#I think the Yin Iron is kinda clunky as a plot device and honestly did not realise there was a second flute in CQL until people complained

[cinnamonandpancakes]

Thinkin about the Yi City Crew (as you do) and idk, I think the tragedy (in CQL) for LWJ in particular is seeing these cultivators who he took notice of (he knew their names! when they met! he doesn’t like people this is very unusual!) reduced to this terrible fate where one’s soul is shattered and the other is a living corpse doomed to walk the earth forever and how that mirrors him so completely.

WWX’s soul was presumed lost! He was left to uphold their promise together and raise their son alone! Song Zichen doesn’t even have a son! He just has a bag holding the shattered remnants of the man he was going to spend his life with, who he cruelly pushed away and spent the rest of his life trying to find and make amends and then had to watch kill himself as he realised he’d killed his dearest friend (soulmate). Idk it’s Tragic in a different way to the MDZS Yi City.

There IS something incredibly tragic about WWX missing meeting his shishu and being the reason for his demise due to his demonic cultivation but the tragedy there is of Missed Connection. The CQL tragedy is of connection brutally ripped away and that just gets me more, especially in relation to LWJ whose whole life is filled with these connections that are brutally severed, beginning with his parents and then continuing through almost everyone he’s ever cared about or admired.

In the book I liked the Yi City arc, don’t get me wrong, I love Xue Yang as a villain and it’s a great lil section but I think having that point of connection beforehand where the reader already knows the people involved makes it that more emotionally impactful. After all, let’s be real, Yi City is mainly a plot vessel to explain how Empathy works so it doesn’t need to be explained later with Nie Mingjue’s head with a lil bit of angst sprinkled on top.

Also! WRT WWX, Xiao Xingchen isn’t just a name! He opens that coffin and it’s someone he knew! Someone he respected and whose opinion he cared about! Someone to whom he’d expressed a wish to emulate! There’s a particularly angsty blend of CQL and MDZS where WWX is still the First Demonic Cultivator but he knew Xiao Xingchen before his death and he’s slapped in the face with the knowledge that if he hadn’t messed with this cultivation then his shishu whom he greatly admired would probably still be alive, another on the list of people he cares about whose deaths he indirectly caused.

I think there’s a blend of canons that I think I’d like best where the Yin Iron arc doesn’t happen, but Wen Qing and Jiang Yanli and Wen Ning still go to the lectures and WWX and LWJ still go nighthunting together after the lectures and they still meet XXC and SZC out doing their thing, baby faced and wide eyed and they all express their wish to leave politics behind to just help people. (The don’t fight Xue Yang because I think it’s funny when he’s Baby)

Then they get called back to go to the Wen Cultivation Conference and they thrash everyone at archery because power couple (ribbon shenanigans are more along the lines of WWX trips and pulls it off and LWJ goes bright red and freezes, it’s v awkward) [[JC sees WQ at the competition and does the best he’s ever done]].

Then the Wens do their ‘we’re banning nighthunting’ and CR burns and Indoctrination happens. Xuanwu cave, LWJ bites WWX as in MDZS because that’s hilarious. Lotus Pier as in CQL except Yanli is sent to Meishan because fuck Lanling. WWX becomes CorpseMan a la MDZS because all the giggling female corpses is Gross but also like such a Look, WWX accepts help a la CQL because I like the vibe of LWJ trying and failing to bring his crush back from the clutches of Evil.

Idk if I’d keep the Shooting at Wens thing from the pheonix mountain hunt? on one hand it demonstrates how everyone is scared of the Jins now (and that scene where wwx shoots 5 arrows is hot) but on the other I don’t that no one would speak up?? and I don’t think the Jins would want to be Conspicuously Evil so soon??? Blindfold yes, no kiss tho because I found the ‘LWJ punches trees when angry’ aspect of it annoying and I’d rather have a heartfelt talk about being soulmates (could have a sexy scene of LWJ walking up and taking off the blindfold and declaring WWX doesn’t need to prove himself to Jin Zixun)[[maybe an almost kiss before yanli appears]]

Qiongqi path: Wen Rescue as in CQL because that shit hurted but Wen Ning would Definitely Be Dead a la MDZS. Burial Mounds Life happens. [[JC refuses the comb from Wen Qing ‘what use would I have for it?’ he says]] There is no second flute, WWX lost control and Jin Zixuan is dead at his hand and his hand alone. Wen Qing and Wen Ning go to turn themselves in alone. [[Wen Qing leaves the comb in a tree stump where later a small boy will shelter as his home is destroyed around him]] WWX loses control at Nightless City, JYL dies, WWX jumps off a cliff. LWJ, wounded and heartbroken, takes his stand at the Burial Mounds, trying to protect WWX’s people after hiding A-Yuan in Cloud Recesses [[A-Yuan has the comb, years later Jiang Cheng will find him reminiscing and will have to leave the room to cry angry tears]] LWJ is incapacitated and punished. The Wen Remnants are killed and thrown into the Blood Pool.

16 years pass. 16 long years.

Mo Xuanyu summons back a Wei Wuxian who wanted to die but one who hoped against hope the Wen Remnants hadn’t been murdered after his death. A Wei Wuxian who regretted letting himself die without making sure they were safe. (A Wei Wuxian who had to find out he had failed when he arrived in the Burial Mounds to rescue the juniors). [[A Wei Wuxian that looks like Wei Wuxian and Mo Xuanyu combined]] In this canon they find body parts, a la MDZS. They share inn rooms with the knowledge of what they had meant to each other and how in the end it hadn’t meant a thing. They go to Yi City and find a boy, barely older than the juniors, playing house with the bodies of their friends, the ones they wanted to be like. WWX is reminded of all he put LWJ through when he jumped off that cliff. It is no wonder LWJ drinks that night.

Koi Tower happens, right? Idk it’s got to happen at some point. Probably CQL canon if only because I know that one better? I don’t think there’s much difference between the two for this bit.

At the second siege of the Burial Mounds the bodies in the blood pool come to their rescue. Wei Wuxian is horrified. ‘How could you let them do that!’ LWJ stays silent. (‘What else could warrant 33 lashes of the discipline whip’ he will whisper later, drunk off a single cup of wine.) ‘The honourable Hanguang-Jun was in seclusion after you died.’ Jiang Wanyin will say in his best sneer. Lan Qiren says nothing. (’I tried, I tried but it wasn’t enough’)

After the Burial Mounds they return to Lotus Pier. The revelations happen. [[Jiang Wanyin is horrified for more reasons than Wei Wuxian realises. No wonder Wen Qing could not accept his help after what she had done to him]]

Guanyin Temple bores me for the most part, JGY is allowed to monologue for far too long. I like the idea of them confessing at the most awkward time but at the same time it drags out JGY’s monologue even longer and that shit took like 4 episodes in CQL and it Dragged. I skimmed most of those chapters in the novel. JGY and NMJ’s body end up in a coffin trapped under a statue in the image of JGY’s dead mother. Probably have the iconic novel line where JGY is like ‘I hold LWJ’s life in my hands’ or w/e because that’s kinda hot. [[WWX comments to LWJ about how in the ancestral hall they’ve already done most of their bows, LWJ short circuits, JC asks if WWX would like his wedding planning books from when they were kids, WWX short circuits because ‘you KEPT THEM???’ ‘yeah dumbass, you’re still my brother even if I hate you!’]]

There’s that cute scene in CQL where WWX touches LSZ’s ribbon and they hug and cry, keeping that. LWJ and WWX kiss because I Said So and then also have sex because the UST is killing me (but not in front of LSZ, after he’s gone off to travel with Uncle Ning) They handfast but LWJ has to go be interim sect leader while convincing his brother to come out of seclusion and wwx decides to go try and set his demons to rest. LXC demands to be allowed to plan Wangji’s wedding as a stipulation of starting to return from seclusion. Wangji wisely does not mention they already consider themselves married.

[[Wen Qing is found in the cells of Jinlintai. JC tells her that he forgives her. She tells him she still can’t marry him, she has broken her oath as a healer. He lets her go.]]

[[2 years later she turns up in Yunmeng with her brother and her nephew in tow and suggests he join them on their latest night hunt. It’s not love, but he’s beginning to realise he can move on from her. Jin Rulan is disconcerted to find his uncle smiling the next time he visits.]]

[[For some reason, Sect Leader Yao is appointed Chief Cultivator. Everyone is appalled but a surprising amount gets done in order to avoid letting him talk too long.]]