soTreeD

I didn't make it until the back... in the novel its entirely about the princess and her true love... their beautiful tragic love story TT and its narrated by the guy ... so I was anticipating the drama so much but in the end the focus was about her parents' misunderstood relationship sigh...

I really don't think you should be worried about that because it obvious in S1 and 2 that all the epic big action budget and CG budget scenes went to Xiangliu hahaha

Since its next week its possible to be later part of the week? Yangzi is the main lead its impossible for her not t be on the variety for promotion?

I don't think we were arguing this is healthy discussion! I love to see different viewpoints. Not many Cdramas can be meaty enough for this kind of study, most are just so... like you watch it and forget it... there is nothing much to think about?

In the drama he goes to start the bow in ep13, right before Xiaoliu was summoned to Haoling. You can check it out. That was why it confused me.

According to leaked script he appears but I have no idea who is cast.
At least the novel timeline made more sense.

Yeah in the novel time really passed in decades so quickly.
I actually wondered if Tonghua gave them such a long time so Tushan Tian had time to 'grow up' a little more. This was to prepare for when she removed the 'parents' to go their own merry way, people can't say they abandoned a young child lol
Then there was alot of war and fighting. Yaojing also went on a pre-wedding honeymoon... which finally healed Xiaoyao's emotional baggage. Xiaoyao was also doing some massive 'international' book revising project? Guess Tonghua wanted her to at least have an 'accomplishment' in her career before she got married and became too busy.
Alot of things happened, so I won't say Xiaoyao was sitting around being unwilling to marry Tushan Jing unlike when she was engaged to Fenglong and was just passing her time being heartbroken and wallowing over Jing.

As for the wedding night which Tonghua skipped writing, they have thousands of years ahead, what is one night?
Jing also said " I am not in a rush, are you?"
To me, why Tonghua didn't write their wedding night was a conscious choice because she was not comfortable to show Xiaoyao's very private moments. If she was too explicit, it changes the tone of her book. If she writes some candle-zooming one-liner moment, that would be so lame! Yaojing is all hands with each other in the novel and drama, so its much better to be left to imagination lol !

In the entire LYF novel, there was only one short sex scene and that belonged to the male lead and it was for plot advancement. So yeah not too bothered with the wedding night thing for me.

Can't wait for Season 2!

Yes that was my question.
In the drama, Xiangliu went to forge the bow in ep13, right before Xiaoliu was being summoned to Haoling which was why he was late to reach Qingshui town.
I always wondered why did they do this for? The timing wasn't right.

I read the novel first and the focus of the drama changed so much from the younger couple to her parents instead, and was soooo slow burn that I gave up... but I loved the OSTs

Ah i see! Thanks for that, I only got back into Cdramas recently so I thought it was some recent rule being implemented.
I agree that poster looked really awful, like Xiaoyao was being boxed in. And what is Fenglong doing happily under there, *face palms*

yeah I know this thing has been going on with the novel fans for more than 10 years so how would we be able to come to agreement lol
But its still fun to discuss with each other and see different perspectives! Thanks for engaging with me.

I guess the drama production and Yangzi will have to convince us who is Xiaoyao's real love lol

I think that's why the drama screwed up the timeline. In the novel, I remember he just went to Qingshui town too late to save Xiaoliu, no reason given. But thats why in the drama it was confusing to me.

Not to mention at that point in the drama, Xiaoliu had never even seen Xiangliu use a bow before. Actually what will be funny will be if Xiangliu made the bow for Hong jiang but halfway changed his mind and gave to Xiaoyao. At least Xiaoyao would have one point against HJ.

I don't know if anyone has explained this before but can someone enlighten me, why did Xiangliu start to build a legendary bow 'for Xiaoliu' back in Qingshui town? Was there ever a moment in either the novel or drama where Xiaoliu even expressed that he wanted to learn how to do archery?

This has made me wonder for a long time, especially when I keep seeing claims that he made it for her specially. Did he make it for himself first, but changed his mind to gift it to her after she 'graduated'?
Or was this a timeline bug in the drama just to explain why he was not close to Qingshui town, and backfired because it made no sense?

That is because Xiaoyao is a person with feelings. She may say she is hard hearted but she is a very kind person, who can become ruthless to defend her loved ones.
Tonghua has said many times, this story is about familial love, romantic love and friendship. Its possible for Xiaoyao to have platonic love for Xiangliu without all the implications that you are trying to suggest?

Xiaoyao doesn't want to love someone romantically like him, and so she never did. As what she had told her sister, sometimes all you need to give up on someone if you don't love them is one reason.
"你应该能理解，真喜欢一个人，没有人能挡得住，不喜欢那个人，任何一个理由都会是放弃的理由。”

For Xiaoyao, that reason was they were enemies on the opposite side. Throughout the years, she never actively tried to get him to defect to their side again. She just accepted that they are on different sides. But he was the rare one whom she can click with, and she didn't want to give that up, even though yes he was temperamental and often dangerous. But in her youth, she had played with the snake demon who wanted to eat her too, Xiaoyao was just this 'weird' way.
As a princess, others feared her or kept her at arm's length. With Xiangliu, she at least knew he would be forthright with his transactions and also, he made her forget that she was Xiaoyao and was Wen Xiaoliu again ( during FFB days ). Back then Wen Xiaoliu and Xiangliu were 'manly' friends, I would hardly think that was a romantic way to consider as they spent time together.

She treasured her friendship with Xiangliu but she was never sure if he even treated her as a friend. Someone as careful with her heart as Xiaoyao doesn't go around giving it to anyone. She decided to give it to Tushan Jing and she thought she could retrieve it as she wanted, only to realize its not as easy as that.
Why did Xiangliu scold her for not being able to keep her heart? That was so much meaning in that line and how he could barely keep his jealousy and frustration. Xiangliu could feel all the heartache she was suffering which was also why he never really seriously contended for Xiaoyao. Actually the couple bug was bad for Xiangliu. If he actually had room to wonder, perhaps he could have dared to give it a shot?

For many of us, Xiaoyao was having a headache and fighting herself because Jing was already married to someone else. Tushan Jing is not Ye Shiqi. She had no hesitation about marrying Ye Shiqi yet why do people think that at the same time, she was also ready to spend her life with Xiangliu? Is Xiaoyao that kind of person? I think at the very least for those who suggest Xiaoyao is toxic, she had never led Xiangliu on or treated him like her 'spare tire'. She friend zoned him early on and kept it that way.

I still ask: why didn't Xiangliu just ask her "Would you want to wander with me?" Doesn't even have to be about marriage. Just that. But he never did. He concluded after questioning her, that she wants to go to Jing, and so as many of you said, he decided to let her go to him instead of forcibly keeping her by his side.

"Even as FFB that one time he asked her run away and she said yes, but he turned everything to joke."
This part is in S1 so I won't mark this as a spoiler but that was actually Xiangliu testing her to see if she was willing to leave with him.

But if you read the novel, you would have seen Xiaoyao's 'yes' was not serious at all. She completely did not take his offer seriously.
When Xiangliu saw that, he backed down.

Her inner thoughts at the moment was not being moved or shaken, but was that FFB was fooling with her and trying to scam her and how he was still begging kisses from his maid when he was young when she was roaming the world and scamming others already.

" 防风邶哈哈笑起来，小夭笑睨了他一眼，话谁不会讲呢？我浪迹天下当骗子的时候，你说不定还在家里缠着婢女讨胭脂吃呢！
"

Actually when people tried to say Xiaoyao was ready to run away with anyone who offered her eternal companionship, that was not true at all. She was never that desperate.
When Fangfeng Bei made that offer to her, she was never ready to run away with him. She was still hung up on waiting for Jing at that time, and was actually using FFB so that the news will travel to Jing and she wanted to see how he will respond to this romantic 'threat'.

Yes nobody is expected to be perfect in LYF. That is why the story is so interesting and the characters have depth. I will wait to see how they portray S2 to see if Xiangliu's selflessness was only for his foster father because I don't really like how he treated Xiaoyao in the novel to consider his acts towards her as selfless and not mixed with self-serving.

Xiaoyao left to find Jing on her own volition.
If Xiangliu telling her that Jing hired him was considered 'helping', I guess I can give him that.
But I also took note that Xiangliu had taken a whole month to tell her that information as well.
To me, maybe he wanted to see if she will ask him to leave with her for good.

That desperate questioning, asking her twice for the answer which would have been more direct if he just thrown his own name in there? "Are you willing to leave with Xiangliu? "
But when he saw how fast she was ready to leave him to go look for Jing, I think he really gave up from that point.

When she refused to be his second wife, she meant it as while he was still married to Fangfeng Yiying. Even if he was married in name to Yiying, and only treated her as his wife, she did not want this kind of relationship. You could say she was being stubborn, because what will be the difference as long as Jing only treat her as his wife? But the author wrote her that way. Plus at the time, I feel her love for Jing was not quite 'there' yet. I would say she didn't love him as much as he loved her at that point of time. She had thought she could live without him.

But after Jing was officially a 'widower', she had no issues being married to him because she was never one to care about what other people thought. What was important was she knew the truth about his relationship with fangfeng yiying. Which was why after she found out that he had been set up, she was ready to snatch him back.

"It's like Xiaoyao's parents she married a man for benefits then when he didn't help her brother this justify her betrayal and sleeping and having a kid with other man. As long as the husband is evil he should be cuckolded."
I have not read Broken Promise myself yet but from what I understood, Heng was actually with the man first before she was made to marry another man. So it was not like she had relations after she was married.

Anyway these are stories that are morally grey and everyone is struggling with imperfections. If you are so offended by the novels and the different love stories then perhaps another story might please you better?

What do you mean though, that part was accurate to the novel.

Xiangliu asked if she will marry Ye Shiqi. Then he asked her who she wanted to live her life with. If he was truly brave, he should ask her, are you willing to marry Fangfeng Bei/ Xiangliu? But he was still not brave enough to ask that question directly. What was stopping him then?

In the novel, they were actually hiding for a month. That month to me was Xiangliu's way to see what Xiaoyao wanted to do. If she said she wanted to leave, maybe he will leave with her. But since she would rather run off to Jing at the first mention of him, her choice was obvious to him then.

I don't agree that Xiangliu is all that selfless and your evidence are words I have seen repeated lots of times elsewhere. The problem and tragic truth with Xiangliu was, he could not keep his relationship with Xiaoyao untainted by mutual gain. To her, everything with him was a transaction.

Did Xiangliu fully 'gave up' on Xiaoyao the moment he found out she was the princess? Its true at that moment, he did become angry and disappointed enough to want to kill her right there, as shown both in novel and drama. In the novel, it was written that 'Xiaoyao didn't know she was so close to death.'.

His subsequent actions to sabotage her relationship by making Jing misunderstand that he and Xiaoyao are 'close' didn't seem to be in her best interests to me, if he was so noble and ready to make sure she is going to be happy with Jing. I remember how he teased Xiaoyao, to almost tell her that Hou is cheating with his sister, but he held himself back on purpose and didn't tell her in the end either. If he was so big-hearted to help Xiaoyao succeed in her love, why didn't he just come outright to say it? I feel that deep down, Xiangliu also hoped he still have a chance with her.

Xiangliu taught her archery as Fangfeng Bei so she could protect herself but he also enjoyed spending time with her in exchange. He was tempted to ask her to leave with him, but she never took him seriously at the time. He also used that proximity for his own cover to remain near to royalty and steal stuff for Chenrong army when he needs to.

The blood transfusion he gave her to save her life was out of affection. But he also got a great deal from Cangxuan for saving her too. He also took longer than he needed to, because he was not sure if Xiaoyao's life was enough for Cangxuan so he bet Jing's life into it as well. Which was why he asked Xiaoyao if she would hate him if Jing died.

EDIT [ Even when he took the business deal to sell Xiaoyao's promise to him for his army, he did it in the most cruel way which completely destroyed her reputation. In the novel Xiaoyao noted that a woman who cared even a little about her reputation would have killed herself. However I give it to Xiangliu that he understood Xiaoyao was not someone who would kill herself over such matters. I suppose in his way, he wanted to make sure Xiaoyao had no way to change her mind again after calling it off.]

Honestly I am not moved because Xiangliu 'pushed' his love like a goods to another 'for their sake' or happiness. In fact this kind of thinking is rather negative. Xiaoyao is not his to give away. Did he even have her in the first place? I think that thinking is too superficial. Saying that would mean Xiaoyao never made her choices and decisions on her own, but was manipulated into it by Xiangliu the great puppeteer?

As for why he erased all traces of himself, I feel that once again it was his own way to decide how to be forgotten. It was his demon's pride. If he was going to be forgotten by Xiaoyao in the next few hundreds of years, like how she vaguely remembered playing with the snake demon in her youth, this hundred years of friendship with another snake demon. He rather make sure she can't remember him at all. That was my take on why he decided to erase everything about himself.

He still hurt her in the end because he refused to acknowledge their friendship. He was not enough for Xiaoyao to give up living after his death, so it was actually selfish of him to even deny her of knowing she did have a friendship with him, instead of thinking she had been a stupid person who was made use by him for the hundred years they have known each other?

LOOOL now that is a strategic pause... you still have 14 days maybe you should watch that last 3 eps on July 7 instead