#prince zhuang

[cinammonelles]

(guy who is normal about traveler abroad voice) hey man how's it going

[morethanwonderful]

It's hitting me now as I reread why Zhou Ying freezes up here.

He's not just surprised that Xi Ping is hinting he knows Xuanyin wants him to establish a foundation. He's taken aback because Xi Ping automatically wants to help him evade the sect's scrutiny and railroading, but by this point, he's already planning to accept Xuanyin's demands and enter the way of clarity. That's why Xi Ping making arrangements for him like this throws him off, and it's why he "casually" tells him not to do so.

Local man prepares to let the government turn him into an emotionless shell, is shaken by the reminder that he has loved ones who will be incredibly hurt by that decision.

[bubbledcoffee]

[stellarish]

Long time no Tai Sui doodles!

I've been slowly working out how I want to draw Zhou Ying's face. I think I like him best when he looks just like Shiyong, but alarmingly skinny and with eyes that Know Something.

[grassbreads]

Tell me how I, the gal with terminal "can't stop thinking about Tai Sui" disease, read hundreds of thousands of words of Mo Du over the course of months, starting right after I finished Tai Sui, yet it took me until right now in this instant to put together the Fei Du->Zhou Ying parallel

Like. Here's the favored son of a man who is incredibly powerful and morally bankrupt. He hates his dad and would be quite happy to commit patricide, should he get the opportunity, but he doesn't directly do so because it wouldn't suit his schemes. He has spent his entire life since his teenage years painstakingly putting together the chess pieces necessary to both destroy his dad and unravel the truth of a grand unknowable conspiracy that has haunted his entire life. He's a genius and the way his mind works is utterly incomprehensible to everyone else in the world, even those who know and love him best. The right kind of placid smile from him can be the most terrifying thing anybody has ever seen. He is willing to use himself up and toss himself out completely if it is the means to the final end of his schemes.

It's just that with Fei Du, the whole point of him is that he's not nearly so terrible as he thinks he is. He's not a psychopath. He's not cruel, regardless of how much empathy he may or may not naturally have. He's just spectacularly traumatized by his childhood. And the presence of Luo Wenzhou in his life both saves him from spiraling down into his original epic self-destructive plot and allows him to access his buried human emotions.

Then, 5 years later, Priest came back to revisit some of the same ideas and turn absolutely all of them up to eleven. She wrote a man who doesn't just think differently from others, but who perceives the world so wildly differently from anyone else that his experience of existence is utterly incomprehensible to his peers. She wrote a patricidal prince who doesn't just want to destroy his father and his company, then tear out the truth of a criminal conspiracy, but rather wants to destroy his father and his entire country, then tear out the truth of the sky itself. She wrote a man who genuinely doesn't give a single damn about anyone other than himself and his tiny tiny selection of loved ones. Who would destroy the entire world in a fit of vengeance and who uses his own willingness to kill innocents as leverage against others. She wrote a man who plans to achieve his goals by way of epic self destruction and does exactly that, leaving the main character's loss of him as the central beating tragedy in the otherwise best possible ending.

She also wrote a story in which, when Zhou Ying's closest and most loved person realizes the dark and scheming truth of him, rather than saying "I can fix him; I don't think he's really so bad," he says "yeah, this is my cousin and he's a terrible menace who tries to destroy the world sometimes. I love him more than anything."

You can absolutely see how Priest's interest in similar ideas informed both characters. It's just that Fei Chengyu didn't succeed in raising his perfect little sociopath successor, but Emperor Taiming and the demons of the impassible sea absolutely succeeded in Jokerizing Prince Zhuang. They just couldn't possibly anticipate the kind of monster that the demon of the east sea would become.

[5water-kohaku]

Han Fei and Wei Zhuang from 9 Songs of the Moving Heavens

[pippuns]

his highness prince zhuang's guide to tai sui wrangling

[jttwaudiodrama]

Zhuang's JttW Doodles #2

Ne Zha yelled, “You unruly, fiendish monkey! How could you not know me? I am Ne Zha, Third Prince of my King Father the Pagoda-Bearer. By the imperial command of the Jade Emperor, I have come to arrest you.” Wu Kong burst into laughter, “Little prince, your baby teeth have yet fallen, and your foetal hair is still wet. How dare you talk so big? I shall spare your life and not fight you."

Journey to the West, Chapter 4

This poem appears in Chapter 4, Part 2 of the audio drama.

Also featured on our Patreon page.

===

Hi, this is Zhuang. I made all the art for this series.

Here are some doodles I made almost 10 years ago when I could kind of draw but not really. Not sure if I'm entirely out of that state now but hopefully I have improved.

Each one corresponds to a specific passage in the original text, as written on the doodle itself in traditional Chinese. And I will also put the English translation from the audio drama down below for your reference. Not every chapter has a doodle, so I will post the ones we've already covered in the drama, and the rest as we eventually get there.

===

Why I chose this scene:

Ne Zha was a rebel of his own in his earliest days. A child so out of control that left his own father permanently traumatized. One wonders if Ne Zha in any way saw his younger self in Wu Kong.

In a way, Wu Kong's "crimes" definitely affected more people/god, but they were also much less violent and gruesome. Compared to Ne Zha, who paid for his sins with his own flesh and blood, what Wu Kong did sure seemed like a child's play.

Back to this actual encounter. Wu Kong definitely has his own little rulebook on who he would or would not fight. He tends to start with verbal insults, usually about how weak and unworthy his opponent is.

Ne Zha was definitely older than he was despite looking like a little boy. At the same time, Ne Zha was just as easily provoked as Wu Kong was. This is one of the earliest instances of Wu Kong trashtalking his opponent and getting into a fight anyway.

Wu Kong probably knows the trashtalking never deters anyone. He just has a lot of fun doing it.

[mr-danger-to-my-sanity]

Legend of Da Yu'er / Legend of Xiao Zhuang (2015)

In my desire to watch everything Liu Xueyi has been in that I can find, and mixed with a dash of "I watched this so you don't have to", I'd like to introduce you to Ezhe, the biggest asshole on the Mongolian plains. When looking for more pics from this show I came across a weibo post where someone said "all the worst things a man can do in a drama was given to him", and they're not wrong. This is him.

The basic premise of the show is the life of Da Yu'er, the most beautiful woman in all of Mongolia who lives an unfortunate parallel to Helen of Troy in that she is desired by men who go to war over who should have her. Ezhe is one of them.

(Trigger warning for abuse & sexual assault)

We first meet him at the marriage tournament of our female lead, princess Da Yu'er of the Khorchin tribe. Ezhe is the prince of the Chahar tribe who is confident he will win the horse racing and archery contest, but doesn't hesitate to threaten his fellow competitors for good measure. And for most of the tournament he is winning! Until the Jin Emperor Huangtaiji who has been a spectator thus far, decides to throw his hat into the ring and beats him in the last race, claiming Da Yu'er as his concubine. Ezhe claims that this was all set up ahead of time and is an insult to his tribe to be played like that, setting himself up as an antagonist for both the Khorchin tribe and the Jin Emperor.

(Dont let the wispy lock of hair fool you, things are about to get BAD)

The Khorchin leader offers Ezhe a marriage with Da Yu'er's cousin which is accepted by his father, but Ezhe is HORRIBLE to his new wife for the sole crime of not being Da Yu'er. He strangles her, threatens to torture her for his own amusement and kills her blind mother by pushing her headfirst into a wall. Eventually she has to pretend to be crazy just to get him to leave her alone.

But a truce marriage isn't enough for Ezhe or his father, both of whom think their tribe should be at the top, so they lay siege to Khorchin, only to eventually retreat when the Emperor sends reinforcements.

He disappears for a few episodes only to come back and attack Khorchin again, this time taking their leader (Da Yu'er's grandfather) hostage, and will only exchange him for Da Yu'er, regardless of the fact that she is now the Emperor's favourite concubine. He settles for initially exchanging her grandfather for the male lead Prince Dorgon (the Emperor's brother and the man that Da Yu'er actually loves) to be his hostage instead, threatening to kill Dorgon if Da Yu'er isn't handed over in 3 days.

Ezhe also knows about the weird love triange between the Emperor/Da Yu'er/Dorgon and taunts Dorgon about it at every opportunity. When the deadline is up for the exchange/execution, Da Yu'er shows up at the last second and agrees to his demands only to trick him and run off with Dorgon, leaving Ezhe with a knife to the hand and an even bigger rage boner.

Several episodes later it is now 6 years since Ezhe lost the marriage tournament (and we know this because he keeps harping on about it). Da Yu'er is travelling through the region to escort a new bride back to the palace when their carriage is ambushed and they are kidnapped by Ezhe. Even Ezhe's father thinks this is a dick move but can't convince Ezhe to release them.

(Dad saying what everyone else is thinking)

Ezhe threatens to kill the extraneous woman plus Da Yu'er's cousin who had tried to help them flee, forcing Da Yu'er into tearfully agreeing to marry him. They have a quick wedding offscreen before he drags her to the marriage bed, but he is thwarted by too many layers of clothing which allows enough time for Dorgon, Da Yu'er's brother and some guards to rescue her, and Ezhe is forced to retreat again.

(Have some insufferable smirks for getting this far)

After the death of his father, Ezhe becomes the leader of the scattered Chahar tribe at the same time the Jin Empire is in the process of fighting back the Ming Empire. To save having to fight wars on two fronts, the Jin Emperor sends Dorgon to make a truce with Chahar, inviting them to surrender and assimilate into the Jin Empire. Ezhe naturally refuses and battles with them instead, even poisoning the lake to weaken the Jin army, but in the end is still outnumbered. Ezhe agrees to meet Dorgon to surrender but uses the meeting as a last ditch attempt to kill him, but is captured and his mother surrenders on behalf of the Chahar.

The Jin Empire is successfully rebranded as the Qing Empire, and as the leader of the Chahar, Ezhe is given a title and a ministerial position. He can now mock Dorgon with impunity and waltz around the palace and follow Da Yu'er to his smirking little heart's content. He doesn't even care that his first wife has become the Emperor's newest concubine, or that the Emperor had betrothed him to another princess for the sake of unity, he only cares about Da Yu'er. He looks for every opportunity he can to point out that she is technically his wife since they had a wedding and invites her to run away with him. When that doesn't work he sneaks into Da Yu'er's palace and tries forcing himself onto her, chased off by her maid smacking him over the head with a paperweight.

The next time he attempts to forcibly consummate his dubious marriage, Ezhe drugs Da Yu'er and manages to get shirtless before the Emperor and all of his guards descend on the bedroom and finally drag him off to prison. Even in prison Ezhe is defiant and mocks the Emperor to his face for wanting to only exile him and not kill him, declaring that he is happy to die for love. But he doesn't go without a fight, breaking free from his restraints and fighting the Emperor's bodyguard before turning his blade on himself to insist on Da Yu'er's innocence.

(Totally understand the desire to chain him up and strangle him.)

Ezhe: "It is distinguished and admirable to die for love. I will be elegant and unconventional if I die this way."

~~~

(It was here where I stopped watching because I thought he was dead and then wrote the following:)

Can I make any case for positives? He genuinely mourns the death of his aunt and his father. He obeys his mother when she surrenders, and appears to treat his sister well when they're in the palace. And despite never caring what Da Yu'er wants, when the Emperor catches them together and sets to punish her for adultery, Ezhe takes full responsibility and pleads to the Emperor not to punish her.

So... he's a romantic, if in a very twisted way? Oh good gods this probably the way people romanticize real life serial killers. At least Ezhe is a *fictional* asshole.

~~~

But this behind the scenes picture of Liu Xueyi in a costume I hadn't yet seen prompted me to watch further and lo and behold, the Emperor called for the imperial physician to save Ezhe's life, and he was in a coma and being cared for by Dorgon (of all people). When he wakes it is 9 months later (to coincide with the birth of Da Yu'er's son and the rumours of his parentage). Ezhe is weakened so much that he has lost his martial abilities and the Emperor chooses not to punish him any further in order to keep the peace. Ezhe relays his gratitude to Dorgon for his caregiving and his apologies to Da Yu'er for hurting her. He even tries to turn away his fiancee, calling himself a "wicked sinner" but she sticks by him and he begins to reform his ways.

For the next 14 episodes he disappears off the screen until it's 6 years later and the Emperor is dead. Dorgon (now the Regent for Da Yu'er's Emperor son) comes to visit Ezhe, who has been living a quiet life outside the palace with his wife and son, spending his time reading holy books. Dorgon invites Ezhe to join him in battle against the last of Ming army to which he readily agrees.

Under Dorgon's command, Ezhe leads an elite team of soldiers to pretend to be allies and mislead the enemy, helping the Qing army close in the ranks around them. Side by side with Dorgon he fights the last Ming General into retreating into the woods. Ezhe protects Dorgon by diving in front of the general's guandao/polearm, spitting up blood but not conceding. The enemy general slices off Ezhe's right arm at the shoulder, but Ezhe grabs the polearm with his left hand and proceeds to beat the general back with a series of mighty kicks until Dorgon captures him once and for all. The adrenaline of the fight gone, Ezhe hits the ground like a fallen tree, and Dorgon cradles him in his dying moments. Ezhe has finally paid back Dorgon for saving his life and is happy to die a dignified death on the battlefield after being weak for so many years, with one final request.

With his last breath, does he ask for Dorgon to say goodbye to his wife for him? To look after his son? To bury him next to his father in the Chahar plains? No, Ezhe's last dying words, true to form, are "Take good care of Da Yu'er for me."

(Thats the end, congrats, have some battle scowls.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes on his reform: Ezhe does end his arc in a lot better form than he began, but it was still very self centered. When he woke from his coma, his gratitude and respect was for Dorgon to whom he apologised for the hurt he'd caused. It was only after Dorgon pointed out that he'd hurt Da Yu'er the most that Ezhe asked Dorgon to pass on his apology to Da Yu'er too. No mention at all of the torment he put his first wife through, or how he endangered his own people on many occasions for his own desires. He throws the fish back into the pond when fishing because the fish "is a living thing", but is still wishing he had the strength to fight back when the Emperor's son insults his pride. Although his wife and son appear to have a happy life when we briefly see them, Ezhe refers to his domestic life as his time "being weak" and eagerly riding off into battle. And his dying words? Take care of Da Yu'er "for me." She's the bloody Empress Dowager at this point, but he's still thinking of her through the lens of his association with her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Would I recommend watching?

For the story? It's a palace drama with a very soap opera vibe, which got a little much for me so I only skimmed through it to keep up just enough with the plot. I liked the main characters but was not as invested in them to keep watching after Ezhe died, but it certainly wasn't boring at any point.

For Liu Xueyi? If you've read this far then you're at least aware of the godawful shit Ezhe does and if you want to see him glare and smirk and fight his way through the show with a curly wig and some big jewellery then go for it. He's a great antagonist and his fight scenes are really quite good. (And if you only want to watch the episodes he's in, I can give you a list).

This was a surprisingly bigger role than I expected it to be for his second drama, and could very well be his OG Asshole character (I haven't found his first drama yet so can't attest to his character in that) so if you've ever wondered why he gets cast as assholes as often as anything else then this might just be the reason why.

This show is listed on MyDramaList as The Legend of Xiaozhaung, but I found it with English subtitles on YouTube as The Legend of Da Yu'er.

Costume Gallery:

[silviakundera]

Joy of Life S1 Ep 46 liveblogging

it's the end of the line!! real glad I didn't watch this drama live or I'd be super pissed off. I'd hate to despise a show this good.

Zhuang Mohan gonna make me cry but I can't feel feelings because I'm too pressed about the Saintess

Damn it Sil Lil here too just to also be in peril?!

So Yan Bingyuan still hasn't betrayed the protagonist..... tho he's got 30 min left

Yesssssss Saintess & Fan Xian fighting side by side

I'm suspicious, this is too easy.

So the real party raising the big army is the Ming family and Second Prince? Not too shocking that he's building an army (he obviously wasn't satisfied with 2nd place), though tbh I AM surprised he was aligned with the wicked witch.

Shen Zhong is a dumbass if he really thinks they would have let then sis die anyway. (Even if tho there's a risk she's a spy.) Sad, bro, really never understood your enemies at all. FX never burns his allies & she helped rescue YBY.

I really can picture FX sitting down to chat with Second Prince to talk about those murder attempts and get told, I do like u bro it's just business 😂😭

(wait does that mean my personal friendship w Crown Prince is still on lmaooooo)

OMG 2nd Prince's second?! You know I've consumed too many c-ent when my brain instantly went to an idiom. shuō Cáo Cāo, Cáo Cāo dào | Speak of Cao Cao and he arrives!

omgggg the letter, is this an activation code that's gonna trigger YBY?

LOL I was right, he really IS like bro is it cool? can we let bygones be bygones?

It's too bad, Fan Xian and Second Prince in another life could be good friends but in this one, cannot live under the same sky

And... Now he's really gone too far with the box shit. Fan Xian gonna have to go to war and prove he's his mother's son.

But where is Uncle Wu? They really just write him off the page when his abilities would be inconvenient 😭😭

Oh, there's Yan Bingyuan's betrayal! SUPER GLAD I didn't watch this live.

[rose-tinted-vision]

WIP Wednesday

Mysterious lotus casebook (Fanghua)

“Curses dont exist, Fang Xiaobao, I’ll be fine.” Li Lianhua waves dismissively, taking a bite of the scallion pancake, “this pancake tastes like any other pancake.” “They use the freshest scallions, plucked from their own field, and it’s fried with the minimum amount of oil so- don’t try to change the subject!” Fang Xiaobao scowls, “are you sure you feel fine?”   “Its placebo, don’t you think? As long as you don’t believe in luck, you won’t have bad luck. People’s so-called curses won’t work on you either.”

A journey to love/I am Nobody crossover (Qian Zhao & Xu San centric)

clarification that Xu San is basically Qian Zhao, who has been cursed with immortality

Xu Si still remembers the name that Xu San had introduced himself with when they first met. Sun Yuanzhou. He had searched it up in historical records, online, had pleaded with Er Zhuang to look into it only to turn up with nothing. It confirmed his suspicions that it was a fake identity, if nothing else. Just as Xu San was not his real name, Sun Yuanzhou was not either. He briefly wonders just how many identities his “San-ge” had cycled through, how many people he had sent off in his very long life.

Tiger and Crane (Wang Yuqian/Xiao Yunzi)

“have you made up your mind?” It was not the first time Xiao Yunzi had asked Yuqian the same question.  He knows that his Prince was a flighty person, easily swayed and prone to acts of spontaneity. He could let most things slide– going along with the Prince’s pace was easier than trying to stop him– but there were certain things he had to draw the line at. Especially when it came to matters of the state. The first time he asked the question was when his Prince had voiced his wish to escape.

[cinammonelles]

making up for the lack of baby pingping and yingying art 👍

[morethanwonderful]

Zhou Ying is a really funny character in that he's technically faking his chronic illness, but not because he's secretly able-bodied

He's faking his chronic illnesses to cover up other, weirder, more magical chronic illnesses

[thefeastandthefast]

The express episodes have dropped so soon I will be put out of my misery and know exactly what the hell is going on with Ji Yong.

But before I dive in, jotting down these thoughts as of episode 29 to see if I'll be eating my words later.

SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY:

His line about Song Mo one day understanding his true intentions (after expounding on what were supposedly his intentions in front of all of Prince Qing’s hidden troops just a moment earlier) makes it clear to me that there’s more to his actions than self-professed naked political ambition.

Plus, we know from episode 25 that he is probing into the Duke of Ding’s case and even leveraging his services as advisor and strategist to bargain for information from Prince Qing. There is little to no reason for him to care about this or put himself and his ambitions on the line, so why go to all the trouble?

One of my favorite aspects of this show is Ji Yong as foil to Dou Zhao, each representing a different attitude and approach to the problem of fate and will. I see why some may read Ji Yong as being in unrequited love but to me he reads more like DZ's platonic soulmate (even Granny, who introduced them with an eye for matchmaking, couldn’t see them as a couple!) After all, she is the only other person who is aware, as far as he knows, that they’re in Life 2.0, with the opportunity and burden of choosing differently.

Most importantly he doesn’t see himself in that light- in episode 26, he explicitly laments that friendship never takes precedence over romantic love. The feeling I got from his little monologue is not bitterness about the inability to “upgrade” to romantic love with Dou Zhao, but disappointment in his hope that Dou Zhao would value their special platonic love in the same way he does. As @therukurals reminded me- Ji Yong was pleased when Dou Zhao and Song Mo got together; it's only after Song Mo started going down the same path of Life 1.0 that he began to persuade DZ to leave her doomed husband to save herself.

He also keeps using the term 知己 (one who knows the self) to describe her, which is usually a word for friends of implicit mutual understanding, not romantic partners. But this pragmatist who doesn’t believe he can change much of anything also doesn't hesitate to throw his small stones into the river behind the scenes, perhaps hoping that the tiny ripples that result might alter Dou Zhao’s trajectory just a little before they are subsumed by the river of fate's overwhelming current, to shift her ending away from tragedy again. (Remembering his at-all-costs approach to pushing Dou Ming and Wei Tingyu together...)

I think he believes in the unforgiving immutable larger framework of fate, where the set and story remain but the players can change, whereas Dou Zhao hopes to rewrite the story altogether. In this light, it makes sense that he throws his lot in with Prince Qing once again in Life 2.0 even knowing the ending for himself if he does. He thinks he's found the key- when fate doesn't concern itself with intentions, only actions and consequences, then the greatest advantage is in being in a position to place the players and direct the action.

Side note: I find his nickname for her super interesting (which unfortunately isn't translated in the subs) but haven't yet formulated coherent thoughts about it. He calls her Zhuang Zhou aka Zhuangzi aka the philosopher who dreamed he was a butterfly and wondered if in fact, it was a butterfly dreaming it was the philosopher.

[stellarish]

I've been rotating some art ideas lately that involve drawing Xi Ping with his parents, which means it's time to start working out designs for them.

[grassbreads]

I am SO upset right now