#MLC spoilers

[lei-llustrations]

“李相夷已经死了。。。李莲花也快死了” - Episode 38 of Mysterious Lotus Casebook (莲花楼）

When even rebirth isn’t enough sometimes

please read Three Autumns by @rageprufrock

[shenzhiheng]

“Shixiong. Long time no see.”

Mysterious Lotus Casebook 莲花楼 | Episode 33

[peridot-tears]

The year is 2024 and a team of archeologists have excavated a strange grave in an old seaside village. The verdant green skeleton of a man who died in his 50s next to the bones of a dog. Alongside them are the bones of two men who passed well into their 90s. DNA testing shows that at least one of them was the ancestor of several prominent imperial families throughout the dynasties, and yet he was buried in this unmarked grave instead of with his family. None of them were related. All of them were buried decades apart.

[yuanzhous]

Because lying is the most fun a girl can have 💖

insp | insp | insp | insp | insp

and shout-out to @jiaoliqiao for suggesting this should be in Troubled Birds style!

[nutcasewithaknife]

Ngl, I have to hand it to Di Feisheng for trying so hard and coming so damn close to solving every single problem Li Lianhua has. Steal the evil box. Make it useless and avert the coup by killing off all the bugs with the evil-bug-killing salt. Steal the Styx flower from Shan Gudao and use it to save LLH. He literally had one mission after wrecking Di Manor and it was to fix everything for Li Lianhua. And Li Lianhua!!! Who is still not convinced Di Feisheng has chosen to side with Shan Gudao or has any evil motives, despite being on opposite sides of a hostage situation just hours ago!! They're so hopeless they're making me SICK

[muninnhuginn]

Thinking about "your weakness is how you always want to be the hero" and how the series returns to this at the end

Li Lianhua hated how he acted as Li Xiangyi and spent years trying to distance himself from it, but ultimately he still fell back into the similar patterns, for all his added experience

His main priority was always to "do the right thing" regardless of how that would impact on those around him. And it *did* impact those around him. From Qiao Wanmian and Shan Gudao as Li Xiangyi to Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng as Li Lianhua

Giving the Styx flower to the emperor so he could use it as leverage to guarantee Fang Duobing and his family's safety. Using the last of his power to save Yun Biqiu. Constantly putting others above himself whilst actively refusing to recognise that his self-sacrificial nature would hurt those he cared about most

And sure, he thinks he's going to die anyway. They're going to be hurt regardless and he can't do anything about that. His odds are low of the Styx flower even working. But ultimately, he refuses to even consider trying. Li Xiangyi has been dead a long time and Li Lianhua is just there to tide things over. What value is the life of a ghost

To the end, he lives and dies a hero. To the end, he refuses to live for himself.

[oneiriad]

I am loving Di Feisheng's expression during the reveal about Li Xiangyi's heritage in episode 39.

[potahun]

i haven't spent much time thinking about this yet but my first reaction to the ending of LHL is that it makes just as much thematic sense to have Li Lianhua survive at the end as it would for him to die.

This is because the 40 episodes we see of LHL is about Li Lianhua cleaning after Li Xiangyi. For all the times he insists that "Li Xiangyi died 10 years ago", the entire story we're shown is that Li Xiangyi has very much failed to die cleanly. There is Di Feisheng clinging to his fight with Li Xiangyi, there is Qiao Wanmian, Zijin and Biqiu completely hung up over memories of him, tormented by him in various ways, there is all the Plot and mess with Shan Gudao to clean up, there is his sword. Heck, we see at the end that all this time, he's even kept the Sigu Sect Leader's crest.

At one point he himself says "Li Xiangyi is dead, but his sword remains". I think it's only when he cleans up all the loose ends he left 10 years ago and gives up on the sword itself, that he truly frees himself.

So the 40 episodes of LHL are about killing Li Xiangyi for good, but there is no real reason, thematically, to kill Li Lianhua, other than that Li Xiangyi is fucking tired and wants to erase himself completely from the narrative. but Li Xiangyi's narrative IS over now. Di Feisheng got his answer from Li Xiangyi - there is no fight to be had, Li Xiangyi is dead and his sword broken. Fang Duobing got his response from Li Xiangyi - the legend passed down his techniques to him, including his unique yang zhou man.

Thematically, Li Xiangyi did go full circle and clean himself back to zero, even without Li Lianhua dying. There's definitely something to be said about him fucking off when he has almost no life expectancy left, and leaving all his loved ones behind. There is definitely an argument to be made about how he exhausted all means to be saved (he hasn't). I do think that narratively speaking, he himself left the gang with the thought of dying soon. But thematically, if he gets saved, it works JUST as well as if he dies. and this is the jianghu, and the ending is free real estate, so anything can happen

happy lotus polycule to all

[in-a-brown-study]

ep23/ WHAT WAS THE FIRST SECRET????? did we get to hear it? DID I MISS IT? augh

the cloaks look absolutely gorgeous on them!!!!!

*got a problem*

lxy 🤝 fdb: "A-Fei!!!!!" jduwhsjsj love it, they're so silly

HE APPEARED SO FAST! the shock on fdb's face😂 SAME BOY.

"It's fine that he (lxy) orders me" OKAY NOW WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS. ARGH

yeahhhh gimme more close ups of his beautiful eyes 😍🤧

[thesilversun]

Originally posted last weekend on my Blorbo.social after seeing the IQIYI ending extra for Mysterious lotus casebook

I know there seems to be something of a consensus that the open ending a sad one, that Li Xiangyi is gone.

Yet it doesn’t feel this way to me - it’s an open ending.

Lxy jumped into the boat on the river with nothing but what he was wearing. It’s what he’s still wearing when he writes the letter on the boat.

It is not what he is wearing standing on the beach. Clothes, cloak & hair pin are different. It inner layer is something other than white.

He wears a red inner layer as young pre-poisoning lxy, but as llh it’s always white.

Llh wears wooden hair pins - on the beach it’s ivory or bone. It’s the only time we see him wear this.

We see why fdb hurries there. A man at the roadside says he found the bag of sweets on a dead man on the beach.

It’s 3 months after lxy disappeared, when he had less than a month to live. A body that’s been floating in the sea/laying on a beach for 2+ months is not going to have sweets on it you are going to consider eating.

Dfs simultaneous arrival - what was his tip off to go racing there?

Fdb & dfs & fox spirit stop and look, but we never see what they see. They halt, it seems mostly in disbelief.

Fox spirit is happy - why would show him happy if he wasn’t getting to see llh again?

I can see how it can be interpreted as lxy having died on the beach, but it’s only one interpretation of the scene.

Alive and cured, or alive and somehow still poisoned, or dead. none is absolutely proven or disproven.

So I will chose the alive option.

——

Added here on Tumblr now I’ve seen the differently edited extra as it appeared when it was broadcast on CCTV.

Which although very similar to the iQIYI one is edited slightly differently so you get a sense that they are all on the beach together.

They’ve done something too with the lighting of the scene. It’s warmer. The last view of any of them before it the view pans out across the sea is lxy/llh with a small smile on his face.

I’ll take that as my happy/hopefully ending.

[sarah-yyy]

good morning friends, jiejie is back on her writing bs finally :)))

“He’s not dead!” Fang Duobing roars. “He’s somewhere! He’s waiting for us to find him! We need to-” “Fang Duobing,” Di Feisheng says. His hands are gentle when they ease Er Ya out of Fang Duobing’s hands. He’s never been gentle with Fang Duobing in the time they’ve known each other, but Fang Duobing is on the verge of a qi deviation, and if Di Feisheng cannot –could not– save Li Xiangyi, then by god he will save Li Xiangyi’s stupid disciple. “He’s gone.”  “He’s-” “You have to let him go,” Di Feisheng tells him. 

[shenzhiheng]

―Margaret Atwood, November

[yuanzhous]

insp

Happy birthday, @jiaoliqiao! 💖🎈💖🎊💖

[nutcasewithaknife]

Going BESERK about the fact that over 40 whole episodes, the widest eye-crinkling happy smiles we see from both Di Feisheng and Li Lianhua are at each other, in the wedding room sequence. Both of them just barely escaped captivity and fates worse than death. They're smack in middle of enemy territory. And despite everything else that still needs to be fixed they're just so relieved and happy they're both safe with each other till the next day.

[epicwalrus]

I am so Normal about Mysterious Lotus Casebook.

How normal, you ask?

(spoilers for episodes 1 - 18)

Orange - general connection

Blue - manipulation

Pink - romantic

Green - familial

Purple - suspicious

[xthelastknownsurvivorx]

mlc accidental lesbian marriage has not left my brain since i watched that episode and i've been having thoughts about fdb's aunt xiaofeng having a bisexual awakening thanks to (accidentally) marrying lianyi xianzi and realizing she would have been very happy to have a wife instead of a husband had lianyi survived

in conjunction with this, i think it would be very funny if for some reason sxy came to tianji manor to deliver something, then began helping with further research into nanyin (derogatory) and she and xiaofeng started growing closer and it turned into something. bonus points for when fdb returns home with llh and gets huffy over the new development and sxy now being something like a cousin(?). also imagining him maybe protesting the age difference only to be reminded it's basically the same between him and llh (which he also gets huffy about)

not sure I really see them as something long term but seems like a fun, slightly wild pairing that's my contribution to the mlc rare pair agenda or whatever