#and still half in love with li lianhua

[momosandlemonsoda]

WIP Wednesday

Despite knowing it was Wednesday all day, I only just remembered that WIP Wednesday exists. Thanks, brain.

Anyway, have Fang Duobing freaking out about being late to meet Li Lianhua in the rock star AU.

Shit! he thinks again, hoping desperately that Li Lianhua doesn’t get so annoyed that he up and leaves. Fang Duobing had gone through hell to get a practice room on such short notice, finally resorting to bribing a jazz trio to give him the room for their two-hour block. They’d charged an absolutely exorbitant rate, too! He tightens his grip on his guitar case and keeps going, picking up his pace. He doesn’t need to think about the last time he’d been late to a meeting with Li Lianhua, that was a bad— The memory rises up before he can stop it, Li Lianhua spread naked in his own sheets, long hair tumbled around him, head thrown back as he’d thrust into him. God, he thinks, smacking his head with his free hand, now is not the time, brain!  It was clear that had been a one-time thing and if he pisses the man off by being late again he will walk. Fang Duobing needs his help with this showcase—he’s half-convinced he made the complete wrong decision by signing up and he’s already talked himself out of dropping out three times already today. He hopes desperately that Li Lianhua got his text and grimly pushes himself to run faster. When he arrives ten minutes late, sweaty and out of breath, hair falling out of his ponytail, he’s relieved to see that Li Lianhua is still there, leaning against the wall outside the practice room. He almost looks like any other student in his threadbare blue peacoat, clutching a travel mug in one hand and his phone in the other. For a moment, Fang Duobing can only stare, marveling once again at how god-damned beautiful the man is, and then he gets ahold of himself, pulls out the post-it he’d shoved in his pocket, and punches in the code to access the room. “Sorry,” he gasps, holding the door open for Li Lianhua to enter. “My professor kept us over. I didn’t mean to be late.”

[murderedbyhomework]

Cannot believe Li Lianhua spent the entire show trying to accomplish one last thing, only to find out the truth behind what he thought was true. He wanted to neatly tie up all the strings he had left in life, then exit it. He's the ghost haunting the narrative, except he's still alive, and both the people who hate and love him refuse to let go of the memory of Li Xiangyi. Even when in the end he actually does die, after he sends a letter to Di Feisheng and asks him to fight someone else, and leaves his worldly possessions to Fang Duobing, he still has people chasing after him and asking him to please just come back and live. He was a ghost haunting the narrative when he was still alive and he's haunting the narrative even after he's dead.

[difeisheng]

man... everyone in the 碧窗有鬼杀人 storyline sucks as a baseline but they really hammered it home and made it even more wretched in the drama huh

[bbcphile]

We’ve talked a lot in Mysterious Lotus Casebook about the importance of the Eastern Sea beach, but I just realized that waterfalls also play a really important role in the show, especially as related to Di Feisheng! Di Feisheng’s interactions with waterfalls reflect his past memories of and feelings for Li Xiangyi and hopes for the future with Li Lianhua.

Immediately after his enthronement ceremony, Di Feisheng escapes to a private gorgeous waterfall to drink wine and reminisce about missing Li Xiangyi and how empty things feel without him. The waterfall is beautiful, secluded but with good sightlines, and sensorily soothing (smell and sound of moving water)—everything the Di Fortress wasn’t—so it is probably one of the few places he can actually decompress. He certainly seems more at home there than he does in the alliance headquarters or at his training grounds, given his occasional half-smile and more relaxed body language replaced the crossed arms, loose fists, rigid posture, and hypervigilance to his surroundings he often has. Given his usual discomfort in new places, his comfort at this waterfall suggests that he’s spent time here prior to entering seclusion, especially since Wuyan knew to meet him there. Once we learned about the extent of his trauma, I’d assumed that this private waterfall functioned as a safe space–for any of you lucky enough to have not needed PTSD therapy, it means a place you can visit or imagine to calm down and ground yourself in the present if you’re experiencing flashbacks or other symptoms, and moving bodies of water are common choices–and that it was comforting because of the space itself and not because of any associations between waterfalls and memories of Li Xiangyi.

But then Di Feisheng visited a waterfall in the back hill of the Sigu sect (!!!) three times in three episodes (!!!), which make waterfalls even more overtly associated with Li Xiangyi. For the first instance, he meets Wuyan at the Sigu waterfall after he failed to break into the prison there. Di Feisheng must have spent time there in the past in order to have suggested it as a meeting spot for Wuyan in the first place, and it must have been a secret that he knew about it for it to not have already been crawling with guards after he defeated the entire sect leadership. This is the first big suggestion that he and Li Xiangyi had spent significant amounts of time alone together at the waterfall before the East Sea battle 10 years ago, and that he still treasures those memories. The fact that Di Feisheng spends the scene staring with overt longing at the waterfall, even while Wuyan is talking to him, makes this reading seem even more likely. It might also explain why he loves his own private waterfall, if waterfalls and memories of happy times with Li Xiangyi are so inextricably linked.

Di Feisheng leaves the waterfall that reminds him of Li Lianhua just long enough to save the man himself by taking Qiao Wanmian “hostage” and proposing a prisoner exchange at the gazebo on the back hill of the Sigu sect. This gazebo is, of course, right next to the waterfall he couldn’t take his eyes off, so back to the waterfall he goes.

After having deposited Qiao Wanmian at the gazebo, Di Feisheng resumes staring at the waterfall, not taking his eyes off it during his entire conversation with Wuyan, which is, like the conversation at his own private waterfall, mostly about wanting Li Xiangyi in his life. It’s no surprise, then, that everything Di Feisheng does at the waterfall is to try to win back Li Xiangyi’s trust: first, he protects Li Lianhua’s identity by claiming his own Beifeng Baiyang cured a-Mian’s poison, and second, in freeing the subordinate who can prove to Li Lianhua that the Jinyuan Alliance was framed for Shan Gudao’s murder, he gives Li Lianhua proof that he didn’t betray his trust or break the peace treaty. With the prisoner exchange, then, the waterfall becomes more than just a reminder of his memories of Li Xiangyi: it becomes the site of two acts of service (Di Feisheng’s main love language) designed to restore Li Lianhua’s trust and their former intimacy to what it used to be.

The last time we see Di Feisheng and the Sigu sect waterfall is when he’s been poisoned with Wuxin Huai and is struggling to stay conscious and about to lose his memory: he carves “find Li Lianhua” on his palm with a rock, then stumbles past the very gazebo he’d placed the formerly poisoned Qiao Wanmian in and into the water, hoping it will carry him to where Li Lianhua can find him. The entire time he’s writing and then walking, the waterfall is behind him, but as he begins to lose consciousness, he twists before he hits the water, which means that he’s facing the waterfall as the current carries him away. This scene perfectly and heartbreakingly shows the connection between waterfalls and Di Feisheng’s memories of Li Xiangyi, which he knows he’s about to lose from the poison; you could even read the way he wants to float down the river while facing the waterfall, even though he’s unconscious and unable to see it, as his trying to hold onto his memories of Li Xiangyi for as long as he can, by facing the waterfall that represents him until it’s gone from view. 

The Sigu Sect waterfall then becomes a literal safe space when he has nowhere else to go and when he’s being hunted by his own people (a nightmare that must have at least in part reminded him of his time at the Di Fortress). For him to trust it to carry him safely while unconscious, given his trauma history, he must be so familiar with it from his time with Li Xiangyi that he would know both where the waterfall would spit him out, and that the area is secluded enough that no Jinyuan alliance members would find and kill him. In other words, the Sigu Sect waterfall brings him the same sense of safety, familiarity, comfort, and protection that Li Xiangyi/Lianhua himself provides, and he entrusts his unconscious body to its waters just as carving his name into his palm entrusts his body to the man himself.  

It’s no wonder, then, that Di Feisheng’s fainting into the Sigu Sect waters is a literal trust fall that he hopes will carry him from the waterfall that embodies past memories with Li Xiangyi to Li Lianhua himself; he knows Li Lianhua will help and protect him as the water did, and hopes that he will regain not only the memories of Li Xiangyi, but also the trust of Li Lianhua, and perhaps, an even closer intimacy than they once had by the Sigu Sect waterfall.

[kseniyagreen]

On the theme of marriage and promise in Mysterious lotus casebook

The wedding theme comes up multiple times in Mysterious Lotus, but if you look closely, it's never a good thing.

The story begins with Fang Duobing running away from his own wedding to a princess.

The princess gets into trouble when she goes after him.

Three girls die wearing a wedding dress.

Qiao Wanmian almost dies at her own wedding.

Fang Duobing's aunt's "husband" dies after their wedding.

Jiao Liqiao cripples Di Feisheng out of an obsessive desire to marry him.

It is not surprising that after looking at this, Li Lianhua runs away from his own "wedding" , I mean fighting , with Di Feisheng .

The traditional concept of marriage is always about promise, about permanence, about belonging.

And indeed, a promise can be a very powerful support when you are confused, when you are afraid of losing yourself.

But when you have already changed, the promise made by the old you can become an anchor and even a prison.

It’s painful and scary to break a promise to a person when you realize that love is gone, and maybe it was never “that” love.

But it can be even more painful and scary to break a promise to someone you still love.

Especially when you know too well that for him you are all he has.

But if a promise turns into a chain, a loving person can turn into your master, and love can turn into hatred.

Love also needs to be reborn from time to time in order to remain alive.

What I find difficult and controversial about this topic in the context of the ambiguous ending of the drama is that a traumatized person can sometimes confuse the real sense of self and the imposed one by others, the fear of dependence and the fear of intimacy.

How much does Li Lianhua really not want to be Li Xiangyi, and how much is he simply afraid of being the “wrong” Li Xiangyi and meet other people’s shattered expectations?

Li Lianhua had been trying to run away since childhood, but he never allowed himself to run away completely, he was always a half-runaway.

In the finale, he finally ran away completely, even from the person he loved most.

But now he has to learn how to return and stay.

[eirenical]

Hey, MLCB fandom. We've been bombarded with some amazing photoshoots today, and I've been losing my entire mind over them all day, so GUESS WHAT. You all get to suffer with me.

For reference, the photoshoots and edits that inspired this post: [Cheng Yi in white] [BTS video of Cheng Yi in white, starring the photographer arm that sent this whole thing down a difanghua path instead of just a fanghua path] [@difeisheng 's edit/compilation of Cheng Yi and Zeng Shunxi's parallel photoshoots] [@la-muerta's edit of the photographer arm that made that vision a reality]

I don't have extensive context for all of this, but Di Feisheng, Fang Duobing, and Li LIanhua have gone to an event of some kind.  Maybe it's Di Feisheng' gallery opening.  Maybe it's Fang Duobing unveiling a new invention at a huge conference.  It doesn't matter.  What matters is that they all go, and they all have to get dressed up, and the event lasts all evening and long into the night and they don't make it home until well after dawn.

They get home and Fang Duobing has been in these clothes for far too long now and he desperately needs to get out of them and shower off the excitement of the night.  There's too much of a buzz under his skin and he's been talking everyone's ears off the entire ride home and he's losing patience with himself, so surely the others must be losing patience with him as well.  He needs a chance to let the buzz of energy die down a little bit before he irritates the others past the point of being able to deal with it, so he heads off to the giant bathroom to do just that.

Li Lianhua is quiet.  Mellow.  He didn't get drunk, per se, but he's somewhere in the slightly buzzed vicinity; enough that he's floppy and tired and half in love with the world and just wants to be petted and held, something he'd gotten plenty of on the drive home, but he still wants more.

(If pushed, he might admit that he doesn't handle crowds well, that he hasn't done since his days as a child prodigy fell far behind him.  Crowds do nothing but intimidate him now, bring back memories he'd rather leave far in the past, but he wants to support his partners, even if he has to blur the world a little to get through doing it.)

Di Feisheng has been rigidly well-behaved and contained all night and remains so even after they get home.  He has his own childhood traumas and handles crowds as well as Li Lianhua does.  He doesn't appreciate being touched by strangers, even accidentally, but crowds are a necessity in his line of work, sometimes, and there's nothing to be done for it. Now that he's home, he should be able to relax, but he can't.  He won't be able to until the hypervigilance fades.  So, he doesn't really want to be alone, but his choices… he could join Fang Duobing, let that inane chatter wash over him along with the water from a hot shower, to take the edge off his nerves.  But he doesn't want to be naked right now, doesn't want to be that vulnerable until his he's no longer twitching at every errant sound. So he stays with Li Lianhua.  To make sure he doesn't do something stupid while impaired.  It wouldn't be the first time.

But Li Lianhua is just... wandering around the room.  He's wandering around the room and slowly undoing the buttons at his cuffs… his neck… all the way down his chest to reveal the half-sheer singlet underneath.  He's wandering the room, undoing his clothes and gently touching things like it's the first time he's ever seen them, in spite of having lived in this room already for nearly three years.

And something about that soft wonder on his face relaxes something in Di Feisheng, finally releases him from the coil of tension he's been wound around all night.  So he does what he always does when a moment means something more than it should.  He pulls out his camera and begins taking pictures.

Li Lianhua notices, of course, and his gentle meanderings start to become a little bit of a performance.  Not a true dance, he hasn't done that in years, not since—  Di Feisheng cuts off the thought before he can dwell on it for too long.  They'd both lost too much in the accident that had ended Li Xiangyi's career and turned Di Feisheng into a fugitive for a decade.  Tonight isn't about them.  It isn't about that.  It was about their Xiaobao's accomplishments, about realizing the dream they'd helped him bring to fruition together.  And right now, it's about Li Lianhua, and a dance that isn't a dance.  Here in this room is the one place Li Lianhua allows a spectre of his former self to rise, allows himself to enjoy being noticed, being watched.  Because it's them.  Because he enjoys when the two of them watch him, focus on him, blocking out everything else but the safety of the space they've carved out here together.

And so, Di Feisheng takes picture after picture: Li Lianhua at the window, staring out into the garden, Li Lianhua in the hallway, hand settled gracefully on the railing as though at a barre, Li Lianhua in bed, rolling around and rumpling up the sheets, half asleep already the moment he's supine among the blankets and pillows. 

And he sends each one of those pictures to Fang Duobing.

Even Li Lianhua manages to take one very shaky selfie of himself sprawled in their bed, rumpled and bleary-eyed and barely awake.  Di Feisheng sends that one, too.

It isn't more than a minute later when Fang Duobing comes sprinting down the hall, clad in nothing but his boxers, wet hair half in his face, as droplets of water drip down his chest.  He's holding his phone in front of himself like a talisman, eyes narrowed accusingly at Di Feisheng.

Di Feisheng simply smiles and slides onto the bed to pull Li Lianhua into his arms for a kiss.  By the time it's over, Li Lianhua is draped half in his lap and whimpering, pulling at the sleeves of his shirt as he tries to peel it off and mold himself around Di Feisheng's body at the same time.

Di Feishing looks back up… and smiles wider.  "I didn't want to you miss the show."

Moments later, he has a armful of very wet Fang Doubing toppling them all over into the blankets.

It's undignified.  It's clumsy.  It's ridiculous in so many ways—more giggling fits of laughter than moans of pleasure.  And Di Feisheng wouldn't trade it for anything.

[hils79]

Hils Watches Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Ep 40 (and bonus episode)

God, okay, here we go. I'm so anxious. I remember how Heroes ended and how much it broke me

I've come this far though so I guess let's do this even if it's going to hurt. I have a packet of tissues on standby just in case it all goes horribly wrong as I fear it will

Well, we're off to a good start. Li Lianhua is practicing his martial arts and imagining Di Feisheng is there with him. I'm definitely not crying less than 5 minutes in

It's okay though because Fang Duobing is there to take care of him and make sure he keeps warm 😭

Okay, I suspected he rigged the mechanisms to be easily seen and destroyed because Fang Duobing mentioned it but I didn't realise the whole thing was him trying to take down Jiao Liqiao from the inside. I feel bad(ish) for him now

Oh shit! Well, it wouldn't be Mysterious Lotus Casebook without one final (I hope) dramatic poisoning

I love that he just calls him Xiaobao in front of everyone now. Everyone clearly knows they're together.

God, he's about to do something stupid isn't he? I'm having Word of Honor flashbacks. GDI even I didn't clock that he was deliberately sending Fang Duobing away so he could do this

Oh fuck

I am sobbing

I do not understand these two at all. First of all I thought she left him when she ended their engagement (that I thought was a marriage - that whole wedding that wasn't a wedding was confusing), then I assumed she must have left him when she took the sect leader job from him. Apparently after all that they're still together??? But maybe they're breaking up for real this time?

I suppose Xiao Zijin is going to blame Li Lianhua for this too

I knew he was going to get free and leave before Fang Duobing got back 😭

FFS I was already crying and now Huli Jing is crying so I'm crying even more. I knew this was going to be sad but FUCK

He just rescued a trapped bird like a fucking Disney prince

I knew the 'recipe book' was going to be all his martial arts notes

FFS Xiao Zijin let it go! I swear to god if he kills Li Lianhua because Li Lianhua is half blind and ready to die I am throwing my laptop out the window

OH FUCK IS HE GOING TO DO IT HIMSELF?

Oh, I think he was talking to his sword

Well fuck.

Oh, he landed in the boat. Maybe he's okay? Let me have my denial!

It feels like forever ago but I think this dude was telling the story of Li Xiangyi and Di Feisheng in the first episode. If he was that's a nice touch that we've circled back around and he's now telling stories about Li Lianhua

I have to laugh because the alternative is crying even more. But I love all these randos know that Di Feisheng is in love with Li Lianhua and they're acting like him not showing up at the beach is like jilting him at the altar (even though they're already married)

His stoic but clearly sad face 😭

Well he's still alive. At the moment at least.

I know he's talking about fighting, but he probably also talking about their relationship

I want to hug him

I'm fine 😭

Onto the bonus episode. This is either going to be hopeful or painful and I honestly have no idea which way it's going to go

Painful so far!

Well, that was very ambiguous so I'm choosing to believe they found him at the beach and are living happily ever after 😋

I did really enjoy that despite the pain. Thanks to everyone who has been yelling along with me in the comments and notes while I've been watching. This is why I enjoy liveblogging dramas

[rageprufrock]

Sneak Peak: Untitled Mysterious Lotus Casebook Fan Fic Because I Make Bad Decisions And Don't Sleep Enough

Instead of sleeping last week, I watched Mysterious Lotus Casebook. And instead of sleeping next week, I expect I will be working on this Mysterious Lotus Casebook fan fic.

It takes Li Lianhua almost an hour to claw his way out of his own grave. 

It’s another shichen before Li Lianhua manages to drag himself out of the yawning arms of the earth. His legs shake, his arms shake; the air that expands his lungs hurts going in and breathing out. But no matter how meticulously he catalogs his suffering, each revelation is disquietingly ordinary: he’s thirsty, he’s tired, his body hurts from immobility–from very recent death. He feels staggeringly, unfathomably alive.

Gasping, dizzy with some sizzle of power still shivering out of his bones, he props himself up against his own funeral stele and realizes that he can no longer feel the necrotic, rotting hunger of the Bicha poison, and–when he looks around, across the sweeping mountains, toward the misted pink of dawn–that he had been buried, lavish, in the private family cemetery of Tianji Manor. 

When he’d died, when he’d discarded the last of his worries, cut all the vermillion silks and half-formed hopes that had buoyed him, Li Lianhua had given himself to the sea. He remembers the bitter bracing salt of the water, the forgiving lap of frozen waves, how he’d buckled—left, then right knee—the jade colored water closing over him, absolving. He remembers the searing ice of the ocean, the swirl of his worn linen clothes, the weight of his cloak at first suffocating and then nothing, nothing at all.

Now, Li Lianhua takes one step after another through a greener sea, a canopy of late summer leaves, marveling at his robes of emerald silk brocade, embroidered gold with gold and silver threads–flawless on the right and wrong sides of the fabric, as soft as new grass under his fingertips. Now, he listens to the trilling of magpies, spies the velvet ears of half-hidden rabbits, the fleeting russet flanks of swift-moving deer, feels the soft veil of summer light, smells honeysuckle and the petrichor of recent rain. 

He crosses a brook, through the forest as it thins to a glade and in the distance now, Li Lianhua can see the curled-up roofs of a home he barely knows, and that is at once as familiar and well-loved as its young master. 

“Xiaobao-ah,” he says, the first words he’s said out loud, his voice a startling rasp, rattling out of his chest, “what on earth have you done?” 

A little while later, when he’s being thrown ass over elbow into the street by a full phalanx of Tianji Hall’s most ferocious enforcers, Li Lianhua realizes the answer to his question is, ‘plague me in my second life, just as he did the first.’ 

***

Getting from Tianji Manor to the headquarters of the Bai Chuan Court takes more than a week, a journey funded by strategically pawning off a jade thumb ring he’d acquired sometime between dying at the shore and waking up buried in a fucking mountainside. 

Along the way, he buys a set of less ostentatious robes so that people stop trying to rob him like a guileless fop and hears no fewer than two dozen stories–each more absurd than the last, which is frankly astonishing given the truth–of his death and resurrection and death again. At least three of them include morally questionable methods of yang energy application, and a woman who sells him a skewer of tanghulu assures Li Lianhua that a friend of a cousin heard from a reliable source that Li Xianyi had managed his miraculous revival as a result of a profound bond with his martial rival and marital match, Di Feisheng. It leaves him speechless with horror for a full 30 seconds before he implores her to stop spreading the story, because sooner or later Di Feisheng will hear about it and raze her entire village to ashes. 

“Now, everyone knows the heroic story of Li Xiangyi’s death and resurrection and death again,” says an old storyteller at an inn the next night. 

Around him, the crowd gathered close and eager to hear over the sound of a roaring storm outdoors, the wind and sleeting rain too dire for any more travel that night. Li Lianhua is hiding in a back corner on his second jug of wine, still far too sober for another, ever more fabulist recounting of his so-called adventures. 

“But tonight,” the storyteller goes on, “I want to tell another story, one of a legend in the making: a most tragic romance–” 

“Thank God,” Li Lianhua murmurs to himself.

“–For while the story of Li Xianyi is well known,” the old man says, “that of his second love with the young master of Tianji Hall is not.”

Li Lianhua chokes on his wine. “What.” 

“Now listen as I tell you of a remarkable young man, a brilliant scholar, a refined gentleman, and a generational martial arts talent,” the storyteller invites. “And so passionate in his devotion to Li Xiangyi that he turned down the hand of a princess to wander the jianghu in mourning, as faithful as a widow.” 

“What?” Li Lianhua asks again. 

By the end of his tale of woe, there’s not a dry eye in the inn and Li Lianhua has progressed through two further jugs of wine, too mortified and then too drunk to go anywhere or do anything about the abject slander he’s hearing. 

At no point during any of the cases he’d investigated with Fang Duobing had anybody made any stoic declarations of unwavering devotion during any driving snowstorms, and they were both far too skilled with their weapons for any cutting of sleeves, accidental or otherwise. There had been an extended interlude on how–as they were both dutiful men, and having honorably severed any other previous betrothals–they’d engaged one another in a match of swords that had progressed into a dance of the clouds and rain. It speaks well on the miraculous nature of whatever sorcery had revived him that Li Lianhua does not immediately vomit blood and expire again. 

It’s dawn by the time the storm lets up enough for the storyteller’s captive audience to disperse into the city, and Li Lianhua staggers out of the inn a shattered ghost of himself. He hitches a ride with a farmer traveling two cities over, toward the place where where the provincial border is drawn by a fast-moving river, and along the way he reflects that with this additional information, it makes much more sense that all the loyal attendants and members of Tianji Hall had taken one look at him, threatened his life, and violently chased him off property. Nevermind Di Feisheng–He Xiaohui will kill him first for allegedly dishonoring her precious son, and Fang Duobing will be stuck with the tedious work of burying Li Lianhua all over again, which feels churlish given how thoughtfully Xiaobao appears to have done it the first time. 

In another life, with the privilege and the right to such sentiments, Li Lianhua would be outraged with anybody at the root of such defamations against his lone disciple. In this one, where Li Lianhua is only–with extraordinary reluctance–willing to admit to another living soul he has any sort of affection or sense of responsibility toward Fan Duobing, it is of course fitting and just that he is the source of said defamations, and will likely suffer untold tortures for his part in sullying Fang Duobing’s reputation. 

At the river, he buys passage on a boat and stares out at the steamy gray-green of the fog over the banks, the way that the sun paints the surface of the water a blushing pink. It is, just as he remembers from his final walk to the sea, all so very, very beautiful. He closes his eyes to focus on the susurration of water against the flanks of the boat, to feel the damp wind against his face, the way it blows the loose strands of hair back from his face, how it catches in the rough-spun collar of his hastily purchased robes. He can hear the other passengers telling stories, exchanging gossip, the sound of someone snoring as their journey brings them from the chill of morning into the hot sun of high noon. 

A shichen later, the boat is being pulled in toward a little cluster of docks, and Li Lianhua disembarks into the a marketplace transitioning from its daytime of vegetable sellers and grain merchants to its nightly amusements of street food stalls and performers setting up their stages. And by the time it takes for him to navigate the dozen li to the front gates of Bai Chuan Court, it’s nearly full dark, lanterns orange-bright against the midnight blue evening. 

Li Lianhua is sweaty, filthy from travel, and ravenous, and it is only the certainty that if he evades the guards and arrives unannounced in the receiving room, someone will think he is a ghost that has him bothering with the heavy brass knocker at all. 

When the terrified guards bring him to Ji, Yun, and Bai, they think he’s a ghost anyway. 

“Sect Leader Li, I’m sure you can understand that we must investigate your miraculous return. Again,” Shi Shui tells him, at once peerlessly respectful and with absolute disapproval. “Although this certainly contextualizes some recent events in the Capital.”

Li Lianhua smiles ruefully. “I have a theory that useless disciple of mine may have overreached.” 

Shi Shui scowls, not at the words or even at the thought of Fan Duobing, but very clearly and directly at Li Lianhua. It’s absolutely terrifying. 

“Well, if overreach was what brought you back to us, then Fang-gongzhi’s seven days of fasting at your funeral would have had you here three years ago,” she tells him, matter-of-fact and utterly gutting, before she waves for one of the junior disciples. “Ye’er, send a runner to Fang Manor–I’m sure the investigators and doctors there will need to know of this latest development.”

Li Lianhua tenses. “Doctors? Investigators?” 

Shi Shui slants a look toward him, watchful. “According to our network, seven days ago, Fang-gongzhi was grievously injured, and hasn’t regained consciousness since–seven days, that’s when you say you escaped death once more, if I remember correctly?”

“Yes,” Lianhua croaks, remembering all the hundreds and thousands of small and seismic ways that Fang Duobing had tried to save him in their months together, imagining Xiaobao in roughspun mourning, honoring a ghost in a way so intimate and harrowing it shames Li Lianhua to acknowledge it, to know how well he was loved. 

“Quite a coincidence,” Shi Shui says, acid, and tells the doctors, “You had better do some painful, invasive testing on him–just to ensure it’s really Sect Leader Li, of course.”

Li Lianhua gets about as far as saying, “Ah–that’s–” before the doctors, clearly reading the room, swarm him armed with bitter medicines, silver needles, and accompanied by a shaman who’d been summoned in a cacophony of shrieking that should have been beneath three of the four hallowed directors of the almighty Bai Chuan Court. 

[nutcasewithaknife]

got the wip game: tell me about get loved, idiot?

but i keep getting scooped on these, so if it's been taken, may i have the difang or death one, please?

I'm afraid you did get scooped once again ;-; I've rambled a bit about it here!

I'll talk about the Difang one though! The title is "I’LL DO DIFANG OR DIE TRYING" just because I've been having a hard time writing it :') It's one of the smaller one-shots on the list. It happened as a result of my headcanon that in the polycule, Li Lianhua is firmly in the ace corner and has no interest in sex whatsoever while Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing match each other's incredibly horny energies all the time. The premise is just difang smut, with a side of Li Lianhua who is so very tired of walking in on them fucking at random times all over Lotus tower.

For the snippet, here's a little bit of difang's first time making out with each other:

If it weren’t for the solid grip on his hip and behind his neck, Fang Duobing would’ve tripped over his own feet as he was pushed back. They were a mess of limbs as A-Fei herded him back till he could feel the edge of the kitchen counter press against his back. Fang Duobing’s objection to being manhandled was eaten up by another kiss as A-Fei lifted him onto the edge of the counter.  The more he tried to not show his inexperience, the clumsier he felt, and the harder he tried. With an impatient noise, Fang Duobing escaped the kiss and got to work on A-Fei’s robes. It didn’t hinder him as he started sucking and biting down his neck instead. When Fang Duobing finally started to shove the clothes off him, he realised that his arm bracers were still tied and in the way.  A-Fei paused to tug them off, not without a smug smirk. Fang Duobing shoved his shoulder. “I don’t have experience taking people’s clothes off! Screw you!” “Is that how you want it?” Di Feisheng asked. Despite himself, Fang Duobing flushed harder. “What do you- Which way-” “Any way.” Di Feisheng leaned forward, hands on the counter on either side of him, looming closer. Why was that hot!?  “You’d let me- well, you?” Fang Duobing managed, half-dubious, half-curious. Di Feisheng looked amused. “I’d let you fuck me, but you can’t even say it. Are you sure you want to?” Fang Duobing scoffed even as he felt his ears go hotter by the second. “Do whatever you want, I won’t back down! Bring it on!”

They're a mess, I love them.

[randomingoftherandomness]

Fic: Love is when you try to place it out your mind

A/N: For @lovesickfolly and based on their deliciously wonderful plot bunnies :) The title is based on Mona Lisa by Dominic Fike

Fair warning, as of writing this fic, I'm on episode 10 of the show but I'd been Tumblr-watching it while it was airing so I have a gauge of what's what. If there are some discrepancies with the details or whatnot, *handwaves* consider this a Canon Divergence?

As a whole, I hope I did the prompt I chose some proper justice. This fic is not betaed. Enjoy!

--

It happens a little like this:

Fang Duobing holds on a little tighter just to keep Li Lianhua from running away. Li Lianhua uses some sleight of hand to keep him at a distance. Fang Duobing falls for it but only for a moment, before he catches the corner of his sleeve, holding on just long enough to say, "I love you, I have loved you for the longest time. I can't live when you aren't near, yet I can't breathe when you are away from my side."

"You frustrate me, you drive me insane, but there's no one better for me. In this life, I want no one else. I've never had to beg anyone for anything but, please..."

"Fang Duobing, I think you've drunk too much tonight."

A gentle push at his wrist that he doesn't fight is strong enough to have him stumbling back. Hurt lances through his heart at the way Li Lianhua's dark gaze lifts and meets his own unwaveringly. Like two bottomless pools in a moonless night, there is little he can do but to listen to his heart break when Li Lianhua says, "I'll forget everything you just said. Bury this deep and never think about me like this again."

It ends a lot like this:

Li Lianhua leaves him behind without a second thought.

It has been a year since he last saw him.

It feels very much like this:

An ache in his heart follows him closer than a shadow, far more familiar than his own skin, settling deeper in his marrow than his own blood. He cannot eat, he cannot sleep. The best wine is tasteless, the finest dishes are ash on his tongue.

For the first month, he knows his mother spends sun up to sundown cursing the jianghu. It takes his youngest Aunt coming to his room to hold him by the hand as she'd used to do when he was little and ill from a bout of sickness, tearfully pleading with him to please, just eat something, just one bite, one sip of water, just do something instead of staying in his room like he'd lost all his will to live.

(if he only climbs out of bed because his mother and aunt threaten to bring this case up to the whole of the jianghu, if he only takes his first bite of food because they bring Fox Spirit to his side to comfort him, that's something for him and him only to know)

By the time the seasons change, his mother only kisses his cheeks in goodbye and tells him to take care of himself on the road when he leaves to roam the jianghu and carry out his duties to the Baichuan Court.

And through all that, the ache settles in like an old friend. His aunt says that heartbreak will take time to get over. Fang Duobing doesn't know if he wants to wait to find out.

He's probably cursed at this point, but there's nothing much to be done about that.

The first time he hears that Li Lianhua is back is half a year since he spilt his heart out and it is through gossip he overhears in a tavern in the middle of escorting a criminal. There's a twinge of instinct like a cut-off nerve ending that still feels sensation even when it shouldn't, to get up, ask those men where they heard such a piece of news and chase that man down by hook or by crook.

Instead, Fang Duobing takes a deep, calming breath, swallows down his mouthful of food, and takes another breath.

In the months after, it's as if he is seeing ghosts.

A glimpse of a lotus leaf hairpin on someone, the scent of herbs and fire on another, the sight of red ribbons floating in the wind. The touch of warmth on his wrist as he walks in a crowd. Despite all these, Fang Duobing trudges on. Smiling when he has to, laughing because he wants nothing but to put the frown off his mother's brow, joking when all he wants to do is scream that the withered and dying heart in him is so hollowed out that nothing matters.

Not helped is how the rumour of Li Lianhua's return was anything but an exaggeration.

Everyone seems to have seen him. Everyone but him.

The masters of Baichuan Court had a meal with him a week ago. Su Xiaoyong managed to corner him for tea a day ago and Qiao Wanmian is having him over for lunch in a week. Sometimes, if he comes back at the right time, he spies Fox Spirit's food bowl filled with his favourite snack that only Li Lianhua knows how to make.

He swallows down the bile and keeps trudging on. Pulls himself up by the boots and solves case after case, making an empty glory for himself. Runs himself ragged so that at night he can just fall into bed and sleep. It is a small bliss when he doesn't have to think about how Li Lianhua hates him so much that he won't even seek him out to show him just a glimpse of the hem of his robe.

What goes around comes around. Or so the saying goes, and no good deed goes unpunished. Fang Duobing would call it a relief when he slips up enough that a rogue swordsman can get an upper hand long enough to stab him through and through with a blade, pinning him up just enough that he can get away.

As the darkness takes him, Fang Duobing wonders if he can sleep this time without dreaming of Li Lianhua.

"You fool."

The ceiling he wakes up to is not his own. The bed he wakes up in is familiar in a way that makes his heart stutter and skips a beat in pain. He must have groaned because deft hands are quick to be at his shoulder to settle him down. Fang Duobing gasps. Gropes through the breathlessness at a thin wrist, looking up to meet eyes that watch him with undisguised worry.

"You con artist..."

Li Lianhua sighs, the corner of his lips twitching. "I probably deserve that."

"You absolute mother--"

"Hey, no need to bring my mother into this!" Li Lianhua laughs, trying to pull away, only for Fang Duobing to hold on to his sleeve.

"I..." He tries, licking his dry lips. Blinking rapidly, he looks around him. "Where am I? What happened?"

"You got stabbed. The fogeys at Baichuan Court brought you to me, telling me to help." Fang Duobing can taste the familiar acridness of rejection creep up the back of his throat. Letting go of the sleeve in his hand, he huffs a soft chuckle.

"So that's the case." Fang Duobing swallows thickly. "You're only helping Baichuan Court."

A silence grows and sits between them. Eventually, he hears Li Lianhua drag a stool closer to the bed. "Fang Xiaobao, look at me."

He closes his eyes, turning his face away with great difficulty. "My apologies Physician Li. I am sure this is a great inconvenience to you that I am here. Let me rest awhile and I'm sure I'll be well enough to leave by then. I do not want to bother you too much."

"You-- Fang Duobing, you fool, look at me!"

He pulls the covers over his shoulders. "That's not necessary--"

"Fang Duobing, look at me, please..."

The thread of pleading is thick in the syllables, and by the gods above, Fang Duobing has never mended his walls to protect him against Li Lianhua. So, he opens his eyes, slowly turning back to look.

And sees the red-rimmed eyes. Then sees the long grey hair that is a shade away from white. He sees the lines on Li Lianhua's face that have deepened in the year that they've not seen each other.

"Li Lianhua..." Fang Duobing starts, heart pounding like a war drum when he reaches out to run his fingers through his hair and finds that instead of pulling away, Li Lianhua is leaning in.

Pressing his cheek into the palm of Fang Duobing's calloused hand, he lets out a shaky breath, as if he is releasing all his worries in that one exhale. "I don't deserve you, Fang Duobing. I never have."

"You came into my life and you made yourself home like you've always been there. You didn't care for how much hurt I inflicted, you didn't care that I pushed you away. You stayed when all others left." Li Lianhua lifts his hands to keep Fang Duobing's hand to the side of his face. The curtain fall of his hair wraps itself around their hands, tangling black to grey on the bedspread. "Every time I tried to hide, you always knew where to find me. Every time I ran, you followed. You've bewitched me, body and soul."

Li Lianhua sighs, turning his face into Fang Doubing's touch. Giving into an impulse, he reaches out, ignoring the twinge of pain. Carding his fingers through Li Lianhua's hair.

Softly, he whispers, "Please don't say things you don't mean."

The hurt that colours the browns of Li Lianhua is tinged with regret. But with a blink, it is replaced with a steely determination that has Fang Duobing reeling when he barely has a moment to process how Li Lianhua swoops in and slides their lips together.

"Li Lianhua--"

He shakes his head, lips still pressed to the corner of Fang Duobing's. "I'm a normal man now. I have nothing to give you. Everything that you have loved about Li Xiangyi, everything that you idolised about the man I was, I am not that anymore. That's why I couldn't reciprocate your feelings that first time. I didn't even know if I was coming back. That's why I ran."

"And what's this?" Fang Duobing asks, the words tripping over themselves as they burn their way into the air between them. "Did you do all this because of, what? Guilt?"

Li Lianhua looks absolutely gutted at that. He shakes his head, eyes begging him to believe him. "No! Never! I... I came the moment I received word that you were injured." Ducking his head, he presses his lips to the jut of their joined hands. "I knew I couldn't stay away from you. I know now that I shouldn't have."

Fang Duobing lets himself process this. Sniffling a little and not fighting Li Lianhua when he smiles wetly as he wipes away the tears that make tracks down his cheeks.

"You hurt me."

"I did." Li Lianhua leans in again. This time, Fang Duobing moves back so that there is space on the bed for him to climb into.

"You really hurt me."

"I know, but if you're willing," Li Lianhua says, the light of the sun catching in the pale strands of his hair as he pledges. "I swear on everything good and true, on everything I have left, on the love you have given me, I, Li Lianhua will be good to you, will spend the rest of my life making it up to you for every moment you were hurt by me."

Fang Duobing feels himself smile genuinely for the first time in a very long time. Lifting his hand to cup at Li Lianhua's face, he rubs his thumb over the dark circle under his eye. "Liar. You can't promise me the rest of your life if we aren't married."

This sparks a gleam of mischief in Li Lianhua's eyes that curls something warm in his gut. Something alive that he wants to chase and pin down with joy.

"You did promise to take my name if I could bring a dead man back to life." Li Lianhua murmurs, plush lips curved upwards. "Haven't we been married since then?"

And really, who is Fang Duobing to deny that? Especially since he has the rest of their lives to figure it out.

The hurt isn't gone. Not by a long shot. But as Li Lianhua willingly takes strands of their hair, braiding them together with a smile before carefully kissing his shoulder and laying back down beside him -- the weight of him so very real, so warm to the touch, and here because he wants to be -- he can feel the space where his heart is start to come back alive.

And that, if nowhere else, is a good place to start again.

[momosandlemonsoda]

for the wip ask game: i think that i'm breaking form a bit here, but i'd be fascinated to hear about your process for the long fics, if you wanted to talk about it. how much do you have planned out in your head before you start? how do you maintain such consistency in them?

apologies right now for how long this got...

So I’ve been mulling this over for a while, trying to figure out how to answer it. I’ll go ahead and use DTSD as the example, since it’s the one currently living rent-free in my brain, but this probably applies to all my long-fic.

A lot of times when I get an idea and start rotating it in my head, I spend a fair amount of time just doing that. Trying to figure out what’s going on, where the story is going, what I want to do before the end. I usually have things I’ve envisioned I want to include. And then lines show up out of nowhere that I have to write down, and then a scene kind of forms around it. 

I start telling myself the story—but I can’t go too far, because if I know the ending, I lose momentum and probably won’t write it. At the same time, I fully expected to be at the next major plot point by now (this was supposed to be 80k, she wails) and I am not because first, there were other plot points that showed up, but more… I wanted to let things happen more organically. I could write you 3k of LLH and DFS fucking for the first time in 10 years, but it wouldn’t have been true to either of them (and I really, really needed LLH to attempt to seduce DFS in an alley and get interrupted, this has been living in my head since like November) (also sex scenes are the worst and I need so many words to get to the actual fucking, maybe this wasn’t a good example). (maybe a better example is that I had no plans for FDB to play the showcase originally and when I decided to do that I figured that there would be like 4 chapters between him signing up and him playing.) ( ha ha ha sob )

I do know what is happening further out—I know the backstory that I’ve been feeding you in dribs and drabs, I know the way that Shan Gudao and Jiao Liqiao are going to show back up. I am determined to have LLH and FDB dance at a club and DFS angrily stalk over and join them. I have a fair amount of the next big arc written down in disconnected pieces (why are the connect-y bits so hard?). So I guess the good news is, I do have a plan for DTSD, and I don’t write unhappy endings. But the ~bad~ news is, I don’t actually know what that happy ending is. I’m still feeling out what seems in character for the three of them. 

As for consistency—first, thanks very much for the compliment! Second, the fics I like best, the ones I come back to again and again, are the ones that take their time to get where they’re going because they really dig into their characters, and they let the characters breathe so that their actions make sense, they aren’t contrived for the plot. So a lot of it is me going, ok, but how would they get there? How would that character react? With a background as a child of privilege living in the real world, not fantasy jianghu China, how does FDB react to being told he can’t make music, when that’s fundamental to him? If Li Lianhua is planning on keeping the rhythms of his life and leaving town because it’s warm now and he has enough money, what would make him stay? (spoiler: it’s certainly not the two men who are half (fully?) in love with him.) If Di Feisheng is a well-known musician trying to make a comeback and his former bandmate turns stalker, how is he going to deal with it?

So I think that’s what keeps me going, and keeps it consistent—I don’t need to bend them into particular shapes because I’m not completely certain how they’ll look in the end, and I’m trying to see how they respond to what I throw at them, and stay true (or as true as I can manage) to my interpretation of the character in canon.

[murderedbyhomework]

Kinda scared to post this but

translation of the last chapter of mlc novel not including the extra here:

If anyone doesn’t want to click into google docs full translation plus an extremely lengthy translator’s note underneath the cut

Main Text:

Di Feisheng had already crossed blades with all the main sects consecutively. Except for the Shaolin1 “Empty of tricks” Abbot who insisted against fighting, and Wudang2 “Purple haze” Daozhang3, who had been in seclusion for a long time, he was nearly undefeated in this world.

25th of August.

From the day they’d plummeted into the sea, till now, 13 years had almost passed.

Di Feisheng arrived at the shore of the East Sea very early, at a little village called “Grave of Clouds”, where everyone in the village was surnamed Yun4. The beach outside the village was very clean, with pearly white sand and an aquamarine sea, its waters reflecting the cloudless blue sky.

As if recalling the weather that year, on this patch of the beach, there was a great reef named “Sun Summoning”.

On some unknown date, an unknown person carved on this rock in unrestrained and majestic handwriting. As of now, miniscule sea conches had buried themselves in the deepest nooks and crannies of the calligraphy, but they could not take away from the magnificence of those winning loops and strong strokes5.

Di Feisheng stood on this very reef, clad in green billowing robes, just as he had all those years ago. In all honesty, he could kill Li Lianhua very easily, but what he wanted to achieve victory over, was not Li Lianhua himself, but Li Xiangyi’s swordsmanship.

13 years ago, he’d won the match, only because Li Xiangyi had been severely poisoned, but even poisoned, he’d still been able to do great damage to Di Feisheng. That move “The bright moon sinks in the west sea”, and the resulting 10 years spent on a sickbed, was engraved not just in his memory but in his bones, his heart6, for the rest of his life. 

Today.

Di Feisheng felt that he could even just use half his true power to fight. He was going to kill Li Xiangyi. But not before he could crack his “The bright moon sinks in the west sea”. Besides, that man was crafty and resourceful, and in 13 years, perhaps he’d perfected maneuvers that surpassed “The bright moon sinks in the west sea”.

Di Feisheng stood on the “Sun Summoning” reef, and his heart faintly looked forward to the fight.

Beneath the reef, around 100 people stood there.  The heads of Sigu Sect of course came, which among them included Qiao Wanmian. Emei7 Sect sent some young disciples, the gang of beggars sent 3 elders, Wudang Sect had Lu Jianchi, and even Shaolin Temple had some bald young monks arriving.

Among this motley crew of unusual people, a big golden and flashy sedan was what caused people to gape in tongue-tied disbelief8. The walls of the sedan were made of golden satin, which were embroidered with colorful phoenixes. The four people carrying it may have worn simple clothes, but with their arrogant attitude and blank expressions, it was clear that they were highly trained martial artists.

Sitting in the sedan was naturally great Young Master Fang and Princess Zhaoling. Outside, there stood a blank faced scholar, whose face was quite darkly tanned. Confronted with such a strange sight, members of the martial world kept their distance from it, exchanging hurried whispers and theories.

Fang Duobjng actually wasn’t willing to ride the sedan here at all. He’d originally planned to throw his wife off his trail, climb over the wall, and leave, spending the better half of the next year free to do whatever. Unbeknownst to him, his wife knew the tune his soul strummed out9 too well, and, knowing that her husband was about to run away, cheerfully prepared a grand sedan and carriages, sorted out their duties, and came here hand to hand with her ‘good husband’.

Along with this loving couple came Yang Yunchun. He’d been curious about the legend of Li Xiangyi and Di Feisheng for long, and had practically been raised on their stories. As a practitioner of martial arts, why wouldn’t he be curious? On the reef, Di Feisheng seemed as imposing as the mountains and the abyss, his impressive aura reaching far and wide10. To Yang Yunchun, this sight greatly expanded his horizons, and he silently praised how people of the Jianghu were indeed different from the ones in court.

And yet even as Di Feisheng stood on that reef for 4hours, until it was past noon, nobody caught a glimpse of Li Xiangyi’s figure.

The crowd began exchanging theories in hushed whispers, Ji Hanfo’s forehead creased, as did Xiao Zijin. Bai Jiangchun had started to quietly order his attendants around, and Qiao Wanmian had unconsciously adopted a troubled expression.

Fang Duobing poked his head out from the sedan, “Why hasn’t he arrived after so long? Li Xiangyi wouldn’t have broken his promise right?”

Princess Zhaoling said quietly, “With an event of this magnitude, if he’s that unique among his contemporaries, a god amongst men11, how could he miss this? What if he’s had something happen to him?”

Di Feisheng stood on the reef, clear in mind and heart. Li Xiangyi was cunning, his late arrival was possibly a way for him to throw him off balance. At this moment, a large horse galloped towards the crowd, and someone called loudly from quite a distance away; “Young Master! Young Master! First Young Master!”

Fang Duobing leaped out from the sedan, brows drawn together, and asked, “What happened? During such an important moment, the Fang family somehow decides to send a messenger to yell and cause trouble, is it not really embarrassing?”

The servant boy had sped here by horse, and his breath was nearly gone, his face pale as he raised up a letter.”Young master, young master, this is a letter.”

Fang Duobing replied, not particularly good-natured in tone, “Of course I can tell that’s a letter. Hand it over!”

The servant boy handed over the crumpled up letter, turning paler by the second in fear, “This is Li Xiangyi’s letter…..”

“What kind of letter has to be delivered right now? Since when was Fang Family matters decided by this respectable one12?”

In a moment of infuriation, the phrase “this respectable one” fell from his lips, and yet Fang Duobing suddenly paused, “Li Xiangyi’s letter? His letter wasn’t sent to Sigu Sect instead? Why was it sent to me?”

He’d already been taking quite loudly, and after he said this sentence, everyone turned to look at him, and surrounded him and the servant boy quickly.

Li Xiangyi’s letter? Why would he send a letter to the Fang Family? And why wasn’t he here in person? Fang Duobing nervously opened the letter, his fingers trembling. The letter was a very commonplace piece of white paper, and on it was very familiar handwriting.

It wrote:

During the battle of the East Sea 13 years ago, this one, surnamed Li, used the advantage of concealed weaponry, and took the chance of a sinking ship to battle with you, yet was unable to emerge victorious. Your bravery and honor is near unmatched in this world, this one’s defeat graciously and gladly accepted. many years have passed, this one has succumbed to illness and cannot recover, blade broken and spirit departed, thereby unable to attend the promise of the east sea, much to this one’s regret.

Fang Duobing stared at that familiar handwriting, and only after a few sentences, he felt cold all over, and he could only see the letter say:

The mountains and rivers ever endure, ever changing. Departure follows departure, and my time has come. Today Xiao Zijin of Sigu Sect has trained with his sword valiantly for many years, and is not inferior to “the bright moon sinks in the west sea”. You pursue not a fleeting moment, not a deer in flight, but strive towards the martial world’s peak. This one has departed, and should you be dissatisfied, please request Sect Leader Xiao to take my place.

Fang Duobing’s face was deadly pale, and he looked at that last sentence:

Li Xiangyi passed on 13th July.

“What did the letter say?”

Ji Hanfo and Xiao Zijin walked over shoulder to shoulder, the crowd scattering out of their way, yet still poking their heads around in curiosity. Fang Duobing swallowed with difficulty, and when he opened his mouth his voice was hoarse. 

“He said…...”

Xiao Zijin’s gaze was filled with a fierce light, and he grabbed Fang Duobing by his robes at his chest. 

“What did he say?”

He was infuriated beyond belief, how dare Li Xiangyi break his promise to avoid a fight! This shameless type of vile character practically took Sigu Sect’s face and threw it out of the nine heavens13! If he did show up later, even if Di Feisheng didn’t kill him, he would!

“He said….. .he said…...” Fang Duobing looked at Xiao Zijin blearily, “He said he was already dead, so he can’t come, and he asked you……he asked you to take his place.”

“What?” Ji Hanfo exclaimed, and snatched the letter.

Xiao Zijin blinked, startled.

“What?”

“He said he’s already dead, so he can’t come, and that he regrets it a lot……” Fang Duobing mumbled. “He said…... he said your sword skill was very good, better than his, so he asked you to take his place.

The flame of fury burning in Xiao Zijin’s chest shot up into the heavens in an instant. 

“What do you mean he’s already dead? Why does he want me to take his place? This is his oath of battle! This is his place! Why do I have to take his place?”

“He said…….” Fang Duobing said dazedly.

“Because you’re Sigu Sect Leader. Di Feisheng…….. is here to duel the Sigu Sect Leader, is he not?”

Xiao Zijin paused, dazed by the words.

“Why didn’t he come? If he came…... If he came I’d have….... returned the position to him….... returned it to him……”

He didn’t know why he said this, but somehow it came out so smoothly and naturally, as if he’d already said it in his heart a hundred million times. Fang Duobing shook his head. 

“He said his blade was broken and his spirit was gone……. He’s already…....” 

His voice was soft.

“He’s already dead.”

After that, he paid Xiao Zijin no more attention, and shakily walked back to his sedan.

“What is it?” Princess Zhaoling looked at him in concern.

Fang Duobing stood dazedly next to the sedan, and after what seemed like an eternity, the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Say……Darned Lianhua isn’t Li Xiangyi right?”

Next to the sedan, Shi Wenjue had watched as he became near dumb after reading the letter, and he hmphed.

“Pah! This respectable one told you ages ago, Li Lianhua is Li Xiangyi, Li Xiangyi is Li Lianhua, it was you who’d die rather than believing it. What is it? He sent you a letter? Now you believe it? Hahahahaha, he tricked us both so many years, it really is entertaining.”

Fang Duobing shook his head.

“Tell me— Darned Lianhua isn’t Li Xiangyi—“ Shi Wenjue was taken back.

“What is it?” Fang Duobing lifted his head.

“He sent a letter to Di Feisheng, he said…... he said he’s already dead, so he asked Xiao Zijin to take his place in the duel today.”

Shi Wenjue stared at Fang Duobing, as if in that instant, he’d become a piece of rock or a monster. Fang Duobing stared back in dazed confusion.

“Why did he have to send a letter to me? How nice would it have been if he hadn’t sent it?” 

If he hadn’t sent it, I would never have known the truth.

Shi Wenjue dumbly looked back at Fang Duobing. All around them were so many people, yet in his eyes, they were but stone. Li Xiangyi was dead? That liar was dead? Why would he die? Wasn’t he Li Xiangyi? Li Xiangyi should’ve been…….undying.

“Was it really because of…… those injuries?” Shi Wenjue mumbled.

“Skies above…... I’d clearly known, yet…… yet I left— Skies above—”

Fang Duobing turned around, grabbing him all of a sudden and lifting him up, and snarled,

“What did you know?”

Shi Wenjue’s smile was more terrible than if he’d started crying.

“The liar has a lot of injuries, really severe old injuries…..probably remnants from when he fell into the sea…….”

Fang Duobing paused for asecond, and he wanted to continue yelling, but instead loosened his grip and put Shi Wenjue down.

“Whatever” He murmured, “Whatever whatever…...” He lifted his head to look at the turquoise sea and cerulean sky. 

“This respectable one has known him for so many years, we ate and drank and even relieved ourselves in front of each other, but didn’t I end up knowing nothing about him anyway?”

“Is he really dead?” Shi Wenjue stood back up. “Who knows, maybe he lied, and to avoid coming to the duel, he’d pull something of this magnitude.”

Fang Duobing dazedly looked at the clear sunny sky, and shoke his head.

“He’s not pulling a trick. He might be a liar and a trickster, but he never really did trick anyone much……. not really, it’s just that you and I didn’t understand…....” His voice faded into a murmur.

“We just……. we just never took him seriously.”

On the reef, Di Feisheng had also heard about Li Xiangyi’s last letter, where he requested Xiao Zijin to take his place. After listening, he calmly tilted his head towards the sunlight and flew away, too disdainful to even cross blades with Xiao Zijin.

Yet Xiao Zijin was also unwilling to fight with him. He still couldn’t think it through, as to why Li Lianhua would rather run away than kill him that day, but suddenly died without a trace?

He’d said blade broken and spirit departed. Was it really that back then, when he’d shattered Wenjing, he’d also destroyed his chance of staying alive? Xiao Zijin felt horrified. What if….. what if it really was himself……. who had forced Li Xiangyi to death? He’d wanted him dead with singleminded passion, yet now when he really seemed to be dead, Xiang Zijin felt it was incomprehensible and unacceptable. Li Xiangyi was undying, he was undefeatable. He was supposed to be a godly presence, and no matter how Xiao Zijin treated him, how he spat hateful words or pointed swords at him, he should’ve never faded away and ceased to exist.

How could he just…... actually die? Was it because of the severe injuries he’d suffered years ago? When he’d been unwilling to kill, unwilling to end his own life that day, was it because—

Xiao Zijin’s face paled in an instant— could it be that Li Xiangyi didn’t want the former to kill him by his own hand! He didn’t want Xiao ZIjin to do someone he’d regret, or let Wanmian know he’d tried to force him to end his own life— so he couldn’t die at that moment! If he’d died then, Wanmian would’ve never forgiven Zijin.

So he’d jumped onto a fishing boat, to go…... to another place…... to die alone.

Xiao Zijin’s eyes reddened. He’d died alone, but when he died, was anyone there for him? Was there anyone who’d buried him, who’d given his corpse proper respects?

On the other end, the shore was silent in desolation, interspersed only by a few sobs, which were let out by some blue robed women in the corner. Ji Hanfo’s face was deathly pale to to extent of appearing gray, Bai Jiangchun collapsed to sit on the ground, and Shi Shui walked away silently. Xiao Zijin lifted his head to shout out sternly.

“Where did you die, Li Xiangyi? If you’re alive I’ll find you in person, if you’re dead I need to see your corpse. Even if I have to travel all over the world and overturn every inch of the ground, I will find you!”

Translator notes:

A sect for martial artists. One of the biggest, most prominent, most diverse martial arts sects with one of the longest histories in irl China. Present in reality and therefore referenced in a lot of works of literature as a martial arts sect

Wudang is a fictional martial arts school that’s often present in wuxia works of fiction

Daozhang, which might be familiar if you’ve read mdzs, is a title for very knowledgeable and spiritual people in Taoist believes. It can be extended to be used as a title of respect for any high up member of religion. In Taiwan it is also an address of respect between lawyers

Yun2 云 is the mandarin pronunciation for the words cloud. In the ancient times, entire tribes in China would often share the same surname and live together, and they’d often name the place they settled in after their own surname.

The chinese idiom used here was 银钩铁画 which refers to majestic calligraphy that deserves to win prizes essentially. The characters literally translated are silver, hooks/ticks, steel/metal, and strokes, so I went with half the idiom meaning and half the literal meaning.

Another chinese idiom (the author uses a lot honestly I’m just explaining the ones that I think deserve it) 刻骨銘心, which refers to a memory or experience being so unforgettable, it’s like it’s engraved into your bones and carved into your heart. 刻 and 銘 both mean carve/engrave, while 骨 is bone and 心 is heart.

The sect is called 峨嵋 sect, which sounds perfectly fine in in chinese, and in fact is named after a place in Taiwan, but unfortunately if you translate it literally it’s something like “mountain peak” and “brows” respectively, which sounds weird so I left it as the pinyin instead. Know that I tried. 

Yet another idiom (Tengping I admire your literary ability and degree of culture, but please have mercy on the people translating ty <3) 瞠目结舌 which literally translated means to stare unblinking and unwaveringly, with your tongue tied. Mostly used to express great shock or disbelief.

The exact expression was zhiyin 知音, a term which anyone here who likes watching ‘bromance’ dramas will undoubtedly be familiar with. It actually doesn’t mean soulmate completely. Zhiji means something like “the one who knows me and my soul, my self utterly”, with zhi 知 being “to know/understand/comprehend” and ji 己 meaning “self”. Zhiyin therefore means something similar, but yin 音 means “sound”, or in this case “music”, so the meaning of this term would be “the one who understands the music my soul makes”. It originates from a very interesting story between friends Zhong Ziqi and Boya, and to summarize, Boya was a musician and Ziqi his friend, who despite his lack of formal education compared to Boya, could understand what Boya wanted to convey with every melody he performed, which is where the term zhiyin came from. 

The idioms in question are 岳峙淵渟，氣象磅礡´. The first idiom 岳峙淵渟 means that someone is as silent as an abyss(淵渟) and as tall and imposing as mountains(岳峙), and is a metaphor for one’s upstanding and noble character (岳峙 part), as well as how great their tolerance is (淵渟). For 氣象磅礡´, 氣象mostly refers to weather, but in this case refers to one’s aura, while 磅礴 means expansive and endless. 

Original idiom is 绝代謫仙, 絕代 means for one to be unique among one’s contemporaries, or to be the best within your generation. 謫仙 refers to gods who have been cast down into the mortal world, which extends to being a metaphor for people who are both noble in character and extremely talented, so much so that they seem otherworldly and unattached to the rest of the mortal world. God among men/mortals was the best translation I could condense this into.

The name Fang Duobing calls himself by is 老子 which can mean father, but in this case is a way for men to call themselves if they feel highly about themselves. Essentially it’s a pretty arrogant way to call yourself, because the title in the end can also mean father, so its a bit like someone saying “I’m your father” as in they have authority over/are senior compared to you

There’s a chinese saying 丢脸面which means to lose face. Xiao Zijin essentially wants to say that Li Xiangyi made Sigu Sect lose face so badly they can’t regain said “face” because it's 9 realms/heavens away. 

[difeisheng]

碎鏡

My Qiaofang fic 《原諒我可好》 was originally the ending to a slightly longer draft, before I edited/cut it down and it became its own oneshot. However, I still like what didn't make it in, and Qiao Wanmian's perspective was a joy to write. So here is everything that happened before, as an extra (but can be read on its own).

Qiao Wanmian learns, days after the fact (again), that a man is dead, disappeared from the world (again), and as she feels the last ten years of her life warp, rush past, reset (back to the start, back to the end) the world fractures into sharp glass.

Qiao-guniang, are you all right? makes its way around the shards, the sound cut too harsh in its gentleness. Menzhu, do you want us to keep looking for him?

Qiao-nvxia, I'm sure he's still alive.

Qiao-guniang, he came back last time. He wouldn't leave you.

(For the second time, no one says.)

Days turn into weeks, turn into a month, strung together by a symphony of demand, of advice, of people who remember a heartbroken maiden mourning her destined, and no one beyond that.

Menzhu—

Qiao-nvxia—

Qiao-guniang—

Qiao Wanmian—

"Enough," she says, and for not the first time, she understands why Li Xiangyi wanted to run.

And so finally, Qiao Wanmian does too.

~*~

Here is the measure of Qiao Wanmian's life:

She is almost thirty, and two betrotheds have come and gone. She has spent half her lifetime dedicated to a sect, defining its name and its honour, but pride though it is, her name does not exist outside of it. Qiao Wanmian of Sigumen, as she hears it echoed in the streets.

And more than that, because the names of heroes will not, cannot die? Qiao Wanmian, Li Xiangyi's beloved.

What is it like, she wonders, watching a trio of girls walk through a market in a small town, sword wrapped in cloth for anonymity, to be someone who loves with the freedom of leaving it behind? What is it like, to exist and nothing more, as someone other than a widow who was never a wife?

What is it like for the world to look at oneself and see a person, not a story, perfect in her sculpted tragedy?

And somehow, somehow she finds the answer after two months of wandering. Or rather he finds Qiao Wanmian, seated at an inn toward the south, blue silk and silver stepping out of a storm and through the door for too-wide eyes to find her own.

"Qiao-guniang," Fang Duobing breathes. When Qiao Wanmian looks at him, all of twenty years old and too young to lose a first love, she knows that before him stands a shattered world too.

"Join me?" she says to that, and signals for another jar of wine.

~*~

Fang Duobing is an interesting one, Qiao Wanmian thinks, several hours later, studying him by the relief of candlelight. His hair sweeps over his shoulder, dark river with a few strands fallen loose, as he slumps forward to brace his arms on the table. He's staring downward as he props his chin up by one hand, the other fidgeting with his sleeve. "How long do you think it'll take to find him?"

Maudlin, he is. He hasn't had the years to build up a tolerance for wine, although Qiao Wanmian cannot say she's been sober this evening. The warmth to her face is from more than the inn torches.

How did Li Lianhua talk to this boy, when he was in this state? What was lie, what was truth, and for how long? Did it feel like this, where Qiao Wanmian knows the answer to Fang Duobing's words, but cannot let it escape her tongue?

"I don't know," she settles for instead, a soft lie to cushion the truth. "It might take a month. It might take years."

"It won't be years," Fang Duobing murmurs. The strings of beads in his hair rustle as he tilts his head to look at her. "We both already waited ten. I'll find him sooner than that."

Xiangyi, Qiao Wanmian thinks, thinks of the last ten years gone by without lighting lanterns for the dead. You always chose the ones who could never give up, didn't you?

"Good luck," she says softly, nearly a whisper, and takes a slow swallow of wine. The jar is nearly empty.

Silence unspools, punctuated by the flicker of the lights. Fang Duobing unstops the next jar of wine and brings it to his lips, neck a graceful curve in the lean of his head back, accented by the line of his jaw. He's grown into his features, for all the room he still has left to mature. If the jianghu hadn't called his name, he would have made a handsome aristocrat in the imperial court.

Is that what else Li Lianhua saw in Fang Duobing, for him to take on a companion after ten years of solitude? Qiao Wanmian wonders briefly, in the split moment before Fang Duobing glances at her again, then somewhere in the distance, darting away too quickly to count as an idle movement. "Something to say, Fang-gongzi?"

Fang Duobing closes his eyes, in a moment's thought. When he opens them, it is to lean closer, close enough that Qiao Wanmian can feel the shape of his breath. Perhaps this dearth of respectable distance, if anyone cares, can be excused by a wine-fuelled lapse in judgment. She chooses to let it be so.

"How did you survive this the last time?" Fang Duobing asks, less question and more plea. Qiao Wanmian can see now that it's been on his mind all evening, desperation forcing his tongue.

His eyes are dark now. He looks lost.

And before she can respond, "I'm asking because you were also someone who knew him."

Oh.

Qiao Wanmian doesn't deserve to have the word zhiji alongside her name. Not when it comes to Li Xiangyi. But she knows what Fang Duobing is searching for, and so she holds it out, that lifeline of kindred recognition.

Thousands mourned the loss of a legend. They both mourned the death of a man.

When her hand moves toward Fang Duobing, half by some instinct, half by impulse, he leans into the touch, letting himself be tugged up by his chin to face her.

"I don't have a good answer for you," she says, and there's no lie for this that will fare any less painful than the truth. "You'll get through one day hoping he'll be there waiting at the end, and he won't be, but you'll go to sleep so that maybe he'll find you in the next. He won't. But if it means you see tomorrow, then you have to keep hoping, until someday, you've found something new to wake up for."

It all comes out in a rush, and it surprises Qiao Wanmian by the honesty of it, so much so that her last words are too quiet by contrast. "That's how people like us keep living."

Fang Duobing's eyes are too bright. She brushes one gemstone of a fallen tear away with her thumb.

"You did this alone?" he says, and Qiao Wanmian recognizes the tremble to those words.

A wandering swordsman with a blade can fight any demon that throws itself at him. Fear, though, has ten thousand different ways to find you.

"You won't have to."

A promise, she realizes a moment too late, but she's already made it. These words were for him alone. Something else takes over Fang Duobing's expression: relief, like the first blossom of spring after a bleak winter.

He's too young for this to be his life.

And of Qiao Wanmian? What does Fang Duobing think? She waits, drawing away from him, the comfort of another's warmth gone.

His words are too soft in his mouth, gaze too earnest. "I know you haven't said anything about yourself all night, but you don't have to either, you know."

It feels like an arrow let fly.

Qiao Wanmian is left helpless by its wound, staring in the half-dark at a boy too sweet for her, willing to break her fall while he doesn't know how to land himself, and, and—

Something inside her breaks.

~*~

When she reaches for him, anything of him, drowned in the shadows by the doors to his room— waist, collar, mouth— he lets her.

[rose-tinted-vision]

Tales from Tianji Manor

Relationship: Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua/Di Feisheng

prev/read it on ao3/next

“What do you think of Di Feisheng?” her husband asks her that night.

“A-Fei is a good kid,” she replies firmly, giving her husband a look. He may be a little prejudiced, but she trusted that Fang Zeshi was a good judge of character, and only wanted the best for their son, “He treats Xiaobao and Xiaohua well, and he is just trying his best to live, like the rest of us.”

Fang Zeshi frowns, considering her reply. 

She takes his hand in hers, gently urging him to look at her. She had chosen him because he had been sincere in wooing her back then, had treated everyone around him with the due respect that they deserved, regardless of their social rank. She trusts that he would extend the same treatment to Xiaobao’s chosen people too.

“Just watch, and you will see what I mean,” she says.

—

Her husband stays for the week, the Emperor having given him the week to spend with his family.

And so they watch.

They watch how A-Fei silently carries a mountain of blankets from Xiaobao’s room across the courtyard to where the Lotus Tower is parked, gently tucking them around Xiaobao and Xiaohua who have fallen asleep in their home.

They watch as A-Fei chops up the chives that Xiaobao hands to him, expertly handling the knife with the air of someone who has been handed the same task multiple times, setting them back next to Xiaobao, who shoos Xiaohua away from the kitchen with a wooden ladle. 

They watch as A-Fei tags along with both of his boyfriends to the market, trailing behind them as they return with his arms full of bags of all sizes, occasionally stealing a bite from Xiaobao’s scallion pancake.

Fang Zeshi smiles at the sight of his son and his boyfriends, happy and content with each other and at peace, despite himself.

—

“He treats Xiaobao well,” her husband admits, as they retire to bed, “but does he trest you and Xiaofeng well too?”

She knows that he bears no ill will towards A-Fei, not after he had gained her husband's recognition, that he was simply looking out for her, looking out for the peace of the family that they had built, and so she nods patiently.

“He remembers my favourite dishes, what I am allergic to, and respects the house rules.”

It is the truth, as Fang Zeshi would witness the following day.

A-Fei shows up for breakfast with a sleepy Xiaohua and Xiaobao trailing behind, settling in his usual seat at Xiaohua’s left side. He snatches up the soy sauce before Xiaobao dumps too much into his bowl in his half-awake state, adding just the right amount for him instead, and offers to pour her tea.

He Xiaohui accepts the cup of tea with a smile, which he awkwardly bows his head at. 

His posture is more tense than usual, she notes- likely due to the presence of her husband, someone who A-Fei did not know how to act around, someone who he had only interacted with a couple of times.

Her husband, for his part, was watching A-Fei with a contemplative expression. Not open distrust, like the last time they ate together, but not quite acceptance yet. 

Xiaobao, still sleepy as he was, had noticed A-Fei's discomfort, and drew his father's attention away from him with the topic of the Emperor’s latest policies following Shan Gudao’s attempted coup.

—

“Our Xiaobao really loves them,” is Fang Zeshi’s conclusion that night, expression exasperated yet fond, as they watch Xiaobao spar with A-Fei. Their nightly spars draw quite the audience, a dance so graceful that it has the servants halting in their duties to watch.

“He does,” He Xiaohui replies. Her Xiaobao had never been one to hide his feelings well- if he liked someone, it was plain for all to see. If he hated someone, anyone within a five meter radius could tell.

Like mother like son, her husband had once remarked. 

“Li Xiangyi…really does not plan on returning to the jianghu?” 

He Xiaohui straightens at the question, a familiar protectiveness rearing its head as she sizes up her husband, “is that Minister Fang asking, or Fang Zeshi asking?”

Fang Zeshi, to his credit, does not flinch under her glare.

“I think you know the answer yourself,” He Xiaohui sighs, casting her gaze to the man sitting with Zhan Yunfei, both men equally riveted by the duel before them. 

“Li Lianhua,” she stresses, which Fang Zeshi looks properly chastised by, “really just wants a quiet life with his partners. You can tell the Emperor that.”

“Okay,” her husband sighs, “okay.”

Not quite acceptance, but not outright disapproval either.

Half the battle won, like she had once told Xiaobao

[joyouslee]

MLC Chinese fic rec: 疏雨洗遗剑 by 为君唤雪梅花天

Link to the first chapter of the fic.

(To get to the next chapter, go to the end of the chapter text - not the bottom of the page - and click the left button.  There may be other posts by the author in between the chapters, just keep clicking left.)

My translation of the title:

A Drizzle of Rain Washes the Sword Left Behind

The title is from a poem that describes how the writer’s zhiji has died, and the writer’s tears wash the hairpin (here, sword) left behind.  One lifetime passes too quickly, and he hopes that in their next life the lost item will lead her to remember him.  Poem is here: https://so.gushiwen.cn/mingju/juv_d08094354c13.aspx

Pairing: Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi / Fang Duobing

Main story has 13 chapters, and there’s an extra with 7 chapters.

Author’s summary (my translation):

Platonic threesome, lao-Di is an iron-straight man with pure friendship with the other two; the other two are a couple.

Fang Xiaobao is reborn after the canon conclusion to a world where he doesn’t exist, and plans to help Li Xiangyi go against the heavens and change his fate (so it’s basically yifang).

The first few chapters are mostly about difang (platonic) and hua lives only in conversations and memories, the latter half is mostly yifang.  Purely drama based, nothing to do with the novel.

三人组友情向，老笛铁直男和另两位纯友情，另两位CP。

大结局后的方小宝重生到一个没有他的世界里，准备帮李相夷逆天改命（所以基本上是夷方场）

全文前几节笛方CB向居多花活在对话和回忆里，后半夷方多，纯按剧的设定编私设与书无关。

—

As you can see from my recs, I love time travel fixits.  I love all of the many and varied ways writers go back to fix what happened, the choices the time traveler makes.  (The only thing with time travel fixits is that I always cry thinking of FDB’s family in the first timeline dealing with his loss, which is not always addressed, but I still think about it.)

In this one, FDB goes back and he makes friends with DFS first.  Their friendship is adorable and a strong foundation for this fic, and ultimately the reason FDB is able to save LXY (and his shifu).  There’s also a very affecting scene with FDB and HXH.  It’s very slow burn, in that it’s fairly platonic for most of the story.  

Go read and come back to talk about it!  (If you have a lofter account, please leave the author a comment or <3.)

See my general warnings but it’s pretty much PG relationship-wise, mainly a lot of dialogue and fade to black.  No specific warnings.

[mejomonster]

I'm Watching episode 5

It's so fucking funny fang duobing is like I live here now. I'm your partner now. I'm not leaving. I ran from my aunt yeah, they took my servant home yeah, I have no money but I WILL PROTECT YOU. We will be friends in the wide world (li lianhua: I'm not in the wide martial world and do NOT want friends) anyway as I was saying this food is mine this table is OURS I'm moving in yeah. (It's so funny fang duobings trying to pitch "heroes who travel together in the jianghu" to a guy who clearly is not trying to be in that life lmao).

It's also so funny Fang Duobing is simply. Clinging. I mean yeah from a logic standpoint he's both broke with no options except this guy he knows is easy to cling to Because he's not a skilled fighter, and also he's an entitled rich bitch young master who wouldn't take no for an answer easily even IF li lianhua was able to sword fight him out of the house

Di feisheng really is ;-; oh man. He's like I had one rival, li xianyi, now that he's gone I have no one. Real Yu Liang from Hikaru No Go energy. Also really genuine, almost noble energy? I'm really glad (so far) he's not the demon sect stereotype character. He values loyalty and honesty, he doesn't like betrayers. I'm surprised he killed li xianyis sworn brother, given he doesn't seem to enjoy underhanded means. He disliked a military win using bombs that hurt his own people. He disliked Winning by only half a move. He seems too honest and noble to kill a sworn brother to simply provoke his enemy, it's too underhanded. My theory at present is either: sworn brother wasn't a good guy and was actually betraying li xianyi but li xianyi still doesn't know that. Which is my favorite theory, since that guy was rude to his nephew fang duobing, sucky enough that fang duobings mom may well hate the martial world Because Of him, would cause maximum angst for li xianyi to find out his most beloved person didn't care about him back and would actively hurt him/the sect etc, and mean di feisheng ultimately was trying to protect/help his rival so they'd be on equal footing... And did not mean to hurt li xianyi by killing the guy. Other theories: the girl in red killed sworn brother of li xianyi, or the medicine demon.

Girl in red: I love her a LOT. I get vibes she's likely to be more like this shows "villain" but honestly if she's the villain I'm gonna be very engaged. I'm intrigued by both her loyalty and how her possessiveness strikes as perhaps the most terrifying element in her entire clan. She wants di feisheng like a trophy, like a pet, like a weapon to use for herself. She deserves the role of leader she got, to be fair, because she did do a Great job leading the sect while he was gone. But based on her private behavior? I'm assuming maybe di feisheng was actually in charge 10 years ago because he may well be a better leader... as in less power hungry, more concerned for the well being of the group, caring about the entire sect before himself. Which is why he does give the role of leader to her in this episode: he is aware he's stuck in the past, aware he's not thinking like a leader, and knows she's done a good job fulfilling the role. So he's leaving the role in her care where he knows his hang ups won't affect things. I am also predicting... much like li xianyi, he might be tired of being the leader. He probably had a shitty of a time being leader as li xianyi, to a degree. He blames himself for the deaths in the battle 10 years ago, for the violent choices of his own subordinates that got their own people killed. There's a sense he also doesn't want to be the person everyone puts on a pedestal and blames and has to be Perfect somehow anyway to be a good leader.

Again I'm just. Very impressed di feisheng isn't being painted like say the wen clan in The Untamed, the demonic cultivating sects in Love and Redemption, the demon clan in Eternal Love. In fact, their entire wuxia setup here doesn't even (so far) imply the demonic sect does anything particularly wrong. Just that, they're in an on and off conflict with the sects that call themselves "just." With a leader like di feisheng, at least so far, he doesn't seem to have particularly cruel intent. He wants payback on sects that attack his, and wants increased power in the jianghu for his sect (at least he did 10 years ago if we guess by how his sect has acted since). But the same could be said of the sigu sect from what we know so far. The "detectives" group is a little more noble, since they have a legal set of laws and some kind of investigation and court process. But the Bai detectives group is not a sect specifically increasing power anywhere so much as they feel more like a "generally broadly respected" independent unit through the area. (I could be wrong later as we learn more though... for all I know, later we will find out they're like The Untamed Jin sect and oppressing all areas they operate in, who knows).