reconsider but so far, Wen Xiao and ZYC haven't suggested that to ZYZ, sadly.

If one was on the receiving end of what ZYZ did to Li Lun, I would not be forgiving. After being friends for more than 30,000 years, to see my ex-best-friend willing to go the extra mile for a bunch of mostly-humans or others that the ex-best-friend barely knows compared to what we had, and also hear that ex-best-friend make statements about not abandoning his friends- It's galling. Unacceptable rubbish. Looks like a bunch of lies, and beyond hypocritical. None of the team members received ZYZ's mistakes or had misunderstandings with ZYZ. They received his best intentions. Li Lun unfortunately didn't have that but what he shared with ZYZ was a lot more than what all of the team shared with ZYZ. But some betrayals are too much, especially when condemned to an eternity of surviving but not living. Li Lun isn't innocent or good. ZYZ and Li Lun really need to talk. But it is hard, when ZYZ keeps running away and isn't listening.

I made 2 more comments above, to MimiLy and blabla100. I'd be happy if others add to the psychological interpretations and character dissections. I believe my analysis of Tushan Jing and Xiang Liu is rather fair, but that requires a few comments and not just one.

I'm not using feelings to do an analysis. If you can refute the psychological and character dissections in 2 messages which I posted to MimiLy and blabla100 above while using details in the novel, go ahead.

I just added one more comment to blabla100 above. It should finish off what most people miss: Why Xiao Yao is in love with one man, and infatuated with another, because of not understanding love versus infatuation.

And the ending of the novel is the best possible for all of them. And yes, one feels very sad for Xiang Liu, but it really is the only way for Xiao Yao to learn to truly and finally embrace him as a total person, and conscious acknowledge what they shared and live with it. She had to lose him forever to do so. And in doing so, he will remain forever handsome and unforgettable in her memories. Tushan Jing gets to age and die, for her to see. But at least she will understand how to cherish someone for who they are, at last, regardless of what time is left to them.

Also, Season 2 really butchers the novel for multiple characters and oversimplifies them. Cang Xuan's grey character and self-redemption doesn't happen. Xiao Yao's character becomes very boring (love-focused only) in Season 2 because Season 2 should have been at least 36 episodes, but they decided to squash it all into 23 episodes.

I just added one more comment to blabla100 above. It should finish off what most people miss: Why Xiao Yao is in love with one man, and infatuated with another, because of not understanding love versus infatuation.

And the ending of the novel is the best possible for all of them. And yes, one feels very sad for Xiang Liu, but it really is the only way for Xiao Yao to learn to truly and finally embrace him as a total person.

Also, Season 2 really butchers the novel for multiple characters and oversimplifies them. Cang Xuan's grey character and self-redemption doesn't happen. Xiao Yao's character becomes very boring (love-focused only) in Season 2 because Season 2 should have been at least 36 episodes, but they decided to squash it all into 23 episodes.

There are multiple reasons why I pointed out Xiao Yao's stages of emotional maturity and emotional health. Given how emotionally stunted she was, she has to grow emotionally and mentally, to become emotionally healthy. Furthermore, she herself did not understand certain truths about love. So she has to go through various stages of personal growth, to learn and exercise emotional independence.

Xiao Yao has ideas about love and romance. The emotionally immature start off like that, and it is a normal thing to have. We would all start like this, and how fast we grasp love versus infatuation is dependent on our life experiences and what we learn, as we live. Xiao Yao fell in love with Xiang Liu for who he is, but she could not understand how it happened or even acknowledge that she fell in love with him. Xiang Liu did not hide anything about the ugly side of him, from her. Sucking blood from a victim can disgust people. However, he also did not hide his rough lot of how he grew up and survived to get to where he is. His strength and truthfulness and lack of sugarcoating combined is so raw and undeniable that either you hate the guy or you admire him. Or in Xiao Yao's case, you fall in love with him.

Tushan Jing is disadvantaged in comparison to Xiang Liu when it comes to Xiao Yao's heart, because of his circumstances. Tushan Jing was so weak and badly injured that he needed Xiao Yao's help. Very few women will be attracted to and fall in love with someone they initially perceive as physically weak, unless that person demonstrates something or constantly in words and actions, to dispel that impression. It is how we evolved, as a human species. It is only natural to find a mate attractive if they are perceived as strong. And Tushan Jing was not above using Xiao Yao's kind heart. He is duly punished for this opportunism because Xiao Yao takes quite a few decades to finally decide to marry him and even then, it required Xiang Liu constantly pushing her away to make her reckon Tushan Jing was the right choice. That's not a flattering reality for Tushan Jing.

Bear in the mind that one of the primary reasons why things did not get much uglier much earlier to force Xiao Yao to choose between Cang Xuan and Xiang Liu was because neither one was whole-heartedly willing to pursue the death of the other after Xiao Yao was no longer Wen Xiaoliu, for a certain period of time.

With Tushan Jing, Xiao Yao was initially in love with her ideas of love and also her ideas of who Tushan Jing should be. Infatuation is about ideas, being carried away about the romance and hoped-for imagination and not the reality of what a person actually is. Love is seeing someone and circumstances for what they are, and still choosing them. When you look back at the novel, and if you evaluate Xiao Yao's choices and words in that light over multiple chapters even when it is her POV of narration, Xiao Yao's mental swings of reasoning (and emotional irrationality) and difference in attitude towards 2 different men should become clearer, even after taking into account her abandonment issues and symptoms of that.

For example, take a look at why she wants to marry Tushan Jing. Has she ever demonstrated why she wants to be Tushan Jing's wife? What does she envision, as Tushan Jing's wife? Why does she want to be with Tushan Jing? Her initial reason of why she wants someone is so emotionally immature and crippled that for as long as she mentally believes that she should choose someone based on that, she cannot truly fall in love with them. For as long as she does not accept Tushan Jing as a whole person and realise her own issues with how she perceives him as a person instead of always sticking to what she thinks he should do and should be, she is not in love with him. But she can learn to grow out of infatuation as she learns how to be a good friend to him (she needs to learn both of those lessons, to reach at least emotional teenagehood), and this combination can then turn into love.

And life happens, which helps Xiao Yao slowly learn to come to terms with reality which does not accommodate her, and change her thinking on issues. All this takes time. She had to also learn 2 lessons, to become emotionally healthy: How to mourn and grieve for someone, and not to make big decisions about complex matters based on feelings ASAP. Her emotional incoherence means not everything is a logical conclusion as a pattern of consistent choices (and as she demonstrates time and time again, her cognitive dissonance gets in the way).

Ye Shiqi existed and was Ye Shiqi, because he was primarily Tushan Jing to begin with. To separate the two and think fondly only of one of the two with nostalgia is a refusal to accept Tushan Jing as a total person, for how and what he grew up with and went through. Similarly, to accept only Fangfeng Bei but refuse to accept him as an essential part of Xiang Liu because only primarily Xiang Liu could embody Fangfeng Bei is a rejection of Xiang Liu as a total person. Xiao Yao spent more than half the novel rejecting 2 men in 2 different ways.

It is because of how they each handled her differently, that Xiao Yao could learn to give up on infatuation and hence consciously embrace love by the end of the novel. That is why I see Tushan Jing and Xiang Liu as essential to Xiao Yao's life and outcome. Xiao Yao was never emotionally healthy enough for Xiang Liu or Tushan Jing or anybody who is emotionally mature. That's why I stated she cannot be married to someone for most of the novel, if a man seeks an equal. And only after certain lessons which occur throughout the whole novel, Xiao Yao can finally be consciously consistent in her verbal and mental choices and decide to love someone (it happens to be Tushan Jing in this case) for who he is without subconsciously running away, and stop this unhealthy habit of mentally and emotionally separating people into parts.

I view the interpretation of many viewers with regards to Tushan Jing and Xiang Liu as individuals as rather flat, because there are certain primary factors not understood, to begin with. I'm not saying Tushan Jing or Xiang Liu is perfect. Tushan Jing asking Xiao Yao to wait 15 years is not noble. Tushan Jing also has huge emotional wounds, so I'm not going to hold it against him when he tried to kill himself over Xiao Yao. People are not perfect. Does that make him weak? In a world where everyone calculatedly sees him as Tushan Jing the clan leader who should be strong and/or can give them something that they want, but only Xiao Yao saw a lot more than that while he battles his own psychological scars of self-loathing and inadequacy, I can understand that urge and pain.

Where Tushan Jing made a significant mistake is not being harsh enough with his own brother Hou. But that stems from not being ruthless enough, and sometimes why people can be ruthless is not because of good experiences or reasons. He loved his brother too much. It nearly killed him. In RL, people get killed or swindled or bankrupted in countries all over the world because they love an evil sibling too much to realise what is necessary by a certain point. However, Tushan Jing's kindness is also what saves him, because of Fangfeng Yi Yang. I'm not a Tushan Jing fan, but I'd say I do a much better job of defending Tushan Jing than many of his fans. I'm not a fan of any immature shipper who decides to hit me for my words, when they can't even dissect the difference between a drama taking massive liberties in Season 2 versus the novel.

Also, as people reading the novel or watching the drama, one has hindsight. If this was RL, these characters do not have hindsight to make decisions.

Ah Bi saying he is glad that Xiao Yao chose Jing instead of Xiang Liu is being pragmatically wise. Xiang Liu cannot give her what Jing can. Their circumstances are too different: One man is destined to die because there are bigger primary responsibilities for him. The other man has a chance and the circumstances to give Xiao Yao what her soulmate cannot. Men with higher positions and greater responsibilities who embody noble values (and not about nobility as heritage positions) are not just about one person. It is because they have all these life experiences and priorities shaping character that make such people so much more solid and attractive. That is why for the novel, there will be much more readers as Xiang Liu fans than Tushan Jing fans. And for the butchered Season 2 of the drama, far more Tushan Jing fans than Xiang Liu fans because they are ignorant of the novel (or choose to ignore everything that TH wrote about Xiao Yao and Xiang Liu's choices towards each other plus Xiao Yao's situation and character needing development and healing).

Also, such men will not fall in love with the one-sided descriptions that flood these comments. Seriously, how many of the commenters here actually understand how such men fall in love? A majority of the female commentators clearly don't understand this.

Xiao Yao keeps initiating towards Xiang Liu, where she usually doesn't do so with others. When she gets disappointed by Xiang Liu, she goes to Tushan Jing. She needed to snap out of this pattern, and start initiating with Tushan Jing. That is why the Lovers' Bugs never turned into Heartbreak bugs, and Xiang Liu could safely kill them.

When I talk about all this, I'm not looking at it from an airy-fairy POV. Also, I would not recommend Xiao Yao ever finding out about what Xiang Liu did, unless she is about to die. The knowledge that you have wronged and irreversibly lost someone who loved you unconditionally is devastating and brings about a minimum of decades in painful on-off regret.

The wonderful thing about the ending of the novel for Jing and Xiao Yao as individuals is that they get to truly decide for themselves about being Tushan Jing or Xiao Yao in future, without fancy titles and as ordinary people. Is Tushan Jing dependent on Xiao Yao? If he doesn't want to do something, he'll find a way not to do it.

Also, Season 2 butchers the novel and has the worst editing, in terms of story continuity.

I added one more comment-analysis just above your comment, in the past 3 hours. It's about Xiao Yao, Tushan Jing and how her growth to reach emotional stability and healthiness is also tied to Tushan Jing and Xiang Liu.