#designer qing cang

[shandian-go]

[SPECIAL ORDER] TGCF x Qing Cang - Xian Le Painting Hualian Figurine Set

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[chungkong-nl]

Bring your walls to life. Visit the webshop chungkong.nl today!

Wo hu cang long: Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically skilled, adolescent nobleman’s daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.

Director: Ang Lee Stars: Yun-Fat Chow, Michelle Yeoh, Ziyi Zhang

[pr0cyon-lotor]

Au where Shen Yuan is a dragon with a giant cavern full of books and plays. It's enchanted and stuff so the cavern moves and shifts so it brings you to a section of the library with what you need/want. He occasionally lets people enter to read his books, but you aren't allowed to take them out no matter what. You are sometimes allowed to copy the information on your own scroll or book, but you need permission first.

He gets visited by Wu Yanzi and a young Shen Jiu. Wu Yanzi is looking for demonic cultivation manuals because Shen Yuan has almost one of each manual, encyclopedia, etc ever written.

He pays no mind since he doesn't really care if malicious people come in or not. He does passively keep an ear out just in case.

Wu Yanzi finds a cultivation manual that has everything he needed and could be sold for a lot of money since it was extremely rare and in pristine condition. He tries to sneak it into his bag, and the dragon just eats him. No warning. No heads up. No trumpets or fanfare. No foreboding messages to return the book. Just chomp.

Shen Jiu is taken aback because did his teacher just get eaten? JUST LIKE THAT?!

The dragon nudges the stolen book back into the shelf and looks at Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu is convinced he's going to die there. Except he doesn't get eaten or harmed. He gets gingerly picked up by the back of his robes and taken to the spiritual cultivation section of the library.

Shen Jiu gets plopped onto the floor and the dragon nudges a few beginner and cleansing cultivation manual to fall from the shelf for him and then promptly crawls back to its den.

Shen Jiu, who is instilled with the undescribable urge to scream "what the FUCK?!", instead sits down and starts reading and practicing because honest to god are you going to disobey a dragon that absolutely towers over you?

So when he's satisfied with his cultivation progress, he finally gets ready to leave. The dragon comes back only to put the books away from the shelves that were too far up for Shen Jiu to reach.

Shen Jiu thanks the dragon, which only gets him a huff in response, and because he hates to be in someone's debt (even if that someone is a dragon hundred of years his senior) he says he'll return with books to fill more shelves. He leaves soon after.

He manages to get the Qing Jing Peak Lord's attention during the Immortal Alliance Conference, which was his intention. He gets in a little late but his cultivation is practically caught up. He easily ranks up to head disciple.

During his time in Cang Qiong Shen Jiu jots down everything he learns. He writes down music he composes, discoveries he makes, talisman and array designs he creates, even poems he has written. His Shizun insists that he adds them to the Qing Jing library, and he does but he leaves polished copies of his work and excludes the very important parts.

Eventually when he's peak lord, he goes on an expedition by himself with the scrolls and books he's filled through the years. He finds the dragon's cavern and finally meets it after so long. He presents his life's work to the dragon, practically bearing his heart to it.

The dragon looks at him curiously and transforms into a human form. Shen Jiu watches as the dragon takes the bag from his hands and pulls out the first book, which had all the songs he made for the jiejies in the Warm Red Pavilion to preform.

The dragon say down and invited Shen Jiu to join him. He does and the dragon continues to go through everything while asking him questions about something he wrote or created. Sometimes they get off task and start talking about something else and both appreciate being able to talk to someone that understands classics or is good at debating.

By the time Shen Yuan finally finishes with everything Shen Jiu gave him, they have surprisingly clicked very well. Shen Yuan tells him he's going to make a section in his library for all his works, so he can bring more if he wished because Shen Yuan thought he was a genius that was just starting to shine.

Shen Jiu agrees to continue giving Shen Yuan his work if only to have an excuse to return. And that's how it became tradition that every once in a while the Qing Jing Peak Lord will go off the mountain with a stack of books for days on end and return to none of them.

Sometimes he would even have a strange man come to his peak. If the man visited, that meant Shen Qingqiu was going to be in a good mood, so obviously the kids always told him to stay or come back soon.

And also just as obviously, this is incredibly suspicious to the other peak lords. Cue Liu Qingge and Qi Qingqi pestering Shen Qingqiu and demanding to know what is the meaning of this. Also cue Shen Yuan misunderstanding and getting jealous and then realizing he has feelings for Shen Jiu (after a solid month(s) of denial).

So the next course of action is to keep Shen Jiu from Liu Qingge and Qi Qingqi because they're threats to Shen Yuan's time alone with Shen Jiu. Also he doesn't trust how Shen Jiu covers his face with his fan when they talk to him. Shen Jiu also covers his face when they both talk, so obviously that must mean something and he doesn't like it.

Isn't dragon jealousy great?

Eventually the peak lords find out about Shen Yuan and it was definitely a whole ordeal. Shen Yuan maybe threatened to burn Cang Qiong to the ground at some point, but the threat didn't go through so did it really happen?

Shen Jiu definitely knows about Shen Yuan's feelings for him and is absolutely fucking smug about it. Like who wouldn't want a highly intelligent dragon with a library that is any scholar's wet dream that INSTANTLY becomes a begging puppy when he wants your attention.

As far as Shen Jiu is concerned, he's winning at life.

[sunderwight]

Liushen AU where SY transmigrates into SJ's older brother, and subsequently nopes them right out of the slavery backstory by using his general knowledge of the story and actually being an adult in a kid's body to just leave (basically) with SJ and YQ.

SY carts them both up to Cang Qiong for the next sect trials. It's actually not all that hard, the trickiest part is getting enough to eat and finding safe places to sleep between leaving the slavers and taking the trials (SY manages just barely, with considerable help from his new little brothers.) Nobody bothers to go after them because it's before Qiu Jianluo and this style of human traffickers mostly operate by virtue of their merchandise having nowhere else to go. Chasing down runaways is an expense not worth indulging, given that most of them either come straight back or die of exposure.

Anyway, they take the trials, and as expected YQY gets chosen to become a personal disciple for the sect leader, and SJ gets chosen by the Qing Jing Peak Lord, but also as (kind of) expected (by SY alone) nobody wants SY. He's older the Yue Qi, so too old, and unlike YQ and SJ his cultivation potential isn't striking enough to make any exceptions for him.

SY, however, can't leave it at that. He's spent more than five minutes with the street kid codependency gang, so he's gotten attached to both of them. And he knows what will happen if they're left to their own devices and The Plot proceeds accordingly. (Also, they keep threatening to not stay at the sect if SY doesn't stay too, for some reason.) So with a heavy heart and internal candle lit for himself, SY heads to Bai Zhan Peak. Which is the only peak that accepts disciples by way of them turning up and refusing to leave.

SY's not much of a fighter. He actually really hates the atmosphere on BZP, he's not bad at physical cultivation (his health's pretty good in this life, ironic considering how much worse his situation was) but the random ambushes and survival-of-the-fittest stuff is just not his brand. But that's okay, because it turns out that BZP actually DESPERATELY needs disciples on the actual peak who are interested in things other than fighting and cultivating their own strength. Stuff like, filling out requisition requests for An Ding every time things break, apologizing to An Ding every time things break again, organizing schedules, browbeating senior disciples into actually teaching, educating disciples on virtually any artistic or social skill, hosting lectures on how to beat vicious beasts without just overpowering them, and etc.

Okay so some of this stuff isn't and has never actually been on Bai Zhan's curriculum but Shen Yuan is going to make this place tolerable. And stop these children from needlessly getting acid burns or lyme disease or scurvy or whatever. He keeps internally chewing out Airplane for designing a sect system that means there are a lot of largely unsupervised 12-year-olds running around the wilderness on a mountain picking fights all the time. (When he actually meets Shang Qinghua and figures him out he switches to doing it in person, of course, in twice-monthly bitching sessions that look a lot like budding friendship.)

Of course one of the worst offenders is the Liu kid, who SY would suspect was actually raised by wolves if he didn't know for a fact that Liu Qingge has a younger sister, and also the kinds of nice clothing and letters from home that strongly imply not only does he have a family, but that the family is pretty well-off. Liu Qingge is at first deeply offended by SY being a BZP disciple. He rarely fights anyone, and uses tricks and evasion tactics whenever a fight can't be avoided. And he does other annoying stuff, like pestering him about meals and baths and lecturing him on identifying dangerous plants and the early signs of qi deviation. This is not what their peak is about! He should get with the program already! Just fight stuff until you're too tired to keep fighting stuff!

Also SY's younger brother, SJ, is pure evil (at least according to baby Liu Qingge) even though his other younger brother (?) is cool and nice.

Anyway, Liu Qingge stops complaining about SY after their first mission together, where Liu Qingge doesn't lose a fight but does get into a kind of pyrrhic victory situation where he's really badly hurt, and it's SY who helps him win (correctly identifying the monster and then pointing out its weakness) and takes care of him afterwards and gets him safely back to Cang Qiong. SY expresses surprise at LQG actually being polite to him, and LQG realizes that he's been a colossal ass if people think he wouldn't be grateful to someone who saved his life, so the usual Liushen dynamic proceeds from there. Liu Qingge starts bringing SY fans he leaves behind and hunts down animals that are supposed to be useful for bolstering weak cultivation, SY invites LQG to tea and keeps the critters as pets, etc etc.

SY doesn't get the Head Disciple position, because that's only acquired via beating the current peak lord in combat and lol no. Also he's not interested in stealing it from Liu Qingge, to whom it rightfully belongs (in his mind). But that's fine, because Liu Qingge takes the position when the next generation ascends and then he lets SY exclusively handle all the peak duties SY actually likes (mainly teaching). It's perfect -- Liu Qingge gets to focus on his War God antics and occasional administration/meetings without having to deal with students his has no patience for, but the disciples of BZP don't get neglected because SY is actually teaching and organizing classes and student care. BZP hasn't enjoyed a golden age like this since it was founded!

Things are pretty good overall, but Shen Yuan knows that it's only a matter of time before The Plot shows up, and so he can't rest completely easily.

Meanwhile, the will-they-or-won't-they bets on Liushen have been going strong for a while now. The thing is, most of their martial siblings are convinced that these two are already "together", and just being circumspect about it. Those who know SY well (like SJ, YQY, and SQH) know better but think that SY's romantic obtuseness is to blame, whereas those who know LQG well (LMY, WQW, and MQF) are pretty sure that it's actually LQG's obtuseness that's the problem. Of course it's actually both of them, so efforts to "fix" matters by getting through one of their thick skulls inevitably run afoul of the other's.

An additional complication is of course: SJ doesn't like LQG (mutual), and now that he's the leader of his own peak, he wants to poach SY to come and live there. Not only so he can have one of the 2 people he trusts actually close at hand, but also because SJ also hates actually teaching the atrocious little brats on his peak, and would like to have SY come and do it for him. YQY is still a total pushover for him too, and is also now the sect leader, so YQY agrees that SY can change peaks if SY and LQG both agree to it.

Liu Qingge, of course, is a no, but he's a variable "no". He's not going to hold Shen Yuan against his will or anything.

As for Shen Yuan, it's... complicated. He doesn't really like BZP, but it's gotten a lot better than it was at the start. These days he's actually pretty proud of his accomplishments, and it's more comfortable, but it's still a rough and rowdy place with fewer creature comforts, libraries, or other appealing points than QJP. Also, if he goes to Qing Jing to teach, he can personally ensure that SJ doesn't go around persecuting any of his students!

But... SJ never lived with the Qiu family in this AU, and even though SY's not totally clear on what the PIDW backstory for SJ was, he knows he's a better guy now than the scum villain in the book was. He has a reputation for making cutting remarks, not for being an abusive snake or a lecher. SY's honestly less worried about him doing anything bad at all, and there are other people on QJP who can teach. It might even be good for SJ to promote more people to fill out a social circle he can rely on! That guy needs more friends, seriously.

And QJP really doesn't need more layabout literary intellectual types who get into pointless arguments, which is all SY would be if he went there. Just yet another nerdy scholar for the rich kids with middling cultivation that the peak favors to ignore. At least on BZP he's filling a gap.

SY is clearly torn, and the fact that SY's considering it has LQG upset, and LQG doesn't handle being upset very well, so of course they have an argument about it. SY storms off to cool his head and LQG is like, this is it, he's gone to Qing Jing Peak, I've drive him off by being too aggressive and he's probably remembering all those times I told him he didn't belong here and oh no what have I done maybe if I build him a heated bath and get him books he will come back???

Turns out that SY just went to An Ding to vent at SQH while SQH was like "I think you would have fewer problems if you and Liu Qingge just got married and my disciples could call you Shigu to your face instead of behind your back" and SY threw melon seeds at him and sulked on his fainting couch (which is always cold for some reason...)

Thus begins the Liushen Divorce Arc where SY tries to be anywhere but BZP or QJP, Liu Qingge tries to figure out what thing he can punch to fix this not-punchable problem, SJ is like "I don't see what the big deal is they should break up Liu Qingge is awful and I want my brother to teach my classes for me" like the spoiled youngest sibling he's finally allowed to be, YQY is trying to moderate this Hades vs Demeter situation and is all "well maybe SY could spend half the year on QJP and half on BZP?", and Liu Mingyan is going "I know my brother if this doesn't work out he is going to die single and pining like an idiot" and so keeps conscripting other disciples to y'know, lock SY and LQG into storage closets together (ineffective: LQG can punch through walls) or at least get them in the same room (underestimating SY's willingness to yeet himself out of windows to avoid awkward social interactions.)

By the time Luo Binghe joins the sect (as a Qiong Ding disciple), the drama is in full swing and is the main topic of gossip across most of the peaks.

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Exposing SVSSS Fanon: 3/∞

CANG QIONG MOUNTAIN'S TWELVE PEAKS HAVE COLOR-CODED UNIFORMS

Rating: CANON

Fanworks will often depict the disciples of Cang Qiong Mountain's twelve peaks in matching, color-coded uniforms to each of their peak. This is not something that is often mentioned in the novel itself, but it is canonically accurate.

However, we do not know many of the peaks' signature colors. The fact that they do have specific uniforms in specific colors is canon, but many of the colors used in fanworks are, in fact, fanon.

In the text, only two peaks have canonically-designated uniform colors.

It is stated that there are set uniforms for all of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's disciples:

Though the disciples on the peaks had to wear uniforms, there were also many acclaimed cultivators who weren’t subject to these restrictions...

and

Thankfully, on An Ding Peak, trivial matters like assigning rooms and uniforms to newly accepted disciples didn’t require the peak lord’s involvement.

and also a passage here:

 Several hundred disciples in uniformly colored robes and furious expressions surrounded the invaders

In the original, the phrase "uniformly colored robes (服色统一)" could be read as all of Cang Qiong Mountain's disciples wearing the same-color uniform, but it could also be read that they were all dressed in uniform, as 服色 denotes both color and style of clothes (notable that "color" in Chinese is a more abstract concept than in English).

This passage isn't clear on its own, but there are other places where it is confirmed that the colors worn by the disciples of various peaks are different, and can be used to tell which peak a disciple belongs to:

[Shen Qingqiu] held his breath, attention rapt, and watched a youth in black rush out... ...The color of his robes confirmed that he really was from Bai Zhan Peak...

Aside from this, Qing Jing Peak's uniforms are the only others that are given a description:

Enveloped in Qing Jing Peak’s many-layered teal uniform, [SQQ] was immaculate and slender, with a great deal of graceful beauty.

While this passage describes the Peak Lord's attire and might not necessarily extend to the disciples, another passage shortly after this says:

A group of teal-robed boys and girls ran down Qing Jing Peak in a trailing conga line, one after another.

This confirms a uniform color used by the peak's disciples.

These passages, however, are the only ones which definitively state a uniform color for any of the twelve peaks-- meaning that we only know that Qing Jing Peak's uniforms are teal (青色）and Bai Zhan Peak's uniforms are black (黑色). Anything other than this is fanon and headcanon.

One more side note-- Luo Binghe is described as wearing white:

A seventeen-year-old youth, slim and tall and graceful, dressed in white robes

But this description only begins after the timeskip at the beginning of Chapter 4 (7S TL). Luo Binghe is, as of now, still a disciple of the sect, and thus would be required to wear a uniform. However, one important change had occured during this time-- Luo Binghe, at the time of the Immortal Alliance Conference, is Qing Jing Peak's head disciple.

The only time another head disciple's appearance is described is regarding Shen Qingqiu:

Shang Qinghua suddenly heard the tinkling of sword tassel pendants, and a youth wearing Qing Jing Peak’s uniform slowly approached him... ... His black hair was neatly tied behind his head with a light-green ribbon...

The color of his uniform is not stated, other than it being Qing Jing Peak's, and the "light-green" color of the hair ribbon is 青色，which is the same color translated as "teal" when describing QJP's uniforms above.

Therefore, one interpretation could be that head disciples of Cang Qiong Mountain's twelve peaks wear white uniforms with accessories in their peaks' designated color.

This, of course, is not explicitly canon and should still be taken as headcanon (I would categorize it as supported or neutral fanon on this blog).

However, the idea that the twelve peaks have each their own uniform colors, and that QJP's is teal and BZP's is black, are canonical facts.

[saintone]

i've been thinking that one of the most tragical things about pidw is that it was going to end the way it ended no matter what

like, let's pretend shen jiu didn't exist for a moment.

luo binghe was a poor kid in a peak filled with nobles. even if he got into qing jing, or was smart enough to fight his way into bai zhan, he wouldn't have been satisfied.

luo binghe was said to be a white lotus, that is a white, innocent flower from the outside but his roots are filled with dirt. he was a demon, and even in svsss, being bingmei, he is obsessive, authoritarian and selfish sometimes.

even without shen jiu, luo binghe would have been bullied in speak for being a commoner, and the youngest shidi so his older martian sibling had the right to make his work harder. and even if he wasn't, his obssesive, ruthless side would have him left wanting for more, to be recognized, to be respected, to be powerful.

an important thing about pidw is that lbh was a demon, and demons take revenge tenfold bc they hold grundges.

i think that even if sj wasn't his shizun, lbg would have razed cang qiong for not giving him the recognition he thought he deserved, or for being thrown at the abyss bc he would have been murdered (or attempted to) either way once it was discovered he was a demon.

like in many ways, other cultivators weren't much better than when qingqiu (exhibit a: picking old palace master), and his values and traditions weren't that much righteous and better either. the laws were designed to defend themselves and that's it.

and this doesn't eliminate the fact that shen qingqiu truly went out of his was to make luo binghe's life a living hell. like yeah lbg would have been bullied, but sqq quite literally tortured him.

but it's kinda sad that luo binghe was going to be mistreated either way, bc as he himself says it life was unfair to someone like him, poor, orphan and half demon, abandoned by his own mother.

just like life was unfair to shen jiu.

and so the two characters that had the worst chances overall ended up destroying each other with all their might, and kinda destroying the world in that process.

like they could've been their saviours but they chose to be their doom.

[dancingaura925]

As an experiencedTM danmei reader, I've come across many genres, and I feel like that the one genre that the SVSSS fandom needs to exploit is the interstellar genre. Why? Because it'd be fucking hilarious. Hear me out:

In the original work, Luo Binghe is - instead of part demon part human - is part zerg part human. Zerg, if you aren't familiar, is basically the interstellar genre's version of reallyyyyyy strong aliens, and depending on the author, can range from actual literal beasts to human-like creatures with insect features to just straight up humans with nice-ass wings, which can then have different degrees of autonomy due to this hivemind they've got with the Zerg Queen. Basically, nobody has any clue on what a proper Zerg should be, but nobody cares :D

In addition, these stories often have a human empire dedicated to fighting against these Zerg. This may include a main planet where the emperor lives and other planets with different nobles, territories, military bases, etc. It almost always has a research lab on the main planet that usually have some sort of dastardly scheme related to the main plot. On top of that, these empires are very militaristic, with mechas and combat and mental power and all sorts of interstellar travel

...

Do you see where this is going?

Once upon a time, Tianlang-Jun (perhaps the descendant from the Zerg Queen) and Su Xiyan (a researcher) fell in love with each other in the research facility. SXY was assigned to TLJ because the research facility wanted to know how to harness the Zerg Queen's power to once-and-for-all wipe out the Zerg race. However, once the two got together, they started to plot how to get out and along the way, LBH was conceived. OPM, the ex-head researcher got FURIOUS and badabing badaboom, you've got SXY on the run before sending LBH to another place to survive.

Fast forward a lot, LBH shows up at the Cang Qiong Military Academy, which is split up in different divisions under different commanders. For LBH, he goes to the Qing Jing division where he is led under General Shen Qingqiu, someone who often boasts of his own mental power and lies and takes other people's credit to get to the lofty position he is today.

When LBH is training, he starts standing out in unusual ways. His physical prowess is through the roof, but his mental power is abysmal, which is bad because that's kinda how you use mechas, and often, physical strength can be enhanced with mental power (kinda like cultivation). So LBH is bullied, harassed, etc, and all the while, SQQ is like "this dude is a beast/derogatory".

Insert a long few years, including a Zerg invasion with none other than Sha Hualing. You go, girl.

When the Empire's Military Academy Tournament (could not think up a name rn) shows up, he's sent to go and instead of being sent into the Abyss, he's sent through a wormhole to a Zerg-infested place, where he learns more and stuff. Wowee!

He comes back with revenge on humans and stuff and integrates both the humans and Zergs under his iron fist. The fight against the emperor takes up like a hundred chapters or whatever.

So that's the OG version. Now, let's insert a millenial mess that is SY as SQQ and see how he handles being in the military. He better put to use that military training Chinese kids are put through.

On the other hand, if you wanted to take a completely DIFFERENT direction, have LBH be a test subject in the lab and have SY transmigrate into a researcher. LBH was supposed to be a human weapon, designed from intentional breeding. SY, knowing LBH will break out and cutely demolish the human race, tries to befriend him, teaches him everything. LBH, despite being a weapon designed to destroy the Zerg race, falls in love. And then he breaks out. Cue drama and kidnapping.

[rarepears]

So for the SY and SQH sleepover au where the peak lords overhear their conversations, what other things has SY just said in normal conversation that for him is common sense but for others it revolutionary

Like, say hey maybe if we wore mask we would be less likely to be affected by sex pollen. Or maybe don’t cross contaminate food because you might get sick.

And on the other hand he stays some of the most out of pocket things, like yeah if you choke a person like this they’d be out in minutes but you wanna choke someone like during sex if you don’t want to kill them. Or hey if you mix these to perfectly harmless substances you get a deadly poison that no one would be able to track back to you.

Shen Yuan: The average human dick size is *** cm long and *** in width. There's a theory that states that the mushroom shape - which did you know is pretty unique to humans since most other animals don't have a mushroom tip? cat dicks are barbed and dogs have knots - at the end is designed to reach the woman's cervix and lift the uterus to release sperm into the uppermost portion-

Shang Qinghua: Bro the fuck you'd read up on this

Shen Yuan (pulling out more fun facts about penises like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat): Human ejaculate with such great force and distance that reaches 2 feet. Did you know that duck pensis can reach 2 feet long?

Cang Qiong people who are eavesdropping in horror: ...what if Shen Qingqiu actually goes to the brothels not to enjoy prostitutes but in an attempt to study these... ahem theories.

Another Cang Qiong person: But that doesn't explain how the Qing Jing lord knows about animal copulation...

Cang Qiong people: o.o

original post

[luyepiaofeng]

mxtx taobao merch masterlist

xingyunshi: jewellery and other stuffs

kaze: mdzs stationery

1/3 delusion: cosplays

bilibili (renamed chaodian)

cql official

minidoll: mainly plushie dolls but also a few other stuff

omodoki: similar to minidoll with a few merch

goodsmile: i think you already know this big company

qing cang: mdzs and hualian mini figures

tencent official: sells a variety of merch from different stores

nanmanshe: sells a variety of merch

youbingxiong: a small store sells scumbag system/svsss merch (yes it's not verified but it's official) but is currently taking a break (update about what happened to them recently)

peacebird: a fashion brand that collab and sells mdzs attires (recently also collab with wang yibo)

handou: similar to peacebird

ringdoll: a bjd store that sold wangxian and xie lian bjd (they're only for pre-orders and have no plans to restock them)

miaowu: mdzs and tgcf cosplays and attires

aimon: sells a variety of mdzs merch

miniso: famous variety store chain that had collab with mdzs and tgcf with household products

montage: used to be a company that frequently releases merch for mdzs but is currently no longer releasing new merch temporarily

huangmao: ...a random snack store because they sell mdzs cornetto ice cream lmao

uwowo: sells cql cosplays (looks like very poor quality compare to others imo)

liuyanxiling: used to sell very very pretty and amazing cql cosplays with its unique design but i don't think they're selling them anymore, worth checking it out tho, their hanfu are gorgeous!

this list was originally on its rightful masterlist but has been moved due to exceeding 100 links per post.

it has come to my attention that the links to all the tb stores have expired, i was unaware that there is a limited duration in which the links would be active. i will try to update the links soon but it may take a while to do on mobile so please be patient! if the updated links have expired too, please comment/dm me on my twitter to let me know! thank you for your cooperation!

[last updated - 22.06.30]

[shandian-go]

[PRE-ORDER] TGCF x Qing Cang - Moonlight Proposal Figure

Deadline: Mar 17, 2023 at 9:00 PM EST

How to order

If you have never joined one of my group orders before, please read the Guide + FAQ and register before signing up!

To order, please go to the Order Site, select the ‘Pre-Orders’ category and browse for the item you’d like to order.

[touchmycoat]

Cnovel!anon: For 備份, there's an example with 季玨 in Airplane extra #4. He's LQG's shidi, and he calls SQH 尚師兄. So the people who are the Qing generation's martial siblings still keep their 備份 when the Qing generation became peak lords. I think someone like 季玨 would still be shishu or shibo to any lower gen disciple (on BZ peak ref by relation to LQG), and would be shizun to any personal disciple (or he might just be a teacher on the peak, and be called xiansheng like LQR is called).

cont'd: The candidate selection chapter (74) only showed how LBH was selected by SQQ, but I headcanon that a peak lord's martial sibling could select personal disciples as well, though with the peak lord's agreement (and for BZ, the disciple has to seek out the peak first). So for the peak disciples, if they are inner disciples selected by a shidi or shixiong of LQG as a personal disciple, they would call LQG shibo/shishu. Outer disciples without a specific shizun would call him Peak Lord.

cont'd 3/3: no real basis for this in SVSS, mainly extrapolating from other wuxia and from MDZS.

Cnovel!anon: oh and I think the really young disciples who want to be polite in referring to a lower peak but older disciple can always use 前輩。Even if the allowed term is shidi. I expect since they stop aging once they have cultivated enough, it's less obvious who is older or younger. I expect the higher generation dress differently than the lower generation, so they know if the person is a shidi or shishu. The generation above peak lords that are still around are likely 長老 or 師祖。

--

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WORKSHOPPING THIS WITH ME it's foolish but this is what i'm getting tripped up on again and again with this fic i'm writing lmfao This is the chart I've got so far. Black is people, Green is relational designation.

(pardon my SHIT handwriting)

This is all within Baizhan. All Baizhan disciples are either immediate/inner disciples or non-immediate/outer disciples of either LQG or one of his martial siblings. YYX is the only one who calls LQG Shizun. All other immediate/inner disciples call LQG either Shishu or Shibo depending on their Shizuns' relationship to LQG. All the non-immediate/outer disciples call LQG Peak Lord.

My question is, what do the non-immediate/outer disciples call LQG's martial siblings? 先生 is gender neutral and makes sense for active teachers, but what about non-teachers? 長老 would work (峰主/長老, but in that case, what about for those one generation above? I didn't draw a question mark on my diagram but I'm sorta questioning now, are outer disciples allowed to call them 師祖? Or would it be something like 太上長老?? It feels like only immediate/inner-disciples (of any cultivator within the Cang Qiong lineage) can refer to seniors with 師/Shi, right? Or am I trippin'

So:

YYX calls LQG Shizun and would call LQG's Shizun Grandmaster—Taishizun or Shizu

He would call any of LQG's martial siblings Shibo or Shishu

The immediate/inner disciples of LQG's martial siblings would call LQG Shibo or Shishu (I know you said this bit is your headcanon but 1000% agreed lmfao)

All immediate/inner disciples of Peaks higher ranked than Baizhan would call all Baizhan cultivators from LQG's generation (including LQG) Shishu

All non-immediate/outer disciples in Cang Qiong call LQG Peak Lord and LQG's martial siblings Elder/Zhanglao in general, Xiansheng if they're teachers (what did MDZS translate Xiansheng to?)

All current-gen Baizhan disciples call YYX shixiong or shidi based on their order of entry, regardless of inner/outer disciple status.

All current-gen non-Baizhan disciples from Peaks higher ranked than Baizhan can call YYX shidi, even if they're younger or came in later. However, it's probably actually more socially appropriate for those younger or newer to Cang Qiong to call him Senior/Qianbei. This is also regardless of inner/outer disciple status.

I'm just guessing the last two would be regardless of inner/outer status just because...都是後輩那麼講究幹啥呢？But there would still be something of a selection process. No non-immediate/outer disciples become Elders because if they weren't good enough by a certain point to get taken in as an immediate/inner disciple, they should have to leave the mountain. At most they become a 執事 (deacon??), but their purpose on Cang Qiong is no longer cultivation. This means that everyone still on Cang Qiong from the Qing Generation of Peak Lords (everyone who gets referred to as an Elder) is an immediate/inner disciple of a cultivator from the generation above. This would preserve the sanctity of the Elder designation, kind of—for instance, outer disciples who studied at Cang Qiong can't claim to be Cang Qiong Elders. Anybody who claims to be a Cang Qiong Elder is claiming martial relation to somebody's Shizun/Shibo/Shishu, etc.

And you totally resolved a whole designation moment for me LMFAO 前輩 as a term used among same-gen disciples makes a lot of sense!!! Thank you for that. And I totally agree that there would be different dress codes for the generations, or at least emblems, jades, markers, etc. as visual cues, since visible age doesn't actually tell you much past a certain point.

linking vaguely related articles mostly for my own reference:

修真、玄幻、仙俠小説當中的宗門組織架構與職能

仙俠小說裡門派中職位的稱呼

請大家告知師門中的輩分稱呼

[phoenixtakaramono]

SUMMARY: Let it not be said that Shen Yuan didn’t know how to be an accomplished—arguably better—writer than Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky! A middle-aged author in his hubris, he’d unknowingly triggered his fate and had his consciousness whisked away into an unfathomable mystical world that he would later learn to be based on Proud Immortal Demon Way and his very own work-in-progress. When given the opportunity to customize his character’s stats and to design his one remaining Customizable Skill Slot, as a veteran reader of transmigration stories and their tropes, Shen Yuan demanded, “Grant me the protagonist’s halo of course!”

The SYSTEM was silent all but for a minute.【Understood. Unique Skill "PROTAGONIST'S HALO" activated. Esteemed Host, you share the Unique Skill "PROTAGONIST'S HALO" with one other.】

“Who?”

【This world’s Luo Binghe. From the original novel series.】

“...Hold on, I need some time to process this.”

(Little did Shen Yuan know that this world’s Luo Binghe is the same sadistic “Bing gē” from the released Extra short story. It was also too bad that Shen Yuan, in his mortal form, resembled Shen Qingqiu by a good thirty-to-forty percent.)

This was the second time they’d held hands. Fingers threaded together, palms touching. A significant amount of information could be communicated in the simple act of taking someone’s hand—the shape and texture of it, the roughness or softness of the life they’d led, and the strength or fragility of their grip. Luo Binghe would remember the feeling of that pale hand gripping his tightly for the rest of his life.

The mist billowed under Luo Binghe the moment he was allowed entry into the dream realm of the divine. Instantly, he was besieged with the feeling of falling into a frozen lake. The cold was a shock through his body, forcing his hand to convulsively clamp down as he stumbled.

Foolish, Luo Binghe berated himself. To have been finally welcomed inside the dream realm of a celestial being meant this version of his shizun had thought highly of Luo Binghe and his constitution. Yet instead of a composed and dignified air, Luo Binghe had just shown his weak side.

Shen Yuan halted midstride. Concern was written upon those white brows upon seeing his reaction.

It was, nonetheless, an opportunity. Luo Binghe forced an amiable smile as he pretended to be oblivious, masking any sign of his discomfort as he leaned against Shen Yuan’s weight. The sensation of pins-and-needles assailing him wasn’t something he couldn’t tolerate, but it was unpleasant. Except for their one point of contact, no part had been spared. His gaze lingered on the long scholarly fingers wrapped trustingly around his, before sweeping a glance over their new surroundings.

He felt like he’d stepped into a world composed of silk screens. Ahead, the fine mist passing through the painted scenery shrouded the outline of the tall mountain range and forest. Even the walls of the buildings were composed of firm brushstrokes and soft ink wash.

Since Luo Binghe had difficulty walking, Shen Yuan had to support him. Both men, mutually depending on each other, took slow steps forward.

Droplets of water splashed quietly from their strides as Shen Yuan guided him in the direction of whatever he’d wanted Luo Binghe to see. Like black ink that had been dipped into clear water, the transparent surface was beginning to darken with each tread that Luo Binghe took.

He stared down at his feet. The sight of the ink and water swirling into one another as though they were made to be together gave rise to the tide of emotions which had been circulating within his mind.

In the newly fallen darkness, he could sense his companion had fallen into another state of deep contemplation. As the two men disembarked in companionable silence, Luo Binghe took a long, measuring look at the landscape—at the secrets hiding within the fog, behind the translucent silks.

The atmosphere was incomparably resplendent and harmonious, yet it painted an undeniable fact about his companion. Knowledge could be gleaned of how this revered existence perceived the outside world. Life was a flow of changes—transient and ephemeral. Being in this realm didn’t feel real, with the indifference of an observer who was transcendent and so far removed from the mortal scale.

They were truly opposites—not only in their physical appearance and status, but also in how their dream realms manifested.  

“…You’ve always had an unruly habit to roam and draw unnecessary attention to yourself!” An insidious and vicious whisper brushed against Luo Binghe’s mind like a wisp of smoke. “ It’s impressive you can even move so well inside this barrier. To think you’d chase him here on impulse!”

Hearing the litany of grievances, Luo Binghe hid the blade that was his smile. Unlike himself, he had no doubt that his senior might have been exorcised had he not taken refuge in Luo Binghe.

Because however convincingly Meng Mo conveyed his displeasure, his voice was nonetheless weakened by the barrier. He was merely being crotchety to maintain appearances.

Shen Yuan had made it clear that his invitation into his dream was extended to Luo Binghe only. With that one remark addressing the senior dream demon, and by performing the gesture of taking his hand, it couldn’t have been even more obvious what he’d wanted.

Earlier, Luo Binghe had gambled that on this fateful evening that the celestial fortuneteller would have no choice but to attend to his growing fatigue. His guard would be lowered and that was when the opportunity would present itself.

The practice of invading and manipulating a person’s dreams was nothing new. With his secret tutelage cultivating on the demonic path, beginning when he’d been a mere Cang Qiong Mountain sect disciple, he had learned to infiltrate many minds. Several had been his lovers—the first being his shījiě, accidental as it had been pulling his martial sister along with him—although the treatment his women received was far more considerate than the cruel methods he inflicted upon all those who opposed him.

He had seen the duplicity of people’s hearts and reproduced illusions of varying natures. He’d learned how to lure others when they were at their most defenseless and be able to find their worst fears and memories to inflict the maximum psychological torment. With his enemies who were impervious to physical torture, few could claim immunity upon being confronted with their own inner demons. And with his lovers, he could skim their memory fragments and indulge any spring dreams either of them had fantasized about, causing romantic feelings to overflow.

Because unlike the waking world, the dream realm was honest.

The capability to doubt was stripped away. Memories could be spied on. Falsehoods were exposed. And no secrets could be kept from him. Oftentimes one’s impulses could not be held back within the dream realm.

It was a glimpse into one’s truest state.

Meng Mo’s withered voice interrupted his thoughts.

“The ways of those of the Heavenly Realm are mysterious—but they are proud and have always held contempt for our kind. I know you are captivated by him, but be more prudent in choosing your words around him. Don’t be muddled in the head just because you believe he can replace the late Qing Jing Peak Lord….” Ridicule had crept into Meng Mo’s tone. “His looks aren’t bad but to have aspirations of eating the tofu of someone who bears the farseeing, discerning eyes of the Heavens…. Your ambition is bold, as is your guts. This elder doesn’t know whether to be impressed or scold you for your shamelessness.”

Although his lips had thinned into a white line, Luo Binghe remained silent.

Water shaped its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flowed. Tonight, many of his initial plans had been waylaid. Although he couldn’t have predicted its trajectory, he wasn’t discontent with the final outcome. He’d gained information that would be invaluable to him—and he’d finally found his shizun.

There had been a quiescent anticipation in the night as Luo Binghe waited like a spider spinning its web, searching and reaching for the only mind of this residence who was of interest to him, until he’d finally sensed the faintest reverberation of the otherworldly and ephemeral—a presence that could only belong to him.  

And he’d pulled.

As someone who used to humbly occupy the Mortal Realm, never in his imagination did Luo Binghe expect he could claim success to the achievement of accessing the dream realm of divinity.

The rush of triumph had been dampened once, upon seeking Shen Yuan, Luo Binghe encountered a Qi-condensed barrier—a mental defense meant to repel demonic influences. Impenetrable even against the combined efforts of himself and his senior who had centuries worth of infiltration experience, no matter how much he’d concentrated—redirecting the violent and rough flow of his Qi into something more finessed—he was unable to cross the boundary.

Luo Binghe had been stuck at an impasse. Breaching the barrier would require a much greater display of force, inflicting irreparable mental harm onto the dreamer.

He’d realized the barrier had to stay.

The passage of time was immeasurable in the world of dreams, but with every moment that had passed without the precious person inside revealing himself, the fear had mounted. Perhaps Shen Yuan had predicted such an incident would occur and had taken precautionary measures.

In hindsight, his action had indeed been too rash.

It was inevitable that they would be going their separate ways in the coming morning. Moreover, the last deep impression he’d leave behind would cast Luo Binghe in an extremely bad light, with Shen Yuan withdrawing back into seclusion and harboring a grudge for being taken advantage of. The opportunity would have slipped through Luo Binghe’s fingers like granules of sand.

All would be lost. Faced with the possibility of being abandoned, Luo Binghe had been inconsolable. The tension in the air around him had been so thick, it’d presented an oppressive miasma in his own dream realm.

The giant boulder which weighed down his heart vanished when, with the keen senses of a cultivator, his five senses had detected a ripple in the fog.

From faraway, he’d been spellbound. He’d seen a silhouette resembling that from legend, with the unattainable white moon that was Shen Yuan descending down from the stars which glistened like shards in the night.

Despite the offense, he had chosen to come to Luo Binghe from his own volition.

Another realization had struck Luo Binghe. Seeing the regal figure out of his immaculate finery—dressed down to his inner clothing and with his moonlit hair undone, without a headpiece in sight—was a rare sight beyond measure. Aside from the servants who tended to their master, no one else must have seen him in such a compromising state.

It’d also been fascinating observing how someone of the Nine Heavens would interact within his world; Shen Yuan had assimilated quickly. Wandering aimlessly in an unfamiliar environment, his appearance reminded Luo Binghe of the purest white snow, high above and unreachable, the likes of which remained untarnished. Such bearing was similar to what Luo Binghe expected for somebody of high status. Like a fairy unaffected by mortal matters, Shen Yuan’s manner had been aloof and vague. The only difference was that his attitude toward Luo Binghe had not been uncaring. Courtesy had been given, even knowing who he was—and what he’d done, and would be capable of doing.

There was no one who could deny Shen Yuan’s appearance was picturesque. When he was smiling, it was as moving as spring flowers and the autumn moon. When he was lost in thought, he projected an air of melancholy—solemn and ambiguous, like the subject of a painting one could only admire from a distance.

“…Xiōng dì.” A cultured and steady voice trickled into Luo Binghe’s awareness, pulling him from his deep reflection.

An invigorating energy suddenly blanketed him. All discomfort fled, replaced with the refreshing feeling of a spring brook engulfing him. Shen Yuan had fallen a step back so that they were now shoulder to shoulder.

Shen Yuan’s gaze was appraising as his breaths feathered the fur. “I had not expected you being here would be strenuous on you. Please take care of your body.” A hand went up to clasp him on the shoulder. “Endure the skinship. I think, for now, it’s better to stay close to me until you can stand on your own. You’ll be safer by my side.”

Luo Binghe inhaled sharply.

“Hoh. How considerate!” Meng Mo’s dryness filtered into his thoughts. “He treats you very well. Such goodwill. He certainly has a good heart.”

Stay out of this, Luo Binghe rebuked. You are not invited to take part in this conversation. Scram!

Replying in the affirmative though, he ducked his head. The hidden meaning of Shen Yuan’s words had not been lost on him. He simply hadn’t expected how protective Shen Yuan was of him.

In this lifetime, Luo Binghe would like to think he could recognize his shizun even if he turned into ashes—or took on a different appearance. Even the slow-witted were able to see that Shen Yuan was of different temperament, reminding Luo Binghe of the other “Shen Qingqiu” of the mirror world. This fortuneteller had a sincere and utterly honest personality, thoughtful and broadminded. Even when blood was shed, he didn’t condemn Luo Binghe.

This night was the first time they’d met, but it was undeniable that there was a flow to their conversations—as though they were not strangers but were, instead, dear friends reuniting. It was as if someone had seen the unfulfilled desires of his heart and had crafted him a companion to be compatible. Being with Shen Yuan felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Embracing him had felt natural.

Although he was a man, Shen Yuan had fit so perfectly in his arms. The firmness and strength of his body. Warm and solid. Alive and real. It hadn’t been the same as hugging a soft feminine figure but even now, Luo Binghe could recall how it’d felt folding him into his arms, at the simple pleasure of sharing body heat. Of inhaling his clean scent.

Being that close to him, the intimacy of such an act, had been so strangely powerful the connection between them had felt tangible.

Here was somebody meant to be unattainable and unreachable, whom mere mortals never would’ve had the fortune to meet unless they’d managed to ascend to the highest realm. Knowing that he was supposed to keep all divinity at a respectable distance made his awareness of what he was doing seem all the more enchanting.

There was no such thing as a string of coincidences. Luo Binghe held no illusion of what this really was; a second chance was being offered to him. Since they have finally encountered, it must have meant they were fated. Since fated, one must live up to the fate that the Heavens have bestowed.

(Cont.)

The rest can be read on AO3!

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Just on "is Ming Fan the Head Disciple", I don't have access to the revised originals but does SQQ no longer call LBH his 关门弟子 while he's mentally roasting LQG for telling him he can always get a new disciple? Because CQM has that strong tradition that all Succeeding Disciples/Future Peak Lords get cute matching courtesy names I was assuming that none of the Peaks had one yet but if LBH is still Official Final Disciple that would still give him a strong position by the power of Xianxia Tropes.

I just checked, and yes, SQQ still does refer to LBH as 关门弟子 in that scene! Of course, this is the only time the term is used in the novel, so it doesn't seem to hold any kind of official meaning, but instead is simply referring to the trope itself (for those who do not know, 关门弟子 literally means "closed door disciple/final disciple" and refers to the last disciple taken in by a given teacher, who is often highly favored and given special attention, ultimately becoming the teacher's successor; a lot of xianxia protagonists can fit into this role. In the EN TL, the term is translated as "favorite disciple" but it does have a more specific meaning in the genre).

Because LQG says just before that SQQ can still take other disciples, I don't think that Qing Jing Peak's gates are officially closed-- but that SQQ is just refferencing the trope because that is how he sees LBH.

In terms of the courtesy names, that is a bit of an oddity-- Luo Binghe is referred to as 首徒， which is the same term for head disciple used by those succeeding disciples of the Qing generation in the Qijiu extra, however, he is not referred to as 首席弟子 anywhere, which seems to be the more official title for a succeeding disciple. Perhaps here, 首徒 is a disciple given authority, where 首席弟子 is one who has been designated as successor, though both terms are translated as "head disciple," and they are used somewhat interchangeably.

So basically, LBH still had an official position-- it just seems more like he was given the authority role, rather than being designated as official successor-- it's likely that there's quite a long time before the ascension of the Qing generation and so they are not yet choosing successors. Generational names are only given to the successors, so LBH wouldn't have gotten one of those.

Of course, it's hard to say whether or not this is a common practice-- since there isn't anyone who mentions it being odd for SQQ to make LBH head disciple, my guess is that it is an accepted practice, but he is also the only Cang Qiong Mountain disciple we see to be referred to as 首徒 that is not also the named successor who has received a generational name.

This is the best explanation for it I can think of-- but anyone who has other thoughts feel free to add on!

(The post anon is referring to regarding Ming Fan's status is this one)

[dreamingsushi]

Eternal Love - Episode 1

So I have already seen Eternal Love before, but watching Eternal Love of dream made me want to watch it again since I loved it so much and even though I already know the story and plot I thougt why not make reviews of this one too? So here I am, waiting fore the last episodes of Eternal Love of Dream, getting some Yang Mi feels. I love her as Bai Qian and can’t wait for Mark Chao too as both Ye Hua and Mo Yuan. Plus another good point is that the OST for this one too is just so good! So yep. There are so many shows on my list (and I am still not done with I want to hear you song) but oh well!

The series starts in Kunlunxu, Moyuan’s residence. His disciple are chasing a really powerful magic weapon that their master just got. It’s a fan, but none of them manages to catch it. When Mo Yuan himself puts his hands on it, it still wants to go around and he wonders if he’s not about to get new disciples.

Zhe Yan sends Bai Qian to the Kunlun mountains so she can become Mo Yuan’s disciple. Since he only guys as his disciples, Zhe Yan gives her the appearance of a man. I didn’t remember that at the beginning she had such a weird way of dressing up, I only remember how elegant she is after that. Anyways, it’s probably to make her look younger (even though Yang Mi already looks so young, she’s so gorgeous). Another guy is also there to become Mo Yuan’s student and seems a little snobbish. Then the fan comes in flying and stops right in front of Bai Qian, now Si Yin, as it chose her as its master. Mo Yuan is a little surprised and notices almost right away that she’s a girl. The war lord can’t be fooled that easily. Since the fan is a very powerful weapon, Mo Yuan decides it’s better if it doesn’t go outside of Kunlunxu and accepts her as his disciple, pretending that he didn’t notice that she’s not a man : it seems it was fated to happen.

Oh wait! Guys! That other dude! It’s the same actor as Yan Chiwu! How come? Well on wiki it says Chiwu is Zilan’s twin brother? How come would Mo Yuan accept as his disciple someone from the Mo clan? It’s supposed to be only celestials on that mountain? And it doesn’t say anything about it in the book, which I just finished reading. Oh well. Zilan is really different from Chiwu, it’s weird. It shows Liu Ruilin’s acting ability though which is nice! I like to see actors in different kinds of characters!

Then having two new disciples at the same time, Mo Yuan asks Zhe Yan’s opinion on who should be shixiong (that would designate an older training student) and who should be shidi (so the younger training student) Zhe Yan suggests that Si Yin should be the shidi and Bai Qian doesn’t really like it that way and she says that then she’s not becoming her disciple, she’s tired of always being the little one. However Mo Yuan bribes into being the shidi, to even things out he’s going to give her the fan. She thinks it’s fair then and sits back down, ready to bow to him.

Now that I have seen the Pillow Book, I think they had less money for Eternal Love. The Nine Heaven’s court is... it looks like it’s out of a 1990′s drama. Even Donghua... I like his hairstyle better in the Pillow Book. The man bun is not for him. Anyways, I was going to say that it seems that the Celestial Emperor isn’t that happy that Mo Yuan gave the Yuqi Kunlun fan to a little spiritual fox that we know nothing about.

It’s been 20 000 years (oh god I just hate so much to translate numbers from Chinese to English or French... just ugh, so complicated when I already hate maths) since Bai Qian became Mo Yuan’s student. She oftens goes to the mortal realm with another disciple to tell people’s fortune. The scene shows them hurrying back to Kunlunxu after men start fighting over a beautiful woman. If they wait for too long and come back too late, they might get scolded by their master. Well they still get scolded anyways, even though Dashixiong (eldest of the disciple, not in terms of age, but of the time he came in as Mo Yuan’s student, so he has been there the longest) covers up for them. Then Mo Yuan dismisses everyone except for Si Yin, who’s known to be his favorite disciple. He brought him back some peach liquor from Zhe  Yan since it’s her birthday. Okay, just to mention that it’s confusing, but I am switching between masculine and feminine to talk about Bai Qian/Si Yin and I really don’t do it on purpose. So the look on Mo Yuan’s face though. When I first watched the drama, I never realized that Mo Yuan had feeling for Bai Qian, but it actually shows very much. He looks at her so lovingly. I love Mark Chao so much <3

But Si Yin doesn’t get to enjoy his liquor as he gets kednapped by Yaoguang, an immortal in love with Mo Yuan. They took her in to become Yaoguang’s disciple, but Si Yin won’t agree since he’s already Mo Yuan’s disciple. Because he won’t agree, Yao Guang orders to take Si Yin to the water dungeon and let him rot there three days or until he agrees.

The disciples look for Si Yin everywhere, but can’t find him. Well, because he’s not there.Some of them think it could be the Yi’s doing, but Dashixiongsays that unless for Qingcang none of them is powerful enough to climb Kunlunshan to Kunlunxu. Also it had to be someone very familiar with Kunlunxu to be able to leave as quickly. So they guess it would be Yao Guang. Dashixiong and Lingyu go tell Mo Yuan while the others keep on looking.

So basically, Yao Guang wants Si Yin to get away from Mo Yuan because Mo Yuan likes him too much. One of the maids asks wether it is because Si Yin is that handsome which gets her a killing look from Yao Guang, probably out of jealously, but also because that would imply that Mo Yuan is gay. As she gets out of the water dungeon, Mo Yuan arrives asking if his disciple is in there. She says of course not, but Mo Yuan has no time to fool around, he doesn’t like speaking for nothing. He tells her to make way, but she won’t and points her sword at him, but Mo Yuan is too powerful for her and gets in taking Si Yin out. He’s really unhappy and doesn’t want to hear what Yao Guang has to say. She says she did it so he wouldn’t be criticized just because of a disciple. He convokes her for a duel on February 17, so they settle accounts. She’s really shooked.

Si Yin is in a really bad state, in his sleep he cals out for Mo Yuan and only calms down. When he takes her hand. Then he says that Yao Guang doesn’t deserve Mo Yuan. He looks so happy hearing that.

Shenye, the celestial emperor’s son comes to convince Mo Yuan not to fight with Yao Guang. The situation with the Yi isn’t stable and Qing Cang might look for any reason to start a war so the relationship between Mo Yuan and Yao Guang should remain good. Now isn’t the time to be divided. But Mo Yuan says that for the sake of Kunlunxu that battle has to be fought. But he promises that both Kunlunxu and Yao Guang fu would help the celestials in the war with the Yi. The celestial emperor wants to see Si Yin and understand why Mo Yuan cares so much about that disciple.

Yat! Fighting scene hehe! They are so bad ass! You wouldn’t see that in an American series. Mo Yuan wins rather easily. He asks her to move out of Kunlunxu and rejects her.

Si Yin finally wakes up and wants to go and see Mo Yuan. Then Yuling tells him that he has to copy some text 3000 times and that a girl came to see him. Si Yin can’t seem to think of who that could be. It’s Xuannü. Ergh. I so dislike her. I didn’t remember she came in the story so early.

When she sees Si Yin, Xuannü doesn’t recognize him as Bai Qian, but thinks that oh wow, there’s even somebody who looks like Bai Qian even more than that. Xuannü is Bai Xuan, Bai Qian’s big brother’s wife’s sister. She was sent by Bai Zhen. He didn’t come himself because Bai Yi,s daughter was just about to be born, so everyone went there to celebrate. Anyways, he sent Xuannü to Kunlunxu because her mom wants to force her into marriage and it felt improper for a girl to live with only two men which is why he and Zhe Yan don’t hide her in the Peach Blossom Forest, at least Bai Qian is a girl and they knew each other in childhood. Xuannü starts crying when Si Yin says that keeping her is a little... but seeing she’s crying, he runs to ask permission to Mo Yuan so Xuannü could stay at Kunlunxu. Mo Yuan agrees and says she should stay at Siyin’s place. Si Yin complains that he’s also a guy, it would be improper but the way Mo Yuan looks at him so means: did I hear something now? No? I thought so.

Si Yin goes to see a golden lotus flower to tell it he won’t be able to come and take care of it while he’s punished to copy, but he will come back as soon as he’s done. Just wait for him. The lotus flower glows at Si Yin touch. Seems it likes him.

In my memory, special effects weren’t as bad but oh well. I love this drama so much and Yang Mi + Mark Chao have so much chemistry together. I am glad to watch it again and... Liang Liang <3 That song is my everything!

[chineselanguageblog]

Chinese Characters

Writing, the carrier of culture and the symbol of human civilization, first appeared in Sumer. Like other ancient languages of Egypt and India, ancient Sumerian symbols have been lost in the process of history, but only Chinese characters still remain in use today. They have played a significant role in the development of Chinese language and culture. This article intends to display how Chinese characters were created and how they were simplified from the ancient form of writing to more abstract.

Origin of Chinese characters

Chinese characters, in their initial forms, were beautiful and appropriately reflected images in the minds of ancient Chinese that complied with their understanding of reality. Chinese people selected the way of expressing meaning by figures and pictures, and Chinese characters began with drawings.

Three Myths in Ancient Times

It is difficult to determine the specific time when the Chinese characters emerged. There are three old myths about the origin of Chinese characters. The first refers to the belief that Chinese characters were created by Fu Xi — the first of Three Sovereigns in ancient China, who has drawn the Eight Trigrams which have evolved into Chinese characters. The mysterious Eight Trigrams used for divination is composed of the symbols “–” and “– –”, representing Yang and Yin respectively.

Yin and Yang go together, constituting eight areas with three couples in one group, indicating different natural phenomena and things. But these basic symbols are very far from the oracle bone inscriptions (the inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells). Therefore, the first statement had been denied by most of the sinologists. It’s hard to believe that Eight Trigrams are the origin of Han characters.

The second one is that Chinese characters were created by the use of knots. It is said that recording events by knots started with Emperor Shen Nung (approximately 2838–2698 BC), so Chinese characters were invented by Shen Nung. Many experts thought that people made knots on ropes to remember something and knots could have been used by almost all primitive people, but it is not possible that they evolved into the writing or functioned as a language. That indicates, it is impossible that Chinese characters were created by the use of knots.

The last popular myth is that Cang Jie, historical chronicler of the Yellow Emperor (ancestor of the Chinese people) over 5,000 years ago, was the inventor of Chinese characters. According to ancient writings, Cang Jie had four eyes and four pupils which could observe different things of the world. When he raised his head he could understand the form of the stars in the sky; when he lowered his head he could distinguish the tracks of birds and animals on the ground.

Therefore, he invented a lot of symbols to represent different objects and affairs, which were the oldest Chinese characters. When he invented the characters, the Heaven rained the grain and the ghosts cried at night. Xunzi (the book collecting the elaborately argued essays by Hsun Tzu  -  a Chinese Confucian philosopher) and other ancient books also recorded the myth of Cang Jie. Evidently, it is hard to accept that the characters were created solely by an individual. The characters have been, most probably, invented by a number of people, each of whom might have engraved some figures or draw some pictures. Cang Jie, if only be had existed, would be one of the very scholarly people who could collect and settle the different symbols and tell people the corresponding meanings so that people could remember something of importance in their lives. Furthermore, from the scientific perspective, the appearance and forming of any kind of writing have to meet the needs of social life must surely have experienced a considerably long period of trial and development.

Chinese characters are a huge and complicated system, and they could have come into being over a long course of laboring and living. However, the relationship between Cang Jie and the creation of Chinese characters cannot be completely denied. The most important information which we can discover from the previous records is that Chinese characters are ideographic and have originated from drawings.

Predecessor of Ancient Chinese Characters

The oracle scripts on the tortoise shells and animal bones in the Shang Dynasty (1711–1066 BC) were deemed the oldest characters. However, characters of the Shang Dynasty we can see today is mature and had been developed, so Chinese characters might have emerged long before that dynasty, perhaps as early as the New Stone Age during which period Chinese people carved and painted many symbols on pottery. These symbols had a significant relationship with Chinese characters and were the most important materials to research the origin of Chinese characters.

Archaeological researchers discovered many geometric symbols on earthenware excavated from Banpo Village and Jiangzhai Village in Xi’an City, Shanxi Province. Their etchings, consisting of lines, were carved during the Yangshao Culture period about 6,000 years ago. They are too simple and abstract to figure out their meanings, although some of the regular symbols repeated several times. It should be mentioned that there are similar symbols on unearthed relics in ruins of the same period of other cultures. These symbols, which have some certain similarities to the Chinese characters, might well be the predecessors of the ancient Chinese characters.

The ruins of the Erlitou Culture, which had been generally identified by Chinese archaeologists to the site of Xia Dynasty (21st - 17th century BC, the first dynasty in China), were discovered in Erlitou, Henan Province. More than 20 kinds of symbols, dating back at least 4,000 years, carved on pottery were unearthed. Some simple number symbols carved on the surface of pottery such as “一”, “二”, “三”, “M”, “X”, “个”, “十”, “∧” might be used to mark the capacity of earthenware. The forms of these symbols were very similar to those excavated from Banpo Village and Jiangzhai Village, and some of them had a close similarity to the oracle bone inscriptions. However, most of these geometric symbols appeared in single words but not phrases or sentences, so that we cannot say for certain that they are actually characters. But the specialists and scholars presumed from the consistent line structure with the simple characters used now that the geometric symbols carved on the pottery are probably the genesis of the Chinese characters.

Evolution of Chinese Characters

Chinese characters from the earliest Chinese hieroglyphs to today’s simple characters have undergone through a very long process of development which can be divided into two periods: ancient writing and modern writing. Associated with these two periods, Chinese characters had experienced several times of evolution into many different script forms. Oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty (1711 - 1066 BC) is the earliest systematic form of Chinese characters inscribed on animal bones and tortoise shells. Then Chinese characters evolved through the bronze script of the Zhou Dynasty (1066–256 century BC), seal scrip in the late Zhou Dynasty and Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), official script in the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and regular script. Based on pictographs, Chinese characters gradually developed from the form of drawings to strokes and from complex to simple ones.

Earliest Characters in China

Oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文, Pinyin: jiăgŭwén) is the inscription on animal bones and tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (1711 - 1066 BC). It was first excavated by the local farmers in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province and was sold as a kind of traditional Chinese medicine called “long” (dragon bones).

In 1899, Wang Yirong, epigraphist of Qing Dynasty (1616–1911), who had a great interest in ancient characters, found many inscriptions on long when he bought traditional Chinese medicine and he thought these inscriptions were ancient characters.

In 1910, the famous scholar Luo Zhenyu affirmed that Xiaotun Village was the capital of the Shang Dynasty, called “Yin”. Hereafter, these inscriptions were designated as Shang script from about 3,000 years ago, which was of great historical significance.

Now 150,000 pieces of animal bones and tortoise shells have been unearthed from the ruins of Yin and other places, including more than 4,500 distinctive characters. As the oracle bone script had the strong features of pictograph and ideograph, some characters could still be recognized by people, although in an early stage of development. To that date, more than 1,700 characters have been interpreted, most of them as prayers by Shang rulers at divination and sacrificial rites.

Before going on a war or a big hunt, there would be a harvest to divine the outcome by animal bones and tortoise shells. Of course, there were a few inscriptions used as simple records.

The oracle bone script from the ruins of Yin consisting of phrases and simple sentences shows that a well-structured script with a complete system of written signs has been formed in the early age. In the past, it had long been thought to be the earliest Chinese characters discovered in China. However, the new archaeological findings proved that this script contains not the earliest characters in ancient China. From 1985 to 1986, Chinese archaeologists discovered a primitive village site from the Longshan Culture period in Chang’an district of Xi’an where animal bones with carving inscriptions were unearthed. From 1996 to 1997, two bones with inscriptions were excavated in Hengtai, Shandong Province. At that time, few excavators believed that the discoveries might be related to characters or symbols. Unfortunately, most of the excavators had not given enough attention to these inscriptions which are largely considered to be damaged by moth or grassroots.

In 2005, Professor Liu Fengjun, a Chinese archaeologist and ancient characters researcher, found a small bone with an inscribed pattern in Jinan. He affirmed that the bone was the Neolithic relic and the inscriptions carved on it were the early characters. In 2007, he discovered and verified a number of bones with inscriptions collected in Changle County, Shandong Province. He first made these bones public and announced the inscriptions above were the Dongyi writing from Longshan Culture period, dating back some 4,000 - 4,500 years. Compared with the oracle bone script of the Yin Ruins, these inscriptions without any divination traces were used to record events. After the further research, the inscriptions carved above these bones, called “bone inscriptions”, were identified as the earliest Chinese hieroglyphs by academia. And they were also regarded as the major source of the oracle bone inscriptions.

Ancient Chinese Characters

The following phase in the evolution of Chinese characters is represented by symbols inscribed on bronze bells and vessels from the Zhou Dynasty (1066–256 BC), writing is known as “bronze script”. In addition, the characters cast in bronze ware are also called 金文 or 钟鼎文 in Chinese (Pinyin: jīnwén or zhōngdĭngwén, respectively) with “wén” meaning “inscription”, because bronze was called “jīn” at that time and Zhōng (bell) and Dĭng (tripodal vessels used for sacrifice) were the symbols of power and position.

In the “Age of Bronze Ware” of China during the period of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, bronze ware was cast as a container, and most often as the sacrificial vessels to inscribe great events such as sacrifice, battle results, trade of slaves, etc. in a style just like the oracle bone script. In the Shang Dynasty, the inscriptions on bronze ware had very few characters, the form of which is extremely close to that of the oracle bone script. The size, complexity, formation of the characters are inconsistent. However, in the Zhou Dynasty, the characters in bronze inscriptions were simpler, and the size and formation were more fixed. The bronze inscriptions looked like drawings but had made significant progress from pictographic forms to block-shaped linear words we use today.

Toward the end of the Zhou Dynasty, a new script called the “seal script” (Chinese: 篆书, Pinyin: zhuànshū) begun to be used in Qin State. This script was usually written on bamboo slips and pieces of silk or inscribed on rocks and stones. Owing to the regular and symmetric structure, rounded and graceful lines, it is deemed to be the most beautiful style of characters in ancient China by calligraphers. It is still used for inscribing names on a seal today. There are two kinds of seal script: large or great seal script and lesser or small seal script.

The large seal script (Chinese: 大篆, Pinyin: dàzhuàn) is a traditional reference to all types of Chinese writing systems used before the Qin Dynasty. However, due to the lack of research achievements and precision, scholars often avoid the large seal script, instead of using more specified terms to the examples of writing. The large seal script was widely used in many vassal states in the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC). It was more regular and symmetrical than bronze inscription in the writing system. From some unearthed artworks, the large seal script is generally represented by the stone drum inscription (in about 770 - 325 BC) which is now popularly recognized as referring to the stone inscriptions prevailed in Qin State during the Spring and Autumn period. The stone drum inscription is considered to be a transitional form from the bronze inscription in the Zhou Dynasty to later lesser seal script in the Qin Dynasty. Now many scholars pay more attention to the stone drum inscription because it is one of the most important relics to research the development of characters and the stone-carving art.

During the new era  -  the Warring States Period (457 - 221 BC), Chinese characters used by seven states had different ways of writing. After the Qin State conquered the other six states and established the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), Emperor Qinshihuang unified characters in order to strengthen his control. Based on the Large Seal script and rearranging the variant forms of characters in each state, the unified characters were decreed, called lesser or small seal script (Chinese: 小篆, Pinyin: xiăozhuàn) which was the official style of characters in Qin Dynasty used for all the documents of the government. It was the result of the first extensive simplification and standardization of Chinese characters. Compared with the oracle bone script and bronze script, in the lesser seal script, the forms of characters were simpler, the writing method was consistent, and the character pattern was more orderly. Furthermore, all the characters were the rough block in shape. However, the lines composing of the characters were complicated and curved, although they were less similar to drawings. The Ancient Writing Period, from the earliest known oracle bone script to the development of the seal script, lasted about 1,160 years. And the lesser seal script marked the end of the ancient Chinese characters.

Modern Chinese Characters

In the Qin Dynasty, scholars could not have imaged that great changes in the form of Chinese characters had happened when they wrote the lesser seal script rapidly on bamboo slips or wood, i.e. clerical script or official script. After the unification of China, the seal script was still popular, but could not satisfy the needs of people because of its lengthened and curved lines being written were quite time-consuming, so another faster and convenient style of writing called “clerical script” (Chinese: 隶书, Pinyin: lìshū) appeared during the late of the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty (206 BC  -  220 AD). “Lì” meant a slave or prisoner in servitude, thus some scholars inferred that the new style of character was created by the slaves or prisoners serving the state which dealt with a large number of relatively official documents. In order to save time, they changed the rounded lines into straight ones which became the officially approved formal way of writing. There is also a historical legend which attributed the creation of a clerical script to Cheng Miao, who was said to have invented it on the orders of Qinshihuang.

However, according to archaeological evidence, all stages of Chinese writing had taken a long course and could not have been invented by an individual. In fact, the clerical script, as well, was created in accumulated work of many people. Furthermore, archaeological discoveries clearly showed that, besides the lesser seal script in the Qin Dynasty, the clerical script found favor among ordinaries at that time. Till the Han Dynasty, the clerical script developed completely mature form and became in common use not only by ordinary people but also by government officials. Recently, “Lì” was noted to have the meaning of “affiliate”, so the clerical script might be the derivative of the seal script.

The Silk Books in tombs of Han Dynasty unearthed at Mawangdui substantiates the origination and formation of the clerical script and supplies a gap of calligraphy history. We could observe from the books that the form of the clerical script totally broke away drawing and was very different from the seal script. There have been made several modifications and simplifications to make the Chinese writing convenient and tidy: the curved lines became somewhat straight strokes; the overall the number of lines were reduced; some complex components merged into one; the forms of characters were simplified. Above all, Chinese characters were no longer pictographic but became more abstract ideographic symbols composed of strokes.

The largest transformation from the seal script to the clerical script is often referred to as the “clerical change”, after which there have been few enormous changes to present characters we see today in general. This change allowed people to write the characters easier and faster. Thus, the emergence of the clerical script had an important significance in the evolution of Chinese characters, which marked that the Chinese characters began to enter the modern writing period.

From the clerical change to the present, it has been more than 2,200 years. This the period in the historical development of Chinese characters is still called modern because the structures of Chinese characters have remained the same until today. Although there has not been any change about the structures of Chinese characters since the clerical change, the strokes of Chinese characters have undergone two main stages: regularization and normalization.

Toward the end of the Han Dynasty, the strokes with the wavy endings and some thick curvy lines seen in the clerical script became smooth and straight. This change is known as “regularization” after which the characters called the regular script (Chinese: 楷书, Pinyin: kăishū) appeared at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 - 220) and replaced the clerical script to be the major font of daily writing. The regular script could serve as an example of learning by the people generation after generation even up to the present days because it is much simpler and easier to be written than the clerical script. So many calligraphers like Zhong Yao in the Three Kingdoms Period (220 - 280 AD), Wang Xizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317 - 420 AD), Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing, and Liu Gongquan in the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), Su Shi in the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279) contributed to the regular script as the standard for students to admire, imitate and learn. It has been the standard and formal writing style for more than 1,800 years with the widest and longest usage.

Also born in the late Han Dynasty, the cursive and running styles were the results of the regular script rapidly. The cursive script broke the block-shaped forms of characters. The lines are vibrating and strokes are connected with each other. It is hard to identify and read although it is written in a quick way and the characters are elegant and vigorous. The running script is writing between the regular script and cursive script. It is easy to recognize and is extremely fluent and practical. However, these two styles have never been thought as the standard writing because of the many variations. Instead, they have been used as a form of art.

Reform of Modern Chinese Characters

We can see from the evolutionary process of Chinese characters in the past thousands of years that the general trend is moving towards simplicity. The Chinese characters abandoned complicated and difficult forms and adopted simpler and easier forms. In this way, the same character has not only changed the shape in various ways but also simplified the pattern although its rudimental meaning stayed relatively unchanged. However, many characters still remained complicated and were difficult to learn. Some have variations caused by many centuries of use, others arose from a lack of uniformity.

Therefore, from the end of the Qing Dynasty, more and more scholars started to explore the Chinese character reform, such as adopting the Latin alphabets, digit symbols or Ryakuji. But these attempts have failed because of the specificities of the Chinese characters which were considered as a kind of visual symbols, strong at conveying meaning and aesthetics and could inspire the imagination and creativity. In order to continuously overcome the shortcoming of Chinese characters being difficult to be remembered, written and identified, a special government organization, first called the Committee for Chinese Language Reform and later the National Language Commission was established in 1954 and was devoted to the normalization of the Chinese characters.

In 1955, the “List of the First Group of Standardized Forms of Variant Characters” was officially published? 1,027 variant characters were abolished, and the remaining characters have been considered as the “the standard forms of characters”. In 1956, the “Scheme for Simplifying Chinese Characters” was officially published. In 1964, the “Complete List of Simplified Characters” was published, and it was republished in 1986. 2,259 complex characters were abolished, and components of the characters were simplified. The list has 2,235 simplified characters in total, and 482 of them are basic. Among these 482 simplified characters, 20 percent were invented in the 1950s, while the other 80 percent were created over several thousand years ago. In 1988, the “List of Generally Used Characters in Modern Chinese” including 7,000 characters, was officially publis2hed, and later in the same year, the “List of Frequently Used Characters in Modern Chinese”, was also officially published. The second list contains 3,500 characters, which essentially conforms to the use of words in modern Chinese.

The original forms of Chinese characters, before being simplified, are often known as “complex characters”, which together with the characters that were created before the 20th century and had the same structure since the “clerical change” without being simplified, constitute the traditional forms of Chinese characters. And they are still in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. While after almost 50 years of simplifying, systemizing and standardizing work, Chinese characters are considered normalized. The normalized forms of Chinese characters referring to the modern Chinese characters consist of those Chinese characters having been simplified or standardized since the 1950s and the Chinese characters without simplifying until today. They are officially recognized and used in Mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia. The students in Chinese schools now are required to write the modern Chinese characters as the regular script.

[chinese-characters]

The Origin and Evolution of Chinese Characters

Writing, the carrier of culture and the symbol of human civilization, first appeared in Sumer. Like other ancient languages of Egypt and India, ancient Sumerian symbols have been lost in the process of history, but only Chinese characters still remain in use today. They have played a significant role in the development of Chinese language and culture. This article intends to display how Chinese characters were created and how they were simplified from the ancient form of writing to more abstract.

Origin of Chinese characters

Chinese characters, in their initial forms, were beautiful and appropriately reflected images in the minds of ancient Chinese that complied with their understanding of reality. Chinese people selected the way of expressing meaning by figures and pictures, and Chinese characters began with drawings.

Three Myths in Ancient Times

It is difficult to determine the specific time when the Chinese characters emerged. There are three old myths about the origin of Chinese characters. The first refers to the belief that Chinese characters were created by Fu Xi — the first of Three Sovereigns in ancient China, who has drawn the Eight Trigrams which have evolved into Chinese characters. The mysterious Eight Trigrams used for divination is composed of the symbols “–” and “– –”, representing Yang and Yin respectively.

Yin and Yang go together, constituting eight areas with three couples in one group, indicating different natural phenomena and things. But these basic symbols are very far from the oracle bone inscriptions (the inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells). Therefore, the first statement had been denied by most of the sinologists. It’s hard to believe that Eight Trigrams are the origin of Han characters.

The second one is that Chinese characters were created by the use of knots. It is said that recording events by knots started with Emperor Shen Nung (approximately 2838–2698 BC), so Chinese characters were invented by Shen Nung. Many experts thought that people made knots on ropes to remember something and knots could have been used by almost all primitive people, but it is not possible that they evolved into the writing or functioned as a language. That indicates, it is impossible that Chinese characters were created by the use of knots.

The last popular myth is that Cang Jie, historical chronicler of the Yellow Emperor (ancestor of the Chinese people) over 5,000 years ago, was the inventor of Chinese characters. According to ancient writings, Cang Jie had four eyes and four pupils which could observe different things of the world. When he raised his head he could understand the form of the stars in the sky; when he lowered his head he could distinguish the tracks of birds and animals on the ground.

Therefore, he invented a lot of symbols to represent different objects and affairs, which were the oldest Chinese characters. When he invented the characters, the Heaven rained the grain and the ghosts cried at night. Xunzi (the book collecting the elaborately argued essays by Hsun Tzu — a Chinese Confucian philosopher) and other ancient books also recorded the myth of Cang Jie. Evidently, it is hard to accept that the characters were created solely by an individual. The characters have been, most probably, invented by a number of people, each of whom might have engraved some figures or draw some pictures. Cang Jie, if only be had existed, would be one of the very scholarly people who could collect and settle the different symbols and tell people the corresponding meanings so that people could remember something of importance in their lives. Furthermore, from the scientific perspective, the appearance and forming of any kind of writing have to meet the needs of social life must surely have experienced a considerably long period of trial and development.

Chinese characters are a huge and complicated system, and they could have come into being over a long course of laboring and living. However, the relationship between Cang Jie and the creation of Chinese characters cannot be completely denied. The most important information which we can discover from the previous records is that Chinese characters are ideographic and have originated from drawings.

Predecessor of Ancient Chinese Characters

The oracle scripts on the tortoise shells and animal bones in the Shang Dynasty (1711–1066 BC) were deemed the oldest characters. However, characters of the Shang Dynasty we can see today is mature and had been developed, so Chinese characters might have emerged long before that dynasty, perhaps as early as the New Stone Age during which period Chinese people carved and painted many symbols on pottery. These symbols had a significant relationship with Chinese characters and were the most important materials to research the origin of Chinese characters.

Archaeological researchers discovered many geometric symbols on earthenware excavated from Banpo Village and Jiangzhai Village in Xi’an City, Shanxi Province. Their etchings, consisting of lines, were carved during the Yangshao Culture period about 6,000 years ago. They are too simple and abstract to figure out their meanings, although some of the regular symbols repeated several times. It should be mentioned that there are similar symbols on unearthed relics in ruins of the same period of other cultures. These symbols, which have some certain similarities to the Chinese characters, might well be the predecessors of the ancient Chinese characters.

The ruins of the Erlitou Culture, which had been generally identified by Chinese archaeologists to the site of Xia Dynasty (21st–17th century BC, the first dynasty in China), were discovered in Erlitou, Henan Province. More than 20 kinds of symbols, dating back at least 4,000 years, carved on pottery were unearthed. Some simple number symbols carved on the surface of pottery such as “一”, “二”, “三”, “M”, “X”, “个”, “十”, “∧” might be used to mark the capacity of earthenware. The forms of these symbols were very similar to those excavated from Banpo Village and Jiangzhai Village, and some of them had a close similarity to the oracle bone inscriptions. However, most of these geometric symbols appeared in single words but not phrases or sentences, so that we cannot say for certain that they are actually characters. But the specialists and scholars presumed from the consistent line structure with the simple characters used now that the geometric symbols carved on the pottery are probably the genesis of the Chinese characters.

Evolution of Chinese Characters

Chinese characters from the earliest Chinese hieroglyphs to today’s simple characters have undergone through a very long process of development which can be divided into two periods: ancient writing and modern writing. Associated with these two periods, Chinese characters had experienced several times of evolution into many different script forms. Oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty (1711–1066 BC) is the earliest systematic form of Chinese characters inscribed on animal bones and tortoise shells. Then Chinese characters evolved through the bronze script of the Zhou Dynasty (1066–256 century BC), seal scrip in the late Zhou Dynasty and Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), official script in the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and regular script. Based on pictographs, Chinese characters gradually developed from the form of drawings to strokes and from complex to simple ones.

Earliest Characters in China

Oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文, Pinyin: jiăgŭwén) is the inscription on animal bones and tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (1711–1066 BC). It was first excavated by the local farmers in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province and was sold as a kind of traditional Chinese medicine called “long” (dragon bones).

In 1899, Wang Yirong, epigraphist of Qing Dynasty (1616–1911), who had a great interest in ancient characters, found many inscriptions on long when he bought traditional Chinese medicine and he thought these inscriptions were ancient characters.

In 1910, the famous scholar Luo Zhenyu affirmed that Xiaotun Village was the capital of the Shang Dynasty, called “Yin”. Hereafter, these inscriptions were designated as Shang script from about 3,000 years ago, which was of great historical significance.

Now 150,000 pieces of animal bones and tortoise shells have been unearthed from the ruins of Yin and other places, including more than 4,500 distinctive characters. As the oracle bone script had the strong features of pictograph and ideograph, some characters could still be recognized by people, although in an early stage of development. To that date, more than 1,700 characters have been interpreted, most of them as prayers by Shang rulers at divination and sacrificial rites.

Before going on a war or a big hunt, there would be a harvest to divine the outcome by animal bones and tortoise shells. Of course, there were a few inscriptions used as simple records.

The oracle bone script from the ruins of Yin consisting of phrases and simple sentences shows that a well-structured script with a complete system of written signs has been formed in the early age. In the past, it had long been thought to be the earliest Chinese characters discovered in China. However, the new archaeological findings proved that this script contains not the earliest characters in ancient China. From 1985 to 1986, Chinese archaeologists discovered a primitive village site from the Longshan Culture period in Chang’an district of Xi’an where animal bones with carving inscriptions were unearthed. From 1996 to 1997, two bones with inscriptions were excavated in Hengtai, Shandong Province. At that time, few excavators believed that the discoveries might be related to characters or symbols. Unfortunately, most of the excavators had not given enough attention to these inscriptions which are largely considered to be damaged by moth or grassroots.

In 2005, Professor Liu Fengjun, a Chinese archaeologist and ancient characters researcher, found a small bone with an inscribed pattern in Jinan. He affirmed that the bone was the Neolithic relic and the inscriptions carved on it were the early characters. In 2007, he discovered and verified a number of bones with inscriptions collected in Changle County, Shandong Province. He first made these bones public and announced the inscriptions above were the Dongyi writing from Longshan Culture period, dating back some 4,000–4,500 years. Compared with the oracle bone script of the Yin Ruins, these inscriptions without any divination traces were used to record events. After the further research, the inscriptions carved above these bones, called “bone inscriptions”, were identified as the earliest Chinese hieroglyphs by academia. And they were also regarded as the major source of the oracle bone inscriptions.

Ancient Chinese Characters

The following phase in the evolution of Chinese characters is represented by symbols inscribed on bronze bells and vessels from the Zhou Dynasty (1066–256 BC), writing is known as “bronze script”. In addition, the characters cast in bronze ware are also called 金文 or 钟鼎文 in Chinese (Pinyin: jīnwén or zhōngdĭngwén, respectively) with “wén” meaning “inscription”, because bronze was called “jīn” at that time and Zhōng (bell) and Dĭng (tripodal vessels used for sacrifice) were the symbols of power and position.

In the “Age of Bronze Ware” of China during the period of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, bronze ware was cast as a container, and most often as the sacrificial vessels to inscribe great events such as sacrifice, battle results, trade of slaves, etc. in a style just like the oracle bone script. In the Shang Dynasty, the inscriptions on bronze ware had very few characters, the form of which is extremely close to that of the oracle bone script. The size, complexity, formation of the characters are inconsistent. However, in the Zhou Dynasty, the characters in bronze inscriptions were simpler, and the size and formation were more fixed. The bronze inscriptions looked like drawings but had made significant progress from pictographic forms to block-shaped linear words we use today.

Toward the end of the Zhou Dynasty, a new script called the “seal script” (Chinese: 篆书, Pinyin: zhuànshū) begun to be used in Qin State. This script was usually written on bamboo slips and pieces of silk or inscribed on rocks and stones. Owing to the regular and symmetric structure, rounded and graceful lines, it is deemed to be the most beautiful style of characters in ancient China by calligraphers. It is still used for inscribing names on a seal today. There are two kinds of seal script: large or great seal script and lesser or small seal script.

The large seal script (Chinese: 大篆, Pinyin: dàzhuàn) is a traditional reference to all types of Chinese writing systems used before the Qin Dynasty. However, due to the lack of research achievements and precision, scholars often avoid the large seal script, instead of using more specified terms to the examples of writing. The large seal script was widely used in many vassal states in the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BC). It was more regular and symmetrical than bronze inscription in the writing system. From some unearthed artworks, the large seal script is generally represented by the stone drum inscription (in about 770–325 BC) which is now popularly recognized as referring to the stone inscriptions prevailed in Qin State during the Spring and Autumn period22. The stone drum inscription is considered to be a transitional form from the bronze inscription in the Zhou Dynasty to later lesser seal script in the Qin Dynasty. Now many scholars pay more attention to the stone drum inscription because it is one of the most important relics to research the development of characters and the stone-carving art.

During the new era — the Warring States Period (457–221 BC), Chinese characters used by seven states had different ways of writing. After the Qin State conquered the other six states and established the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), Emperor Qinshihuang unified characters in order to strengthen his control. Based on the Large Seal script and rearranging the variant forms of characters in each state, the unified characters were decreed, called lesser or small seal script (Chinese: 小篆, Pinyin: xiăozhuàn) which was the official style of characters in Qin Dynasty used for all the documents of the government. It was the result of the first extensive simplification and standardization of Chinese characters. Compared with the oracle bone script and bronze script, in the lesser seal script, the forms of characters were simpler, the writing method was consistent, and the character pattern was more orderly. Furthermore, all the characters were the rough block in shape. However, the lines composing of the characters were complicated and curved, although they were less similar to drawings. The Ancient Writing Period, from the earliest known oracle bone script to the development of the seal script, lasted about 1,160 years. And the lesser seal script marked the end of the ancient Chinese characters.

Modern Chinese Characters

In the Qin Dynasty, scholars could not have imaged that great changes in the form of Chinese characters had happened when they wrote the lesser seal script rapidly on bamboo slips or wood, i.e. clerical script or official script. After the unification of China, the seal script was still popular, but could not satisfy the needs of people because of its lengthened and curved lines being written were quite time-consuming, so another faster and convenient style of writing called “clerical script” (Chinese: 隶书, Pinyin: lìshū) appeared during the late of the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty (206 BC — 220 AD). “Lì” meant a slave or prisoner in servitude, thus some scholars inferred that the new style of character was created by the slaves or prisoners serving the state which dealt with a large number of relatively official documents. In order to save time, they changed the rounded lines into straight ones which became the officially approved formal way of writing. There is also a historical legend which attributed the creation of a clerical script to Cheng Miao, who was said to have invented it on the orders of Qinshihuang. 

However, according to archaeological evidence, all stages of Chinese writing had taken a long course and could not have been invented by an individual. In fact, the clerical script, as well, was created in accumulated work of many people. Furthermore, archaeological discoveries clearly showed that, besides the lesser seal script in the Qin Dynasty, the clerical script found favor among ordinaries at that time. Till the Han Dynasty, the clerical script developed completely mature form and became in common use not only by ordinary people but also by government officials. Recently, “Lì” was noted to have the meaning of “affiliate”, so the clerical script might be the derivative of the seal script.

The Silk Books in tombs of Han Dynasty unearthed at Mawangdui substantiates the origination and formation of the clerical script and supplies a gap of calligraphy history. We could observe from the books that the form of the clerical script totally broke away drawing and was very different from the seal script. There have been made several modifications and simplifications to make the Chinese writing convenient and tidy: the curved lines became somewhat straight strokes; the overall the number of lines were reduced; some complex components merged into one; the forms of characters were simplified. Above all, Chinese characters were no longer pictographic but became more abstract ideographic symbols composed of strokes.

The largest transformation from the seal script to the clerical script is often referred to as the “clerical change”, after which there have been few enormous changes to present characters we see today in general. This change allowed people to write the characters easier and faster. Thus, the emergence of the clerical script had an important significance in the evolution of Chinese characters, which marked that the Chinese characters began to enter the modern writing period.

From the clerical change to the present, it has been more than 2,200 years. This the period in the historical development of Chinese characters is still called modern because the structures of Chinese characters have remained the same until today. Although there has not been any change about the structures of Chinese characters since the clerical change, the strokes of Chinese characters have undergone two main stages: regularization and normalization.

Toward the end of the Han Dynasty, the strokes with the wavy endings and some thick curvy lines seen in the clerical script became smooth and straight. This change is known as “regularization” after which the characters called the regular script (Chinese: 楷书, Pinyin: kăishū) appeared at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220) and replaced the clerical script to be the major font of daily writing. The regular script could serve as an example of learning by the people generation after generation even up to the present days because it is much simpler and easier to be written than the clerical script. So many calligraphers like Zhong Yao in the Three Kingdoms Period (220–280 AD), Wang Xizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317–420 AD), Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing, and Liu Gongquan in the Tang Dynasty (618–907), Su Shi in the Song Dynasty (960–1279) contributed to the regular script as the standard for students to admire, imitate and learn. It has been the standard and formal writing style for more than 1,800 years with the widest and longest usage.

Also born in the late Han Dynasty, the cursive and running styles were the results of the regular script rapidly. The cursive script broke the block-shaped forms of characters. The lines are vibrating and strokes are connected with each other. It is hard to identify and read although it is written in a quick way and the characters are elegant and vigorous. The running script is writing between the regular script and cursive script. It is easy to recognize and is extremely fluent and practical. However, these two styles have never been thought as the standard writing because of the many variations. Instead, they have been used as a form of art.

Reform of Modern Chinese Characters

We can see from the evolutionary process of Chinese characters in the past thousands of years that the general trend is moving towards simplicity. The Chinese characters abandoned complicated and difficult forms and adopted simpler and easier forms. In this way, the same character has not only changed the shape in various ways but also simplified the pattern although its rudimental meaning stayed relatively unchanged. However, many characters still remained complicated and were difficult to learn. Some have variations caused by many centuries of use, others arose from a lack of uniformity.

Therefore, from the end of the Qing Dynasty, more and more scholars started to explore the Chinese character reform, such as adopting the Latin alphabets, digit symbols or Ryakuji. But these attempts have failed because of the specificities of the Chinese characters which were considered as a kind of visual symbols, strong at conveying meaning and aesthetics and could inspire the imagination and creativity. In order to continuously overcome the shortcoming of Chinese characters being difficult to be remembered, written and identified, a special government organization, first called the Committee for Chinese Language Reform and later the National Language Commission was established in 1954 and was devoted to the normalization of the Chinese characters.

In 1955, the “List of the First Group of Standardized Forms of Variant Characters” was officially published? 1,027 variant characters were abolished, and the remaining characters have been considered as the “the standard forms of characters”. In 1956, the “Scheme for Simplifying Chinese Characters” was officially published. In 1964, the “Complete List of Simplified Characters” was published, and it was republished in 1986. 2,259 complex characters were abolished, and components of the characters were simplified. The list has 2,235 simplified characters in total, and 482 of them are basic. Among these 482 simplified characters, 20 percent were invented in the 1950s, while the other 80 percent were created over several thousand years ago. In 1988, the “List of Generally Used Characters in Modern Chinese” including 7,000 characters, was officially publis2hed, and later in the same year, the “List of Frequently Used Characters in Modern Chinese”, was also officially published. The second list contains 3,500 characters, which essentially conforms to the use of words in modern Chinese.

The original forms of Chinese characters, before being simplified, are often known as “complex characters”, which together with the characters that were created before the 20th century and had the same structure since the “clerical change” without being simplified, constitute the traditional forms of Chinese characters. And they are still in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. While after almost 50 years of simplifying, systemizing and standardizing work, Chinese characters are considered normalized. The normalized forms of Chinese characters referring to the modern Chinese characters consist of those Chinese characters having been simplified or standardized since the 1950s and the Chinese characters without simplifying until today. They are officially recognized and used in Mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia. The students in Chinese schools now are required to write the modern Chinese characters as the regular script.