KingC

I think that's one of the reasons why this show was not skewered by Censorship. There was an interesting and solid plot behind everything. Even the flirting has some serious undertones - I can't imagine how the story can move forward without it.

Replied! :D (I attached the original tumblr post below the explanation.)
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Credits:@sixteenthshen. From tumblr.
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Okay, the title 《山河令》 comes from an important item from the novel, it's three items (simplified to one in the drama). In fact, in the original publication of the book (in print), the second half of the book is titled "山河令". 
The literal translation from Google is somewhat correct if you take each word separately. 山 (shan), 河 (he) "river", 令 (ling) "order". 令ling, like order, can be both a noun and a verb. Here, ling is the noun. 
In ancient China (and I'm sure other parts of the world too), specific items would give their holders' certain authorities. It's not like today with satellite, mobile devices and all kinds of biometric technology. Those items in China are usually called tokens, tallies, etc., the most famous being the "Tiger Tally" (hu fu). Where possessing the Tiger Tally gave its holder the authority to deploy the military to do anything.
The translated term Shen Shen uses "Token of Honor" is correct, because “Shan He Ling” is a Token that gives the holder specific forms of authority, in WoH's case, it's to be able to "call for" the Sword Saint of Mt. Changming to fulfil the promise of exterminating the Ghost Valley. 
So, the Token of Honor is essentially a promise between the older generation in WoH. And what is a promise really, other than someone giving their word to do something and honouring their word. 
As for the "Shan He" part, There are three variants of "world" in Chinese that use the same elements jiang/he (rivers), hu (lake), shan (mountain), each carries a slightly different meaning: 
jianghu 江湖: refers to the world of heroes (xia), this is the xia in wuxia and xianxia
shanhe 山河 (also heshan 河山): refers to the world of wanderers (客)
jiangshan 江山: refers to the world when it's related to the emperor 
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Original post: https://sixteenthshen.tumblr.com/post/648466009717719040/hello-i-really-love-your-gifs-and-notes-that-give

The literal translation is what wy1980 said. Shen Shen mentions the word in EP12/13 and its english translated as "Token of Honor." I was curious too, and asked the question to someone. I'll leave a reply here "if" she answers.

Episode 2 definitely. He actually mentioned something like - "We met at the right time. We met at the wrong time too." Then, he finally asked him what he was doing there in EP6. But, Lao Wen sorta dodged his question and tried to go the mushy way. ZZS didn't believe that too. But, didn't press him.

Pretty sure he made the confirmation in EP22 like what Lynn and chinadoll said. But, he was suspecting him since he appeared during the Mirror Lake Massacre (Half the comments in YT called Lao Wen suspicious.) Not to mention the duplication incident, his evident vendetta against Five Lake Alliance, and Han Ying literally telling Ah' Xu that the person is evil at heart. ZZS knew that he was sort of related to the Ghost Valley, he just didn't know how. Then in EP 22, Lao Wen spilled a lot of info that a regular person isn't supposed to know. That sealed the deal I think.

The whole thing was just her dream. She herself mentioned that it all felt too real. The man at the bath house who woke her up told her that she had fainted at the front door, which is I think the moment she opened the door in the first episode and travelled back in time. The Duan Xiao she met in her dream seemed to be a random guy who was having the same dream experience as her. In the photo, the real one is not the DX she saw. That means he definitely didn't exist in the past - just in her dream. Just like how she herself didn't exist in her mom's past. Thats what I interpreted the ending. There is no way Duan Xiao from the past time travelled all the way to the future. Same goes for Li Jin Bu. They are both from the future. There are hints, especially in the last episode, where he seems to know that Li Jin Bu was going to leave forever and there was nothing he could do about it. It would make sense only if the whole thing was a dream. After all, nothing changed in Li Qing Tong's past even when Jin Bu tried. The writer seemed to focus only on the growth of the characters through the female lead's eyes. So, it seems like he/she didn't bother about the scientific stuff.

ZZS wouldn't have removed the nails if he thought it was a fake body. He would have tried to find out where the original one was. I think thats just people thinking too deep and seeing what we wish to see. Unfortunately, I find that theory even more sad, imagination or not. :(
Thanks for sharing! :D

I was not annoyed about WKX cause it was understandable, considering his character. What did put me off was like how everyone conveniently disappeared from site. (Particuarly Bei Yuan and Da Wu.) Yep - they wanted ZZS to have a good rest. But, they all saw him leave too. And YBY decided to just put him in an inn and forget about him again. No one thought of telling him what had transpired behind the scenes or give an inkling that Lao Wen was alive. It felt like a plot device to add more angst, if you think how everyone knows how crazy they are about each other.

I actually disliked the latter half of the drama once the flashback was over (EP33) whereas everyone else loved it. By then, I could predict where the plot was about to go and skipped a lot of stuff.
Love and Redemption had a stronger plot - I think the problem lies in TU's story telling. We get stuck in the past for 32 episodes that may or may not be interesting to some. Then put forward in the future. But, it's definitely worth a watch, even if we don't love it. Good luck!

I think they release scenes that had chances of not getting cut. This one seems to fall under this category. (YBY is literally looming over them with that huge sword and they just need to cut to his face once in a while and it would have been alright.) On the other hand, someone posted a footage of the hug scene in episode 19/20 that Youku did not completely release - the original poster requested everyone to take it down as it might cause the drama to fall under the blade again. Youku might have more, but they are releasing BTS of scenes that made it past censorship/alternate versions.

I'm watching Word of Honor right now. Its a wuxia drama and you can recognize many similar stuff like Assassin Organizations, brotherhood mystery and deals with the martial world a lot. Male lead is a strong fighter too. But, its a bit more serious.

I understand their concerns - this is a highly anticipated drama and extra scrutiny might damage them. But, they are missing extra hype by not teasing anything. Damn! I'm complaining. I was looking forward to this since the day it got announced cause xianxias are my thing. I expected them to start releasing promos since April began.
On a side note, The Caravan Youtube Channel posted a BTS photo of Arthur Chen and Leo Luo today. So... maybe its close?

From what I observed, they don't release such dramas "completely" out of the blue. They give hints:
- A Harper's Bazaar photo shoot was released a month before CQL dropped. So, fans had an idea that it was going to air soon.
- Word of Honor, which began shooting after Immortality did, had posters even before wrap up. It was the only drama I knew that was "guaranteed" to air in 2021. They might have had a low budget, but they did their best releasing posters and stills, held fan meetings and had a Harper's Bazaar shoot last year and posted promo stuff in January. Which is like a green light that it was going to drop sometime this year. (Youku did the same thing with Love and Redemption last year.)
- Tencent has been really tight lipped about Immortality. Plus, they have several top picks to choose to release. The Long Ballad is one of them. I'm starting to notice a pattern. (There seems to be a behind the scenes war between major video streaming platforms going on judging from some comments I saw in Tumblr. I might be wrong...)
- All I've heard about Immortality are those posters released last year. Then nothing except rumors that it might premiere on April 15. Either they want to completely surprise everyone or they are still deciding the release date.

It does have romance, but the main plot revolvea around the mother daughter relationship.

I wish they'd subtitled this. Thanks a lot! :D

In episode two, Zhang Cheng Ling says that his father is Qiu Yue Jian. Is it another name of Zhang Yu Sen or did I get their relation wrong? (I thought that he was the youngest son of Zhang Yu Sen.)

Honestly, right now, I wish that some other big budget drama like Long Ballad or the highly anticipated Immortality gets released for a distraction by Tencent. The fans are trying hard to keep WoH from trending for the wrong reason and attracting attention of the censorboard and I'm seeing way too many tumblr posts about it. We still have till May for it to complete on YT. Youku took a bold move with Guardian, even though it got butchered and pulled off air. I hope that WoH remains lowkey until it completes airing for everyone.

Pretty sure that Non-VIP haven't voted. Including me. It might take sometime for everyone to rate as the entire drama will complete airing in YT only on May. It already attained an excellent score in Douban where getting a decent one is really difficult. The reviewers there are pretty harsh and actually know certain stuff. MDL is more friendly when it comes to ratings. And I have to say, more less critical. There was a whole mini war in December last year after the rating system got revamped due to sudden inflow of accounts. A lot of good drama's ratings fell behind significantly after that. (Two drama pages had active arguments going on about who deserved the top stop - both lost.) But, Douban is more accurate when it comes to quality.

He was absolutely mind blowing in Word of Honor. (All I've ever seen him in is as young Lin Shu in Nirvana in Fire, so I had zero idea about his acting.)

Its funny. I wanted to know if Wolong nuts was a real thing cause it was mentioned several times. Now it seems that they do exist. And honestly, some of the low budget rushed dramas with little known actors are more critically acclaimed in Douban than many of the high rated ones in MDL. I'm glad that this one made the cut and smashed expectations. The script and plot are well written and hands down, one of the best recently released costume CDrama I watched. The cast and crew did a great job with what they had and was committed to the project.