AH

In the novel, Chi Chen's spirit lived on after the last battle in the form of a living forest that accompanied XY's mother for almost 400 years until XY's mother was finally able to meet XY again and die in peace. During that meeting, XY got to feel her father's presence in the forest and to see his spirit accompany her mother's spirit when her mother died.

In the drama it seems (based on the leaked script) that those scenes from the novel will not be adapted, unfortunately.

"So what exactly are Hong Jiang and XL fighting for?"

The full and complete answer to this is very complex and partly open to interpretation. I will focus on the two main factors.

(1) Loyalty, integrity, keeping one's vows, and camaraderie.

Hong Jiang and certain other individuals who fought for Chenrong, including Chi Chen (XY's biological father) and Feng Long's paternal grandfather, vowed to never surrender to their conqueror (Xiyan) and to continue fighting until death. Some Chenrong generals, officials and soldiers did surrender or defect to Xiyan long ago, but the ones that remain fighting (including Hong Jiang himself) will never, ever foresake their vows. Their loyalty can never be bought or reasoned away.

XL did not make such a vow to fight for Chenrong, but he fought with Hong Jiang and the remnant army for over 400 years by the end of the novel. He became so close with Hong Jiang that Hong Jiang adopted him as his son. So XL will never, ever foresake them. If they choose to fight until death, he will fight beside them until the very end and die with them on the battlefield. He would rather die with them on the battlefield (the "best" death) than become the sole survivor who must carry the memory of Hong Jiang and all his comrades alone, mourning them forever, unable to forget.

(2) Protecting the welfare of the former Chenrong citizens who live under Xiyan rule in the Middle Plains.

The leaked script includes a conversation between Hong Jiang and Feng Long's father (in the 2013 version of the novel he is Little Zhu Rong and in the drama he is Chenrong Yi), where Hong Jiang explains (through a vague metphor) that his army's perseverance and insistance on fighting until death, even when there was no longer any hope of ever restoring Chenrong, served a hidden practical purpose to help the former citizens of Chenrong that continued to live in the Middle Plains in one way (as much as Chenrong Yi's good governance from within Xiyan after he surrendered to Xiyan helped them in another way).

The implication of the metaphor is that as long as the Chenrong remnant army was able to persist and convince the world that they would never give up, the King of Xiyan would not persecute or mistreat the people of the Middle Plains out of fear that, if he did, the Middle Plains people might eventually be driven to support and join forces with the Chenrong remnant army to the point where the army would become large / powerful enough to pose a real threat to Xiyan once more.

But by the time the final battle between Xiyan and the Chenrong remnant army rolled around, that role really was no longer necessary.

Xing Yue (a descendant of the Chenrong royal family and a descendant of the Chishui family, one of the Four Great Clans of the Middle Plains) was Xiyan's Empress. And CX had moved the capital to Chenrong Mountain and made a point of treating people from the Middle Plains well, including giving men like Feng Long (his brother-in-law and right-hand man) the opportunity to obtain the highest positions and pursue the greatest military achievements. And other Middle Plains families had been encouraged to intermarry with Xiyan families so that the lines between the former kingdoms were becoming blurred.

So after 400+ years of fighting as a remnant army (and many more years of fighting in the great war between Chenrong and Xiyan before that) the Chenrong remanant army could finally bring their fight to an end (not surrendering, but fighting until the last of them died on the battlefield as they swore to do - which the novel describes as the best ending for them / something that would be a release for them) and rest assured that the people of the Middle Plains would not suffer after they were no longer around to continue their fight / to continue putting pressure on the King of Xiyan to treat the former citizens of Chenrong well.

The devil's in the details? ^^

Yes.

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Chapter 35:

Zhuan Xu smiled. “My best doctor is Yin, but he’s a mute and hard to communicate with.”

Xiao Yao replied, “No problem, I can learn sign language.”

In the novel, once a Lovers Bug is successfully planted, it ties the hosts' lives and hearts together and can never be removed for the rest of the hosts' lifetime. For context, the bug was not "successfully" planted in CX, but was "successfully" planted in XL (because he willingly accepted it).

Also in the novel, XL is in the unique position of being able to kill the bugs (rather than "remove" them) and therefore break the bug connection between himself and XY by sacrificing one of his extra lives to lure the bugs in order to kill them.

For context, it is a good thing that XL does not use his ability to break the bug connection until the last minute (right before the final battle where he will die) in the novel because right before he breaks the bug connection he first uses it to save XY's life one more time (as she gives herself a lethal dose of poison after finding out that CX was responsible for killing TSJ).

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Chapter 37:

Jing anxiously asked, “How to break the spell?”

The Voodoo King’s face scrunched up. “The Lover’s Bug – either live in love or die in heartbreak. Once the Lover’s Bug has been planted there is no way to break the spell. It is impossible. This is what I was trying to say earlier for why so few people raise it despite the great benefit. Only very determined girls would raise the bug but even if they successfully raise it, it’s near impossible to find a man willing to accept the other bug to be planted in him.”

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Chapter 48:

Xiang Liu sat down next to the raft and stared at the sleeping Xiao Yao before softly saying, “The tree grows old on land together, the mandarin ducks die together in the water – the Lover’s Bug connects heart to heart and our lives, and there truly is no way to remove the bug. Years ago I was only able to remove the bug from Zhuan Xu because he didn’t know it was you so he didn’t willingly accept the bug. So you never successfully planted the bug on him in the first place. But I….I was heart and soul willing, so the bug successfully planted in me. You asked me to remove the bug and I kept telling you I can’t do it, but you didn’t believe me. But I truly didn’t lie to you, I cannot remove the bug.”

Xiang Liu picked up Xiao Yao’s hand and used his finger as a knife to slice into the flesh of her palm and his palm back and forth until he drew a blood spell. “I cannot remove the bug, but I can kill the bug!”

Xiang Liu smiled before joining his bloody palm to Xiao Yao’s bloody palm, so tightly that the blood flowing wasn’t clear whether it was his or hers. “Don’t blame me for not telling you this before, you were the one who did not ask!”

Xiang Liu started to chant the spell and with it countless glowing blue dots appeared and flew around both of them. The blue dots lit up the night sky until it was an ethereal beauty of lights in the air and reflected in the lake surface.

Xiang Liu’s hand suddenly grabbed a real dagger made from ice and he stabbed it directly into his own heart. Sir Bi gasped out loud and had to force himself to not do anything.

Xiang Liu pulled out the dagger and blood gushed from the wound in his chest. All the blue dots rushed into the wound in his chest until they all vanished inside.

After all the blue dots were gone, Xiang Liu’s face was stark white and he pressed down with one hand on his chest wound, and the other grabbed medicine but he didn’t apply it to himself and instead applied it on Xiao Yao’s hand. The cuts on her hand quickly healed until there was no sign it was ever injured.

Xiang Liu smiled sadly and said to Xiao Yao, “I broke the bug connection between us! From now on, you and I will have no connection with each other!”

Xiang Liu gently pushed the raft towards Sir Bi. “She will wake up tomorrow morning.”

Sir Bi understood what happened – the heart-and-life-connected Lover’s Bug was planted between Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao, which is why Xiang Liu could save Xiao Yao’s life earlier. Xiang Liu managed to now break the bug by using his own life as the lure to kill the bugs. It was a suicidal method, but a method that only Nine Lives Xiang Liu could use by taking one of his lives.

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Based on the leaked script, in the drama XL will use two of his extra lives to do the same thing (lure out and kill the bugs in order to break the connection between himself and XY), but he will not need to use the bug connection to save XY's life again first because XY will not find out that CX was behind TSJ's death (this will become part of CX's dream and Xing Yue will be made the true culprit) and she will not poison herself outside of the dream, so her life will not be in need of saving.

The Xiling clan is one of the Four Great Clans of the Middle Plains, similar to the Tushan clan.

The King if Xiyan’s Queen (CX’s grandmother) was the daughter of the Xiling clan leader at the time of her marriage.

In the novel, XY’s mother (Xuan Yuan Ba / Ah Heng) is the biological daughter of the King and Queen of Xuan Yuan (Xiyan), so XY took her biological grandmother’s family name.

In the drama, XY’s mother (Xiling Heng) is from the Xiling clan just like CX’s grandmother (so they are relatives), but they are not mother and daughter. Instead, Xiling Heng was a disciple of CX’s grandmother and she was treated like the Queen of Xiyan's daughter / like a sister to the Queen of Xiyan's sons and daughter-in-law (including CX's father and mother). When she led the Xiyan army in battle, Xiling Heng was also granted the title of Princess General by the King of Xiyan.

So, in the drama, XY took the family name of her biological mother and CX’s grandmother (who is also her blood-related relative and her "recognized" grandmother, but not her biological grandmother).

Censorship made the dynamics in the drama a lot more complicated.

You’re welcome!

Yes, I liked the parts of the novel where they worked together, helped each other, or showed each other respect.

I wasn’t a fan of some of the changes they made in S1 that made it seem otherwise (e.g., XL calling TSJ useless when WXL was injured). But I was glad to see a bit more of their dynamic from the novel in S2 with the wedding interruption deal.

You’re welcome!

The novel, fanart, and fanfic.

In Once Promised, Ah Heng used the sun power inside her heart to save her army and people from a giant flood during the last battle. That sun power was too powerful and was slowly burning her from the inside, turning her into a monster. Chi You used Pan Gu’s bow to replace Ah Heng’s burning heart with his own heart so she would survive.

As he was dying, Chi You made Ah Heng promise to live so she could meet XY and tell her the truth about her parents. But Ah Heng was turned into a monster that created a deadly hot desert around her, so she could not seek XY out. And after Chi You died, she was so devastated that she nearly broke her promise. But Chi You’s body turned into petals and then into a living forest around Ah Heng. She was comforted by his spirit and resolved to live on (with his spirit there with her) as she had promised.

Ah Heng was finally able to fulfill her promise when the Grand Emperor took XY (accompanied by TSJ) to the desert to meet her mother and her father’s spirit, and after that Ah Heng joined Chi You in death.

MDL user liddi kindly translated some of it. A complilation of links to her translations can be found here: https://kisskh.at/discussions/lost-you-forever-season-2/127135-spoiler-english-translation-of-some-parts-of-the-leaked-script-for-lost-you-forever-season-2?pid=3079715&page=1#p3079715

Lol, not XY too! (>▽<)

In XY's defence, if she figured out why XL was pushing her away coldly it would rather defeat his purpose. So, IMO, he had to try to do it in a way (or to a degree) that would not let her catch on to his reasons for acting that way.

You're welcome! Yes, I was very sad to see how much of the original scene was not kept, especially given how many changes will be made to the remaining chapters in the remaining episodes. Thankfully liddi's translations of the leaked script helped prepare us for it.

You're welcome!

I'll echo insideout91: disappointing but not surprising.

The King of Haoling did so because he anticipated that CX would go to war with Haoling and he didn't want XY to be torn between her loyalty to him and her loyalty to CX.

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Chapter 40:

The Grand Emperor reached out his hand. “Xiao Yao, I remember when you were small. Every night you would sit in front of the court steps with your eyes staring ahead until you saw me. Then you would happily run towards me and into my arms. That was the happiest part of my day because you loved me not for my power or anything else, but because I was your Dad. I loved and coddled you because you were my daughter, even if I didn’t promise your mom or if I didn’t know your uncles, I would still have loved and treated you the same. Don’t be mad at the cold way I’ve pushed you away. I just didn’t want you to feel torn between [Cang Xuan] and me.”

Xiao Yao tightly gripped the Grand Emperor’s hand as if fearing losing him again “I know….I understood it deep down….I wasn’t angry at you.”

@blabla100 I agree.

I haven't watched this scene yet, but if XY delayed choosing a wedding date because of CX's intervention, that seems more pro-YaoJing than the corresponding scenes in the novel, where XY chose (without anyone else intervening) to delay her wedding to TSJ until after she finished working on the medical texts, which took her 42 years.

In the novel, I felt that the version of TSJ that she really wanted to marry was YSQ and that she was hesitant to enter the Tushan household and to have to take on the role of the Tushan clan leader's wife. And also that she was hesitant about leaving CX's side, as things would not be the same between them after she was married. So she enjoyed her 42 year engagement where she got to see both CX and TSJ all the time (and kept busy with a project she was passionate about) without having to leave CX just yet or deal with Tushan clan politics. I appreciated that TSJ didn't rush her during that time, even though he wanted to marry her as soon as possible.

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Chapter 38:

The Yellow Emperor asked Xiao Yao about her thoughts for the wedding date.

Xiao Yao glanced out the window at the busy doctors and said, “I want to have more progress on the medical text first before setting a wedding date.”

The Yellow Emperor reminded her, “That will take more than two or three years. Are you sure?”

Xiao Yao nodded. “The Sheng Nong Herb Manual has been in my possession for the last four hundred years and saved my life countless times. I’ve never done anything for it or better said that I want to do something for the Flame Emperor who sacrificed his life to write it. The text that he used his entire life to write, I don’t want it to be used by doctors simply to make money or gain fame.”

The Yellow Emperor sighed “Xiao Yao, you keep saying you’re not like your mom but you are actually just like your mom!”

Xiao Yao furrowed her brows “I’m not like her at all!”

The Yellow Emperor laughed “Fine, you’re not like her!”

That night Zhuan Xu came to Xiao Yue Peak and heard Xiao Yao’s decision on the wedding date and smiled. “That works.”

Likely due to the engagement with Jing, Xiao Yao realized that her time on Xiao Yue Peak with Zhuan Xu was finite rather than forever. With the battle between Xuan Yuan and Gao Xing taking on losses for both sides but Xiao Yao didn’t personally know anyone who died and she didn’t find out the details of the war, she felt it so far removed from her so she stopped avoiding Zhuan Xu.

The two of them resumed their old ways hanging out. Every night Zhuan Xu would come and chat happily with Xiao Yao as they hung out.

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Chapter 41:

Xiao Yao kneeled down. “We have not let Your Majesty down. The compendium of medical texts took 42 years to complete with the involvement of hundreds of doctors gathering herbs and testing out the treatments.

...

With this project completed, Xiao Yao’s busy life suddenly ended and she was so excited to do nothing again. She decided to go to Xuan Yuan Mountain to pay a visit to the White Emperor.

...

Back to Sheng Nong Mountain, Xiao Yao felt odd now that she had nothing to do. She discussed with Jing “Shall we go to Zhe Province to open a clinic?”

Jing said, “How about open a clinic in Qing Qiu?”

“But Zhe Province is closer, Qing Qiu is farther away and a hassle making a trip daily.”

“If you lived in Qing Qiu, then it would be close and convenient.”

“What? Me live in Qing Qiu?” It took Xiao Yao a few moments to understand as Jing laughed “The Tu Shan residence in Qing Qiu is all arranged and ready for a wedding.”

Xiao Yao’s face gradually turned red as Jing took her hand “Xiao Yao, let’s get married! From the moment we got engaged I’ve been looking forward to marrying you.”

Xiao Yao’s heart surged with sweetness as she lightly nodded her head.

With her agreement, that night Jing discussed the wedding plans with the Yellow Emperor and the Black Emperor.

The top five XL-related things from chapter 35 of the novel that I was sad to see were not included in episode 10/11:

(1) XY lamenting that, as Chi You's daughter, there was no place in the world for her (i.e., once again she felt like she had "nowhere to go"), XL comforting her by reminding her that the ocean would always have a place for her, and XY feeling that, with that reminder, she had found a sliver of calm in the storm she was experiencing.

(2) Although the feelings in her heart were jumbled, XY understood what XL said about choosing to fight with his comrades, just as she understood why her uncle chose to die on the battlefield with his comrades.

(3) Since XL was dressed in black and his hair was completely covered by his black hood, he looking like FFB for a moment, making XY feel that she was nearly torn again before a strand of white hair escaped from his hood, reminding her of who he was. So she stroked his hair, reminded him that it was not safe for him to stay, and told him to hurry off after paying his respects to Lirong Ji.

(4) XL seeing himself reflected clearly in XY's eyes, XL covering XY's eyes, and XL giving her the ghost of a kiss on her forehead before departing, leaving XY in a daze for a long time, repeating to herself "mistaken illusion!"

(5) TSJ making it easier for XL to evade CX's guards, XL thanking TSJ for his help, and TSJ thanking XL for comforting XY.

For me, CX was more frustrating than XL or TSJ so he is not my favourite, but his story does still pull on my heartstrings and I can understand why he is some fans' favourite.