#ranwan wontons

[yumemiruuuu]

Chu Wanning if he couldn’t make wontons (ft. the uncooked batch in the background) 🥹👍

Hi yes this took SO LONG to make, and I was missing quite a few of the ingredients (like the Black Vinegar and Garlic Chili Sauce) so I had to improvise 🙇🏻‍♀️ I also didn’t have the wonton wrappers so I had to make them from scratch which was PAINSTAKINGLY time and stamina consuming (but hey, living the canon Chu Wanning experience)

Definitely messed up and it looks nothing like the picture in the RanWan wonton recipe I used but it was super fun to make and I hope my friend and I can enjoy it

Link to the RanWan wonton recipe ↓↓↓

[inthefaceofadaffodil]

[rejectedfables]

"how to reconcile Chu Wanning's cooking skills vs Mo Ran's love of The Wontons", a Guide:

(NOTE: I have only read the first two official English translated volumes, and scoured the internet for spoilers-- if there's later canon confirmation of something that I haven't encountered yet, I don't know her)

Chu Wanning is shown cooking things badly (such as the cabbage and tofu stew), and cooking specific things very well (the wontons). He is also implied to have cooked other things at least tolerably well as Chu Fei. Evidence:

The wontons are described thusly, with the implication that they're just as good every time Mo Ran has had them:

Conclusion? Chu Wanning can cook at least this one thing consistently, and Mo Ran loves it every time. As far as we know Mo Ran is the only one who's ever eaten them, so him loving them is not actually an endorsement that they ARE good-- just that HE thinks they are.

When he's going to make the cabbage and tofu stew, this is Chu Wanning's response to being asked if he even knows how to cook:

Conclusion? Chu Wanning is at least not confident enough in his cooking abilities to claim proficiency. I would be tempted to chalk this up to "he's so skilled at other things and so critical of himself that he's downplaying his cooking skills" except he absolutely flubs the recipe so badly that it's unrecognizable, and everyone who eats it gets sick.

When Mo Ran is half asleep, and believes himself to still be in his previous life with Chu Fei, he says this:

Conclusion? Chu Fei frequently cooked non-wonton food for Taxian-jun, which Taxian-jun enjoyed enough to request more of it.

I've compiled options of what this all might mean when put together:

Probably authorial intent: Chu Wanning isn't a BAD cook he's just a SLOW and METHODICAL cook, and that does not lend itself to batch cooking like he was expected to do in Mengpo Hall.

POSSIBLY authorial intent: Chu Wanning is a REALLY GOOD cook when he knows a recipe, but had never made the cabbage and tofu stew before and had no real instructions, so he fucked it up and got an unfair reputation for being a bad cook. This is a loose parallel to how he is broadly misunderstood as a person.

Sappy/sad option: the wontons are fine but the fact that they were made FOR MO RAN makes them special to Mo Ran. He's associated them with feeling good, and because he thought they were from Shi Mei, his happy memories of them weren't warped or stolen by the flower, leaving them as his favorite memory of food. They're untainted by hatred, and therefore they are the best.

Funny option (not supported by canon): Mo Ran just has bad taste.

Funniest option (not technically UNsupported by canon >_>): Chu Wanning is a bad cook, and frequently hurts himself while cooking. Unbeknownst to Mo Ran, the flower's bloodlust can literally be sated with literal blood. Mo Ran's memories of the wontons are his least tormented by the flower, because while eating them he's consuming Chu Wanning's actual blood, so the flower is sated and pleased. They taste the best to Mo Ran because their secret accidental ingredient (blood) overwrites their actual mediocre flavor.

My favorite option: The reason the wontons are the best food Mo Ran has ever eaten is because they're literally just... all of Mo Ran's favorite foods combined into one dish. Chu Wanning isn't a good COOK so much as he's an encyclopedia of knowledge about Mo Ran. The wontons are perfect because they're perfect for Mo Ran specifically.

[nacrelysis]

the xue family is alive and well. xue zhengyong helps xue meng name his spiritual fan; the name sucks, as is expected, but xue meng can't think of a better one. madam wang tends to sisheng peak's affairs and spoils veggie bun rotten, so to this day, xue meng can't get the cat to favor him over his mother. she sends medicine and small trinkets from the market to chu wanning, reminding mo ran he's always welcome no matter his past. she asks after taxian-jun's flowers, while xue zhengyong insists that ranwan come pay them a visit - don't they miss madam wang's cooking?

the hanxue twins court xue meng, and it takes five months before he notices and another year and a half before they start making wedding preparations. chu wanning and mo ran get married. they have a ceremony on sisheng peak. madam wang prepares chu wanning's favorite sweets and leaves the wontons for him to make himself. xue zhengyong gifts them things both extravagant and ordinary - a jar of aged peach blossom wine, matching guan sets, lotus seeds for taxian-jun.

at the end of the celebration, madam wang brings over a basket. mo ran moves to pull back the blanket, but the little kitten pokes its sleepy face out before he can do so. veggie bun had kits, they're told, perhaps you'd- and mo ran has already jumped to say yes before madam wang can finish. the hanxues hang around to tease xue meng and get matching whacks over the head from his war fan. mo ran passes the kitten to chu wanning and watched his beloved's face melt in affection. madam wang and xue zhengyong preside over this little family, and xue zhengyong's fan is broadly, proudly turned to the side that says "xue is beautiful."

now you wake up.

[incarnadinedreams]

I'm finally reading 2ha (I've been traveling and finally dug into it on the plane back home Sunday) and I have to say so far my early impressions are that it's very entertaining and purely at a romance level I think I might be way more into Ranwan than I was ever interested in Wangxian or Hualian (though generally I always find myself more interested in the side characters than main canon couples regardless of genre so we'll see how long that holds up)

Give me some problematic™ and a cat-coded grumpy man with a whip and I'm happy I guess!

I am 100% here for the detailed descriptions of food/meals too it's inspiring me to learn some recipes soon :D

I feel like I'm not supposed to like Xue Meng but I do, he's so funny. And just calling it now, this Shi Mei guy and his wontons are suspicious as fuck

(I'm only near the end of the first volume of the official TL so no spoilers please! Though I'm not one of those super anti-spoiler people so if something slips then whatever)

[otomeza35]

“Food can’t make you cry”

The food:

Also, I’m at chapter 100 and wontons had been mentioned 42 times 💀💀💀

[shesnotquitedead]

Mo Ran can have little a redemption, as a treat

I quite like how this lineart is looking so far. I might even get around to coloring this at some point....

[xiaoguiheyu]

I've been well fed with hyx leaks today. It was a good day.

AAAAAAAAAAA

Chen Feiyu said that wontons in chili oil is his favorite food.

And he fed lyx with his own chopsticks?!!?!

Sooooo many leaks

I'm losing my shit!!

[yumemiruuuu]

Gonna be making RanWan’s Wontons tonight, wish me luck 😔🙏🏻

[holographings]

oh i also started reading 2ha.. this might’ve been a mistake. but im so excited for the live action i hope they don’t change anything more than what we already know is changed ://

[yewangxis]

2ha spoilers 😌

[silverstark]

It’s heartbreaking and striking upon re-read that even though Mo Ran found Shi Mei beautiful, it was Shi Mei’s kindness that he fell in love with. The wontons. “Thank you for being the only person to never look down on me.” His trust that Shi Mei wouldn’t mind his table manners. Jincheng Lake.

It’s just so simple and sweet. And:

Isn’t that an apt summary of the tragedy of RanWan 1.0?

[se-hos]

vegaspete’s noodles 🤝 ranwan’s wontons

[softienakyum]

i love the way cwn shows his affection; make wontons. quietly making wontons and finding ways to make sure moran eats them. give them to shi mei and make sure they reach moran. but shi mei deepens the misunderstanding between of ranwan. the way moran chewed cwn’s heart and spit it out; throwing the wontons away and blaming him for shi mei's death. he was hurt by moran's blind hatred for no reason and chu fei never did anything moran likes again, slowly destroyed cwn's heart. 2ha hurts so delicious especially 0.5 sigh

[dangermousie]

I like how you said if by some miracle the 2ha drama is good, ha. I also just want it to come out because I feel like there is no way it can't be a terrible adaption but they casted so well it is giving me false hope and I just want the disappointment to happen sooner rather than later because I keep accidentally having expectations.

Yeah, I will happily eat a giant bowl of crow-filled wontons if this is a good adaptation of the novel, but I honestly cannot imagine how it could be - it’s literally everything that gives the censors fits in one package, even leaving aside the BL aspect. Yuwu could be pretty easily adapted faithfully (just run with the shidi/shixiong thing like Word of Honor and all you need is to remove the make outs to be set) but 2ha? How?!

But to me whether it’s a good adaptation is a different question as to whether it can be a good drama. Like I don’t think The Untamed is a particularly good adaptation of the novel but it is an amazing awesome drama. So while I don’t have much hopes for HYX as an adaptation, I do have hopes for it as a drama.

The thing is - their casting is on point not just for RanWan (it basically never happens when they cast the OTP and I don’t just go “these are the best choices available” but the much more rare “these are perfect choices per se”), but for the rest too. Like the actors they got for Mei Xanxue or Nangong Si are on point and if they had to turn Shimei into a girl (which they did), Sebrina Chen is also on point. And the concept art is amazing and the little clips we’ve seen are bristling with the novel vibe (the cynic/pessimist in me is wondering if they leaked some of those because they couldn’t get them into the main drama to go “don’t hate us we tried” but either way it’s awesome.)

I am 100% sure that if the censorship office didn’t exist (and unicorns roamed the land), with that cast and concept art and if they put care into the script, they could make a truly perfect 2ha adaptation but the world is what it is.

So yeah, all I am hoping for is a solid drama on its own merits, Chen Feiyu being feral, Luo Yunxi being intense, a lot of whump, beautiful visuals and design and some images to take for my imagination when I reread again. This is not that much so I am hoping I am granted that but either way, I just want to KNOW! I am not a Schroedinger’s Cat, and I don’t like uncertainty. 

(To a less intense degree, that is all I expect from Winner Is King as well since it’s a favorite of mine, though not as much as 2ha and is much more adaptable with a cast I also like. But keeping expectations low when a fave book gets adapted, let alone when a fave danmei gets adapted in China, is the key to me keeping my sanity.)

[fulltimehabibti]

if you were allowed ONE gay scene in hyx what would you want it to be?

i know people want me to like name all the explicit moments but like my fave ranwan moments are the ones that are super repressed and horny like back washing scene or angsty ones like txj coming home from all the bloodshed and burying his face in cwn's abdomen bc for reasons he can't understand, wanning is the only thing that can quiet the madness raging inside of him even though he hates him

2 things that aren't necessarily gay tho that i NEED:

1.the heartbreaking wonton scene and mo ran keeping wanning's soul company until sunrise.

2."hell is too cold. i'll take you to the grave with me" vs. "hell is too cold. i will follow you to the grave"